Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [89]
‘Your presence at the accelerator lab combined with the right calculations –’
‘The right incantations,’ said Storrow.
‘Shut up, Albert.’ Lady Silk turned to Ray. ‘If performed in the proximity of one piss-ant particle accelerator your calculations would have led to the apocalypse.’
‘Praise the apocalypse!’ said Storrow.
‘Shut up, Albert. So, Ray, what do you think will happen if you’re performing calculations in the proximity of an atom bomb blast?’
The Doctor was staring fixedly at Lady Silk, then looking back at Ace and nodding. What was he trying to convey? She tried to concentrate, to ignore the argument that was flaring up again between Ray and Imperial Lee.
‘Maybe you’re right about some of this stuff,’ said Ray. ‘But not the blood.
There’s just no need for it, man!’
‘It’s a momentous business, travelling between worlds,’ said Imperial Lee.
‘Don’t you think it requires a momentous gesture to initiate it? A gesture written in blood?’
The argument kept raging. The Doctor kept looking at Lady Silk, then at Ace, then nodding.
All too soon the arguing stopped and Imperial Lee said, ‘The discussion is closed. How is he doing with those equations?’
Lady Silk studied Ray’s crayoned equations on the floor. ‘Well I’m no genius like him,’ she said pointedly, ‘but I’d say we were just about ready here.’
‘All right,’ said Imperial Lee. ‘Drag them over to the Well of Transition.’
Lady Silk snorted with laughter. ‘Honestly, the Well of Transition. That’s a goofball name if ever I heard one.
Imperial Lee said, ‘Don’t be disrespectful, it works.’ He gestured to his flunkies and they closed in on the Doctor and Ace with their guns. Ace looked at the Doctor and he exchanged a desperate glance with her. He looked at Lady Silk again. As he and Ace backed away from the gunmen they moved closer to Lady Silk. The Doctor looked at her, then back at Ace, then nodded his head again, straining his chin towards his chest. Ace had the horrible sense that she was never going to understand what he was trying to tell her and they were both going to die here in this California basement.
‘Now, how shall we do this?’ said Lady Silk in a lazy voice. ‘Gun or a knife?’
But on the word ‘knife’ the laziness left her voice and a note of uncertainty entered it. Memory flashed into Ace’s mind. The knife that Silk had worn 156
strapped to her thigh, that she had used to cut Ace’s bonds, that the Doctor had taken from her.
The knife. That was why the Doctor kept looking at Lady Silk, then at Ace, then nodding. Only he wasn’t nodding. He was pointing with his chin. At his jacket pocket. The Doctor had taken the knife from Lady Silk and put it in his pocket.
As realisation swept through her, Ace turned to the Doctor and he read her eyes. ‘Behind me, please, Ace,’ he said in a casual, conversational voice. Then he took a graceful step to one side, moving behind Lady Silk, reaching into his jacket as he did so. He brought out the knife and, as Ace darted behind him, he put it to Lady Silk’s throat.
‘Damn it,’ said Silk. ‘I knew I’d forgotten something.’
Butcher turned the handle and pushed gently on the front door of the house.
It was unlocked. He stepped inside, feeling relieved that he didn’t have to go back and search the unconscious fat woman for the keys. The house was quiet and dark, smelling pleasantly of baking. He stood in the small hallway for a moment, considering. Finally he decided to put on some lights. This might attract attention, but so would blundering around in the dark. Compared to knocking over a vase, say, it was the lesser of two evils.
He stood blinking in the sudden light. Ahead of him in the hallway was the staircase to the upper floor of the house. But he wanted to go down, not up.
Where was the basement door? He left the hallway, going to the right, into the kitchen. Sure enough, there was a red wooden door. Butcher looked