The Wintertime Paradox Read online

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION: THE WINTERTIME PARADOX

  1. HE’S BEHIND YOU

  2. FATHER OF THE DALEKS

  3. INFLICTING CHRISTMAS

  4. FOR THE GIRL WHO HAS EVERYTHING

  5. VISITING HOURS

  6. WE WILL FEED YOU TO THE TREES

  7. CHRISTMAS WITH THE PLASMAVORES

  8. A GIRL CALLED DOUBT

  9. A PERFECT CHRISTMAS

  10. MISSING HABITAS FROND

  11. A DAY TO YOURSELVES

  12. THE PARADOX MOON

  CANARIES: A Time Lord Victorious Story

  About the Author

  Dave Rudden is a former actor, teacher and time-displaced Viking currently living in Dublin. He is the author of the award-winning Knights of the Borrowed Dark trilogy, and enjoys cats, adventure and being cruel to fictional children.

  PRAISE FOR DAVE RUDDEN

  ‘Scary and funny – my two favourites. Dave Rudden is more than a rising star, he is a shooting star’

  Eoin Colfer

  ‘[Knights of the Borrowed Dark] is action-packed, atmospheric and powerfully imagined. But it is most notable for writerly wit and unexpected turns of phrase … this is engaging storytelling for any age’

  Sunday Times

  ‘Dave Rudden writes brilliantly: his sentences are full of surprises, his ideas are shiny and fluid or sharp and shocking’

  Times Educational Supplement

  ‘Rudden is an author to watch. Knights of the Borrowed Dark is a pacy, entertaining read, but it has heart too’

  Guardian

  ‘Wonderful style. Reminded me of Douglas Adams’

  R. L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps series

  This book is dedicated to anybody who has ever been told that writing fan fiction is a waste of time.

  Introduction

  THE WINTERTIME PARADOX

  Doctor Who is a show about …

  Well. That’s kind of a moving target. Oh, generalities are easy. It’s a show about a time traveller. That’s certainly true. But there are lots of shows about time travellers. We’ll need to be more specific.

  What about genre? OK, that’s easier. It’s science fiction. Isn’t it? Well, yes. Except for when it’s horror, obviously. Or comedy. Or drama. Or fantasy. Or all the above at the same time. Doctor Who changes genre with all the wit and charisma and sleight of hand of a magician changing cards, until you can’t help but be swept along with the trick.

  And, speaking of magicians, we can at least be certain of the main character, right? Doctor Who is a show about the Doctor, of course. Except for when it’s not. And even when it is you’ve got thirteen to choose from – except for when there’s fourteen, or fifteen, and maybe a whole lot more.

  There’s a reason why the show keeps advising you to run. It’s not because of the monsters. It’s so you can keep up.

  It’s a little easier, therefore, if we get specific. If we talk about what Doctor Who is about to you. People light up when you ask them that, which is funny because usually the very next thing they’ll tell you is about how Doctor Who scared them so badly they had to hide behind the couch, or about how sad they were to see a Doctor leave. Sometimes, they’ll tell you what they don’t like about Doctor Who, and even then they complain with the peculiar, granular delight of someone complaining about a friend they dearly love.

  And, if you’ve never heard of Doctor Who and are simply picking up this book because you are a fan of paradoxes, or of Christmas, or because you liked Alexis’s stunning cover, then there’s something lovely about that too, because Doctor Who is a show built on new beginnings. Every episode is the beginning of someone’s story – a companion’s, a civilian’s, a monster’s – and any Doctor can be your first. Don’t worry, confusion is normal. You’re travelling with the Doctor now. They don’t really know where they’re going, and neither should you. If you experience things out of order, that’s OK. In fact, it’s kind of on-brand.

  My favourite thing about Doctor Who is the occasional allusion to other adventures. Sometimes, a reference will be to an actual story. Other times, it’s just a joke (I’m looking at you, Zodin). Every now and then, an allusion will end up inspiring a new storyline, which means that it was a reference, but just appeared before the story it was referencing. Again, very on-brand.

