Doctor Who: Drift (2 page)

she reassured Mak, this time with a smile loaded with the best times. „She wasn‟t too upset to wrap herself up warm now, was she?‟

„Guess not,‟ said Makenzie, drawing up the zipper on his police-issue parka. Looked like he‟d decided work was more pressing than policing family. Hell of a lot easier too, she imagined, in a town like Melvin Village.

Martha rested on the shovel, listening for Mak‟s bootsteps beating a path to his truck. Amber was nowhere. Martha‟s only child would have disappeared long before she‟d rounded the first bend, consumed in a cold white furnace.

One feast-fire story told of a hero who decided to mount a bold expedition to find a path around the barrier that guarded the Tesh fortress. He led his war party on a long and dangerous trek into unknown lands, keeping the barrier always to their right. Their journey carried them further and further from home until the jungle thinned around them and there was only open ground and grass. Yet still the barrier stood to the right of their path. The warriors often went hungry; for they were not used to hunting in these wide open lands and the herds of beasts would see them and scatter before them. On they walked and many wanted to turn back.

They missed the jungle and their homes, but their leader urged them on, and told them they would eat the grass if they must. But with each day the grass started to thin and the barrier still stood to the right of their path. But none would disobey their leader for he was a great hero and they believed in him.

Their journey ended in a land colder than night. There was no colour and the few trees were like skeletons. The rain was solid, so cold it burned, and it fell on the land in great mounds and stole the warmth from the fire and made the warriors shiver. No animals lived in that white wasteland and when they dug for roots they found only hard earth and rock.

They shared out the remnants of their food and began their long journey home. Their leader, the great hero, would not eat as he journeyed back with his warriors, and before he died he gave them his ration and asked them their forgiveness.

The end of the tale had often escaped Leela. She‟d generally found herself wandering into that strange land, trying to see it in her mind. But no clear picture would ever come.

Now, it was as if the Doctor had delivered her to that same land, where a hero of the Sevateem had died. And yet he had told her that these lands were home to a noble people.

Leela shivered and pulled her furs closer around her. This cold smothered every scent. She blinked against the strange flakes colonising her eyelashes. She did not want to meet the tribe who could live in this place. „Doctor, I wish to go back to the TARDIS.‟

„So do I, so do I. But I‟ve no idea where she is. I don‟t understand it, I can normally find my way home in any storm. Better than a racing pigeon.‟

Lost. They were lost.

The feeling was by no means a new one. Still, usually the Doctor had an air of being perfectly at home with being lost.

Here, in this land at the end of the world, he worried her by looking as miserable and confused as she felt. It did not help that he also looked very silly.

The Doctor had braved this hostile land in his usual garb, but had wrapped his coat around him much tighter, with the collar high to fence out the fierce cold; and he had looped the long scarf up over his hat, tying the brim down around his ears. The rest of it wound thickly around his neck like a constrictor vine. It was, she decided, the costume of a madman.

He had halted now, some distance ahead of her, with the stance of one who has lost a mate.

„I‟m afraid we‟ve arrived at the wrong time.‟

„There is a warmer season? Better for hunting?‟

„Yes - no, the wrong
time.’
He cast a hand back and waved her up. Wearily, Leela trudged forward, the
snow
swallowing her boots almost to the knee. It was a bit like wading through mud. She saw the Doctor nod disconsolately at a fallen structure, some sort of framework of metal dripping with shards like spearheads of water. „A couple of centuries later than I‟d intended. I was hoping to drop you off in a continent untouched by electricity pylons - amongst other things...‟

Leela frowned, then gasped .‟Are these structures the work of invaders? Perhaps this tribe you spoke of toppled it in battle.‟

The Doctor managed a grunt as he scanned the slopes. „I doubt if these mountains have seen so much as a footprint from that tribe in a hundred years. A continent swept clean for the new tenants. A way of life systematically dismantled and scattered on the winds like ashes.‟

The Doctor held up a hand and let a few of the flakes spatter harmlessly in his palm. „You‟ll get your chance to spend some time with the Native American people, I promise.

