Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [65]
‘Ah.’ That was the Doctor, in his ‘spanner in the works’ voice. ‘When I said I was returning everything – I really did mean everything. Seemed a waste, being in the central computer for the whole museum and not taking advantage of it… There are no more sections. There are no more exhibits.’
‘No more MOTLO?’
‘Nail on the head, that girl.’
The Earthers all looked a bit lost. Cancel that, a lot lost. ‘So… what happens now?’ asked Celia. ‘Things will still be going extinct.’
I nodded. ‘Yeah,’ I said. I had a thought.’
‘But it’s OK to feel passionate about it. Like how you attacked the poacher who was trying to shoot the rhino? Why not try to stop the extinctions in a different sort of way?’
She sniffed, and I suppose that had been a bit patronising of me. But I’d noticed a spark in her eyes while I was speaking, and I think it might have hit home. Perhaps for all of them.
And you’d think that would be it. The end of the story. Goodbyes said, and loose ends all wrapped up. Eve and Frank defeated! The Earth saved! The animals returned home! Back to the TARDIS for tea and crumpets and on our way to another adventure.
But it wasn’t. There was more to come. And quite a surprising more it was too.
The Doctor and Martha headed back to the TARDIS. ‘Oh,’ said Martha as they arrived in the relevant corridor. ‘Um… I don’t actually know how to open the secret door from this side. Frank sort of let me in the first time.’
‘And I didn’t use the door at all,’ said the Doctor. He pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. ‘Luckily I have a key that fits any lock…’
The screwdriver hummed, and to Martha’s relief the secret door clicked open.
And so did the other secret door.
It was on the opposite side of the corridor, and led into a very small, spartan room. Inside was a clear case, the same as all the other ones in the museum – and there was one single, solitary exhibit frozen inside.
Martha frowned. ‘I thought you sent everything back,’ she said to the Doctor.
He was frowning as well. ‘I thought I did too.’ He took a couple of steps closer, and his eyes widened in recognition. ‘Do you realise what this is?’ he asked Martha.
She shook her head. ‘Should I?’
He pulled the pendant out of his pocket and held it up, displaying the MOTLO logo. A line drawing of a creature’s head, a creature with tusks and triangular eyes.
Martha took the pendant and edged nearer, peering intently at the head of the creature inside the case. ‘It’s the same thing,’ she said. ‘Except… this one looks like it’s crying. There’s a tear on its cheek.’
There was a label, not a neat computer‐generated one like the other exhibits had had, but small and handwritten. Martha bent down to read it. “Hr’oln”,’ she said. ‘Hang on, h, r, apostrophe, o, l, n. That was Eve’s password. Her first pet, Tommy said.’ She looked again at the animal. It reminded her a bit of the Steller’s sea cow she’d seen in the museum, although only a quarter of the size of that giant animal and with arms instead of flippers. ‘Not exactly a cat or dog.’
‘I think,’ the Doctor told her, ‘that it’s Eve’s very first “specimen”, the thing she built the museum around. If it was never collected in the first place, my watchamadoodles with the computer wouldn’t have affected it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get it home.’
He took out the sonic screwdriver and used it to switch off the stasis field.
The tusked head slowly lifted and, after 500 million years, the tear fell. The creature opened its mouth. ‘Eve?’ it said.
THE ISPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES
ANKYLOSAURUS
Ankylosaurus magniventris
Location: North America
The herbivorous Ankylosaurus walks on four legs. It is about five metres long and 1.5 metres high. It is extensively covered with bone including bone plates on its back and head and bone spikes on its tail and legs, and has a distinctive club at the end of its tail, also made out of bone.
Addendum:
Last reported sighting: late Cretaceous period.
Cause