Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [78]
Halfway across the wasteland, the Doctor stopped running and turned.
‘We’re safe, now,’ he told them.
Debbie looked back. The light streaming from the floors at the top of the Tower were blood-red. Rose petals, filtering the light from the windows.
Then, the windows became roses. Some petals drifted away, but most were caught in waves that poured down the side of the building like waterfalls. The window frames followed, the walls after that. The whole building became a cascade of roses, floor after floor bursting and throwing out a plume of red petals.
They saw one of the guards leaping from a twenty-something‐storey window. But it was too late: he was already changing. As he hit the ground, he billowed out into a cloud of flowers.
‘Will it stop?’ Kirst asked, and the way she asked it suggested she wouldn’t mind if it never did.
‘I’m afraid so,’ the Doctor said. ‘The transmuter will burn itself out.’
It happened before it ran out of building. The noise died down and it was obvious the pile of roses wasn’t getting any larger. It was impossible to tell how many floors had survived. Everything was under the heap, which was a rough pyramid, around a hundred feet high.
The scent began to drift over. Beautiful, but almost overpowering.
‘Never say I don’t get you flowers,’ Joel said.
‘Are they dead?’ Kirst asked.
The Doctor nodded. ‘All but Ferran. Which reminds me: we have to be going, Debbie.’
Joel grabbed his hand. ‘You promised us money.’
‘Would it surprise you to learn that I don’t have a million pounds in cash on my person?’
‘We’ll go to a cash machine,’ Joel suggested.
The Doctor laughed. ‘I’ll write you a cheque.’
Joel looked unconvinced. Kirst stepped between them. ‘That will do nicely,’ she said.
The Doctor laid his briefcase on the ground and opened it up. He rummaged through the stuff and found his chequebook and a pen.
A moment later he rose and handed a cheque to Kirst. ‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ he advised, as they stared at it, scarcely believing what they were looking at. Then the Doctor grabbed Debbie’s hand. ‘Come on!’
* * *
Ferran looked around the room, and realised that he hadn’t seen the Last One for several minutes. The crowd was thinning a little; a few of the weak-hearted had bowed out for the night. Was she one of them?
‘Where is Miranda?’ he asked Dinah, as casually as he could.
‘Gone outside with Bob, I think.’
‘Her boyfriend?’
‘That’s right.’
He tried to get up, but Dinah stopped him. ‘I don’t think they want to be disturbed, you know what I mean?’
Before she had finished saying it, the Last One had entered the room. She came over, looming over them in their armchair.
‘Can I have a word, Dinah?’ she asked.
Dinah detached herself from Ferran. ‘Sure,’ she said.
Ferran looked around. He realised he was not going to get his opportunity to strike, at least not here. ‘I have to go,’ he said.
Dinah looked disappointed.
Ferran excused himself again and stood up.
* * *
In the time it had taken the Doctor and Debbie to cross the wasteland, curtains had twitched, word had spread, and the streets had started to fill up. Men and women, children fetched from their beds, Asians and skinheads, police and dealers, all standing shoulder to shoulder and looking out at the tower of roses, breathing in the perfume that was filling the city air. No one – apart from a few kids – had crossed the threshold yet, stepped on to the broken ground, reclaimed the wasteland, but they would.
The Trabant sat, untouched, in the street where the Doctor had parked it. Debbie was amazed that it was still going, and told the Doctor as much.
‘It costs quite a lot to keep on the road,’ the Doctor admitted, ‘but I’m quite attached to the old girl.’
Debbie took a last look back at the roses, growing where there had been only the dark Tower.
The Doctor was already in the driver’s seat of the car, reconnecting the earphone.
The almost musical autodial was followed by the ringing tone.
‘Come on,’ the Doctor said.
The phone continued