Earth is under attack by power-hungry aliens. This is no time for the Doctor to be out of action.
When a British space probe is intercepted by a sinister alien vessel on the eve of Christmas, it marks the beginning of an audacious invasion of the Earth by the Sycorax – horrifying marauders from beyond the stars. Within hours, a third of humanity stands on the brink of death with not a single shot fired.
Our planet needs a champion – but the Doctor is not fit for service. He’s just regenerated, delirious in a new body and a dressing gown. Forced into his battered shoes is his friend, Rose Tyler, a girl from a London council estate. Will she save the world from this nightmare before Christmas – or see it destroyed?
Jenny T Colgan has written 16 bestselling novels as Jenny Colgan, which have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, been translated into 25 languages, and won both the Melissa Nathan Award and Romantic Novel of the Year 2013. Aged 11, she won a national fan competition to meet the Doctor and was mistaken for a boy by Peter Davison.
There is a moment: a terrible moment, when you wake up, and you suddenly realise, to your panic, that you’ve missed something.
Perhaps you’ve missed the train to your first day at a new job, or the school bus, and there’s an important exam.
Perhaps you wake up and for a moment think that someone you knew is with you; someone you loved still loves you back, and then your stomach drops like an express elevator, as you remember once again that they are gone; or that they are dead.
Maybe you dreamt that you lost something—that it has tumbled into the water, out of reach, further and further and you cannot grab hold of it, no matter how you try, you can only watch it go—but then you wake up and it was a dream all along and you feel utter, earthshattering relief.
But sometimes the dream is golden and full of every piece of knowledge about the universe and ultimate power and glorious resurrection—and then you wake up and realise that all of that has crumbled into dust.
And the reality is, somebody—something—in the shape of a man has eaten your best friend, and it’s standing right in front of you and it’s talking about Barcelona, of all things, and it absolutely will not shut up and you have no idea what to do.
Rose Tyler crouched by the pillars of the TARDIS console room, the afterglow of the extraordinary golden light still visible on the inside of her eyelids; burned on her retinas—and felt more frightened and alone than she’d ever felt in her life.
If you have ever been to an industrial park—which is a terrible misnomer, because they are literally the opposite of parks; they are factory farms for people—you will have seen a building like this. Low rise. Cheap brown bricks. Rows of identical windows with PVC frames because nobody cared enough, at any stage of its construction, to try to make it attractive, or interesting, or stand out in any way.
Usually these buildings—which do not have names, but numbers (this was 42)—end up this way because of laziness, or cost-cutting on the part of the kind of people who make business parks for a living; or people who are so devoid of imagination they think your environment does not matter to you.
In the case of Unit 42, Fanshield Industrial Park, though, this was not simply a product of end-stage capitalism. This was the entire point. If you had driven past it, you possibly wouldn’t even have noticed it; a building so bland it slipped off the eye. If you had, you might have thought, ‘Whoa. Imagine having to spend your entire life in there.’ In the highly unlikely event that you’d looked closer, you might have wondered why there was all that barbed wire; or why the security guards and janitors reception staff all looked like square-headed ex-marines—which they were.
Inside Industrial Unit 42, though, the atmosphere was actually incredibly exciting.
Because this low building off the ring road of Reading was in fact the centre of Britain’s rocket-building programme, which recently—since Harriet Jones had been elected Prime Minister—had received a boost to its funding and undertaken a mission that had drawn envious stares from scientists and astronomers around the world.
Unit 42 was building Guinevere.
Guinevere was going to be the first drone ever to land on Mars. The first-ever footage from the red planet—from the actual solid dusty earth of the red planet—was soon to arrive; and it was going to be British engineering and a team of mostly British and European scientists that had made it happen. Behind the long rows of blacked-out windows, the mood was actually near-hysterical.
Meanwhile, the champagne delivery company had got lost. It had never had cause to deliver to the Fanshield Industrial Park before.
Inside the low brown building, Matthew Nicolson, senior programmer on UK Rocket Project 9.2, codename: Guinevere, pushed back from his low console, rocked in his chair a little to shift his position, wiped down his glasses and smiled to himself.
Next to him was Duerte Rodriguez, who was wearing shorts and sandals despite the fact that it was Christmas Eve. (Wearing shorts was Duerte’s thing. Matthew had pointed out to him that if he wanted to become more attractive to women he should develop his personality rather than just his trousers. Duerte had immediately pointed out a) that Matthew already had a ‘thing’, namely his wheelchair, so he could shut up and also b) at least he, Duerte, could put on his own shorts. Matthew had tolerated this as he had a girlfriend and Duerte did not, and besides their friendship was practically predicated on Duerte making ridiculously offensive remarks about his chair, which was a relief when most people tried to tiptoe round it, literally and figuratively. They were good friends.)
‘Why are you smiling?’ said Duerte suspiciously.
Matthew pushed himself even further back from the console and made a ‘ta-dah!’ sign.
Duerte clocked it immediately. ‘No way.’
