Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [100]
Not without recruiting some help.
‘Where are you from?’ Miranda asked.
Cate lowered her head.
‘Don’t you have parents? A family?’
‘No,’ she said, simply.
‘You and Ferran are lovers?’
Cate’s lip curled. ‘After a fashion,’ she said.
Miranda decided to change the subject.
‘What’s it like where we are going?’
Cate looked up. She seemed to be asking herself whether she should answer. She was glancing up, as though she might be overheard. Was the room bugged? Miranda wondered, kicking herself for not even considering the possibility.
‘I’m going there anyway,’ Miranda reminded her.
‘Ruins,’ the Deputy said quickly, so quickly it took Miranda a second or two to be sure what she had said. ‘The palace is all that’s left. That and a few shelters. For generations, that is all there has been.’
‘Because of the war?’
Cate nodded. ‘It’s the same everywhere. Everything is rationed, reused, but everything breaks down. There’s no law. Only people doing what they want and imposing their will on others. Without the Empire there would be anarchy.’
‘Do you know who I am?’ Miranda asked.
Cate nodded. ‘I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are. You are the Last One.’
Miranda put her hand on Cate’s shoulder. ‘I don’t remember anything. I was a baby. I only know what Ferran told me. I know my family did terrible things, but I never knew them. What does Ferran want from me?’
Cate shook her head. She wasn’t going to answer.
‘He wants me alive. Why? What does he want?’
‘What do you want?’ the Deputy asked.
Miranda sighed. ‘That’s a very good question. I really don’t know.’
* * *
Florida was hot and humid, even in November.
The Doctor had mislaid the sonic suitcase, and they’d spent an hour trying to find it. Debbie suspected someone had snatched it while he’d been buying local guidebooks at the airport Waldenbooks and she’d been buying them doughnuts and coffee. The Doctor’s faith in human nature meant he couldn’t accept that explanation.
‘I feel like I’ve just lost an old friend,’ he had told her. Then, as they were about to give up looking, they’d found it just where the Doctor had left it – in the bookstore.
They hired a car and drove down to Cape Canaveral, making three stops on the way, and booked themselves – with a fair amount of difficulty, since shuttle launches always attracted the crowds – into a motel room in Titusville. To Debbie it looked like every motel room in every American movie she’d ever watched.
They could see the shuttle through the window, sitting on the horizon, the size of a skyscraper, in an otherwise perfectly flat landscape. According to the space-shuttle book the Doctor had bought Debbie on one of their stops, it was fifteen storeys high. They sat together at the window, just looking at it.
And playing chess. Debbie had beaten the Doctor on the flight over, for the first time in months. Characteristically, he’d blamed the travel chess set, and the tiny pieces, which he claimed all looked the same – but after sulking for a couple of minutes, he’d congratulated her.
‘No clouds,’ the Doctor said. ‘The launch should go ahead tomorrow as planned.’
‘Why would clouds make any difference?’ Debbie asked. ‘It’s not as if the shuttle couldn’t fly through them.’
‘Clouds carry an electric charge. The shuttle could be hit by lightning as it passes through them, it could damage electrical equipment aboard. They discovered that during the Apollo missions.’
‘The... shuttle is safe now, isn’t it? I mean, one blew up.’
‘There’s a one-in‐a-hundred chance of a major problem,’ the Doctor said. ‘NASA official figures. Of course before Challenger, they said one in a hundred thousand, but that’s neither here nor there. If it launches, it’ll be safe. The last thing NASA want is another disaster. We have to hope they don’t err on the side of caution and postpone the launch. If it goes ahead then there’s a ninety-second window at launch when