Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [86]
‘You’re sure you’re going to be OK with them?’ asked Sam. ‘They might hijack the ship or something. They’re arms dealers, remember. Not your usual kind of company.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll be fine,’ the Doctor said. ‘After all, some of my oldest acquaintances are entirely unethical.’
‘With enemies like that…’ said Sarah.
‘…who needs friends?’ finished Sam. ‘Listen, there’s one more thing, OK?’
‘Yes?’ said the Doctor.
‘Fitz.’
Sarah tried to read the look on the Doctor’s face. Confused, worried, maybe even a tiny bit scared. ‘I know. I have to go and, ah, collect him.’
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
The Doctor actually took a step backward. It was as if Sam had slapped him in the face with… well, maybe not with a wet fish, but certainly with something quite damp and unpleasant.
‘You won’t tell me where he is,’ Sam went on. ‘You won’t even let me say goodbye to him. There’s got to be a reason for that. And the only reason I can think of is –’
‘Everybody’s dead,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s one of the problems with time travel. Everybody’s always dead, and everybody’s always alive. It’s all a question of where you’re standing.’
‘You know what I mean.’
The Doctor kept his eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Fitz isn’t dead, Sam.’
‘Then I want to say goodbye.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll bring him back one day. I promise. But he’s been through a lot since the last time you saw him. He needs time. Time to recover. I don’t think he’ll be able to cope with goodbyes for quite a while.’
Sam looked like she wanted to scream at him. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘All right, I’ll take your word for it. Just don’t forget, OK? He’s important to me. I mean, we did have sex and everything.’
The Doctor didn’t seem to know how to react to that. But then Sarah wasn’t exactly sure where to look, either. Sam flashed her a quick smile. ‘Not properly,’ the girl explained. ‘It was a parallel-universe‐alternative-reality kind of thing.’
‘We’ve all been there,’ Sarah told her. It was the best line she could come up with.
‘Hmm,’ said the Doctor. And with that he stepped up to the TARDIS.
When he reached the door, he paused. Sarah half expected him to turn back, maybe to beg Sam to come with him. She risked a sideways glance at the girl, but Sam just looked… relaxed, really. Not what you’d expect at all.
‘It’s funny,’ said the Doctor, not turning around. ‘I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten. One loose end left dangling.’
Then he shook his head, and vanished into the ship.
The door closed. Sarah felt herself go limp. She hadn’t realised how tense she’d been.
‘Welcome to the real world,’ she told Sam.
‘This isn’t the real world,’ Sam said. ‘It’s just a cheap Japanese copy.’ Suddenly, she slapped herself on the forehead, a habit she’d almost certainly picked up from the Doctor. ‘Of course! I forgot to tell him!’
‘Tell him what?’
‘Where the warship was going. I never got round to it. He doesn’t know what the Time Lords were planning.’
‘Oh,’ said Sarah. ‘And what were the Time Lords planning?’
Sam opened her mouth to reply, but the TARDIS was already starting to dematerialise, and the sight of it seemed to distract her. The two of them – all right, three, including K9 – watched the box fade out of existence, until there was nothing left of it but an unpleasant dent in the lino.
‘I wonder if that was the lose end he mentioned,’ mumbled Sarah.
‘Probably,’ said Sam.
* * *
Rifa Ibn Jeman:
They’d been trapped on board the alien spaceship for the best part of a week now, if Hammad’s watch was accurate. But time felt different here. When they’d recovered, they’d found themselves in some kind of storage area; Rifa would have called it a cupboard if it hadn’t been so big. It was stuffed with rubbish, with cricket balls and chewed slippers, ancient clothes and faded children’s books. Hammad had suggested that these were things the aliens had stolen from humans, as research material. Which made a kind of sense.
The door had been barricaded from the other side, although there’d been a shaft in the wall, some kind