Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [6]
That should do it. They’d vanish shortly.
‘Don’t you want to know why we’re here?’ Ace had come to the kitchen door.
‘I know why you’re here,’ he said, irritably pushing past her.
‘Yeah? Why then?’
‘I made you up.’
‘Ah,’ said the man, the Doctor. ‘That explains it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Ethan asked. This was really beginning to get on his nerves.
‘There’s something burning in the oven,’ called the girl. ‘Ugh. It’s all black.
Why’d you heat it on gas mark 9?’
‘I was distracted,’ Ethan snapped. ‘I don’t know how I feel about someone called Doctor,’ he said to the man. ‘I’ve had some dodgy experiences with doctors.’
‘Yes,’ said the man sadly. ‘They’ve never really helped you, have they? It must be hard.’
From the kitchen, the girl announced, ‘I think I’ve saved bits of it. Mostly cheese.’
She entered with a plate of scraped cheese and handed it to him.
‘Thanks,’ he said. He stared at the melted cheese. It looked real enough. But hallucinations couldn’t move actual physical objects. Had he made up putting the pizza in the oven? He went back and opened the fridge. No pizza. Perhaps he’d eaten it another time and forgotten.
‘You could offer us a cuppa,’ said Ace. She was back in the doorway.
‘I’m not feeding you. I draw the line at that.’
‘What line?’
‘The line between me and psychosis.’ He pushed past her again.
‘It’s only a cup of tea.’
‘The first step on the slippery slope. Next it would be sandwiches. And before you know it you’d be – ‘Do you mind? That’s private.’
The Doctor was at the computer, bending forward to examine the screen. ‘Ah
– the Riemann hypothesis. Very interesting. I see you’re approaching the proof sideways – the way Fermat’s Last Theorem was finally solved.’
Chapter Two
17
‘It never was solved the way Fermat indicated it could be.’ Ethan looked at the Doctor suspiciously. ‘I’d be impressed if I didn’t know you were a figment of my imagination.’
‘I’m not, actually. Tell me, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary recently?’
‘You. Now go away. Fade into nothingness.’
‘How about your clocks?’
‘What?’
‘Your clocks. Do they work?’
‘As far as I know,’ Ethan said bewilderedly.
‘Do they ever get out of sync?’
‘No more than usual.’
‘Have you been experiencing events more than once?’
‘You mean like déj`
a vu?’
‘More extended.’
‘No.’
The Doctor frowned. He got up and began to pace. Ethan looked for Ace.
She was leaning against the wall, finishing off the cheese he hadn’t touched.
‘There must be something,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘Your work with prime numbers – anything other than Riemann?’
‘Quite a bit of code-building.’
‘Hm. I doubt that’s it.’ He stopped and looked at Ethan with those piercing eyes. ‘Ever study time?’
‘I’m not a physicist.’
‘There is a mathematical element.’
‘Einstein took care of that.’
‘Not entirely,’ said the Doctor incomprehensibly. ‘Have you ever –’
Ethan smelled something burning. The pizza. Damn! He ran into the kitchen and slammed open the oven door. Smoke came out. He looked for something to extract the pizza with. Where was the tea towel? What the hell had he done with the tea towel? He squinted into the oven. The pizza was black. Not worth saving. He slammed the door on it and returned furiously to the sitting room.
The expression on the faces of his unwelcome visitors brought him up short –
both were staring at him in something like shock. For a moment they all just looked at one another, then Ace said, a bit shakily, ‘Why’d you put the oven on gas mark 9?’
‘I was distracted,’ he snapped. He looked angrily at the Doctor. ‘I don’t have much use for doctors.’
18
The Algebra of Ice
‘No,’ said the little man, studying him intently. ‘They never helped you much, did they?’
‘Got any tea?’ said Ace, as if she were an actor trying to remember lines.
‘If I want you to go, I’m not going to bloody feed you, am I? Use your head.
Or my head,’ he muttered, shutting his eyes.
‘I see you’re working with prime numbers,