‘I would say do the math,’ said Matthew. ‘But I’ve seen you do math.’
‘Maths,’ said Duerte, shaking his head. But he scooted over his chair and peered more closely at the lines of code filling Matthew’s screen. Then he whistled through his teeth. It looked like … it couldn’t be. But it looked like Guinevere One was in position. It looked like they had the coordinates, the weather, the thruster fuel and the landing spot all lined up.
It looked as if Guinevere One was ready to land.
‘Is she going down?’
‘Locked and loaded,’ said Matthew smugly. ‘And all in time for Christmas.’
Luanne the press officer came charging past as usual. To Matthew and Duerte she seemed to be breezing constantly between appointments, despite the fact that, as the press officer for a top-secret government rocket facility, her job could surely only consist of her saying, ‘Hello? No, we’re not a top-secret government rocket facility’ every time the phone rang. But she was mostly a good sort, Luanne. Well, when she wasn’t bugging them about cleaning up the communal kitchen and begging Duerte to at least wear shoes so she didn’t have to look at his disgusting horny toes all the time.
She swerved to a halt. Not much got past Luanne (which, as she would have told you, was her actual job).
‘What was that blokey slang about? Does “locked and loaded” mean something good or something bad?’
‘Rad and awesome,’ said Matthew.
Looking at him now, Luanne knew exactly what he meant. They’d been waiting for this. This would be the time for her skills to truly come to the fore; to announce to the world what they’d achieved. Excitement bubbled up.
‘You’re early,’ she said, delightedly.
‘I know,’ said Matthew.
‘He’s going to be insufferable,’ chimed in Duerte, ‘for hours. Enough with the smugness, Nicolson, before I jam your spokes.’
‘Try it and I will ram your shins, my friend.’
A huge smile stretched over Luanne’s features. ‘Can I make the call? Let me. Come on, it’ll be fun, trying to get a smile out of Llewellyn. I don’t think he’s slept since Hallowe’en.’
Llewellyn was their young, grave boss; slender, bearded and with a clipped manner that seemed at odds with his gentle Valleys accent. They liked him and they respected him; he wasn’t the sort you messed about.
‘Shall we let her?’ Matthew mused aloud.
Duerte shrugged. ‘Girl’s stealing all the credit as usual.’
Luanne stuck her tongue out at him, leaned over Matthew’s shoulder and tapped a few buttons, calling up the live feed. Sure enough, there was the beautiful space probe, Guinevere One, hovering above Mars, her external cameras reflecting the light behind her. And Matthew was showing her, with total confidence, that the landing coordinates were set and ready to go. They all looked at it for a moment, smiling.
‘She is so beautiful,’ said Luanne.
‘Still sad you didn’t leave to work for John Lumic, Nicolson?’ teased Duerte.
Matthew rolled his eyes. ‘Two Ironsides together? No thanks. Though the money here is still shocking, by the way.’
Luanne pulled out her phone. More and more of the staff were coming over to congratulate them, realising what must have happened. It sounded like someone was popping a bottle of something fizzy in the adjoining communal area. Llewellyn came walking swiftly down the long dark corridor, the throng of other staff opening a way clear for him.
‘We’ve done it!’ said Luanne joyously.
‘Uhm?’ said Matthew.
Luanne rolled her eyes. ‘The team has done it,’ she said, more slowly. Honestly, they thought she contributed nothing (they did think this).
Llewellyn checked the data very carefully and methodically, the way he did everything, as the others grew antsy with anticipation behind him. Finally he straightened up and gave as close to a smile as he could manage.
‘Okay to go,’ he said, quietly.
Luanne burst forward. ‘I’ll put it on speaker. You can all listen in whilst I talk… to the Prime Minister’s office.’ There were some whoops. ‘Duerte, check the weather reports. Let’s see if they fancy a bunch of Mars pictures… for Christmas Day!’
Someone cheered.
‘Shh! Shh!’ said Luanne. She dialled the number, then put it on speaker. It was answered promptly.
‘Good morning, Downing Street,’ came the officious voice. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Harriet Jones’s office please… It’s Guinevere.’
Only one word was ever needed from the industrial unit at 42 Fanshield Park.
‘Putting you straight through.’
‘I don’t want to go to Barcelona,’ Rose said again, her voice sounding small and frightened in the huge console room. ‘Please stop talking about Barcelona. I … I just want to go home.’
The TARDIS lurched once more; the wild-eyed figure staring at the controls as if it had never seen them before.
She glanced up.
‘That’s Earth. I live on Earth. In London.’
The figure swayed until she thought it was going to fall. Then it caught her eye.
‘I know where you live, Rose.’
And she backed even further against the reassuring root of the console room strut, clinging on to it for comfort. This is what happens, she told herself, when you take wonders for granted. She hadn’t even noticed when something had come and taken over the Doctor. Her Doctor.
They had flown so high, burned so brightly—and now they were crashing back to Earth, faster and faster; her and this…
This what?
