The tall man was hot on her heels. She turned as he thundered up behind her, bringing up the scimitar to parry and again and again each blow she caught sent a ringing pain through her injured shoulder.
He was driving her backwards, backwards across the sand. She wanted to look around, to see if Vivant was there somewhere but she couldn't take her eyes off the tall man. She was just barely managing to hold him off. She could have fought properly, if the light were better, if she were more familiar with the weapon, if she weren't injured She hit something, stumbled backwards, and was suddenly falling, her leg caught in one of the storage tent's tarps. Half the tent collapsed with her, saucepans clattering, boxes tumbling, a pile of blankets overbalancing.
134.
She lay on her back, dazed, holding the scimitar over her. But the tall man was reaching into the debris of the tent, pulling something out.
Another gun.
Benny bit her lip, closed her eyes. Doctor! Ace! Here I come! Doctor! Ace! Here I come!
There was a single shot.
Benny's whole body jerked.
The tall man fell like a tree. He collapsed on top of her and started bleeding on her shirt. She yelled and pulled herself out from under him.
Vivant was standing over her, holding a smoking pistol. Around him, French soldiers were moving into the camp, the Setites in tow, cuffed and cursing.
Denon reached down to her. ' Es-tu blessee? Es-tu blessee? ' '
She took his hand, let him pull her to her feet. Suddenly, she grinned all over her face. 'Life could not better be.'
Sesehset was watching the sun come up. He sat alone in the desert, just sat in the dust. It was probably his last sunrise, and he wanted to see it.
The Setites had scattered. Peseh was selling his lands, moving to his estate in Punt. Senef had disappeared altogether. The others had various plans, places they could hide. Sesehset had no employer, nowhere to go.
He sat under the stela they had defaced. Last night their plans had been as sharp and certain as the cuts in the rock face. Now they were nothing more than the chips of stone in the sand, scattered, meaningless.
There was a terrible sound. Sesehset sprang to his feet, startled out of his angst, looking around frantically. He had expected to have more time before it started.
The noise was echoing up from one of the caves in the cliff face. Sesehset's heart beat furiously. Perhaps it was just a rockfall happening underground.
Not the Devourer.
Who fails the test feeds the Devourer.
A figure came striding out of the black shadow. It wore unfamiliar clothing something covering its eyes.
'Tepy,' breathed Sesehset. 'Are you a ghost?'
She stopped perhaps ten feet from him. He saw that she was carrying something long and slender in her hand, perhaps a staff.
She turned slowly, looking back at the stela, the grotesque figure of Pharaoh smiling up at his faceless god. 'That's why he changed the style of the art. He wanted to be remembered properly.'
'Did you kill him?'
'I didn't kill him. He didn't kill me.'
The priest realized he was trembling. 'What now?'
135.
'You set me up.' Ace laughed. 'Set up. I ought to be angry, Sesehset. But I'm so used to it by now.'
The priest was shaking his head, but she was saying, 'You lot just wanted everything cosy again, back the way it was when you were rich and powerful. I could really have brought it all crashing down. No Ace, no Audrey, no Kathleen . . . no Bernice.'
Faster than lightning, she was grabbing his robe, the thing on her eyes reflecting his terrified face like black water. 'I want you to open the hole in space for me, Sesehset.'
'I can't!' He stumbled backwards, but she kept her grip on his robe. 'I don't know how, it isn't '
'I watched that place for weeks. The only time the rift opened up was when you were there. Now, how do you explain that?'
'I '
'And that's not the only thing. I didn't notice it before. I was stupid.' She let go of his front and raised her arm. Sesehset saw that the arm was covered in fine goosebumps. 'I haven't felt that since fighting the Time Soldiers. The TARDIS sensors agree with me. You're the key, Sesehset. The key that opens the door in time. Right? Start walking.'
He turned to try to run away.
Ace lashed out with the cattle prod, catching him on the arm. Sesehset squealed and fell over, squirming in the dust.
