Deep Time Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Trevor Baxendale

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, B D W Y, are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This edition published by arrangement with BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing, a division of the Random House Group Ltd.

  Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One. Executive producers: Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin.

  BBC, DOCTOR WHO, AND TARDIS (word marks, logos and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under license.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request

  ISBN 9781101905791

  eBook ISBN 9781101905807

  Editorial director: Albert DePetrillo

  Series consultant: Justin Richards

  Project editor: Steve Tribe

  Cover design: Lee Binding © Woodlands Books Ltd 2015

  Production: Alex Goddard

  v4.1_r1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgements

  For Martine, Luke and Konnie

  – with love and thanks for all the time

  Prologue

  The ship gleamed in the starlight, a gold and amber dream of a ship, with tailfins splayed like the wings of a dove preparing for flight. It was waiting patiently, sitting on three short, inclined landing supports, boarding ramp down, ion thrusters glowing.

  Raymond Balfour crossed the wide concourse leading to the space dock and decided it was the most beautiful ship he’d ever seen. He had owned many before this one – some had been gifts, others he had bought, and they were all special – but this one was unique.

  For one thing, it had been made to order. It was expensive; all spacecraft were expensive, but more so when they were custom built in the private shipyards of Far Station. Secondly, it had been built for a particular purpose; this was no pleasure cruiser, although anyone could be forgiven if at first glance they believed it was a rich man’s luxury yacht or spar. Thirdly, the purpose was a mission; a journey of exploration that promised the discovery and crossing of new frontiers.

  Balfour paused when he reached the edge of the space dock platform. The ship rose above him, glittering and eager for flight. Etched in silver letters across the golden bows was the name: Alexandria. Balfour had chosen the name himself; it meant smart, daring and fearful of nothing.

  It was perfect.

  Beyond the Alexandria was a brilliant star field streaked with the scarlet blaze of an ancient supernova. And beyond that, the edge of the galaxy. Beyond that…the unknown.

  Balfour trembled with excitement.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said a large, angular service robot politely. It towered over Balfour, even when bowing respectfully.

  ‘What is it, Trugg?’

  ‘The research team are all assembled, sir. The ship is ready for departure.’

  Balfour nodded. ‘I know, Trugg. I know. I just want to savour the moment.’

  Trugg straightened patiently. ‘Very good, sir.’

  Balfour stood and drank in the sight before him, allowing his eyes to roam the long, amber lines and smooth golden hull. ‘Tell me, Trugg. When you look at the Alexandria – what do you see?’

  ‘A spacecraft, sir.’

  ‘Do you know what I see?’

  ‘A spacecraft, sir?’

  ‘I see adventure!’

  ‘Very good sir,’ Trugg replied. ‘May I suggest that we join the boarding party? Professor Vent is very keen to leave.’

  —

  ‘You’re late,’ said Professor Tabitha Vent. ‘We were due to leave an hour ago.’

  Raymond Balfour strolled up the Alexandria’s boarding ramp wearing his billionaire’s smile. ‘Relax, Professor! Or may I call you Tabitha?’

  ‘Nearly everyone calls me Tibby, as a matter of fact,’ she replied. ‘Seems like less of a mouthful.’ She was as tall as Balfour, and around the same age, perhaps a little older. It was hard to tell, because Balfour was rich enough to afford all the latest rejuvenation techniques. Tibby guessed he probably had shares in Spectrox, but then she wasn’t feeling in a very generous mood. She was suddenly conscious of wearing week-old space fatigues with her hair tied up in a rough ponytail. She had come straight from a dig on Ursa Minor. Balfour looked like he’d come straight from the salon.

  Balfour waved cheerfully at the small group of researchers and scientists standing behind Tibby. ‘Hello there. Everyone ready?’

  Everyone said they were.

  ‘You were supposed to be here an hour ago,’ said Tibby. Although she was nominally at the head of the research team, she hardly knew some of the people standing behind her. Nevertheless she felt compelled to speak for them all. ‘My team have been kept waiting. The crew have been kept waiting. I’ve been kept waiting!’

  Balfour smiled the smile of a man for whom timekeeping and schedules had never meant much, if anything.

  His large servitor robot clambered up the spaceship boarding ramp and stooped to pass through the airlock. The robot was carrying a lot of expensive luggage.

  ‘Take that straight through to my cabin, Trugg,’ said Balfour.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ answered the robot, lumbering slowly forward. ‘Excuse me, madam.’

  Tibby was forced to move out of the robot’s way. ‘Is there really any need for all that luggage?’ she sighed. ‘We’re supposed to be travelling light. This is a scientific expedition, not a holiday.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, Professor. I am paying for the expedition, after all.’

  Balfour was smiling, but Tibby got the point. ‘Yes, well, of course we all owe a great deal to you, Mr Balfour. It’s just that we’ve been waiting such a long time to mount an expedition like this and we’re impatient to begin.’

