Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [20]
‘Everything loses energy when it moves and finally the universe is all the same temperature.’
Chapter Five
43
‘Uh, right,’ he said after a moment. ‘Good enough. Entropy is a fundamental aspect of physical reality, the way energy works. The two are inseparable. If you changed the mechanics of energy. . . Well, it wouldn’t be energy any more, it would be something else, and all the laws of physics would be different and probably we wouldn’t exist. Make that certainly.’
‘So we’re all going to become this cold soup. Forever.’ The Doctor hadn’t told her that part. In fact, the Doctor hadn’t explained it quite so clearly.
‘Well. . . yes. The heat death of the universe. Obviously, everyone would rather that didn’t happen. But it’s built into physical reality. You can’t “solve”
entropy. Anyway, it’s only a problem for us because we don’t want to die.
Entropy slots quite nicely into its place in physics, not a problem there at all.’
‘Even if it was possible, I don’t see how you could fix it with maths.’
‘Exactly! God knows what U thought he was doing.’
‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘he was trying to find a way for all life not to die, wasn’t he?’
Ethan blinked at her. There was another silence.
‘What about the tea?’ he said.
To Ace’s surprise, she not only found two clean spoons but two clean cups.
No sugar bowl, though – she took the bag from the fridge and carried it into the sitting room. Ethan put four spoonfuls in his tea.
‘Have some tea with your sugar,’ Ace said.
‘That’s very original. No one’s ever said that to me before.’
‘The way you live, this place should be a dump. Who cleans up for you?’
‘Someone comes in once a week.’
‘Some poor Nigerian, I’ll bet.’
‘She’d be a lot poorer if I didn’t give her work. Don’t get holy on me. My great-great-grandparents were immigrants. The women scrubbed floors and worked in the weaving mills, and the men sold needles and nails. I’m grateful to the people who hired and bought from them. Not everyone would give work to Jews.’
Ace had no retort for that. ‘What about your papers and mess?’
‘What about them?’
‘She clean around them?’
‘Of course.’
Ace looked around. ‘Then the whole job must take her ten minutes.’
‘I don’t know; I’m at the office.’
‘You’re not there now.’
44
The Algebra of Ice
‘I work at home a lot.’ Ethan got up and went into the bathroom. He returned with two large pills, which he took with his tea.
‘What are those?’
‘I can’t keep the names straight. These are the blue ones. The blue ones are for headache.’ Ace presumed this was a hint. She was just about to give up and leave, when he said, ‘Your friend the Doctor is good with headaches.’
‘He’s good with a lot of things.’
He was looking at her narrowly. ‘Is he really a doctor?’
‘He’s really the Doctor.’
‘And what the hell does that mean? Why did you two come to see me in the first place?’
Ace wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t think this was the moment for the travelling-through-time-and-space bit. ‘He’s working on a problem and he thought you could help.’
‘He told me he’d thought I was the problem.’
‘But he doesn’t think so now, does he?’ she said brightly. ‘So it’s all right.’
‘And what about these crop circles or whatever they are?’
‘Er?’ said Ace, feeling caught out and stupid. Not to mention really, really angry at the Doctor. All that blather about going off to dull old UNIT and it turned out he was investigating crop circles and leaving her out. ‘He hasn’t said much about it. Only that they’re well fascinating.’
‘These are odd.’
‘Er?’ she said again.
‘He showed me photographs. Haven’t you seen them?’
‘Yeah, of course I have. I don’t know much about them though. Why are these odd?’
‘Because they’re not round. They’re squares and triangles and other straight-edged patterns, which are much harder to fake.’
‘Oh yeah?’ she said, trying to sound very calm and unangry. ‘You know, I’ve never seen one. Have you?’
‘No.’
‘Wonder where this one is.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you like to see one?’
‘What for?’
‘Because you never have! You’re a