Doctor Who_ Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovitch [21]
‘I brought you a present,’ he said. He held up the bat and for a moment blue energy crackled about its tip.
Rachel recoiled. That wasn’t static – static doesn’t flow like that, she thought. That’s another damned energy weapon. ‘How did you do that?’ she asked before she could stop herself.
‘Higher technology,’ the Doctor said airily, ‘and no I can’t tell you how.’
Rachel had to ask: ‘Why not?’
‘You’re not ready for it – nobody on this planet is.’
There he goes again, Rachel thought.
Ace was protesting even as she took the bat. Rachel drew Allison out through the door.
Mike followed, but paused in the doorway. ‘Sorry, kid,’
he said to Ace. ‘Work to be done. Back at six – have dinner ready.’ He closed the door quickly behind him.
Ace said something loudly from the other side.
‘Where did she learn words like that?’ said Allison.
‘She certainly has a colourful command of the English language,’ agreed Rachel.
‘No doubt about it,’ said Mike, grinning, ‘she isn’t from Cambridge.’ He ignored Allison’s sour look and opened the front door. ‘Come on, we can wait in the car.’
Ace struggled with her temper. ‘Professor, you can’t leave me here.’ Her voice had a childish whine which even she noticed.
‘Ace,’ said the Doctor with exaggerated patience, ‘I’m trying to persuade Gilmore to keep his men out of trouble.
If I can’t do that, a great number of needless deaths will occur.’
‘You’re up to something.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I have to come with you.’
‘No.’
‘Who else is going to guard your back?’
‘Will you obey me just this once? When I get back I’ll explain everything.’
‘Tell me now.’
‘I don’t have time.’
Grown up against child again, thought Ace. Even with the Doctor it always comes down to that. But a nagging voice told her that this time she deserved it.
‘I’ll stay, if that’s what you want.’
‘Trust me,’ said the Doctor. She did – all the way.
‘Doctor?’ she said as the Doctor opened the door.
He half turned. ‘Yes?’
‘You’d better explain when you get back, or...’
‘Or?’
Ace lifted the baseball bat; blue light flickered briefly around it. ‘Things could get nasty.’ She smiled and as he closed the door she thought he smiled back. A chintz curtain swirled in the draft; seaman Srnith stared down on her with faded eyes.
Ace wondered whether Mrs Smith had some nitrate fertilizer and sonic spare sugar. That was how she had started when she was twelve: a bag of nitrate fertilizer, a two-pound packet of sugar and some empty paint tins. The trick, she learned early on, was containment. The force of the blast comes from the rapidly expanding gases created by the reaction of the chemicals. With a crude explosive –
‘sweetener’ she had called her early stuff – the better the paint tin was sealed, the better the bang.
When she was fourteen she discovered the love of her life – nitroglycerine. With chemicals taken from the chemistry lab she synthesized her own, graduating to making nitrocellulose and then industrial grade gelignite.
One evening she hit upon nitro-nine, a forced recombination of the nitrate solution with a minimal organic stabilizer made up from shredded cornflake packets. Nitro-nine had awesome destructive powers – it was also very unstable.
But then. Ace figured, so was life.
Mike leaned on the steering wheel and stared gloomily after the Doctor. ‘I wonder what he’s up to?’
Rachel was trying unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position for her legs under the dashboard and wondering why she as chief scientific adviser rated only a Ford Prefect. ‘Who knows?’ she said flippantly. ‘He has alien motives.’
Mike turned to her. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, I don’t think he’s human.’
Mike’s expression grew concerned. ‘And Ace?’
‘Oh, she’s not an alien,’ Rachel said slyly. ‘You’re all right there.’
The young man looked relieved. ‘Good,’ he said, quickly adding: ‘I wouldn’t want her to be foreign, would I?’
Rachel suppressed a laugh.
‘Here comes the Doctor,’ said Allison. ‘Looks like he’s carrying something.’
‘Looks like a toolcase,’ said Mike.
More magic, thought Rachel.