Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [0]
on a man with two hearts?
There’s a rip in the fabric of space and time. Passenger ships are disappearing from the interstellar traffic lanes. In an attempt to find out who’s behind the disappearances, the Doctor and Ace allow themselves to be captured. But when Bernice’s rescue attempt goes terribly wrong, the time travellers find themselves scattered throughout history.
Ace, stranded in Ancient Egypt, struggles to survive in an environment as alien as a distant planet: the Earth 3000 years before she was born. She manages to find employment as a nobleman’s bodyguard. And then she comes face to face with the metal horrors which have pursued her through time – the creatures she saw kill the Doctor.
Full-length, original novels based on the longest running science-fiction television series of all time, the BBC’s Doctor Who. The New Adventures take the TARDIS into previously unexplored realms of space and time.
Kate Orman reckons it’s about time she wasn’t the only woman and the only Antipodean writing for the New Adventures. Her first book in the series, The Left-Handed Hummingbird, is consistently voted one of the most popular by fans.
SET PIECE
Kate Orman
First published in Great Britain in 1995 by
Doctor Who Books
an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd
332 Ladbroke Grove
London W10 5AH
Copyright © Kate Orman 1995
The right of Kate Orman to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1995
Cover illustration by Tony Masero
ISBN 0 426 20436 0
Typeset by Avocet Typeset, 19 Church St, Brill, Aylesbury, Bucks.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading, Berks.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
For James, Laurena, Andrew, Edward, and Amy
Thanks to:
Nathan Bottomley for French translations – absolument fabuleux!
Kyla Ward for permission to quote from The Traveller Niall and Craig, whose joke it was in the first place The House has set the rules for this, the game is very sure.
Air to kiss your fingers, cooled in cavern darkness sweet.
The memory of a feather-moon within the deep azure and dreams lose their distinction as the trees in shadows meet.
But still the travel keeps you from becoming lost as well you go and you keep going, going, closer than you tell.
(Kyla Ward, The Traveller)
Contents
Introduction
1
First Piece: To Break a Butterfly upon a Wheel
3
1: Initial Conditions
5
2: Run! Run! As Fast As You Can!
15
3: Interesting Times
27
4: Rent
37
5: Yesterday, When I Was Mad
53
6: In Taberna
65
Second Piece: Butterfly Wings
81
7: Opening Flower
83
8: Mandelbrot Set Piece
97
9: Raiders of the Lost Akhetaten
109
10: Please Do Not Step on the Butterflies
119
11: Open Wide! Come Inside!
127
Third Piece: On a Wing and a Prayer
145
12: In which Ace Traverses a Tunnel Through the Space-Time Vortex . . . 147
13: Intersection of Three Sets
149
14: The Oncoming Storm
163
15: Hurt/Comfort
181
16: Set, Game, and Match
191
17: Exit the Warrior
195
18: The New Adventures
201
Afterword
207
Introduction
‘Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.
‘Once upon a time, the mighty and wise general, Sun Tzu, made an unusual proposal to the Emperor of China. Sun Tzu claimed that he was so wise and so mighty that he could teach anyone to be a soldier, no matter how weak or foolish they were. Why, even the Emperor’s own harem could become a crack fighting squad.
‘The Emperor, laughing