Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [21]
Butcher gave her a cold, appraising look. ‘Couldn’t?’
‘Not at that exact moment. I was caught short. I had to hurry back here and get something. Women’s matters. You know.’ Butcher didn’t say anything.
‘Internal plumbing,’ added Ace, wondering just how far she could push it.
Both men stared at her in glum silence. Ace calmly returned their gaze.
Finally Butcher said, ‘Then in that case you won’t have any objections to going back to the schoolhouse and doing some work for Professor Apple now.’
‘No objections at all.’ Ace offered a dazzling smile to Butcher and then to Apple, and allowed them to escort her back to the schoolhouse.
Over the next hour, Ace was amused to note that Professor Apple’s suspicion softened first into grudging respect and then into frank surprise, finally reaching its final transformation into outright dopey admiration. By this point they were alone in the classroom, Major Butcher having at last grown bored with watching Ace successfully perform preposterously complex equations with total accuracy. He had gone clumping moodily off to go and spy on someone else.
Now Professor Apple was standing rather too close to Ace, gazing at her adoringly, eyes moistly gleaming, and Ace began to realise with a sinking feeling that she might simply have swapped one problem for another.
To her enormous gratitude, the door opened at this point and the Doctor breezed in. ‘Hello Ace, Professor Apple.’ He hopped up on a desk and sat there, his small legs swinging, peering at the blackboard. Apple gawked at him in frank dismay.
‘But you’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be with General Groves.’
‘Indeed. But it seems my security interview took less time than anyone expected.’ The Doctor smiled. ‘That’s how secure a fellow I am.’
‘The General let you go?’ spluttered Professor Apple.
‘Only after we had a pleasant chat. Fascinating fellow Groves. He built the Pentagon, you know.’ The Doctor hopped down from the desk. ‘Now Ace, you had better come with me.’
‘No,’ cried Professor Apple as if someone had offered to put a dagger in his heart. ‘Where are you taking her?’
37
The Doctor patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. ‘I’m afraid Ace will be working with me from now on.’
‘But. . . ’
‘Sorry, old man.’
‘But she’s brilliant.’
‘Yes, she certainly is.’ The Doctor smiled at Ace.
‘I’ve never met a woman with such a mathematical turn of mind.’ Apple’s voice was tremulous with emotion.
‘Well, you’ve met her now,’ said the Doctor, steering Ace briskly towards the door. Professor Apple stared forlornly after them as they hurried out into the hallway and bolted from the building.
‘That was a close one,’ said Ace.
‘In what sense?’ The Doctor glanced at her. ‘The result of my security interview with General Groves was never in question. I prepared very carefully for our arrival here. I made sure I had the highest clearance, on the highest authority. So what do you mean by “a close one”?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ace hastily. ‘Nothing.’
The Doctor peered at her suspiciously. ‘You didn’t forget your capsule, did you, Ace?’
Ace affected a carefree giggle. ‘After all your nagging? Of course not. How could I forget?’
‘This is no laughing matter. It’s very important that you remember your oil capsules. When we went to see Dr Judson you were posing as a mathematical specialist. But you were that in name only.’
‘I know, I know.’
The Doctor smiled affectionately. ‘Though during that caper, as you might put it, your grasp of logic theory was impressive. This time, however, we have the ability to transform you into a bona fide mathematical specialist.’
‘I know.’
‘But you simply must remember to take the capsules.’
‘All right, all right. Don’t nag. I don’t really mind taking them. It’s just that they taste terrible, that’s all.’
‘They are very beneficial.’
‘Not for the poor bloody fish they’re not.’ Ace remembered the bleeding bulk of the giant pink-and-grey fish lying in the phosphorescent surf on the rocky beach near the Two Moons fishing station. The fish had been an