Read Online Doctor Who by Nicholas Briggs - Free Book Online Page B

were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep it from them. But let me tell you …’
    For a moment he trailed off, noticing that the journalists were starting to peel away, shaking their heads. He heard words like ‘nutter’ and ‘lunatic’ and worse drift towards him. They were simply finding his story completely unacceptable.
    The Doctor reached out and grabbed the arm of one of the retreating hacks, an older, grey haired, balding man in a heavy, dark coat.
    ‘Wait a minute!’ the Doctor pleaded. ‘Why’s all this so difficult for you to believe? I mean, you’re journalists, aren’t you? Don’t you love a juicy bit of scandal? This could be a great story.’
    ‘A great story?’ the journalist sneered. He fixed the Doctor with a look. The Doctor looked straight back into his eyes. This was a veteran of the news trade, the Doctor could see that. A hardened man who felt he had seen it all. He had waited out here in the dark for several hours to get hold of a great story, and instead, all he hadgot was something totally crazy from a madman.
    ‘You want us to say that the Daleks are evil?’ he asked, dumbfounded.
    ‘Why not?’ asked the Doctor. ‘It’s true, and I can prove it to you!’
    The journalist opened his arms wide, inviting the proof.
    The Doctor found himself wrong-footed. ‘Well, not now … obviously, but—’
    ‘Look, the Daleks created the Sunlight Worlds,’ the journalist explained.
    Those Sunlight Worlds again, thought the Doctor. What
were
they?
    The journalist was still talking. ‘They’ve made life better for a generation of people whose lives were ruined by the worst galactic recession on record. You’re going to have to do a lot better than shouting wild accusations in the street to get anyone to believe they’re anything but … well, to be frank, saviours!’
    ‘When did they create these … Sunlight Worlds?’ asked the Doctor.
    ‘Oooh, I dunno,’ the journalist said. ‘About thirty or forty years ago. Something like that. I’ve got an aunt who lives there. Says it’s like paradise!’
    ‘Paradise?’ interrupted the Doctor, aghast. ‘The Daleks created paradise?’
    ‘Yeah!’ said the journalist. ‘So are you seriously telling me that makes the Daleks evil?’
    To the Doctor’s intense annoyance, he could find no answer to this. As the journalist retreated down the street, the Doctor gazed around in frustration. Howcould you prove something so obvious to people who had clearly had such a different, distorted experience of the Daleks? And then he noticed that the children had emerged from inside his jacket. They were the next problem he had to solve.
    ‘What’s going to happen now?’ asked Sabel.
    The Doctor held up a finger, as if he was about to tell them something significant. But when he looked for an idea, it was as if the cupboard was bare. He was well and truly stumped.
    He turned back to look into the building they had just exited. He pushed at the door. It was locked securely. He looked at the windows. Heavy shutters were now down.
    ‘I’m cold,’ said Jenibeth.
    ‘Me too,’ said Ollus.
    ‘And it’s way past our bedtimes,’ said Sabel, as if the Doctor should have known that.
    The Doctor scanned the darkened street for inspiration. They seemed to be in what looked like a run-down area of a great city. A long, straight road stretched off far into the distance, towards the high, bright lights of what must be skyscrapers, he thought. Closer at hand, a few shabby, unlit buildings, possibly shops or cafes littered some untidy wasteland. This enormous spaceship landing terminal had perhaps been built away from the main, and possibly more affluent inhabited areas, as a safety precaution against crash landings.
    The Doctor’s impromptu exploding of nearby street lamps had almost certainly made this area a good deal darker than usual. Perhaps surprisingly, the minor tramcarcrash had caused only the smallest of consternations. Luckily for