Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [33]
He wasn’t human.
She looked at him. She looked at the time traveller, the man without a past.
Before she could say anything, the hatch had opened again.
A young woman walked in, someone they’d not seen before. She was wearing a grey tunic and veil, her long skirt made it look as if she was gliding. The woman took their coats away and served them each a glass of dark-blue liquid from one of the sculptures, which turned out to be a dispenser of some kind.
‘Thank you,’ the Doctor said, sniffing the drink, then tasting it. The servant left, the door sliding up behind her.
Debbie put her drink down on a low table, untouched.
‘Slaves?’ the Doctor asked Debbie. ‘Servants at the very least. Not the mark of a civilised society... by modern standards, at any rate. I suppose historically...’
‘I don’t trust them,’ she confessed.
The Doctor turned to look at her, disappointed. ‘Why ever not?’
‘I –’ But Debbie was unable to put it into words.
‘They are clearly very advanced,’ the Doctor said. He motioned around the room. ‘Capable of producing some striking art, and maintaining a galactic empire. That fact alone implies a great deal about the state of their communications, their transport and their logistical skill. They could teach us a great deal.’
‘Are they your people?’ she asked, almost under her breath.
The Doctor stopped what he was doing.
‘That had occurred to me,’ he admitted.
‘You’re not a human being, are you?’
The Doctor couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘I know I’m human,’ she said, surprised how angry she was. ‘Why aren’t you sure?’
‘How do you know?’ the Doctor replied gently. ‘You only think you know. I thought I was human – of course I did. I thought I was like everyone else, that everyone else’s life was like mine. I learned that was not the case.’
Debbie took a deep breath. ‘And you travel through time?’ Realisation dawned. ‘Of course! I saw a photograph of you at a chess game in the fifties. You didn’t look any younger. But you were just visiting the past.’
‘I don’t travel through time,’ the Doctor said, ‘well, I do, but only in the same way you do. I don’t age.’
‘But...’ That was worse, Debbie thought.
‘I told you I woke up in a train carriage. What I didn’t tell you was that it happened over a century ago. In that time... well, I look a couple of years older now than I did then, no more.’
Debbie wanted this to stop, but it didn’t.
The Doctor was deep in thought. ‘Now, I’ve no idea what my lifespan is. I could live long enough to see time travel invented. How long could that be? I’ve lived over a hundred years, I’d only have to live a couple more centuries – less, if mankind makes contact with a people who have already got the technology.’
‘Shut up...’ Debbie said, very softly.
But the Doctor continued, enthusiastically. ‘Like... like the Prefect and his people. Maybe I don’t remember meeting them because it hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps this is where it starts – now I know time travel is a scientific possibility, I’ll dedicate myself to building a time machine of my own.’ He hesitated, looking around. ‘Or maybe I could skip all that by stealing one.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps even this one.’
* * *
The Deputy bowed his head as he entered the Prefect’s chamber.
‘You sent for me?’ he asked.
The Prefect was sitting on an austere, low chair. He said nothing, nor did he need to.
‘You are worried by the Doctor’s presence,’ the Deputy told him. ‘We know that this era was monitored and protected, and the –’
‘I know my history,’ the Prefect snapped.
The Deputy tried to keep his master calm. ‘We also know that Earth in this period is one of the Doctor’s favourites, and is a major nexus. But the strategy computers discounted the probability of his intervention.’
‘Computers,’ the Prefect spat. ‘If we’d trusted ourselves to computers, we’d have been dead a long time ago.’
‘We registered no time travel to or from this zone except our own time corridor. He’s got in under our detectors. He has also managed to find the Last One before the Hunters have.
The Prefect