  ‘There’s really no need to worry,’ Balfour said. ‘I spoke to the spaceport master. He agreed to give us a little longer in dock before we have to leave.’

  ‘My research team are all here. You are here. The crew is on board and the ship is ready to leave. Must we delay any longer?’

  Balfour glanced back down the Alexandria’s boarding ramp as if he was expecting someone else to walk in at any moment. ‘Just a minute or two more, if you please. I’m waiting for the last members of our team to arrive.’

  ‘The team is here!’ Tibby said, exasperated. ‘There is no one else!’

  At that moment two people came hurrying up the boarding ramp and burst onto the deck.

  ‘Sorry we’re late!’ said a very pretty young woman as she came to a halt. She was a little out of breath, as if she had been running.

  ‘Who the devil are you?�
�

  ‘I’m Clara,’ the woman said. ‘And this is the Doctor.’

  A very tall, rather gaunt man with an unruly shock of grey hair stepped forward. ‘Right,’ he said, his piercingly cold eyes sweeping around the cabin. ‘Now I’m here we can begin. I do hope you’re all ready to be terrified!’

  Chapter

  1

  Half an hour earlier Clara Oswald had been finished for the day. She had a banging headache after a double lesson with the most recalcitrant Year 10 group she had ever taught but she still welcomed the extra-loud jangle of the final school bell.

  The prospect of an evening spent marking GCSE comprehension exercises was a relief in itself. At least her flat was quiet. No interruptions, no banter, no yelling, no school bell…Just a mug of tea, a pile of books, and then maybe a glass of Prosecco at the end of it.

  But then a familiar wheezing and groaning noise heralded the arrival of an old blue police box out of thin air and she knew any plans she had could, as her gran might say, ‘Go to pot!’

  The Doctor stuck his head out of the TARDIS. ‘Psst! Fancy a quick trip to another galaxy?’

  It was the kind of invitation that Clara never wanted to turn down. Not any more. The Doctor’s time machine could have her back at her flat before she’d even left Coal Hill School and there would be time enough for marking.

  Now Clara was in the far future, standing on the deck of a spaceship as it blasted off from a docking station a hundred thousand light years from Earth. Sometimes it was hard to get your bearings.

  ‘Where are we again?’ she asked. ‘Exactly?’

  ‘The deep-space private research vessel Alexandria. All mod cons. We’re on a mission to find a lost wormhole in space.’

  ‘We are?’

  The Doctor glanced crossly at her. ‘I thought I told you all this in the TARDIS. Weren’t you listening?’

  Clara opened her mouth to reply but it was too late. The Doctor was already talking again. ‘Small crew, team of research scientists, I’ve managed to wangle an invite. Let me do all the talking.’

  ‘As if I had a choice.’

  ‘Just smile and try to look intelligent.’

  Clara pursed her lips. ‘Try?’

  ‘Just do your best.’

  The giant servitor robot that had carried Raymond Balfour’s luggage on board clanked back through the doorway leading to the rest of the ship. It had to stoop again, servomotors whirring quietly and efficiently.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ the robot said, addressing Balfour. ‘But there appears to be something untoward in the main cargo hold.’

  Balfour frowned. ‘What kind of something?’

  ‘A police box, sir,’ Trugg said. ‘At least, that’s what it says on the sign.’

  ‘That’ll be mine,’ said the Doctor, stepping forward. ‘Very important scientific equipment, vital to my work. Just leave it alone and it’ll be fine.’

  ‘How did you get it on board?’ asked Balfour.

  ‘Never mind about police boxes,’ interrupted Tibby Vent. She pointed to the Doctor. ‘Who is this man, exactly?’

  ‘This is the Doctor,’ explained Balfour. ‘He’s an expert on space-time travel.’

  ‘Among other things,’ added the Doctor.

  ‘I’ve just signed him on to your team,’ Balfour added.

  ‘I don’t need anyone else on my team,’ Tibby said. ‘Certainly not an “expert” in space-time travel!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked the Doctor. Tibby Vent stiffened visibly, clearly unused to being challenged. ‘Come on now, Professor. You may have stumbled on the location of the oldest wormhole in existence but do you actually know how it works?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘I thought not.’

  ‘I meant don’t be ridiculous, I know full well how a wormhole works. It is a perfectly natural phenomenon.’

  ‘There is nothing natural about this particular phenomenon,’ the Doctor said.

  By now everyone on deck was listening intently. Tibby Vent was completely irritated. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing on Earth, I can assure you. There is nothing at all on that tiny little world that can possibly prepare you for what you will soon encounter.’ The Doctor’s cold gaze bored into her. ‘That wormhole leads to the unknown, Professor. The absolute unknown.’

  ‘I am a scientist, Doctor. It is my job to explore the unknown!’

  ‘And it’s my job to protect you from it.’

