BBC Cult - Printer Friendly Version

Human Nature - Chapter Nine

Page 1
  

The Fine Purple, the Purest Gold, the Red of the Sacred Heart, the Grey of a Ghost

A cluster of teachers, most of them trying not to appear annoyed, had formed in the little corridor outside the Great Hall. Bernice and Alexander stood at the back, watching over the teachers' shoulders as the hall filled with boys. There was an atmosphere of fear and anticipation in the air.

'Do you really think this is going to work?' asked Alexander.

'What, do I think one of them is going to hold up the sphere and say: "Oh, you mean this?" Not really. I thought the headmaster was going to conduct a search or something.' Benny glanced around the woodpanelled corridor and shivered. 'I can see why people have nightmares about going back to school. I went to a place very like this. Mixed, at least, though. This place is all floor polish and testosterone. Oh my God.'

Smith and Joan had arrived at the end of the corridor, Smith carrying a very familiar umbrella, but now dressed in a teacher's cape and mortarboard. He saw Bernice and wandered over. 'Hello. What are you doing here?'

'We're the reason for the assembly.' Bernice considered mentioning why, but decided against it. 'And this is...?'

'Oh, yes... this is my friend Joan Redfern.'

Benny curtsied to the woman. 'I'm Bernice Summerfield and this is my friend Alex.' She hoped that she hadn't put too much emphasis on the my. The woman who stood beside Smith was surprisingly mature. Attractive, in a horsey sort of way. Nothing special, really. If the Doctor had to go and get involved with somebody, then it ought to have been a classic beauty or a great artist or an academic. 'And what do you do, Miss Redfern?'

Page 2
  

'Mrs,' Joan told her, icily. 'I'm a teacher here. Did you assume that I was the dinner lady?'

'Not at all. I've heard a lot about you. I meant what subject do you teach?'

'Science. I've heard a lot about you, also. Aren't you the young lady with the trousers?'

'Often. Don't you find these skirts a problem sometimes?'

'Not at all. But then, I've never had call to do anything where they might get in the way.'

There was an awkward silence. Smith suddenly ruffled Benny's hair, grinned and shrugged when Joan looked at him. 'Are you still trying to find your Holy Grail?' he asked. 'The one that'll turn me into a spaceman?'

Benny sighed. 'I'll explain all that to you one day.'

'Well, perhaps you could start now,' said Joan. 'John was quite disturbed by the whole business.'

'What, erm, happened to your finger?' Alexander asked Smith.

'A burglar chopped it off.' Smith waved the bandaged stub about happily.

From the hall, the general sounds of movement suddenly cut off. Rocastle had taken the stage. The teachers began to shuffle on. Smith and Joan nodded to Benny and Alexander and followed them.

Page 3
  

'You know what I was saying about fingers, Alex?' Benny murmured. 'Well, I'm willing to bet I know whose pie that one ended up in...'

'What did you think of her?'

'She's fine.'

'Nice?'

'Fine.'

Timothy was walking through the orchard where he'd found the Pod, tossing the thing from hand to hand. He was seeing all sorts of strange things today, like those two people carrying slabs of metal like tortoises. He was starting to think about sleep and warmth. His night on the tree had certainly changed him, but he still wanted somewhere warm to spend the night. Could he go back to the school dormitory? He had nothing to fear but words, after all, and he'd found out how he could deal with that now. This Pod had done it, changed him to the point where he was like Sherlock Holmes and Jack Harkaway rolled into one. But what was he supposed to do now? Fight crime? Explore the world? Were there others like him?

He noticed an owl sitting on a branch, looking balefully down at him. 'What would you do, Mr Owl?'

Page 4
  

The owl leapt from the branch in a flutter of wings. Timothy spun on his heel and saw a figure crouched behind a tree trunk. Something made a noise like a catapult.

