Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [63]
‘Nothing.’
‘You keep saying that, and then he turns up again.’
‘He was trying to help’, Ace admitted. ‘It took a lot of bottle for someone like him to go there alone.’
‘It wasn’t very intelligent, either,’ the Doctor said pointedly. ‘If official chan-nels had been used, both Brett and Unwin would be in custody now.’
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The Algebra of Ice
‘Look,’ said Ace irritably, ‘I couldn’t find the Brigadier, I knew the police wouldn’t believe me, I didn’t want to interrupt you searching in case I was wrong, so I did what I could.’
‘To my eternal gratitude,’ Ethan added.
‘Yes, yes,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘You’re right of course. Under the circumstances, you made the only choice you could.’ He gave Ace her pancakes. ‘I’d best get back to work now.’
He left in his now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t fashion. Ethan looked out of the window at the falling snow. It almost made the old police call box look beautiful. He was about to ask Ace about the Doctor’s peculiar taste in garden staturary; when the Doctor himself came trudging through the snow, opened the box’s door, and vanished inside.
‘What the hell is he doing?’
‘Hm?’ Ace looked out the window. ‘Where?’
‘He just went into that call box!’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s the TARDIS.’
Ethan went to the window. Every time he thought things were as strange as they could possibly be, they got stranger. ‘That’s his time machine?’
‘It’s bigger on the inside than the outside,’ she said helpfully.
‘How big?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t think he knows.’
Ethan stared hard at the box, expecting to spot a shimmer in the air or the gleam of technology or something giving a clue that things weren’t what they seemed. The call box modestly continued to be a call box.
‘It looks at least forty years old.’
‘Yeah, it got stuck that way.’
‘. . . Stuck?’
‘It’s sort of complicated. I’ll let him explain it to you.’ She took his arm. ‘But I can show you around this place.’
From what he knew of such things, Ethan guessed that the house dated from the 1880s with mid-twentieth-century updates of the kitchen, baths and toilets.
It was comfortably, even warmly furnished, with an oddly welcoming feel for a place that was so often empty. There were window seats for curling up and reading in, odd nooks, mysterious cabinets. It was, Ethan thought, the house in which Peter Pan flew in the nursery window and a little-used room held a wardrobe that led to another world. And in the snowy garden, the sorcerer’s magic box.
Chapter Fifteen
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Even as he thought this, the Doctor came out of the TARDIS and stood admiring the snow. He was so ordinary-looking, Ethan thought, except for the wonderful, in all senses of the word, eyes. The Doctor removed his sad-looking hat, slapped it against his thigh to shake the snow off, replaced it, and returned to the house. In a moment, they heard him on the stairs.
‘Right then,’ said Ace as he joined them. ‘What now?’
‘Interestingly, this is one of those cases where having utterly superior technology isn’t much use. I can’t track two random human beings. UNIT, however, can follow the paper trails of tickets and credit-card receipts and hotel registra-tions, and the Brigadier has agreed to take care of that.’
‘How long will that take?’ Ethan asked.
‘A while,’ said the Doctor apologetically. ‘I know you’d like to go home, but it’s just not on yet. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here.’
‘Hard cheese,’ said Ace, and then snorted with laughter. She couldn’t stop giggling. The Doctor was regarding her curiously, and Ethan had such a carefully composed straight face that the sight of him set her laughing again.
‘So,’ said the Doctor, when she had finally subsided. ‘You’ll be provided with your own computer, of course, and anything else you want.’
Ace began to guffaw and had to leave the room. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Ethan but didn’t say anything. Ethan didn’t say anything either. Ace came back into the room, red-faced and precariously composed.
‘How long will that take?’ Ethan asked. Ace and the