Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [8]
‘One day,’ he read out loud, ‘she will find the person who was given her name. And then there will be no more dying.’
‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about her,’ said a voice nearby. ‘She’s only a ghost.’
The Time Lord turned. An elderly woman was watching him. By her bearing, she had once been a soldier. ‘She was an archaeologist. Or, properly, she was one of the students.
She Wandered off into the jungle about three years ago, and didn’t come back. Now they say she roams the planet, looking for her classmates. I expect she gobbles up little first-year students who don’t finish their reading lists.’
He doffed his hat, smiling. ‘I’m the Doctor. And this is my friend...’ he looked around bewilderedly for a moment.
‘Admiral Groenewegen,’ said the woman, shaking his hand. ‘And you’re looking for Benny.’ The Doctor nodded.
‘Well, you’re in entirely the wrong place! She’s been waiting for you at her camp for nearly a whole day. I’d take her a present if I were you. Come on, I’ll point you in the right direction.’
The Doctor found himself trailing obediently after the little woman. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled at himself.
Benny yawned, looked at her watch again, and said,
‘Buggery bollocks.’
Jason didn’t look up from his paperback. He was lying against the pile of boxes and bundles that his wife was sitting on. ‘The message hasn’t reached him, has it?’
‘Possibly not,’ said Benny. She blew out her cheeks in frustration. ‘It’s more likely that he’s too busy defeating the Vermicious Knids to bother with me.’ She looked at her chronometer again.
‘A watched pot never boils,’ said Jason.
Benny stuck out her tongue at him. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her off the boxes. She yelled, laughed and kissed him, pinning him to the grass. The paperback waved about in the air behind her as he pretended to struggle.
After an interval, someone coughed.
Benny looked up with a start. There was someone immensely tall and blond and embarrassed standing over them.
Benny let out a whoop, and jumped up, throwing her arms around the big man. Roz was standing behind her partner, eclipsed. Benny shook her hand awkwardly while Chris hugged her. ‘I’m so glad to see you!’ she said. ‘Are you well? Where’s you-know-who?’
‘Your coordinates plus some wonky TARDIS widget or other landed us in the institute’s garden,’ said Roz, helping Jason to his feet. ‘Well, in the fountain, actually. We decided to send out two search parties to find you.’
‘Do you want something to drink?’ said Jason. He rummaged in the luggage, pulled out some foil packs of Crimson Star beer.
‘How’d he take it?’ said Benny.
Chris was trying to tear the foil with his teeth. It took Roz a moment to puzzle out what Benny meant. ‘The Doctor? I think he’s worried about you.’
‘ He’s worried!’ Benny grinned weakly. ‘This was the last thing I expected, Roz. I’d always had a sort of mad belief that I’d just stumble over Dad one day... but this is different. We’ll be going back to the moment he originally disappeared. Or maybe the moment he died. The moment of truth, anyway.’
‘You know — I don’t think he has a father.’
Now it was Benny’s turn to be puzzled. ‘Oh, the Doctor.
I’d picked up bits and pieces — that the Time Lords are all test-tube babies or something or other. I expect they’re just too clever to manage it the old-fashioned, unskilled way.’
‘We should talk!’ interjected Jason. Benny hurled his paperback at him.
Roz shook her head. ‘My parents were always very annoyed that I didn’t want kids. To pass on the genes, you know.’
‘You should have a couple with Chris,’ joked Benny, ‘and really give them a surprise.’
‘Well,’ said Roz, her grin vanishing, ‘we can’t hang about here all day.’
Benny bit her lip. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Er, why don’t you lot stay here, and I’ll go and see if I can spot the Doctor.’
‘He headed for the dig,’ said Roz. ‘We might take some of your stuff to the TARDIS in the meantime. Off you go.’
Benny nodded, decided not to say anything,