Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [5]
Occupied by his thoughts, Ernest did not notice the party of scuttling ants that he crushed underfoot as they hurried on their business.
Although the sun had almost gone, the still air pressed, making the garden seem like a hothouse. Ernest paused to mop his brow and massive sideburns. It was sweltering, but he could not loosen his dog-collar, a fact in which he rejoiced.
Ahead of him, the top of the house began to rise above the trees. It looked like an observatory: a stubby, circular turret with a domed spire and large arched windows set around its circumference. Ernest thought for a moment that he could hear the distant grating and wheezing of some large mechanical device. He strained his eyes to see better and briefly imagined that he saw a light flashing in one of the turret windows. Then it was gone.
Ernest shook his head, refusing to despair, and set off again with all the committed zeal of a missionary standing on the heathen shore.
Ace opened the TARDIS’s door and came face to face with the abstract, cream-coloured barrier she had seen on the scanner. She was counting precious moments and had lost a couple already. Then it clicked.
‘Professor!’ she yelled back in disgust. ‘Thirty second penalty!’
The Doctor’s irritated reply issued from the ship’s inner dimensions. ‘Just get on with it. It’s all part of the initiative test.’
‘You’re still a lousy parker,’ complained Ace. She slid out through the gap between the TARDIS and the creamy white wall that the Doctor had almost managed to land the police box against.
Ace almost forgot that she was in the middle of a test.
She rounded the corner and came face to face with a pony.
It was a second or two before she realized the creature was not real: it was the most beautifully crafted rocking horse she had ever seen. The creature’s coat was exquisitely painted in uncannily realistic detail and its mane and tail were made of horsehair. It seemed to meet her gaze with such soulful brown eyes; it almost pleaded with her to climb up onto the polished saddle. Ace was beguiled.
‘Well?’ came the impatient voice from the TARDIS.
Jolted back to her senses, Ace surveyed the rest of the room. The TARDIS was standing in a tall, circular chamber with a high-domed ceiling that looked like an observatory’s. Windows set into alcoves looked out from all directions. Blinds were drawn over them which covered all of the windows save for the tops. Had Ace looked through the gaps she would have seen the red clouds of a stormy sunset.
What held her attention were the toys. The place was full of them: puppets, toy soldiers, dolls, sugar mice and a model galleon.
‘Hey, playtime!’ exclaimed Ace.
‘Be concise!’
Ace gleefully picked up the tin model of a skating rink.
The clockwork skaters immediately began to whizz merrily around in circles. She giggled. ‘It’s well safe, Professor.’
‘Oh, very succinct. What about location?’
‘It’s a nursery.’
As Ace skimmed through the mass of toys on top of a long chest of drawers, she suddenly noticed they were muddled with a selection of scientific paraphernalia, all of which was old-fashioned but looked new.
‘No, sorry. It could be a laboratory...’ She looked with disgust at flasks that contained pickled human organs, a cuttlefish and a toad. ‘But the kids’d have to be pretty creepy.’
Still none the wiser whether his instinct had brought him to the correct time and space, the Doctor abandoned all hope of finding out from his protégée. He adjusted his hat, picked up his umbrella and slid out from behind the TARDIS. He instantly knew he was spot on target.
‘Time’s up.’
Ace was just getting to grips with a monkey that shinned up a striped pole. She would have to bluff her way out of this one.
‘Can’t stand dead things,’ she announced confidently,
‘but the toys are great. It must be Victorian.’
The Doctor did not know