Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles Part 10

'So how are we going to find this lorry?'

'Well,' the Doctor said a little sheepishly, 'I thought we might call the police.'

They'd unloaded the police box, and then Rachel had returned the lorry to the plant-hire yard. There had been a token argument about small scratches and repayment of the deposit, but she'd got her money. Then she'd caught the bus back to Marnal's house.

Marnal had spent the time in one of the upstairs rooms, looking for a key.

He'd found it just a minute before she returned. Now, with Rachel at his side, he was back in the garage ready to open the police box.

'It looks like an ordinary key,' she told him.

'The Doctor and I look like ordinary human beings,' he replied.

'I've been meaning to ask why a time machine looks like a police box. I mean, what is a police box anyway?'

'We Time Lords are a cautious people, as a rule. This s.h.i.+p is camouflaged as an Earth object so that it doesn't draw attention to itself.'

'It's nine feet tall and bright blue, with a lamp on top of it.' Without replying, Marnal slotted the key into the lock and twisted it. The thin door creaked open.

And, as never before, when Rachel stepped through the door it was like stepping into another world.

Inside the police box, which was just a few feet wide, was a s.p.a.ce only a little smaller than Marnal's whole house.

Walls stretched out and away, then swept back round to mark out a hexagonal s.p.a.ce. They were covered in shelves, instruments and alcoves, and were seemingly held up by iron pylons and what looked like stone b.u.t.tresses. The ceiling arched up like a vault. The floor was covered with various rugs and carpets, and a few chairs and small tables were scattered around. Every surface was covered in piles of books, candlesticks, Tiffany lamps and other odds 60 and ends. The overall effect was as if a Victorian steams.h.i.+p had crashed into a Gothic cathedral, and someone had opened an antiques shop there.

It wasn't that different from the clutter in Marnal's house. Presumably, immortals ended up with a lot of junk.

In the centre of the room, on a small dais, sat a control unit made from mahogany and wrought iron. A large column shot up from the centre of this, disappearing into the stonework of the ceiling.

There was a faint hum, coming from all around.

It was like that holiday in Italy, when she'd wandered into a small church.

From the outside, it had been a fairly plain wall with a big wooden door.

Inside, it was almost absurdly large and ornate. Mysteries hiding in niches and unexplored corners. Echoing footsteps and diffuse, weak lighting.

She felt nervous about touching anything here, and didn't feel that she understood it at all.

Marnal was perfectly at home. He strode up to the control console and circled around it. Rachel joined him, careful to stay out his way.

'Is it what you expected?'

Marnal nodded. 'He's redecorated, but everything I need seems to be here.'

'Um. . . Now what?'

Marnal was studying the instruments. He scowled, flicked a switch, then tried flicking it again. He pulled a couple of levers, checking a readout panel after each adjustment.

'Half the systems aren't working,' he said. 'Most of the other half don't seem to be turned on.'

He twisted a dial rather violently. Deep, deep beneath them the pitch of the hum changed slightly and the lights brightened a little.

'I'm going to have to recalibrate a lot of this before I do much more. That's not difficult, but it might take a day or two. It isn't safe to fly until then.'

'I'll look around,' Rachel told him. He didn't acknowledge her; he was too busy tutting over the controls.

Rachel quickly found an alcove containing what looked for all the world like an MFI kitchen. She didn't touch anything. If an old man could be an immortal alien and a police box could be a time machine, then a fridge could be a nuclear reactor or something. The bookshelves in another area looked innocuous enough. She plucked a book at random. Harry Potter and the Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Philosopher's Stone. This was worth a bit of money if it was a first edition, which it was. She opened it to check for damage. The first page had been crossed out, and someone had scrawled 'No, no, no, no, it didn't happen like this at all' in red ink. Rachel sighed, and put the book back on the shelf with its nine sequels.

Marnal was heading out of the door.

61.'You're not leaving me in here?' Rachel asked.

'I need some of my books and notes,' he called back.

Rachel was alone in the time machine.

She went over to the console, both hands tucked behind her back she wasn't going to risk pressing anything. There were hundreds of switches, levers, b.u.t.tons and dials. Various displays too, from blinking lights to a small television screen. It was all bra.s.s and polished wood, almost self-consciously Jules Verne. The Doctor wore clothes from the same period too, she recalled.

And Marnal had been here long enough to have met Verne. Either Victoriana had been the fas.h.i.+on on Gallifrey, or the two of them shared an affectation.

She paused. There was a handbrake, clearly labelled in English as a handbrake.

The only other thing she recognised was a display giving the time and location: Humanian Era, Earth, 6 June, 11:23:05, 2005. Each of the displays looked as though it could be adjusted. If she reached her hand out, just changed one setting, she could make it 2004 or 2006. She could go anywhere.

Her hand had snaked out and was heading for the console.

