"Just doing what I do," he said. "Whatever job I"m given. You know. Nothing personal."
"Don"t you have any say in what you do?" said Sam.
"No, I just do it," said Bob. "Don"t you?"
The Doctor coughed. Sam realised he wanted her to be quiet. "But how about giving us a head start?"
"Well, I "
"Number four, Sam!" said the Doctor. "Now!"
He didn"t have to tell her twice.
Sam sprinted for the trees. She could hear Bob stomping along behind her.
Didn"t sound like he could run all that fast. She"d already lost sight of the Doctor.
She found herself grinning, suddenly. Number four was one of the tricks the Doctor and Fitz had described to her. It was simple: we"ll both run away, then I"ll double back and n.o.bble our pursuer.
She stumbled over a mushroom the size of a milk crate, rolled in the gra.s.s, got back up and kept running. Bob was puffing after her, waving his spear, falling behind. She leapt over another mushroom.
Oh my G.o.d, she thought. I think I"m having fun!
And when all this was over? Dave and the video store would be waiting. It would be easy to go back, score another hit of real life and slide back into the habit before she knew it.
What other choice was there?
She glanced over her shoulder. Bob couldn"t run and throw the spear at the same time could he? Where was the Doctor?
There, a flash of movement "Sorry about this, Bob," said the Doctor.
He reached forward and gripped the Hench just beneath the ear. Bob fell over like a lump of Plasticine and lay on the gra.s.s.
Sam was reaching for his net and spear when the Doctor gently put a hand on her shoulder. "You don"t want to play with those," he warned. "Let"s just try to get on."
Two more Henches were converging on them, cutting them off from the Bug.
Further off in the dark, they could just see the rest of the grey figures spread out in a line, a systematic dragnet slowly sweeping its way across the park towards them.
"Number one?" asked Sam.
186.
"Number one," agreed the Doctor.
And they ran like h.e.l.l.
When the Hunt came thundering up from all around, Sam had to drag herself to a halt, even with the Henches closing in from behind. She grabbed on to the nearest tree and held her ground while the stampede of possibilities swept over her. And then she had to sprint again to make up the lost time.
The Doctor wasn"t far ahead. She could see the slight awkwardness in his gait, each step jarring the wound in his side. It wasn"t much. Just a lingering disadvantage. Just enough that it meant the Henches were gaining on them.
Oh G.o.d, she"d go back to the video store, anywhere but back to that lab.
The Doctor grabbed her elbow and yanked her aside, through a line of trees.
She stumbled to a halt. The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder.
Ahead were the unicorns, gathered in knots of conversation like socialites at a c.o.c.ktail party. And there were others the leathery oily dragon, elegant humanoids in embroidered veils, a half-giraffe, half-Lego set. One large patch of darkness that her eyes couldn"t quite focus on, which appeared to be reading a comic book.
"Well," said the Doctor. "The gang"s all here."
"Oh, no!" muttered the nearest unicorn.
The creatures were all edging away from them, the dragon rustling its wings, the big dark thing b.u.mping nervously in the night.
The Doctor didn"t miss a stride. "We don"t have much time," he announced to the throng of things. "The Henches are close behind us. All of them, I think. If we "
"Whoa," growled a unicorn. "Whatever you"re up to, we want nothing to do with it."
"I beg your pardon!"
"You"re too dangerous for us. That nightb.u.mper over there was lurking in the Basardi safe house when the grey men came. He heard. They"re on the hunt for you you now. Every freak in the city that the unnaturalist has paid off is looking for you." now. Every freak in the city that the unnaturalist has paid off is looking for you."
A Heisenbug added, "And we don"t want to be anywhere near you when they catch up."
The Doctor looked as though he was about to lower his head and charge. He shook himself, spoke in a low, low voice.
"You don"t want to get involved," he said. "Well, I"m afraid it"s rather too late for that. The Henches were systematically searching the park. Systematically. Systematically. " "
187.
Every one of the creatures was spellbound, keeping perfectly still as he turned to survey his audience of monsters. "They started long before Sam and I escaped. We"re just a bonus. They came here for you you."
"What makes you think we matter to him the way you matter to him?" asked a furry furphy.
"Just look at him," Sam called out. "He"s one of you!"
The Doctor looked at her. "And so are you, Sam. None of us fit into his narrow map of reality. We"re all impossible creatures. Each of us has got to be defined, explained, and shut away in the appropriate drawer. When he"s got me and Sam, you"ll be next."
He spun, suddenly, shouting at the trees. "You can come out! We can see you!"
The Henches stepped out of the shadows, scattered, surrounding them on all sides. They looked tiny against the trees, but their spears and nets glowed softly. They began to close in, hesitating just a little, unsure whether to press the attack without the advantage of surprise.
The Doctor stood between the monsters and the nets, a ringmaster about to command the act to begin.
"You"re evenly matched in numbers," he told the creatures. "But, if you take into account size and strength, you effectively outnumber them two to one. If you run, you can outrun them, but if you scatter they"ll pick you off one by one.
And, if you let them leave, they"ll only come back again."
A unicorn said, "But "
The Doctor clapped his hands for silence. "I"d advise you to take prisoners, rather than escalate this further. But since you don"t want to be a.s.sociated with me. . . I"ll leave you to it."
He turned sharply and walked towards the waiting Henches. Sam hurried to follow him.
One of the Henches raised a spear, tentatively. The Doctor snapped, "Lay a finger on us, and they"ll be on you in a heartbeat. I"d surrender now, if I were you."
