The she-monster's palm was flat against Ace's forehead. The teenager was screaming teenager, the original Ace, Ace the way Bernice had first met her.
Screaming with her mouth open and her hands clawing at nothing.
'Oh God,' stammered Benny, 'what's happening?'
'The details aren't important.' The White Lady swung her stick again, pointing across the room.
The Doctor was being held by two huge guards, all hair and sweat. The little man was caught at an odd angle.
Benny stumbled to her feet before she knew what she was doing. The flare of pain in her shoulder precisely matched the brilliant blossom in the Lady's pocket. 'Hey,' she said.
The Lady took her arm and helped her hobble over to the Doctor. Now she could see the twisting tension in his shoulders, one hand reaching out as he tried to turn his hips, the balance of his feet. He was trying to break free of the warriors' grip, desperately, wrenching forwards towards Ace. At the same time his eyes were closed, his head bowed, as though he couldn't bear to look.
Benny touched his hair with a trembling hand. Ace was being tortured, but Benny wanted to comfort the Doctor, tell him it was going to be alright.
'It must have been alright,' she muttered. 'This must have happened long before I came on board. Whatever happened, it was all alright in the end. It's just some adventure or other.'
'Figure 1,' said the Lady again. 'The Doctor unable to prevent his companion's pain. A leitmotiv. Perhaps the reason he hurts her deliberately is because it gives him some control.'
'He doesn't hurt her because he wants to.' Benny was piping like a little girl, the Lady's hand tugging on her as she tried to pull away. 'He doesn't hurt anybody because he wants to.'
113.
'Doesn't he?'
'He had to do it. He's too clever. Don't you understand? Too clever. He always sees the best thing to do, the right answer. So he he doesn't have any choice, does he?'
'Does he?'
'How can you have any free will when you know the future?'
'Can you?'
'What is all this, anyway?' Benny sank to her knees. Her hand trembled over her heart. 'If you're the Grim Reaper, just reap me, okay?'
'I'm not Death,' said the White Lady. 'Though some people wish that I were.
Figure 2.'
She pressed her button again, and the world changed. A new image a dark English night, the air full of smoke, at the foot of a castle wall.
The Doctor lay on the wet grass, back arching, mouth open, eyes open, his whole body twisting in raw physical pain.
Ace was there, and a young man, and Benny saw the body language that connected them like an electric current, even in their panic. They were just about to see that the Doctor's shoulder was dislocated, but in that snapshot moment they didn't know why he was screaming.
And now it was Ace that Benny wanted to comfort, wanted to assure that pain couldn't kill you, it didn't last forever. Ace, helpless in the face of the Doctor's agony.
The White Lady swept the pointer down, traced a line across the Doctor's chest, just below the damaged shoulder. 'There's a major ganglion here,' she said, moving the stick in a small circle. 'A great nerve cluster, almost a tiny, separate brain. A manner of switching-box. It allows a Time Lord fine control over their own metabolism: respiration, core temperature, blood chemistry.
A blow to that tissue can render the Time Lord unconscious as their heartsbeat and breathing abruptly slow. Other damage can cause excruciating pain.
Stimulate that ganglion, and every nerve in the body reacts. As we can see from Figure 2.'
'Why are you showing me this?' Tears were running out of Benny's nose.
She wiped them on her sleeve. 'Why are you?'
'Perhaps you need this information,' said the White Lady. 'And anyway, it's my job.'
'It's your job,' said Benny hotly. 'You're a torturer, a torturer!'
The White Lady sighed sharply. 'Really, your subconscious does not even begin to contain the cultural information necessary to understand this dream.
I no more torture people than Death kills them. The first time the Doctor met me, it was entirely of his own volition. My job is to bring home to you something you already know that the Doctor plays with people as though 114 they were pieces in a game. He is too old, too callused, too callous. He will sacrifice anyone for advantage.'
