Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [136]
There wasn't time for this. He had to concentrate on -
Helium.
And the Doctor realised that with five minutes and eight seconds to go, the chords in his memory had suddenly become a symphony.
The Doctor let go of the cylinder of helium, which continued to fall at the same velocity as him. He took the string for his pocket and tied one end to his left wrist. He retrieved the packet of curtain rings, biting it open with his teeth, careful not to spill any. He did a little mental arithmetic and threaded forty eight of them along the string, discarding the rest.
That took twenty two seconds. He'd fallen a little under a mile by now, less than a sixth of the total distance.
Now for the difficult part.
The Doctor tugged the roll of bin bags out of his pockets, unwound the first one, careful not to open it up. He drew the open side of the bag through the first curtain ring, creating a narrow aperture. The process had taken him a little under two seconds. He repeated it forty seven times, until all the bags were whipping up and down on the line like a row of bunting.
He'd been falling for two minutes. He was still well over five and a half kilometres above London. When he had started working, the clouds he had been falling through were the rounded cirrocumulus clouds - the ones that looked like fish skin from the ground. Now they were the larger altocumulus variety. The air was getting warmer and thicker as he hit the first hint of convection currents rising from the city.
The Doctor let go of the string and reached over for the helium canister. Calmly, he plucked it from the air and slotted the nozzle into the first big bag. A quick burst of the gas inflated it. Imperceptibly, the Doctor slowed down.
***
Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield
'Professor Summerfield,' a lad said gently. It wasn't one of the soldiers, it was the chap who ran the Internet Cafe.
'I won't be long. He ... he might have had a parachute or something.'
I kept my binoculars fixed upwards, but I could imagine his expression.
'The medics have arrived if you need one. The Brigadier's trying to rustle up some tea and coffee. My name's Doug, by the way. I'm sorry to hear about your friend.'
I looked away for the first time. Around me, Tower Green was full of ambulances and heavy army trucks. Outside, the crowd were being tended to by an army of paramedics and policemen. A great cluster of Provisional Government men were sitting in a circle, their weapons taken away from them. A couple of the UNIT men were taking their names and checking if they needed food or medicine. Al around, people were cheering and celebrating - I could hear a riverboat honking cheerfully, and the bells of all the cathedrals and churches were ringing. The whole country would be like this - street parties, crowded pubs and city squares. Everyone cheering, everyone rejoicing.
And I felt dead inside, because the one man who deserved to be here wasn't.
I turned my binoculars back to the sky.
Two hundred metres up was a mass of black. Not a parachute or a hot air bal oon, but something between the two. It was drifting down. Underneath it al was a man wearing a flowing bottle-green velvet coat, baggy tan trousers and a grin. With his free hand he waved down at me.
The balloons had slowed the Doctor down, but he was still travelling too fast. I tried to shout a warning to him, but he was still too high to hear. The shouts alerted Lethbridge-Stewart and the others, though. Tower Green began to buzz with excitement. Everyone was pointing up, gasping, some were even laughing.
Alan had swung his camera up, and was tracking the Doctor down as he fell.
'Do you real y think those bin bags can support his weight?' Doug was asking. 'I reckon a few techos on the Net might argue with that. I like his style, though.'
I turned back to the sky. Barely clearing the walls now, the Doctor was clambering up, over the bal oons. It was tricky going, but he reached the top of the pile just as the apparatus reached the ground. Now they