Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [37]
‘A lifetime ago. Or four,’ replied the Doctor, studying a map of the Los Angeles area. ‘It has changed a lot. I want to get my bearings. This is probably the easiest way.’
‘Big city,’ noted Tyrone.
‘In reality it’s about five cities all welded together into a glutinous lump of humanity,’ said the Doctor. ‘People tend to gravitate towards each other in masses. Then when they’ve arrived at wherever it is that they’re going they spend their time building walls around themselves. Locking themselves inside little boxes until they get ready for the littlest box of all.’
‘A cheerful thought.’
‘It’s not a cheerful world, Mr Tyrone,’ the Doctor said sadly. ‘A beautiful world, certainly. One of my favourites. But . . . ’
Tyrone nodded wisely. ‘Population transplant?’
‘You’ve been talking to Tegan,’ noted the Doctor, amused.
‘Quite a remarkable young woman,’ said Tyrone.
The Doctor couldn’t help but smile. ‘She’s certainly that. We’ve been together for a long time. I don’t know what I’d do without her.’
Tyrone was puzzled. ‘Forgive me Doctor, but I know what you are.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘You’re regularly accompanied by companions . . . ’
Now the Doctor understood. ‘Companionship is a quintessential part of life.
Without it, we are alone. Tegan provides me with a link to the realities of the universe. She’s the soul of the TARDIS. And the heart. A brave heart.’
‘And Turlough?’ asked Tyrone, stopping the car.
‘He was sent to kill me. I greatly admired that!’
Tyrone gestured towards the seething metropolis below them. ‘The City of Angels.’
‘. . . And devils,’ added the Doctor with a shake of his head. ‘Magnificent scenery, spoiled by mankind. Your world in microcosm!’
72
‘Don’t you think you’re being a little unfair on us?’ asked Tyrone.
‘Probably,’ said the Doctor. ‘I always try to be optimistic about the future, but the things I’ve seen . . . ’ His voice trailed away as with his arm he traced a path between North Hollywood and Van Nuys, then on towards Sherman Oaks. ‘All this useless beauty. All these great leaps forward. And for what? So that the first alien with an advanced degree in interplanetary warfare can take it all from you? And life just simply moves along and nothing changes.’ There was real emotion in the Doctor’s voice now. ‘I sometimes believe that I’m the only innocent in a universe full of cynicism. I feel like Ferdinand Magellan or Amerigo Vespucci on a voyage of discovery. Only I’m shining a light on things that maybe should be left in the darkness.’
‘A man out of time?’
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor, amused. ‘ There’s the irony!’
Mel Tyrone knew exactly what the next question shouldn’t be, but he asked it anyway. ‘So, you think we ask for all our troubles with the neighbours?’
The Doctor, rightly, ignored the question and swung round, keeping his arm ramrod straight like a Dalek’s eyepiece, pointing out towards the Pacific.
‘Santa Monica, correct?’
‘It is.’
‘Good. Then Bel Air, then Westwood, then Beverly Hills?’
‘Geography Major at the university of Gallifrey?’
‘Temporal mechanics, quantum physics, fourth-dimensional tachyon stud-ies. I scraped through. I was a grave disappointment to my parents.’ The Doctor flashed a broad beaming smile at Tyrone. ‘Someone asked me once why I travel the universe in a craft that should have been put into mothballs millennia ago. I told them that there is great evil out there, inconceivable evil.
And that it must be fought.’
‘Do you still believe that?’ asked Tyrone.
‘That it’s there, or that it must be fought?’
‘The former’s self-evident, surely.’
‘So is the latter Mr Tyrone,’ said the Doctor brightly. ‘And whilst that state of affairs remains, then so will I.’
‘Press “alt”, “control” and “delete”. That usually clears it.’
‘Rabbits!’ exclaimed Tegan, her panic that she had deleted UNIT’s entire database only gradually subsiding. ‘I hate computers. I’m from the 1980s, we found washing machines a challenge.’
Sergeant Milligan clearly thought she was joking and Tegan didn’t bother to get angry with him. Actually, she liked him a lot. He was relaxed and