The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [3]
"Why can't we just wait?" she said, already knowing the answer.
Because Steven was incapable of waiting for anything, that was why. Because he'd spent so long impotently pacing around his prison cell on Mechanus before the Doctor had rescued him that his patience had been used up. Not that he would ever admit it, of course. Not even to himself. It was odd, Vicki thought as she gazed at Steven's older yet somehow more innocent face, that her time spent stranded had been perhaps the most idyllic of her life.
She'd only had Bennett and Sandy the Sand Monster for company on Dido, but she'd been content. Now, although she was learning so much by travelling with the Doctor, that contentment had been lost. Every moment of her life, every person that she met, demanded something of her.
"We can't just wait," Steven explained, breaking her chain of introspection, "because the Doctor might be in trouble. The way he just... just vanished, right in front of us..." He hesitated, and rubbed a hand across his face. He was tired. Tired and scared, Vicki realized. He'd been alone for so long that he found the prospect of taking responsibility terrifying. 'It was like the Doc had been kidnapped.'
"But we haven't explored the TARDIS completely yet," she said, trying to inject a note of calmness into her voice. Getting angry with Steven didn't work - he just grew more stubborn and defensive. "The Doctor could still be here."
"Where?" Steven challenged, hand still on the switch. The door control switch, Vicki reminded herself. She didn't know what would happen if he pulled it while the TARDIS was in flight, but she suspected the results wouldn't be pleasant. "We've checked the bedrooms, the food machine alcove, the lounge -"
"What about the locked doors?" she interrupted. "The Doctor won't tell us what's behind them. There might be more rooms, rooms that the Doctor didn't want us to see."
Steven slammed his fist against the console. "Look, we have to do something! And I still think that if we can just materialize somewhere, we can find a trail, or a clue,"
"And what are you young people doing to my TARDIS?" a peremptory voice demanded from the other side of the console.
Steven and Vicki whirled around and gaped at the blurred, fractured bubble of darkness that had appeared - apparently inside the wall - and at the elderly figure within it. "Doctor!" they cried together.
He appeared to be sitting in a triangular framework, and he was frowning at them. Standing, not without some effort, he walked forward. Behind him, both the frame and the dark bubble were pulled apart into a coruscating web of lines which retreated into the far distance until they were lost from sight, leaving only the solid walls of the TARDIS behind the old man's figure.
"Doctor, we were -" Vicki began.
"Where have you been?" Steven demanded.
The Doctor fixed the space pilot with an imperious gaze. "Never mind where I've been," he snapped, "you were about to meddle with the ship's controls, weren't you?"
"No!" Steven protested. "I... I was just trying to -"
"Steven was trying to help," Vicki said calmingly. "You vanished without telling us where you were going. We were worried about you: we thought... Oh, I don't know what we thought. What happened?"
The Doctor's stern expression softened, as she had known it would. The one thing he couldn't resist was wide-eyed concern.
"My dear child," he said, "of course you were worried, and I have no right to scold you, hmm? If you must know, I've been... " He frowned. "Well, that's most extraordinary. I can't remember where I've been. The memory has gone. All I can remember is a dandy and a clown. A dandy and a clown." Ignoring the puzzled looks that Vicki and Steven exchanged, he raised a hand to caress his lapel, and appeared surprised to find that he was holding a small white envelope. "Hmm. Perhaps this will tell us something."
As Vicki and Steven watched, he opened the envelope and took out a slip of cardboard. He peered at it for a few moments, then took his pince-nez out of his