Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [64]
‘Er.’ The Doctor faltered slightly. ‘I realise it’s a bore, but until we have Brett and Unwin, I think it’s advisable –’
‘Yes, yes, I understand. Why are you looking at me like that?’ he said to Ace.
‘Oh, erm, nothing. I’d rather like having you here, actually.’
Ethan warmed at the words, but the expression still disconcerted him. ‘Are you all right?’ He turned to the Doctor for explanation, but the Doctor was gone. ‘What the hell is going on?’
Ace hesitated, chewing on her lip. ‘There was one of those time blips,’ she said quietly.
‘What? Just now?’
‘Yeah. Only we weren’t touching, so you were in it instead of just watching.
You asked how long till you could go home, twice.’
‘I don’t remember that.’ Ethan felt panic starting and tamped it down furiously. ‘I’ve lost that.’
132
The Algebra of Ice
‘It didn’t really happen to you.’ She was trying to sound reassuring. ‘You’re you, you know. That first bit was just a detour.’
‘A detour! Oh good God!’ Ethan ran his hands through his hair and started to pace. ‘How much more of this is there? Aliens. Time machines. Threats to the universe. Sadists. Perception going all wobbly. Two of me that are really only one of me.’
‘It’s all right.’ She put her arms around him. He didn’t push her away, but he was rigid in her embrace.
‘It’s not all right,’ he said tonelessly. ‘It’s rather horrible.’
She released him and stepped back, but he caught her hand.
‘Let’s not quarrel,’ he said. ‘You’re the only thing about this I don’t hate.’
‘ There’s a compliment,’ she snorted.
‘You’re back to your old self, right
enough.’
He shook his head, dismissing their conversation. ‘Why’d the Doctor vanish like that? What’s wrong?’
She glanced uneasily out at the TARDIS. ‘Well, you see, these time blip things were the result of the invaders trying to come through and stressing the continuum and all that. So when the place where they were trying to get in went missing –’
‘– the time shifts should have stopped.’
‘That’s it, yeah.’
‘That means there’s another way in.’
Ace bit her lip and nodded.
Ethan did his hands-in-hair thing again. She watched helplessly. She wanted to reassure him, but things really were going pear-shaped.
‘Ace! Ethan!’
The Doctor was standing in the snowy garden, waving them down.
‘Come along! We’re going to Switzerland.’
A bolt of pain burned through Ethan’s skull.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
At last they came to the ice. Unwin was panting and shivering. There had been no wind in the valley, but here at the edge of the glacier it was fierce. Brett didn’t seem to feel the cold. He clambered up onto the till and surveyed the bright, blinding plain, almost too radiant to look at. Unwin sat down and took a canteen from under his parka.
‘Do you want some water?’
Brett didn’t answer. Unwin took a swallow. Bloody good thing it hadn’t frozen.
‘If you’re without water,’ said Brett, ‘and you eat snow, you’ll freeze to death.’
‘Thank you. I hope never to be near ice or snow again.’
Brett smiled at him strangely then resumed squinting at the glacier.
‘I don’t see why they’d try to come through,’ Unwin continued irritably. ‘They know they haven’t enough power.’ Brett didn’t say anything.
‘They’re not trying to come through, only to leave us a sign that they can, given the right circumstances.’
Unwin’s teeth began to chatter. What if he couldn’t finish it? The work Amberglass had done on his own, before they got hold of him, opened up new doors, but how long did the numbers go on beyond those doors? He might have to spend his life on the problem. Unwin wouldn’t have minded that; it was Brett’s threatening haste that made the task so hard. Perhaps impossible.
He glanced up at Brett’s straight, implacable figure. Perhaps he ought to run away. Find some far-off place to live with his beautiful equations. A tear leaked from his eye and froze.
‘I can’t take much more of this cold.’
‘It’s the alcohol in your veins. They expand and release more heat from your body.’
‘Is that true? I don’t believe that’s true.