Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [105]
‘OMS cut out, we are in orbit.’
A moment of elation and relief.
‘What does OMS stand for?’ an English woman’s voice asked him. ‘Orbital Manoeuvring Syst‐’
Fairchild tried to jerk his head around. There were two of them, right behind Sawyer. A woman with short black hair and a man with light brown hair and blue eyes.
‘What the – You’re the technicians. How did –’
The man was staring out of the pilot’s window at the Earth above them. The soft blue light suffused the cabin. The weather over the equator was good for the time of year, but you could see the remnants of hurricanes, see the sea glittering in the evening light.
‘Beautiful,’ the man said.
‘Who?’ Beale asked helplessly.
‘I’m the Doctor, this is Debbie.’
‘Hello,’ the woman said, holding on to the engineer’s seat for dear life.
‘We need a lift,’ the Doctor said. ‘Is that OK?’
‘A lift?’
‘A ride,’ the Doctor clarified. ‘What is it with you Americans and the word “lift”? We need a ride.’
* * *
Debbie looked out of the window.
All the clichés were true: from this height, there were no national boundaries, the grey of the cities merged into the landscape. There were signs of human endeavour – electric lights of the large cities, neat, square cultivated areas and canals breaking up the ground. Everything that had happened to the human race had happened down there, apart from the efforts of the astronauts.
And there was something unnatural about being up here, even the basics went against all her instincts. Moving in zero gravity was a bit like swimming, but without the purchase water gave you, or the resistance. If you pushed away from the side, you kept going until you hit something else – you had to grab on to the rails and pull yourself around.
The other astronauts managed it. The Doctor, of course, seemed perfectly at home.
‘It’s so strange, isn’t it?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No.’
Debbie should have known.
The Doctor wasn’t smiling. Now they were up here, now they stood a real chance of finding Miranda, some of the pent-up anger and frustration was starting to surface.
Debbie decided to leave him alone for a moment or two and turned her attention to the front of the cabin, where the commander and pilot were in negotiations with Houston. Their presence was a fait accompli. Debbie and the Doctor had submitted to a search, the astronauts had checked the cabin. They’d found the sonic suitcase, but not the guns and Semtex they’d expected to find. The Doctor had explained why he was here, and with all the fervour (and persuasiveness) of a man recently rereleased into the community, had shown them his tiny collection of broken alien artefacts.
NASA and the shuttle crew seemed to have agreed that the Doctor and Debbie weren’t dangerous – they didn’t represent an immediate physical threat to Atlantis, and they weren’t on a suicide mission.
Mather and Sawyer were watching over them. The crew were keeping them on the flight deck, where they could see them. Strapped in their seats, but not tied up. Kim Sawyer was blonde, Mather was a black man, the oldest man on board, and had a bearing and a discipline about him that went above and beyond even his colleagues. A military man, Debbie guessed.
‘They’re taking a long time,’ Debbie whispered.
‘This is an unusual situation for them,’ the Doctor told her. ‘It’s going to take them a while to work out what they have to do. NASA mission planners go through every scenario. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some protocol about stowaways.’
‘What if that’s to turn around and go straight home?’
The Doctor considered that. ‘It’s possible. They have an AOA option – Abort Once Around. One orbit of the Earth, then back home. But this mission’s been planned for years; it’s cost a fortune. They won’t throw that away unless they have to.’
‘You two: quiet.’
‘No need to raise your voice, Commander Fairchild,’ the Doctor said sweetly.
‘You’re in serious trouble. I don’t know who you are or –’
The radio crackled. ‘Atlantis. This Doctor’s a British businessman. He’s mentioned in Time