Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [137]
The Doctor and his improvised parachute crashed into the ground mere feet from me, bouncing slightly. As he tumbled along, his limbs surfaced and disappeared back into the mass of black plastic. As he rol ed to a halt, he had reached the top of the bags.
I ran over, closely followed by Doug, the Brigadier, Lex Christian and Eve. The Doctor was lying on the pile of balloons, perfectly still. His eyes were closed, his head was bent back.
He wasn't moving.
'Doctor!' Doug shouted.
'Doctor,' Eve called over to the paramedics.
'Doctor,' the Brigadier called, clearly concerned.
I bent over him. 'Doctor?'
His pale blue eyes fluttered open and he pulled himself upright.
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'Hello Bernice,' the Doctor beamed.
As he clambered off the crash-mat he had improvised, the bin bags began drifting away, up into the bright spring sky. He turned, watching them float over the walls of the Tower and off along the Thames - upstream, towards Tower Bridge. The Doctor plucked a cat hair from his lapel and grinned.
'I didn't think I'd see you again,' I told him. 'I thought you'd gone forever.'
'You of al people should have had a little more faith, Benny. I'm not ready to die yet,' the Doctor declared. 'In fact, I've never felt better.'
I opened my mouth but couldn't think of anything else to say. I hugged him, the Brigadier was slapping him on the back. All around us, the whole of London was cheering.
The Doctor was alive, the entire human race had been saved. Al was well with the world.
End of extract
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Epilogue
Kisses to the Future
Wednesday, 8 May 2593
'The student reputation for outrageous behaviour and excessive consumption of alcohol is, of course, a myth.
Most students are extremely studious and hard-working,' Benny announced knowledgeably. 'If we want to uncover evidence of hedonism, one need look no further than the teaching staff. Professors in particular spend much of the time in a state of advanced inebriation.'
'Bernice, you sound like a professor already,' the Doctor assured her.
'Thank you.' Benny knocked back another vodka. 'Robarman, another round, please, if you would.'
'Certainly, Professor Summerfield.' Two more glasses joined their friends on their table. The college bar, quaintly named The Witch and Whirlwind, was decorated with rather wonderful gold fittings that warranted further in-depth investigation.
Benny sipped her ale. A rich taste that also warranted further in-depth investigation. She looked up at the Doctor.
'After this, I really think we should get my stuff out of the TARDIS and up to my room.'
***
The TARDIS had landed in a concrete expanse that Benny’s induction pack had rather optimistically labelled a piazza. It had been raining since they had arrived, longer judging by the torrents of water gushing down the overflow channels. Benny’s new home, the Garland College Hall of Residence, was a vast barrel shaped building in soaked brick. Its corridors and stairways were empty. A month before the start of term, the entire planet seemed deserted.
‘Do you think it wil ever stop raining?’ Benny asked.
The Doctor considered the question, peering off over her shoulder. ‘The orbital lift has permanently altered the weather patterns by the look of it,’ he concluded, pointing over to the north. A silver line had been drawn, bisecting the sky. The lift was a design familiar from a thousand Outer Planets, a metal spire tall enough to poke out of the atmosphere, al owing incredibly energy-efficient launches into low orbit. Cheap spaceflight, with a heavy cost to the local environment.
‘Bother,’ Benny said, moderating her language in the Doctor’s presence. Then she realised he’d disappeared into the TARDIS, so she repeated the sentiment using the F-word, just because she could.
The Time Lord emerged. ‘You’l be needing this more than I will,’ he said, handing her an umbrella. The umbrella.
She opened it up. It was a hundred yards and three flights of steps between her new room and her old one, and it took an hour of moving heavy boxes and cases between