Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [63]
‘I’ll take care of it, Zoctor,’ said Zorg.
‘Thank you, Zorg. Once they’ve reached the ground safely our Mescalero friends will know what to do with them.’ He turned to Ace. ‘To continue. . .
We are not taking our friends with us. Nor are we going to be wafted off in this spaceship, as you put it.’
‘But we’re not going back to the Hill?’
‘Not right away, no.’
‘Good. I didn’t like all that military chicanery. And there was a vibe there.
Because they’re all working to build that horrible thing. The gizmo or the gadget as they call it. Its not a very nice vibe.’
‘Well you’re about to escape it for a brief respite.’
‘On that subject,’ said Zorg. ‘I shall show you where the device is being kept.’
He waved a thick claw. Bright shards of colour pulsed through it like silent fireworks. A hole opened up in the wall, leading down a curving corridor.
‘Thank you very much,’ said the Doctor.
‘Oh and by the way, Zoctor,’ said Zorg in his smooth, inhuman voice. ‘Would you and Zace like to hear some of my poems?’
‘We’d love to,’ said the Doctor. ‘But not just at the moment.’
Of course,’ said Zorg politely. ‘You must have much to do. And I will help by seeing that your friends are returned safely to the ground below.’ Zorg scooped up the sleeping forms of Major Butcher and Ray, slinging them across his giant translucent claws as if they weighed nothing. He scuttled out of the chamber carrying them. The Doctor moved to the wall where the hole had appeared. Ace hurried after him as he disappeared into the glowing curvature of the new corridor.
110
‘He said something about a device, Doctor. What device?’ Ace hurried around the curve after the Doctor and found that he was standing still. The corridor had ended abruptly in another opalescent chamber. She caught up with the Doctor and saw the chamber contained a reassuring tall blue shape.
‘Oh, that device. You brought it here.’
‘Zorg did. I told you I had a plan for retrieving the TARDIS. I believe you called it back-up.’
‘So Zorg was our back-up.’
‘Yes, an extremely nice, very helpful fellow. But if he ever offers to read you his poetry, do not under any circumstances allow him to do so.’
‘Because his poetry has a strange alien beauty that my mind wouldn’t be able to stand?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor, ‘because his poetry is terrible.’
Ace looked fondly at the TARDIS. ‘Does this mean our work here is finished?’
The Doctor’s smile disappeared. ‘Absolutely not. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. In fact, the most dangerous part of our mission is yet to come.’
‘And what part of the mission is that?’
‘We’re going to carry the fight to the enemy,’ said the Doctor.
‘About time.’ Ace smiled and walked towards the door of the TARDIS. Then she paused. ‘Are Ray and the Major going to be all right?’
‘Of course. Black Eyes and his nephew and grandson will see to that. They will put our friends in their respective jeeps and drive them back up onto the mesa as far as it’s safe to go. Then they’ll leave them there to be found by the authorities, dead drunk but otherwise unharmed. With a little luck, they’ll both be back at work first thing in the morning. No one will have a chance to miss them.’
‘But what about us? Won’t anybody miss us?’
‘Unfortunately they will, and we can’t allow that to happen. We need to retain a presence there and yet we must also do this. We are caught in a dilemma. There is only one solution.’
‘Build perfect robot replicas of ourselves and leave them on the Hill while we go off?’
‘All right. So there are two solutions.’
‘Time loop?’ said Ace.
‘Yes, exactly. We are going to have to pursue our mission, no matter how long it takes and what traumas it may deliver. And then we must return to Los Alamos, tomorrow morning, so that our presence there won’t be missed.’
‘All right, I’ll leave the logic of that to you. But I’m game. So what is this mission?’
‘As I said, we shall pursue our enemies and take action against them. In short, we are going in