He grabbed the Pod out of the air where he'd thrown it. A metal spar bounced off the tree behind him and spun back in the direction it had come. Timothy ran, zig-zagging through the trees. Silent blue lightning struck giddily around his heels, sending clods of earth flying.

A roaring figure burst from the bushes and sprinted after Timothy, tearing through the branches as the boy kept just ahead.

Timothy glanced over his shoulder, and dived into a thicket.

Greeneye had only lost sight of the boy for a moment when he ran into the clearing. He looked around, astonished. No sign of him.

The others were quick behind him. August stared at the scanner in his hand. 'I don't believe this! The emissions have ceased! The Pod knows we're after it, that's the only explanation!'

'He's here,' Greeneye rumbled, looking slowly around the clearing. 'He's hiding.'

Tim stared at his pursuers from behind a pair of apple trees. It was fortunate for him that the estate let the orchard get so overgrown. These were his enemies, then. Something inside him suggested a dizzy idea, to get captured deliberately, but then he saw the curved knife that one of them, a short, bearded man, was slapping against a leather wrist-band, and repressed the urge.

Page 5
  

Aphasia released her balloon. 'Hunt,' she told it. 'Kill. Don't eat.'

The balloon rose into the centre of the clearing and hovered, spinning on its axis. 'We are so close,' whispered Serif. 'We cannot lose him now.'

Tim turned and started to walk slowly away, watching over his shoulder as the balloon started to move across the clearing in his direction. The balloon sped up. Tim sped up. It shot through the trees towards him faster than a real balloon could push through the air.

He sprinted.

The family crashed through the trees after him.

Tim ran, heaving breaths into his lungs. That seemed easier than it had been in the past, as if his body was on his side, breathing just as he wanted it to. He kicked his heels and leapt randomly from side to side as he ran, avoiding the silent blue beams that smashed foliage aside past him.

He ran to a fence and hurdled it, feeling the heat as it dissolved under him, disbelieving his luck. He was on the road now, the curving road which led up past the school gates. Without thinking, he turned automatically towards the school. The ground was open here, though; they were going to be able to shoot him.

A horseless carriage puttered around the bend, the occupant squeezing its horn to tell Tim to get out of the way. It was Mr Condon who owned the Lyons tea house, who would often let boys going into town have an extra iced bun if they were well behaved.

Page 6
  

Tim leapt up on to the running board of the car, much to Condon's amazement. 'Hey, you nut! What are you up to?' called the moustachioed man.

'Sir, it's a matter of life and death! You must get me away, quickly!'

Condon yanked up a gear and tightened his gloves on the wheel. 'When you say life and death, young man, I take it you do mean that, and not just a late essay or some such?'

'I do, sir.' Tim glanced over the rear seat of the vehicle and saw the roaring man running out on to the road, obscured in a second by the bend. 'I do.'

Greeneye slapped his thigh. 'A...' he searched his memory for the term... car! Come on, let's get after them, we can catch up if we try.'

'Don't trouble yourself,' said August. 'He was wearing a uniform, that of an educational establishment, and I do believe -' He clicked a few buttons on his scanner. 'Yes, the map shows a suitable building near by. He doesn't know why we're after him. He'll go back there.'

'Good,' hissed Serif. 'If he does not think that he is followed, he will not hide the Pod.'

Page 7
  

'He's a little trickster,' muttered Greeneye. 'Don't you think he was moving a bit fast for a human? Don't you think - '

'He came from a school,' Hoff interrupted. He smiled at Greeneye again. 'Not a cattery.'

'I have a very serious matter to report,' Rocastle began. He was standing on the stage, his hands gripping the edges of a wooden lectern. Behind him stood the teachers, listening in a line. At the side of the stage stood Benny and Alexander, looking nervously at the audience of boys. 'This lady and gentleman are in charge of the museum in town. They tell me that a theft has occurred, and it seems that it can only be a Hulton College boy who is responsible. The article stolen is of no value, being a pottery sphere found by archaeologists. I have been assured that the museum does not wish to pursue the matter via the police. If the boy who took this sphere comes forward now, he will not be expelled, nor his parents informed. He will receive six strokes of the cane, and the matter forgotten. I think that's a fair offer that any honest Christian boy would accept, and I hope that you're not going to let the school down in front of our guests.' He gestured to Bernice and Alexander. 'Well then - who's got it?'

