The Doctor said cheerily, 'You can't always get what you want.'
Thierry, infuriated, shook his head. 'They were far too gentle with you. I am not afraid to cause you damage.'
He fired a single shot from the pistol.
The Doctor did not react, even though the bullet whizzed past within an inch of his ear.
The Frenchman grinned nervously. 'This little engine will summon Kadiatu's ship. Then we shall open and stabilise the rift her arrival created. The Ants will have a permanent tunnel through space and time.' He raised the organic device.
The Doctor closed his eyes. 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Thierry tried to laugh like a villain, waving his gun about. 'They can use her ship to punch further tunnels through the ether, stabilising each one. They will plunder as they please. That power makes this war look tiny, pitiful.'
'I meant,' said the Doctor, 'that I wouldn't summon Kadiatu's ship here.'
Thierry gave him a look of furious indignation and pressed his thumb into the device.
There was a whump and a crash, and suddenly the ship was standing in the orchard, just where it had come to rest after sliding on its belly through half a kilometre of trees. A second and third wave of thunder rippled through the air, and the ground trembled with the sudden displacement.
'Oh, dear,' said the Doctor, starting to back away.
'Stay where you are,' growled Thierry, punctuating the order with a wave of his pistol. 'The Ants want you as much as they want Kadiatu's ship.'
141.
'I had expected,' said the Doctor, 'that they'd take Kadiatu's vessel directly on board. But evidently not. Ah, well,' and he kept backing away, 'the best laid plans '
'Stop!' shrieked Thierry, but even he could hear the sound coming from the ship now, rising in pitch.
'Let's see,' said the Doctor. 'I could stop and be killed in the explosion, or I could run and be shot. Given the odds '
The little man turned and dashed away across the field.
Thierry screamed and followed. But not fast enough.
The light seemed to curve around the Doctor's body as he ran, blanking out everything in front of him and trying to drag him backwards into its searing heart. He couldn't hope to outrun it.
Then the ground was gone from under his feet, and he was tumbling, falling, blinking the burning spots from his eyes. He felt soil underneath him, sliding and loose, a fierce grip on his coat. The dreadful sound didn't register for several seconds, and he suddenly clapped his hands to his ears, far too late.
Genevieve was lying atop him, shaking violently, her hands clawing at his coat. She had dragged him into one of the foxholes in the lawn.
They lay there for several seconds. Then the Doctor gently untangled himself from her, popped his head up above the surface of the ground and sur-veyed the damage.
The ship had undergone a massive spatial implosion, taking a huge, irregularly-shaped chunk of the orchard with it. The air was still sizzling with the after-effects, tiny fires springing up in the undergrowth, flickering and dying again.
'Blast,' he said.
'What happened?' said the Frenchwoman.
'That was meant for Ship.' The Doctor blew out a long sigh. 'Thank you, Genevieve.'
'Will there be any more explosions?'
'No. No more.' There was no sign of Thierry; the blast must have drawn him in, like an aeroplane passenger being sucked out through a window. The Doctor wondered whether or not to tell his wife. It could wait.
A small red ball rolled up to the edge of the hole, right under the Doctor's nose.
The Time Lord climbed up out of the hole. 'Stay here,' he told Genevieve, 'and whatever you do, don't look.'
The littleboy was standing on the lawn, perhaps twenty feet away. The Doctor walked slowly towards the child.
142.
The first ripple in the time field was a tickling at the top of his spine, drawing quivering fingers up the back of his neck. Like someone walking over his grave. He kept walking.
The second ripple crashed out from the littleboy in a wave. Time slipped a groove, just a fraction of a second, enough to turn the Doctor's stomach and make tiny fish swim in his field of vision. He started to take the pistol out of his pocket.
With the third ripple time shorted out, stood still, ran backwards and forwards. The Doctor was holding the pistol, it was still in his pocket, he was taking careful aim at the red-headed child standing on the lawn in front of him, he was taking the pistol out of his pocket.
A great ball of searing light appeared in the air directly above the child, blanketing the countryside with a roaring, hissing silence. The ball of light floated down, surrounding the child in a carousel glow. In the centre of the light was a jagged hole, growing larger and larger, becoming more defined.
The Doctor filtered out every sense until all he could see was those pale eyes watching him. He aimed carefully between them.
Then time came bursting out of the hole, gushing out like blood from a cracked clock-face, shattering in his skull like a lightbulb. His hearts misfired, syncopated, forget-getting which beat was supposed to to come next as reality stut-stuttered.
He started to lose his grip on the pistol. He started to lose his grip on the pistol. He start-started to lose lose his grip on the pistol.
Something heavy slammed into him. He lost his grip.
143.
Third Piece
On a Wing and a Prayer The skillful fighter wins by making no mistakes.
That means having already established that victory is certain conquering an enemy who is already defeated.
(Sun Tzu)
Chapter 12.
