Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [4]
The Fluffy Frog in the Sky
11
‘I did!’ he beamed, looking fondly down on the sonic screwdriver. ‘Now, let’s join Fitz before Mr Neanderthal catches up with us.’ He spun round to face the hole he’d created. ‘Fitz! We’re coming through now!’
The hand made a thumbs-up sign and retreated. ‘Hurry up!’ Fitz’s voice drifted back. ‘You won’t believe what’s through here, it’s – Aaaaargh! ’
And that was all. Anji jumped instinctively towards the cry, but the Doctor was at the barrier first – just as the hole zipped into nothingness.
‘Don’t worry!’ the Doctor cried, brandishing the sonic screwdriver again. ‘If I can just distract myself for a few more minutes and you run around a bit and confuse the caveman and the pterosaur just in case. . . Don’t worry, Fitz, we’re coming!’
But as Anji turned from the barrier she saw that the caveman and the pterodactyl had gone. And she didn’t think she and the Doctor were going to be joining Fitz, wherever he was, any time soon. In front of her there was a. . .
a. . . she was ashamed to admit that the only term her mind was coming up with was Scary Robot! Scary Robot! With Gun!
‘D-Doctor,’ she said, backing off as far as she dared with an invisible barrier behind her threatening to knock her to the ground.
‘Just a moment,’ he said, not turning.
The scary robot took a clunking step closer. It was so tall and now so close that Anji had to angle her head back to look at its blank, golden face. ‘Doctor!’
she said again.
He turned then. ‘Ah. Good distraction, Anji,’ he said.
‘Unauthorised presence in this zone,’ said the scary robot. Its voice was deep and masculine, and surprisingly human. ‘Unauthorised breach of zone barrier.
You will come with me.’
It gestured with its gun – Futuristic Space Gun, Anji’s mind said – and repeated, ‘You will come with me.’
‘Doctor?’ said Anji, nervously.
‘Oh, we’d better go with it,’ the Doctor said with a sigh. ‘These sorts of things get angry and start shooting if you don’t do what they say. By the way, I’ve decided that we’re probably not on a parallel Earth after all.’
Anji said nothing. As they were led off at gunpoint by the golden robot, the Doctor turned to her and whispered, ‘You know, wherever we are, I’m glad we came. I’m starting to feel really at home.’
To: cybertron@xprof.net
From: anji kapoor@MWFutures.co.uk
12
EarthWorld
Date: 14/2/01 11:03
Subject: Tyrranoriffic!
Dear Dave
I’m on another planet in what’s apparently the far future. You’d like it here. There are robots that look a bit like the Terminator, but in gold. I travelled in a police box that’s bigger on the inside than the outside, with a wild-eyed amnesiac and a man who’s about five years older than me but was born before my parents were. But you met them, of course. Though you didn’t know then what they were.
I wish I’d never met them. I wish I didn’t know what they were. I wish I were back in London C21st, with you. I wonder if I can go back in time and stop us meeting them? Would that work? You’d know, you watch that sort of rubbish. Rubbish IMO, of course. Let’s not get into that row now.
Incidentally, you know that time we went to the Natural History Museum when they had that display of moving dinosaurs? They didn’t seem that scary, did they? Wrong! Dinosaurs = terrifying.
Oh, and I’ve just been arrested.
Love
Anji xxx
Send now/send later: send later
It had been a long walk to the edge of the prehistoric landscape. The Doctor had taken her hand, at the start, no doubt to reassure her, but now there was no sense of urgency she’d instinctively shaken it off. She’d felt guilty afterwards, although the Doctor didn’t seem to have minded. Then after a while, when the realities of this horrific situation began to really sink in, Anji wished she’d held on to him tight. She couldn’t summon up the courage to initiate the contact herself, though. What might he think?
Anji hadn’t spotted the TARDIS on their way across the plain, though she had caught sight of a few more cavemen in the distance, and, terrifyingly, what looked like an allosaur. None