There was silence. Rocastle clicked his tongue against his teeth. 'Very well, one last chance for all of you. Either the thief comes forward now, or he damns his fellows with him.' Silence again. 'Then it is my sad duty to inform you all that the town is out of bounds for the next month, or until the thief confesses. Now - '

Page 8
  

There came a shattering explosion from outside the building.

'My God,' Bernice whispered. 'They're here.' She glanced at Smith, who was looking around at his fellow teachers in panic as the boys started to yell and run. 'Who's going to save us this time?'

The family stood in the courtyard of the school buildings. Hoff lowered his gun, nodding proudly at the remains of a statue that he'd atomised. The others stood in a line, watching the windows, weapons held at the ready. Even Aphasia had a gun, a big showy photon rifle that she'd painted orange with black spots, her balloon tied around the end of the muzzle.

August put a black conelike device to his lips. His voice was amplified and projected by the equipment, winding its way into the school, echoing through every room and gallery. 'Listen to me. My name is August of the Aubertide family Dubraxine. One of the young humans in that building has something we want, a red sphere known as a Biodatapod. You will send it out to us, and we will leave with it. If you do not, then we'll level the building and kill everybody. We're watching every exit.' He put his hand over the mouthpiece for a moment and looked at the others meaningfully. 'I said, we're watching every exit... '

'Sorry.' Greeneye, Hoff and Serif ran off in different directions around the perimeter of the house. August sighed and spoke into the cone again. 'You have thirty of your Earth minutes.' He switched off the machine and smiled at Aphasia. 'I've always wanted to say that.'

Page 9
  

Aphasia aimed her gun at the roof of the school and fired. The recoil sent her flying backwards.

Concerned, August helped her up, glancing over his shoulder at the plume of smoke spiralling from the guttering above. 'Sniper?'

'Gargoyle.' Aphasia explained. 'I hate gargoyles.'

Timothy was watching from a tree in the orchard. He closed his eyes hard as if to banish a dream. So his magical prize wasn't something destiny had given him. It was something mean enough to be struggled over. The people in the courtyard, the Aubertides, natives of the planet Aubis. The Aubertide Queen lays eggs every hundred years, and the King fertilizes them in the ground. The new Aubertides bud to reproduce. You have to find out who's the eldest and talk to them. They like citrus fruit, but they can eat anything, and they're usually terribly friendly. Timothy blinked again, it was as if he'd just made up all that about them. The people in the courtyard were going to destroy the school.

Let them. Let it burn. What he had was worth much more.

No, that was a wicked thought. The lives of all his - no, not his friends, his enemies. The lives of his enemies were worth more than his happiness.

He gathered all his resolve together. He had to do something.

At the appropriate moment, that inner voice told him. Timing was everything.

Page 11
  

Rocastle shouted again. 'Silence!'

The yelling mass of boys and teachers actually quietened. Rocastle had raised himself to his full height and he was actually looking at them proudly, with a slight smile on his features. 'Very good. Now, does anybody know what that was all about?'

Silence. Benny looked quickly at Smith and was about to say something, but by the time she'd thought of anything that Rocastle would find even remotely reasonable, he'd turned to one of the other masters. 'Thought not. Mr Moffat, you always have a fine white handkerchief about you. Here - ' He picked up the cane he'd propped on the lectern and handed it to the teacher. 'Wave it from the window, and tell these... Aubertides... Greeks, I think, that we don't know what they're talking about, but if they're willing, I'll pop out and have a chat and we can sort it out. All right?'

Benny turned to Alexander. 'That's just what I'd have done,' she whispered. 'Rocastle's not as stupid as he looks.'

