Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Times Crucible - Marc Platt [41]
"You're on your own now, Ace," said God.
"What did you see?" Shonnzi kept asking.
He had found her crouching in the dark of the tunnel. Once the place had stopped rocking, he pulled her back out of the shadows. She had gripped his arm and stared at the ground until he sat her quietly behind the cover of the broken hand. "Tea," he said and handed her a biscuit.
Dry and crunchy, it moistened in her mouth and became liquid. It was like no tea she had drunk and it had an aftertaste like orange peel.
"Tell me what you saw," he said gently.
She looked up. Part of the domed grid of the atrium had collapsed. "We can't stay here," she said, her voice trembling.
He knelt beside her. "What did you see?"
"No."
"Ace . . ." He reached towards her shoulder again and she pushed him away quickly.
"Leave me alone, will you? Just shove off." Every word controlled and clipped.
He turned away, angrily throwing down the hat and pulling off the pirate bandanna. His shock of ginger hair fell past his shoulders in a tangled mass. "Why don't you trust me?"
A cord was pulled tight through her body. She pulled it herself. So tight that none of the emotions were going to get out. There were plenty of reasons for ghosts. Ghosts were memories. They were recorded in people's minds or in the places where something terrible happened. Ghosts didn't have to be people who were . . .
He waited, watching the arcade through the hole in the stone hand's palm. But she couldn't trust him. She couldn't trust anyone, because then they'd be a friend, and look what happened to her friends.
She felt for another biscuit in her pocket and found the scroll. It weighed almost nothing in her hands. The scroll and the hat. That was all that was left. The cord finally snapped. "I should have given this to him. If I'd found him none of this would have happened. It's my fault!"
He just looked at her and waited. He reminded her of the Doctor's infuriating habit of making her work things out for herself. She picked up the discarded hat.
"Keep it," he said. "You knew him before I did. You've more right to it."
"You knew what I'd see," she exploded. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you had to see for yourself."
"I didn't have to see at all! That way I still had something to hope for." She pushed the hat back at him. "I don't want it. It's yours.
"But he trusts you, Ace."
She ducked through the hole in the hand and began to walk up the arcade towards the street.
"Trusted," she shouted back at him. "He's gone and I'm on my own. And don't you get ideas about trusting me either."
He began to follow her. "Ace, listen. You can't go. There's nowhere to go. You don't understand."
"So it's dangerous. Everything's dangerous. Don't waste your time."
They had reached the mouth of the arcade, but she kept walking.
Shonnzi was running sideways to keep up. "He taught me everything I know. It's entrusted with us."
She stopped in her tracks. "Like what?"
He shrugged. "His knowledge. He passed it on."
"Oh, yeah, something else too," she said. "The others didn't remember Gallifrey. But you did, Gingerhead. And you didn't tell them."
"It was a long time ago. And the Doctor told me . . ."
"You've seen him since," she accused. "Since he was 'swept away'."
"Not like you think Ace."
"You're a mercenary little git."
He smiled sickeningly. "It's the only way to be."
She wanted to hit him, but managed to turn away instead. Then she clocked the guards.
Five of them, approaching down the street, chirruping warning alarms to each other.
"Run!" he yelled.
She started to belt away and heard his call behind her. He had meant her to go back down the arcade. It was too late now. The guards were dividing into two parties. She saw Shonnzi turn and duck back into the entrance. And then she glimpsed another figure, grey with dust, who she didn't know. He slid out of a doorway and darted after Shonnzi. Two guards were almost on him.