Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [113]
On the stage, the door of the machine was opening.
Miss Jane came out.
She stood gazing at them calmly. Her hair had fallen down on her neck. Absently, she reached up and freed it completely, then twisted it to hang neatly down her back. Her quiet eyes moved from one man to the other, but not, the Doctor noticed, to the back of the theatre. He glanced over his shoulder. Chiltern had withdrawn.
‘It’s not you, is it?’ said Nathaniel. ‘That is...’
‘It is me,’ she said. ‘It’s all of us.’ She came down into the aisle, took Nathaniel’s hand. ‘Thank you.’ She looked more carefully at the Doctor, fully taking in his condition. ‘What’s happened to you? Are you all right?’
‘I ran into a revolving door,’ said the Doctor. ‘Where did you go?’
‘I went back to before... to before something bad happened. And I stopped it. He must have been frightened, because he never tried again. He can’t have, because here I am.’
The Doctor sank into a chair. ‘You changed your past.’
‘Yes. I did.’ She frowned. ‘Was that wrong?’
‘Wrong?’ said the Doctor. ‘Well, maybe not “wrong” exactly. Dangerous and inadvisable and possibly disastrous, but no, I wouldn’t say “wrong”.’
‘The Doctor is a pessimist,’ said Nathaniel.
The Doctor knows what the hell he’s talking about,’ said the Doctor. He stared gloomily at Miss Jane. ‘You seem to have got away with it. The trauma never occurred, you never split, and it didn’t make that much difference to history because here you are, whole, and none of the rest of us has blipped out of existence. By rights, since you never split and therefore never became a medium, you should never have come to England and met Chiltern and been in a position to enter the machine – but somehow the timeline just sorted that out. It does occasionally, when the event isn’t that important.’
‘It’s important to me.’
‘And I’m happy for you. Truly. But how well or badly your individual life goes is not the axis on which the universe turns. You were very lucky. We all were. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a machine to disable.’
He stood up.
‘Doctor,’ said Nathaniel nervously. ‘I am going to sneak Miss Jane out past the guards and escort her safely to a hotel. Though I am not armed, I believe my presence will deter any but the most maniacal attacker, and how likely is it that we should meet such a person – unless it were someone who had recently been dangerously infuriated?’
The Doctor started to say something then stopped. His mouth tightened. ‘I see.’
‘I would ask you to accompany us, but I’m afraid that the likelihood of such an encounter would then be greater.’
‘But surely,’ said Miss Jane, confused, ‘we would be safer with three.’
The Doctor smiled at her and shook his head, then looked at Nathaniel calmly. ‘I understand.’
‘Yes.’ Nathaniel offered Miss Jane his arm. She took it, with a puzzled glance at the Doctor, and he led her up the aisle. The Doctor watched them go. He heard the door shut.
For a moment, he just stood there. Then he turned and grimly mounted the steps to the stage. He crossed to the impregnable console cube, then to the machine, with its one mirrored door swung open, showing him his bloodied, hollow-eyed, ineffectual self. Could it even be destroyed by ordinary means?
Chiltern appeared at the top of the aisle, grinning. ‘Don’t try anything, Doctor. I can always track down your lady friend.’
The Doctor walked to the front of the stage.
‘You’re a gentleman, Doctor. If a bit of a contradiction.’ Chiltern made his slow, ungainly way down the aisle. ‘According to you, that machine can kill millions. Yet in order to save one life, you leave it intact.’
‘I’m like that,’ said the Doctor. ‘Whimsical.’
Chiltern smiled unpleasantly. ‘And you’ve left yourself alone here with me, knowing I want you dead. Aren’t you worried?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Why not?’ Chiltern was at the foot of the stage steps.
‘I’m expecting the cavalry.’
Chiltern paused.