Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [3]
‘Is he –’
‘Yes. He’s dead.’ The Doctor got to his feet and looked down at the body. Ace did too. Poe had a high forehead and a dark moustache. Even aside from his death pallor, he didn’t look as if he’d been healthy for a long, long time. ‘ “The fever called living is conquered at last”,’ the Doctor said softly.
‘But this isn’t the way it happened either,’ she said. ‘Not really. Only. . . ’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor.
‘. . . only now it has.’
‘Yes.’
‘But then. . . which one is real?’
‘Exactly the problem,’ said the Doctor.
‘Who was Reynolds?’ said Ace. She was sitting curled up in an armchair, warming her hands with the cup of hot chocolate the Doctor had brought her. The two of them were in one of the many TARDIS rooms she had never seen (and for all she knew had never existed until a few minutes ago), a small cosy den with a fireplace. The Doctor had finished his chocolate and slumped back, the chair nearly engulfing him. Ace supposed it had originally been a seat for one of his earlier, larger selves. He was watching the fire, which bronzed his odd little face and made his eyes glitter. Another line from Poe had come into Ace’s mind: And his eyes have all the seeming/Of a demon’s that is dreaming. She must have really liked that poem, she thought; she remembered parts of it as well as song lyrics. ‘Poe’s best friend or something?’
‘No. Reynolds was the author of a book on polar exploration that Poe used as research for his story “The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym”.’
‘What did he die of exactly?’ She was still disturbed and saddened by the wretched figure in the gutter.
‘No one is quite sure. Probably exposure – he was frail at the end. Some historians thought it might have been rabies.’
‘You could find out, couldn’t you?’
‘Well yes, if I wanted to spend months following Poe around waiting to see whether a rat bit him.’ He smiled his sudden, surprising, crooked smile at her and she felt better.
Before she went to bed, she found a collection of Poe’s stories in the library (and, of course, though the library was enormous and chaotic, she located the book she wanted immediately) and read ‘A. Gordon Pym’. It was heavy going, 12
The Algebra of Ice
not nearly as good as his scary stuff, and racist too, and she started to skip ahead and finally just turned to the end, which she had to admit was freaky: And now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the snow.
Something out of a right nightmare, she thought, and sure enough, she dreamed about the figure, but in such a deep sleep that when she woke the next morning she had forgotten it.
Once he was certain Ace was asleep, the Doctor returned to the console room.
Sure enough, the TARDIS had landed again. The viewing screen showed a barren icy landscape. The Doctor sighed. For a moment he hesitated, then he threw the door lever and stepped outside. After crunching a few yards across the ice, he looked back at his ship, apparently, as always, a metropolitan police call box circa 1963. He’d seen it in many stranger places, but never looking quite so dramatic, its dark blue exterior the only colour in the vast bleakness.
An ice storm was raging; the Doctor held onto his hat. He walked on for a bit, then stopped when he saw the tent. He was neither worried about being seen nor happy about what he was going to see. He waited. In just a little while, a muffled-up man emerged from the tent and started walking, weakly but purposefully, into the storm. The Doctor quietly followed. Soon the man fell to his knees. He crawled forward a few steps and fell over. The Doctor watched, but he never moved again.
‘You may be some time, Captain Oates,’ the Doctor said softly. ‘Or perhaps not. No,’ he murmured as the icy waste swelled and snapped back, ‘perhaps not.’
The man still lay as he had fallen. He