Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [97]
‘Yes.’
* * *
Cosgrove had his arms out, like a diver.
The wind was intense, freezing. He barely noticed it.
The fall was hundreds of feet, on to jagged rocks. There was not one chance he could survive this, unless he caught the time machine.
The silver cylinder tumbled down, ten or fifteen feet ahead of him. It looked like a cigar tube. It was that sort of size, that sort of burnished silver.
He was gaining on it. He was definitely gaining.
He had one chance. All he had to do was grab it, squeeze the controls at the end.
One chance.
He reached out, strained until his arm was almost out of its socket.
His fingertip tapped against the time machine. Just for a moment, as it spun, but he’d felt it.
Seconds.
He had seconds to do this.
His arm reached further. His hand brushed against the cylinder.
Cosgrove snatched the time machine, grabbed it.
This was his destiny.
He squeezed the controls, felt the machine powering up.
He hit the rocks.
* * *
Fitz looked away. ‘Yuck.’
Anji and the Doctor were still looking over the edge.
‘Why didn’t it work?’
‘It hadn’t had time to recharge.’ The Doctor sounded sad.
‘You didn’t mention that to him?’
‘Cosgrove was the sort to follow orders, not to give them,’ the Doctor said, not answering the question.
‘“If the Doctor told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?”’ Anji said quietly.
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s what they say at school, isn’t it? When you say you did something because someone said you should.’
‘I don’t remember my schooldays.’
‘Of course, I was forgetting.’
Malady and President Mather were running across the runway. They were, Anji realised with a start, the only five living beings still here.
‘The USAF are on their way,’ Malady said. ‘There will be transport helicopters here in twenty minutes.’
Mather smiled, held out his hand. ‘The least we can do is offer you a lift back to civilisation. Perhaps you could explain why you don’t look a day older than you did in 1989.’
The Doctor looked away, a little embarrassed.
‘We have our own way of getting back,’ Anji told him.
‘Don’t tell me: a time machine.’
The Doctor looked offended. ‘Time travel? My dear Mather, I know we’ve seen some extraordinary things in our time. In millions of years, perhaps time travel will be a possibility. But… well, for the moment, it’s science fiction, isn’t it? Don’t get carried away – you just concentrate on making sure the Americans and Eurozone can share this planet without blowing it up.’
‘The shooting’s started,’ Anji told them.
Mather looked panicked. ‘How do we stop it?’
The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘It’s barely started at the moment. But this base is proof that you’ve had someone playing the EZ and USA off each other.’
‘And that there were rogue elements operating in the EZ,’ Malady reminded them.
‘Use Cosgrove as the fall guy,’ Fitz suggested. He glanced over the edge of the cliff. ‘Er… you know what I mean.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘Probably best not to mention any of that time travel and aliens stuff.’
Mather looked thoughtful. ‘You’re right, of course. Time travel? It’s absurd.’
‘That’s how Baskerville operated, you see. The big lie. Time travel’s such a ridiculous idea that he couldn’t possibly be lying, could he? I mean… a time machine? Who’d believe that?’ The Doctor clapped his hands on Fitz and Anji’s back. ‘OK, you two, let’s get back to the TARDIS.’
* * *
Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd
Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane
London W12 0TT
First published 2002
Copyright © Lance Parkin 2002
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Original series broadcast on the BBC
Format © BBC 1963
Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC
ISBN 0 563 53848 1
Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 2002
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of
Chatham
Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton
Table of Contents
Prologue The Banquo Legacy
Chapter One Friendly Fire
Chapter Two A Case for the Doctor
Chapter Three A Pretty