• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The Doctor bent down towards General Erik and whispered in his ear. Two words.

'You better go before the boat tours start.'

The Doctor, Amy and Sam were standing on Liberty Island with the mammoth. General Erik was at their feet, gazing over the city he'd failed to conquer.

The Doctor held out his hand and General Erik handed him the baton. 'It's time you left, Erik.'

The Vykoid General stood in front of his most senior officers, thanking them one by one. It was obvious to Amy that they meant nothing to him. He had no affection or gratitude for any of them.

'Oh, er, sorry about the insides.’ Amy said, nodding at the mammoth. 'We had to make some room.'

General Erik saluted farewell and joined the columns of Vykoid soldiers retreating onto the belly 241

DOCTOR WHO

of the mammoth. With a gentle tick of clockwork, the army was lifted back inside the mammoth. It shut with a quiet clunk and, moments later, an eerie green light blasted out, filling the air with that strange high-pitched screech. The sphere of green boiling light engulfed the mammoth and spread out, pulsing as if ready to explode over the city.

But this time it snapped inwards, and a crash rang out, echoing like a thousand cymbals rumbling to the floor.

The mammoth was gone.

Amy gave the Doctor a massive hug. 'Now tell me what you did.'

'Simple really. I changed the genetic profile of the teleport beam. Took a scan from the Vykoid controlling Sam, fed it into the teleport transmitter, and it took all the Vykoids back home. Smallest thing we did today.'

Sam stepped forward. 'If you don't mind, Doctor, I have a question. All you said, about freedom and dreams, is it true?'

'Worked on you, didn't it? Have you heard the story about the richest man in America? He arrived in New York with nothing but two potatoes, he sold those and bought four potatoes, sold them and bought eight potatoes, in ten years time he was selling potatoes up and down the East Coast. Pretty soon he was so rich he had people to chew his own chips for him.'

242

THE FORGOTTEN ARMY

'Really?' Sam said excitedly. 'Do you think that's how it works? Could it happen to anyone?'

To you? Oh no, you'd make a terrible potato dealer. You're far better than that. You brought an alien army to New York, and then sent them back again. That's as good as it gets.'

243

Chapter

23

The Doctor stood in Times Square and clicked his fingers. The TARDIS faded into view.

There was no sign that the mammoth had ever existed. The streets had been cleared of debris, and the road works and building sites of New York were back in action, churning out dust and noise. Nobody would ever know they had all been seconds away from working for the Vykoids.

'Stop, police!'

The Doctor looked around him.

'It's Oscar.’ Amy told him. 'Hi, Oscar.'

Oscar looked at the Doctor and Amy, as if he was struggling to remember them. 'How do you know my name?'

Amy grinned. 'Lucky guess.'

245

DOCTOR WHO

'Right.' Oscar frowned. 'Well, you can't leave this box here.'

'We're not going to.’ the Doctor said.

'And, Oscar,' Amy said, 'you've been brilliant.'

The Doctor and Am y stepped back inside the TARDIS, and Oscar stared after them in wonder.

'Why didn't he know who we were?' Amy asked.

'I think the Time Freeze is going to have a terrible effect on their short-term memories. When their brains sped up again, they lost a lot of what happened, maybe all of it.

They'll never know.'

Amy strolled over to the Doctor, who was leaning back on the console, 'So that's it? You saved the world, and nobody ever knows?'

'We saved the world, Amy. People will forget, but we know that we got rid of the Forgotten Army of the Vykoids. Never let anyone take that away from you.' The Doctor paused.

'Although you will, like the Vykoids, be forgotten. Still, I’ll always know, and that's what counts. Amy Pond, there's a name - you could be a queen in a fairy tale.' The Doctor rolled the words around, speaking them grandly to the corners of the TARDIS: The mighty Amelia Pond, Saviour