Dreamers of Beauty
This story serves as a sequel to the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip "Dreamers of Death" by Steve Moore. The opening paragraph of the story is a quote from the final panel of that strip. The Jackson Pollock in the Doctor's bedroom was first mentioned in Gary Russell's novel Divided Loyalties; the Sherlock Holmes quote comes from "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter". I do not own the characters of the Doctor, Sharon and Vernor Allen. Doctor Who is a trademark of the BBC.
Part One: Android Shock
I
"I'll try, Sharon… But you know the TARDIS… If I set the controls for Unicepter… It'll probably put me in Blackcastle!"
The Doctor awoke. Although he seldom slept, every few months weariness set in and sent him into a prolonged slumber, almost a hibernation. In his dreams he wandered through a personal history so temporally tangled that parts of it were half-forgotten, even by himself.
He sat up in bed, gazing groggily at the Jackson Pollock on the wall of his TARDIS bedroom. In his newly-awakened state, he could scarcely recall anything about the artist except how much he looked like Ed Harris.
Changing out of his pale blue pyjamas, the Doctor pulled on his yellow-and-black striped trousers, white shirt and multicoloured waistcoat, breathing a mental sigh of relief that his predestined future companion Mel was not yet in the TARDIS to nag him about the snug fit of his clothes. And yet, in a way, he wished he had met Mel already. Since Grant's departure, life in the TARDIS had seemed a trifle lonely.
Stumbling into the console room, he selected from the coat-rack his older patchwork coat, the one without patches of blue. He had come to feel that the blue did not blend well with the other colours, after all – another indication, he proudly told himself, that his dress-sense was improving with each regeneration.
Switching on the scanner, he felt his hearts sink slightly as the view reminded him of where he was. Bleak, industrial and rainy as ever, Blackcastle, England stretched away before him like a comic book artist's vision of Fascist Britain. The TARDIS was parked in an empty lot behind a disused warehouse, but a gap between buildings provided the Doctor with a gloomy vista of the aesthetically unpleasing city.
"Of all the places in all the infinite cosmos, why did I materialise you here, old girl?" the Doctor asked, patting the TARDIS control console. "Oh, yes, I remember – I had to defeat a party of Zarbi from the time of the Animus' reign on Vortis, who were trying to turn Blackcastle into a complex of food storage units. I should have left them to get on with it!"
The Doctor glanced at the navigational controls, wondering where to travel next. As he looked at the coordinates of Blackcastle on the display, a smile slowly spread across his cherubic face. He had remembered his dream, a dream undoubtedly brought on by the TARDIS' present location.
"Sharon! Of course! I haven't seen her in centuries – from my perspective, at least. I always meant to attend her wedding, but –"
The Doctor frowned briefly. Although he could theoretically use the TARDIS to reach any spatio-temporal location, it somehow felt wrong to visit his old friend so soon after last seeing her, when he himself had so long been remiss in not visiting her. On the other hand, it would scarcely do to aim for a time when Sharon was a grandmother.
"Six months after her wedding! That's when I'll materialise," he said aloud. "I can apologise for not being at her wedding, and we can catch up on her latest activities.
"While some of my recent companions may have felt me to be an insensitive and ungracious character in my present incarnation," he announced grandiloquently to no one in particular, "I in fact remain that which I have always striven to be – the soul of politeness."
II
The massive, heavily armoured spacecraft glided through the silence of space toward the small farming planet. An observer would have been struck by the grace and beauty of the craft, despite its warlike purpose. Shaped somewhat like an Earth fish, its intricate pattern of armoured scales suggested that the intelligences that designed it took pleasure in the harmonious interplay of form and function.
But there were no observers. The planet Unicepter IV feared no attack, had no robotic eyes in orbit to detect intruders. Nonetheless, the approaching spaceship maintained communications silence and was cloaked from detection by all but the most sophisticated equipment. Its occupants intended to leave nothing to chance.
"Orbit established, Leader."
"Excellent. Transmat the lab to the designated coordinates."
On the diagnostic schematic of the ship's interior that occupied one wall of the bridge, a large module of the ship simply vanished – to reappear elsewhere, the Warship Leader knew. The first phase was ready to begin.
III
The Doctor thumped the control console of his TARDIS in irritation. As usual, its steering mechanism was somewhat recalcitrant. Leaving the Blackcastle of 1986, he had set the coordinates for Unicepter at a time several months after his last visit, only to materialise in Blackcastle again – in late 1980, this time.