Rather nervously, the bursar tied his handkerchief to the end of the cane. He walked through the rows of children to the end of the hall, where a triptych of large panel windows looked out on the grounds. He opened the latch on one of them and poked the cane out nervously.

'Damn soft tactics,' Hutchinson whispered to Merryweather. 'Who are they, anyway? Where are the police?'

Page 12
  

'Hello,' called Mr Moffat, nervously. He waved the cane gently back and forth, the handkerchief flapping. He was standing a good distance from the window. 'We don't know what you're talking about. But Mr Rocastle wants to meet with you. We can work something out.'

'Until the police get here, anyhow,' Rocastle murmured to Alexander. 'This thing they're after; it isn't the artefact you're missing, by any - '

There came a sound from the window. The cane and handkerchief had spread across the room in a wash of red light. The bursar was staggering backwards, clutching his chest. He was shouting at something that had fixed itself there, a blazing red spot that he was scrabbling at like it was a stinging insect.

With a great cry, he managed to catch it and threw it at the window. The spot exploded, and the glass shattered into a billion pieces, the window exploding outwards in a sonic boom.

The boys fell to the ground, covering their heads with their hands. The bursar staggered back to them, his palms bleeding.

'Doctor...' hissed Bernice, her hands curling into fists. Smith was shooing Joan back behind the curtains of the stage, his expression full of panic and confusion.

Rocastle was staring at the stormy light that was flooding through the windows, the first strikes of lightning making their way across the distant fields. A slight smile seemed to force its way on to his face, but then he clenched it down and his eyes shone with a determined certainty. 'Farrar, Wolvercote, Trelawny, away from the windows!' he shouted. 'Captain Merryweather, run to my office, call the police! Mrs Redfern, tend to the bursar! Boys, find your house master, and in those units, follow me.' He pulled a set of keys from his pocket. 'We're going to break out the arms and make a show of it until help arrives!'

Page 13
  

'Doctor...' Bernice tried to catch Smith's eye as he stared at Rocastle in disbelief.

'Other teachers are to check that doors are locked, board up windows and otherwise provide for a state of siege.' He spun back and called to the boys. 'Get up! Buck up and play the game!' The boys were getting to their feet, the Captains running round their forms, pulling the younger ones to their feet and slapping them on the back. 'We're going to show them that Hulton College boys are made of old English stuff! The stuff that built the Empire, the stuff that doesn't back down to threats and bullying! Who's with me?'

A great cheer came from the boys, who ran to cluster around their form masters, the Captains saluting quickly to Rocastle as they snapped to attention.

'Right!' Rocastle called, his stare fixing on the masses of cheering children before him. 'Let's break out the weapons and fight!'

'Doctor!' Bernice shouted.

He turned, annoyed, from staring after Joan where she'd gone to aid the bursar. 'What?'

'Who!' Benny growled, and grabbed him by the collar, yanking him off behind the curtains at the back of the stage. 'That's the question. Come here, git!' He vanished as Rocastle turned to look for him, the boys of Farrar house clustering around the Head.

Page 14
  

Alexander realized that they were all looking at him and shrugged. 'I think he just... popped out for a moment.'

August slapped down the end of Aphasia's gun. 'What was that about? That was a human, not a gargoyle!'

'He was showing me his handkerchief.'

'He was holding out a white flag, a sign of surrender amongst human colonists. You shooting him'll make them a bit tardier in sending out the Pod, don't you think? Well, don't you?'

'Yeah...' Aphasia scuffed her shoes on the gravel.

'Just don't do it again.'

Smith and Bernice stumbled through a door that led to a theatrical storeroom behind the stage, the little teacher trying to wrestle out of Bernice's grasp. 'What are you doing?' he shouted. 'I have to get my House in order!'

'I'll say!' Benny slammed the door and advanced on him, prodding him in the chest. 'Gallifrey! The Hoothi! Ace! Come on!'

