Doctor Who BBCN14 - The Last Dodo Page 3

  that – glad to have met you, nice to know what’s going on, but I think we’ll be getting along now. Come on, Martha.’

  The guards raised their weapons again.

  ‘Or we could sit here quietly,’ continued the Doctor, sitting down again.

  ‘The Earth section,’ said Eve, ‘is also the site of the recent thefts.

  All have taken place outside visiting hours. No one has detected the culprit arriving in the museum.’ She paused. ‘You were in the Earth section. It is now outside visiting hours. Your arrival was not detected until you reached the section itself.’

  ‘I can see your reasoning, Sherlock – not a bad bit of deduction there,’ put in the Doctor. ‘Wrong conclusion, of course, but. . . ’

  ‘And you appear to have a grudge against our practices. Under galactic law, I have more than enough justification to have you imprisoned pending full investigation by the proper authorities.’ She reached out to her computer and pressed a few keys. ‘I see we can next expect a justice visit in five months, so until then. . . ’ Eve gestured at the guards. ‘Take them away.’

  ‘Hang on a minute!’ Martha couldn’t hide her shock. ‘You can’t just lock us up for months!’

  Eve smiled. ‘Oh yes I can,’ she said, and turned away.

  22

  THE I-SPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES

  MOUNTAIN GORILLA

  Gorilla beringei beringei

  Location: Rwanda, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo The shy mountain gorilla is a forest-dwelling herbivore. The male can weigh more than twice as much as the female. Its fur is black, although adult males develop silver fur on their backs, and are therefore known as ‘silverbacks’.

  The gorilla’s arms are longer than its legs. It walks either on two legs or on all fours, with its knuckles touching the ground.

  Addendum:

  Last reported sighting: AD 2030.

  Cause of extinction: poached for bush meat and endangered animal trades; destruction of habitat.

  I-Spyder points: 500

  THE I-SPYDER BOOK OF EARTH CREATURES

  Creature

  Points

  Dodo

  800

  Megatherium

  500

  Paradise parrot

  500

  Velociraptor

  250

  Mountain gorilla

  500

  Aye-aye

  900

  Siberian tiger

  600

  Kakapo

  900

  Subtotal

  4950

  A guard grabbed hold of Martha’s arm, while another two pointed their space guns at her. Their fellows were treating the Doctor in the same way. She threw an anxious look at her companion – what were they going to do now?

  But just as Martha’s captor reached the office door, it flew open, hitting him on the nose. She took the opportunity to snatch away her arm – although in deference to the still-raised weapons, didn’t try to make a run for it. She looked instead at the new arrival.

  It was a young man – not much older than her – wearing forest-green overalls with the tusk-headed ‘MOTLO’ logo on the chest. He was short, slightly chubby, and sported a light-brown goatee beard and a worried expression.

  ‘Eve!’ he said, ignoring everyone else in his agitation, ‘there’s been another disappearance!’

  The older woman closed her eyes for a second as if composing herself, and then said, ‘What is missing this time, Tommy?’

  ‘The Black Rhino,’ the man told her. Eve’s lips narrowed but she remained composed – Tommy looked like he was about to cry.

  ‘That makes five,’ Eve said, talking more to the air than the man.

  ‘Five irreplaceable specimens. Five creatures lost for eternity.’ She 25

  turned to the Doctor and Martha. ‘If you’re expecting any leniency, you can forget it right now. I will be pressing for the maximum penal-ties the law can offer.’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Well, yes, you could do that,’ he said. ‘Or you could accept that we are innocent and let us help. You see, I happened to notice the Black Rhino as we were being escorted here. It was still there, and still very much alive if far from what I would call well.’

  ‘And you expect me to accept your word for that?’

  ‘Oh, come on – the Black Rhinoceros is twelve feet long and weighs three thousand pounds.’ He flung open his suit jacket. ‘Search my pockets! Look up my sleeves! If I were wearing a hat you could check under that! And if you’re still not convinced, and if you ask nicely, you can even pat down the sides of my legs to check there’s not a rhinoceros sewn into the turn-ups of my trousers.’

