She stepped outside, and so Anji, Fitz and a reluctant Trix allowed the little girl to lead them across the wastes to where the capsule lay. For a time it seemed that it was getting no closer. Then suddenly they were on top of it. It seemed anch.o.r.ed in the nothingness yet they could move all round it and even feel underneath.
Fitz was straight at the capsule and trying to heft it open. "It"s jammed, it won"t shift."
"The Doctor said it was unbelievably heavy," said Anji, adding her weight to the struggle to lift the coffin-like lid.
The speck of the atom still hovered unnervingly near. Sometimes Anji caught it out of the corner of her eye as a dark pinhead, other times, it was so vast she could only feel it, like a shadow pressing down on her senses.
"Surely there"s some mechanism that opens this thing," argued Trix.
"Here!" cried Chloe. She was small enough to be able to look up and see controls hidden in the base.
She pressed something, and with an electronic growl the lid began to open.
Anji took a step back, scared of what she might find inside. She didn"t protest when Fitz slipped an arm round her waist to steady her.
The lid swept slowly open. And Anji gaped as she stared inside.
"Dolly!" whispered Chloe in amazement.
That was all there was the doll, all goopy with some slathered-on lotion. Anji could see the b.u.mps and points raised out against the plastic skin.
"It"s covered in that moisturiser gunk Guy was carrying in his pocket," realised Trix, now swapping a blank look with Fitz.
"His miracle burn cream," nodded Anji.
Fitz picked up the doll cautiously and pa.s.sed it to Chloe.
"She"s ruined," the little girl sighed.
"But if the diamonds are inside the doll... "Anji set off at a run back to Chloe"s ship, which still held the shape of a tree beside the bold blue rectangle of the TARDIS. Her stomach twisted and bunched, fear and antic.i.p.ation all mixed up together.
She pushed her way into Chloe"s ship.
And saw Guy, dazed in his shirt-sleeves, standing by the Jonah Jonah and swaying like a sapling in the breeze while the Doctor clanged down the last few rungs. and swaying like a sapling in the breeze while the Doctor clanged down the last few rungs.
"You did it!" she yelled, and uncertain who to hug first, tried clumsily to get them both. Guy clung on to her for support, and the Doctor slapped her heartily on the back. Behind her she heard shouts of surprise and confused cheers from Fitz and Trix and Chloe.
"We should stand away from the Jonah Jonah," the Doctor said, pulling out a handkerchief. "I think Sabbath"s going to try to leave. He summoned his apes to the command deck, so they were somewhat distracted while Guy and me slipped away." He carefully took the doll from Chloe"s sticky fingers. "Wipe your hands. Don"t let your skin absorb the cream."
"You all right, mate?" Fitz asked Guy.
"I don"t have a clue," Guy admitted feebly.
"He"ll be all right," said Anji, looking to the Doctor to back her up in this.
He gave her a small smile and nodded. "The Timeless philosophy," he said, looking at Chloe.
"Save who you can," the little girl agreed.
The Doctor turned to face Anji. "And a promise is a promise," he added.
"Never mind wallowing in the syrupy stuff, what did you actually do?" Trix demanded. "Are the diamonds really in the doll? How did you..."
But the Doctor was already on the move again, crossing to where Jamais lay still and silent.
Anji followed him. "Come on, Doctor. Answers. Why did you cover a plastic doll in the miracle burns remover?"
"Because there"s no such thing as a miracle burns remover." he answered simply. "It"s just genetics. Upon contact with the skin, the lotion works with the DNA structure of the owner to remove damaged cells and restore the original code."
"So?" Fitz was struggling. "A doll has no DNA."
"That"s why I had to give it some! Guy"s!" He turned round and beamed at his little audience. "The lotion is self-programming, you see. It absorbs information from the user"s genome upon first contact so it might go to work more rapidly in future applications."
"So only I could use that stuff?" Guy asked him, wide-eyed.
The Doctor nodded happily. "Yes! That lotion was useless to anyone but you once you"d primed it with your DNA print! But I"m so glad you didn"t just throw it away like I suggested."
Trix was nodding now. "So you made a little genetic sh.e.l.l for the dolly here out of Guy-shaped DNA, and the diamonds went for it?"
"It seemed to fool their sentience sufficiently." the Doctor agreed excitedly. "So I transferred the diamonds out of Guy and into the poor doll."
"Any hara.s.sed genius could"ve done it," smiled Fitz.
"So now we can take this dolly apart," said the Doctor, "and find out just what it was that Kalic.u.m was trying to achieve."
"Another sacrifice," Chloe murmured miserably. "Like Jamais."
She gestured to his p.r.o.ne body.
"Oh, dear me, this won"t do," said the Doctor, pressing his hands against the animal"s flank. "He must wake up, we need him to get us away from here!"
"It"s no use," Chloe said, fresh tears dripping down her red cheeks.
The Jonah Jonah had started rocking and steaming. "How"s Sabbath going to get out of here?" Fitz demanded. had started rocking and steaming. "How"s Sabbath going to get out of here?" Fitz demanded.
"I"m not sure he will!" called the Doctor over the clanking and grinding and swooshing of the ship"s machinery. "It"s a long way home for all of us."
"Doctor!" shrieked Chloe, so loud it almost burst Anji"s eardrums.
Jamais had opened his eyes.
"He was shamming it," breathed Fitz. "Faking it, like you can, Doctor."
"Who says you can"t teach an old dog new tricks?" the Doctor grinned, as Chloe shoved him aside to cuddle her pet. "Respiratory bypa.s.s playing dead removed his energy from the mesh equation. I suggested the idea to him so you"d be able to remove the net without difficulty. Jamais is a very bright creature."
