Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [72]
Martha followed him out of the angular chamber. Their feet rang out on the metal walkway as they strolled away.
‘I don’t quite understand why the ship’s scanners didn’t pick up that creature,’ said Martha as they walked. ‘It made a stab at tracking that shadow thing.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘that big splurge of data… Maybe it wasn’t just the bubble world it was detecting – but the creature as well. It’s a very fine line, between creator and creation.’
‘And what will happen if the Castor drifts into darkness again?’ queried Martha.
The Doctor smiled. ‘Let’s hope I do as good a job next time,’ said the Doctor. ‘Let’s hope I have someone with me as… brave as you were.’
‘What do you mean, “next time”?’
‘Oh, just something the Dazai said. She sort of implied that this had happened before. That the biggest lessons in life we need to learn again and again.’
‘And what lesson do we learn from all this? Not to go exploring when you find yourself in a forest in deep space?’
‘Oh, yeah, that,’ said the Doctor with a grin. ‘And…’ He risked a final glance over his shoulder. ‘To be capable of love, nine times out of ten… Someone needs to love us first.’
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Russell T Davies and Justin Richards, for allowing me to write this footnote to the glory that is New Who, to my wife and family – Helen, Emily and Charlotte – for time, space and macadamia nuts, and to Terry Barker, Mike Chappell, Paul Cornell, Simon Forward, Nev Fountain, Matthew Graham, Dominic Lord at Jill Foster Ltd, Moray Laing, Mike Maddox, Steven Moffat, John McLaughlin and Charlotte Bruton at Campbell Thomson & McLaughlin, Helen Raynor, Gareth Roberts, Gary Russell, Rob Shearman, James Sinden, Keith Topping, Steve Tribe, and all the Unusual Suspects, for lots of other things.
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Published in 2007 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing. Ebury Publishing is a division of the Random House Group Ltd.
© Martin Day, 2007
Martin Day has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One
Executive Producers: Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner
Producer: Phil Collinson
Original series broadcast on BBC Television. Format © BBC 1963. ‘Doctor Who’, ‘TARDIS’ and the Doctor Who logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009.
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ISBN 978 1 84607 226 0
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Creative Director: Justin Richards
Project Editor: Steve Tribe
Production Controller: Alenka Oblak
Typeset in Albertina and Deviant Strain
Cover design by Henry Steadman © BBC 2007
Printed and bound in Germany by GGP Media GmbH
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Acknowledgements