  Interacting with Doctor Who on any level feels like stepping into a house – a huge, sprawling, beautiful, contradictory mansion built and maintained and added to by thousands upon thousands of hands. You can’t have time travel without paradoxes, and one of the biggest nestled at the heart of Who is this: the more you explore, the more you realise there are always more rooms you have yet to reach.

  Paradoxes crop up a lot in this book. Not just in the narrative tying the stories together, but in the stories themselves. In Stormcage, a father and his daughter will find normality in shared strangeness. In Edinburgh, a series of murders will remind a Time Lord that only her worst enemy can be her best friend. At the end of five Christmases, the Doctor will learn that the only way to move forward is to finally go home.

  Here are twelve short stories – twelve glimpses into twelve different rooms in that weird, glorious, sprawling mansion, which is still being added to, even as we speak. I hope you like them.

  Dave Rudden, May 2020

  1

  He’s Behind You

  It was said, in the dark corners of the universe, that the fury of a Time Lord could burn worlds.

  It was whispered, in rad-lairs and necro-domes and other shadowy refuges too dangerous to name aloud, that the Time Lords had meddled so long and so deeply with the fabric of the cosmos that their will had become a law unto itself.

  The rage of Gallifrey was a celestial event. No being could stand against it, no more than one could weather a black hole’s hunger or the fury of a newborn star.

  And, of all those wayward, volatile children of Time, none was more feared than the Doctor, for his fury had burned the Time Lords themselves.

  ‘What do you mean,’ he whispered, ‘you “don’t like panto”?’

  Rose Tyler shrugged. ‘Just think it’s a bit silly, that’s all.’

  Cyan lights chased each other around the walls. Honey-hued pillars curled from floor to ceiling, like nerve endings or candy floss under a microscope. But what the inside of the TARDIS really reminded Rose of was the ferry she and her mum had taken to France when she was eight, and they’d sat there in what could have been a shopping centre, except for the hidden engines vibrating everything from the tea in their flasks to little Rose’s little bones.

  That was what it was like being in the TARDIS. She’d had chips here. They’d hooked her MP3 player up to the console and blasted Destiny’s Child across the cold vacuum of space. But you never stopped feeling that vibration. You never forgot you were crossing a deep and dangerous sea.

  ‘Silly?’ the Doctor repeated, his new face scrunching around the word as if someone had soaked it in lemon juice. ‘Silly? No, no, no. It’s not silly. It’s theatre. You can be anything you want with theatre.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Buy a ticket to hear someone lie. It’s glorious.’

  Rose wasn’t quite used to that smile. Her Doctor – her first Doctor – had worry etched so deep in his face that it seemed to eclipse anything else he might be feeling. Part of that was just his face – that wonderful, ridiculous face, like one of those eternally surprised birds of prey you saw on nature shows. And part of it had just been him. Him and his memories. The memories he couldn’t run from, no matter how far he fled.

  This Doctor, however, was different. Far more at ease, like he’d changed those memories the way he’d changed his clothes. And they’d been on such a
breathless whirl of adventure these last few weeks that there were moments, amid the running and the peril and the excitement, when Rose was troubled to find herself forgetting too. Forgetting that the reason the Doctor had a new face at all was because he had sacrificed his old one for her.

  ‘Come on, Doctor,’ she said, shoving the thought to the back of her head. ‘All that running around, “Oh, yes he is!”, “Oh, no he isn’t!” stuff?’

  The Doctor raised an eyebrow. She arched hers.

  ‘He’s behind yooooooouuuuu!’ they warbled in unison, then fell about laughing.

  ‘Well, they usually are behind you,’ the Doctor added, when their cackling had died down. ‘That’s just sound life advice. But, come on. How can anyone hate panto?’

  Rose sighed. ‘Jericho Street Junior School,’ she said. ‘We were the only school around with a proper auditorium, so we did all the Christmas plays. I was playing the Angel Gabriel – the narrator, basically – and …’ She blushed. ‘I was eight, OK? And I panicked. All those faces looking at me, expecting me to know what to say, and I … just choked. I think, if the teacher hadn’t come to take me off the stage, I’d still be standing there frozen. Haven’t been in a theatre since.’