"So now he"s Dr Doolittle too," said Guy to Anji, his expression suggesting he"d gone beyond bewilderment.
"Sorry, but there was no time to explain," he said briskly. "Now, come on." He looked up worriedly to where the Jonah Jonah was still wailing and rocking like a beached steel whale. "The TARDIS." was still wailing and rocking like a beached steel whale. "The TARDIS."
"What about this place?" asked Trix.
"We"ll have to take it all with us, of course," said the Doctor. "But I think it"s safer for us if we steer from the TARDIS if Jamais is up to it."
The dark beast had raised himself up on his great shaking paws and was limping along towards the doors beside Chloe. Trix and Fitz supported Guy between them, and the Doctor led the way. Anji followed on behind.
"You were naughty for scaring me like that, Jamais," Chloe scolded him now she"d got over the shock. "I never want you doing that again." And as they left the ship and stepped out into the blind whiteness of the void, she started to dab at her dolly"s puckered skin with the handkerchief, cooing and muttering soothing words to her make-believe friend.
But Jamais had narrowed his eyes. He wanted attention. He wanted fuss.
And the stupid doll was getting it instead.
Anji saw his neck bob up, his sharp jaws open.
"No!" she yelled.
But Jamais had grabbed the doll"s legs in his mouth and yanked her away from Chloe.
"No, Jamais!" thundered the Doctor, who"d turned and taken in the scene in one glance.
Too late.
Jamais threw back his head and opened his jaws.
The mutilated doll flew through the air, spiralling through the nothingness.
"Quick!" the Doctor screamed. "Inside the TARDIS!"
Everyone broke into a mad scramble as the doll sailed lazily towards the atom.
And with a whimper, the universe was born, and something else along with it.
Twenty-three The survivors It was a select gathering, Anji"s "Starting Over" party. Her, of course, Fitz and the Doctor, Stacy and Guy. And Trix, because it would"ve been rude not to. Of course, it was also a "Thank you for clearing your junk out of my flat" party; the thought of having her own place like in the old days and everything just so was almost as intoxicating as the special-recipe rum punch Fitz had provided to "get the party going". Almost.
It was a time to celebrate new beginnings. And endings, of course.
The Doctor had known she wouldn"t be walking through the doors of his old police box again.
Jamais had done his thing and hiccupped them a few billion years beyond the Big Bang, earning reluctant favour from all aboard after his disastrous green-eyed tantrum. Once the ship was back under control, the Doctor had taken them back to Anji"s. The day was wet and cold, vintage English summer. While everyone else trooped automatically back inside her building (what the neighbours now made of her was anyone"s guess) Anji had lingered outside, unable to resist stroking the battered wood of the police box.
The Doctor came back out to see her. "Soon be goodbye."
She turned to face him, the long, proud face, the pale appraising eyes. The ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Soon," she said.
The party was fixed for the next night. No sense drawing things out, the Doctor said, and meanwhile everyone seemed to have things they wanted to do on their last day.
Fitz wanted one last lunch at the Groucho club with the high society he"d fooled so amicably.
Trix had volunteered to go back to the flat in Battersea and tie up loose ends, such as arranging a broker to put it back on the market. She knew someone, she said. And had a numbered bank account into which the profits could be poured, of course. It figured.
Chloe had wanted to go to the park with poor, hobbling Jamais. The irony of the situation hadn"t been lost on the Doctor; having fought countless alien horrors to preserve the safety of the universe, he"d finally lost the battle to a jealous pooch.
The Doctor wanted to spend his day in reflection on the events they"d all witnessed, trying to decide what they could do next.
Guy had the more humble aim of visiting Stacy in hospital. Anji went with him.
They walked together through the pale green corridors of the hospital. Guy bought some tulips, red splashed with white.
"Maybe you should get yourself checked out, while we"re here," Anji suggested.
"Nah."
"You know, you"ve been through a lot, and "
"Quite an adventure, wasn"t it?" beamed Guy.
She frowned. "Er, don"t you think you should be just the teeniest bit freaked out after all you"ve been through?"
"Possibly." He shrugged. "Maybe that"ll come later. Flashbacks, nightmares, all that stuff. But right now, I want to concentrate on living a bit." He stopped in the middle of the corridor and held both her hands. "I want to eat pizzas with every topping on the menu," he said slowly. "I want to see every place in every country in the whole, wide world. I want to start listening to music again instead of just hearing it in the background throw out the compilations, get into some new bands. I want to learn a new sport, visit my gran more, pay back my mum what I owe her, stop just coasting by, put my heart into things..." He paused. "And get out of bad relationships a lot sooner."
She half-smiled. "Oh yeah? And has Julie heard about that yet?"
He pulled a face. "This morning."
"And is she pressing charges against the mysterious Phantom Temp for a.s.sault?"
"She"s convinced herself she fell down the stairs," grinned Guy. "And that"s another thing I want to start doing. I want to start to stop kidding myself that stuff is OK when it"s really not. Like staying in a job I hate because it might lead to promotion, advancement, another thirty years of being b.l.o.o.d.y miserable."
"And does our big, hilarious, crooked boss-man know about this?"
"He"s going to," said Guy, with a slow smile. "He"s going to know about a lot of things, sometime soon."
"Going to be quite a transformation," Anji observed. "But I have faith that you can change."
He smiled, surprised. "Yeah?"
"You"ve stopped clicking your tongue for starters."
Guy blinked, quite taken aback, and kept quiet for a few moments as if his treacherous tongue might prove him wrong.