Arcadia's Family (Book THREE)

Beethovens 5th

The Doctor:

This was a completely fake town! Russian signs and cardboard cut-out people, seriously what's the point in that? We landed on the fake railway platform and I stuck my head out, my wife close to my side. "Where's Bennett? We need to get going."

"Oh, he's still throwing up." O'Donnell smiled. "One small step for man, one giant bleaurgh."

Phi frowned, still looking ill herself. "Oh, time travel does that sometimes."

"Somehow I doubt that Donna or Sarah Jane or Amy lost their breakfast on their first trip."

My precious wife then frowned slightly, hugging her arms around herself. "You seem to know an awful lot about me. Those were my favourite three companions, one being my sister."

O'Donnell smiled. "I used to be in military intelligence. Changed my name to Alice because of the Dragon's work. I was demoted for dangling a colleague out of a window."

What? "In anger?"

"Is there another way to dangle someone out a window?" Sherlock liked to throw them out. "What year are we in?"

I wetted my finger and held it up. "1980."

"So, pre-Harold Saxon." My insane brother in law, now sister. "Pre-the Minister of War. Pre-the moon exploding and a big bat coming out."

"The Minister of War?" Phi asked, letting me holding me close.

"Yeah."

Wow. "No, never mind. I expect we'll find out soon enough." Faster if you had a vision.

Bennett then came out of the TARDIS and closed the door. "Sorry about that. Had a prawn sandwich. Might have been off." Course.

"Ah ha. Don't worry. Shall we go?" We left them together, walking off up the high street. 

"Why have we gone to Russia?" Bennett asked when they caught up, and I knew O'Donnell did a freak out, but otherwise she was being cool about it all. 

My Phi frowned a little, shivering more than ever. This cold was quite something. "Er, we haven't. We're still in Scotland. This is the town before it flooded. The TARDIS has brought us to when the spaceship first touched down. But here and now, it's the height of the Cold War. The military were being trained for offensives on Soviet soil."

The ship was parked in front of the church, rear ramp down, and inside the missing stasis chamber was still in rear, a wrapped mummy on the other one. "Oh, is that the pilot?" O'Donnell asked. "My God, look at size of it."

"No, that's the body."

Bennett opened the floor hatch where the two power cells were, and they were both there. "What do you mean, the body?"

Oh, hadn't I already said this? "This isn't just any spaceship. It's a hearse."

"The suspended animation chamber's still here, and the power cells for the engine." Bennett said.

"And there are no markings on the wall."

Phi sighed, tracing her fingers lightly along the smooth white metal. "Yet."

And then the undertaker ran to meet us as we walked down the ramp, carrying a briefcase and waving a white hanky. "Greetings!" Oh, great, we were stuck with the perpetual coward again.

"It's him." O'Donnell breathed, staring. "That's the ghost from the Drum." Yeah, we'd got that, thanks.

The alien got within an inch of Phina's nose, as if he was very short-sighted, and Phi peered, like she was struggling to see him too. "Remarkable. Oh, and humans, too. Albar Prentis, Funeral Director." He handed out business cards. Albar Prentis Universal Funeral Director. May the remorse be with you. Perfect, just what we needed.