"Why does this TARDIS of mine always seem to do the opposite of what I tell it?" He gave a theatrically exasperated sigh. "The opposite…"
Then he smiled. He had again remembered his final words to his former travelling companion Sharon. And he also now remembered the second time he had battled Beep the Meep, when he had been on his way to Sharon's wedding…
"Of course!" he beamed. "If the TARDIS insists on landing in Blackcastle whenever I set the controls for Unicepter, then, if I set the coordinates for Blackcastle…"
Quickly punching in a new set of coordinates, the Doctor stepped back, pleased with himself, as the time rotor again rose and fell. Only a minute or so later – as well as time could be judged by the occupant of a time machine – the rotor again came to a halt and the Doctor again activated the scanner screen.
"Aha!" he exclaimed. "Unicepter IV, fourth planet out from a quite average Class G star, two moons, rotational period 25.1 hours…"
The Doctor frowned. Something was not right.
"Why are there three moons on the screen?" he asked himself. "And one of them is an odd shape. Small, too…"
Staring at the screen, he groped with his right hand to increase the magnification of the image. The screen pixellated and then cleared again. The Doctor let out a low whistle.
"A warship! With hostile intentions toward Unicepter, I'll be bound. No time to determine its origin, I should warn Sharon and Vernor without delay."
He pressed the sequence of buttons to initiate the TARDIS' descent from orbit to Unicepter's one major city, inwardly wondering why it seemed to take him so long to get anywhere in this regeneration – even without a companion with whom to bicker for fifteen minutes.
IV
Trevor Allen yawned. Guarding the creatures that had turned Unicepter's entertainment economy upside down, then proved to be psychic vampires who could coalesce into giant monsters, was less exciting than it sounded.
For the seventh time that morning, he checked the readings on the psychic field that kept his charges dormant and harmless. The field was stable. The furry brown creatures remained motionless in their enclosures.
Andrew Calla, a chubby young man who was one of Trevor's two fellow keepers, was sat in a chair reading Hyperdrive Magazine. Billy wouldn't be in until 17 o'clock for the evening shift.
"Slinth keeping," Trevor said to the room at large. "The most exciting job in the galaxy, am I right?"
"Right," Andrew agreed without looking up from his reading.
Trevor felt a twinge of conscience. Andrew, like Billy, had been a Dreamer prior to the Slinth Crisis, a year ago now. In one night, their creative and fulfilling profession had ceased to exist. They had been selected as slinth keepers by the planetary authorities because of their knowledge of and experience with the creatures.
Trevor, although younger than his two colleagues, had been made Head Keeper because of his degree from the University of Mars – a double concentration in Biology and Zoo Studies. The generous salary went a long way toward paying off his gigantic student loans, but did not quite compensate for the tedium of his job.
Sometimes Trevor wondered why his brother Vernor, who had both a university degree and experience as a Dreamer, had not applied for the Head Keeper job. But, in truth, he understood. Vernor wanted to put the fleeting era of the slinths behind him.
Rising from his chair, Trevor strolled out of the control room and paced back and forth in front of the slinth enclosures, which were rather like pig-pens on Earth centuries earlier. The enclosures lined a long corridor, which was replicated in the other three wings of the building and on two upper floors. Each enclosure was full of ten or fifteen brown furry creatures, as large as small dogs but with neckless heads at the front of the body and small feet that were invisible underneath them. All were lying on their stomachs or backs, fast asleep.
"I wonder what they dream about," Trevor said as he walked back into the control room.
"Probably the days when they were the in-thing on Unicepter," Andrew said.
After the supposedly harmless slinths had caused the deaths of several Dreamers and their clients, there had been widespread sentiment on Unicepter that the creatures should be destroyed as vermin. But not even Unicepter's aristocratic and somewhat autocratic government dared defy the animal-rights clauses written into the Galactic Charter. Animals could no more be destroyed for their misdeeds than could intelligent life-forms, not unless there was no alternative whatsoever. Therefore, Unicepter had had to find another way.
"Do you still know which one was yours?" Trevor asked Andrew.
"Sure I do. Slinth #1092, fourth pen on the right, third wing, second level. He used to be called Dafi."
Trevor glanced at Andrew. There was a bitter wistfulness in his eyes.