  Raymond Balfour stepped forward with a smile. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we continued this discussion later? Professor, Trugg can help you and your team find their cabins. I’ll introduce the Doctor and Miss Oswald to the captain.’

  It was a skilful bit of diplomacy, Clara thought, but it didn’t stop Tabitha Vent eyeing the Doctor with obvious suspicion as Balfour led them away. Clara saw the robot, Trugg, introducing himself to the professor and then they disappeared from sight as they turned a corner.

  —

  ‘Professor Vent has rather a forthright personality,’ Balfour explained. ‘She’s the best at what she does, but sometimes lacks the human touch.’

  ‘I know the problem,’ said Clara. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘She’s heading up the research team, but we’ll do the full introductions later,’ Balfour said. ‘I think you’ll want to see around the Alexandria first. It’s been designed and built to order, specifically for this mission.’

  ‘Based on a Heracles-class Starcruiser, if I’m not mistaken,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘That’s right, although we’ve added a few improvements. The ion thrusters have a forty-astron hyperdrive capacity. The hold is divided into state-of-the-art labs and research facilities with entoptic hologram displays. The living quarters and cabins are fully appointed with artificial gravity tuned to absolute Earth-normal throughout. Hull shielding has been upgraded to withstand five times the normal cosmic ray bombardment and heavy radiation…’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Clara said.

  ‘It must have cost a packet,’ said the Doctor.

  Balfour shrugged. ‘The Alexandria is the most expensive deep-space private research vessel ever built – but I think she’s worth it. We’re ready for just about anything.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said the Doctor.

  —

  The Alexandria entered its natural habitat, the cold vacuum of space, like an eagle riding the warmest of thermals. Glittering under the arc lights of the docking port, the ship eased away from Far Station, away from the vast galaxy of stars behind it, and headed for deep space.

  —

  Clara could feel the faint hum of the engines through the soles of her shoes as they walked through the interior of the ship. Only thirty minutes earlier, she’d been standing on the old wooden floorboards of a classroom in Shoreditch, waiting to go home. Now she was hurtling through outer space, destined for…what?

  She nudged the Doctor as they walked. ‘Wormholes?’

  ‘Conduits through time and space, linking one part of the universe to another.’

  ‘Like a tunnel?’

  The Doctor winced. ‘No! Well, if you want to call a complex space-time event compressing billions of light years into a near singularity “a tunnel”, then yes. I suppose so.’

  ‘And what’s so special about this wormhole, then?’

  ‘It’s very, very old. And like any tunnel that is very, very old, it’s not necessarily safe to use.’

  ‘And this lot are about to try and use it, are they?’

  ‘I’m very much afraid so, Clara.’

  ‘Then it’s up to us to stop them, right? That’s what we’re here for?’

  ‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘We’re here to help them.’

  —

  ‘This is the flight deck,’ Balfour said as he led the Doctor and Clara through a wide bulkhead door. ‘Captain Laker should have something rather special to show you.’

  The flight deck was just like the rest of the A
lexandria – sleek and humming with perfectly suppressed power. Ergonomic control consoles lined the sides and front of the deck, which was dominated by a panoramic hologram showing the way ahead.

  In front of this, at the centre of the flight deck, was the captain’s chair. The man sitting in it stood up as they came in and flashed what Clara considered a very nice smile. He wore what looked like a genuine leather jacket, which, with his good looks and short-back-and-sides, lent him a charmingly old-fashioned and rather heroic look.

  Balfour introduced them and then departed, saying that he had to prepare for the mission briefing due to take place in the ‘common room’, which sounded a bit too much like a school staff room for Clara. She shook the memory of Coal Hill out of her head and concentrated on the here and now.

  Captain Laker jerked a thumb at the hologram. ‘You’re just in time,’ he said. ‘We’re about to leave the Milky Way.’

  The hologram showed a shimmering field of purple-blue space, dotted with stars. It floated in the air like a bubble of space and looked so real that Clara wanted to reach out and touch it. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘The colours you can see are the remains of a star – a cloud of superheated gas, radiating outwards from a stellar explosion that took place millions of years ago. We’re flying straight through it.’

  The cloud changed from blue to lilac and then a deep mauve as the Alexandria sped onwards. Gradually it shifted to a startling red, then a darker crimson, bathing the occupants of the flight deck in the colour of blood.

  ‘The very edge of the galaxy,’ said the Doctor said quietly. ‘This is all that’s left of the last star before the void.’

  The scarlet light suddenly faded and was replaced by a deep, impenetrable blackness. There was not a single star to be seen.

  ‘We’ve left the galaxy,’ Laker confirmed. ‘It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ said Clara, shivering a little. ‘Just…darkness.’

  ‘No more stars,’ explained the Doctor. ‘Not until the next galaxy, which is Andromeda. If Captain Laker increases the scanner magnification, we could see it from here, and many other galaxies too.’

  Laker nodded. ‘Yeah, I could, but where would the romance be in that?’