The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [48]
Stalemate.
After finding a torch in a toolbox, they managed to work out how to get the engine started. Jeremy sat in the driver's seat and experimented with the controls - and yes, there was just frwards and backwards and stop - though when you put the thingy in stop, the boat didn't; it went on a bit. He drove it in a circle, feeling that James Bond would 169
have been proud of him. It was as easy as driving a dodgem; easier, because you didn't have yobbos full of lager bashing into you.
'Right,' he said authoritatively. 'Off we go.'
But which way?
Jeremy tried to remember the map on the ferry. Sarah had pointed out the islands to him but he'd been feeling too green to take much notice. They were sort of next to each other, he remembered; and hadn't she said something about
'west'?
'Is it east on the left and west on the right, or what?'
'Are you asking me?' said Maggie irritably.
He peered at the compass. Yes, west was over there and it was pointing right at the harbour entrance, and east ...
'Hey.look!' he said in triumph.
'What?'
'Where east is pointing. Over there. Sort of light shining over the - er - the horizon.' He brought out the nautical-sounding word with pride. 'It must be the light of San Stefano Minore.'
Maggie peered in the direction he was looking.
'So what are we waiting for, honey?' she said.
How could she have been so flip with the Brig? thought Sarah, as she peeled off the dress she'd borrowed from 170
Louisa. After all, things hadn't changed. Louisa was stili going to die.
Or rather - Louisa was dead.
She stopped looking for the right clothes to transform herself into a Renaissance page, and sat back on her heel while she considered the matter.
Although she still felt quite devastated that the innocent Louisa, so bubbling with life, should meet with such an unhappy end, the fact remained that when she was talking to the Brig, it had all happened over a hundred and fifty years before. As the Doctor had implied, everybody had to die sooner or later.
For that matter, when they got to where they were going now, Louisa wouldn't be due to be born for something like three hundred years; and that felt different too.
It was like relativity, she thought, as she resumed her search. It all depended where you were standing at the time.
She picked out a pair of dun-coloured tights - complete with padded codpiece; honestly, men! Still it solved one problem - and cast around (or a short doublet of a design which would flatten her where she needed to be flattered.
The Doctor had suggested that she would be better off as a boy on three grounds. One, males had much more freedom of action than females; two, she would be safer; and three, it suited better with his own disguise, a visiting 171
scholar and philosopher (with perhaps a touch of implied magician) who would never travel without a servant.
The Doctor had dug out some pictures for her to follow.
One drawing in particular caught her eye, perhaps not surprisingly, for with a shock of recognition she realized it was signed 'Rafaello'.
Luckily, with a bit of pruning (the hated curls were soon lopped off), her normal hairstyle was exactly right for a young man or boy at the turn of the century.
Sitting down to tie up the tapes of her doublet - there didn't seem to be any with buttons - and finding it a bit difficult with her sore shoulder, she suddenly realized how knackered she was. She lay back on the pile of clothes for a moment to consider her get-up. It seemed about right. The terracotta of the doublet was okay, wasn't it? Too bright a colour wouldn't help the masculinity bit, but she didn't want to look yukky.
Catching herself, she grinned ruefully at her own vanity; and fell abruptly asleep.
'Any chance of any breakfast? Scrambled eggs on toast would be ace.'
The Doctor swung round from the mirror where he was putting the finishing touches to his disguise.
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'Well, well, well,' he said with a smile. 'Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea after all.'
She knew quite well that having added