  Eve opened her mouth to speak, but the Doctor started again, gesturing at the guards. ‘What’s more, considering the absence of one rhino would leave one fairly big empty space, I think your bully boys here would have noticed if its cage was empty when we wandered past on our way out.’

  Nervously, the guard with the squashed nose spoke, one hand still massaging his face. ‘I saw the rhino,’ he said.

  The Doctor beamed at him. ‘Well observed, that generic guard!

  Case closed.’

  Martha suddenly had an idea. ‘Besides,’ she said. ‘We’ve actually been sent here to help investigate these. . . disappearances, and we can prove it.’ She stared hard at the pocket where she knew the Doctor kept his psychic paper, hoping he’d get the hint.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ he agreed, giving her an appreciative smile and diving into his jacket pocket. ‘One set of proof, coming up.’

  The Doctor handed over the psychic paper. Martha didn’t know how it would appear to Eve, but it would reflect whatever suited the situation best – some sort of identity card or official authorisation.

  Or so she thought.

  ‘Is this some kind of trick?’ asked Eve, turning the little wallet over in her hands. ‘It’s blank.’

  26

  Ah.

  She held it out in front of her. The Doctor, looking just slightly worried, went to take it back, but Tommy intercepted it. He glanced down and then frowned. ‘Hang on! This says you’re undercover agents with the Galactic Wildlife Trust.’ He looked at Eve, confused.

  ‘That’s right!’ beamed a relieved Doctor. ‘Undercover, that’s us. In fact, we’re under so much cover that even our authorisation papers are shielded in secrecy sometimes.’ He snicked the psychic paper out of the man’s hand and shoved it back in his pocket before Eve could ask to have a second look. ‘So! Now all that’s settled, and after these gentlemen have put down their weapons, which I’m anticipating will happen in the very near future, let’s get on with some investigating.

  That’s what they pay us for, right, Agent Jones?’

  ‘Right. Yeah, of course.’

  Eve didn’t seem precisely happy, but nodded. ‘Very well.’

  ‘We could do with all the help we can get!’ said Tommy, smiling at Martha. She smiled back. When he wasn’t close to tears, he had a very jolly face.

  Martha tried to think about the sort of things an investigator would say under these circumstances. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t set up CCTV

  cameras,’ she tried, adding a bit of disdain to her voice to show the near-arrest hadn’t really worried her a bit. ‘You know, to keep an eye on things.’

  Eve looked at her pityingly. ‘We have almost 300 billion species in the Earth section,’ she replied. ‘Remotely monitoring each one is scarcely practical. We have to rely on movement sensors.’

  Martha felt crushed. ‘Yeah, but, even so,’ she managed.

  The Doctor grinned at her. ‘Nice try,’ he mouthed.

  Reassured, she set back her shoulders and had another go. ‘Then maybe we should visit the scene of the crime,’ she said. ‘Er, again.

  Without anyone arresting us, I mean.’

  ‘A very good idea, Agent Jones,’ said the Doctor. ‘Better start earning some of that enormous salary that our employers remunerate us with.’
<
br />   ‘I’ll give you the guided tour,’ Tommy announced. ‘Earth’s my beat.’

  ‘You’re a tour guide?’ Martha asked him.

  27

  He laughed. ‘Nope.’

  ‘But Tommy is extremely knowledgeable about the Earth section,’

  Eve said. ‘He was responsible for collecting many of the most recent specimens.’

  ‘Team leader, Earth projects,’ Tommy clarified. ‘I’m one of the museum’s collection agents. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the team.’

  We left the office and I felt that dizzy sensation again, although this time I knew why: we were being teleported. I think we must have arrived back in a different corridor, because we didn’t go through the foyer this time but went straight into the Earth section – entering in a different place meant we really did get a bit of a guided tour before we reached the place where the rhino wasn’t, which was fine by me.

