Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [16]
‘Home?’ queried the Doctor.
Saul nodded. ‘My brother did not tell me we were expecting visitors.’ He turned back to the Doctor and Martha. ‘I’m sorry if you’re in pain,’ he added ruefully, indicating the Doctor’s ankle.
The Doctor waved away the apology. ‘Your brother is?’
‘Our elected leader. You’ll want to speak to him first.’ They began to descend the hillside. Even from this distance Martha could see horses and cows in the fields and children playing outside a school. It was a comforting, everyday sight after their close encounter with the beast in the forest.
They followed a small dirt track into the village, Martha wondering idly if Saul had created this himself by sheer dint of having walked to and from the woods so often. And then she noticed that-there was no proper road into the village at all. It seemed entirely cut off from the outside world.
And then she reminded herself that, as far as they knew, they were still within, or attached to, the space station she and the Doctor had explored. Perhaps there was no ‘outside world’ – perhaps this was all there was. But the illusion of a far larger reality was persuasive. The mountains and rolling hills that framed the scene seemed utterly real. If this was merely some computer simulation, some painted backdrop, it was breathtakingly detailed.
Martha wondered – if she and the Doctor just carried on walking, would they eventually come to the edge of the world?
‘I would very much like to see your brother,’ said the Doctor suddenly, as if he’d come to some sort of decision. He stopped for a moment to look at Saul. ‘I’m afraid I may have some… interesting news for him. For all of you…’
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t know quite how to say this, but…’ The Doctor sighed and glanced away. His manner reminded Martha of a hospital consultant about to deliver terrible news. ‘The fact of the matter is, I’m pretty sure you, the mountains, the village…’ He indicated the entire vista before them with his outstretched hand. ‘None of this existed a couple of hours ago.’
FIVE
Jude was bored. The constant droning of the teacher’s voice had become a lullaby designed only to make her eyelids feel heavier and heavier. She’d enjoyed the lesson about the history of the village, which, like a stone skipping over still water, had touched on everything from glaciers and how valleys are formed, to history and the lives of the first leaders of their community.
Now, however, mathematics was in full swing – or, rather, would have been, if only Mr Somo would let them all get on with the exercises he had set. Instead, the sour-faced teacher seemed intent on discussing the theory. He must have repeated the same point about twenty times now, and if Jude had once understood what Mr Somo was driving at, she was no longer quite so sure.
Jude let her mind wander back over the history lesson. It was somehow comforting to think that generations of children – doubtless many as bored as she was – had sat in this room and listened to teachers going on about the importance of mathematics in everyday life. Some had perhaps become elders or advisers; others, who history would never record, had led perfectly happy lives working in the fields and drinking in the inn. Jude wondered if these people should be venerated at least as much as the leaders of the past, for Jude’s father had often said that deciding to concentrate on looking after a family – rather than meddling in the lives of the whole village – was an especially noble calling.
Jude let her fingers run over the rough surface of her desk. Names had been scratched into its surface with knives and the broken nibs of ink pens; she wondered idly if ‘CB’ was still in love with ‘AR’, and if ‘Tomas J’ still lived in the village, or had long since been consigned to the ground.
Jude thought a lot about death these days. She supposed that was normal enough – she’d be a teenager