Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [47]
‘You said she put new words to an old standard.’
‘Yeah man.’
‘What was that old standard?’
‘It’s called “Nagasaki”.’
Ace and the Doctor looked at each other. The music came to an end and the needle hissed in the groove. Ray got up and went to the record player, lifting the tone arm and removing the record. ‘I see,’ said the Doctor. ‘And what are these notes?’ He indicated the papers lying on the floor, covered with Ray’s blotchy sprawl in bright blue ink.
‘Those, man?’ Ray carefully returned the record to its sleeve. ‘Notes I took while I was listening to the song. It’s how they communicate with me.’
‘Communicate with you?’ said Ace.
‘Yeah, they’re sending me coded messages in the songs, baby.’
‘You mean Butcher’s crazy idea was right?’
‘It made my blood run cold when he said it, man. The other day when he was here. Like he’d seen right into my soul. But he hadn’t man. It was just a lucky guess.’
‘I’m not so sure. The Major is more shrewd than you think.’
‘The Major’s just a fink, man. A big fink with brass buttons. A major fink.’
Ray smiled. ‘Pardon me, cats.’ He went into the bathroom and shut the door.
There was the sound of running water. The Doctor promptly squatted down and studied the papers on the floor.
‘What does it mean?’ said Ace.
‘No idea,’ said the Doctor. It’s in code.’ He began to gather up the papers, folding them and putting them in the pocket of his jacket. ‘Ray isn’t a very good spy,’ he said. ‘He’s supposed to destroy the message after memorising it.’
‘I still don’t like the idea of us helping a spy.’
‘Ray is much more than just a spy. Do you remember I told you I had a long discussion with him today about physics? Well, I made a startling discovery.’
‘He’s a crap physicist.’
‘He’s a very good physicist. Much too good. Impossibly good. His knowledge is far too sophisticated for this period in history.’
‘Uh-oh,’ said Ace.
‘In fact it’s become clear to me that this Ray Morita is actually a particle physicist from the twenty-first century.’
83
‘He’s a time traveller?’
‘No, a dimension traveller.’
‘That’s why you said “this Ray Morita” – because there’s more than one of him.’
‘Exactly. Very good, Ace. Only one of him in this dimension. The Ray Morita from this dimension lived in the twentieth century and was a schoolteacher and a mediocre physicist.’
‘And left-handed.’
‘And left-handed, indeed. His right-handed counterpart from an alternate universe lived in the twenty-first century. He was brought here when they removed the original Ray Morita.’
‘They?’
‘He’s not the only one from another dimension.’ The Doctor went to the box of records where Ray had placed the Lady Silk disc. He picked it up and inspected it. Before Ace could ask him what he meant, the toilet flushed and Ray stepped out of the bathroom, adjusting his beret on his head and tugging at his shorts. Ace smelled the powerful nose-singeing aroma of his cheap cologne, which he’d clearly splashed on for her benefit. She stared at him, this anachronism, this intruder from another world.
Ray peered at her uneasily. ‘What’s wrong, man?’ Before she could reply there was a sudden violent hammering at the door. Ray cursed and lumbered towards it. As he did so, the Doctor stepped suddenly towards the open window and, with a snap of the wrist, sent the Lady Silk record spinning out into the darkness. Ace thought she heard the crash of the shellac disc breaking against a nearby tree, but she couldn’t be sure because at that moment Ray came back into the room with Major Butcher.
Butcher looked even more angry than usual. ‘All right, what’s going on here?’ he said. The Doctor smiled at him blandly.
‘A late night discussion about physics between myself and Dr Morita. My assistant Acacia was kind enough to agree to help us out with our calculations.’
‘Yeah, that’s right man, that’s right, that’s right,’ said Ray, who was nervously circling the room, apparently searching for the incriminating papers and the Lady Silk record which the Doctor had disposed of. For a moment