The woman was short, stocky, her muscles the hard muscles of real use.
There'd be scars under that denim, some of them deep. She was white, with big brown anime eyes. Kadiatu looked at her eyes and saw one of those people her parents had warned her not to make loud noises around. Best to be careful of this one.
Ace looked back, saw the shape of Kadiatu's body, the way she held her arms and head when standing still. In magazines you saw bodies like that, thanks to computer reimaging it took at least as much technology to create them in the real world. Somewhere under those French riding clothes was a serial number, probably picked out microscopically in light-coloured skin.
She'd fought alongside a few of the engineered, mostly people from colonies at the edge of the expanding bubble of human space, where the technology was still legal. They were like grenades, great weapons, but you didn't want to be too close to them when they exploded. Best to be careful of this one.
Genevieve was baking bread. She hummed a little tune as she floured the pan, plucking bits of sticky dough from her fingers and wiping them on her apron.
The three voyageurs voyageurs had sat around her kitchen table, telling impossible stories. It seemed bizarre, the familiar surroundings, the quiet sunshine, the tales of hurtling through centuries to the Pyramids or to meet Napoleon himself. Some of it she hadn't understood. But when she did not believe, she glanced out the window, to where a fifty-foot crater had been bitten out of her back lawn. To where she had last seen that had sat around her kitchen table, telling impossible stories. It seemed bizarre, the familiar surroundings, the quiet sunshine, the tales of hurtling through centuries to the Pyramids or to meet Napoleon himself. Some of it she hadn't understood. But when she did not believe, she glanced out the window, to where a fifty-foot crater had been bitten out of her back lawn. To where she had last seen that salaud salaud Francois and his Francois and his salaud salaud littleboy. littleboy.
The Doctor sat at the kitchen table, peeling and slicing apples into a ceramic bowl. Genevieve pushed another pan of bread into her oven. A hot, yeasty breath blew out into the kitchen. She smiled and pushed the door closed.
'What will you do?' asked the Doctor.
160.
She started tugging at her apron strings. 'I have my freedom now,' she said.
'I suppose I could sell the estate and go away.'
She sat down at the table with him. 'Perhaps I will stay. I don't feel as though I have earned the right to leave.'
'Earned it?'
She picked up a piece of his apple peel and bit a piece off the end. 'The explosion was an accident, n' est-ce pas n' est-ce pas? I did not do anything.'
'Do something now,' said the Doctor.
Genevieve gathered up the dish of apple slices, took them to the bench, where a bowl was already lined with thick pastry.
Kadiatu ducked under the door frame. Genevieve stopped humming.
'You'd better have something clever up your sleeve, because I've run out of ideas,' said the tall African woman.
The Doctor pulled a bag of barley sugars out of his pocket, unwrapped one with great care and popped it into his mouth. 'It's going to take patience.'
'We've got no time,' said Kadiatu urgently. 'Now that these two are here '
He shrugged his left shoulder, massaging it as though to relieve a cramp.
'Not twice this day inch time foot gem,' he said, 'as Takuan put it. An inch of time is worth a foot of precious stone.'
There was a dreadful mechanical sound outside. Genevieve went to the window, clutching her bowl of apples. The Doctor's blue box was fading away, like shadows disappearing in the morning sun. She blinked. It ought to be extraordinaire extraordinaire, oughtn't it? Perhaps she would never be surprised by anything ever again.
'Where's it gone?' said Kadiatu, alarmed.
'Where the Ants won't be able to get their grubby little mandibles on it,' said the Doctor.
'Surely they wouldn't be able to use your TARDIS?'
'No. But they might learn a lot by pulling the old girl to pieces. They know too much already, they learn so quickly as soon as they try an idea they're adapting it, expanding it.' He looked at her. 'They must have found you fascinating.'
'If you'd just let them take my ship aboard . . . ' She raised her hands, in a gesture that was almost pleading.
The Doctor shook his head. 'They suspected a booby-trap that's why they sent the vessel here first. This way, they still think you're on their side.'
'Do they? How long will that last? What's your plan, then?' insisted Kadiatu.
'Oh, there is one,' said the Doctor, 'I just '
The back door creaked open and Ace came in, trying not to look ill. She went up to the Doctor, holding something out. 'Are these yours?'
161.
The Doctor opened the little bag and let the marbles inside fall into his palm. For a moment he stared at them in bewilderment. Then he closed his hand, closed his eyes, a look of relief crossing his face.
'Of course,' he said. 'That was it.'
162.
Chapter 14.
The Oncoming Storm
History is time's way of preventing everything from happening at once.
(Graffito, Prydonian Academy) They rode in the hay in Nicolas' cart, with the top down. Twice they were stopped. Twice the Doctor had a quiet word and they were allowed to drive on. Ace grinned at Benny and said, 'The Force gives me power over weak minds.'
They bumped along cobbled streets, passed parks in which not one tree had been left standing. A house stood in ruins, smoking softly. Some cafes were still open, tired Parisians drinking coffee on the pavement. From time to time, the Doctor shook his head. ' Paris, sa grand' vale, Paris, sa grand' vale, ' he muttered. ' he muttered.
