Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [86]
‘I was right,’ he said slowly. ‘Oh, I was right. She doesn’t know. She couldn’t guess. And how she loves you – stupid little girl. What a fool you’ve made of her.’
The Doctor still didn’t move, but his eyes may have darkened.
‘She’ll never know. You’ll dispose of my body very efficiently. Feed it to an acid-mouthed alien predator or something. Atomise it. She’ll just think I’ve run off from her. She’ll get over that. But if she knew about you, it would hurt for the rest of her life. But then perhaps you’d cut that short – out of mercy, of course.’
‘We are talking about the universe.’ The Doctor’s face didn’t change, but there was an edge of pleading in his voice. ‘You know what the end of entropy means, don’t you? Watch water turn to ice.’
‘What are you trying to do – persuade me to kill myself and save you the trouble?’
‘It’s one life against the whole of existence.’
‘It’s my life, and I’m not going to do it.’
‘The universe!’ cried the Doctor, anguished.
‘You’re trying to take it off you – murder without murdering. You think I’m going to make it easy?’
The door opened, and they froze. Ace poked her head in. ‘I can bloody hear the two of you in the hall. What’s all the noise about? I bet it was you.’
She went and kissed Ethan lightly on the cheek. ‘You’d get on anyone’s wick.
Doctor, what’s wrong?’
He’d turned rapidly away; head down. She ran to embrace him. ‘Are you OK?
What is it?’ He tried ineffectually to escape her arms. ‘Doctor, look at me!’ The Doctor wouldn’t. He sank to his knees and she went down with him. ‘Where’s your hat?’ she looked around helplessly. ‘You’ve lost your hat.’
Ethan had crossed to them. Now he picked up the hat and handed it to her.
She pushed it onto the Doctor’s head. ‘He never loses his hat,’ she said. Her voice faltered. ‘I used to think it was part of his head, some weird alien thing.’
The Doctor shuddered. ‘Oh don’t,’ she whispered, holding onto him. ‘Doctor, don’t. It’s all right. Whatever it is, it’s all right.’
Almost in one gesture, he pushed her away and stood up. Ethan half expected his face to glisten with tears, but it was dry, and expressionless. He Chapter Twenty
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helped Ace to her feet and put a hand to her cheek. ‘I’m all right,’ he said softly. He looked at Ethan with his strange, sad eyes. ‘I’m sorry. There has to be another way.’
He left the room without looking back.
‘Well weird,’ said Ace, staring after him. ‘What was that all about? He never apologises.’
‘We’d been arguing about the best way to deal with the equations. I don’t know why he was affected so strongly.’
‘He’s exhausted,’ she said sympathetically. ‘This has all got to him.’
‘He’s dealt with this sort of thing before, hasn’t he – alien invasions, and such?’
‘All the time. He always works it out.’
Ethan put his arm around her shoulders. ‘One way or another.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In Kent, the temperature had edged above freezing. The Doctor’s back garden was a stale, slushy mess, and the call box showed its battered age. Well, not really, Ethan thought, looking out the kitchen window. Its age if it were really a sixties call box, not its true number of God-knew-how-many years. The Doctor had shut himself up in it, leaving the three of them – for Molecross, unaccountably, was still along – in the house.
In a way, Ethan was glad he was around. Molecross’s presence put a certain damper on the intimacy with Ace, and Ethan had developed some ambiguity there. Not about Ace herself – about being with her when he knew what he did about the Doctor. It separated them. He was always lying to her now, even when he wasn’t saying anything. Ace sensed something, of course, but she blamed it on Molecross. Who, admittedly, was one of those people on whom it was easy to blame things. Ace was convinced he’d broken the sugar bowl and hidden the pieces.
She’d been mopey about being banned from the TARDIS, as she put it, though this wasn’t really the case – the TARDIS door was unlocked and she could go in. But the Doctor himself was nowhere to be found. Checking the corridors, she had