Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Doctor Who_ Set Piece Part 13
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Doctor Who_ Set Piece Part 13

'Yeah, and I'm Cleopatra,' said Ace.

'We are the priests of Set, called Sutekh, called Setekh. He is the all high, the all powerful, who holds all life in his hands, who brings death. He is the desert, the storm, the flood. He is the destroyer, the trickster, the chaos-bringer, the lawbreaker.'

Ace laughed. 'Sounds like the Devil,' she said. 'But that's okay. I've worked for the Devil before.'

80.

Second Piece

Butterfly Wings They say that chess, like cards, has Kings and Queens.

What of the Aces? They play too!

(Jan Standinger)

Chapter 7.

Opening Flower

Yume no naka ni Ai-mimu koto wo Tanome-tsutsu Kuraseru yoi wa Nemu kata mo nashi I was up all night hoping I'd dream about you.

(Anonymous Japanese poet, Kokin Shu Kokin Shu, tenth century) The soldier's name was Michel. He was twenty-two years old, tall and skinny, with fair hair and blue eyes that looked perpetually surprised.

But the details aren't important.

Michel had joined the Garde Nationale long before the trouble had begun. He had a dream about becoming a soldier of fortune, marching through France's colonies, writing to his mother and sisters to tell them about his adventures. He wanted to see something amazing, something really unbelievable.

Michel tried to make the war more exciting by imaging it written down in books, being read by scholars and schoolchildren in a hundred years' time, in a thousand. He was part of that history. But the events of the past few months were shuffled inside his head like a deck of cards.

Paris was the City of Light, the centre of the civilised world. It was all about Paris. He remembered the September day the Emperor had surrendered to the Prussians. Like all the Garde, he had no chance to bite the enemy; they stayed in the capital, idle, as the news from Sedan came through in trickles. It was hard to remember that France had started the war in the first place. Nach Nach Paris, Paris, the Germans were shouting. Paris next! the Germans were shouting. Paris next!

The very next day the Parisians had elected their own Republican government. There was no way la ville de lumiere la ville de lumiere could be made to surrender! But Michel had not been with Flourens when he marched on the Hotel de Ville, demanding that Garde be permitted to attack the Prussians. That was one day he did remember clearly, staying behind as the news trickled through. But no, there was more waiting. could be made to surrender! But Michel had not been with Flourens when he marched on the Hotel de Ville, demanding that Garde be permitted to attack the Prussians. That was one day he did remember clearly, staying behind as the news trickled through. But no, there was more waiting.

The bombardment and the famine came together, followed quickly by small-pox. The rich were dining on elephant and antelope as the Paris zoo was 83 emptied. The poor were eating one carrot a day and freezing to death in the gutter.

Michel wrote to his mother and sisters in La Bas, scribbled notes tucked into the coats of travelling soldiers. Once, he sent a letter by balloon. That was another moment of clarity: staring at a patch of blue sky long after the fickle thing had flown away. He sighed, hoping his letter wouldn't land in Norway, or the ocean.

Michel spent his days at rifle practice, or drinking, or swapping stories with the other men of the Garde. It was hideously cold. Every tree in the Champs Elysee had been cut down for firewood, old women using picks to hack up the roots.

It was January when they finally sent the Garde out against the Prussians.

Michel stayed behind. Michel wasn't one of the ten thousand gardes gardes who died. who died.

The word was that the government had wanted to see as many of the Garde killed as possible. They knew they were sitting on an army of rebels, half-starved, half-crazy and half-drunk, burning with siege fever. Why not let the Prussians thin them out a bit?

The armistice had come soon after. They'd cut the Garde Nationale pay you had to beg to get anything. In the popular clubs, the revolutionaries debated the demands on the poor to pay the rent waived during the siege, the fact that the food and aid pouring into the capital was bypassing the starving.

Paris seethed under its surface as though the sewers were alight.

Michel wasn't one of the gardes gardes who attacked the Hotel de Ville after the January Sortie. The first French blood spilled by French bullets. He stayed behind, reading the Red Poster that was stuck up everywhere: "Make way for the people! Make way for the Commune!". who attacked the Hotel de Ville after the January Sortie. The first French blood spilled by French bullets. He stayed behind, reading the Red Poster that was stuck up everywhere: "Make way for the people! Make way for the Commune!".

Barely a month after that the Garde Nationale seized scores of army cannon and took them to Montmartre, storing up arms and ammunition. Suddenly they were the most powerful army in France. Michel had stayed behind, marching in the Second Empire anniversary celebrations.

He remembered a shell striking the pavement close by him and the taste of concrete powder in his mouth. Things after that were a little blurry.

