Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [67]
And he’s so brave. I kind of want to be him when I grow up.
It’s like... he’s my dad now.’
‘Well,’ said Benny softly, ‘I guess that makes you my little brother.’
She reached out and embarrassed him terribly by hugging him.
‘Don’t cry,’ he muttered. ‘Hey, don’t cry. You know what?
I bet that Mr Summerfield, I mean Jason, is up on that ship.
The Doctor knew he was there and went to rescue him. I’ll bet they both turn up safe and sound.’
Benny released the boy. ‘I hope...’
‘Yeah,’ grinned Joel. ‘I’ve read the stories. The Doctor can do anything.’
Jason had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He was leaning over the vast, complex crystal that was lying on the workbench, holding it tightly while the Doctor did things to it.
So what’s this bloke Albinex’s plan?’ he asked.
The Doctor was peering deep into the crystal through a Jeweller’s eyepiece. ‘Back in the seventies,’ he said, ‘the nuclear superpowers had a deal whereby a neutral country was given the secret launching codes for their weapons. The idea was that if a launch was imminent, they could make all of the codes public, and force a cooling-off period.’
Jason frowned. ‘That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.’
‘As much sense as a strategy of killing your opponent’s entire civilian population,’ said the Doctor, mildly. ‘Anyway, back then, the only superpowers were China, the USSR and the USA. So they gave the codes to Britain.’
‘But wouldn’t terrorists just get hold of them and use them?’ said Jason, still trying to work out the point.
‘The system was abandoned shortly after exactly that happened. But Albinex wants to know the codes.’
‘Oh,’ said Jason. ‘And you know them.’
The Doctor nodded his head, slowly, as though it was heavy with the knowledge.
‘But if the system was chucked, what good are the codes?’
‘I presume Albinex’s plan is to travel back in time to a period when they were still valid,’ said the Doctor. ‘He’s probably going to do something tedious like hold the world to nuclear ransom.’
‘Christ!’ said Jason. ‘Look, can’t you just erase the codes from your mind, or something?’
‘I might need them,’ said the Doctor simply. Jason felt a chill trickle down his spine. ‘Besides, I’d need the TARDIS to do the job properly. But I’ve buried them deep, deep down.
It’ll take a lot more than the basic mind-probe technology Albinex would have to get at them.’
‘Christ,’ said Jason again. ‘You can’t let him do it. Benny would never be born. Hell, I’d never be born.’
‘I must have a long chat with Albinex about the web of time,’ said the Doctor absently. ‘In the meantime, I think that better than presence of mind would be absence of body.’
A set of coloured lines flared inside the stricken crystal.
The Doctor stood back, satisfied. ‘Six of one,’ he said.
Jason hadn’t noticed the tall archway standing against a wall of the engine room. The Doctor started moving it towards the bench. Jason gave him a hand. It was heavier than it looked, made out of some kind of dense red-black plastic, covered in printed circuitry patterns. ‘And half a dozen of the other,’ said the Doctor.
‘What’s this, then?’ he said.
‘Transformation archway,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s how Albinex appears human.’
Jason jumped back as the thing started to glow. It was as though there was a flat wall of the stuff bubbles were made of, stretched across the archway, softly glowing in rainbow colours.
The crystal engine was glistening with the same slick of colours, like oil on a wet road. ‘It’s some kind of feedback loop,’ he said.
The Doctor was pressing the tips of his fingers against the stuff of the archway. The space inside glowed blue, silver, green. ‘This is a bit difficult to do,’ he said, ‘given that I don’t know where we are, and we’re in flight. But —’
The archway gave a final flicker, and turned into the inside of the Pyramid.
‘— it’s amazing what you can accomplish