The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [19]
So what had that got to do with the price of coconuts?
Showing off again, that’s all she was doing. ‘That in Latin too?’
‘No, this is a modern book. Well, late nineteenth century. A history of Sicilian castles. Published in Rome in 1872.’
66
Six
‘Serendipity,’ said the Doctor. ‘As pretty an example as I’ve come across in a century of blue moons.’
‘Not synchronicity?’ said Sarah, a trifle crestfallen.
‘That too. It must mean we’re on the right track.’
‘Going with the flow?’ said Jeremy with a chortle.
‘If you like.’
The Doctor had read the words on the piece of vellum (for that’s what he said it was) and pronounced them an extract from an alchemical text – ‘Not one I’m familiar with, though’ – dating from the early middle ages.
‘Thank you, Sarah,’ he had said when she first gave it to him, taking a small book from his breast pocket and laying the fragment between its pages. ‘This could prove invaluable. Well done.’
‘Er… Actually, Doctor, it was sort of me who found it.
In a way.’ And Jeremy explained about the accident; and that was when the Doctor called it serendipity.
‘But what is it, serendipity? What does it mean?’ said Jeremy.
‘Making a fortunate discovery by accident. A coinage by my old friend Horace Walpole,’ the Doctor said. ‘Clever chap in his own way. Invented the horror story, you know; what they called the Gothic Novel. Long before that girl 67
who seems to have got all the credit – what was her name?
Ann, wasn’t it? Yes, of course, Ann, In fact Harry published The Castle of Otranto the year Ann was born. Pretty girl.
Bright too. Much too good for that boor Radcliffe.
As the Doctor was speaking, he was connecting a thick cable coming from the TARDIS to the strange looking apparatus he had constructed by the beds. Although it was basically electronic, Sarah could see within its depths some odd articles which seemed to be quite out of place. There was a coiled seashell, for example, of a nacreous blue; a peeled, hard-boiled egg (surely not!) with a metal knitting-needle stuck through it; and, just visible deep, deep inside, staring balefully out at her (it seemed), the skull of some sort of rodent, probably a rat.
‘Ann Radcliffe?’ whispered Jeremy to Sarah. ‘Wasn’t that the name on that book?’
‘Ah, Brigadier,’ said the Doctor, ‘you’re just in time.
I’ve just finished. It’s all ready.’
‘Is it indeed?’ said the Brigadier. ‘And what do you call that?’
The Doctor laughed. ‘There you go again. Isn’t it more important to know what it does?’
‘I like to know what’s what,’ said the Brigadier. ‘If I knew what its name was, I might glean some idea of what it’s for.’
68
‘I see. Well now, if I were to tell you that it’s a Dimensional Transducer – an OB Dimensional Transducer
– would you be any the wiser?’
Sarah certainly wasn’t – but then, judging by his expression, neither was the Brigadier.
‘What does OB stand for?’ he said stiffly,
‘Out of the Body,’ answered the Doctor. ‘When we use this apparatus to travel into N-Space this afternoon, our bodies will stay here. That’s what the beds are for.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Brigadier, ‘but did I hear you say something about “we” and “travel” and “this afternoon”?’
He sounded just like Ratty talking to Toad, thought Sarah. But it was no trip in a canary-yellow gipsy caravan that was on offer.
‘It’s too dangerous for me to go alone,’ said the Doctor.
‘With two of us there are double the chances of getting back; at least one of us should make it.’
‘And if neither gets back?’
‘Then Sarah and Jeremy will have a couple of corpses on their hands.’
A strangulated bleat from Jeremy.
Well, thank you very much! thought Sarah. And what then? Sit and wait for the biggest catastrophe of all time to hit?
69
‘Don’t worry,’ went on the Doctor. ‘It’s belt and braces.
I have every intention of being home in time for dinner.’
The Brigadier was clearly uneasy. ‘Look here, old fellow,’ he said (and Sarah had never heard him call the Doctor that before), ‘I don’t want to let you down, but I really do think I have to stay