Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [6]
‘Yes, I can’t wait for the real danger to kick in,’ she commented drily.
‘Good girl,’ said the Doctor, grinning at her as the guards came to a halt. ‘And it looks like we’re getting closer! Excellent!’
Their escorts ushered them through a door, and they passed into a sort of foyer with signs pointing in all directions. Due to the presence of names such as ‘Mars’ and ‘Venus’, she assumed the signs referred to planets, although other names were a mystery: Mondas, Refusis II (‘I’d like to see those exhibits,’ said the Doctor), Varos, Raxacoricofallapatorius, Tara. She briefly thought there was a planet called ‘Gift Shop’, until she realised that the sign was indicating, well, a gift shop. This had to be a museum, a gallery, something like that, although one wall displayed a map of continents and oceans, not the floor plan that one would expect in a museum lobby. There was no chance to investigate, however, as the guards led them through a door marked ‘No Entry’ and they were marched down another corridor. At the end was a door bearing the tusked‐beast logo, and they were ushered through it. Martha shivered as she passed inside, temporarily dizzy, although she wasn’t quite sure why. Once in the room the feeling passed.
There were no grilles or perspex‐boxed creatures here; it was a ludicrously mundane‐looking office containing a desk and a chair. On the chair, behind the desk, was sat a woman – a ludicrously mundane‐looking woman. Middle‐aged, grey‐haired, too much red lipstick looking like a clown’s mouth against her pale skin. V-necked red jumper with a white shirt underneath and a tweed blazer on top. The whole scene was just so normal that Martha felt like laughing – although the still‐present guns made her decide it would be a bad idea on the whole.
‘Hello!’ said the Doctor, springing forward and lowering his arms so he could go for a handshake. ‘I’m the Doctor and this is Martha, and we’re your prisoners. Which I assume means we’ve done something wrong, but no idea what. Any clues? Martha? Anyone?’
The woman didn’t take the Doctor’s hand – they never did, Martha had noted. ‘Perhaps you would like to explain,’ she said in a low, slightly croaky voice, ‘what you were doing in our Earth section outside Northern hemisphere business hours?’
The Doctor reached up and took Martha’s left wrist, dragging it down so he could see her watch. ‘Martha! Look at that! Your watch must be wrong. It’s outside Northern hemisphere business hours and we never realised.’
Martha forbore to point out that the time shown by her watch hadn’t borne any relation to the time of her surroundings for quite a while now. The Doctor knew that, anyway.
‘Well, sorry about that,’ the Doctor continued. ‘Glad we’ve got it all cleared up, perhaps your chums here could put away their weapons now?’
The woman shook her head. ‘Oh, I hardly think so. Now you’ve finally been caught in the act, we’re not likely to just let you go. We take theft and sabotage very seriously here at MOTLO.’
The Doctor nodded sympathetically. ‘Of course you do. Good for MOTLO. MOTLO, MOTLO, MOTLO. Magic Otters Telephone Lending Office? Magnetic Ointment Treatment Light Orchestra?’
‘My Odd Theoretical Love Outlet?’ offered Martha, getting a bemused and amused look from the Doctor. (‘I am a student,’ she reminded him. ‘Medical students and bands, you know…’)
‘The Museum of the Last Ones, as you can’t possibly fail to be aware,’ the woman told them. ‘But perhaps you are not aware that I am Eve, the curator of the museum, and that I have no sense of humour.’
The Doctor looked around the office for another chair, but, seeing none, perched on the edge of Eve’s desk instead. She drew her chair back sharply.
‘I’m not after jokes,’ he said. ‘Actually, I haven’t found much funny since we arrived here. Perhaps you could explain why your museum contains living specimens. Perhaps you could explain exactly what your museum is, and what it does. I mean, I wasn’t planning on sabotaging it, but I could