Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [52]
The Major turned away satisfied and gave the minibus the clearance to go.
‘Nothing changes, does it, Doctor?’ said Lethbridge-Stewart with a look of tempered approval.
The Doctor surveyed the organized chaos of the operation. ‘You have enough weaponry here to fight an army,’ he said.
‘That’s the general idea.’
‘It’s useless, Brigadier.’
Lethbridge-Stewart had dealt with the Doctor’s moods before. ‘Not this time, Doctor,’ he said patiently.
He signalled to a soldier, who carried over an open ammunition box. Lifting up one of the polished rounds, he said, ‘Armour piercing, solid core with a teflon coating. Go through a Dalek.’
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘A non-stick bullet?
They make frying pans out of this stuff.’
‘UNIT R & D has been busy, Doctor. High explosive rounds for Yeti and a very efficient semi-armoured piercing high explosion round for giant robots. We even have gold-tipped rounds for you know what.’
‘No silver bullets?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Silver bullets?’
The Doctor headed towards the hotel. ‘You never know,’ he said.
Good Lord, thought Lethbridge-Stewart. Now what?
‘Quartermaster Sergeant!’ he bellowed at parade ground volume.
The Sergeant was with him on the double.
‘Silver bullets,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Do we have any?’
Elizabeth Rowlinson stared through the minibus window.
Colours and shapes she had forgotten over twenty-two years of darkness paraded before her eyes.
Movement had been instilled in her memory as a series of tiny frozen photographs that progressed with jerky grace like an animated film or flick book. Real life flowed seamlessly.
The day was dazzling. Light on the grass, shadows among the trees. Thousands of shadow shades of shifting colours. Straight, angled and tangled: hard and soft: faces and bodies; all part of a giant, glowing kaleidoscope.
At last, things made sense.
Dear Pat was looking tired and Peter had the sort of kind face she had always envisaged. Cerberus dribbled.
Along the drive were dark rhododendrons, pale multi-greened dogwoods and two girls darting for cover.
Elizabeth met the eyes of the English-looking girl and smiled. The other girl had long black hair, almond eyes and could only be Shou Yuing.
Pat squeezed Elizabeth’s hand. He was looking the other way. She had seen something he had missed. Now she had her own secrets again, not just what she was told.
It was too much to take in. She closed her eyes.
‘You can come out now. They’ve gone,’ said Ace.
Shou Yuing emerged from the bushes and said, ‘That was close. I nearly got evacuated.’
Ace grinned. ‘You may wish you had.’
At the front of the hotel, a group of soldiers were unloading a long shape shrouded in tarpaulin. Ace and Shou Yuing slipped round to the back and got inside through the garden door.
As soon as he saw them, the Doctor stepped in front of a dark shape that lay on the lounge floor. Ace didn’t notice that he looked thoughtful and was holding his hat the way people do at funerals.
She did notice that he was trying to hide something.
‘What’s that?’ she said.
‘A shadow,’ he sighed. He looked at Shou Yuing. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said.
‘I know. My parents’ll kill me.’
He nodded. ‘A slight exaggeration, I expect.’
‘Professor,’ said Ace, ‘we think we’ve sussed out where the legend of King Arthur comes from.’
‘Oh? Which Arthur’s that?’
‘How many are there?’ she complained.
‘There’s the eighth-century chieftain stroke rabble-rouser. He united all the warring tribes against the invading Saxons. But he wasn’t a real king. Who did you have in mind?’
‘The one in the ship, of course.’
‘Ah. Tell me about him, Ace.’
Lethbridge-Stewart walked into the lounge. ‘I’m sorry, Miss... erm young lady, but the Doctor and I have important matters to discuss.’
Ace ignored him. ‘We reckon that when Ancelyn’s lot dumped the freeze-dried King here, they must have told the story to some of the locals.’
‘But they couldn’t cope with the more outré aspects,’
added Shou