Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [67]
How could she bring half-caste babies into this time? They would be true aliens: mottled hybrids formed by the grafting together of two genetic strains kept pure for centuries.
What on earth was so attractive about this rather dull Englishman? Roz had an innate distrust of psychoanalysis.
She had let the undergrowth grow up around her own unconscious, actively discouraged missionary expeditions, and stuck up a few shrunken heads to warn off the more persistent explorers. Judge a person by their actions, not their potty training, that was her motto. She had been there too many times when the Freudroid at the Lodge had confidentially announced that the serial killer they were looking for was a solitary academic type in his mid-twenties who fancied his mother, only to discover later that the real killer was four times older and just liked killing people so she could brag about it in bars and on chat shows.
But she had to admit that she found George Reed and his leisurely world attractive. It was so uncomplicated a life.
There was a clear distinction between good and evil. An emphasis on moral responsibility. Benevolence. Decency.
Christ, they even let you smoke in their offices without giving you a lecture.
There was something familiar about George, with his smooth, pale face, his neatly brushed hair and his precise accent. Deep in the dark continent that passed for Forrester’s mind, was there a longing for an English Soldier? The English had always been a part of her culture. Chief Xhosa had led his tribe into the Transkei in the early sixteenth century. Less than forty years later, fewer years than Roz’s own lifetime, the Europeans had arrived. It was they who had introduced Christianity, capitalism, even the idea of nationhood. Xhosa identity was defined by the English. In the nineteenth century, so close to 1941 that Roz could almost see it, her people had been split into two groups: those who opposed the British, and those that collaborated with them.
You couldn’t ignore them. Roz’s ancestors? They’d collaborated. The Rarabe Xhosa had fought with the British in the Fifth Kaffir War, against all the other Xhosa tribes. Did that make her people any less ‘pure’? Look at the English: culturally, racially, they were a mix of Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Romans, West Indians, Indians, Jews and who knows what else. Learning from the English had paid off: it had been the Western-educated, reasonable Christian Xhosa who won their country’s freedom, not the Zulu with their spears and fierce independence. The first name of her people’s great liberator had been Nelson.
Roz wasn’t being nostalgic; she wasn’t going native; she was being practical. The Doctor had vanished. Bernice hadn’t made contact. Cwej had been sent to his almost certain death. If the Doctor, Benny and Chris were all dead then she had two choices: stay here, or go back to her own time in the TARDIS. Benny had told her that the British won Earth War Two, four years from now. After that, life must have returned to normal. Roz was in her early forties now, so she could reasonably expect to live for another century, even given the primitive state of medicine here. She would live through the Age of Legend if she stayed; she could fight alongside her family, help build the future she knew was coming. Her fight for Justice would continue.
George returned her glance, and smiled. Roz smiled back.
The Doctor sniffed the air. ‘Cordite. Shots have been fired here.’
Chris felt his stomach tighten. ‘Monique and Monsieur Gerard?’
‘There’s no sign of them. There are heavy vehicle tracks outside, but they could have been made by a tractor.’
‘We have to search.’
The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, we have to, but we can’t be long. The patrol will almost certainly catch our scent again. Do you know your way around?’
‘Yes,’ Chris muttered. The kitchen looked just the same