Free Doctor Whom or ET Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Parodication by Adam Roberts Page A

large blue towels. I held mine in front of me before starting to rub myself with it, and saw that it carried the words TARDY OFFICIAL TO WEL PRODUCT upon it. ‘Official towels?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You have official towels?’
    ‘Oh I do .’
    ‘Is there, what, like a complete range of merchandise, or something?’
    ‘Just the towels. And,’ he added, paddling his fingers in amongst the line of his necktie, and looking therefore not unlike Oliver Hardy as he did so, ‘this natty necktie.’ The tie was black, with a rectangular blue shape upon it. ‘But the towels are super, aren’t they? You’ll find,’ he went on, rather smugly, ‘that they can absorb almost unlimited amounts of water without getting damp.’
    I gave the towel a try, and soon discovered that he spoke the truth: no matter how sopping I was, the towel sucked up the water and still felt dry to the touch. ‘It’s like magic,’ exclaimed an impressed Linn. ‘How does it work?’
    ‘Ah,’ said the Dr, sagely, applying the towel to his own prodigious hairdo. ‘It’s all part of the marvellous operation of the TARDY ... one more example of the futuristic technology that has kept the Time Gentlemen ahead of the game—’
    ‘And how about hot chocolate?’ Linn demanded. ‘You got any marvellous machinery in this spaceship for making that ?’
     
‘So, this Master-chappy,’ I asked, once we were all dry. The one who was in charge of all those Cydermen back on the Icetanic .’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I was just wondering who we were dealing with back there, that’s all.’
    ‘Whom,’ corrected the Dr.
    ‘Whom.’
    ‘You were wondering,’ said the Dr pedantically, ‘ with whom we were dealing.’
    ‘So,’ I started again, cautiously, ‘ whom is he, exactly?’
    ‘Who is he,’ corrected Linn.
    ‘What I mean,’ I said, ‘is that you sounded pretty surprised to see him. I’m wondering whether you had any suspicions as whether he was the one who, or whom, either really, was persecuting you?
    ‘My nemesis,’ said the Dr, in a low voice, as if to himself. ‘The Master Debater. Whom else could it be?’
    ‘And who ,’ I said, drawing out the oo sound of the word and trying to slip the quietest-possible m at the end, such that it could be heard as either ‘who’ or ‘whom’ depending on the listener’s state of mind, perhaps thereby heading-off the Dr’s inevitable correction, something which was, frankly, starting to annoy me, ‘ is this Master Debater?’ I finished.
    ‘He is a Time Gentleman,’ said the Dr. ‘Just as I am myself. He’s from the Planet Garlicfree, as I am myself. But whereas I graduated the Gentlemen Facilities with a doctorate, he only managed a Masters. The bitterness of this failure soiled him inside.’
    ‘Soiled?’ asked Linn.
    ‘Do I mean sullied? No matter. It messed him up, that’s the important thing. Internally. I mean, internally-mentally, not internally-physically or anything like that. He was made bitter, resentful. He became prone to evil.’
    ‘Prone to it?’
    ‘Such a waste of his Time Gentlemanly talents. He and I. I and he. We were best friends at the College of Temporal Gentlemen. But now . . .’ The Dr shook his head and whistled disparagingly. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I love him like my brother. Or, perhaps like a brother. Well,’ he said, rubbing his chin in the search for exact verbal precision, ‘not a brother perhaps. But I certainly love him like a brother-in-law. Or, to be more precise, I love him like he was my brother’s lawyer. Or my lawyer’s brother. Who is also a lawyer, and not a very nice one.’
    ‘You hate him.’
    ‘Indeedy.’
    ‘He certainly seems to be going to some lengths to persecute you,’ I pointed out. ‘Why might that be, do you think?’
    ‘As to why,’ said the Dr, ‘I don’t know. There will be a reason, I’m sure. Most people usually do have a reason for what they do, after all. The Master Debater will have some diabolic scheme in mind.