Doctor Who_ The Blue Angel Part 15

'This is a real kamikaze mission,' Blandish said. 'We're going the whole hog.'

'What do you mean by that?' asked the weapons expert.

'I mean, I am activating the weapon that I've never tried before.'

'You don't mean...'

Blandish nodded grimly. 'I don't see why not.'

As they picked their way through the rubble, they were approaching the Steigertrude women, who were still looking for their stolen engine.

'What are they?' asked Timon, appalled.

'As dead as the rest of us,' said his captain, who had slipped into a very peculiar mood.

Emba stepped forward.

'I suggest we join forces,' she said reasonably. 'And find the heart of this city and seize it.'

Blandish shrugged. 'It doesn't matter now.'

Emba looked at him curiously. 'What kind of soldier are you?'

'The Federation will be sending s.h.i.+ps soon. So will the Draconians, the Daleks, the Martians, the Sontarans and Cybermen. Everyone will be coming here. We don't stand a chance. And neither does the rest of the universe while this city is still here.'

'Then,' said Emba. 'We must burn it,' said Emba.

Blandish nodded. 'Agreed.'

They agreed this just as the same thought struck the transformed Belinda.

And she knew that, if Blandish had in fact escaped midi survived, he had the perfect means to bring all this to an end.

She was one of the few crew members of the Nepotist Nepotist to have the privileged knowledge. The knowledge of how exactly Blandish was armed. to have the privileged knowledge. The knowledge of how exactly Blandish was armed.

He could tick himself down to annihilation. Any Federation s.h.i.+p's captain could. It was seen as a necessary precautionary measure.

The captain's spleen had been replaced, at the outset of his career, by a tiny warhead.

As this memory drifted through Belinda's mind, the captain was making the necessary adjustments to activate the timer.

And as he led Timon and Emba and Steigertrudes into the wrecked City of Gla.s.s, he was ticking very quietly.

The Doctor hurled himself out into the black wind.

Iris followed with the others.

He howled out of rage and frustration.

'You did it on purpose! You stopped me helping everyone!'

Compa.s.sion looked curiously at Iris. 'Did you?'

Iris shrugged. 'There was no way I could really really get back to that exact moment. He should have known that. I saved our necks. Isn't that enough?' get back to that exact moment. He should have known that. I saved our necks. Isn't that enough?'

She shouted over the noise of the wind at the Doctor. 'Is that enough?'

'No!' he roared. 'I could have done it! I could have stopped this war!'

Iris shook her head. 'No. You can't always win. It had to go on.'

'It did not! I was there! I could have made them '

'Doctor,' said Iris, moving towards him. 'It is inevitable. The universe and its Obverse. You couldn't impose yourself between them.'

He looked at her, his face twisted in horror. 'I don't know what you've done.'

Iris shook her head. 'It's your TARDIS you should blame, lovey, not me. You think it's coincidence it keeps plonking you right in the middle of all these dimensional disturbances encroaching on your precious Earth?'

'What are you saying?' the Doctor demanded.

'I'm saying your own s.h.i.+p knows more than you do... It knows what's going to happen, what has has to happen. It's doing the rounds, it's been trying to prove itself wrong but you to happen. It's doing the rounds, it's been trying to prove itself wrong but you mustn't mustn't go back to the Obverse, Doctor. You simply mustn't.' go back to the Obverse, Doctor. You simply mustn't.'

The Doctor stared at her. 'I don't even know who you are any more.'

Iris shrugged. 'I'm just glad I could save your life. All our lives. That's enough for me.'

The Doctor pulled away from her.

'I wish I'd let you die on Hyspero.'

She gasped. 'You don't mean that.'

'I want to go into the Obverse,' he said.

'You can't.'

'You know about it. You can tell me how to get there.'

'I can't.' Iris looked away from him. 'Not yet.'

'You have have to tell me, Iris.' to tell me, Iris.'

'I don't. You can't go there yet.'

'When, then?'

'Trust me, Doctor. I've sorted it out. I've sorted it out so you don't have to go there...'

'Fitz! Compa.s.sion!' he shouted. 'We're leaving!'

Fitz came hurrying up. 'How? I mean, where are we?'

The Doctor pointed through a gap in the dark trees.

Fitz looked through.

There was a sharp hill, drifted with snow.

Further afield lay the lights of Tyneside.

The angel statue, aglow with orange.

The shopping mall, blazing with late-night shopping lights.

The car park, packed to bursting.

And, closest to them, in all this regular hubbub, the TARDIS. Solid, blue, waiting for them.

'How did you know...?' he turned to ask the Doctor.

'I'm going now, Iris,' said the Doctor quietly.

She nodded. 'One day you'll see. There are things we really can't get in the way of.'

'Perhaps one day you'll care enough to explain it to me,' he said, in a very level tone.

Iris was fighting to stop her eyes watering. 'I will. You know I will.' She laughed bitterly. 'G.o.ds, if you don't know already, you ought to. Doctor, one day you'll sit and listen to me, and I'll tell you the whole lot. Everything. One day you'll stay with me long enough.'

He looked her up and down. 'Iris... I don't think I want to stay with you that long... not just yet.'

He turned away from her and led his two companions through the black trees.

He turned his back on the bus and its lights blazing aboard and Iris silhouetted in their glow. She waved once but he had stopped looking back.

He led Compa.s.sion and Fitz through the trees and down the sharp, snowy hill, to the car.

'Why did you ever trust her?' Compa.s.sion asked him. 'She caused all of that. She made that war inevitable.'

He fished around in his pockets for his TARDIS key. 'It's just like I said. I've got to look again at the people I trust. I never used to be so... gullible. Pliable.'

Compa.s.sion looked stung at this.

They had to climb over a metal fence to get to the TARDIS.

Fitz tried to make the Doctor smile, pa.s.sing his old scarf over to help him.

'I hate the feeling that Iris knows something I don't,' said the Doctor, as they walked up to the s.h.i.+p. 'It's like something hanging over my head.'

Compa.s.sion's eyes narrowed.

Fitz spoke up as he followed them into the vast, dusty, darkened console room.

'Don't you wish... sometimes... we lived a quieter life?'

Chapter Forty-Three.

My Mother Warned Me...

My mother warned me about nights like these.

She was a mermaid, so she knew all about existing in more than one world.

Nights like these leave you prey to the demands of numberless worlds.

They sparkle and gleam and try to seduce and lure you into places you'd only dream about otherwise.

They tell you that this town isn't the only one where you might live.

Fitz and Compa.s.sion went off blearily to sleep.

Sally went to check that her dog was all right, had a quick word with him, and a f.a.g, and then pa.s.sed out drunkenly on the sofa.

Iris pulled a rug over her and then announced that she was going off for a midnight walk, as she often did, and would I care to join her?

It turned out she was a naturist. Her idea of a midnight walk in the snow was to throw off every last st.i.tch of clothing in my hallway and go galumphing out into the night starkers.

I was appalled.