  Anyway, back a bit, first Tommy introduced us to the Earth team

  – Earthers, they called themselves. There were six of them altogether, which wasn’t as many as I’d expected, but then I suppose even on Earth things aren’t going extinct quite that quickly. There was Tommy’s partner, Rix, a tall, skinny bloke with big glasses; they looked like a comedy double act. And Rix was definitely the straight man, he barely smiled once. Then there were Vanni and Nadya, another partnership, both about my age and a bit giggly. The last two were Frank and Celia. I was just going to say that Frank was about the Doctor’s age when I realised how silly that was – I meant the Doctor’s apparent age, sort of mid-thirties-ish, not 900-and-whatever. Takes a bit of getting used to, knowing a Time Lord. So, yes, Frank, mid-thirties, chunky, kept sniffing; Celia, late twenties, bit stuck up. That was the gang.

  The Doctor and I smiled, and shook hands, and said how nice to meet them, and Tommy announced we were undercover secret agents, at which the Doctor groaned and shot an exasperated look at the ceiling, but I don’t think Tommy noticed that.

  I think the Doctor was suffering from a severe case of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I knew he hated this place. Every now and again he would look at an animal, or even just catch sight of the MOTLO logo, and he’d tense up. And I guessed that he’d been as 28

  unimpressed by Eve, the boss, as I was.

  But on the other hand. . . well, this whole creature disappearances thing, it was a mystery, wasn’t it? And I may not have known the Doctor very long, but I’ve certainly gathered enough already to realise how he feels about mysteries. Imagine the mystery is one of those enormous cartoon magnets and the Doctor is made of metal and you’ll have an idea how he reacts. Clang! The mystery magnet drags him in and he can’t resist it.

  Anyway, I was telling you about the guided tour. Rix joined Tommy in showing us around. ‘Have fun!’ called Nadya, as we set off. But fun really wasn’t the right word. Well, some of it was fun, like Tommy’s joking about (see below), but overall there was just too much awe involved. Tommy and Rix took it in their strides – well, I suppose you get used to even the most incredible stuff after a while – but I just gaped.

  Tommy got one of the security men to raise the metal grille so we could wander among the specimens – that’s the word he used, ‘specimens’; I don’t think the Doctor was that impressed, but he put on his polite face and didn’t say anything. Tommy was nice, though, don’t get me wrong.

  What you’d call a ‘cheeky chappie’, He made me laugh, although I felt a bit bad about it, because I don’t think the Doctor liked that either – Tommy imitating a gorilla, or making fun of the dodo’s alleged stupidity. I knew he was thinking it was disrespectful. And it was –but it was still funny. Sorry, Doctor. Sorry, animals.

  But I was telling you about the awe. Oh, how can I describe it to you?

  You might remember that I briefly met a couple of dinosaurs during a previous time-travelling trip, so you’d think seeing a load of them in cases would be all ‘been there, got the T-shirt’, nowhere near as impressive. And I’ll give you this much: seeing an Apatosaurus lum-bering out of the bushes towards you gives you a quiver that a static beast in a museum just can’t match. But my ‘blink and you’ll miss it’

  encounter hadn’t left me as the world’s biggest dinosaur expert, and now, being surrounded by them, I started to realise what a big deal it 29

  was.

  I mean, in my time, there’s this huge mystery of what colour the things were – ‘no one will ever know for sure,’ they used to say, but now I do know – I actually know – although to my slight disappointment I can confirm that the guesswork of the illustrators and the model-makers and the special-effects men was right, they’re mostly just a dull grey or brown with maybe a bit of green mixed in. I was hoping for some pinks and purples and sunflower yellows, but it was all a camouflage thing, I guess. But there were other things: some had weird feathery bits all over their bodies, some had spines, some had turkey-like wattles or these amazing umbrella frills round their heads, like they were wearing a ruff made out of skin. I could just look around me, and find out all this stuff. I think a palaeontologist would faint with excitement.

  That made me curious – did palaeontologists come here? How did the universe work just this little bit into my future? I did this really cunning thing, asking what were some of the latest exhibits and then sneakily looking them up in the I-Spyder guide, and I came to the conclusion that we were maybe about sixty years after my time. So, were Earthlings travelling the stars by now, taking it so far in their stride that they could stop off at tourist attractions? I dragged the Doctor to one side and asked him. ‘Yes and no,’ he said. ‘They’re out and about a bit, bases on the moon, that sort of thing, a few more ambitious projects, but they’re not likely to be popping in here.

