Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [56]
Dinah handed Miranda her Swatch. Miranda was relieved that she’d finished getting dressed before it had happened. She scolded herself: her main concern should be why she had fainted.
‘Get some fresh air,’ Miss Andrews suggested. ‘See the nurse if you need to.’
Miranda nodded, a little worried.
* * *
The Doctor screwed his eyes shut, then snapped them open to clear his head.
He’d fainted. He couldn’t remember ever fainting before. He hadn’t been overcome by fumes – that was difficult, because of the way he was made, and anyway the air in his laboratory was clear and clean. He went over to the window and opened it, just in case.
There was something around him. Like a stone being dropped in a pond. Like ripples.
But ripples in what?
He struggled to put what he was thinking into words. He paced over to the blackboard, wiped clean one of the corners and started to scratch in a few equations he thought might express it.
He looked at his work, but it still felt not quite right. ‘No...’ he murmured. ‘No. No.’
The Doctor pulled aside a framed copy of the periodic table, revealing a safe with a combination lock. He twisted the dial a couple of times.
There had been precious little evidence left by the Prefect’s people. The saucer was completely atomised. Mr Gibson must have had some sort of self-destruct mechanism, too – there was nothing useful left of him. All the Doctor had were these trinkets.
He lifted down a tray containing odds and ends: the communicator he’d adapted to track the Hunters, a futuristic-looking wristwatch, a dead mindeater. There were also components that looked like fancy silicon chips. Pride of place was given to a large instrument he’d found in the Dawkinses’ house.
He’d seen straight away that it wasn’t just part of John Dawkins’s electrician’s gear. It had taken a while for him to work it out, but finally he’d realised it was an early-warning system. These time machines moved by warping space, and this device registered that warping effect. The Dawkinses must have had it so they’d know if anyone was coming for them.
Much good it did them, the Doctor thought.
There had been no activity for the last five years. He’d checked it every day. Every day, he reviewed the last twenty-four hours of activity, and found that there was nothing to review.
The Doctor flicked a switch on the detector. It began beeping.
A screen on the side lit up, like an oscilloscope.
‘There’s a source,’ the Doctor told himself.
An object travelling through time – or rather the ripples of that object. But it wasn’t as large as a saucer. And it was happening now.
The Doctor peered into the display, adjusted settings like a radio ham desperate not to lose a signal.
The screen flared.
It’s coming this way, the Doctor realised.
He couldn’t stop himself looking up at the ceiling.
* * *
Kirst shook her head. Joel was staring open-mouthed at his friend Sallak, in exactly the same way he’d just been staring open-mouthed at Anne and Nick on the telly.
There were veins pulsing on the old man’s bald head. It looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel.
‘Hey, cool it, Sallak,’ Kirst said, putting a soothing hand on his shoulder.
The air in front of them burst open like a water balloon.
As it sloshed back into place, there was a silver figure in the middle of the room. A slim shape in a gleaming silver metal space suit. Its head was covered with a black insectile helmet. It seemed to be glowing.
Kirst saw her own astonished face reflected in the shining metal. It was like an angel, it was like a knight in shining armour.
‘Help!’ it cried, its voice a harsh electronic bark.
The figure collapsed.
* * *
There was a park behind the school, one that you could sneak out to during lunchtime. It was frowned on, but on a warm day like this over a hundred pupils made their way out on to the grass to sunbathe and chat. As long as they didn’t smoke, or stray from the park, or the girls didn’t try to tan too much of themselves, no one seemed to mind. A couple of teachers sat around the grass, trying so very