Doctor Who_ Peacemaker - James Swallow [9]
As the door slammed, Jenny nodded after him. ‘Your Doctor has an odd turn to him, if you don’t mind me saying.’
Martha chuckled. ‘Trust me, you don’t know the half of it.’
He ran the test using the molecular sensor pallet in the TARDIS control room, tipping a little of the fluid from the bottle into the scanning tray. It took about ten minutes to get the results, and when he read the printout the Doctor shook his head and crumpled it into a ball.
Wrong. That had to be wrong. He did the test again. And then a third time.
He fished out the creased ball of paper from where he had thrown it, smoothed it out and laid it next to the two others. He put on his glasses and looked again. All identical. All wrong?
There was a way to be sure. He uncorked the bottle and gulped a mouthful.
‘ Ugh.’ It was greasy, and it made his throat sting a bit. ‘Why does medicine, no matter what planet you’re on, always taste disgusting?’
Sour-faced, the Doctor licked his lips. ‘OK. Grain alcohol. Some chocolate in there too, I think. A lot of sugar. Water. And, ugh.
Rock salt. Yuck.’ He wished he’d brought some of Jenny’s tea to wash the taste away.
He held up the bottle to the light, the glow of the TARDIS filtering through it. ‘This,’ he said to the air, ‘is about as medicinal as a bucket of cheese. The only thing you’ll get from this is rotten teeth.’
20
But if that was true, then how had Alvin Godlove used it to save an entire town from a lethal epidemic?
21
When Jenny mentioned the words ‘street party’, some of Martha’s earlier good mood returned to her and, with firm but gentle insistence, she made the young schoolmarm agree to act as her guide to Redwater. Martha played the role of tourist, allowing Jenny to slip into her role of teacher, nodding with interest as she gave her a potted history of the township. Redwater was in the Colorado Territory, a long ride south from the city of Denver, and the place had got its name from the ruddy colour of the earth that bordered the thin stream running alongside the settlement. Jenny’s explanations took on a slightly stiff tone as she explained that the redness came from a preponderance of iron in the local hills. Martha smirked; Jenny was a teacher all right. She couldn’t help lecturing.
She looked up as they approached the small crowd gathered in the main street. Music from fiddles and a chorus of energetic clapping filtered out towards them. ‘This is a mining town, then?’
The other woman nodded. ‘But there’s also farmland in the valley and homesteaders out there with grain and cattle. We take up the bounty of the land as we can.’ She paused and glanced at Martha, looking her up and down. ‘Are you certain you wouldn’t like to change into clothes a little more. . . conventional?’
23
Martha brushed a speck of lint off her jacket. ‘Something wrong with this? It’s my favourite. Got it in a sale at Henrik’s.’
Jenny coloured a little. ‘It’s just that. . . Well, in these parts dress is sometimes more conservative than you might be familiar with.’
She eyed the teacher’s long, broad black dress and shook her head.
‘I wore something like that a while ago. Wasn’t really my style, if you know what I mean. I’m OK with my jacket and jeans.’
‘Of course,’ Jenny replied. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’
Martha’s smile widened as she imagined how the woman would react to a browse around the clothes stores on Oxford Street. ‘I bet you’d look brilliant in a miniskirt and a crop-top.’
‘A crop top,’ repeated Jenny, sounding out the words. ‘What an interesting name. Is it like a bustle?’
Martha grinned. ‘Kind of, yeah.’
Jenny was quiet for a moment. ‘The Doctor. . . Is he your patron?’
‘What, like my boss? Hardly!’ She smiled. ‘At times he might think he’s in charge, but that’s not how we work. We’re travelling companions, I suppose you’d call it.’
The teacher’s cheeks reddened in a blush of embarrassment, ‘Oh, Oh. Pardon me, I didn’t mean to pry into your affairs.’
Martha held up her hands. ‘It’s not like that either,’ she said