Rachel pulled herself away, then took a couple of steps back.

Marnal had returned with an armful of books and notebooks.

'You haven't touched anything, have you?' he asked.

Rachel shook her head.

Fitz was a fairly cosmopolitan bloke nowadays, he thought, equally at home in the muddiest huts of history or the soaring plastic towers of the future, but 1963 would always be the present. Some things about the twenty-first century baffled him. Take the advertising h.o.a.rding opposite the police station.

Fitz couldn't even work out what it was for. Adverts were meant to tell you what they were advertising. 'Drink beer.' Not 'Here's a hummingbird wearing boxing gloves hovering over a volcano, you work it out'.

Trix had found him.

'Not staying in there?' he asked.

'The Doctor can deal with all the formalities. He's getting nowhere at the moment.'

Fitz nodded.

'So, what's up?'

He glanced down at his cigarette packet. 'Smoking kills, apparently. And there's a hummingbird over there who can stop me getting Spam all over my computer. Something of a specialist product, I'd have thought.'

'You don't know what spam is, do you?'

'It took me a while travelling with the Doctor before I got used to the idea that someone could own their own computer. It's not the meat stuff, I take it?'

62.'Spam spam spam spam,' she sang, not as helpfully as she clearly thought.

Fitz shrugged.

Trix huddled up to him. 'What's the matter?'

'I don't care if this is the future. Let's do it. Let's leave.' She took a deep breath.

'Why not?' he asked.

'Because you're upset. It's a big decision, and it needs both of us to sit down and talk it through.'

'This isn't about Sam.'

She looked at him.

But it wasn't about Sam. 'I liked Sam, of course I did. I didn't think of her like that. A little young for me. Well, y'know, I'm male. And there was that one time with that parallel universe version of her when we ended up '

'You should probably shut up,' Trix suggested.

'It's not Sam,' he told her firmly. 'It's the Doctor. I think. . . I think I've grown out of him. The more I think about the future my future, I mean the more it seems silly to be following him around. He doesn't change. He'll still be there in another forty years, bouncing around saving the universe. He'll have some new bit of top totty with him, he always manages that somehow. Am I meant to follow them around with a walking frame?'

'If you want to.'

'You're not planning to be there, though, are you?'

'Where you come from, people have jobs for life. Here, we have careers. I was planning to hang around for a year or two, then move on.'

Fitz tried to do the maths, but he had no idea how long it was since he'd met Trix. His best guess was that she'd been around more than a year, less than two.

'I don't think of it as a job,' he said. 'It's my life. Last time we were here, the Doctor asked me about it. We were walking through the woods and I think he was hinting that I should go.'

'He's not really the subtle-hint type, is he? If he wanted to get rid of you, he'd tell you.'

'Even then, I didn't want to leave. Couldn't even imagine it. But I've changed.'

'You haven't, though.'

'I've changed by not changing at all.'

'Is this about him or you?' Trix asked.

Fitz thought about that. 'Both,' he said. 'He's hiding things, I know it.'

'We all do that. Everyone nudges things about their life under the carpet.

The Doctor may have some skeletons in his closet, but '

63.'I know what he did,' Fitz said, clearly surprising Trix. 'And I've spent so long biting my tongue. I've known for a while. I got my memories back months ago on Espero. I know why he'd want to avoid the subject it's hard for me just to think about it.'

'You think he has all his memories?'

Fitz nodded. 'I think so. I get a hint of it every so often. He's avoiding the subject but how can you avoid something so well if you don't know what it is?'

'We all have secrets.'

'Not like this.'

Trix gave an uncertain smile. 'Er. . . How bad could it be?'

Fitz shook his head.

'No.

I can't.

Just. . .

of all the horrible things we've seen, all the dead bodies and atrocities. Everything we've been fighting against. It was worse. And he knows it. But that's not the worst of it. . . '

She was looking at him, but he held up his hands.

'I'm not going to tell you,' he repeated. 'I shouldn't have said anything about it in the first place. Sorry, I didn't mean to. . . '

She seemed to accept that. 'What about Mars?'

It took a while for Fitz to remember what she must mean.

'Make a go of it? Take it slowly. Be normal for a bit. I'd need to get a job, of course, and '

'You wouldn't need to get a job.'

'I wouldn't?'

'Oh, look at your eyes light up. No. I have a little nest egg tucked away, for when I was ready to settle down.'

'You've found time to set up a savings plan?' Fitz asked. 'I barely have time to eat breakfast, let alone put aside any of my wages. . . Hang on a second, what wages?'

Trix looked at him, forgivingly. 'If we're going to set up here, we should make an appointment with my financial adviser. I'll go and tell the Doctor we've got something to do.'

Trix found the Doctor sitting at a desk in a back office in the police station, working on a computer.

'Five minutes ago, they were about to arrest you for being a nutter who was wasting their time.'