Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [40]
back some of the certainties of before, her no-nonsense How could a genie fit inside a bottle?
attitude a sturdy rock upon which to anchor his future. The Only one story fascinated him and he would urge his Kidd girl was all right too, if a bit cocksure and modern in mother to read it over and over again. It was a little Uncle her thinking. She was a friend of Jocelyn Bell, the Remus tale concerning Brer Fox’s plan to ensnare Brer postgraduate down at the Mullard observatory who had Rabbit in a thorny bush by means of a sticky facsimile child discovered the first pulsar earlier in the year.
called the Tar Baby.
But now there was this flood of bizarre, unfathomable Hawthorne had never been afraid of the nasty fox, never data, none of which made any sense. And the telephones really cared whether Brer Rabbit would escape or not. It was were out of order. The only certainty seemed to be that the the image of that sightless, dripping black baby in its cage of double star Bellatrix, in Orion, had just gone nova. The prickles which haunted him. He would check under his bed signals were just discernible amongst the nonsense which every night, fearful that a tacky black paw would clutch at had overwhelmed their systems the previous night.
his ankle.
Thomas Edward Hawthorne liked order. At twenty-six Without really knowing why, he still connected his fear of minutes to eight on 23 December, a chunk of disorder called outsiders with that terrifying childhood memory. Like the Ace came into his life.
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
‘What the hell...?’
‘Well, young lady. What are we going to do with you?’
Cooper scurried towards Ace and managed to prevent the girl’s head from hitting the console. Ace flopped weakly The night had become dry and frostily clear. The Doctor, into Cooper’s arms, sucking her cut lip and mumbling strolling into Crook Marsham with his umbrella hoisted insensibly.
over his shoulder, looked up at the bone-white moon on its
‘Trespassers,’ sighed Hawthorne. ‘That’s all we need.
bed of brilliant stars. He breathed in deeply and enjoyed the What’s happened to the bloody security guard? It’s cold air which flooded his lungs.
outrageous.’
Leaving the moor path, the Doctor rounded the corner of
‘Gone AWOL,’ said Cooper, prising open one of Ace’s the Post Office and walked up the main street, his shoes eyelids.
crunching smartly on the frost-crazed pavement.
‘It’s outrageous.’
There was a soft chime from his coat pocket and he noted
‘All right. You’ve made your point. Help me get her into with some satisfaction that he was almost exactly on time.
the chair. She’s in a state.’
The Abbot’s books, intriguing though they were, hadn’t Gingerly, Hawthorne took Ace’s arm and dragged her delayed him unduly. Strange coincidence, that. The over to a padded chair, noting her curious clothes with telescope being built on the site of the old castle. A castle some distaste.
reputed to be haunted and destroyed by a mysterious fire.
‘Locals wandering all over the moor. You’d’ve thought The Doctor smiled. Every old building had its echoes, they’d be used to the telescope by now.’ He pushed his every battlefield its mournful piper or whey-faced soldier.
glasses back up the bridge of his nose and ran a hand Ten a penny.
through brilliantined hair. Cooper wiped the blood from No, it was time to face the future. Act on his impulses and Ace’s mouth with a handkerchief.
do something positive about his resolution to... How had
‘Look at her clothes. They’re a conservative lot in these Ace put it? Retire. Yes. There was something comforting parts.’
about that word.
‘She looks like a dustman in that jacket. The things they I have done enough.
wear these days.’
It was good to be here in a tiny, dull corner of his Hawthorne turned his attention to the data chattering favourite planet with nothing to distract or entice him. He before him. The green display flared light across