Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [43]
Martha pulled the dodo back as he tried to take it. A feather fluttered to the floor, which the Doctor picked up. ‘Don’t take her,’ Martha said. ‘Please.’
Tommy raised an eyebrow. ‘Why not? Come on, Martha, do you know how much damage has been done to the collection? We need to get as many specimens back as soon as possible!’
She shook her head. ‘If that much damage has been done,’ she said, and couldn’t suppress a guilty shudder, ‘then one more or less here or there isn’t going to make much difference, is it?’ Down by her knees, Dorothea gave a little squawk, and Martha leaned over to pat her on the beak. ‘I don’t want her back in one of your cages. Not yet. She’s happy with me. Let her live a little.’
‘Until a dinosaur gets her, or one of the Earth natives decides to stick her in a freak show, or she tries to cross the road in front of one of those cars they didn’t have a few hundred years ago when she was last around.’
Martha refused to let him wind her up. ‘Yeah. Except those things aren’t going to happen, cos I’m looking after her.’
They locked gazes for a few moments, each intolerant of the other’s point of view, but it was Tommy who dropped his eyes first. He didn’t look happy but, as his only other option was to take the bird by force, Martha thought she’d won the point for the time being. Still, probably best not to take her eye off Dorothea while any Earther was around from now on.
The Doctor broke the tension – well, in a way, his question made Martha feel more tense than ever. ‘So, what’s going on up there?’ he asked Tommy. ‘Back in everyone’s favourite Museum of the Last Ones.’
‘You know what happened?’ Tommy said. The Doctor nodded. Martha couldn’t bring herself to. ‘The entire Earth section was affected, but nowhere else. We still don’t know what caused it – some massive power surge is what they’re saying.’ (Guilt made Martha’s stomach flip‐flop worse than if she’d been on a roller‐coaster at Alton Towers, but there was a sense of relief there too – ‘only’ the Earth section. Not all the museum. OK, that was still billions of creatures, but…) ‘Whether Eve has more of a clue about it than the rest of us I’ve no idea,’ Tommy continued. ‘She’s practically had a breakdown over this.’ Well, it served her right for trying to trap the Doctor. Martha tried to keep that in mind, rather than thinking of everything else that her actions had achieved…
‘Has she really?’ the Doctor was replying when Martha focused again. ‘A breakdown, you say?’
Tommy nodded. ‘Well, MOTLO is her life’s work. OK, so the Earth section’s only a small part of it, but even so…’
And she’d lost the last of the Time Lords too. But neither the Doctor nor Martha was going to enlighten Tommy about that.
Tommy shook his head sadly. ‘Of course, it means a lot to all of us, but to Eve – well, she’s been there for ever. Her life’s work, like I said.’
The Doctor’s head jerked up then, a flash of interest in his eyes, like something had just occurred to him. ‘Her life’s work. Yes. Do you know, I wonder if it really is.’
‘What do you mean?’ Martha asked.
‘I’m just wondering,’ he replied, ‘quite how long Eve has worked at the museum for.’
This interesting question didn’t seem to concern Tommy, who was now heading towards the still‐struggling sabre‐toothed tiger. ‘Not got any objections to me taking this one back, Martha?’ he said. She shook her head. Not that the tiger didn’t deserve a few moments of freedom as much as the dodo, she supposed, but… Well, it was easier to feel sympathy towards something that didn’t want to eat you.
Tommy continued walking towards the creature, pendant held in his outstretched hand, completely unafraid.
Martha and the Doctor, watching, were unafraid too.
They knew by now how the pendants worked, whether they agreed with the procedure or not. First the animal would