"Just going to check the supply closet," Trevor told Andrew. "Won't be long. Not much to do round here till lunchtime."
The closet was located halfway down the corridor of slinth pens. Trevor stepped inside and switched on the lights. One of the fixtures needed to be replaced, so one end of the room remained dim.
Trevor glanced around. Emergency report forms, first aid supplies, all unused, all neatly stacked. Cartons of concentrated slinth chow, to be fed to their charges in the unlikely event that the automatic systems ever failed. All in its place. All boringly perfect. Trevor turned back toward the door.
"Why they even hired us instead of setting up the place to run automatically, I'll never –"
Trevor froze. There was suddenly an odd electrical smell in the air. The sound of the storeroom's silence seemed to alter pitch, as though the pressure in his ears had changed.
Trevor turned slowly around, shivering inside. At the other end of the room, barely visible in the dim light, was something that should not have been there. It stepped forward.
It was a child. Or something like a child. Its small silver body glittered in the half-light with flecks of brilliant colour, red and purple and gold, like the fabled gemstones of old Earth. Its face was of an unnatural beauty, beyond that of the most beautiful children Trevor had ever seen. Trevor opened his mouth, but forgot to cry out.
The child took another step toward him. In its right hand, which shone like a silver glove, was a large bracelet. It glowed green from within, like an emerald containing imprisoned lightning. A silver cylinder was set into the bracelet – powering it?
Before Trevor knew quite what was happening, the child had reached him and had slipped the bracelet onto his left wrist. Again came the electrical smell and the strange sensation against his eardrums, and suddenly Trevor Allen was alone in the room.
But he was, in a sense, no longer Trevor Allen.
V
Sharon Davies Allen sat in front of her computer, working on her practice midterm for Earth History II.
"In the reign of Chia-Ching, Emperor of China, which year was known as the Year of the Pirate?
a) 1520
b) 1521
c) 1522
d) 1523"
The young, dark-skinned woman quickly punched in "c", then groaned as a red rectangle containing the word "WRONG" flashed on the screen.
"'WRONG'? Blimey, I was there! I should know!" Sharon sighed, and then smiled as her husband Vernor looked up from his own computer, where he was studying Alien Programming Languages.
"Sorry, Vernor. But it's so frustrating sometimes, when you've travelled through time, to see that people don't know what they're talking about…"
Vernor returned his attention to his own screen. He spoke seriously, but there was a mischievous gleam in his eye.
"Sharon?"
"Mm-hmm?"
"There's one question I've been meaning to ask you for a while now."
"And what would that be?"
"What exactly does 'blimey' mean?"
Sharon looked up at him. He was grinning wickedly. She laughed.
"Blimey, I don't know!"
They both laughed at that. Just then, the doorbell rang.
"I'll get it," Vernor said, pushing back his chair.
"No, I will," Sharon said, saving her practice test as she got up from behind her desk. "I'm not doing well on these questions anyway."
Her mind still full of the history of Earth, Sharon walked out into the hall and to the front door, scarcely even wondering whom she would find there. If she had wondered, she would not have been likely to guess correctly.
Sharon opened her front door and came face-to-face with a tall man with blond curly hair, dressed in one of the most bizarre costumes she had ever seen. His podgy face beamed with pleasure as he saw her, and he threw out his long arms in enthusiastic greeting.
"Sharon! How wonderful to see you again! I just thought I'd pop in and let you know that Unicepter is being invaded by aliens."
Sharon took a step back, trying to remember if she had heard of there being any insane asylums on Unicepter during her twelve months on the planet.
"And you are…?" she said slowly.
"Sharon, it's I, the Doctor!" the strange man said cheerfully.
"The Doctor?" Sharon's head spun. "I knew a man who called himself that once… But you're not him!"
"Of course I am!" the stranger retorted indignantly. "Don't you remember, Sharon? Beep the Meep, werewolves controlled by Daleks, Brimo the Time Witch… I admit my appearance may not be quite as you recall, but surely that which is on the inside is what counts…"
Sharon shook her head again. "But you can't have changed your face like that! D'you have plastic surgery or something? Must have cost a mint!"
The Doctor laughed.
"No, Sharon, my people can trade in their bodies, so to speak, if they get worn out or damaged. But I assure you that I am the same Time Lord you knew, as witty, wise and sartorially splendid as ever."
"And a fair bit more conceited, it sounds like."
