Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis - Kevin Clarke [34]
Suddenly they were looking at each other with the utmost seriousness. Ace realized the Doctor was depending on her as he had never had to do before. She nodded slightly to let him know she understood. The Doctor smiled. ‘I trust,’ he said portentously, ‘you remember my strict instructions that you’re never to cause any future explosions?’
Ace put on her best little girl’s face. ‘I’m a better person as a result, Doctor,’ she replied politely.
‘Good.’ The Doctor grinned confidently, ‘We’ll be ready for anything.’
Ace squeezed his hand and was gone.
The Doctor watched her run across the wasteland and disappear into a large empty warehouse. For a moment, a flicker of worry crossed his face, but he dismissed it with difficulty and searched again among his pockets to discover his abacus. He turned his concentration on it and began moving the beads at a ferocious rate.
At times during the next quarter of an hour or so, Ace could be glimpsed at various points around the building site. At one moment she was visible through the glassless upper window of a half-completed house; at another she was to be seen digging in the mud near the site’s entrance, then again flitting into the large and as yet undemolished warehouse that had evidently formed part of the original site. Inside the building, the vast space had clearly been in disuse for many years as the weeds growing everywhere attested.
The Doctor continued to be exclusively absorbed in his calculations. Since they were both so preoccupied with their tasks, it was not for some minutes that they became aware of a distant strange, unearthly sound that was growing nearer. Ace was the first to hear it. Initially, it seemed to suggest a kind of wailing wind, as though all the disharmonies ever heard in the world had combined simultaneously to provide an awesome cacophony. As it grew nearer, this seemed to become a deep, ominous rumble, like continuous growling thunder.
The bow of Nemesis, lying on the ground at the Doctor’s feet, began to react, buzzing and pulsating with intense silver light. Dimly aware of it, the Doctor, however, did not allow his mind to stray from his calculations, and the abacus continued to click as rapidly as before.
The daylight darkened almost completely. In the course of less than a minute there was the effect of an almost total eclipse. The only source of light in the area now was the silver bow, which shone like a laser beacon into the gloom as the Doctor struggled with his work. He was so absorbed that he did not even look up. But then he had no need to do so; he knew perfectly well that the massive changes in sound and light meant the statue of Nemesis had arrived.
When he finally did look up in a second’s respite from the massive mathematical problems which possessed him, the statue stood complete, holding the bow. The light from inside the Nemesis abated steadily to a bright silver radiance. The light was of a different quality now: cold and sharp, calmer and yet somehow more deadly than before.
The sound the Nemesis had brought with it had faded entirely to be replaced by an eerie quiet. Slowly, almost cautiously, the daylight returned.
The Doctor noticed Ace standing near him staring at the Nemesis. The statue’s metal eyes looked ahead, seeing yet unseeing. Ace shivered. There was for her a great sense that she stood in the presence of something unimaginably destructive.
Still rushing mentally headlong through a vortex of figures, the Doctor pointed silently to the rocket sled as the abacus continued to click under his fingers. As Ace watched, the Nemesis moved and climbed slowly on to the sled. The Doctor nodded absently and took no further notice of either of them, reabsorbed in his thoughts.
Ace suddenly realized as she stared at the Nemesis that it was now looking down at her from the rocket sled. She froze. Then the statue opened its mouth.
‘I am beautiful, am I not?’ the statue asked. The voice was cold, clear, and deathly calm.
‘Yes,’ said Ace. She looked back at the statue. ‘You’re very beautiful.’