Big Bang Generation Read Free

money, or because you’re just mean?’
    He looked shocked. ‘Of course I’m not mean. It’s just that right now I have better things to do than stand around in bars on Legion, playing servant. To someone who broke their own leg. Being clumsy.’
    ‘I wasn’t being clumsy. I was ice skating, yeah.’
    ‘You told me you’d been ice skating before. You said you knew how to ice skate. In fact, you said you were a champion ice skater! So it wasn’t my fault you fell over.’
    Keri closed her eyes – took a deep breath – then quietly repudiated his facts one by one, counting them off on her claws. ‘I told you I went ice skating, yes. I told you I knew enough not to fall over on an ice rink, yes. I actually told you I won a school certificate for ice skating when I was a pup. And yes, it was your fault I fell over because you forgot to tell me that the place we went ice skating wasn’t a rink but a living, breathing animal that looked like an iceplanet. So when it had a coughing fit I, and everyone else, fell over.’
    ‘I didn’t fall over.’
    ‘You were the one making it cough! Of course you didn’t fall over.’
    The Doctor started walking around the armchair and hen leaned over the top, so Keri had to look straight up, craning her Pakhar neck as best she could. ‘Well, that’s certainly one way of looking at it and I accept your right to look at it that way, of course.’
    ‘I should have known something was fishy when you told me the planet was called Torvalundeen. How did I not see through that, yeah?’
    The Doctor pointed at her. ‘Ha! I knew you’d like that. Not many other people there that day got the joke.’
    ‘Not many other people there that day have studied Earth history, so of course they didn’t. Who named it Torvalundeen anyway?’
    ‘I did. I mean, you didn’t think anyone else out there would make that kind of pun? Its actual name is K-174-B but that’s really boring. Well, I think it’s boring, so I called it Torvalundeen. It seemed to like the name. And it wasn’t coughing, it was laughing.’
    ‘Why was it laughing?’
    ‘Because I told it how I’d given it that name to amuse you.’
    ‘How did it know who Torvill and Dean are? Were? Whatever? It was an alien in another solar system.’
    ‘TV.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Human TV signals. They go out, into space, for ever. Somewhere in the Kraxis Nebula someone’s watching an episode of
Juliet Bravo
. Somewhere a bit closer a couple of Weave are probably watching the first ever
X-Factor
final. And wondering what is going on. So a couple of Olympic ice skaters, well something that clever, that stylish and technically proficient, that gets noticed in the greater universe. Mind you, somewhere out there is a planet that currently thinks The Wurzels on the Christmas Day 1976
Top of the Pops
is the height of human cultural achievement, so swings and roundabouts.’
    Keri looked like she wanted to bang her head on the chair hard, maybe enough to knock herself out. But she didn’t, probably because her leg was hurting.
    The Doctor reached down and scooped up Keri’s tablet that was resting at her hip. He tapped and swiped a few times. ‘You have some nice Get Well messages here, very artistic, very…Oh, that one isn’t so much artistic as rude. Oh, and I see your Litter Matriarch is still blaming the Pakhar Emperor for everything. Including your leg.’
    ‘She thinks I tripped over a paving slab outside work. That seemed significantly easier than “Yeah, I was on another planet, on an ice rink that was actually a laughing ice monster!” Funny that.’
    The Doctor replaced the tablet beside her. ‘Never understood Get Well Soon cards. I mean, what are they for? No one’s going to send a “Stay unhealthy, please die quickly” card, are they?’
    Keri just sighed. She waved the postcard again at him, trying to change the subject. ‘So anyway, what did you mean in this card, yeah?’
    ‘What card?’
    ‘This card!’ and Keri