"Ah, well, as an old acquaintance of mine once said, 'I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are –'"
"'– and to underestimate oneself is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers,'" Vernor finished for him, joining Sharon in the doorway.
"Vernor, this is the Doctor. At least I think it is," Sharon said, her head still spinning.
"Vernor Allen! What a delight to see you again, my good man," the Doctor said, shaking his hand. "I never realised you were a Holmesian during our brief former acquaintance."
"I had to get my imagination from somewhere," Trevor replied. "My first attempts at Dreaming were Holmes pastiches. But that's all over now, of course…"
"Yes, after my last visit your occupation was gone, as another friend of mine might say. So how have you both been occupying yourselves?"
"Well, Sharon here has been studying for her college degree with Unicepter University's online program, and I've retrained as a computer scientist."
"Computers? How fascinating! Tell me, what do you think of the Markham Paradigm?"
"Hold on a minute, you two," Sharon interrupted, raising her hand warningly. "Before you both get carried away with your high-tech stuff – what's all this about aliens invading the planet?"
VI
It was lunchtime at the Slinth House. Andrew Calla watched as the slinths' food was automatically dispensed to them in concentrated pill form. The furry brown creatures lazily picked up the pills in their mouths and slowly chewed them.
Andrew idly wondered whether he should go to the second level of the third wing to watch Dafi eat. It would be something to relieve the tedium. It would also make him sad, though. Maybe not.
He glanced over at Trevor, who was seated in a chair, staring thoughtfully into space. When Trevor, who was never talkative, had returned from checking the supply closet that morning, he had seemed quieter than usual for several minutes. He had then become unusually chatty, discussing the previous evening's tentaball match on Zubenelgenubi IV for a good hour. In the last few minutes, though, Trevor had become quiet again.
Suddenly Trevor stood, as though he had come to a decision – or as though one had been made for him.
"Right," he said. "There's something I have to show you, Andrew."
Andrew turned idly, not expecting to see anything of great interest. Trevor extended his right hand toward Andrew. For a moment the hand was empty; then there was something in it.
It was a bracelet, glowing green like some kind of novelty item from a cheap gift shop, with a silver cylinder set into it. As it appeared in Trevor's hand there was a strange metallic smell, and Andrew's eardrums popped. A strange shiver ran down his spine, but he ignored it.
"Hey, neat trick," he said. "I didn't know you were an amateur conjurer, Trevor."
Trevor replied in an unnaturally calm voice.
"These bracelets are new standard equipment for all slinth keepers," he said. "I received the order from the planetary government today. Put this on, Andrew."
Andrew Calla was not a very observant person. His first girlfriend had broken up with him when she realized he didn't know what colour her eyes were after dating her for a year. He winced at his own stupidity as he realised that Trevor was wearing a similar bracelet himself. He tried to remember when he had first seen it. Surely Trevor had not been wearing it when he arrived for his shift that morning?
"Put this on, Andrew," Trevor repeated.
Andrew blinked at the strange device.
"But what is it?" he asked. "Does it have something to do with the psychic field?"
"Put this on, Andrew," Trevor said for the third time, in the same unnaturally calm voice.
Andrew, somewhat startled, looked into his supervisor's eyes. They were calm, clear and open. Why was he so concerned? Everything was fine. His supervisor had asked him to do something, at the request of the government. Why had he not done it yet?
Andrew Calla took the bracelet from Trevor Allen's hand and slipped it onto his own wrist.
And in that moment he was no longer Andrew Calla.
VII
After three hours on Sharon's visiphone, the Doctor had not managed to get anyone in the planetary government to believe his warnings about an alien warship in orbit. He had spoken to an under-under-secretary of planetary defence, who had hung up on him when he had admitted that he did not know the warship's planet of origin, and to an officious but unintelligent immigration clerk who had demanded his student visa number.
He had, however, gotten through to reporters at two of Unicepter's more tabloid-y TV stations, who had promised to carry the story on the afternoon news. While he was on the phone Sharon and Vernor were pretending to continue their work on their computer terminals, but actually conferring about their strange visitor.
"Is he really the Doctor?" Vernor asked for the tenth time.
"He must be!" Sharon replied in a stage whisper. "He remembers things that only the Doctor would know."
"But he looks completely different!"
"Not completely," Sharon mused. "He's still tall, and he has the same big nose."