Vaguely Michel was aware of the clock spinning around him, of grains of sand running through the hour-glass too fast for him to count.

He remembered the fumigation of Paris after the Prussian victory parade, the smell of bonfires and disinfectant.

He remembered a little of Montmartre, the screaming of the mob, gardes gardes and rabble pressing in around the army. The regular soldiers were abandoning their own officers and joining the Garde. Michel watched when they shot a couple of generals, for really no reason at all. Was it the soldiers, or the mob? and rabble pressing in around the army. The regular soldiers were abandoning their own officers and joining the Garde. Michel watched when they shot a couple of generals, for really no reason at all. Was it the soldiers, or the mob?

He couldn't remember. Someone with guns. Angry faces, shouting.

84.Things after that were more blurry still. He remembered the election of the Commune, of course who could ever forget that day? Two revolutions in a row! ' Vive le Commune! Vive le Commune! Vive le Commune! Vive le Commune! ' and pouring through the streets before the Hotel de Ville. Red flags waving. Smiling faces, shouting. ' and pouring through the streets before the Hotel de Ville. Red flags waving. Smiling faces, shouting.

But the shelling went on, and the fighting went on, and the Garde were as confused and drunk as the Commune, wandering about Paris with no-one to fight.

And some small part of Michel, a buried human understanding passed down through generations of killing, knew that this war was no different to any other war. The reasons weren't important, the strategies, the economics, the history. It was part of the long-unbroken chain of human violence. It was just another war.

It was a surgeon shot under a flag of truce.

It was an innocent man bound by a mob and hurled into the Seine and stoned until he finally sank.

It was the field of Buzenval, so jammed with bodies that you couldn't walk over it.

It was a grandmother gnawing at a rat's bones because there was nothing else to eat.

It was a small girl sliced in half by a shell on her way home from school.

But the details aren't important.

Kadiatu's ship was well-stocked with antibiotics. In her own time, the whole human race was stitched together by massive public transport; if someone came down with a cold, a million people got it and got immunity to it.

But the past was a foreign country or a lot of foreign countries, with no Solar Transit System to homogenize them, separated by trivial barriers: mountains, water, politics. Kadiatu had been expecting to pick up every little bug. She'd brought plenty of tissues along with the medicines.

But Kadiatu had never been ill in her life.

Around her, Parisians were dying in their hundreds as the water went bad and the food started to run out. Or in childbirth. Or from a pinprick. Or a mosquito bite. Sometimes Kadiatu imagined herself taking a shot of penicillin, and some severe French schoolmarm rapping her over the knuckles and saying, 'Well, my girl, I hope you brought enough for everybody.'

She was spending a lot of her time in the basement these days, not so much because of the stored equipment but because of the shelling. A house right next door had been completely demolished; only the joining wall had been left standing. Her own house was completely untouched, except for a rain of brickbats and plaster powder onto the roof.

'How did you get that thing in here?' the Doctor said.

85.Kadiatu had been going through her morning exercises, stretching and jogging on a bit of carpet in the corner of the basement. She wore the undergar-ment of her hostile environment suit, grey synthetic stuff that breathed like her own skin. She stopped.

'Nicolas carried it in his cart,' she said, rubbing the back of her neck. She hadn't worked up a sweat; she wasn't even breathing hard. 'In pieces.'

'And then you put it back together?'

'Don't panic. I'm not about to nuke Paris.' She saw an image of a city flattened under a piece of asteroid belt, a Martian warning that howled out of the sky, brighter than Hiroshima. Cribbed from a hundred warvid ads, documentaries her father's description. 'I'm out of fuel, remember?'

'What did you tell the locals it was?'

'I didn't tell them it was anything. People are desperate for money, there's a war on. Don't worry, nobody knows I'm here, it's all under control.'

The Doctor was sitting on the basement steps, the trap-door over his head.

From time to time the wooden hatch rattled with the falling of distant bombs.

'So you arrived in the countryside. Why move to Paris?'

'More central, more resources.' Kadiatu tried to start up her exercises again, clumsy and uncomfortable under his gaze. 'And the soldiers were crawling all over Thierry's estate. We couldn't leave it out in the open like that.'

'You must have had help. If nothing else you would have needed French lessons.'

' J'ai atterri dans le verger de pommiers de M Thierry, J'ai atterri dans le verger de pommiers de M Thierry, ' she said. ' ' she said. ' Il sait que je Il sait que je viens de l'avenir, mais tout est en ordre. viens de l'avenir, mais tout est en ordre. ' '

Someone banged on the trap-door. The Doctor looked up and pushed it open a crack. One of Kadiatu's domestiques domestiques peered at him. ' peered at him. ' Excusez-moi. La Excusez-moi. La voiture de M Thierry est arrivee, et il y a des soldats dehors. Madame, est-elle voiture de M Thierry est arrivee, et il y a des soldats dehors. Madame, est-elle la? la? ' '

'Soldiers? Hell. What do they want? Hang on, Lili, I'll be up there in a minute.'