She leaned down, bringing her featureless face close to Bernice's. 'And that is why you are dying in a dusty Egyptian tomb, an impossible distance from your home. There is nothing more for you.' She plucked the blossom from her lapel, and stretched out a pale hand. 'The Doctor has abandoned you here, and you must give up now. Just give up, now.'
There was a long silence. The flower was an inch from Benny's nose. It smelled of scarlet and crimson.
When she answered, she could barely hear her own voice.
'It's not true. He's one of the pieces too. He would sacrifice himself if he had to. He's done it. I saw it.' Benny felt some strength come into her trembling body. 'I saw it.'
Benny was stooped over the Doctor, frantically trying to get a response out of him. Blood was trickling from his mouth and nose, sluggishly. His eyes had of him. Blood was trickling from his mouth and nose, sluggishly. His eyes had flickered shut. flickered shut.
The White Lady shook her projector switch, irritably. The flower was gone from Benny's field of vision. 'It's my slide,' sobbed Bernice. 'And you can't change it. You can't change it.'
And now there was a song, somewhere in the distance, an elusive melody.
She closed her eyes, tilted her head, but she could only make out a few notes of the tune. But the words were clear. Come here, come here. Come here, come here.
She sniffed, blinked, looked up.
'Mlle Summerfield,' said Vivant, 'The work will not be done if you simply lie about, now, will it?'
Ace's chance came sooner than she thought. Akhenaten laughed, swung his daughter into the air, gave her over into her mother's arms. He was an odd-looking bod, Ace thought, even as she meandered into the hall, doing her best to look like just another sodden party-goer. He was skinny, but with a pot-belly. His face was long and his smile was weak. He didn't even bother to go lion-hunting to keep himself in some sort of shape.
He stalked out of the hall, followed by three guards, count 'em. They'd be good, too, top quality stuff. For a moment she wished she had her combat suit. Give 'em a twist, a flick of the wrist, no muss, no fuss.
She wandered out after Pharaoh. When a guard tried to stop her in the hallway, she kicked his left kneecap loose and stomped on his larynx when he fell down.
Hmm. Maybe she wouldn't need her suit after all.
115.
The cannons were distant tonight. Midnight found the Doctor in the kitchen, very slowly peeling another of Thierry's apples with a knife.
He was letting events flow by him, carelessly caught up in the river. There wasn't much else to do besides letting Kadiatu bundle him about like a pile of old clothes. He sighed, looking down at the rag-bag he was wearing. He missed his silk shirt. He missed his hat.
He missed Ace. He missed Ace very much indeed, Had she survived Cold Storage? Was she still alive, on the other side of one of the Ants' temporal crevices? Or had the metal insects got to her? If a scout had come for him, what about her?
I say, old bean, what about me?
He looked up, to where an imagined Bernice was grinning at him, perched on a kitchen stool and tossing her newly blonde hair out of her eyes.
'Ace had hibernation sickness,' he said. 'She might have been blinded, or had brain damage. If the thawing was uneven, the ice crystals might have burst her heart '
I came to rescue you both, said Benny, more seriously. said Benny, more seriously. I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm doing, don't worry. don't worry.
'But we were separated in the rift. I felt it happen, felt you lose your grip.
The damaged areas of space-time are full of powerful, random forces flinging us off in different directions.'
Which is why you have to stop the Ants. Stop the forces leaking out of the cracks and destroying the universe. What are you going to do about Kadiatu? cracks and destroying the universe. What are you going to do about Kadiatu?
'She seems to have learnt her lesson as far as the time experiments are concerned.'
But do you trust her?
'Why not let her think she's in control for a while?' The Doctor had made a long snake of apple peel. He put it carefully down on the table. 'She's trapped.
And trapped animals are the most dangerous.'
We're all trapped, Doctor. You included.
'At University,' said the Doctor, 'they warned us never to talk to the dead.'
There was a single wail, rising and falling into silence. It came from somewhere downstairs the cellar a woman's voice echoing eerily from the bricks. Scuffling, furniture noises, the sound of a blow landing. Silence again.