Page 15
  

'I don't know what you're talking about!'

'You're the only person who can turn this situation around. You! The Doctor!'

'Why do you keep using my title?' Smith spread his hands in frustration. 'Why do you think I'm somebody I'm not?'

'Because you're the Doctor, a Time Lord, somebody not of this planet. You created John Smith, like a character in a book. Here, look at this!' He'd half turned away in disbelief as she fumbled for the history unit and thrust it into his hands. 'This is technology beyond this time period, right? And what about that umbrella, where did you find that?'

Smith glanced at the unit and shook his head. 'Very impressive, very advanced, but what does it prove? Bernice, you're my niece, my brother's daughter. I remember him, I remember his wedding, I remember hearing about you being born! Where is there room for all this - Oh, why am I listening to you!' He waved his arms and pushed her aside, heading back for the stage. 'Pull yourself together,' he told her, before hopping out of the door.

'Damn.' Benny slumped against the wall.

Smith emerged into the middle of the boys of Farrar House and found himself bombarded with questions. 'Quiet!' he called. 'We'll go up to the dormitory and set up the fire sandbags around the windows there.'

Page 16
  

'Do we get guns, sir?' asked Hutchinson eagerly.

'Yes, I suppose so.' Smith glanced around the hall. Amid the masses of boys heading for the exits he glimpsed Joan, helping the bursar walk. She noticed his concern and returned a smile. 'Come on then,' Smith told the boys. 'Let's see how brave we can be.'

Benny emerged from behind the curtains when the hall was nearly deserted, and made her way to Alexander, who was standing in the centre of the stage, watching as a group of boys piled boxes by the shattered windows. A cold breeze was blowing about the polished room. Alexander glanced at his watch. 'Ten minutes. In twenty minutes' time, they'll start flattening this place. Is there nothing we can do?'

Bernice lay her head on his shoulder for a moment. 'I don't think so. They're getting ready for a battle. The Doctor won't listen to me. Unless we can find the Pod and use it on him before all this starts, then I don't think we have a prayer.'

'So what do we do?'

'Go and be with him, I suppose.' Benny straightened up. 'At least I can get that bit right this time.'

Page 17
  

The dorm was a bustle of activity, boys running to and fro with heavy sandbags. The window at the end of the room had been opened and a bed propped against it. Smith was supervising the construction of fortifications.

Rocastle walked in, three boys behind him carrying a series of crates. 'It's good to see you're with us, Smith. I thought you'd come through at the end. I just heard from Merryweather that the telephone line is down. Johnny Foreigner's been spotted all around the school perimeter, but he isn't trying to get in. There's only about six of them, and they're only carrying small arms by the look of it. All the doors have been barricaded. It's up to us to hold them off until the police hear the racket and come to investigate.' He moved closer to Smith and whispered, 'Actually, I reckon we can do better than hold 'em off. If these are the buggers who set off the poison gas at the hospital, then we're quite justified in putting some lead through them. Which is why,' - he indicated the crates that were being unpacked in the aisle between the beds - 'I brought the Vickers gun up here. Good height and angle above the drive. Phipps can take it on; he got to see how it works at close range at practice.'

Phipps looked up from the barricade he was helping to erect and gave a proud salute, despite the momentary fear that had gripped him. 'Reporting for duty, sir!'

Page 18
  

'Good lad,' Rocastle beamed. The other boys were taking rifles from the boxes, swinging them excitedly over their shoulders. 'Any questions, Smith?'

Smith's glance had settled briefly on his umbrella, which he'd propped in the comer by the door, but now his attention returned to the Head. 'No,' he decided. 'None at all.'

Benny and Alexander asked directions from one of the boys as he scurried past them, and found the right way to the dorm, climbing a spiral staircase. On the landing they met Joan, also on her way up.

'Mrs Redfern.' Benny stopped her. 'Joan. Can't you do something to stop all this? The Doc - John - doesn't want to get involved in a battle, does he?'

