Part 27 (1/2)

There were bees on the windowsill.

Chris jumped back as they lazily droned into the air. He ducked his head, tucking his arms instinctively under his armpits so the insects didn't go into his sleeves. 'Hey, um, Roz?' he called.

There was a face at the window.

No, it was in the window, in the gla.s.s itself. As though a face-shaped ripple was moving through the stuff towards him.

There was a sudden, rus.h.i.+ng movement, into the morn.

Chris had the momentary impression of a hundred wings, a million feathers, exploding past him, whirling around him.

He felt himself uncurl, as though his life were a long, long line, spiralling backwards into the past, a silver cord that stretched back to his mother.

And the rus.h.i.+ng motion was along the line of his life now, from his birth to his first kiss to the time he burnt to the time he could hear Roz's thoughts to the last person he had killed to his last kiss.

Into the future.

Where Roz smiled at him and they were together in some dark place, with wet, soft gra.s.s against the skin of his back and the feel of her scars under his fingers.

And he was standing alone in the frozen air of the bedroom, hands flung out as though to ward off whatever was storming in through his closed window.

The bees settled onto the bedclothes, buzzing with satisfaction.

22 The name of the Roz

'If all you needed was a sort of galactic road repair service,'

said the Doctor, 'you could have just asked.'

Albinex was sitting on a counter in the laboratory, a toolkit and some spare parts pushed to one side to accommodate him. He held the gun in his lap.

'You know,' he said, 'you're right: I am new at this. But I can already see why you always defeat the villains. You must annoy them to death.'

'I'm quite serious.' The Doctor took the jeweller's lens out of his eye and rolled his sleeves back down. 'If all you wanted was to get back home, I'd have been pleased to help. No fees, no questions asked.'

'But that's not all I want,' said Albinex.

The engine was a glittering ma.s.s six feet wide, with a central core like a ma.s.sive salt crystal surrounded by extrusions and barbs. It looked as though it ought to crumble into powder at a touch, but the Doctor had been prodding and poking at it with a ballpoint pen for twenty minutes, making some sections light up and others chime.

'What do you think?' said Albinex.

'Well,' said the Doctor, 'the entire dimensional interfacing array has collapsed, which isn't surprising, given that it was stuck back on with model aeroplane glue.' He traced the fracture across the crystal with his pen. 'It must have been a nasty accident.'

'The s.h.i.+p was lucky to survive,' said his captor. 'And so was I. Can you make it work?' 'Possibly,' said the Doctor.

'But what if I refuse to help you? 'What? Then I'll shoot you.'

'While I'm standing behind your time engine?'

'It's not a projectile weapon,' said Albinex. 'It won't damage the engine.'

The Doctor stepped out from behind the crystal. 'There's one thing I would like to know.'

'Yes?' grated Albinex.

'This is a Navarino time engine,' said the Time Lord. 'So where did you get it?'

'I'm a Navarino,' said Albinex.

'They have a saying on this world: pull the other one, it's got bells on.'

Albinex got down from the bench. 'I am a Navarino,' he repeated, slowly, hoping it would sink in this time.

The Doctor grinned. 'A Navarino with a gun and an evil plan?'

'If you like.'

'The whole Navarino culture is based on frivolity and recreation,' said the Doctor, as though he was lecturing a dull pupil. 'They're so harmless the Time Lords even let them have limited time travel so that they can go on holidays.'

'And you tax us mercilessly for it,' said Albinex.

'Good grief,' said the Doctor. 'And I thought Navarinos just wanted to have fun.'

'I'm the exception,' said Albinex dryly. 'You've been to Navarro, then?'

'A while ago,' said the Doctor. 'For some much needed R and R. It was all we could do to get Chris back into the TARDIS. I think Benny still had the hangover three weeks later.'

'That's what they do,' said Albinex. 'That's all they do.

The only people who ever do anything constructive are the children, and all they do is fix the machines that run the planet and let the adults get on with partying.'

'But what about your artists? And your writers? Navarino literature and art are all the rage in this sector.'

'Adventure stories and comic books,' said Albinex.

'There's no art on my world. You can't have art without suffering. There's no conflict. There's no striving. The Navarinos are soft, fluffy, empty things.' He set his jaw. 'We weren't meant to live like that.'

'I seem to recall,' said the Doctor, 'that the Navarinos were the only nation who survived the war on your planet, precisely because they couldn't be bothered to join in the fighting.'

'And they let the other nations tear one another apart,'