Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [0]
The Doctor (Strange Man No. 1) is supposed to be returning her to Soho 2001
AD. So quite why there are dinosaurs outside, Anji isn’t sure. Sad sixties refugee Fitz (Strange Man No. 2) seems to think they’re either in prehistoric times or on a parallel Earth. And the Doctor is probably only pretending to know what’s going on – because if he really knew, surely he would have mentioned the homicidal triplet princesses, the teen terrorists, the deadly android doubles (and triples) and the hosts of mad robots?
Anji’s never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again. . .
This is another in the series of original adventures for the Eighth Doctor.
EarthWorld
Jaqueline Rayner
Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
First published 2001
Copyright c Jacqueline Rayner 2001
The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format c BBC 1963
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 53827 9
Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright c BBC 2001
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton Acknowledgements
Thanks to Justin Richards, Gary Russell and Simon Axon.
Special thanks to Mark, even though this would probably have been finished a lot earlier if I’d never met him.
Thanks to Ros for the energy!
And to Mum, Dad and Helen for all their support.
Contents
The Fluffy Frog in the Sky
5
History’s What You Make It
25
Killing Queens
40
A Man is the Sum of His [False] Memories
59
Powerplay
76
Elvis Lives!
92
Several Singalongs
102
If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed?
115
Nights at the Round Table
129
Being Other People
158
Dear TARDIS...
163
About the Author
181
4
Chapter One
The Fluffy Frog in the Sky
A rocky plain – barren and dull. Nothing but grey, as far as the eye could see.
And then a flash of blue. And another. And the blue was there, solid, part of the landscape, as though it had always been.
The watcher felt no surprise. But he moved closer to the strange, tall box, anyway.
Fitz kept shutting his eyes, clicking his heels together, yelling ‘There’s no place like home’, and opening his eyes again with a big happy-sounding sigh.
This was one of the more irritating things he’d been doing since they’d stepped into this amazing magic wardrobe the Doctor called his TARDIS, rank-ing just above the endless tales about how they used to fly round the universe in a stroppy redhead. Anji so wasn’t going to go there.
And Fitz seemed completely unconcerned that they were not, as the Doctor had promised, back in Soho – at least, not if the image on the closed-circuit-TV thingy was to be trusted. The Doctor seemed unperturbed, too, blithely swanning off deeper into the TARDIS to ‘fetch something’, despite having quite obviously and definitely broken his promise to take Anji home – but then he’d also promised her he wouldn’t let her boyfriend Dave die (don’t think about that).
‘Sand and rock,’ she muttered. ‘There’s no sand in Soho, and even less rock.’
‘Rock music?’ said Fitz. She ignored him. ‘Like I said, we might be in Soho.
Just – not the Soho of your day. Or that could be alien sand,’ he continued cheerfully. ‘We might not even be on Earth at all.’
The inner door opened, and the Doctor swept through the console room, pulled a large red lever on the way, and was out of the still-opening TARDIS
doors in a dash of bottle-green. ‘I’m just going to collect some samples,’ his voice filtered back. ‘Find out where we are!’
‘Can he do that?’ Anji asked. ‘Find out what planet we’re on by looking at bits of rock?’
5
6
EarthWorld
‘The Doctor,’ Fitz said, ‘can do anything.’ But she noticed he had his fingers crossed. ‘Come on, let’s see what it’s like out there.’
‘Let me just get my jacket,’ said Anji. Fitz gave her a look. Well,