Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [82]
168
The Algebra of Ice
‘It’s over.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ethan must have paced around the console room to a distance of two miles before the Doctor appeared.
‘How is she?’
‘Fine,’ said the Doctor soothingly. ‘Bruises and cuts like that can be healed in fifteen minutes.’
‘She got the bloody better of him.’
‘Indeed she did. I try not to encourage that kind of behaviour.’ The Doctor sounded a bit guilty. ‘But there’s no denying it comes in useful.’
Ethan thought ‘useful’ wasn’t really adequate but didn’t say so. ‘What now?
Brett’s still out there.’
‘I rather think Brett and Unwin have been cut off at the knees. If our visitors couldn’t come through when the computational bridge was complete, then they can’t come through. They simply haven’t the power. Which is not surprising in an anti-entropic civilisation. I’d like to know how they managed to accomplish what little they have.’
‘Some alternate power source.’
‘I think so. That was why they wanted the Earth – and, of course, the rest of the universe. They must have drained their own stars dead.’
‘They ought to be under arrest.’
The Doctor looked at him oddly. ‘Well, I suppose so. But I really can’t see how – oh. You mean Unwin and Brett, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Ethan patiently.
‘I think we’re all right there. I stopped by the police station on my way back from my meeting with Brett: they won’t be able to leave by train. And now that Brett’s wandering around oozing blood, he’ll be –’
‘Let’s go back a bit.’ Ethan said carefully. ‘You met with Brett?’
‘I have to catch you up, don’t I? Time for a cup of tea.’
Humming to himself, the Doctor prepared a tea tray, which he then carried, Ethan following, to a small, fire-lit parlour. As he was pouring out, his hand shook slightly, sloshing some tea in the saucer. ‘Sorry.’ He tipped the contents of the saucer back into the cup, and put both on his side of the table. ‘That was 170
The Algebra of Ice
a bit of a near miss out there. I never like it when the universe comes within a hair of blinking out. Gives me a bit of that “So glad I cancelled my trip on the Titanic” shiver.’ He massaged his forehead with the tips of his fingers. ‘All I can do is be grateful that, at the end of the day, it didn’t work. Little thanks to me.’
‘You stopped them in Kent and on the glacier.’
‘Very good of me – what a shame not stopping them at the pond would have made those first two accomplishments meaningless. This wasn’t a situation where doing one’s best was doing enough. Anything that could be done had to be done.’
‘Anything?’ Ethan said curiously.
‘Of course!’
‘Yet you didn’t kill Brett or Unwin.’
The Doctor removed his hat to run a hand through his hair. ‘In the first place, Brett and Unwin aren’t the primary problem. As long as the threat of the aliens existed, someone, somewhere would find a way to build that bridge. Brett is unlikely to be the sole nihilistic maniac on the planet, nor Unwin the sole idiot savant working on a mathematical answer to entropy. Fortunately, now that we’ve seen that even with a complete bridge our friends can’t come through, the issue is resolved. Other Bretts and Unwins can work on computations till the end of time – without the necessary power, the computations aren’t enough.’
‘What if they find the power?’
‘How? It seems pretty clear they can’t get it from their own world, and without being able to enter here, they can’t get it from ours.’
‘What about other universes than theirs or ours?’
‘Yes, indeed. I’ll probably have to do something about that. At any rate, you can see why our earthly villains aren’t the real problem. In the second place. . . ’
The Doctor stopped, rotating his hat in his hands and watching it as if it were some absorbing film. ‘In the second place, I believe I did kill Unwin. I left him there, passed out drunk, for Brett to discover.’
‘Could you have taken him with you?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Then why –’
‘ “Probably” not, not “Certainly not”. I knew there was a chance I was abandoning him to his death. But I chose to leave him. One less threat to the existence