Sooner, possibly later. I‟m sure you‟ll find it worth the wait.‟

He wiped his palm clean with a casual pat on his coat, then thrust both hands deep in his pockets. „Of course, I really can‟t say how long a wait we might have. Could be an eternity if I can‟t find the TARDIS. Which would be all right for me, I suppose, but it wouldn‟t do much for your complexion.‟

„Doctor, you are babbling.‟

„Am I?‟ He turned suddenly very grumpy. „Well, babbling clears the mind. It‟s a well known scientific - anyway, why aren‟t you doing your bit, instead of criticising, hmm? Your homing instincts ought to be nearly as good as mine. Think, Leela. Think.‟

Leela wanted to tell him she was thinking. Instead, she sighed and searched the ghostly expanse above, behind and below.

The snowfall at the moment was a gentle swirl, nowhere near as harsh as the driving -
blizzard
, the Doctor had called it - but was dense enough to mask all but the grey bones of the trees below. And the wind still had teeth. She was sure they had worked their way downward, around this slope, projecting from the mountainside like a fist, clad in its glove of white. Their tracks stretched behind them like crudely carved script, but disappeared too soon for their every step to be retraced. They were badly exposed here, easy prey.

Leela tensed, like a deer in a hunter‟s sights.

The ridgeline above was invisible, but was marked approximately by the grey shapes that came pouring over the crest into view. „Doctor.‟

„I see them,‟ the Doctor informed her, teeth clenched. „Never rains but it-‟ He straightened. „Do you know, I think they‟re only coyotes.‟

Leela opened her mouth to ask the obvious question. But the Doctor shushed her and placed an arm over her shoulder. „They‟re a species of wild dog native to this land, but they won‟t bother us. Not if we stay perfectly still, try not to attract their attention unnecessarily.‟ Slowly, he encouraged her into a crouch beside him. He kept his finger across his lips.

„Unless they‟re hungry,‟ he added in a whisper.

Leela whispered back, but could not quite hide her annoyance: „And how will we know if they are hungry, Doctor?‟

Oh, I expect they‟ll try to eat us.‟

„Doctor, we should find some better place to hide from these creatures.‟

The Doctor never once shifted his gaze from the pack, which was beginning now to resolve itself into individual animals, dark and streamlined. They hurtled their way down the slope, battling against the deep snow, jostling like a teeming shoal of Horda. There was a predatory beauty to their motion, as well as a collective recklessness.

Leela was poised for a sprint.

„We‟d never make it,‟ the Doctor told her only what her instincts had tried to deny.

She watched the staring eyes and the bounding grey forms, the rippling muscles beneath the frosted fur and the contours of ribs as they closed the distance. Many, the majority, looked dangerously lean. She had no choice but to sit still and hope that the pack would run past.

„They do look especially hungry, don‟t they?‟ observed the Doctor gloomily.

The lighter popped and Curt Redeker snatched it straight up, sucked at the flame through his cigarette. It was the only heat left in the goddamn car. His feet were blocks of ice on the pedals and he was getting the shakes just trying to stay on the road. He drummed his hands along to Creedence‟s

„Lodi‟. More about stopping the shakes than keeping warm.

Jesus, 1-93 was the road to hell, but this - he‟d never known Martha was going to take the kid to live with the Eskimos. Bitch was frigid, she‟d be right at home, but making him drive through this shit to see his kid for Thanksgiving. Amber.

Sour tears and another case of the shakes: Daddy‟s late, Precious, days late. Daddy‟s sorry, honey, can‟t tell you. But see, your Daddy got himself dressed up and there‟s presents out in the trunk. Want to step outside with your Daddy, go see?

The suit was aggravating, a bad fit. Curt swallowed dry and the drunken butterflies in his gut were coming down hard, begging for another shot. The bottle clinked around below rolling somewhere under the seat. Cursing, he stretched down.

