Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [6]
Above the bronze figure hung a huge decorative seal, shining out brass and black. This was an important symbol on the Doctor's home planet.
Once he had told her it reminded him of what he had to rebel against - but on another occasion he had spoken quietly about sometimes needing to remember where he'd come from.
A huge row of filing cabinets covered one side of the room, holding everything from first-edition Dickenses to unfinished drafts of Alpha Centaurian poetry. Some were held on diskettes, some were huge bunches of paper wrapped in elastic bands, some looked as if they were stored on bits of Lego. Closer inspection had revealed that they were bits of Lego.
When pressed, the Doctor had announced, rather defensively, that it was his Lego file.
So it was quite a sight, and quite a state, this 'borrowed' ship of his. The rightful owners would be appalled.
Except that they were dead, of course.
They had to be. The Doctor had stolen the TARDIS when he was young.
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago. She felt a shiver run down her as she watched him wandering round the ornate bronze-and-wood, five-sided console that guided them through the vortex, saw the angular lines of his face bathed in the electric-blue light of the time rotor as it moved up and down to signify their flight.
Over a thousand years old, and still like a child. She could see the pleasure in his eyes and the simple happy smile as he polished at the brass housings of an instrument bank. He prided himself on his rapport with his ship. It was as though he was driving an old steam train through time and space: he knew when to push her, when to ease her back, how much pressure to apply and when.
Not for the first time she realised she was beginning to think what he'd be like if -
'Sam, come here,' called the Doctor without looking over to see if she was even there.
I know, she thought, as she jogged over to him, you don't want me to think about it either.
'Trouble, skipper?' asked Sam, saluting. Then she straightened, warily.
'Don't even think about asking me for a cup of tea.'
The Doctor looked up, offended. Then he sniffed. 'I don't like the way you make it, anyway.'
'What?'
'It takes hundreds of years to learn how to make a really good cup of tea.'
Sam seethed inwardly. Sometimes she felt he was doing this on purpose, reminding her of how utterly, pathetically different they were, as if -
- as if he knows what I'm thinking -
She froze, but the Doctor seemed to notice nothing amiss. 'We're out in space, quite a way out, as it happens. And something very odd seems to be going on.'
He looked at her as if sizing her up, waiting for her to say something. The same old game. How cool would she be?
'Makes a change,' she said, airily, feigning uninterest. It was a fairly weak parry but she hadn't been sleeping well lately.
'Ah, but this is really odd,' said the Doctor, deadpan.
Sam thought. Then she looked at the indication display. Thankfully, this version of the control console - there were others dotted around the ship -
was quite obligingly user-friendly, with most of the controls named. She was staring at one with the legend FORWARD TEMPORAL PROBE
engraved beneath it. A red digital display like that of a cheap service-station watch was showing a rapid succession of numbers, skittering about feverishly. A display screen hanging from a heavy metal chain anchored to somewhere in the blue-and-gold infinity that made up the impossibly high TARDIS ceiling read:
EX-THANNOS