"And he's still poking it into things," Vernor remarked.
Their colloquy was interrupted by the Doctor slamming the phone receiver down.
"Can you imagine?" he asked as he approached them. "I spoke to that last lady for ten minutes, and then she asked me to repeat everything because she hadn't been writing it down!"
"I'm not surprised, with the five-syllable words you were using," Sharon said.
"Good old Sharon!" the Doctor beamed. "Always appreciative of my finer qualities! I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend your wedding."
"Yeah, why weren't you there?" Sharon asked. "Were you saving a planet or something?"
"As a matter of fact, I was battling our mutual friend Beep the Meep. Remember him?"
"Urgh!" A look of disgust crossed Sharon's face. "How could I forget?"
"Well, here I am now, and I extend my felicitations on your nuptial celebrations," the Doctor said. "Now, one or two of those news people said they would carry the story of the alien threat, so let us tune in to their reportage."
There was a brief delay as the Doctor tried to figure out how to turn on Sharon and Vernor's holo-TV set, finally giving up and asking them for help. As the unit warmed up, a serious-looking brown-haired man with a thin moustache appeared, seated in front of a backdrop of three large circles.
"And now an exclusive Vis-News report. A reliable source has called in to our news hotline with word that an alien warship has been detected in orbit around Unicepter. The craft is reported to be large and heavily armed, but its origin and intentions remain unknown. Government sources declined to confirm the report or comment on the story."
"I knew I should have ascertained the origin of the warship before leaving the TARDIS," the Doctor sighed. "But I was extremely desirous of telling the two of you about the situation. Several of those obstructionists with whom I spoke on the telephone were quite obstreperous in their demands that I provide them with the complete curriculum vitae of the invaders…"
"Doctor, what's this story? I'm trying to hear!" Sharon said, raising a hand to shush the Doctor.
"…park officials say there is no danger from the metallic smell, and that the park will remain open for business until 20 o'clock this evening. In other news…"
"That's the Moonrise Amusement Park in Lord Veith Street," Sharon said as an image of an old-fashioned roller-coaster disappeared from view.
"And visitors detected a strange metallic smell there today, did they?" the Doctor said thoughtfully. "That could derive from the transmatting of some large object from orbit."
"Surely that's a leap in logic," Vernor objected. "It might simply be an electrical problem or a minor chemical spill."
"Possibly," the Doctor said. "But it is somewhat suggestive that it coincides with the arrival of the warship in orbit. It may be nothing, but we should investigate."
The Doctor abruptly turned and strode toward the door, calling over his shoulder.
"Put on your hats, Sharon, Vernor," he said. "We're off for an afternoon of sybaritic splendour!"
He disappeared through the front door, leaving Sharon and Vernor gaping at each other.
"Did he have such a rich vocabulary when you knew him before?" Vernor asked.
VIII
A somewhat subdued, nervous crowd of pleasure-seekers milled about at the Moonrise Amusement Park. It was summer on Unicepter, and the sun was still some way from the horizon, but a chill seemed to have fallen on the visitors to the theme park, many of whom had apparently heard the strange, unconfirmed news reports.
As Sharon, Vernor and the Doctor wandered through a convincing replica of the moss-covered Ruined Walls of Rigel VI, they saw that mothers were clutching their children's hands more tightly than usual. Men glanced around nervously, as though ready to run at the slightest hint of danger. Even a three-legged dog hurried past them as though it wished to be somewhere else.
"The news reports were right, Sharon," the Doctor said, sniffing the air. "There is a strange metallic smell. And I don't know about you, but I feel an electric tingle in my teeth, as though a storm's approaching. Or as though I just bit through a live wire."
"Oh, you do that often, do you?" Vernor asked.
"Only in extreme emergencies," the Doctor replied serenely.
"Everyone's so nervous, Doctor," Sharon said, keeping her voice low. "Why are they staying in the park if they're so scared?"
"They probably had this day planned well in advance and didn't want to waste their money," the Doctor said. "I remember I visited Disneyland Mercury in my last regeneration, and people didn't want to leave even when the Ogrons showed up."
"Your last regeneration… D'you mean your last body?" Sharon asked. "The body you were wearing when I met you?"
"Oh, no, that wasn't my last body, Sharon. I was quite another person for a few years in between there. A pleasant, open-faced chap, somewhat bland. Fond of cricket, though I can't imagine why – such a boring sport…"
"A few years? But it's only been a year since we saw you last," Vernor pointed out.
