The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [71]
It took a deal of chatting to placate him; and it wasn’t until he said in an Oscarish sort of voice that he was
‘seldom all and never in any circumstances sundry’ that she felt she’d won him over.
248
‘At least we know what you’re aiming at,’ he said. ‘All you have to do is to find out when she is intending to take this foolhardy action – and persuade her not to.’
All! But even as Sarah had qualms about her chances, she felt a curious lifting of her heart. For wasn’t this precisely what she’d wanted?
She was being given an opportunity to prevent Louisa’s terrible end.
Jeremy really got quite bored waiting for things to start again. Hours it was. Hours and hours. After all, to a man of action the only worthwhile thing was the prospect of a spot of the old one-two, as Thumper, the PT instructor at school, used to call any sort of fight.
He turned away from the image of himself cowering in the corner of the ring with his gloved hands covering his face while his opponent beat him about the head to the jeers of his schoolfellows and cries of ‘You’ve got him now, boy, kill the bastard!’ from Thumper; and firmly substituted the more gratifying one of recent times. He hefted the stun gun in his hand and imagined Max backing away from him, begging for mercy.
‘For God’s sake, Jeremy, point that thing somewhere else!’ snapped the Brigadier, turning from a survey of the terrain outside the walls. ‘Didn’t Teddy teach you 249
anything?’ He clicked the brass telescope closed and came over, holding out his hand. ‘If you want to be useful,’ he said, removing the gun, ‘go and take a message to the other posts. Say that I’m of the opinion that we can expect another attempt at any moment. For a while there was a lot of coming and going on the boat. Bit difficult to make out, but it’s stopped now. Things are too quiet for my liking, and it’ll be getting dark soon, so tell everybody to keep on the alert. Got it?’
Jeremy trailed down the first flight of stairs onto the top of the wall, keeping down below the parapet. Dogsbody again. After all that he’d done!
‘But won’t they wonder where we’ve been all this time?’
Dressed in her high-waisted muslin once more she was doing her not very successful best to coax her shortened page-boy bob into the curly-top confection Louisa had produced. A box of assorted pieces of plastic tubing she’d found in the kitchen-lab – for use as improvised curlers –
and a basin of boiling water hardly constituted the most sophisticated of hairdressing equipment.
The Doctor was at the control console, adjusting various large knobs and taking careful note of the readings which resulted. ‘That’s just what I’m trying to sort out now,’ he 250
said in answer to her question. ‘You see, it takes a great deal of energy to arrive back somewhere soon after you left. The nearer you are, the more you start to activate Blinovitch.’
‘Ah yes. Good old Aaron,’ she said, winding a likely lock round a bit of an old-fashioned wireless set.
He looked at her in some surprise. ‘I didn’t explain the Blinovitch limitation effect, did I?’
‘No. But I’ve got a feeling you’re going to,’ she said bitterly as the hair slipped off yet again.
‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘One of these days. First things first. We’re not here to have fun, Sarah.’
Fun!
‘As you’ll remember,’ he went on, continuing his work,
‘the TARDIS energy banks were totally drained by the beacon of the Exxilon City –’
Sarah shuddered as she remembered their escape from the Daleks; and another curler slipped from its moorings.
‘– and although she was able to generate enough temporal thrust to take us home, she’s by no means back to normal, poor old thing. Still, from the readings I’m getting, it looks as if we’ll arrive back in 1818 less than an hour after we left. They probably won’t have even missed us.
‘You’re not very good at that, are you?’ he added dispassionately, as one of the tubes slid right out of its hopeful curl and landed on the floor.