Doctor Who_ Transit - Ben Aaronovitch [0]
By Ben Aaronovitch
Prologue
The Doctor stood alone on a Devonian beach and tried to persuade the lungfish to return to the sea.
'You won't like it,' said the Doctor.
He noticed that the fish's fins had become short stubby legs. It had become an Ichthyostega, the first true amphibian. The Doctor checked his watch. About two million years early at that.
'You're making a big mistake,' said the Doctor.
The amphibian ignored him, its flat head fixed on the line of cool vegetation ahead. It had covered a quarter of the distance across the hot white sand.
'I know it's crowded in there,' pleaded the Doctor. 'I know the food chain is overstocked, I know it's a fish-eat-fish ocean ...' He trailed off. The gill slits had healed up, the legs lengthened. Claws sprouted from the feet. The panting mouth was full of teeth.
From across the sea came the sound of thunder.
'Don't do it," said the Doctor. But too late. The reptile was suddenly flushed with hot blood. Hair sprouted over its body, it got off its belly and surged up the beach, getting smaller all the time.
By the time the Doctor caught up with it, the mammal was five centimetres long and cowering behind a shell. From the forest ahead came the crash and roar of gigantic lizards.
The Doctor hunkered down and stared at the rodent. Its small eyes gazed over the half of the beach that remained. The Doctor felt that it should at least look terrified but it didn't. It looked expectant.
There was a sudden scream in the stratosphere and the earth bucked under their feet. 'Did that sound like a ship full of Cybermen to you?' asked the Doctor. The sky went black with dust, the temperature dropped, the forest echoed with the meaty thump of collapsing species. 'I was there, you know,' said the Doctor. 'I lost a good friend. Not that you care.'
The dust cleared from the sky. The sun came out. The forest was silent. The rodent ran for the treeline. The wind blew in from the sea, bringing the smell of salt; from the horizon dark clouds raced towards the shore. When the Doctor looked back the animal was walking upright, flexing its new hands. As he watched the biped shed her fur. Breasts sprouted, the cranium ballooned backwards, the forehead lifted. Intelligence flared in brown eyes, the co-ordinated digits of her right hand picked up a stick and she looked around for something to hit with it.
The storm struck the beach.
The Doctor struggled through the rain and stepped in front of the human, blocking her path. 'Don't do it!' he shouted over the wind. But her eyes were full of fire and dangerous ideas. She raised the stick which became a club, a sword, a gun, a hydrogen bomb. Lightning fused the sand around them.
'Please,' said the Doctor.
The stick came down on his face.
PART ONE
'Are you sure,' asked his companion, 'that this is the nineteen-eighties?'
The Doctor looked around. 'Which nineteen-eighties did you have in mind?'
Conversations that never happened.
1: Oncoming Trains
Olympus Mons West
Credit Card took the call from Central but he had to shout to make himself heard. Dogface was arguing over a game of Damage with Old Sam. Only Dogface was crazy enough to pick a fight with an old veteran like Sam, but Dogface always said that even Old Sam got bored with pushing people about. It was good therapy, he said, to stand up to him from time to time. At the time the call came in, both were in full flight, Old Sam on his feet with his two-tone dreadlocks flailing around his head, Biondie edging towards the door while Lambada surreptitiously cleared any breakables from the table. Dogface was leaning comfortably back in his chair, arms across his chest, a big eastwood clamped in his mouth. Old Sam had cranked up to full volume, swearing in something that had been an Indo-European language about two hundred years ago. Credit Card figured that the military must have augmented his lungs along with the rest of his body.
Credit Card sighed, stuck his right index finger in the slot and jacked into the system direct.
'What the hell's going on down there?'