Doctor Who: The Also People Read Online Free PDF Page B

grin and mindless optimism in the face of danger. She had a premonition then, so intense it was painful. An image of an older Cwej, grim and silent on some nameless desolate plain, his face etched all over with lines of pain, his eyes having lost their lustre, full of anger and hatred.
    'Hey,' said Chris, 'are you all right?'
    He was watching her, concern on his big open face. Bernice touched her cheeks and was shocked to find them wet with tears.
    She wondered which of them she was crying for.
    It was a big storm.
    They sat on the sofa facing the picture window with the rag-quilt over their knees. The Doctor produced four enormous bowls of what looked like popcorn but tasted of deep-fried plantain. Chris worked his way through two of them during the evening; Bernice and Roz had one each. The, Doctor nibbled.
    The lightning became so frequent you could almost have read a book by the light. Flashes would stab down towards the ocean illuminating first one section and then another. Without a horizon to curtail the view the storm seemed to stretch on for ever. Little of the violence of the storm seemed to leak into the villa; rain was deflected by the window field and Bernice suspected that the noise of the thunder was being muted. They were kept snug within a cocoon of safety with just enough storm to make it entertainment.
    Bernice was thinking about that as she sat, cosy under the rag-quilt, secure between the Doctor and Roz, eating popcorn that tasted almost but not quite like fried banana. She was thinking that the Doctor was a master psychologist to design this scenario, to create this sense of warm conviviality. All of them together inside, terrible, violent forces outside.
    She glanced to her left where Chris loomed at the end of the sofa. He was leaning forward slightly, his large face changing expression with every lightning flash. Roz looked relaxed and comfortable, smiling indulgently each time Chris yelled his appreciation of a particularly spectacular flash.
    Bernice looked over at the Doctor, scrutinizing him in profile.
    'You're not the Doctor I knew.' Mel this time, hesitating in the TARDIS doorway. 'You're a liar and a user and quite possibly a murderer too. I don't wish to know you.'
    Bernice had learnt to accept the Doctor on his own terms: the lying, the using and, yes, the occasional bit of justifiable genocide. He was, after all, The Doctor; you accepted him on his own terms or not at all. Meeting Mel had been a shock, a window on the Doctor's past. Through this window Bernice had glimpsed a different person, as different to 'her' Doctor as her Doctor was from the ersatz Doctor Who created by Jason's adolescent imagination. A simpler character, thought Bernice, less terrifying and more 'human'. One that could enjoy a fishing trip, a bacon salad sandwich or the sound of rain against a window pane.
    The Doctor seemed to sense her scrutiny and turned to look at her. For a moment Bernice was staring straight into his strange eyes.
    She looked away quickly, uncertain of what she'd seen in them.
    'How much of this storm is real?' asked Roz.
    'That's a good question,' said the Doctor, 'given that this is a wholly artificial environment.'
    'Who cares,' said Chris through a mouthful of popcorn.
    'What do you think, Benny?' asked the Doctor. 'How much of this is real and how much of it manipulation?'
    'God knows,' said Bernice quietly, thinking of a different question.
    'Perhaps we'd better ask him then,' said the Doctor. 'House. Get God on the phone, will you.'
    'God here,' said a voice.
    'Goddess,' hissed Roz.
    'If you prefer,' said the voice. 'Although around here God is generally considered to be a non-gender specific noun.'
    Considering it was the voice of God it wasn't very impressive. Just a normal, fairly pleasant male voice that just happened to issue from every corner of the room simultaneously. It was an expressive voice though, managing to cram nuances of surprise, annoyance and world-weary cynicism into a