Listen to us. It's up to you to set us all free. Ace picked up the strip of apple peel and swung it around in the air, playfully. Ace picked up the strip of apple peel and swung it around in the air, playfully. So get on with it, eh? So get on with it, eh?
For instance, said Benny, raising an eyebrow, said Benny, raising an eyebrow, you might want to stop talking you might want to stop talking to ghosts. I only mention it. to ghosts. I only mention it.
'I can't help it,' said the Doctor softly, and now the pain was back again, the sharpness in his shoulder he had been ignoring. He repulsed the insane urge to stick the knife in the itching pain, cut it out of his body. 'I'm not myself.'
116.
Must be something you drank, said Benny pointedly. said Benny pointedly.
What did they add to you? said Ace curiously. said Ace curiously.
'Do you remember the organic matter that infected the TARDIS, after we repaired it with Goibhnie's protoplasm?'
Hell, that was a long time ago. I remember. The cat tried to warn us.
'And then I was in two minds, as it were. For months. I couldn't talk to you properly because I was fighting the virus that had infected the TARDIS' mind.
My mind.'
Is this like that? said Ace. said Ace.
Evidently not, said Benny. said Benny. In fact, he's positively chatty. In fact, he's positively chatty.
'That virus altered my biology. It changed the way I thought. It was a subtle form of possession.'
Ace spun the apple peel slowly from her fingers. The Ants' technology is The Ants' technology is organic, organic, she said. she said. To them, we're the machines. And you're wondering what To them, we're the machines. And you're wondering what tinkering they might have done under your hood. tinkering they might have done under your hood.
'They would understand Kadiatu perfectly,' he said, biting into his apple.
'Nerves for wires, genes for programs.'
Bernice was shuddering. Possession, Possession, she said. It she said. It seems to be a bit of an seems to be a bit of an occupational hazard. occupational hazard.
Nature of the universe, said Ace, said Ace, people are always trying to turn you into people are always trying to turn you into what you're not. D'you think they did something to you while you were aboard what you're not. D'you think they did something to you while you were aboard Ship? Ship?
'No,' he said, 'it must have been afterwards.'
And now you're not yourself.
'No.'
That's Kadiatu's excuse, isn't it?'
The Doctor looked up at Ace, sharply.
'Am I out of my mind? Would I know?'
You're the one talking to yourself.
'What if this Paris, Kadiatu is all an illusion? A sanctuary I've created inside my own mind? How would I be able to tell the difference?'
Ace laughed, a silent, imagined laugh. Been there, done that, bought the Been there, done that, bought the postcard. Go stub your toe on a rock and see if it hurts. postcard. Go stub your toe on a rock and see if it hurts.
'Hold on. I'll come for you,' he promised. 'I'll come for you both.'
And if it's too late? said Bernice. said Bernice. Will there be white lilies at the funeral? Will there be white lilies at the funeral?
Never mind, Professor. Ace winked at him. Ace winked at him. When you're short of everything When you're short of everything except the enemy, you know you're in combat! except the enemy, you know you're in combat!
In the kitchen doorway, the littleboy was watching the Doctor talk to himself. The child looked about five years old: red hair, perfect skin, a precise spattering of freckles. It was not wearing nightclothes, but the same little suit it had worn during the day. It still clutched the red ball. Sitting at the table, 117 slowly chewing on his apple, the Doctor did not even notice the child's cool stare.
Perhaps, a little while later, he looked up at the vague sensation he was being watched. But the littleboy had gone to its bedroom. There was nothing but a solitary mouse skittering along the floorboards until something went snap snap.
In the morning, it was Thierry who found the Time Lord curled up under a tree, a mile and a half from the mansion. Dew was forming on his hair and coat. The Frenchman knelt and gently shook the Time Lord's shoulder.
'Oh dear,' said the Doctor. 'Did I escape again?'