  No organised rocket-coach trips or advertising leaflets through the door; as far as pretty much everyone on Earth is concerned, the dodo is as dead as, the dinosaurs are dinos-aren’ts, and the Indefatigable Galapagos Mouse remains sadly fatigablated.’

  That was a bit sad. Although admittedly, after the palaeontologist had recovered from his faint he’d probably find himself out of a job pretty quickly, what with fossils suddenly becoming rather de trop.

  There’s something to be said for things remaining a mystery – what is there left when you know everything?

  Not that this was going to be my problem for a while – I can’t even remember the names of most of the things I saw, just the famous ones 30

  like the stegosaurus and the triceratops, and that was just in this one small area of the museum. I asked Tommy about the Tyrannosaurus rex – really didn’t want to see one of those again, OK, so awe and amazement and all that, but meeting one once was about one time too many. Luckily, the museum’s ‘specimen’ was in a section about fifty miles away. Apparently there’s a sort of super-speed monorail system to take visitors around, plus a submarine affair for the water-based creatures, but, even so, a visitor could expect to see only a tiny fraction of the 300 billion exhibits, even when some of them were fleas or amoebas or similarly teeny tiny stuff.

  Isn’t there a theory that people can’t visualise any number over –well, actually I can’t remember how many, but it’s something small like five, or ten. If that’s the case, trying to comprehend a number like 300 billion is probably a bit ambitious.

  I remember when Mum and Dad used to take us to the zoo as kids, and there were elephants – the type with bigger ears, whichever that is – and probably about four different sorts of monkeys (if we were especially good, Dad’d buy us a bag of monkey nuts to feed them with, and we’d happily stand around for ages watching them nibble at the shells). There was a Giant Panda, that everyone wanted to have babies, and some giraffes. The tiger always seemed to be asleep. That makes. . . eight. I mean, I expect there were more. Reptiles and birds and things, we weren’t so interested in those.

  But it makes you think, doesn’t it?

  Especially when a lot of those 300 billion species are in perspe
x boxes right next to you and your friend wants to set them all free.

  Tommy had pointed out the diplodocus in the distance – at about thirty metres long, it stood out from the crowd – and was doing a goofy impression of it: ‘der, my bwain is so small’. Martha was happily smiling along, when she suddenly realised that the Doctor had dropped behind them. Leaving the Earther laughing at his own joke and digging Rix in the ribs, she slipped away to join her friend. He was looking very grim.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I know I shouldn’t laugh. I know you hate it here.’

  31

  ‘Not at all,’ he replied, fastening a ghastly false smile on his face.

  ‘As you can see, I’m being nice and normal and friendly, and I shall keep on being nice and normal and friendly, and I shall not go on the rampage or anything, because I try not to do that unless there are lots of monsters around.’ He glared at the still-laughing Tommy.

  ‘Although, second thoughts. . . ’

  Martha hastily grabbed his hand and dragged him a bit further away. ‘It’s not monsters,’ she said. ‘It’s something you don’t like, and I understand that, but it’s not monsters.’

  ‘All these creatures,’ he said.

  ‘They’re stuck in a living death,

  Martha.’

  ‘I can sort of see the point, though,’ she said, slightly nervously. ‘I mean, otherwise these animals would be gone for ever. They’ve got a dodo! Things that people without a time machine would never see.

  I know that it’s the fault of humans that these animals have gone.

  We’re rubbish. But doesn’t this balance it out a bit? Doesn’t it undo our mistakes just a fraction – sort of an apology to nature?’

  But the Doctor shook his head.

  ‘Ice ages come and go, conti-

  nents shift, conditions change. Nature didn’t intend there to be Ankylosaurus or Dimetrodon in the twenty-first century; they were wiped out long before man first raised a wooden club and said, ooh, last one to kill a woolly mammoth’s a rotten moa egg. Do you really think you and your kind would be around today if dinosaurs still walked the Earth? Yes, humans have mocked nature, wiping out the dodo and the passenger pigeon and the thylacine – but this place doesn’t apolo-gise, it laughs at her even more.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘Better to die free than to live in a cage.’