In which Ace Traverses a Tunnel Through the Space-Time Vortex, Unprotected by a Force Shield and Un-certain of Whether the Walls of the Tunnel Will Collapse Fish! Was this how oil on a puddle, FISH out of puddle erupting in rainbows water felt? Colour swirling away, spinning hands and feet TOO FAR away, swirling away, too far away her HEART was fluttering. God! Swirl flutter by flutter by Oh, God! Oh, mother! Oh, GOD!
147.
Chapter 13.
Intersection of Three Sets
The Healer and the Warrior Were walking hand in hand; The Warrior asked the Healer If he knew what he had planned.
'To see the future and the past,' she said, 'It must be grand!'
(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass Through the Looking Glass, non-existent manuscript) She broke through the surface tension at the tunnel's end and burst into air and sunlight and flopped on the grass, gulping air, tears streaming down her face. Her jittering hands were afire, her whole body glowed like a ghost, the air cracking and popping around her.
She dragged her head up, forced herself up onto her knees. Her heart was trying to rip its way out of her chest. Nearby, a young boy five? six? was regarding her incuriously, hands in his pockets.
The Doctor stood not ten feet away. He was going to shoot the boy.
With a wordless shriek, Ace threw herself at him and thwacked him with the cattle prod.
They tumbled to the ground, both weapons bouncing away across the grass.
Jesus, some of the things she'd seen the Auxies do, but you didn't kill children, you didn't kill kids!
She slapped him across the face, once, hard. 'What are you doing?' she shrieked. 'What the cruk do you think you're doing?'
But he just laughed, his pupils expanded to huge black circles, a look of giddy ecstasy crossing his features. Ace realized she couldn't hear him laughing.
His head lolled back suddenly. She let go of his lapels.
The rift was still open. Worse, it was getting bigger, blowing up like a balloon, bringing the rushing chaos of the Vortex with it. The air was full of butterfly colours and a raging noise so loud she hadn't even heard it. Her linen dress was no protection against the slicing wind.
The Doctor lay limp on the grass, hyperventilating. There was dew or condensation forming on his face and hands. Time twisted and twitched in Ace's 149 belly.
She found the pistol in a hollow in the lawn. Late nineteenth century.
The rift was a swelling sphere, throwing up clumps of seared grass and soil as it bit into the ground. Its edge blew outwards, towards the Doctor.
The Time Lord rolled onto his side, still laughing but there was something about the way the air was crumpling and his body was twisting and space was folding up around him and he thrashed soundlessly and clawed the air, a piece of animated origami, assaulted by time, drowning in it and the Ants were going to come through and she had to stop it, she had to stop it, all she had to do was Ace snapped up the pistol, took careful aim, and shot the five-year-old child between the eyes.
Benny ran out into a storm of colour and sound. The wind almost slapped her off her feet. She grabbed for the TARDIS and leant hard on it, trying to take in her surroundings.
There was a gaping hole in the air, flickering fitfully, on and off. It was closing, snapping out waves of random energy: scarlet, aqua, gold, white, heliotrope, lime, vermilion. She ripped her eyes away from it.
She was just a few seconds too late.
The Doctor, Ace, and a small child were lying in a strange triangle on the grass. Bernice started running to them through the dying timestorm. She stopped short when she saw that the boy wasn't going to need her help. Just a few seconds late.
Ace was trying to push herself onto her knees, the pistol still in her hand.
Benny marched over to her and pulled the weapon out of her fingers. 'Doctor . . . ' said Ace indistinctly.
Benny hurled the gun away and hauled her to her feet. She was freezing cold, condensation all over her flesh; the grass underfoot was covered in frost, as though the rift were trying to suck all the heat out of its surroundings.
There was suddenly a woman at Bernice's side. Period dress continental.
'What year is this?' shouted Benny.
The woman didn't hear. 'I'll take her inside,' she shouted, leading the dazed Ace away towards a country mansion.
At last, with a tremendous pop, the rift closed.
Benny blinked rapidly, trying to get the spots out of her field of vision. She knelt beside the Doctor. There was ice in his hair and a thin layer of frost on his face. He was trying to roll over, hands pressed to his ears, wearing a crazy grin.
She took hold of him, helped him into a sitting position. 'Doctor,' she said sharply, 'Doctor!'
150.
His eyelids flickered. 'Hello, Bernice,' he said, the words blurring together.
'Is that you? I was trying to daydream, but you know, my mind just kept wandering . . . '
'Shut up, you git,' she said, 'you're half-frozen.'
'Is that all?' She hefted him to his feet, and caught him as he stumbled. 'I thought I was caught in the chronon backwash of an interdimensional implosion. Just shows how wrong a person can be. It's good to see you.'
'You too. Now be quiet.'
The woman in the dress had come back outside. She averted her eyes from the dead child lying on the lawn.
'Oh God,' said Benny. 'Was it yours?'
The woman shook her head. Wordlessly, she helped Bernice take the Doctor inside the house.
Nicolas was eating something in the kitchen. Kadiatu had interrupted his usual rounds; she needed to get back to the farm. She sat in the living room, gnawing the haunch of a horse and thinking.
There was nothing left of her vessel but a large empty space. She rubbed the back of her neck, absently. Ship should have been destroyed. But it wasn't.