Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [101]
I shrugged. ‘I never thought I’d say this, but it feels like home.’
The Doctor patted the controls lovingly. ‘I cannot bear to be apart from her,’ he said. ‘This has been a most trying ordeal for all of us.’
There was a long pause, none of us quite sure what to say.
‘It will be difficult,’ continued the Doctor, as if ignorant of our churning emotions. ‘But we must try to forget what we have seen.’
‘Don’t, Doctor,’ said Dodo. ‘Let’s talk about this another day.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘My child,’ he said. ‘We must talk about this while the memories are still fresh. We must strive to deal with them now.’ He rested a gentle hand on my shoulder.
‘And we must remember that the sacking of Kiev is part of the fabric of history. The slaughter we witnessed would have happened, whether we observed it or not.’
‘You make us sound like tourists!’ I exclaimed.
‘My boy, you are free to leave me at any time if you disagree with my principles.You know that full well.’
I nodded, remembering an earlier conversation, minutes before Dodo first arrived.
‘You know, I have always wondered why the cathedral was left untouched,’ the Doctor continued. ‘And now we know, hmm?’
‘There must have been better ways of finding out,’ I snapped. I knew it was unfair to blame the Doctor for our ordeal, but all the emotions I had repressed were only now threatening to flood out.
‘And the bodies that were catapulted over the walls...’ said Dodo.
‘We all saw what happened to poor Dmitri. You are not to blame, my child. In any event, my mention of the Black Death –
pure conjecture on my part. Please forgive me.’
‘But what did we achieve, Doctor?’ I asked.
‘We prevented the Mongols accessing a technology that never belonged on Earth,’ said the Doctor. ‘That would be achievement enough. Perhaps that was our preordained role in history, hmm?’
‘I didn’t think you believed in that nonsense,’ I said.
The Doctor refused to answer me directly. ‘In addition,’ he said, ‘we helped save two men of honour, and two young people, who might otherwise have died. I’d call that no little achievement.’
‘Doctor,’ I said, formulating a question that had been irritating me for some time. ‘This “bunker soldier” was programmed to attack one genetic group...’
‘That’s right, my boy. Ethnic Russians, and no one else.’
‘Isaac and Nahum were Jews,’ I said. ‘We’re not Russian, and neither are the Mongols, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ said the Doctor. He knew what was coming, for I could see the trace of a smile on his lips.
‘What about Lesia?’ I asked. ‘She was Russian, wasn’t she?’
‘Well done, my boy! Well done! You have a fine brain, we simply need to work on that mind of yours!’
‘I don’t understand either,’ said Dodo. ‘Why didn’t it attack her?’ ‘My dear, it’s very simple. Yes. It’s quite natural, one could say!’ And then, infuriatingly, he busied himself at the controls.
‘Doctor...’ I said.
‘Come, come, my boy, isn’t it obvious? Lesia was already carrying Nahum’s child!’
‘She was pregnant?’ Dodo exclaimed, delighted. It was the closest thing I had heard to a laugh from her in many, many weeks.
‘Yes, my dear. . and the child kept her safe from harm! And who can tell the number of their descendants? Great scientists, perhaps, or freethinkers, or –’
‘Or dictators, or serial killers,’ I added, and then instantly felt a fool for further lowering the atmosphere in the TARDIS.
‘Oh, don’t be so cynical,’ said the Doctor. ‘History has a habit of turning out for the best.’
I remembered an earlier conversation. ‘But you said... Oh, never mind.’
The Doctor looked up from the controls, staring at the blank scanner as if he could see the worlds and stars that wheeled and turned beyond it. He gripped his lapels tightly, and his eyes burned with hope. ‘You see, even in the midst of darkness and tragedy... Some good can emerge.’
Afterword
[in English, thank goodness]
The Mongol army, under Batu and Mongke, attacked Kiev in the autumn of 1240. There really was a governor