"Doctor. . . " said Sam. Oh s.h.i.t, the skinny guy was coming over! What should she do?
The Doctor turned from the counter just as the guy reached him. He stuck out a hand and poked the Doctor in the chest with a bony finger.
"You left me here to investigate. You even left me the car so I could get around."
"Er," said the Doctor.
"Next time, the car keys keys would help." would help."
"You"re Fitz," said Sam. His thin face sported a few days" growth of stubble, and his hair was a straggling mess, looking as if it was still growing back after a really severe cut. His skinny body made him look as if he was made out of pipe cleaners.
"Don"t worry, he"s harmless," said the Doctor. "He"s from 1963, so consider all cultural misunderstandings explained ahead of time."
Fitz had been staring at her the whole time. Suddenly he stuck out his hand.
She shook it. Like meeting a distant relative at a Christmas party, she thought, 33.when you were both stuck with being nice to each other.
"Good to meet you again," said Fitz. "Oh, and please don"t bother making any Cracker Cracker jokes. You made them all months ago." jokes. You made them all months ago."
"Harmless?" Sam asked the Doctor.
Fitz raised an eyebrow at her. "Don"t believe everything you hear."
She looked him in the eyes. "Harmless," she repeated firmly.
The corner of Fitz"s mouth twitched. "Ooh, I like this one, can we keep her?"
Sam took a long, long hot shower. The water didn"t run out, even after twenty minutes. The air conditioning was goose-b.u.mping cold when she got out.
The hotel bathroom was amazing, absolutely spotless. Fluffy white towels were stacked on a rack above the pristine loo. There was a basket full of little plastic bottles next to the sink, free shampoo and bubble bath and hand lotion.
She unzipped her duffel bag and pulled out some fresh undies and a clean T-shirt, the snug sky-blue one. Then she went back into the bathroom to get the little bottles and the extra soap. If they were free, she was taking them with her.
She was just picking up the basket when someone knocked at the door. She nearly dropped it.
"Yeah?" she shouted through the closed door.
"Room service," called an American voice. Sam peered through the eyehole.
It was a bellboy in a red uniform.
She opened the door. "Um, I didn"t order anything."
"Dr Bowman sent this up for you, ma"am," said the bellboy, pushing a trolley into the room. He was a thin black kid, the red cap pushed down on to a shaved head. "There"s a note with it. He also asked me to give you this, ma"am." He handed her a large paper bag.
Inside was a heavy woollen jacket, dark grey, the tags still attached. Sam pulled it out, gaping at it. It was really nice, must have cost him a fortune. She could leave her threadbare denim jacket here in the room.
The bellboy was hovering, as if waiting for something. "Oh, yeah, right," said Sam. She picked up the money belt from the bed and unzipped it. The Doctor had left her a handful of notes for tips. She gave the kid a five. He smiled and left her alone.
Sam pulled off the tags and tugged on the jacket, admiring herself in the mirror. It looked fantastic, just her size.
Sam pulled the cover off the plate. It was a sandwich plus crisps, a pickle, and more little bottles, tomato sauce and mustard this time. The note was 34 propped up against the ketchup, a folded bit of hotel stationery, written in neat running writing: One cheese-salad sandwich on sourdough, no margarine. Just One cheese-salad sandwich on sourdough, no margarine. Just the way you like it I hope. Have a sleep. We"ll meet you at the cable-car turntable the way you like it I hope. Have a sleep. We"ll meet you at the cable-car turntable when you"re ready. PTO. when you"re ready. PTO.
Sam turned the note over, picking slices of tomato out of the sandwich.
P.S. Wear the jacket, it"s cold.
"How is she?" said Fitz. He sat cross-legged on the Doctor"s hotel-room bed, holding his notebook.
The Doctor was pulling off his velvet coat. "I hate planes. You end up feeling dried up and sticky at the same time. Like an old lolly found in your pocket.
She"s fine. She"s dealing with all of it wonderfully."
"No," said Fitz. "I mean, what"s she like?"
The Doctor sat down on the chair and started to tug off his shoes. "Different,"
he said. "The same. A believer, but she keeps it to herself. A little more defensive. She hasn"t been through all the things Sam has been through. But she"s been through quite a bit."
"Does she remember anything? About you about either of us?"
The Doctor shook his head. "This Sam never met me, never left Earth in the TARDIS. But there still could be connections. We"ll see, this afternoon. Better let her finish her nap first." He flung his socks at the desk. "What"s the surrealism report?"
Fitz took the dragon feather out of his pocket and handed it to the Doctor.
The Time Lord turned it around in his hands, slowly. The light splashed off it in dozens of colours.
Fitz spread out his map of the city, turned the pages of his notebook. "The plants in Golden Gate Park are growing at five times the normal rate it"s closed to the public. Lots of unconfirmed cryptozoological sightings, including an alleged vehicle theft by Bigfoot. Oh, and would you believe Lombard Street has gone straight?"
"Well," laughed the Doctor, "as long as Castro Castro Street hasn"t gone straight. . . " Street hasn"t gone straight. . . "
"Seriously, it"s your best-case scenario," said Fitz. "Strange visitors, weird occurrences, but nothing too bizarre. Nothing to stop life going on as normal.
There hasn"t even been much in the press."
The Doctor nodded, struggling with the knot in his cravat. "I phoned General Kramer from the airport, just in case."
"That UNIT woman? What did she say?"
35."She said, "You"re phoning me up at two in the morning to tell me that strange things happen in San Francisco?""
"You forgot the time difference. Again." Fitz had to laugh. "Ladies and gentle-men, the mind of a Time Lord."
The Doctor grinned. "Adrienne explained it to me in considerable detail. But what"s happening here is both too large and too small for UNIT. It"s just the three of us. For now, at least."
