Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [15]
We got in the lads in the white coats pronto, I can tell you.’
The Doctor nodded sympathetically. ‘So he did go to a “rest home”.’
‘Should have thrown him in an institution. Drying-out place we have near Dover; he just walked away. We’ve been searching for him ever since. The things he has in his head. Classified, you know. Don’t want them showing up in the hands of people who aren’t our friends. Though for all I know, he might write them on the wall of a toilet, or publish them on that cyber place, space, what’s it called?’
‘The Internet.
‘That’s it.’
‘But so far he doesn’t seem to have said anything. Exactly how long ago was this?’
‘Hasn’t been seen since 2 August. See here, UNIT aren’t after him, are they?
What’s their interest?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say. But I assure you, if he’s found they’ll turn him over to you immediately.’
‘Don’t like this poaching on the other fellow’s territory.’
‘They regard it as trying to help,’ said the Doctor carefully; the last thing he wanted was bureaucratic infighting. ‘Obviously, your department is considered 34
The Algebra of Ice
the primary authority. They haven’t your background on the situation, or your understanding of its particulars, and they know it.’
‘Well,’ said Clisby, somewhat mollified. ‘As long as they know it. Still, I intend to meet with Lethbridge-Stewart on the matter.’
‘He asked me to tell you he waits on your convenience.’
Clisby relaxed. He almost smiled. ‘Good man, Lethbridge-Stewart.’
‘The best, in my experience.’
‘And you’re their scientific adviser. Not on the staff, though.’
‘No. I consult in a variety of places.’
‘Hope you can keep secrets.’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor, and he almost smiled.
Molecross lived in a little stone cottage left to him by his mother. It was pic-turesque but not very comfortable, having small windows, cramped rooms, and an added shower with beige plastic walls and no water pressure. Fortunately, Molecross had very little furniture – a computer desk and chair, a folding table for meals, a wardrobe, a bed – except for the bookshelves that covered every wall from floor to ceiling. The cottage was also crammed with filing cabinets, which, since they mustn’t block the bookshelves, were set more or less in the middle of each room. Molecross had made little passages between them.
In spite of the eccentricity of the layout, the rooms were scrupulously neat and clean. The books were sorted carefully by subject and author, the files alphabetised and orderly. Molecross subscribed to a good many magazines.
These sat in a pile beside the bed, and as soon as he finished one, he cut and clipped the articles he wanted, filed them and threw the remaining pages out.
He had owned a cat until it knocked the magazines over and shredded one, and he’d given it away. This was just as well, as the smell in the little space had been getting him down.
His webzine – Molecross’s Miscellany of the Mysterious and Misunderstood
– had an impressive number of subscribers. This was because he could be counted on to get his details right. Most esoteric zines were sloppy; some could even be called hysterical. Molecross never leaped to conclusions. In investigating extra-real phenomena, adherence to fact was of supreme importance, simply because the material was so out-of-the-ordinary. Molecross knew that Borley Rectory was a hoax, and that no military pilots had vanished over the Bermuda Triangle – that mental spoon-bending was slight-of-hand and the moving coffins of Barbados were shifted by flood waters. He did not believe in ghosts because he did not believe in God. When he wrote up his report on this Chapter Four
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new and unusual crop pattern, he stuck strictly to what he had seen and heard.
No speculation.