Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [70]
The Doctor snorted. ‘Assistant? Rose, right? She travels with me. In my time machine. You’d think I’d be the boss, yeah? Yeah, right. There’ve been times I wouldn’t’ve minded one of them little silver boxes, I tell you – it’d make things a whole lot easier…’
But Robert was no longer listening. His attention had well and truly been caught by something at the beginning of the Doctor’s rant. ‘Time machine.’
The Doctor snorted again, but he was grinning again too. ‘Yeah, yeah, I can take you to the furthest corners of the universe, I say, to infinity and beyond, and everyone’s always, oh that’s nice, that’s good, but as soon as I mention it travels in time as well…’ He flicked a switch on this amazingly bizarre-o giant glowing mushroom in the middle of the fantastic control room. ‘Rose was just the same. And talking of Rose…’
‘How are we going to find her, though?’ asked Robert.
‘Oh, the TARDIS’ll manage, now the force field’s down,’ said the Doctor. ‘I can’t quite work out why, but she seems to have taken a shine to that girl.’
And he pulled a lever, and the room was suddenly flooded with green light. ‘We’re off!’ said the Doctor. And Robert thought it was the most exciting thing that had happened to him in his entire life.
* * *
Rose was wondering if she could find a way of getting the sonic screwdriver to melt stone, so she could make handholds down the side of the pit, see if there were any exits at the bottom. It seemed a stupid, impractical plan, but it was the only one she had just at the moment, apart from the even more useless one about making a very long rope out of all their clothes. For a start, it almost certainly wouldn’t be long enough, for another, they’d then be running around in their undies, and for a third, the flimsy fabrics probably wouldn’t take the weight anyway. Shame it didn’t tell you on the little label inside – 100 per cent cotton, wash at 40 degrees, do not tumble‐dry, able to support up to 500kg.
Rose’s new friend, whose name was Daisy, sat there quietly while Rose expounded her various schemes and theories. She still seemed rather shell‐shocked. She’d asked Rose who else had got out of there, and Rose had told her about everyone she’d encountered in the stronghold. She hoped they’d all got out. Daisy didn’t think she knew any of them apart from Tim Breeley. ‘But then, I’ve been in there for a long time, I think,’ she said. ‘It stopped once or twice, but always started again.’
‘You were lucky,’ said Rose.
Daisy smiled sadly. ‘Lucky? Perhaps. But that was everyone? They got through people very quickly. So no one else can have survived from the time I went in. I… I hope…’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘It was so hard, just me and him, his dad didn’t want to know, it’s been so hard making ends meet, but I tried so hard… I loved him so much, and I know that teens are supposed to be difficult but he seems to resent me so much… But I’d have done anything for him, anything… And you try to protect them from measles and mumps and running out into the road and playing with matches, but you can’t protect them from things like this, things that you didn’t know about, things you’d never have believed were real…’
Rose sat down beside her and reached out for her hand. ‘You had a kid?’
‘My little Bobbles.’ She tried to laugh. ‘He hated me calling him that. “Mum,” he’d go, “my name is Robert”…’
Rose jumped. She’d been so stupid. The woman had only asked about people in the stronghold, she hadn’t thought to mention people back at the Quevvils’ base. Obviously Daisy hadn’t dared to hope he’d stayed there this long. ‘Daisy, it’s all right!’ she cried. ‘Robert’s –’
But she was drowned out by a sound that wasn’t just music to her ears, it was the most wonderful music ever, it was the greatest symphony ever written, performed by the best orchestra in the world. It was the sound of the TARDIS.
Rose had to grab Daisy, who had started to back away in astonishment and fear, forgetting – or no longer caring – that there was a very deep pit behind. And then,