Fitz closed his book. "Yeah. The three of us."
"She"s not dead," said the Doctor.
"I know, I know," Fitz said hastily, getting up and turning away. "It"s like last time: she"ll be along any minute, just as soon as we give up hope. I mean, it sounds like missing presumed dead is almost her default state anyway. . . "
"She"s still here."
"She"s not, you know," said Fitz. "You can"t just. . . " He didn"t turn around.
"I know," said the Doctor quietly. "I know what you mean. Go and relax for a while. If I don"t have a bath this instant, I"ll perish."
The first thing Sam saw, really saw now that she was wide awake, were the flowers.
Outside, the air was crisp and cold. The hotel was near the base of an incredibly tilted street, the buildings sticking out of it, straight up.
A lot of the buildings were old-fashioned, like the hotel they were staying in.
Others still showed signs of the renovation they must have gone through, after the Little Big One hit a couple of Christmases ago. But, old or new, all of them seemed to be covered in flowers. Pots and balconies were overflowing with red and purple and gold blossoms, brilliant in the clear, blue-white sunlight.
Crowds were moving on the pavements, up and down the slope of the street.
Here and there, more of the flowers were pushing their way up through the pavement like weeds, only to be trampled.
The receptionist had said the cable-car turntable was down the bottom of the street, right next to the hotel. There was a bunch of people down there, watching a street performer. Sam spotted the Doctor"s brown curls sticking up out of the crowd and headed down the hill towards him.
Sam eased her way through the crowd. She brushed past a guy in white robes, a woman with a pet monkey clinging to her shaved head. Were they normal? Were the flowers? How was she going to tell what was strange around here, and what wasn"t?
Fitz was there, too, flashing her a grin. She said, "Doc-"
36.The Doctor held up a hand for silence. He was frowning in concentration as he watched the juggler who was performing for the crowd. The guy held one hand level in front of his white-painted face, staring deep into three gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s as he rolled them in a circle in his palm.
He extended his arm, and then, with a flick of his fingers, he sent one gla.s.s sphere rolling up his arm, over his shoulders, and down the other arm into his waiting hand.
Applause rippled through the crowd.
The Doctor"s frown deepened. "Excuse me," he said, stepping through the crowd and right into the magic circle of empty s.p.a.ce around the juggler.
The juggler didn"t see the Doctor coming, concentrating on keeping the spheres in flight. With a flick of his fingers, the Doctor intercepted one of the gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s.
The juggler stared at him in astonishment, without missing a sphere. The Doctor rolled the stolen globe smoothly back and forth between his wrist and elbow, as though testing it.
"What"s he doing?" Sam hissed. Fitz just shrugged. She stood on tiptoes to try to see better.
The Doctor offered the sphere back to the juggler, who shrugged comically at the crowd and took it, then sent another one spinning at the Doctor. There was a smattering of laughter from the crowd as the Doctor stumbled to catch it.
Within moments they were pa.s.sing the spheres back and forth, fingertip to fingertip, in a silent, circling dance.
Finally the Doctor stopped, with a single sphere in his hand. He spun it on the tip of his finger, perfectly balanced.
Then he took his hand away.
The gla.s.s ball hung in the air.
Sam gaped. It wasn"t falling: it was drifting drifting down, the way a snowflake drifts. down, the way a snowflake drifts.
The crowd stared, none of them daring to make a noise.
The juggler caught the ball just before it settled on to the ground. The crowd burst into applause. Coins c.h.i.n.ked into his basket.
The Doctor made a silent half-bow and withdrew, leaving the juggler on centre stage. The crowd parted around him as he made his way back to Sam and Fitz.
"So what was that all about?" said Fitz.
"Just checking the weather," said the Doctor. "Come along. It"s time. Time we visited the cause of all of this."
37.With a flick of his fingers, he produced one of the gla.s.s spheres, and handed it to Sam.
The Doctor had explained most of it to her on the plane, while everyone else was watching the movie.
"It all began at midnight on December the thirty-first, 1999," he murmured.
She had to lean towards him to hear. "When a singularity opened in San Francisco."
"A black hole?" said Sam.
"A close cousin," said the Doctor. "I won"t go into the technical details."
"Oh yeah, thanks."
"Well, they"re not very interesting." He smiled. "The effects were slight at first, building up over a period of a few hours. It snowed in Hawaii. The Bay swelled and spilled. And then around the globe, just for a few seconds, time went out of control. Day turned to night and night to day. And, in the end, the entire Earth was forced through an opening the size of a bathtub."
Sam stared at him.
"And then, as you can see, it was spat back out again."
"How come n.o.body noticed?" Sam said.
"Paradox," said the Doctor. "Time was wound backward, the disaster was prevented. The Earth was both destroyed and not destroyed."
Sam leaned in close and murmured softly in his ear. "b.o.l.l.o.c.ks."
He looked at her. "Remember the postcards," he said quietly. "You both left Earth, and stayed on Earth."
Nice little paradox, the boy had called her. The knife kind of gave his words more believability.
The Doctor was walking up one of the tilted streets. Fitz and Sam were already puffing, trying to keep up. The street was getting steeper the longer they walked at first, Sam had thought she was imagining it. It was like climbing a concrete mountain.
"On the plane," said Sam, "you said the damage to s.p.a.ce could make all sorts of things happen." She was rolling the gla.s.s ball around in her hands. "Like one of these hanging in midair?"
"Sudden gusts of gravity, or the reverse," said the Doctor. "Freak weather patterns. It"s a sort of temporal cicatrix. s.p.a.ce-time tried to heal itself, but it didn"t succeed. They called it the Millennium Effect but the millennium was only just beginning."
38."So how come San Francisco only got strange in the last few weeks?" said Sam.