Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [13]
Tentatively, he touched it, poking through the accumulation of marine life on its surface. There was a gentle, tingling vibration, a more intense version of what he could feel in the water all around him. He gave an experimental tug – and floundered backwards in surprise as it came away in his hand: a fist-sized lump, roughly circular, like a large pewter doughnut with a cricket ball embedded in the hole. Seaweed trailed from it like matted hair, streaming out in the water, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of a shrunken human head.With flailing arms and legs, he steadied himself, clouds of silt puffing up around him. He brought the object closer, examining it in the spotlight.
Remembering his air levels, he decided to save the examination until he’d got to the surface. With one last, disbelieving look at the kraken in front of him, John kicked out and headed upwards, into the light.
When the Doctor knocked gently on Ace’s door, she was sorely tempted to tell him where to go. But she remained face down on the bed, silently reading some rubbishy teen magazine that she’d found at the back of a cupboard. In the white spaces on the advert pages, a childish hand had scrawled naive copies of some of the simpler words in black marker pen. Ace flicked desultorily through it, trying to find something that related to her own teen life. Not surprisingly, there were no letters from Disenchanted and hacked off from Perivale complaining about timetravelling old men.
Just the usual boy-obsessed dorks: Dear Annie, My mother hates my boyfriend, but I really love him and be says he loves me. What shall I do?
Debbie, age 14.
Get a life, thought Ace. ‘Ditch the boyfriend and go travelling through space and time with a weird codger who doesn’t tell you a thing he’s thinking.’
There was another tap on the door.
‘Ace? Mind if I come in?’
‘I don’t suppose it’d make any difference if I did, would it?’
she muttered.
She was right; it didn’t.
Ace felt the gentle pressure of the Doctor sitting at the foot of her bed. She glanced over her shoulder and saw his sad, puppydog expression.
‘Don’t start that,’ she warned. She wasn’t going to let him win her over.
‘Ace...’
‘You’re not going to tell me, are you?’
‘Ace, I’ve told you –’
‘And stop putting my name at the start of all your sentences.
I hate that! You sound like a teacher.’
‘Sorry It’s just that there are some things I just can’t tell you.
Not yet. Not till they’ve happened.’
Ace sat up, flinging the magazine across the room. It fluttered like a frantic bird and joined the pile of clothes, boots and assorted rubbish against the far wall. ‘And what would be the point of telling me then, then?’
He gave a little shrug and she shook her head.
‘It’d be a lot easier to take you and all this timetravel business seriously if you actually looked like an alien,’ she said.
‘Rather than just the man who runs the Perivale hardware store?’ he completed her thought for her and threw her a mock-offended look. He reached into his jacket pocket.
‘And if you pull out those bloody spoons, I’ll slap you!’ He withdrew his hand slowly, empty.
‘And it’s hard to remember that you know more about this timetravelly stuff than I do; webs of time, paradoxes. All that head-screw stuff.’
‘I’m not infallible, Ace, whatever what you think I think.
Almost, but not quite. Ten centuries of time travel gives you a nose for these things. It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I don’t trust me. I don’t trust me to tell you things that I think you ought to know. I need to keep the bigger picture in sight. It’s too easy to get so close to the trees that you can’t see the wood –
only to watch the whole forest go up in flames because you forgot to put out the camp fire.’
Ace stared at him. ‘You haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, have you?’
He drew himself up, mustering as much dignity as he could manage.