Doctor Who - Past Doctor Adventures - 72 - Spiral Scratch (6th Doctor) by Gary Russell

Author:Gary Russell [Russell, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Science Fiction, Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 9780563486268
Google: vmw7AAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0563486260
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2005-08-03T07:00:00+00:00

‘Is she all right?’ said the Doctor.

Kina shrugged, but stayed focused on what was, as far as Melanie was concerned, a shop doorway.

‘If they’ve disappeared, Doctor,’ Melanie asked, ‘how can she see her mother?’

Without taking his smiling face away from Kina’s line of vision, the Doctor spoke softly to his companion. ‘What did Kina say when we first asked about her mother?’

Melanie closed her eyes, using her memory to bring the phrase back. ‘She said: “They made my mummy vanish.”

The Doctor shook his head. ‘Your mind’s going Melanie, you’re mixing it up with what we assumed to be the case. Think harder.’

‘Got it: “They made my Mummy stop.”’

‘Spot on. We thought they’d vanished, but they haven’t.

They’ve stopped. Literally. Time has stopped for these people, but not their surroundings. So the rain, the sun, the wind, it carries on. We carry on. But Kina’s friends and family stopped while everything around them carried on.’

Melanie frowned. ‘Some kind of time manipulation?’

‘A clever interstitial trap.’ The Doctor stood up and moved away from Kina, a few feet back. Then he stopped. ‘Kina. Kina, I’m going to reach out and I’d like you to tell me when I’m touching your mummy. Is that okay? And I promise you that by touching her, I’m not hurting her in any way. Is that all right with you?’

Kina looked between the Doctor and Melanie, who smiled reassuringly at her, hoping that would be enough to swing things in their favour.

It worked. Kina looked at the Doctor and nodded.

‘Thank you, Kina,’ he said. ‘Now you just raise your hand like this when I’m very close but not touching her, yes?’ Again Kina nodded her understanding. Her acceptance. As the Doctor took a few tentative steps to his left, Kina shot her arm into the air.

The Doctor smiled at her. ‘That’s very good, Kina. Very helpful indeed. You’re doing very well with this. Are you okay to continue?’

Kina nodded. It seemed to be her favoured form of communication, really.

The Doctor reached gently forward, wiggling his fingers slightly. ‘Just tell me as soon as I touch her, yes?’

‘Yes,’ said Kina, breaking her silence. A second later, she said quietly: ‘Stop. That’s Mummy.’

‘Is your daddy there, too?’ asked Melanie.

Kina pointed slightly further to the Doctor’s left and Melanie slowly made her way to the approximate area indicated. ‘Stop,’

Kina said to her after a few seconds.

The Doctor smiled at Melanie this time. ‘Can you feel him?’

Melanie said not.

‘Me neither,’ said the Time Lord. ‘Yet I can sense there’s something here. Something slightly...’

‘Out of phase?’

‘Very good. Yes, call it Time Lord intuition, but there’s definitely some kind of time distillation around here.’

‘So how can we bring these people back into step with reality?’

The Doctor shrugged and moved both himself and Melanie further away, hopefully out of Kina’s earshot. ‘I honestly have no idea. I’m more concerned as to what kind of power can do this and why it didn’t do it to Kina if it selected everything else alive.’

Melanie looked around her, shielding her eyes from the sun.

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