Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [14]
‘Good Lord,’ said Lawrence Fitzgerald. ‘I never thought I’d lay eyes on you again.’ He stood up and leaned over the desk, shaking the Doctor’s hand heartily. Not after that bother with the Egyptian government.’
‘Yes, well, I’m sure that’s all been forgotten about,’ said the Doctor. He pulled up a chair, looking around Fitzgerald’s office. “This is Professor Summerfield, my associate. You’ve brought the mess with you, I see.’
Fitzgerald laughed. He was a wiry Englishman in his fifties, with teeth which appeared to have been fitted at different angles to one another. ‘You didn’t come here to compliment me on my tidiness.’
‘No, I didn’t. I wanted to ask you some questions about the Great Temple.’
‘Not really my department.’ Fitzgerald sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers. ‘I’m only here to give some lectures on Egyptology. Adds a bit of spice to their usual archaeology courses – nothing but Aztec, Maya, and Inca all year round.’
‘But you would have access to records?’ said Bernice. ‘Details, trivia, the sort of fiddly information that never turns up in the journals.’ She flipped the pages of Mesoamerican Antiquities.
Fitzgerald leant forward, encompassing them both in his unblinking stare. ‘You’re on to something again, aren’t you?’
The Doctor smiled and put a finger on the side of his nose.
‘What is it you’re after?’ said Fitzgerald, delighted.
* * *
And in his flat, Cristián Alvarez hugged his arms to himself, watching the sky lighten. He was safe for the simplest of reasons. He hadn’t set the trap. He wasn’t the bait. He wasn’t important at all.
* * *
Nowhere, Nowhen
It was like diving into water. A cosmic splash, and they were away, plunging into the Vortex that surrounds and permeates space‐time.
The Doctor sat by the side of the swimming pool, in a relaxed half‐lotus, hands curled into a mudra. He was surrounded by plants, in a cloud of sweet, dense alien scents.
The pool was one small advantage of his new‐old TARDIS. He had been obliged to jettison the original TARDIS’ pool when it had begun to leak into the coordinate circuitry. This time he’d tracked down the problem before it had begun and mended the equations that formed the water filtration system. But that was the delight of mathematical realities; they were easy to understand, easy to control.
And what about real reality, Doctor? What about that?
Cristián had been repeatedly affected by some force outside his control and understanding. He was sensitive to the push and pull of the hidden web accessible only to the telepath and the mystic.
Ace had also been caught up in that web. She had been assaulted and then simply thrown aside, the threads of her mind still twisted together with its strands. With whoever or whatever the weaver was. If he had not intervened, wiped out those Blue fingerprints…
But she was free now. The question was, was he?
So he ranged his own mind, looking for anything out of place, anything that might have been left behind. Alien seeds planted in his inner garden.
He opened his eyes. Nothing. Not a thing.
You’ll have to do better than that, he told his unknown opponent.
With a tremendous splash, Ace dived into the pool. She skimmed the bottom like a seal, eyes closed, listening to the echoing silence of the water.
Moments like these were precious – a few seconds to catch your breath, to pick up the pieces. The odd thing about time travel was that you never seemed to have any time.
She broke the surface and trod water, pushing the sodden hair out of her face. They’d really been chucked in the deep end this time, hadn’t they? And now they were on their way back to visit the Aztecs. No offence to Cristián, but Ace was not all that crash hot on meeting the original Mexicans. She didn’t know too much about them, except about the sacrifice. And she was not going through the human sacrifice thing again.
What she did know was that they had an enemy, and that they’d (a) find out who it was and (b) sort them out.