"Ah, but I am a time traveller, my good man," the Doctor replied. "A chrononaut, a temporal explorer, a dandelion seed adrift on the winds of history. I am not fettered to your experience of the passage of time."
"How long has it been for you since you saw us, then?" Sharon asked a bit sharply.
"Counting the time I spent on my own after leaving you here, and my travels with Nyssa of Traken, and with my private detective friend Frobisher…" The Doctor considered for a moment. "Oh, about a hundred and fifty years, I would say."
Sharon's heart sank.
"A hundred and fifty years?" she said challengingly. "It took you a hundred and fifty years to come back for a visit? And you used up a whole lifetime in the meanwhile?"
The Doctor's mouth dropped open. He looked very much as though he would like to find something else to talk about. Suddenly his face cleared. He had found it.
They had emerged from the labyrinth of ruined walls into a large space of grass, a park within the park, beyond which was the large roller-coaster they had seen on the news. Many families with children were relaxing on the grass, or eating and drinking, taking a break from their enjoyment of the amusement park's attractions.
In the middle of the grassy space was a large floodlight trained on the roller-coaster. It was on a timer and would illuminate the thrill ride once the sun set.
"That's odd…" the Doctor said, frowning.
"What is it?" Vernor asked.
"There's a pool of water around the base of that floodlight," the Doctor remarked. "Surely that's rather hazardous? It can't normally be there. I wonder if it has anything to do with –"
Unfortunately, the Doctor had not kept his voice lowered. Several of the families on the grass, who had probably been at the edge of panic for a couple of hours and could have been set off by anything, rapidly got up and began running away. Some of the remaining park guests stood up and looked around in puzzlement, trying to see whether there was anything wrong.
The Doctor looked embarrassed.
"Sorry, everyone," he shouted. "There isn't necessarily any danger. I was just pointing out the strange presence of the water. The park staff should be informed of this safety hazard…"
IX
An alarm sounded shrilly.
"Time Lord technology detected. Powerful sonic device present but inactive."
"Release the security android."
"But we will be detected –"
"If a Time Lord is present, we cannot long escape detection. We must strike pre-emptively. Release the android."
X
The Doctor turned away from the pool of water and opened his mouth to say something to Sharon and Vernor. Suddenly there was a scream from behind him.
"What is that?!"
The Doctor whirled back to face the floodlight. From the centre of a circle of ripples, a bizarre shape was emerging from the seemingly shallow pool.
"Of course, now that I said that, there is something in the water," the Doctor said resignedly.
It was something like a large squid or octopus, but appeared to be made out of a flexible silver-coloured metal. Its body was covered with what looked like gemstones – purple, green, yellow…
The creature reared up out of the pool on its six tentacles. It raised one tentacle toward a middle-aged man who stood near it, clearly too terrified to run. A bolt of electricity zapped from the tentacle toward him. The man jerked, fell to the grass and lay still.
Suddenly there was pandemonium. Everyone in sight was running, parents dragging their children by the arms or picking them up bodily, mothers with prams knocking other people out of the way with them.
"Run!" Vernor shouted, grabbing Sharon by the hand.
"Which way?"
"The exit turnstiles are this way!" Vernor yelled, pointing to the left between the roller-coaster and the labyrinth. "I used to come here all the time as a kid!"
Sharon and Vernor ran, dodging prams and old people in wheelchairs. From behind them they could hear electrical zaps followed by screams and cries as the creature, in pursuit of the crowd, attacked more victims, but they did not turn to see what was happening.
As they approached the exit turnstiles, they could see they were already almost blocked by the panicked crowd. Nearly pulling Sharon's arm out of its socket, Vernor hurled himself toward the only turnstile left clear, then shoved Sharon in front of him and through the turnstile, following her a moment later.
They ran a few further metres until they were free of the struggling crowd emerging from the turnstiles. Then Sharon turned to look back.
"We're safe!" Vernor exulted.
"The Doctor! We've left him behind!" Sharon shouted.
Peering over the fleeing crowd, now squashed up against the inside of the turnstiles, Vernor glimpsed the tall figure of the Doctor. He was completely cut off from the exit by the crush of people. The metallic squid creature was nearly upon him.
The Doctor turned to face his pursuer. The creature raised a tentacle…
END OF PART ONE