Part 26 (2/2)

Sidney pointed at a pa.s.sing road sign. 'Newcastle.

Booked into a motel for the night. Tomorrow, off to Byron Bay. Then to Cairns.'

Polly thought of her Australian geography. Byron Bay, she knew, was where lots of people had headed to Australia to hang out. A couple of her friends from Leeds University had gone there - cheap pot and lots of communes.

Something about peace, love and harmony. Free love, they had called it. Said that within three years, the whole world would come to know, respect and belong to the hippy communities. Byron Bay was going to be the new cultural centre of Australia. Polly had doubted it then. Looking at Earth thirty years on, she doubted it now even more. But Cairns? What was there? The Barrier Reef? Flipper Flipper? She had seen an episode of that just before she met the Doctor.

No, that was American. And Skippy was a bush kangaroo but there was little bush near Cairns. A few rain forests though. Polly thought back to her training as a courier - a job that had lasted only a few weeks after she had told the tutor that he was as pompous and stuffy as Daddy. They had told her that rain forests were going to vanish over the next fifty years. Maybe by 1994 they had all gone. She would soon know. 'Why Cairns?' Asking seemed the best way of getting answers, and it was too early in the morning for her head to sort this out clearly.

206.

Sidney ignored her question. 'Newcastle is about another hour. Relax, Miss Wright.'

Tim frowned. 'We got out of Sydney very quickly, Sidney. Have you been chrono-tunnelling?'

Sidney grinned. 'You caught me out, Mr Tim. As soon as I sensed your RTC, I knew we'd be safe.'

'RTC? What RTC?' asked Polly.

Tim turned and smiled, reached out and took her left hand, running his thumb across it in circles. 'Go to sleep, Polly, there's a love.'

Polly slumped back in the seat. No one told her anything any more. Like, what happened at some house. Why couldn't she remember . . . why couldn't she . . . The last thing Polly could really sense was Tim letting her hand go.

Blackness.

'Well? Well, did you manage it?'

'Manage what?' Dent squirmed in his Victorian wheelchair, staring ahead into the whiteness.

Mrs Wilding was behind him. 'Did you collect them?'

Bridgeman and Nate Simms crawled over. 'Is someone coming?' asked Bridgeman.

'Someone new to play with?' wondered Simms.

Mrs Wilding patted their heads. 'Yes. But before they get here, we need to get you two sorted out.'

Dent suddenly struggled in his chair, his adrenalin pumping, putting his mind totally back in control. 'Is that wise?'

'I have to do it.' Mrs Wilding waved around the open s.p.a.ce. 'We can do nothing here. We need to be in the garden when the nexus opens. These two have been there.'

Dent pulled on her sleeve. 'We don't know that. Not for sure. Their brains are as addled as mine. They could have heard us mention it and decided to tell us they'd been there.'

Mrs Wilding came round the front of Dent's chair, her black dress suddenly looking less severe, her whole demeanour softer. 'My love, I know that's a possibility, although I don't think we did mention it. But like this, 207 they're no use to anyone. Least of all themselves. Now I know I can try and do something.'

Dent took her hand. 'I've never challenged you before, beloved, but I ask you to consider this. You tried rectifying her meddling once before, remember?'

Mrs Wilding lowered her head and rested it on her knees.

'Do you hate me?' she asked softly.

He ran a hand through her hair. 'No. I love you.

But trusting you with my brain and trusting you with theirs is different. I gave myself knowingly. They can't. Humans don't have the knowledge or the s.h.i.+elds. If they did, she'd find it harder to destroy them. I can't stop you doing this, but I can't give you my unconditional support either.'

Mrs Wilding looked up at him, her eyes glistening with tears. 'If only I'd left you alone, you might have cured yourself eventually. Instead, I condemned you to this constant pain. Constant brain-slides.' She looked across at Bridgeman and Nate Simms, chasing each other with the energy and enthusiasm of eight-year-old humans. 'If I succeed - and I know it's a big if - if I succeed, will they remember these days? Will they hate themselves, each other and me for forcing them to come to terms with it?'

Dent pulled her closer and kissed her gently on the cheek.

'Do what you must, my love.'

She kissed him back and stood up, wiping her face with her pinny. She gave a last look at Dent's uncommonly lucid face, tried to smile and then turned away. 'Boys!' she barked, adopting her sternest voice. 'Boys, come here now!'

Bridgeman and Nate Simms stopped and looked around, as if hoping she was talking to some other boys, but Mrs Wilding's indicating finger was aimed at them. Sheepishly they came over, Nate Simms put his arms behind his back, and kicked something invisible on the floor.

'Haven't done anything, Mrs Wilding. It wasn't us.'

'Not true,' Mrs Wilding said loudly. 'You've both been very bad boys. Very bad.'

Bridgeman sniffed and started to cry. 'Wasn't us.'

'Bad boys. Now look at Mr Dent.'

208.

They did so and Mrs Wilding pointed at him. 'Mr Dent says you pushed his wheelchair over. Did you?'

'No!' they both chorused.

'Yes you did!' called Dent. 'Punish them, Mrs Wilding.

Punish them so they'll never forget it.'

The two men who thought they were boys shrunk away from him, dropped to their knees and pressed into Mrs Wilding's pinny for comfort.

'He's a hateful man, isn't he? A mean old bitter man with no legs and you hate him because he's always so mean to you. Isn't that right, boys?'

Bridgeman looked at Dent and then Mrs Wilding and burst into tears. 'Yes!' he sobbed. 'I hate him.'

'Me too,' grunted Nate Simms. 'Silly ugly old man. I hate him lots.'

And Mrs Wilding bent down to them. 'Scream out how much you hate him then. Scream it out now!'

And the two men screamed the word 'Hate!' out as loud as they could. Over and over again.

And Mrs Wilding suddenly screamed and shocked the two men into silence. They stared at her, strange feelings of hate and fear coursing through them. Remembering another scream very like hers.

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