She could not even look at what the Doctor had become. This… alien, who had treated her like someone he knew utterly and unquenchably. His partner. Hand in hand, until she had learned to trust that hand, until she had felt it naturally by her side as if it were a part of her. As if they were, almost, the same person.
Except, of course, he wasn’t a person and she didn’t know him at all. He had told her, but she hadn’t understood and she hadn’t wanted to understand. She’d wanted to believe they were the same; had wanted so much for that hand in hers to be forever.
And now he was dead, eaten by this thing that still dared to wear his clothes.
Rose hid behind the carved, tree-like pillar in the console room, which was stupid, as she could still be seen quite clearly. She glanced around. There wasn’t much in the TARDIS you could use as a weapon. She stole a glance round. What was it doing? It was moving its mouth up and down. Her heart pounded faster. What had it done to him? A shapeshifter? She’d met all sorts…
It was wittering on. She stared at it, horrified and curious.
‘Pm … Tuesday … October 500 … on the way to Barcelona …’
The thing in the Doctor’s clothes wasn’t making any sense. Was it regurgitating his brainwaves? She wanted to scream, tear into the thing, for what it had done, but she didn’t dare approach it.
It straightened up and grinned at her in the most disarming way.
‘Now then,’ it said. ‘What do I look like?’
Rose wondered if she could bring it down by the legs. Why wasn’t the TARDIS doing something, like opening an airlock or something? She concentrated on thinking this as hard as she could so that the TARDIS might pick up on the idea, but nothing happened.
The thing held up its hand as if it had been expecting her to respond.
‘No, no, no, nononononononono. No. Don’t tell me…’
It started shaking its hands and body up and down.
‘Let’s see… two legs, two arms, two hands… slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle…’
Its hands flew to its head.
‘Hair! Oh, I’m not bald!’
Rose blinked. What on earth was it doing? She shifted forward an inch.
It carried on running its hands through its hair, a look of total surprise on its face.
‘Oh! Big hair! … Sideburns!’
Now the creature sounded delighted.
‘I’ve got sideburns! Or really bad skin. Little bit thinner.’
It slapped itself on the stomach.
‘That’s weird. Give me time, I’ll get used to it.’
The face lit up suddenly, overjoyed.
‘I have got a mole! I can feel it!’
It started wriggling about, gyrating its shoulders.
‘Between my shoulder blades! There’s a mole! That’s all right. Love the mole.’
It grinned at her. Rose blinked. This was… Well. It couldn’t be a person. But somehow after this weird review, it seemed less threatening.
It moved closer, its hair now a mess, and she shrank back instinctively.
‘Go on then. Tell me. What do you think?’
Well, that was a question. She didn’t know what she thought. Rose swallowed before she spoke and when her voice came out, it wasn’t at all the strong commanding tones she had hoped for. Instead, she sounded timid, fearful, longing for something she couldn’t put her finger on, something so impossible…
‘I’m going to change.’
He had said that. He had said that, just before… but no. It couldn’t. It couldn’t be.
‘Time Lords have this little trick.’
She looked at the figure in front of her again, which was still rumpling up its own face.
It couldn’t be. Rose closed her eyes. What was happening? Then she opened them again, and took a deep breath. ‘Who are you?’
The shape looked surprised, and not a little wounded.
‘I’m the Doctor!’
Rose moved closer. ‘No. Where is the Doctor? What have you done with him?’
She wished again she had a weapon, even if he—the real Doctor—would have been totally against that.
This person looked confused.
‘But… you saw me. I changed… right in front of you.’ He glanced over his shoulder to the spot by the console where she’d seen the light—that boiling exploding golden light shooting out from the Doctor.
Rose shook her head. ‘I saw the Doctor sort of explode, and then you replaced him like… a… a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something.’ She stepped closer towards him, her anger rising, and pushed him full in the chest. ‘You’re not fooling me.’
The creature wobbled back on its heels as if it couldn’t believe what it was hearing.
‘I’ve seen all sorts of things. Nanogenes… Gelth… Slitheen… Oh my God, are you a Slitheen?’
The figure raised its eyebrows. ‘I’m not a Slitheen.’
Rose shouted, all her fear and frustration coming out. ‘SEND HIM BACK! I’M WARNING YOU! SEND THE DOCTOR BACK RIGHT NOW!’
‘Rose, it’s me. Honestly. It’s me.’
Rose couldn’t catch her breath. Her brain couldn’t take in what he was saying.
‘I was dying,’ it said. ‘To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but… it’s still me.’
‘Time Lords have this little trick. It’s a sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I’m going to change.’
She’d heard it for herself, still couldn’t believe her own eyes.
‘You can’t be.’
Time Lords have this little trick. It ran through her head, over and over. This little trick. Like it was only a bit of conjuring, a bit of fun. Just a prank to be played on primitive apes like her.
Now the figure moved towards her, closer, and looked her straight in the eye, his voice low. ‘If I’m not him, how could I remember this? Very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar, surrounded by shop window dummies—oh!’