Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [60]
‘Now you’re going to do a few things for me, and tell me a few things I need to know,’ said Albinex.
‘I doubt it,’ said the Doctor. He was looking around the cabin, mildly interested. ‘Can we have some lights? It’s a bit glum in here.’
Albinex sighed. ‘Lights up,’ he said.
The Time Lord took in the plush carpet, the neon tubing, the soft furniture. ‘Well, this makes a change,’ he said. ‘Five-star accommodation. Torturing me in here is a terrible idea.
The carpet will get all sticky.’
‘I think you’re getting a bit ahead of both of us,’ said Albinex. He moved the weapon in a small circle. ‘Let’s go to the engine room.’
‘Why not?’ The Doctor hopped up off the bed. Short as he was, he was still two inches taller than Albinex. ‘I didn’t have anything else to do this morning.’
Isaac was sitting at the bookshop counter, writing in his journal. He was using a fountain pen — a gift from Ms Randrianasolo — scratching out the events of the last couple of days in his careful handwriting.
Benny had been pacing the shop since breakfast, flipping through the occasional book, as though a page might fall open on the answers to all their problems.
The real Lacaillan craft had shown up fifteen minutes later, and they’d seen Myn Jareshth safely on his way. Benny had insisted on waiting for two hours in the bitter cold. There had been no sign of the Doctor.
‘None of this should have happened,’ she said. Isaac looked up from his writing. ‘None of this was supposed to happen. We should have swapped anecdotes over coffee for a couple of weeks. It should have been like an exceptionally dull slice-oflife novel.’
‘Perhaps you’re drawing an unwarranted conclusion,’
said her father. ‘ Post hoc ergo propter hoc and all that.’
‘Wherever we go there’s trouble,’ she said glumly. ‘The Oncoming Storm, remember?’
‘Is it really true, though?’ He put down his fountain pen.
‘Surely you didn’t spend all your time with him battling monsters.’
Benny picked up a copy of Macbeth’s Look! Up in the Sky! ‘Interludes,’ she said.
‘Woodworth didn’t even know who he was.’
‘Woodworth didn’t kidnap the Doctor in a flying saucer!’
Benny shouted. She put a hand to her mouth. ‘Woodworth didn’t kidnap Jason,’ she said, more quietly. ‘There’s someone else out there. We have to do something. I don’t understand how you can just sit there!’
‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.
‘I’m sorry. What the hell are we going to do, Dad?’
‘Get whatever we can out of Woodworth,’ he said. ‘Make sure she and C19 don’t have anything to do with this.’
‘What about Jason? And the Doctor?’
‘The Doctor can take care of himself,’ said Isaac. ‘He obviously knew what he was doing when he ran into that field.’
He raised a blond eyebrow at her.
‘ I don’t know what he was up to!’ she said, exasperated.
‘He was waving a divining rod around, for goodness’ sake!’
She’d brought the stick back with her, tucked it away in the spare bedroom, as though it was something precious.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I want to go to Jason’s family’s house.
I want to see if he’s done something to his father.’
‘Why don’t you just phone?’
Benny blinked at him.
He pushed the phone across the desk at her. When she reached for it, he took her hand.
‘Bernice,’ he said. ‘We’ll do whatever we can to help the Doctor and Jason. But sometimes waiting is all we can do.’
‘I obviously didn’t get your patience gene,’ she said, biting her lip.
She was about to pick up the phone when she saw what the book had fallen open on.
She turned the book around so he could see the illustration. It was a large sailing ship floating in mid-air, a seagull caught in mid-flap in front of the hull. The caption said
‘Sky Yacht, artist’s rendition’. Isaac looked at her, puzzled.
‘It’s the ship that took the Doctor,’ said Isaac.
‘More than that,’ said Benny. ‘It was there when the Tisiphone fell into the wormhole.’
Alekto
It was almost noon when Chris woke up. Dull winter light was leaking into the empty bedroom. The air was sharp and cold, his breath curling in white puffs above him. The window was open,