Part 25 (1/2)

Greyhaven pointed out one of the images.

The picture rippled, filling with an aerial view of the Doctor half-running, half-stumbling along a main street littered with human corpses. He was running towards the cloud, waving his arms.

The Red Death was getting nearer and nearer.

'It's almost as though he wants to be found,' Staines observed.

Xznaal leant forward, almost dipping his head into the hologram. 'You can feel its hatred of him,' he hissed, his pincers clattering together in antic.i.p.ation. 'Kill him!' he shouted, 'Kill the Doctor!'

He was at the corner of the main street. The red cloud was surging towards him like a tidal wave, breaking over the roof of Mrs Darling's little shop. It had gathered itself together, and now it was lit from within. Tiny lightning flashes revealed billowing crenellations and blossoming stegosaur spines built up from layer after layer of blood-red fumes.

There was a cras.h.i.+ng from inside the building. There was someone in the shop, directly in the path of the cloud.

Some instinct within the gas knew it too. It paused and began scuttling across the roof. It had clearly decided that it could have some sport with whoever was in the building, and then be able to return to its primary target. The Doctor jogged ahead and peered in through the window.

The door was locked, but that didn't pose a barrier to someone with a sonic screwdriver. Once inside, the Doctor closed the door behind him and switched on the light.

There was a plaintive miaow from underneath a col apsed row of shelving.

The cat had probably brought the shelves down on himself - he was a heavy old thing. It was Stevie, the big white moggie that Mrs Darling had owned for as long as the Doctor could remember, which was a very long time indeed.

He was blocked in on al sides by shelves weighed down by heavy tin cans. The Doctor moved a couple of tins aside, and cleared a way through. Stevie looked dopily up at him, as though he'd been planning to bury himself alive and wouldn't tolerate such interference in his sleep patterns.

The fog was thickening outside, enveloping the building. The Doctor didn't have long.

He prompted Stevie, trying to tempt him out of the hole by smacking his lips and rubbing his fingers together. He'd never worked out why, but universally cats seemed to recognise that as meaning ”come here”. The cat struggled to comply, but still couldn't move. The Doctor tried to ease the shelving unit back, but it was wedged against the wall.

A sickly red mist crept past the shop window, pausing there.

If there was a chance that the Doctor could save a life, then he would always try.

He had to work around the cat, to dislodge one shelf rather than the whole unit. He began removing tins.

The Doctor could end wars, repel invasions, track the villain to his lair, expose master plans and wipe out evil across the universe of time and s.p.a.ce, he could do all that before breakfast.

A tendril of cloud slapped against the window pane with surprising strength, but not enough to crack the gla.s.s.

The cat looked up, its eyes wide, its ears swept back. ”Get out,” it was warning him, ”Save yourself”.

But if the Doctor couldn't use his unique abilities and special powers to save the life of one little cat, then what was the point of having them?

The cat looked at him, c.o.c.king his head to one side, acknowledging the Doctor's help for the first time.

'I won't leave you,' the Doctor a.s.sured him.

Because when it comes down to it, doctors save lives and any life is worth saving.

Death came drifting through the cracks in the doorframe.

The Doctor eased the shelf up, opening an escape route. Almost before he had finished, the cat had scurried away, over the counter. For an instant it paused, granting his saviour one of the rarest things in the universe: feline grat.i.tude. And then he had gone, out through the catflap in the back door.

The Doctor grinned.

There was a crackling, popping sound like bacon under a grill.

The Doctor stood, brus.h.i.+ng a cat hair from his frock coat.

It was forming and reforming the whole time, but there was a central ma.s.s there, a writhing, sulphurous thing with a hundred eyes, al watching him.

Tendrils of crimson vapour wafted towards him, sensing a trap.

It smelt of cigarettes, of exhaust fumes, of week-old dustbins. It smelt of decay. It smelt of Death.

The Doctor straightened, his hands behind his back.

Time Lords have many lives and that means that they die many times. That didn't mean it was ever easy.

Death moved tentatively, finding no fear from its prey. It instinctively knew that in killing him it would kill itself.

The Doctor knew now that someone else would liberate Britain from the Martians, someone else would confront the traitors, organise the rebels and destroy the monsters. He had no regrets, why would he? For twelve hundred years and in every corner of time and s.p.a.ce he had helped others to hold back death, he'd helped them to go forward in all their beliefs. Then by their own achievements, their own heroism, their own sacrifices, his companions - his friends - had proved his actions right. He could wish for no better epitaph.

88.The Doctor prepared himself.

Death drew itself into a red circle around him, filling the whole of the shop, hissing all the time.

'h.e.l.lo,' the Doctor said softly, holding out a paper bag. 'Would you like a jelly baby?'

It was steeling itself to pounce, savouring the moment. It began tensing panther muscles made of smoke. A carnivore mouth was forming, vaporous jaws and hazy fangs.

The Doctor smiled, and welcomed Death as it swept over him.

89.

Chapter Twelve

The No Doctors

Thursday, May 15th 1997 Benny stretched her arms and yawned.

When she opened her eyes, the Doctor was standing there, his umbrella in one hand, a tray full of breakfast things carefully balanced in the other. She was in her room at Allen Road, the one opposite Chris Cwej's on the first floor.

'Good morning, Benny,' he said, standing in a shaft of warm spring sunlight. 'I've brought you some strong black coffee and lightly-done toast, just how you like it. I'm afraid that Chris has taken the last of the marmalade.' His face wrinkled up. 'Are you al right?'