Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis - Kevin Clarke [6]
‘I am,’ said Ace.
‘But we’re not always invited are we? If we were, you’d probably be given presents wherever you went. And you’d have to keep them somewhere.’
Ace peered at a jewelled tiara. ‘Who does it all belong to?’ she continued. ‘I never heard of anywhere like this in...’
‘Windsor,’ the Doctor supplied.
‘Windsor?’ said Ace. The penny dropped. ‘We’re in the castle.’
The Doctor stopped at another case. ‘I say. That’s new.’
Ace took in the windowless dark chamber more fully. ‘I thought it’d be a lot posher than this,’ she said.
‘It probably is upstairs. But we’re in the vaults. And somewhere in here is a very beautiful silver bow, which we are going to borrow and look after.’
Ace was horrified. ‘We can’t go nicking stuff from here.’
‘It’s purely temporary,’ assured the Doctor from the front of another display case.
‘It’s probably treason. I’m too young to go to the Tower.’
The Doctor stopped. He was very serious. ‘Ace, would it make any difference if I remind you that the safety of the entire world depends on it?’
‘It’d make a difference if you’d tell me what’s going on, Professor.’ She saw the look in his face and continued before he had a chance to reply. ‘But I suppose there’s no time to explain now.’
‘Precisely,’ said the Doctor. Suddenly, the already dim electric light flickered sharply, then righted itself. ‘Perhaps even less than I thought.’
Outside the Princess of Wales Burger Bar, the night was filled with dazzling silver luminescence and a gale-force wind. The silver arrow in Lady Peinforte’s hand was growing brighter by the moment. Lady Peinforte gazed rapturously at the sky. ‘Nemesis!’ she cried above the wind.
‘She arrives.’
At that moment, a meteor with four tails of fire behind it flashed out of the silver darkness above them and hurtled to the Earth, disappearing behind the buildings opposite.
There was what sounded like a very loud explosion which shook the ground and buildings throughout the town, then silence.
The Doctor caught a Ming vase which had toppled from its vibrating stand. He replaced it carefully but did not speak.
‘Was that a bomb?’ asked Ace.
The Doctor’s face was worryingly serious. ‘That,’ he replied, making quite certain the vase was in the correct spot, ‘was the return to Earth of a meteor called the Nemesis which has been in orbit for exactly three hundred and fifty years.’
Ace was impressed. ‘You really are amazing, Professor,’
she said, ‘telling all that from just the noise.’
The Doctor looked at her sadly. ‘It’s not difficult really.
It was me who fired it into space.’ He looked away. His voice raised suddenly. ‘I think this may qualify as the worst miscalculation ever committed in the entire dimensional reaches of space and time.’
Ace desperately searched for something to say. ‘Anyone can make a mistake,’ she tried brightly.
Beyond him, she noticed something. ‘Look,’ she said excitedly. ‘There’s the bow.’
They hurried wordlessly to a large glass case. Reaching it, however, they realized immediately that it contained nothing except a bow-shaped space. Above the case was a notice.
As the large van swung into the M4 exit for Windsor, Karl snatched a glance at De Flores. The older man was wide-awake, staring into the flight case which had not left his hands during the entire journey from South America. The lid was open, and the silver bow glowed softly in the darkness, creating the illusion that his face had been covered in silver. Behind them, the armed young men dozed.
‘There,’ said the Doctor, ‘it was.’
Ace shone her torch and read the notice aloud. ‘This case contained the Bow of Nemesis, property of the Crown, which disappeared mysteriously in 1788. Legend has it that unless a place is kept for the bow in the castle, the entire silver statue will return to destroy the world.’
The Doctor gazed dejectedly at the empty case. ‘For once, legend is entirely correct. It has just come back.’
For a second time, the already dim electric lights flickered noticeably for a moment, then returned to normal. ‘And