Doctor Who (9 page)

The Doctor was completely taken aback by the Dalek’s entrance. He knew that these people here on Carthedia had been fooled into thinking the Daleks were some kind of force for good, but he still had not expected to find Daleks acting as public servants in legal cases.

‘Dalek Litigator,’ said the judge in a spiky little voice, allowing himself a smile – a rather smug smile, thought the Doctor. ‘We do not often have the honour of your presence in the police courts.’

Dalek Litigator? That was a new one, thought the Doctor. He studied the Dalek, which did not reply to the judge’s rather oily welcome. Nothing extraordinary about this specimen, thought the Doctor. Just a standard, bronze Dalek. But then … there was …

Something.

The Doctor blinked, feeling slightly woozy. He felt himself falling forwards for a moment. He found himself steadied by Hellic.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Hellic.

‘Um …’ the Doctor managed to say, feeling a distinct sense of nausea. He looked up at the Dalek Litigator again. For a moment, its entire form seemed to blur. The Doctor shook his head and blinked again. The blur shrank to the grating section below the Dalek’s dome, then cork-screwed away altogether, like misty water swirling down a plughole.

‘Doctor?’ asked Hellic.

‘What?’ asked the Doctor, snapping back to reality. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘The file says that is what you’re known as,’ said Hellic.

‘Oh … er … yes …’ said the Doctor, still disorientated. ‘Look, I wanted to ask you about the children,’ said Hellic.

‘The children … yes, Sabel, Ollus and Jenibeth …’ said the Doctor, suddenly feeling some urgency, remembering the muted sound of Jenibeth’s sobbing. ‘What’s happened to them? I must find out what’s—’

‘All right, all right,’ said Hellic, glancing over his shoulder. ‘I’ll try something on that front. Hold tight. Here we go.’

Hellic nodded to the judge. The judge touched something on his desk and an electronic chiming sound rang out three times.

‘Court now in session,’ said the judge.

The Dalek’s eyestalk raised and fixed its blue glare on the Doctor. The Doctor stared right back at it.

The judge began to read the charge. ‘You are charged with incitement to hatred. The specifics are that you
made unsubstantiated claims in a public place as to the morality and public standing of the Dalek Foundation …’

The Doctor drew breath to speak, but stopped when he heard a hissing noise from Hellic.

‘Not yet,’ mouthed Hellic at him, shaking his head.

‘Dalek Litigator,’ continued the judge. ‘This is a criminal matter, as the state of Carthedia deplores all hate crimes. Do you wish to apply for punitive damages against the accused?’

The Dalek’s voice cut through the courtroom like a chainsaw through soft wood. ‘Maximum punitive damages. All assets to be seized,’ it said, still fixing its glare upon the Doctor.

How could anyone on this planet think something that spoke like
that
was a force for good? thought the Doctor. This was insane.

‘Very well,’ continued the judge, calmly, for all the world as if he had just been speaking to his maiden aunt. ‘Your claim is so entered. How does the accused plead?’

‘Guilty,’ said the Doctor.

Hellic clapped a hand to his unruly hair. He jerked his head forward and glared at the Doctor as if to say ‘You idiot’.

‘What?’ asked the Doctor. ‘I am. I am guilty of saying the Daleks are evil, because THEY ARE!’ he suddenly shouted, rising to his feet.

Instinctively, the Doctor flinched, suddenly expecting his rash outburst to be met with a cry of ‘Exterminate!’ from the Dalek Litigator. He imagined that he would have to crash to the floor to avoid the burst of energy
screaming from the Dalek’s gun. Its full power would burst into the wall, blowing a huge hole in it, through which the Doctor could escape in all the confusion, following the route back to the aerodrome, which he’d carefully memorised, then getting in a police skimmer which he would crash through the roof. Somehow he would find the children and
somehow
he would find the TARDIS and work out a way to turn this mad, upside down world up the right way again …

But none of that happened. There was merely silence. Hellic looked down and shuffled his papers in despair. The judge looked faintly irritated, gently expelling a controlled sigh and letting his eyelids blink slowly.

‘Well then …’ the judge finally said, tapping at his computer. ‘Your plea is so entered.’

‘Er …’ started Hellic.