'There's not going to be a battle,' Joan told her. 'Those outside will either realize that they cannot enter, or will encounter the police.' Benny was about to say something else, but she interrupted her. 'Believe me, Miss Summerfield, I'm not happy about this either. I lost somebody dear to this sort of idiocy.'

'Both of us.' Benny put a hand on her arm.

Joan sized her up for a moment. 'Then come on,' she said. 'Let's see if our counsel may avert disaster.'

Page 19
  

As the three of them reached the door of the dormitory, there came an ear splitting blast of noise from inside.

Alexander threw the door open. Phipps was sitting astride the Vickers gun, his teeth clenched together as he fired a withering blast. The weapon had been assembled atop one of the beds beside the window. Smith was standing beside it, the ammunition belt in his hands, his eyes closed. He seemed to be counting or reciting to himself, cut off from what was happening around him. The other boys were standing around, gazing at Phipps with a kind of holy awe, their rifles unslung, ready to take up firing positions.

'Test firing completed!' Phipps reported, sitting back on his haunches. 'Saw a couple of them out there, sir, but they ran off when we got the Vickers going!'

'That's... the idea.' Smith opened his eyes again, and frowned as he saw the new arrivals. 'Joan, I mean, Mrs Redfern. What are you doing here?'

'I'm here with my medical kit,' she said, sitting down determinedly on one of the beds. 'In case anybody gets injured.'

Page 20
  

'Oh, that's bad form,' whispered Hutchinson to Merryweather. He'd been pacing the room angrily ever since Phipps had been chosen to man the gun. 'Women on the front line, and talking about injuries!'

'And why are you here?' Smith walked up to Bernice and Alexander and then turned away again, with the air of somebody discovered in a misdeed. 'To tell me more fairy tales? To try and stop me doing my duty? Well, it's impossible! I wish you'd all just let me do what I have to do, be who I have to be!'

'I wouldn't dream of interfering,' Bernice told him. 'You and the boys can get on with your war. We'll just sit here quietly and watch.'

'One minute,' Alexander whispered to her.

Outside the building, Greeneye and Hoff sheltered behind a line of bushes in alabaster pots.

'That was some sort of projectile weapon!' Greeneye was muttering. 'And this is a school? For cruk's sake, Hoff, when are you going to listen to me?'

'I do not,' Hoff told him, 'believe that there are interventionists at work here. However, I do object to being shot at.' He pressed a button on his cuff. 'Let's see what August has to say about it.'

Page 21
  

August listened intently to the communication, and then looked at his watch. 'Wait until the deadline expires. If one of these humans doesn't come to a window and start talking about the Pod in thirty seconds, then you can retaliate.'

'What's retaliate?' asked Aphasia.

'It means,' August cut the link and flicked the safety catch of his gun off, 'kill most of the enemy and let the survivors apologize.'

'Time,' Alexander whispered.

'Fire that gun thing some more,' Smith told Phipps, almost embarrassed. 'Make sure they stay ducked.'

'Yes, sir.' Phipps squeezed off another burst, Smith letting the oily belt of shells pass through his hands into the body of the gun. There were square bullets in with the round-nosed ones. Those were the ones that tore and splashed, that shattered inside so you became a blundering mass of organs, knowing that you were going to die, able to talk about the when and how of it.

But this was a battle, this was a whole system that swayed and changed on who died, not how. He remembered the books, the songs, the spectacles. Death was at the back of all the poetry, the muse that made it all so tragic and brave.

Page 22
  

The rhythm of the gunfire blocked out everything else, and Smith gazed around the room as if it were silent and still. Joan, with her hands clasped over her ears, but her eyes still fixed upon him with a determined protest. Bernice, her anguish much more evident, huddling in the corner with Alexander. Anand was shaking his head. Only Hutchinson was enjoying the spectacle, his smile growing wider and wider as he aimed through the window along the barrel of his rifle.

