Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [102]
Denon’s mouth opened slightly. ‘ Jeune fille avec fleur? ’ he said. ‘But that was painted last century!’
She smiled, put a finger to her lips. ‘I wanted you to know that, even if your collection has been broken up and scattered, the works themselves will survive. That particular painting will still be in Windsor in a century and a halfs time.’
‘ Extraordinaire, ’ muttered Denon again. He shook his head. ‘It is as though you and Mlle Summerfield can see into the future.’
‘And the past,’ smiled his visitor. ‘I predict you’re going to open a famous studio, M Denon, and that people will flock to see your collection of antiquities and art objects.’
‘But those are my very thoughts, my very intentions. When I was seventeen, a Gypsy woman told me I would go to court, that I would be beloved of women, that a beautiful star would shine upon me. Perhaps she also could see the future; two of those predictions have certainly come true. But now my precious Louvre is being sliced up by the British, and I have failed to stop them.’
‘You won’t be forgotten,’ said the woman. ‘Remember that.’
Denon sighed deeply. ‘In the end,’ he said, ‘that is all any of us can hope for.’
202
Place: Glebe, Sydney
Date: 14 July 1993
Ace’s age: Thirty-seven
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘if it hadn’t been for your timely arrival, the population of the Earth would have been destroyed by the Voltrana plague.’
‘One to the good guys,’ laughed Dorothée. ‘Though I reckon you probably would have escaped from that dimensional bubble after a while.’
‘A Klein sphere,’ he said, ‘solid on the inside, invisible on the outside, so that you just walk into it without even noticing it’s there. A nasty little trap, typical of the Voltranons.’
She drained the last of her vodka and Coke. The cafe was just as she remembered it, from half a dozen planets. ‘Now they’re gone,’ she said, ‘it’s good to have a moment to catch up with you.’
‘How’s Count Sorin?’
‘We see a lot of each other.’
‘Will you be getting married?’
‘I doubt it. The bloody laws are ridiculous. I’m doing a lot of work with the suffragettes.’
‘That must be very rewarding.’
‘I’m very optimistic.’ She grinned. ‘I’ve been testing the range of the hoppers. I only seem to be able to go a century in either direction.’
‘That’s enough to keep track of the Paris rift. Has it given you much bother?’
‘Not really. Some bugs did pop through in the 1850s, nothing very serious.
They got a terrible fright when I dropped your name. Packed their bags and left.’
The Doctor laughed. ‘Oh dear, that reputation of mine! What else have you been up to?’
‘I made it back to the Boston tea party. I sailed for a while with Zheng Yi Sao.’
‘Mmm. You must be beginning to get a reputation yourself. Any sign of Kadiatu?’
Ace shook her head. ‘I’ve been hoping she might contact me, somehow.
She’s out there somewhere, isn’t she?’
‘I hope so,’ said the Doctor seriously. ‘I really hope so.’
‘I got as far forward as 2002. I visited Cristián and Ben.’
‘How were they?’
‘Father and son doing nicely. I did consider saving Manisha.’
‘Oh.’
‘But I didn’t.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘I couldn’t do it.’
203
‘Because you’d seen it happen.’
‘And because I know better. Otherwise you’d never have let me loose on the universe. How do you stand it?’
He just shook his head, turning his glass around in his hands.
‘I did arrange for a police patrol car to be waiting down the street.’ She smiled tightly. ‘They caught the three boys who did it.’
‘Ah.’
‘Doesn’t seem to have destroyed the continuum.’ Ace breathed out a sigh.
‘I saw myself. I saw myself as a kid, crying outside her house, you know?
Because I hadn’t been there to save her. I wanted to give myself a hug. I suppose I’ll have some kids eventually. I’d really like to marry someone just like you, Professor.’
‘Oh?’
‘Only handsome.’
‘Oh.’
She grinned and touched the tip of his nose with her finger.
Place: Paris
Date: 28 May 1871
Ace’s age: Twenty-six
She had seen a woman shot dead for waving a red