Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [16]
The Doctor had jumped to his feet and was pacing up and down the cell. He reminded Anji of a caged tiger – barely suppressed energy, could strike at any moment if they didn’t let him out. But there was that hypnotic quality, too, that tigers had – you couldn’t keep your eyes off him, had to see what he was going to do next. Hypnotic power – she suddenly had a vision of the Doctor leaning towards her singing ‘Trust in me. . . just in me. . . ’ – which was the legacy of a Disney film that she’d both loved and hated as a child. Good film, bad for all the jungle jokes it had inspired in the classroom afterwards (because, of course, there were lots of jungles in Yorkshire where she was born, oh yes).
And thinking of The Jungle Book and Sheer Khan the tiger (who had been the bad guy) made her realise that the Doctor wasn’t a tiger after all, because she couldn’t imagine him ever being so sneaky. He had to be the good guy – so the nice cat. The black panther, Bagheera. With maybe a bit of Balloo the jolly but incompetent bear thrown in.
When Anji had been taken to see The Jungle Book at age six, she had been disappointed by the ending. The boy had had the chance to live a life of adventure with all his friends, and had given it all up to settle down with some girl.
32
EarthWorld
She hadn’t been able to understand that. Now, she thought she understood it a lot more. But here she was stuck in the jungle, with Doctor the panther-bear and Fitz who was probably the orang-utan, and she couldn’t get back to the little human village even if she wanted to.
She reluctantly dragged her mind back from this nonsense to the here and now. What it seemed to come down to was this. This theme park, EarthWorld, was made up of various zones based on periods in Earth’s history – or prehis-tory, in the case of the area where the TARDIS had landed. Earth’s history was a very specialist field, as not that many records survived (the boys didn’t go into detail why, and Anji didn’t ask – the last thing she wanted to hear about was that her world had been devastated by nuclear war or something). The centre was to be populated by androids, built to look like inhabitants of the relevant time and place, and programmed to interact with the visitors as if they were all living in Earth’s history together. Visitors could dress up in costume and immerse themselves in Earthlife, forgetting their drab little existences on New Jupiter. The Grand Opening ceremony was due to happen this very week, but a few privileged visitors had been allowed in for sneak previews. And some of them hadn’t come out again. There were bodies. Mauled, some of them, apparently. Anji was almost grateful that they’d been arrested. It had got them out of the way, if nothing else.
‘And even if we could convince them that we weren’t responsible for the deaths,’ Zequathon said, ‘they wouldn’t let us go. ’Cos Hoover’s not going to want it spread around that visitors to EarthWorld are likely to end up sliced and diced, is he? If the public don’t go, and the off-world tourists don’t arrive, he’s screwed.’
‘We’re talkin’ ree-voh-looshun,’ drawled Beezee. ‘Or Hoover’ll be forced to abdicate, at least.’
‘Which’d be nice,’ added Xernic.
‘His popularity’s soaring since this stupid theme park came along,’ said Zequathon. ‘They’ve run competitions and stuff for people to be allowed in before the official opening. It’s all anyone’s talking about. Can you imagine the reaction if they found out what’s going on?’
‘So President Hoover is going to cover up the deaths,’ said the Doctor, still pacing. Then he suddenly stopped stock still, shouted ‘That’s terrible!’ and sat down.
‘So you’re going to sort it out, Doctor?’ asked Anji.
‘I certainly am,’ he said. ‘This is hugely irresponsible.’
‘And what do you think’s going on?’
History’s What You Make It
33
The Doctor didn’t answer her directly. He turned to the three boys. ‘Your android technology. How advanced is it?’
The boys exchanged ‘you what?’ glances. ‘Pretty standard,’ said Beezee.