The burst finished. Silence crashed back in on the room. Phipps turned to seek the approval of his teacher. 'I think that'll give them something to - '

He stopped, looking puzzled. He slapped at something on his neck and twisted his head.

A tiny metal sphere was imbedded in the back of his scalp. The boy turned back to Smith. 'What is it, sir?'

Smith stared.

'I don't - ' Phipps' face turned red. His lip started to vibrate, as if he was going to burst out crying. 'I'm sorry - ' he blurted out.

And then his head exploded.

The blood slapped Smith straight in the face, covering his chest and hands, a fine spray filling the whole room.

The boys yelled and screamed, falling to the ground. Smith stumbled forward, blinded by the liquid, trying to find Phipps' body.

Page 23
  

Joan was screaming for John, and Arthur, and trying frantically to get up over the mass of boys trying to hide.

Benny had pulled Alexander down and thrown herself on top of him. 'Don't look!' she was shouting. She looked up. 'Doctor!'

Smith grabbed for the headless body and clutched it to him, his fingers finding the remains of the neck and the perfect hands as he tried to blink away the blood from his eyes.

He thought he could hear distant laughter ringing through the sound of the gun in his ears.

Everything he could see was red.

A vision was swimming before him in the red, a cat pinned out on a slab.

He was making sounds himself, he realized, as he rocked the body to and fro, the head still fountaining the red stuff. Noises came from the back of his throat without calling, and names. Names that he didn't recognise.

Benny had clambered to her feet, and threw herself across the beds, scrambling to make her way through the screaming children to the Doctor. She grabbed the handle of the umbrella as she went without thinking, perhaps just after a totem, a reminder.

Page 24
  

Joan tripped and faltered across the red sprayed room also. 'John!' she called. 'John!'

Smith was fumbling with the fingers of the corpse, pulling them roughly from the trigger of the gun. The meaty thing fell aside, washing him in more red as it went. He pulled the gun up to his chest and rubbed a red line from his eyes with his sleeve, trying to see through the window. Trying to see the enemy.

There they were, two of them, down there. The ones who'd killed the boy. His fingers tightened on the trigger. There was no need to think.

But he did think.

He thought about Puff the Magic Dragon, who lived by the sea. He thought about Verity, whispering words in his ear on the shingle beach. He couldn't hear the words yet, they were mingled with the sound of the waves on the shore, wearing the pebbles down to sand.

And then Benny was at one shoulder and Joan at the other.

'John,' said Joan.

'Doctor,' said Benny, and swung his umbrella into the line of his bloody vision, offering it to him. The question mark framed the two men down below.

Page 25
  

Smith stared at it for a moment, a terrible pain creasing his face. He had to drop his gaze from the question the umbrella asked. Looking down, he found that he was looking at the poppy in his buttonhole, a lighter shade amongst the red all around. A single flower.

Unsteadily, he let one hand drop from the gun and grabbed at the poppy, held it gently in his fist as if it contained the answer.

'I'm not him, not the Doctor,' he told Benny. 'But he's real. I know he's real. He wouldn't kill them, would he?'

'No,' Benny told him. 'He wouldn't.'

'Even though they took first blood. Even though the war had already started?'

'No,' Joan told him, with a glance at Benny. 'You wouldn't.'

Smith nodded. He let go of the gun and grabbed the poppy with both hands, staring at it like it was the most important thing in the world. 'So what would the Doctor do?' he asked Benny.

'He'd find a way to turn this around,' Bernice told him, the words spilling out of her like this was the most certain thing she'd ever said in her life. 'He'd make the villains fall into their own traps, and trick the monsters, and outwit the men with guns. He'd save everybody's life and find a way to win.'

Smith made a decision. His hands enfolded the flower.

He snatched for his umbrella, spun round, and stood up, a frown of terrible concentration on his face. 'There's another way,' he told the boys. He dropped his hat and let the cape fall to the floor. 'Throw away your guns.'