The judge, the Dalek Litigator and the Doctor all turned to him. What kind of extraordinary lawyer was this? wondered the Doctor. His client had just rashly confessed to being guilty, but this lawyer was still going to give something a go. The Doctor couldn’t help but smile, broadly, in unabashed admiration.

‘Um, there’s the issue of the children,’ offered Hellic. ‘Testimony from the arresting officers clearly shows there is a degree of emotional attachment—’

‘Emotional attachment to a man who incites hatred in the streets?’ scoffed the judge.

‘Emotional attachment to a man who saved their lives,’ offered Hellic, almost apologetically.

‘There is no recorded evidence of the Doctor rescuing the children,’ the Dalek suddenly croaked, bluntly.

‘But there is no recorded evidence that says he
didn’t
rescue them,’ countered Hellic. ‘And he did arrive on Carthedia with them
and
they clearly wanted to stay with him when he was apprehended – the officers will testify to that.’

Again, the Doctor half-expected the Dalek to deal with this with a blast of searing energy, suspending Hellic in an excruciating halo of blinding, negative light. But the Dalek merely glared at Hellic, then returned its gaze to the Doctor.

‘What are you proposing?’ asked the judge.

‘That the Doctor should be able to visit the children on compassionate grounds before sentence is passed,’ said Hellic.

‘Oh, you’re good,’ said the Doctor.

‘Silence!’ asserted the judge, almost as sharply as a Dalek might.

Hellic did not seem happy at the Doctor’s interjection. He shook his head admonishingly at the Doctor.

The judge sighed again and then turned to the Dalek Litigator.

‘I can only grant such access if there is no objection from the prosecution,’ said the judge.

That was the end of that, then, thought the Doctor. He watched the Dalek as its eyestalk twitched and swayed slightly. It looked from the judge to the Doctor, to Hellic and then back to the Doctor.

‘No objection,’ it said.

The Doctor found himself once again sitting inside a police skimmer, his mind still reeling from the shock that the Dalek Litigator had not objected to his visiting the children. That had been … odd. What were the Daleks up to? First they hadn’t destroyed the Blakelys’ ship, and now this.

This time, he was not in the cramped, secure cell at the rear of the skimmer, but sitting on the back seat with his state-appointed lawyer, Hellic Dansard.

Vibrating and shuddering, the skimmer was lifting off towards the roof of the aerodrome building where the Doctor had landed a few hours before. This time, with bigger windows to look out of, he got a clear view of the aerodrome’s great ceiling opening. There was early morning light in the sky outside and, as they shot past the now closing roof, the Doctor could see more of the detail of the city. It appeared to be a vast collection of prefabricated pods and containers, all of varying ages, apparently erected and welded onto each other over
the years, so that the city had the strange appearance of a collection of odd, brutal shapes that had somehow grown all over each other like a bizarre, metallic fungus.

The Doctor turned to Hellic and smiled. Hellic was fatigued, nodding off.

‘They really did get you out of bed, didn’t they?’ said the Doctor, smiling.

Hellic jolted back into his seat, suddenly awoken by the Doctor’s words. He frowned, irritated at the disturbance.

‘Thanks for what you did,’ said the Doctor.

‘I did my job,’ said Hellic, groggily.

‘You needn’t have done,’ said the Doctor. ‘Especially since I pleaded guilty.’

‘I was just being professional,’ Hellic said simply. ‘Don’t confuse that with compassion.’

There was that Carthedian charm again … or rather, the lack of it.

‘And you people really think this Dalek Foundation is a force for good, do you?’ asked the Doctor.

‘Of course,’ said Hellic.

‘So … You really do think I’m some kind of Dalek-hating nutcase, then?’

‘Yes.’

The Doctor leaned close to him. ‘So why did you get me visitation rights to the children?’

‘Because you were entitled to them,’ said Hellic. ‘And there was clear evidence of an emotional attachment, which the police officers noted in their statements.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Fair enough. You’re a professional. Well done, you.’

Hellic turned and looked at the Doctor, resigned to being awake now. ‘Why did you say what you did about the Daleks, when you knew they would prosecute?’

‘Prosecute?’ chuckled the Doctor. ‘I’m lucky the Daleks didn’t exterminate me. But seriously, Hellic, tell me, what would you say if I told you I’d seen the Daleks carrying out the most appalling acts of war? That I’ve witnessed countless atrocities committed by them and seen the results of their terrifying deeds in the burial pits of a thousand worlds?’

