Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [30]
Part of the answer was UNIT. From what little he’d picked up, Isaac and his crew were adept at avoiding the military, even the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, with its special interest in the extraterrestrial. And during the early seventies avoiding UNIT meant avoiding him too. He’d taken refuge with the taskforce during the long years of his exile, and it had blinded him to what was happening outside it.
But there was more to it than that. They’d been waiting for him to arrive, all this time. Expecting him to take one look and knock them down like a row of dominoes.
He frowned at the ceiling. They could run rings around MI5 or the CIA, but he was the threat they couldn’t predict, couldn’t prepare for. After everything he’d done to protect Earth, they saw him as their greatest danger.
He was stung.
He started as a flash of pain jumped across his temples and was gone.
He blinked in the dark. Ah, well, goodness, now wasn’t that clumsy?
He slowed down one of his hearts, unpicked the tapestry of his mind until at least part of it was asleep. One set of threads was still vibrant with activity. Why had the Lacaillan run away? He had a nasty suspicion that he knew.
The sparkling, stabbing sensation came again. This time it wasn’t painful, the bubbles of light and sound sinking softly into his brain. He let them move about the sleeping part of his mind, tentative and disorganized.
He wouldn’t visit Lacaille 8760 until far in the objective future. No, Ia Jareshth had no reason of her own to fear him.
But what had Isaac and his crew told her about him?
He captured one of the bubbles, gently, altered it, sent it spinning back to the others. After a few seconds, the presence withdrew from his mind.
She hadn’t even left a message for the other Lacaillan.
She’d fled in panic, from the one place on Earth it might be safe for her to stay.
Oh, she’d be back, when she realized there was no other way off the planet. It might be for the best if he wasn’t here when she arrived.
He let the rest of his mind shut down, softly.
Four hours later, he woke up with a violent start, and stumbled out of the cottage.
He ran through puddles in his bare feet, whirled around outside the post office, looking wildly up and down the main street.
The TARDIS was gone.
He sagged against the bicycle rail, water pouring down his face. ‘It never rains,’ he whispered.
PART TWO
LOOSE THREADS
Non-violence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.
Joan Baez, 1967
11 The morning after
Benny struggled out of sleep into the coldness of the morning. Her dreams had been full of glittering insects and desert sands.
Once so much touching would’ve made her uncomfortable, but now waking up alone, without Jason wrapped around her, felt wrong. The big bed was conspicuously devoid of husband. On the other hand, the overstuffed easy chair across the room was occupied by the Doctor.
The thought of the Time Lord quietly sitting and watching her sleep naked, even under the covers, was a bit much.
‘Where’s Jason?’ she said, clutching the eiderdown.
‘He wasn’t here when I arrived.’
‘Well,’ said Benny. ‘Er. What can I do for you?’
‘The TARDIS is gone,’ he said.
‘What? Do you mean pinched gone or dematerialized gone?’
‘I woke up in the middle of the night, and she was gone.’
He shook his head, slowly. For someone who hardly ever slept, he looked as though he could use eight hours right about now. ‘I don’t think she dematerialized. I think someone has picked her up and carried her away.’
Benny was about to leap out of the bed and into action when she realized this would also mean leaping into conspicuous nudity. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘What do we do?’
The Doctor didn’t move, a shadowy shape in his chair.
‘Benny,’ he said, ‘I think someone’s trying to tell me something.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think I’m welcome here.’
‘Of course you’re welcome here. You and Dad have got to stop trying to second-guess one another. When are you going to realize you’re on the same side?’
The Doctor just shook his head. ‘I’m going to go