Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [16]
Martha gave him a look, and he adopted a falsely contrite expression in return. ‘Tell you what, it’ll probably all become clear when we investigate. That’s an idea! Shall we investigate, Agent Jones?’
She glanced back through the doorway. ‘What about Tommy and Rix?’
‘Well we could tell the two suspects what we’re up to…’ He grinned, already programming the first listed coordinates into his pendant. ‘But you know what they say, two’s company…’
‘And four’s two too many.’ She was copying the figures into her own device. ‘Except for the Fab Four… four seasons pizza…’
‘The Four Yorkshiremen sketch… The Four Just Men…’
‘The Four Tops, the Fantastic Four…’
‘Radio 4, the Four Tenors…’
‘That’s the Three Tenors!’
‘Well, yes, it is now, I mean they begged me to join them permanently but I couldn’t really spare the time, not with how often I have to save the world… Ready?’
‘Ready.’
They pressed their blue buttons.
THE ISPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES
ILIN ISLAND CLOUDRUNNER
Crateromys paulus
Location: Ilin Island
The Ilin Island Cloudrunner, found in the forests of the tiny Philippine island of Ilin, is a large browny‐grey rat. Its distinctive feature is its long furry tail.
Addendum:
Last reported sighting: AD 1953.
Cause of extinction: destruction of habitat.
ISpyder points value: 2000
THE ISPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES
Creature Points
Subtotal 10000
Dodo 800
Megatherium 500
Paradise parrot 500
Velociraptor 250
Mountain gorilla 500
Aye‐aye 900
Siberian tiger 600
Kakapo 900
Indefatigable Galapagos mouse 1500
Stegosaurus 500
Triceratops 550
Diplodocus 600
Ankylosaurus 650
Dimetrodon 600
Passenger pigeon 100
Thylacine 250
Black rhinoceros 300
FIVE
Eve had swivelled her chair round so she could access the wall panel more easily. Her head was full of the facts and figures of previous extinctions, and now the Doctor had given her the idea it was easy to check up on the other missing creatures, although their original disappearances ranged over several million years.
There was no trace of the other animals. She looked at the quagga, the bluebuck and the paradise parrot. The lights did not so much as flicker.
But there was another light.
If Eve had been one to doubt her own senses, she might have thought she was imagining it. Even with her self‐assurance, she checked it twice.
The light was definitely there.
There should be no other lights. She was utterly, thoroughly, ruthlessly efficient, and she knew that every ordinary extinction had been dealt with.
Every ordinary extinction.
Her mission was this: to stop any species from dying out. She had to preserve the last example of each species, and let the universe see them all.
She did her best, did everything she could, but even so there were circumstances which defeated her. Eve had no magical powers to foretell the future; oh yes, she could make logical predictions, and indeed had utilised these to great effect on a number of occasions, but as to knowing what was going to happen, that was beyond her skill. So she’d been caught unawares, at times – some unseen disaster befalling a planet, destroying every creature within a fraction of a second, when even the most skilful of computers would have been unable to detect which specimen was the last of its kind and there was no time to send a collection agent to retrieve it, even if it had been identified.
Eve prided herself on being free from emotion, but the sensations that occurred at such times could really be described in no other way. Pain. Regret. Anger. To know that she had failed in her objective, that the collection would never, could never be perfect. But it made her even more determined