They climbed out of the cart at Thierry's city house. Kadiatu paid Nicolas while Benny plucked splinters from her clothing. There was no-one about to give them strange looks, just the sounds of distant shouting and smoke in the afternoon air.
'I'll have to take care of some of Thierry's business,' said Kadiatu. 'Make yourselves at home.' She went inside.
'Are we assuming she's on our side, then?' said Ace.
'Oh yes.' The Doctor nodded. 'She would have stranded herself, using her vessel as a weapon against Ship.'
'How about us?' said Ace. 'Are we stranded?'
'If Ship succeeds,' he said, watching Nicolas trot away, 'it won't be possible to be stranded. The barriers that separate one moment from the next will come crashing down. All places, all times squashed together like a cosmic blancmange.'
'Doctor,' said Bernice, 'are you saying the universe will come to an end?'
'Nevermore a butterfly,' he breathed.
Ace puffed out her cheeks. 'Best not to screw up then.' She went into the house.
Benny pulled something out of her pocket. She had to tug the Doctor's sleeve to get his attention; he was peering into nothing, as though trying to see something suspended between two molecules of air.
163.
She held it up to the light. It was a gold ring, a wedding ring. 'It was in the cart. Just mixed up with the hay.' There were initials engraved on the inner side. 'It doesn't belong to anyone we know.'
'Perhaps you should follow Nicolas,' said the Doctor, without much interest.
'I'd like to know what he's about, maybe ask him a few questions. Is Kadiatu qualified to fight monsters?'
'It's important to work out which people the enemy has sent to spy on you and to bribe them to serve you instead. Said Sun Tzu. You don't trust her.'
'With the entire universe at stake, I'm not sure I trust anyone,' said Benny.
'What about me? Do you trust me?' His eyes suddenly pulled into sharp focus, raking at her face. 'Have I been taken over by some alien entity?'
'You are are an alien entity,' said Benny. 'And your lack of a formal degree in fighting monsters is adequately substituted for by practise in the field. I wish you could tell us your plan, though.' an alien entity,' said Benny. 'And your lack of a formal degree in fighting monsters is adequately substituted for by practise in the field. I wish you could tell us your plan, though.'
'Sorry,' he said. 'This is something I have to do myself.'
Benny grimaced. 'Surplus to requirements as usual. I can't follow Nicolas, he's scarpered.'
The Doctor pulled out a notebook and scribbled down an address. 'How'd you know?' she said.
'Written on the side of the cart. Off you go.'
Off she went, throwing a worried glance over her shoulder. What had that been all about?
'How is Ship these days?' said the Doctor. The roses on Thierry's mantle had withered and blackened, hanging down over the side of the bowl. 'Long time no see.'
Kadiatu was rummaging through Thierry's desk, having wrenched it open, snapping the lock with her fingers. 'It's a sick ship.'
'Not ship-shape?'
'There is a virus going around.'
'Well,' said the Doctor, 'to the vector belong the spoils.' He unwrapped another barley sugar.
'There were power fluctuations. Some personalities broke free from the gestalt. They were suicidal, attacking Ship's systems. The ones which couldn't be reintegrated were destroyed.'
'Mm. They can't have been very well integrated in the first place.'
Kadiatu shook her head. 'Ship was only designed to hold a few hundred minds. There must be several thousand packed in there now.'
'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?'
'They've had to stop gathering more subjects while they sort out the problems.'
164.
'Good.'
'Cold storage is empty. Ship's slaves have started on one another.'
The Doctor bit down on the barley sugar with a crack crack.
'Ship manages,' said Kadiatu, 'to keep an eye on everything regardless.'
She turned, held up the hair at the back of her head with a gesture that might have been casual. The Doctor walked idly across the room, glanced at the skin on the back of her neck. No scar but a blur of displaced cells where the surgery had been healed. Sonics? Nanotechnology?
'Oh yes,' he concurred, 'a finger in every pie.'
'Ship likes to keep track of its components.' She tapped him lightly on the collarbone.
'Yes. The walls have ears. Literally.'
'Your post-traumatic stress disorder. You faked it.'
The Doctor hesitated. 'Yes. Of course. I didn't want Ship thinking I was still dangerous. Yes.' He pushed the heel of his palm into his collar bone.
'You don't want to go back there.'
'I'd have to be dragged back.'
Kadiatu nodded. 'We understand one another, then.'
'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'I think we understand one another.'
'Good. I've got to run some errands and clear Thierry's things before the Versaillais arrive. I've put the pieces of the Ant back in the basement.'
He stopped massaging his shoulder. His eyes were distant, distracted. She knew how he felt: the constant pain made you unfocussed, panicky. 'Sorry you had a wasted journey.'
'Aren't we all.'
'They're about to have a war here, aren't they?'
'They've already had one, actually.'
Ace was sitting on the stairs of Kadiatu's basement. 'But this whole place is in a state of siege. There's war in the air, it's gonna happen soon. How soon?'
The Doctor put down the piece of Ant he was examining, carefully laying it alongside the others on a blanket. He seemed rather small in the enlarged basement, sitting cross-legged in the dust, his bag of barley sugars to one side.