Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [93]
One part of her started to shriek hysterically, while grown-ups she didn’t know picked her up and tore her away from the window in the door, dragging her deeper into the shelter.
Another part of her understood, in a scary, cold way, that her mummy was gone now, blown up by the Daleks. But it was okay, it was going to be okay, because her daddy would come home and look after her.
30 Father makes good
Isaac went back into the shop and went behind the counter to make some coffee. He dropped the cup on the floor and knocked over the cafetière. He sat down on the floor, holding a silver spoon in one hand.
Benny did not follow him inside. He sat with his back to the sink cupboard. Shell-shocked, he thought. I’m shell-shocked, but I have to pull myself together. I have to keep functioning. I can’t stop now’ not for any reason.
Isaac was backing away. Why was he backing away, almost scrambling across the floor? He looked up. The Doctor stood over him, barefoot, still wearing the pyjamas.
The Time Lord absently righted the fallen cafetière. ‘How much longer are you going to sit down there? We’ve been waiting for half an hour.’
‘Half an hour?’
‘Benny decided it might be best if we left you to have a think,’ said the Doctor. He was holding something. Isaac saw that it was the transponder from the Tisiphone. ‘I gather this is how you brought me here. Clever.’
He dropped the transponder’ and Isaac caught it, instinctively.
‘Your army is growing,’ remarked the
Doctor. ‘There must be a few dozen vehicles out there now.’
Isaac turned the transponder around in his hands. He lifted the hatch that hid its power switch. ‘Just a little button,’
he murmured. His voice sounded hoarse, like that of someone who’d been crying. ‘I push this little button, and it all starts. The whole chain of events. One thing after another...
until all those lives end.’
‘Surprising, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor. ‘How important a tiny event can be. Or how unimportant. That’s the thing about changing history. You have to be able to tell the butterfly that causes the storm from the butterfly that’s merely pretty. But the hurricane isn’t inevitable. There’s still time to change the road you’re on.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Isaac. ‘I’ve considered all the possibilities. I’ve had twenty years to think about this.’
‘Twenty years to try to talk yourself into it.’
‘I’ve got the strategy all worked out,’ said Isaac. ‘I’ve had it ready for some time. The codes give me control over every missile on Earth. I can send them precisely where they need to go... there’d be less deaths than the Daleks will cause in twenty-one fifty-four... so many deaths... I know just where the missiles will fall, who will retaliate and who won’t.’
‘Not so easy, is it? To erase her. To erase the future that gives birth to her. Now that you’ve met her.’
‘No,’ said Isaac, ‘I want Bernice to be born into a future without the Daleks, without the constant fear of the Daleks...’
‘You simply can’t predict the future that accurately,’ said the Doctor. ‘What if one of the missiles fails to launch or explode? What if, instead of embracing nuclear development, humanity is so disgusted by the carnage that it abandons the weapons forever? The future is a kaleidoscope. To human eyes... besides, it’s clear Albinex is following an agenda of his own.’
‘Is he?’
‘His time ship’s engine doesn’t work,’ said the Doctor. ‘It shattered the day he came to Earth. There’s no way he could take your army forward to fight the Daleks.’
Isaac let the spoon fall from his hand. It clattered away across the kitchen floor.
‘You do this sort of thing all the time,’ he said. ‘This isn’t any different to what you do.’
‘True.’ The Time Lord looked down at him. ‘But then’ I’m the Doctor.’
‘Albinex wanted to kill you,’ Zak said.
‘Albinex has gone nuts,’ said Ms Randrianasolo. She leant on the counter. ‘He wants to kill all of us.’
The Admiral looked pale, shaken. It was the shock of someone suddenly bereaved. Ms Randrianasolo frowned