  ‘Oh, Rose,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s fine. Of course you love panto. You’re basically living in one – Doctor, why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘I’ve just had an idea.’

  He spun away from her, fingers dancing across the controls, and Rose grabbed a railing as the TARDIS began to heave and growl, a ship turning into the storm.

  ‘There’s a Christmas I’ve been meaning to visit. A play I’ve been meaning to see.’

  Course set, he bounded past her as the deck of the timeship rolled and shook.

  ‘Mind her for me for a second, will you?’

  ‘Um …’ Rose gave the console a wary look.

  It had only been a couple of weeks since they’d faced the Dalek Emperor. Since Rose had stared into the TARDIS’s heart and absorbed a power no human could survive, until the Doctor had taken it from her. Have you forgiven me yet? she asked it silently. I wouldn’t blame you if you –

  ‘Rose?’

  She turned.

  It had helped her, in the weeks since the Doctor’s regeneration, to focus on the similarities between one incarnation and the next. The differences were obvious. Her first Doctor had been all angles and scruffy grace. He was quick to laugh, and even quicker to frown. He was very kind, and he was very angry, and he never seemed sure which he was going to be from one moment to the next.

  This Doctor was a little more … settled. Not older. Not his face anyway – he had the face of someone who might have spent the early 2000s in a boy band. The one who did all the earnest singing while everyone else in the music video got to laugh or ride mopeds. So, not settled, then. Maybe more set. Less fragile. Those deep-lined worries smoothed away.

  Also, she saw, he was now wearing a tuxedo.

  ‘How did you change into that so fast?’ she said, finding to her shock that she was blushing again.

  ‘Time Lord,’ he offered airily. ‘Would you like one too?’

  He held out his hand. She hesitated, then took it. Even his hands felt different.

  ‘OK,’ she said. Above them, the electric-blue pistons rose and fell. ‘What are we going to see?’

  THE SAGA OF THE TIME LORDS

  THIS CHRISTMAS, AN ANCIENT SPECIES RISES, THRIVES AND PASSES INTO LEGEND BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES (OR EQUIVALENT SENSORY ORGAN).

  NO INTERVAL

  Imagine a Christmas ornament the size of the moon. A scarlet sphere, dusted with sparkles – each one a spotlight the size of a swimming pool – that send spears of light out into the dark, flashing and spinning and flashing again as if signalling the stars to land. And, atop the great, glittering orb, a palace glowing in crimson and shining gold.

  ‘Welcome,’ the Doctor said grandly, ‘to the Masque Magestrix.’

  They set the TARDIS down between a blocky Judoon patrol ship and a sleek Draconian cruiser, then made their way up the curving plain to the palace. Its gleaming gates were alive with flashing scarlet words.

  WITNESS THEIR MARVELS

  EXCLAIM AT THEIR TRIUMPHS

  SPECULATE ON THEIR MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

  Around them, other patrons milled about and chatted in a riot of shapes and species. Hulking reptiles in plate armour waved great two-handed blades, arguing for exemption from the Masque’s anti-weapon laws. A group of thirty-foot tall tripods patiently waited in line at one of a hundred floating concession stands.

  And yet – for all the strange and wonderful creatures on display, and despite the glowing starfield above them and the crimson alien landscape – it all felt oddly familiar.

  A cluster of chittering larvae squeaked to each other like excited children on a school trip. A girl in a gleaming mask made delicate notes in the corner of her programme. Two huge dragons dipped their leathery snouts in fizzing, smoking glasses, clinging to each other with the fragile delight of newlyweds. It felt just like waiting for a show to begin on Earth. Admittedly, Jericho Street Junior School had fewer spaceships in orbit and smelled a lot more like school dinners, but it never failed to impress Rose how, no matter how far they travelled, certain things turned out to be the same.

  Similarities, she thought, as the Time Lord beside her patted his pockets, muttering to himself about jelly babies. That’s how you hold on all the way out here.

