Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [112]
‘No, you can’t,’ said Lethbridge-Stewart with a kindly smile. ‘Like reading Wisden during the winter nights when you think you’ll never be warm again, trying to remember what summer is actually all about. And I’d miss Sunday morning, sitting around with nothing to do but read the newspaper and listen to Gardeners’ Question Time on the radio. And fall asleep in the chair until it’s 212
time for lunch.’ He tapped the tin mugs that he held in his hands. ‘I’d miss tea too . . . At least if it’s well made!’
Natalie made an apologetic face. ‘I’d miss travel. Holidays in the sun. Seeing the world that’s out there and being constantly and utterly surprised by it.’ She ignored the astonished looks she was receiving from almost everyone in the room. ‘I suppose I’d miss my friends too. And my cat. And shopping.’
Paynter joined them. ‘I’d miss nights out with my mates. Nights when you understand the value of true friendship, something that’s enduring and lasts a lifetime. Even if you don’t see each other very often. Because you don’t see each other very often.’
The conversation stopped and Natalie looked around the room at a bunch of tired faces, all following what they were saying. ‘Anybody else?’
‘Sex,’ shouted Corporal Murphy, to general ribald cheers.
‘The lad’s got a point,’ noted Paynter without irony. ‘In a very basic human sense, of course!’
Tegan desperately wanted to add something to all this, but she found herself unable to. I’ve been away from Earth for too long she told herself as she sat next to Paynter and held his hand. The captain turned to face her and smiled.
‘And I’d miss you,’ he whispered to her.
‘I’d miss you too, I guess’ she replied.
‘What about human achievements?’ asked the Doctor, who was seated at one of the terminals. ‘I know I’m an outsider here, but . . . ’
‘That gives you perhaps the best insight of all of us,’ said Mel Tyrone. ‘You must keep coming back for a reason?’
As the Doctor began to answer Lethbridge-Stewart interrupted with a thought. ‘Suppose that Earth did get blown-up, what do you think the human race would be remembered for?’
‘Michelangelo,’ offered Tyrone. ‘Shakespeare, Mozart, da Vinci. The things those men achieved could never die, surely?’
‘No,’ said Paynter. ‘It’ll be Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Star Wars and stuff like that. Films and TV and rock and roll, the art forms of the twentieth century, they’re what makes life really bearable! Give me Bogart and Steve McQueen over some fifteenth-century painter and decorator any day!’
‘You jest, of course?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘Well, maybe a little bit,’ said Paynter, thoughtfully. ‘But I’ll tell you what, if we’re talking real desert-island stuff here, then I’d want Revolver with me in my coffin, way ahead of the Sistine Chapel. Best LP ever made, that.’
Tyrone was puzzled. ‘Better than Otis Blue or Astral Weeks or Blonde on Blonde?’
‘They’re all good, don’t get me wrong,’ Paynter said quickly. ‘But . . . ’
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‘Well I’d like to offer a vote for Can Anyone Tell Me Where the Revolution Is?
at this point,’ Natalie said, raising her hand.
There was a series of extravagant dismissive gestures from around the room. ‘Oh come on,’ said Paynter. ‘The Star Jumpers were all right. I liked them. That Johnny Chester wrote some great songs, but they only released four LPs and one of them wasn’t very good . . . !’
‘Excuse me.’ The Doctor’s voice cut through the beginnings of what was promising to be a long and bitter argument. ‘Do you want to end your lives squabbling about the greatest album in the world ever?’
Paynter saw the funny side of the situation. ‘Maybe only pop music can save us now!’
Above the stratosphere the battle raged on. Through the communications satellites, many of which had been launched by the very race whose members were now dying, humanity watched the war of the gods taking place just outside the planet’s atmosphere. Wave after wave of Jex ships threw themselves at the Canavitchi lines. There was counterattack after counterattack, each with diminishing results. And,