Hellic’s eyes did not flinch as he studied the Doctor, considering. ‘I’d say …’ he started, then stopped. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I’m serious,’ said the Doctor.

‘I’d say, show me some proof,’ said Hellic.

But the Doctor knew he had none to hand.

Jenibeth had probably not stopped sobbing all night, Sabel realised as she awoke in the unfamiliar blankets of the dank, hard bed they were sharing. Several hours ago, she had got used to her sister’s crying and had nodded off, but now it was the hard rain rattling against the tall windows of this draughty room that had awoken her. And poor Jeni was still crying in a squeaky, hoarse little voice.

Sabel leant over to her and smoothed her hair.

‘Crying won’t do any good, Jeni,’ she whispered as kindly as she could.

‘I can’t help it,’ Jeni croaked back.

Sabel could see Ollus in the bed next to them. He was fast asleep, clutching his spaceship.

Jeni’s sobs were getting quieter now. Probably only because she was tired out, thought Sabel. She smoothed her sister’s hair again and asked her if she had any jelly blobs left.

Jeni shook her head. So Sabel told her to think about jelly blobs and imagine she was eating a delicious, red one.

‘Imagine the juiciness in your mouth, think about how lovely it would be,’ said Sabel.

Jeni started chewing a pretend jelly blob and gave a little smile.

Sabel looked around their room. It was small and narrow, but with a very high ceiling. There were damp, rusty patches on the faded, light blue walls and the floor was covered in stains and smudged footprints. There was a musty sort of smell and rain was dripping through cracks in the frames of the tall, thin windows.

She thought about Mummy and Daddy and felt a deep ache in her chest that seemed to squeeze the breath out of her. She would not cry, though. She had told Jeni it would do no good, so she
would not
cry.

‘Will the funny Doctor man come back?’

Sabel realised Ollus was suddenly wide awake and talking to her, looking over to her from his bed, still hugging his spaceship.

‘I think he’s gone,’ said Sabel. ‘I don’t think he’s coming back.’

‘I thought he was going to look after us,’ said Ollus.

Pausing to stop chewing her pretend jelly blob, Jenibeth said, ‘He’s gone away like Mummy and Daddy.’

‘No,’ said Sabel. ‘Mummy and Daddy are dead. The Doctor isn’t dead.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Ollus. ‘I expect those policemen killed him.’

Just then, there was a loud rumbling sound from outside the windows. Sabel jumped out of bed and ran to the nearest window. There, through the smudged and dirty, plastic glass, she could just about see a big, green and black skimmer landing. It bumped down onto the hard, wet surface of the area outside. Then, the doors opened and some people got out. There were two policemen, a man in a black suit and …

Sabel’s heart felt like it was bumping up and down for a moment. And that confused her. Why was she feeling like this? She tried to speak, but she couldn’t. It was as if the words had got clogged up in her throat, and she felt that if she forced them out, she would cry and cry just like her sister. And she was afraid that she might never stop.

Ollus jumped out of bed and ran to her side. He looked out of the window and said what Sabel could not.

‘It’s the funny Doctor man!’

He was coming back. This strange man who had given them the worst news they had ever heard … He was coming back to rescue them.

In that instant, it became clear to Sabel how much she had given up on any hope. She had felt empty, filled with a hurt that ran deeper than she had ever imagined hurt could go. But now, this man who she had not even liked, was coming back. And even though she had
hated him for the bad news he had given them, for some reason she could not really work out, Sabel felt sure that this strange, funny man in his funny clothes, with his big, smiley face and his glowing, buzzing screwdriver that made lights explode … She felt that he was the answer to everything.

The Doctor walked across the wet courtyard towards what Hellic had told him was the Carthedia State Orphanage. Even though, like the rest of the city, it was made from a collection of intricately welded together containers and pods, the Doctor could not shake the feeling that there was something distinctly Victorian and imposing about it. Against the thundery sky and lashing rain, it looked like it had emerged straight from a ghost story. A ghost story where young orphans were kidnapped and locked up in a scary mansion.

The police officers were keeping a wary but weary eye on the Doctor. It was probably long past time for them to clock off. Hellic indicated a large, metal doorway. It was caked in rust. As he tapped in an entrance code, it creaked unpleasantly open.