'You alien monster bastards,' snarled Ace. 'Who are you?' But his face was blank. 'Start walking,' she said again.
They went through the desert in the hot dawn. Twice more the ex-priest tried to run away. Ace brought him down with the prod each time, watching dispassionately as he twitched in the dust.
'Listen to me,' she said, when she saw he was looking around a third time, wondering in which direction to bolt. 'You work for the people who killed the Doctor. I have no mercy for you, Sesehset. Nothing. Not even anger. Run away again and I'll squash you like a bug.'
When they got to the desert valley, it was noon. The back and armpits of Ace's shirt were soaked. Her socks were probably welded to the inside of her sneakers. She felt the tingling in her hands and feet, the knot in her stomach. She remembered lying in the dirt here, waiting to die. She remembered Sedjet's strong arms lifting her.
Sesehset turned to look at her. There was nothing human left in his eyes at all.
'Do it,' she said.
The rift exploded outwards, instantly, like a great white flower unfolding in the air.
136.
Sesehset just stared into it like the machine he was. His eyes reflected the burning light of the breach in reality. The rift distorted, expanded, blew the sand away in a stinging hurricane as it dug into the ground.
Ace took a deep breath, threw her arms over her head, and jumped into the void.
'Lend me your gun, would you?'
Vivant handed Bernice his weapon, absently. His eyes were fixed on the inscription, carved deep into the cliff in lines of anger. The message had survived endless years, lifetimes, millennia.
He was unpacking his cardboard box of art equipment, preparing to sketch the stela and the extraordinary inscription at its foot.
Benny's first shot ricocheted. Her second exploded amongst the words, spraying shards of limestone in all directions.
Denon looked up in astonishment. Benny calmly shot the inscription three more times, until there was nothing left but a series of shallow gouges. And the persistent voice, louder than ever, singing come here, come here come here, come here.
' Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, ' said Denon. 'After all the trouble we took to come here.' ' said Denon. 'After all the trouble we took to come here.'
Bernice was shaking her head, impatiently. 'There must be something else here. Leave your pencils for a moment, Vivant, and help me find it!'
Slowly, he put down the box. 'It has been my goal to preserve the antiquities of Egypt,' he said, 'before time or human violence could destroy them. I'm not at war with the Mamelukes, but with oblivion.'
'Vivant,' Benny said, 'that inscription should never have been left there.
Trust me.' He looked at her, strangely. He had done so much for her, without ever asking awkward questions. 'Trust me,' she said again. 'Please, Vivant. I know I can trust you.'
It took them a quarter of an hour to find the tomb entrance. No peasant pottery this time, just ancient chips of limestone, a heap of workings, blown an ancient colour by the wind.
Benny leant in and peered down. There was a shaft perhaps ten feet deep, leading down into the cool dimness. Vivant started to hammer a tent peg into the rock, tied a rope securely around it. Benny lowered it carefully into the shaft, pulled on thick leather gloves.
Obeying an ancient tradition of archaeologists, she took off the Doctor's hat and laid it carefully on the stone chippings at the top of the tomb. 'Won't be long,' she said.
'Mlle Summerfield,' said Vivant, 'there's so much you've kept from me.'
Benny hesitated at the top of the shaft. 'Yes. I know.'
'You know a great deal more than you have told. I don't understand how you have come to possess so much information. It is as though you can tell 137 the future as well as uncover the past.'
Benny turned serious eyes on her benefactor. 'It's a bad habit I picked up from an old friend,' she said. 'Only now perhaps I understand why he played his cards so close to his chest . . . ' She cursed, silently. Vivant was trying hard not to look hurt. 'I've shown you and told you more than I should have already.'
'I would like to know so much more about you,' he said.
Benny shut her eyes. In the distance, she could hear the handlers discussing the weather and someone shouting abuse at a stubborn camel. The wind was rushing past the cliff face.
Come here, come here.
Oh, God. She could understand Arabic.
A huge, crazy grin spread itself over Benny's features. Vivant tried to match her smile, but he knew he had lost her.
'Wait here,' she said.