  ‘The Saga of the Time Lords,’ Rose repeated, as the play’s title flashed up once again. ‘Isn’t this a bit like watching a home movie for you?’ She looked around. ‘With really high production values?’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, it’s more like fan fiction,’ the Doctor said. ‘And don’t get me wrong. I love fan fiction. You should read some of mine. But I sincerely doubt anybody here has ever actually met a Time Lord, let alone been to Gallifrey.’

  ‘So, it’s not going to be accurate?’ Rose said.

  ‘Accurate?’ The Doctor snorted. ‘I hope not. I came here to be lied to, Rose Tyler. I mean, look at that.’

  He pointed up at the glowing scarlet words, now announcing cast members and the Time Lords they were playing:

  REMIERE DUPONT AS RASSILON

  THE DASHING

  CAMBO RAIMI AS BROTHER BRAXIATEL

  AND SHARA BETOMAX AS

  THE HAND OF MEG

  Next were some safety warnings:

  DO NOT ATTEND IF SUFFERING FROM THE FOLLOWING:

  CHRONAL DISPLACEMENT

  ELECTROMAGNETIC ANGST

  SCURVY

  And, beneath it all, two simple words:

  FAMOUSLY UNFINISHED

  ‘Theatre in a nutshell, that is,’ the Doctor said with a grin. ‘It’s only in show business that “famously unfinished” becomes a selling point. Like proudly announcing you haven’t done your homework.’ Something like sadness flickered across his face. ‘Even if it’s not true.’

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘Well.’ For a moment he looked like her old Doctor – tired and lonely and a little angry at it all. ‘The saga is over. Isn’t it?’

  ‘Greetings, entities! May I scan your purchase confirmation and provide your tickets?’

  A primly smiling holographic attendant fizzed into view in front of them, flickering like a fluorescent ghost. His features were human – or Time Lord, Rose supposed – and he wore an ornate robe with a collar so high and curved he looked like a very dignified dessert spoon.

  ‘God, you were right about the accuracy,’ Rose said behind her hand, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Is that what they think Time Lords wore?’

  The Doctor cleared his throat. ‘Here you are.’

  He held up his psychic paper, and the ghostly attendant looked at it closely, before clapping both hands together in a soundless drizzle of sparks.

  ‘Forgive me, Doctor. I was not informed you would be attending!’

>   Rose and the Doctor exchanged glances.

  ‘What’re you betting?’ she murmured under her breath. Psychic paper was supposed to display whatever credentials its bearer required; the Doctor’s, however, tended to be a little more … creative in the roles it assigned. ‘Private investigators here for a murder?’

  ‘Oh, I’d say it’s much worse than that,’ the Doctor responded. ‘Probably diplomats here to prevent an interstellar war.’

  The holographic attendant beamed, executing a perfect bow. ‘To have the galaxy’s pre-eminent expert on Gallifreyan culture attend our little show is such an honour –’

  The Doctor beamed back. ‘Well, I –’

  ‘Doctor Tyler,’ the attendant finished.

  The Doctor’s smile disappeared.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Rose said, grinning. ‘Really.’

  ‘Oh, but it is!’ the attendant continued. He squinted at the psychic paper still in the Doctor’s outstretched hand. ‘Doctor Rose Tyler, expert in time vortexes and –’ he frowned – ‘lupine morality?’

  The Doctor gave the psychic paper an experimental shake. ‘Rose, I think you might be confusing the paper. Side effect of the vortex, maybe. It thinks you’re a little bit Time Lord.’

  The attendant’s brow furrowed in confusion, but before he could speak a great chime rang through the air. More and more holographic attendants were shimmering into view. The glowing words were flashing faster now, almost strobing. It seemed the show was about to begin.

  ‘Doctor Tyler?’ The attendant’s expression had gone from welcoming to shrewd, his fingers dancing over a console on his wrist. ‘I have just consulted with my superiors, and they have conveyed to me a very generous offer. How would you like a backstage tour?’

  The Doctor held up his hands. ‘We wouldn’t like to get in the way –’

  ‘Oh, not at all! And I don’t mind telling you that a recommendation from such a respected expert of Gallifreyan culture would do wonders for our reviews.’ He looked at his console again. ‘Perhaps I could even introduce you to Ms Betomax herself?’