TURLOUGH'S TALE
Chapter Nineteen
"You see, I told you I'd be back before the Doctor," I tell Tegan and Alexandra, not bothering to unload my burden before coming into the house. Tegan looks me up and down and says,
"You went back! Why did you go back?"
Instead of replying, I uncord the food package and hand it to Alexandra, who just stares at me. I retire to the sleds and free myself from the bundle of long torches without dispersing them, then return to the tent, where Alexandra has given Tegan the fur (which she is wearing draped scarflike over her head) and is examining the goodies I've brought back. "Where did you get this?" she asks. Again I decline to reply, instead settling myself down on my blankets and reaching into a pocket for the books I've lifted. One is a slim hardcover edition of A Christmas Carol, which I give to Alexandra. The other is Nevil Shute's On the Beach, in paperback; this I bestow upon Tegan. She gives it a cursory glance, turning it over for another glance before pocketing it in her fur coat.
"I demand to know where you were, Turlough!"
I laugh. "You demand?"
She scowls at me. "You're up to something, Turlough, as usual!"
"How long was I gone?" I ask Alexandra, ignoring Tegan.
"We have moved about three degrees. That's about three hours."
Tegan muses, "A lot like Earth."
"So it's still morning, and unreasonable to expect the Doctor back. Still. We can't just sit here for the rest of the day… and what if he doesn't come back?"
"How long do we give him?" worries Tegan.
None of us has the answer to that. We brood in silence for a while. Alexandra peruses the Dickens. "Maybe we should take turns reading this aloud," she suggests. "It seems to be a ghost story!"
"A ghosts story," I correct her, laughing. "Multiple spirits. Good fun."
We read aloud from cover to cover and the Doctor is still not back.
"Maybe the TARDIS took him to another planet in another year," I speculate, unhelpfully.
"Oh, I hope not!" Tegan is alarmed. Then she realizes, "He said we should follow the torches if he wasn't back in a day. If he intended to bring the TARDIS here, he wouldn't have said that. What if he took off and the TARDIS played its usual tricks and we followed the torches to an empty space? He wouldn't do that to us. He knows how unreliable the TARDIS is. Just like you, Turlough!"
I ignore the dig and ask, "Should we wait that long? Maybe I should go follow the torches and see if he made it."
"No," says Tegan, firmly. "You stay right here where we can see you." I hold up my hands to show that I am here, staying here, under house arrest. "You could tell us your ghost tale, Turlough. Everyone has except you."
"I haven't got one."
"You do," insists Tegan. "You're exactly the kind of person who would have a ghost tale and you'd be the unfriendly ghost in the story."
"You overestimate me," I counter.
"You're right, Turlough. I keep thinking you're human."
"Human enough." I know I look human; so does the Doctor. What has that got to do with anything? To tell the truth, I'm a bit sensitive about it. Most of the humans I've met are parochial and stupid.
The snowfall has thinned enough for us to tell when night falls. We've eaten the bread and the smoked fish, which was a delight but didn't last long. We've drunk enough tea to send us, frequently but one at a time, outside to relieve ourselves. We are contemplating dinner. Alexandra has a stash of frozen meat, "mystery meat" I call it, and we roast that over the fire, using the end of a long torch as a spit, until the stick starts to melt; then we just set it on the wood and let it char. I use my knife to divide it and we eat it with our hands, like cave people, fat dripping down our chins. When we are sated, we set the remainder aside for leftovers: breakfast.
"We should have saved a bit of fish for the Doctor," rues Tegan.
"He has plenty of food in the TARDIS," I remind her.
"If he made it."