He nodded. Benny took hold of the rope and swung herself carefully over the edge and into the pit.
The TARDIS was waiting for her in a half-finished tomb, a cave whose walls had been half-smoothed before being abandoned. Part of the cave roof had fallen in; she kicked rocks and dust out of the way of the door. It opened at her touch.
The console room was dark. Immediately she stepped inside, a pale luminescence started to trickle from the walls. Benny closed her eyes for a few moments then opened them again, getting used to the dim illumination.
'How long?' she breathed. 'How long have you been waiting here for me?'
There was a note taped to the console, perfectly preserved: 138 [image]
Denon sat in the dust at the top of the shaft, eyes closed. Above him, Akhenaten's ancient stela loomed, adorned with long columns of incomprehensible language. And yet it was not so strange or mysterious as the woman who had brought him to this place.
'Vivant!' came a shout from below.
'Mlle Summerfield?' he called down, barely able to make her out in the dimness.
'Throw me down my hat!'
Vivant picked up the Fedora. He carefully brushed the dust from the brim, held it to his face for a moment. The scent of her hair was in it.
He held it over the edge of the pit and let it go.
'Don't worry about me!' came her voice. 'Just go back to Bonaparte and get on with your job!'
' Ne m' oubliez pas! Ne m' oubliez pas! ' he shouted, and the handlers looked up as his voice carried in the morning air. ' he shouted, and the handlers looked up as his voice carried in the morning air.
'Believe me, Vivant Dominique Denon, you won't be forgotten!'
The Doctor stooped to examine the soil in Thierry's orchard. There was a great scoop taken out of the trees, a hollow surrounded by shattered trunks and fallen limbs. Tiny brown lumps long-rotted apples peppered the ground around the site of Kadiatu's impact. Great shafts of golden afternoon light streaked down between the trees.
None of the broken trees had been removed. Grass and weeds were starting to peek up through the churned soil. Nothing had been disturbed at all.
In point of fact, no-one had come to disassemble and drag away Kadiatu's spacecraft.
The Doctor heard a tiny sound behind him. A standard issue French military pistol being cocked. He went on with his examination of the soil, watching a tiny, pale green blade of grass uncurling itself. If he stared at it hard enough he imagined he could see it growing.
'Stand up,' said Thierry.
The Doctor stood up and turned around slowly, pushing his hands into the pockets of his coat.
Thierry towered over him, the pistol held at the end of a completely straight arm, the barrel moving in tiny circles as his aim wavered. ' Oui, Oui, ' he said. There was an alcoholic quaver in his voice. ' ' he said. There was an alcoholic quaver in his voice. ' Vous etes un imbecile au plus haut point! Vous etes un imbecile au plus haut point!
I have been working for your enemies all along.'
'Yes, yes, yes,' said the Doctor irritably. 'I was just wondering how you moved Kadiatu's ship.'
If Thierry was taken aback by the Time Lord's casualness, he didn't show it. He reached down with his free hand to tousle the hair of the littleboy, who 140 stood next to him, eating a bar of chocolate. 'The Ants moved it, bien sur bien sur.
Using one of their machines.'
The Doctor glanced towards the house. 'Brand-new clothes, new furniture, plenty of food. Wealth in the middle of devastation.'
'There is a war on,' said the Frenchman, 'if you hadn't noticed. We have as much right to stay alive as anyone else. If it's any consolation, Doctor, you are not being sold for some false ideal, some philosophy of the rabble, but for the purest of reasons. For survival.'
He took something out of his pocket. It looked a little like a cactus, green and pulsing with quiet life, covered in stubby spines and tiny etchings.
'We've just been waiting for the right moment,' said Thierry. 'We needed to see whether you would trust us, tell us anything voluntarily, since the Ants had so little luck in drawing information directly from your mind.'
'How much do you understand about their technology?"
'Very little. But then, I am not a veterinarian, and I understand horses well enough to ride them. On the other hand, you understand the Ants' machines very well. They want your knowledge. I want it.'