Doctor Who: BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures [067] - Sometime Never... by Justin Richards

Author:Justin Richards
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563486114
Publisher: Diamond Comic Distributors
Published: 2004-02-03T23:00:00+00:00

Freeze-Frame

Trix watched with amusement as Fitz pushed through the crowd to join her.

Her good humour had helped her over the shock of seeing Fitz bring the two youngsters into the foyer. God knew how he found them, and their presence raised questions that Trix was not sure she was qualified even to ask.

‘Trix?’ Fitz said quietly as he stood beside her.

‘Took you long enough,’ she told him, in her normal voice rather than the high-pitched, nasal flutter she had adopted for Miss Crystal Devine.

‘Yes, well I had other things on my mind.’

‘So has the Doctor, by the look of things.’ She nodded towards the front of the crowd.

Curator Pearl had forced his way through the front few people to join Fleetward and the Doctor beside the display case. ‘Who is this man? Why the delay?’ he demanded. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘This is the Doctor,’ Fleetward said, as if this explained everything.

Pearl, by contrast, was far from mollified. ‘Well, get him out of the way. We’re wasting time.’

It was the Doctor who replied, his voice clear and loud and authoritative.

‘I can assure you that we are not wasting time. For the simple reason that outside this Institute – quite possibly outside this foyer – time has stopped.’

There was silence at this pronouncement for several moments. Then Pearl gave a forced, high-pitched laugh. This broke the spell, and there were mutterings and murmurs from people as they turned to each other in a mixture of surprise, amusement, and perplexity.

‘Is it another trick like that man was doing?’ a woman close to Fitz and Trix asked her neighbour. ‘Do we have to guess something?’

The Doctor too had heard her. ‘Yes,’ he announced loudly. ‘It is a trick. Of sorts. But quite beyond anything that Mr Patterson could arrange, I fancy.’

Trix glanced round and saw Patterson raise an eyebrow. But he said nothing.

‘I don’t have answers to all your questions,’ the Doctor went on. ‘I don’t even have answers to all my questions. But I do know that we, here in this Institute, are under siege.’

There was no laughter now, but exchanged looks and the beginnings of anxiety.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Pearl shouted above the hubbub. ‘Are you suggesting some sort of terrorist threat? Look around you, man.’

‘Doctor,’ the Doctor corrected him. ‘And what I’m suggesting is far more dangerous than any terrorist activity. Unless you can countenance the existence of time terrorists.’

‘Time terrorists?’ Fleetward asked.

The Doctor nodded. ‘And they want to change History.’

Pearl seemed to gather himself. When he spoke again his voice was calmer, more controlled. ‘And they aim to change History now? How? By withholding our champagne?’

He looked round, a derisory smile fixed on his face. Some people laughed with him. But not many. Most could see that the Doctor’s face was dark and serious, and even Trix found she shivered to look at it. Beside her Fitz too was tense and uneasy.

The Doctor’s reply seemed so quiet that it was a mystery to Trix how she – and everyone else – could hear it.

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