But the Hench wasn"t looking at them, his grey eyes fixed on the creatures behind them. She could just hear a rustling of wings, a few preparatory snorts from the unicorns, the nightb.u.mper b.u.mping threateningly.
They pa.s.sed the Henches, reached the trees, and no sounds of battle came.
As they stepped through the trees and into the clear, the Doctor let out a tremendous sigh and seemed to shrink about three inches. A huge, disbelieving smile spread across his face.
188.
"Good heavens, it worked worked!"
And right at that moment she knew she wanted to stay with him.
The problem was, would he want her?
As they rattled on to the Bay Bridge in the Bug, right at that moment she knew again again that she wanted to stay with him. For the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes. And once again her mind ran screaming from the thought. that she wanted to stay with him. For the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes. And once again her mind ran screaming from the thought.
Leaving all her mates, that was right out. If having an adventure meant never getting to have a night with Rob and Mark and Aditi and a c.r.a.p video and a bottle or two, then it wasn"t worth it.
But if c.r.a.p movies meant never seeing Fitz again. . .
Fitz wouldn"t want to stay. Getting pinned down to a life in London again was the last thing he"d want. She would have to be the one who packed what she could carry, and left everything else behind.
But the Doctor wouldn"t want her in her own right. He just wanted his squeaky-clean better-than-life friend back. Arranging daring escapes, teaching her his little tricks her wanting wanting to learn his little numbered tricks. . . Never mind the blonde hair dye, he to learn his little numbered tricks. . . Never mind the blonde hair dye, he was was turning her into his version. And making her love it. turning her into his version. And making her love it.
But it was all a sham, "cause he wouldn"t a.s.sociate with the likes of her otherwise, would he?
Partly not thinking about it, partly very deliberately, she lit a cigarette and filled her lungs. She rolled the window down just a crack to let the smoke out.
Outside, the city was lit up in neon.
"So," she said. "Wonder if your friend"s got any of Berkeley"s most famous product on hand."
The Doctor looked puzzled. "UNIX?"
"Nah. LSD."
He cast his eyes heavenward. "At a time like this?"
She laughed. "Yeah, well, plan for the future, that"s my motto. Well, it is now.
I just figured while I"m in town, you know. . . Go to the source, my friends always say." She settled back to watch him squirm.
"The last time I dropped acid was back in 1968," he said.
She nearly dropped her cigarette with surprise. He said, "I needed an altered state of consciousness to contact a discarnate ent.i.ty. But I was almost transformed into a psychopathic Aztec G.o.d."
She stared. "Now that is a bad trip."
189.
"Well it does tend to put one off the experience, yes." He pulled the Bug around a corner at speed. "And then there was the hallucinogenic venom I used with the Snakedancers on Ma.n.u.ssa. Nearly killed me that time. . . "
"Ooh, riding the snake. Very Jim Morrison."
The Bug crashed through a huge pothole. Her ciggie flicked out of her fingers and disappeared through the window into the slipstream outside. The Doctor was grinning, like at some private joke. Git. She almost laughed.
"In any case," he went on, "I"ve got precise control over my blood-brain barrier, so usually nothing affects me in ways I don"t want it to. I could pour us each a gla.s.s of nice strong mushroom tea, and then walk out of the door while you"re still figuring out how to stop the wall from running away."
He paused, considering. "On the other hand, Jo Grant once gave me one of her hayfever tablets, and I had flashbacks for decades. . . "
She burst out laughing. And she knew for the sixth sixth time that she wanted to stay with him. time that she wanted to stay with him.
Christ.
Griffin sat quietly in the back of a taxi, his hands folded in his lap. The human driver was chattering away. The unnaturalist ignored him, watching the city slide past through the rain-speckled window of the vehicle.
He was thinking about the first time he had encountered one of the beings of the lower planes. It was a hazy memory, a child"s recollection.
The creature had been something like the dominant species of this world, with minor variations. It had been part of the garden ornamentation at his uncle"s dwelling. Uncle had a suitably large garden, in the section of the Needle closest to the singularity at its heart. The privileged region where their kind had first evolved. Here in this garden, the boundaries between the dimensions were at their least defined; to his child"s eyes it seemed he could see further, reach further, perhaps even fly.
Uncle had temporally frozen the creature, turning it into a permanent display. Standing with his brother and his father, admiring Uncle"s new acqui-sition, he was sure the being"s angry, frightened eyes were looking at him, glittering with vengeance.
Once they had returned that night, to their much more humble dwelling further down the length of the Needle, he had dreamed that the creature came walking to their home. At first he heard its footsteps, growing louder, nearer.
Then the footsteps ceased, with a deep thud.
190.
In the dream, he knew the being was out there, just outside the dwelling.
What if it wanted to come inside?
Each time he had the dream, he would wake, lying absolutely still and silent.
He would reach out beyond the walls of the dwelling with his senses, prob-ing frightenedly for his uncle"s ornament, never finding anything. Eventually, rea.s.sured, he would fall asleep again.
The first specimen he ever collected was a creature not dissimilar to the one his uncle had displayed in his garden. A childish part of him found it a great comfort to place the being safely in its box, to take it to pieces later on, studying its simple body. He had smiled, wondering how even a child could think such a humble creature could ever pose a threat to him.
The taxi driver was still babbling on. Griffin glanced at him, through him, seeing his every detail in an instant, like that first dissection.
The taxi drove on.