He almost had it, but the bottle slipped loose. Suddenly, the car was sliding like a cow on ice-skates. Curt grabbed the wheel tight, breaking out in a sweat. CC.R were playing second fiddle to the sound of his own breathing. Well, hey, least he was still doing that.

Getting a grip, he scoured the slope, through the frosted windshield, a web of scratches, and all that white dirt being tossed over the hood. It was a downhill stretch, winding between trees in a fogged film. That whiter knife, that had to be a lake. And all those lines and shapes of grey, that had to be a town. A hand-painted sign, nailed to a tree, crept out of the pale murk on his right:

HASTE YE BACK,
it said. A quaint local feature.

„Wish I could,‟ muttered Curt, deciding he really needed to pull over for a time-out. But he let the miles blur for a time.

He yawned and rubbed his eyes practically into the bridge of his nose. When he looked up he blinked. And Curt was staring death in the face.

The Doctor and Leela stood slowly.

Far below, the coyotes blurred together once more and, like grey waters, ran into the trees where they disappeared, dissolved in white.

Their departure left a momentary vacuum.

„Those animals looked starved,‟ the Doctor noted, with a weighty glance at Leela. „Winter. Food scarce - but even so.‟

He peered into the stillness below, then looked up, trying to penetrate the emptiness above the ridgeline. „Something must have scared them very badly to make them run past a perfectly good square meal like us.‟

Leela wiped her face: a great deal of the snow had stuck to her cheeks and brow while they had waited for the pack to pass them. „I am not disappointed they did so.‟

„Neither am I. But I am wondering what could have given a pack of hungry coyotes a scare like that. Aren‟t you?‟

Leela let her shoulders fall. „If there is danger that way,‟ she directed a nod up the slope, „then we should follow those creatures.‟

„Well, that‟s one opinion, of course,‟ conceded the Doctor a touch huffily. He stooped to bring his enormous eyes level with hers. „Do you know what I think?‟

„Yes.‟

„I think we should take a leaf out of Jack and Jill‟s book.‟

He beamed cheerily and pointed up to where the incline met the sky. And in the next instant he was wading off in that same direction. „Come on. Up the hill.‟

Leela huffed and braced herself for a strenuous climb. „Yes,

„And try not to go breaking anyone‟s crown.‟

The Doctor‟s call was as faint as it was mystifying.

The snows had taken to the air like a swarm of hoary insects.

Visibility was falling rapidly to zero. Just as Kristal had prophesied: not the breeze the Captain was expecting. Still, she‟d like to spare him the I-told-you-so. This time. It couldn‟t be too lucky when it was her ass hanging in the wind.

Almost literally. Shaw had assigned her, vindictively she suspected, to the roof with Marotta. A big old colonial farm-house, red wood, it was an easy gig to climb up, the way it huddled into the mountain. Not so easy staying aloft.

Especially with the anaemic killer bees having a go with their icicle stings.

Kristal yanked her hat down far as it would go. She shuttered her eyes to fence out the swirl of flakes. White Shadow was a ghost-platoon, spread around the house in a broad arc, grey as the trees. And like the trees they waited, collecting snow.

Kristal‟s face had weathered some storms in its time, but none like this.

Winter was when the land slept, storing its energies for the renewal of spring. This day was all death without the promise of rebirth. Her hand rested on the roof and her gloved fingers confirmed it: there was more than cold beneath her fingertips.

„Whoa, Kristal. You‟re not about to get all spiritual on me are you?‟ warned Marotta, a rugged sort of Santa with a face built in Brooklyn, as he swung himself around the other side of the chimney. His boots scraped the snows loose and sent a pack of it sliding from the roof. Jerk never treated her like a real officer. None of them would ever understand.

This wasn‟t a two-man job. As soon as Marotta had unpacked the smoker, she dropped on her butt and coasted down on a minor avalanche of her own. She was sure even he could cope with dropping a grenade down a chimney.