Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [50]
The message clicked off.
‘Dead,’ Ace repeated between her teeth. ‘Dead and in pieces.’
She rushed from the flat and was almost down the stairs before she realised she wasn’t sure what to do. If she fetched the Doctor, he’d have to stop programming the search function or whatever it was, and that was the only certain way to find Ethan. What could the Brigadier do except have his people trace the call, and she had no doubt that the caller had made sure that was impossible. Or UNIT could hide a few people on the road to the field and for every passing car note down the –
Number plate.
She felt quickly in her pocket, as if afraid the paper had vanished, but it crumpled in her fingers. She ran back up the stairs.
Brett had deliberately left a false impression in his message. In fact, Ethan was in better circumstances than he had been. After the tape-recorded session, Brett had brought him something to eat and drink and taken him upstairs to the toilet and then to the bath. He gave him an electric razor, ointment for the burns, and bandages to wrap around his abraded wrists. Ethan’s clothes being beyond saving, he was provided with a shirt and old suit of Unwin’s, which hung rather comically on his slight frame – he had to roll up the sleeves and trouser cuffs, and discarded the jacket as useless. As he couldn’t really walk on Chapter Twelve
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his wounded foot and flinched at the thought of trying to force on a shoe, he simply donned Unwin’s socks – grey wool with a subtle burgandy stripe.
Gripping his arm, Brett helped him down the hall to Unwin’s computer room.
Sunlight was falling in the narrow windows and Ethan almost cried with happiness at the sight. This sign of weakness frightened him.
Unwin was watching him nervously; Ethan looked back with disgust. Brett shoved him down onto a little rolling chair. ‘Pat needs a bit of assistance. You’ll help him, won’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Ethan said flatly.
‘Then I’ll leave you to it.’
Ethan stared dully at Unwin, half afraid he was going to fall off the chair and half not caring.
‘I need –’ Unwin began.
‘You’re something a dog wiped his arse on,’ Ethan said. ‘Did you know that?’
Unwin paled. ‘I’m not having any of that. I don’t approve of what Brett’s been doing, but you’re going to help me.’
The chair had an ergonomically designed low back, but Ethan managed to slump against it. ‘ “Don’t approve”? Didn’t do anything to stop it, did you?
You’re afraid of him.’ Unwin said nothing. ‘You’re a weak bastard, and you’re afraid of him. It’s all right. I’m afraid of him too. Dab hand with a cigarette.’
Unwin called up a series of equations on the computer screen. ‘Why did you decide to build on my work in this direction?’
Ethan peered at the screen. ‘I can’t see it.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I don’t have my glasses.’
‘Where are they?’
‘You might,’ said Ethan after a long minute, ‘try the floor of the car.’
Unwin went into the hall and called to Brett to check the car floor, then returned, flushed and evasive-looking. ‘In any case, you needn’t see the specific numbers to answer my question. You took off in a direction I hadn’t anticipated.’
‘Music.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Mu-sic,’ Ethan repeated slowly. ‘I thought I’d try to work in overtones. Thirds and fifths.’
‘But that’s nonsense.’
‘Well, of course it is, literally. But if you look at what I was doing, you’ll see what I mean. Not that it matters,’ he yawned as Unwin turned back to 106
The Algebra of Ice
the screen. ‘Because the whole idea is nonsense. None of it can possibly go anywhere. Any equation now, we’ll run things through a function and come up with gibberish.’
‘If that’s so,’ said Brett smoothly from behind him, ‘then why were you even bothering?’ He dropped Ethan’s glasses in his lap. Ethan ignored them. ‘Just curious? Nothing left to do?’ Brett walked around to face him. ‘As a favour to the Doctor?’
When Ethan didn’t say anything, Brett knocked him onto the floor. Unwin jumped up. ‘Stop it, Sherry! I don’t want any more of that!’
‘Well, you certainly don’t want to see any more of it.’ Brett hauled