Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [1]
The Doctor had knocked it up in a spare moment on Coralee.
A belated birthday present. She smiled. He had even baked her a cake in the TARDIS’s antiquated kitchen. That had been a surprise. She had all but forgotten about celebrating her birthdays. Time seemed to rush past so quickly. Coralee was already a distant memory. They had been though so much since then. Daleks on Kar-Charrat. The Venddon war. Voord.
She shook her head. She was getting distracted again, and at eight thousand feet that wasn’t healthy.
She slid the piton gun back into its harness and snapped it home, then clipped herself on to the new line, tugging on it, checking it was secure.
Taking a deep breath Ace unclipped herself from the rock wall and pushed herself out over the abyss.
The rock face swept past her as she swung herself back, pushing out further each time. Her boots kicked off the surface and she swung out towards the crevasse. Her hand stretched out for a handhold. Almost. One more swing.
Air rushed past her and her hair streamed out behind her as she swung back again. Then her hands grasped hard rock and’
she pulled herself into the crevasse.
Ace whooped with delight. Her headset crackled into life again. ‘Well done. You should be able to get up on to the plateau easily now. Have a breather.’
Ace was breathless with excitement. ‘OK Gatti. I’ll call when I’m ready to go on.’
She clambered up the last few feet towards the plateau laughing out loud.
She hauled herself up the last few feet of rockface and on to the plateau.
A familiar voice suddenly drifted through the crisp air.
‘Is all that noise really necessary? Some of us are trying to sleep up here.’
Ace stopped in disbelief, then smiled. The Doctor. Just when you least expected him...
The Doctor sat at a small picnic table, straw hat perched on his untidy mess of hair, teapot and china cups laid out in front of him. He held out a small plate. ‘Kendal mint cake?
I’m told it’s what all the best climbers eat.’
Ace sauntered over and dropped into a chair, taking a slab of mintcake. ‘Thanks, Professor.’ She peered around, looking for the TARDIS. ‘How did you get up here, climb?’
The Doctor frowned and shook his head. ‘Oh no. That would be far too undignified. I flew.’
Ace gave him a look over the top of her sunglasses. The Doctor just beamed at her. Deciding that she wasn’t going to enquire any further, she reached for a teacup.
The two of them sat in silence staring at the landscape stretching away from them. The mountains on the far side of the valley had snow at their summits, glinting under the high sun. Below them lush fields stretched away in an elaborate geometric patchwork, greens and yellows chequering the valley floor. The tower-block sized agricultural processors were little more than children’s toys from this height, lumbering sedately across the landscape.
Ace sipped at her tea and peered across at the mountains.
‘What do you think?’
The Doctor was staring at her. Ace shrugged. ‘After the climbs that Gatti’s put me through over the last day or two it should be a doddle, Professor.’
The Doctor nodded slowly. ‘Good.’
Ace turned to him. ‘I still don’t understand why we can’t just use the TARDIS.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Let’s just say I would rather be cautious in this instance.’ He pulled a pair of opera glasses out of his pocket and peered through them.
Ace frowned. The Doctor was keeping things to himself.
She had barely seen him over the last few days. He kept sneaking off in the TARDIS without any explanation of where he was going and she didn’t like it.
They were a team. They’d been working well together over the last few months. This mysterious, uncommunicative Doctor was seriously beginning to nark her.
She was about to bring this up with him when her communicator bleeped into life.
‘Right. You’ve had a long enough break. You’ve still got a couple of