Doctor Who - New Adventures - 57 - Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones

Author:Matthew Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-07-13T01:05:31+00:00

‘Well I hope not, Jack,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘I do hope not.’ He tilted his head and his brow furrowed. ‘I only glimpsed him, but he does seem familiar somehow. I’m fairly sure I don’t recognize him personally, but I think I’ve encountered others of his race before. It’s just a question of when and where.’

‘Doesn’t it say where he’s from in those papers?’

‘I’m afraid not, Jack. These only seem to be the plans for a time corridor.’

‘Come again?’

‘A gateway linking one time and place in the Universe with another. A secret passage in the structure of the Galaxy. The Universe’s equivalent of a back staircase. Presumably that’s how Moriah found his way to Earth.’

‘Oh,’ Jack said, feeling rather out of his depth. He tried to imagine what a corridor in time and space might look like, and failed. Weren’t spacemen supposed to travel to Earth in silver flying saucers?

The Doctor must have caught sight of the expression on his face, because he smiled and said, ‘Why not have a look around? See if you can find any clues.’

Jack nodded and wandered a little aimlessly around the room. He had no idea what a ‘clue’ might look like, and suspected that the Doctor wasn’t really expecting him to find anything, only trying to get him out of his hair for a few minutes.

The room was decorated with strange and unsettling objects. A stuffed eagle sat in a tall glass jar, the skulls of small rodents decorated the mantelpiece, and a line of small bottles filled with opaque liquid had been placed precariously along one of the bookcases. Jack pulled the tiny cork out of one of them and, gingerly, took a sniff. It smelt faintly of aniseed. Peering inside, he thought he saw the liquid begin to climb up the side of the glass towards him.

Reminded of the black cab, Jack hastily pressed the stopper back on the bottle and replaced it on the shelf.

A large portrait of a woman hung on the far wall. Something about the painting bothered Jack. It took him a moment to work out what it was. Whoever had hung the painting had placed it too low down on the wall. The bottom of the large picture frame was only a few inches above the ground, and yet there was a much larger gap between the top of the painting and the ceiling. Jack moved forward to examine the painting more closely, it was almost as if the painting was covering a –

‘Blimey,’ he whispered, as he moved closer and saw the face of the woman in the picture. That face was unmistakable. The woman was dressed in elegant, ornamental robes, and wore a strange headdress which concealed her hair.

She was sitting in a room which was decorated in similar symbols to those inscribed on the papers the Doctor had found on the desk. However, it was the woman’s face which had caught Jack’s attention so completely.

122

‘Doctor,’ he managed, but his voice was a hoarse whisper.

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