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By Root 665 0

right: Sarah, and her mother, and old Mrs Pobjoy and the rest. And maybe the person going would be able to help the hero. Maybe be able to give their life for the hero. Maybe be part of the solution, even if they had to die. Maybe even be regretted one day by that wonderful girl, the hero’s friend, because he knew the hero would rescue her somehow. She’d never know his name, but perhaps she’d shed a small tear and say, ‘That boy, the last one to die. We’d never have been able to do it without his sacrifice.’

And Robert suddenly realised he’d pushed himself forward, brushing off the protesting arms of Mrs Pobjoy and Mrs Catesby, and was calling out, ‘Take me.’

And they did.

To Robert’s intense surprise, no one produced a little silver box and activated the disc on his forehead. He was led out of the room still under his own control, which he was extremely pleased about, although still pretty much terrified. He tried not to show that to the tall man, the hero, who was walking beside him.

The man turned to Robert. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m the Doctor.’

‘I’m Robert,’ said Robert.

‘That was pretty brave,’ said the Doctor, as they were led down a corridor.

‘Not really,’ mumbled Robert, embarrassed. He didn’t think the hero was supposed to praise you till after you were dead. After a moment, he said, ‘Do they eat you?’

The Doctor’s mouth twitched, but Robert could tell he wasn’t actually laughing at him. ‘No, they don’t,’ he said. ‘Is that what people were thinking?’

Robert nodded.

‘I can’t tell you it’s much better, though, what they do,’ he said. ‘People are still dying. Dying horribly. It’s evil, what they’re doing.’

Robert couldn’t help himself: he choked, a hoarse cry sticking half in, half out of his throat.

The Doctor grabbed his shoulder. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I know it’s scary. But I’m not going to let them hurt you.’

But Robert wasn’t crying for himself. Finally, he had to think about it. ‘They took my mum!’ he cried. ‘They took my mum and I hated her and now I’ll never see her again and it’s the most awful feeling in the world!’

He felt the Doctor’s grip tightening on his shoulder. ‘Number one, it’s OK to cry,’ he said, seeming to sense that the idea of breaking down in front of a stranger, and a hero at that, was almost as bad for Robert as the thing he was crying about. ‘I cry all the time.’

‘Do you?’ said Robert through his tears, knowing that the man was lying, but trying to believe him anyway.

‘Yup,’ said the Doctor. ‘Number two, we’re going to talk about this, you and me. I’ve already had to have a bit of a chat to Rose – that’s my friend, the girl who was with me –

Rose – even her name was beautiful…

‘– about people you hate dying. But I think we might find you’re coming at it from a different direction. Like, how you didn’t really hate your mum at all. Or rather, you did, but it was a complicated sort of hate. Like, maybe you loved her as well. But whatever, we’ll sort it out.’

And Robert thought he might finally understand what it felt like to have a dad.

The Quevvils took them into a room. It was really dingy, like all this place, but to Robert’s surprise it had a great big screen on one wall, like a telly. And even seats where they could sit down. Were they going to show a film? Surely this wasn’t what had happened to all the others who’d been taken.

The Doctor sat down in a chair, and gestured for Robert to do the same. He seemed to have an idea what was going on. One of the Quevvils passed him a device that looked just like the control pad for Robert’s new games console back home. The Doctor took it and held it in both hands.

A light suddenly flashed on a panel on the wall. Frinel went over to it and pushed a button. A voice came out of the panel. ‘Is the controller ready?’

‘The controller is ready,’ said Frinel, speaking into the device. ‘You will dispatch the carrier.’

‘Understood,’ came the reply.

The screen flickered into life, though at the moment it showed nothing but a fuzzy pattern, as if the television aerial wasn’t plugged in. Then the picture came into focus. It was