Benny smiled, aimed in the direction of her head and perched the glass atop it.

Her opponent, the fat thief, slid silently under the table. His wife squawked and went down on her knees, fanning him frantically.

Benny took the glass off her head and raked in the kitty. 'Anyone else?' she said.

The two men in black were the only sober people left at the table. The one-eyed beggar kept giggling to himself, his stringy beard dripping with beer.

Benny was pleasantly sloshed, but nothing more she could still walk in a 86 straight line, and had even managed to get to the bar and back again with more of the watered-down beer.

The smaller man reached for the jug and poured himself a cup. 'What d'you plan to bet?' she asked.

'You've been talking all night about the French,' said the short man. 'But you are not French.'

Benny shook her head. 'But I want the same thing as the French. Information. About all the old things, the old, old things.'

'Anything in particular?'

Benny nodded, grinning. She took out a piece of paper. Three English words were written across it in bold capitals.

There was a long moment. The taller man shrugged.

'I've seen that,' tittered the beggar.

Michel was with the ragged Garde troops when they went on their doorknock through Paris, looking for horses. Through the haze of cheap wine he never had been able to hold his drink he wondered how many doors there were left to knock on.

That morning they'd been helping to put up the scaffolding around the Vendome Column. They were planning to pull down the old monument, one of these days; there was even talk of destroying Notre Dame.

The Column would make a good crash when it came down, thought Michel.

A good, loud crash.

When the lieutenant found him quivering against a wall with his hands over his ears, he'd spat and swore and put him on Comite Comite detail. Now Michel trailed behind the other soldiers in his patched uniform, eyes reflecting the details of Paris like broken windows. The morning light was smoky and orange. detail. Now Michel trailed behind the other soldiers in his patched uniform, eyes reflecting the details of Paris like broken windows. The morning light was smoky and orange.

The merchants had complained that the Commune put its guns where they would draw the Versailles shells onto their houses. He had no idea whether that were true, but there were houses in ruins houses with holes knocked in walls or roofs, rich men's mansions reduced to splinters, children and their grandparents rummaging in the wreckage for firewood.

Sometimes they heard a dog bark under the ruins, or a woman weeping.

There were people living in cellars, under what was left of their homes. The shells fell in a gentle rain. Each distant thwack thwack drove Michel deeper into himself. His feet followed his little group but his head was wandering in the village of La Bas, under a summer sky. drove Michel deeper into himself. His feet followed his little group but his head was wandering in the village of La Bas, under a summer sky.

They had come to a yard attached to a house damaged, but still standing with a stable at the rear. A single gaping hole in the cobblestones showed where a shell had landed, missing the house by a few feet.

87.The other soldiers were shouting and bashing at the gates with their rifle butts. Where was the concierge? Killed, or fled, thought Michel. He could see a horse and trap in the courtyard, a man defensively holding a child while he looked back at them in surprise.

The door at the side of the house banged angrily open, and out strode an immensely tall woman. Michel stared at her between the bars of the gate. His head was suddenly full of the musk of the tigers and lions, still alive in the zoo, too terrifying to kill for food even when the elephants' trunks were being eaten in fashionable restaurants.

The Lieutenant was waving about a requisition from the Comite de Transport Comite de Transport. 'Horses!' he shouted. We want any beasts of burden which you have.

Donkeys and large dogs will do as well. We are commandeering them.'

The woman was followed by a small man, scurrying to keep up with her.

It was only when Michel saw his paleness that he realized the rich colour of the woman's skin, saw her African face. Even in her skirts she moved with the perfect rhythm of a panther. Some part of his mind imagined the muscles under her dress, the dark skin beneath her petticoat.

The woman unlocked the gate. The lieutenant waved his pistol in her face.

She moved, in a blur of limbs, long limbs as graceful as a ballerina's, too fast for Michel to follow. The lieutenant had fallen onto the ground, and still she was moving, dancing between the gardes gardes. Robert fell over, Jean-Paul was skipping backwards, wearing a ridiculous expression of surprise, fumbling with his gun.

Michel unslung his rifle and held it in front of him. She was beautiful, the most incroyable incroyable thing he had ever seen. thing he had ever seen.

Someone was shouting. Michel couldn't understand the words. Perhaps shouting for her to stop.

He saw that there was a single diamond stud on the right side of her nose, glittering like a tiny fire against the deep colour of her skin.