Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [114]
‘Sorry. Anachronistic entertainment reference. It won’t work, you know.’
‘What?’
‘Running yourself – yourselves – through the machine again.’
‘Really?’ Chiltern hobbled up on to the stage. ‘Forgive my questioning your expertise, but it just worked for that young woman.’
‘A different situation.’
‘And the universe’, Chiltern peered around elaborately, ‘appears to be in place. At least this little piece of it.’
‘Luck,’ said the Doctor. ‘Ever hear of it?’
‘Only bad luck.’
‘Well, you’re going to have more of it once you go back through the machine. Probably end up with a blender in place of your head.’
‘You know,’ Chiltern looked him up and down, ‘I was watching you from the back, and that contortion around you becomes more marked when you’re nearer the machine.’
The Doctor blinked. ‘An illusion,’ he said quickly.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You only have one eye,’ the Doctor pointed out rudely. ‘That distorts the depth of field perception.’
‘This has nothing to do with depth of field.’ Chiltern’s good eye wandered from the Doctor to the machine and back. The other one gibbered and drooled. ‘You seemed disturbed earlier when I wondered what might happen to you in the machine.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. You did.’ Chiltern took a shuffling step forward. The Doctor took a steady one back. Chiltern smiled. ‘You seem to know a great deal about time travel.’
‘I read a lot.’
‘In what library? From what century?’
The Doctor took another step back and said nothing. Chiltern smirked.
‘You’ve let me get rather close to you,’ he observed, ‘though not quite within my... reach. I suppose you think you can outrun me.’
‘It had occurred.’
‘Well, you’re right, of course.’ Chiltern nodded solemnly. ‘Running is not one of my strong points since the –’
One of his briers snaked out – not toward the Doctor but into the wings. The brier yanked, and with a bang the front of stage fell open like a giant trap door and the Doctor dropped into the orchestra pit.
The Doctor yelled, as much in anger as in pain, and scrambled to his feet. Chiltern crouched at the edge of the pit, his face hungry and rapt. The Doctor spotted a door to the understage, darted for it – and fell again when Chiltern whipped a bramble around his leg. He rolled on to his back, trying to kick loose. Chiltern laughed.
‘You’re in a bad spot, Doctor.’
The Doctor wrapped his hands in the edge of his coat, grabbed at the bramble. ‘Chiltern, I’m warning you! You don’t want to put me through the machine!’
‘Methinks you doth protest too much.’ Chiltern raised another long brier, waved it idly, then flicked it behind him. As if someone had struck a gigantic piece of crystal, a clear, penetrating note swelled through the theatre.
The Doctor’s head jerked up. ‘No!’ He pulled savagely at the brier around his leg. ‘You mad fool! Turn it off! Now!’ He threw himself back as a thicket of thorns swooped down at him. ‘Chiltern!’ The brambles twined round his limbs. The Doctor tried to protect his eyes. The thorns scraped at him as Chiltern hauled him up from the pit. The sweet, pure vibration from the machine rang in his head. ‘Oh please,’ he whispered into his hands. ‘Please don’t throw me in that brier patch.’
Chiltern dumped him on the stage and started pulling him toward the machine. The Doctor struggled, flailing for something to hold on to. There was nothing. The machine loomed closer.
‘Don’t do this, Chiltern!’
‘Yes,’ boomed a deep voice. ‘Don’t do it!’
The Doctor spat out another of those words he didn’t understand. Of all the – What timing! Chiltern stopped dragging him, and he turned his head and looked irritably up the aisle to Sabbath.
‘I suggest you turn off that machine,’ Sabbath advised Chiltern. ‘And I assure you, it would be most unwise to put the Doctor into it.’
Chiltern was frozen in surprise. ‘Who are you?’
‘An expert in these matters.’ Sabbath approached the stage, his eyes roving over Chiltern. ‘Dear me, you’re a bit of – what is that modern phrase I’ve heard? – a dog’s breakfast.’
‘I told you the machine was no good,’ rasped the Doctor.
‘No good under