Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [83]
‘He may not be dead.’
‘No thanks to me.’
Chapter Twenty
171
The Doctor firmly replaced his hat, as if corking up any further thoughts on the matter. A little shiver passed through Ethan. He remembered the conversation in the bar in London. He was a chilly thing, the Doctor, under the good manners and cosy charm.
Ace bounced in. ‘Oi, tea!’ As far as Ethan could see, her face was unmarked.
She gave him an embarrassed smile. ‘I was a right girl back there. Crying like that.’
This remark left Ethan speechless. She sat on the arm of his chair, leaning on his shoulder. ‘Enough tea for me as well, Professor?’
‘Of course,’ said the Doctor, producing a third teacup, apparently from a pocket. ‘And there is butter and honey for the toast – as soon as there is toast.’
He started fitting a slice of bread on a toast fork.
Ethan cleared his throat. ‘You were saying. . . ’
‘Hm? Oh yes.’ The Doctor found a spot for the bread not too near the flames.
‘Where to begin? Well, I was up on the glacier making certain nothing could come through up there, and I encountered Brett, or vice versa, and he took me back to this rather dreary little chalet he’s rented – just bunks for skiers, really.’
Ethan sat up. ‘Then you know where he is?’
‘I couldn’t find it again. I wandered all over the place after I escaped.’
‘What did he do to you?’ said Ace in a disturbingly quiet voice.
‘Not to worry.’ He smiled at her disarmingly. ‘The major difficulty is that there was a time slip while Brett had the unfinished bridge up on his computer, and suddenly the computations were complete. Brett was smart enough to suss this out, and he copied it and shoved the disk in my pocket before the moment snapped away. Then he gave the disk to Unwin. Who later helped me escape.’
The Doctor’s face sobered. ‘I worry about Unwin.’
‘Likely he’s offed him,’ Ace said indifferently.
‘Ace, I’ve told you that this borrowing of American slang must stop. Your speech is undecipherable enough as it is.’ The Doctor turned the toasting bread over. ‘But you’re right,’ he sighed. ‘I’d be very surprised if Unwin weren’t dead.’
Ace glanced at Ethan’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you’re sorry.’
‘He was just weak.’ Ethan couldn’t understand why the idea of Unwin’s death caught at him. ‘He had no life but numbers. He didn’t know anything about the world.’
‘He didn’t want to know,’ the Doctor snapped.
‘Well,’ Ethan said, ‘why should he, really? Everyone shuts out the world to some degree or other. Otherwise, it’s unbearable.’
The Doctor eyed him keenly, and Ace pulled his ear. ‘Thanks a lot.’
172
The Algebra of Ice
‘There are always exceptions,’ he murmured. She ruffled his hair.
‘Toast,’ the Doctor reminded them sternly. ‘With honey. And possibly jam will make an appearance. Didn’t someone say that the only true pleasures of life are the small ones?’
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ Ace said. The tea was drunk and the toast eaten (jam had made an appearance) and she’d led Ethan to a door that she opened into a music room dominated by a shining grand piano. A Bosendorfer, Ethan thought, impressed.
‘You have a piano in your flat. So you must play.’
‘Sometimes. Does the Doctor play?’
‘Some of him.’
Ethan let that pass. He tapped middle C. The tone was full and clear.
‘So play something.’
‘You wouldn’t like it.’
She grimaced. ‘Old stuff?’
‘Eighteenth century, mostly.’
‘I don’t so much mind that. It’s all those naff songs about the white cliffs of Dover.’ She watched Ethan stroke one of the smooth ivory keys, as if he were petting a cat.
‘It would be the finest piano I’ve ever played,’ he admitted.
‘Go on, then.’
He sat on the bench and ran a few scales up and down. The sound was voluptuous; he thought he could almost breathe it, like wine-sweet air. Ace leaned on the piano, chin in hand.
‘The Professor says music and maths are almost the same thing.’
‘He’s not wrong.’
‘D’you compose then?’
He tried out