He got out his pocket-watch and flipped it open. 'Tonight, as a matter of fact. One of the city's gates has been left completely unguarded. Someone will spot this pertinent fact and signal the army outside.'
'Hmm. They're not very organized, are they?'
'Within a week, there'll be nothing left of the Paris Commune. Except memories. Parisians will be shouting Vive la Commune Vive la Commune again in 1968.' again in 1968.'
'Why's it called a Commune, anyway? Are they Communists?'
165.
The Doctor picked up the Ant's head, turned it around slowly, pivoting the antennae in their joints. He was working by lanterns. Ace wondered how he could see clearly enough. 'Socialists. The "Commune" is the government elected by the Parisians. It isn't the first Commune, nor the first time Paris has broken away from the rest of France, but in fact, similar rebellions have happened all over the country. At any rate, you're right, they're tremendously disorganised. Too much enthusiasm and not enough forward planning. The Versaillais are going to march in here and shoot at anything that looks even vaguely red. Semaine Sanglante.'
'How many people?'
'About twenty-five thousand.'
'More than the Templo Mayor.'
The Doctor had pried open the robotic head, was poking around in the circuitry inside. 'It'll be especially dangerous for unaccompanied women. Milk-women will be shot because their bottles might might contain petrol.' contain petrol.'
'Why don't we stop it, then?'
He looked up at her. 'What?'
'We could stop it. We know exactly when and where the attack starts, right?'
The Doctor sat back. 'You're not serious.'
Ace shook her head. 'You don't understand. Why Why don't we stop it?' don't we stop it?'
'You tell me.'
'Something else would happen to cause the war.'
The Doctor nodded. 'This siege can't go on forever.'
'So no matter what we did, things would happen just the same.'
'Not quite. We're playing with different scales, different magnifications.'
'Close up?'
'We might save a life here and there, ease some suffering.'
'A little further back?'
'We can't stop the actual war, not without tremendous effort, and not without endangering all of Earth's future history. The Russian Revolution was partly inspired by the Commune, they learned a lot.'
'Further away,' Ace answered herself. 'We've got a universe to save.'
Silence for a bit. The Doctor kept mucking about inside the Ant's head, pulling out components. To Ace's eye it seemed modular, the bits and pieces independent little lumps of technology.
'What did you do in Ancient Egypt?' asked the Doctor.
'Kidnapped the king.'
'Ah.'
Silence for a bit.
'I didn't kill him. I think I was going to. Actually, I think I was a little out of my skull.'
166.
'I know what's it like. I was stranded once myself,' said the Doctor.
'Did you get that feeling like you were caught in a big trap?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Like when the electricity's off in a storm, and you think, I can't watch TV, so I'll listen to a record, but you can't do that either. You can't do anything, really. Like that.'
'So,' said the Time Lord, 'why didn't you?'
'Sorry? Oh well, he talked me out of it. The people I was working for were just using me. I was just following orders, right?'
'I'm listening.'
'I must've been out of my head. I thought they were into anarchy, right? But they just wanted to get into the palace and I just wanted to do something.'
'Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do this?
'Yeah. I didn't tell you before cos because I thought you'd be really pissed off, actually.'
'What am I going to do, send you to bed without supper?' He grinned up at her. 'You're old enough, you're experienced enough to make your own decisions. I'm just glad you're on my side.'
'Ditto,' she laughed. 'What happened to Akhenaten, anyway?'
'He died, and his revolution died with him.'
'The Setites got him?'
'No. He just died. His religion was suppressed, his monuments were destroyed, his name was chiselled out of the records, and his city was abandoned and fell into ruins. And he was forgotten about for a couple of millennia. No-one even knows where he is buried. If he was buried.'
'Cruk.'
'Indeed.'
'Like the Commune. History repeats itself.'
'Not precisely. History is quasi-self-similar. The same patterns happening over and over, never quite the same. You're beginning to see them, aren't you?'
Ace met his eyes. 'Yes. It's all patterns to you, isn't it? Patterns that other people can't see.'
'Sometimes patterns which aren't even there. That's what faith is for. Faith in Time, faith that things will work out the way they're supposed to.'
Ace messed up her hair. Old, yeah, yes, she was getting old; there was probably some grey in there now. 'So even if I had killed Akhenaten . . . '
The Doctor had picked up one of the components, was prodding it with a piece of wire. 'Time heals all wounds. Particularly her own. Oh!'
167.
Ace was on her feet before the little component hit the floor. The Doctor was clawing at his left shoulder, his hands clenching in spasms. He fell backwards, banged his head on the wall.
She was by his side. 'What is it? What do I do?'
He tried to speak, but all he could do was gasp, breathless syllables of distress. His whole body was jerking. She wrenched him clear of the brickwork, got his hands away from his collar bone, unbuttoned his shirt as his fingernails scrabbled at her jacket.
There was nothing there. For a moment, in the dim light, she thought she saw a blurred circle in the flesh but there was no wound, no scar. Then what ?
She twisted her head around. The machine! She lowered his trembling frame to the floor and plucked up the tiny device. Its little lights were flashing and winking. Right. She raised it above her head.
'Gn!' The Doctor was reaching out his right hand. 'No!'
She pushed the component into his palm, closed his fingers over it. He held it in both hands, did something to it. The flickering lights went out.
He relaxed suddenly, and the little device rolled out of his grip. 'Doctor!'
Ace shouted, shaking him. 'Are you alright? Can you hear me?'
His eyelids flickered. He looked up at her. 'Oh yes,' he said, 'I remember the first time we met.'
'What? Yeah, it was in that cafe, I was wearing a stupid black and white uniform, and listen! Are you listening?'
The flutterwing was three metres long, a slender, legless insect. He didn't dare touch the fabric of its wings, which were unbelievably fine, little more than a sheen of colour stretched over the rocky hillside. The stuff just went on and on, draped over scree and boulders, maybe twenty metres wide, maybe thirty.
He crouched beside the body, a small boy run away from home, lost in the landscape outside his house. Flutterwings were born in the sky, lived in the sky they never touched the ground. Did the outsiders eat them? He looked at the long, thin body. It looked like a length of computer cable. The arrow seemed impossibly large. The creature trembled, sending a shimmer through its broken wings.
The arrow was distressing it. He tugged gently on the feathers at the end, and the arrow slid easily out of its body. There was no blood on the tip.
There were no medical facilities here, no drugs or equipment. Was the flutterwing dead? What was it thinking? Did it hurt?
He wondered what it felt like.
So he turned the arrow around and stabbed it into his palm.
168.
Ace was gently stroking the Doctor's hair. 'And then you said, "There are three rules. One "'
His hand jerked out of her grasp. 'Is that all?' he muttered.
'Nah, there were two more, you '
'Is it that easy?'
'Hey,' she said. 'Anybody home?'
He focused on her. 'How long?'
'Only a couple of minutes. You're okay? What happened, then?'
He sat up and buttoned the top buttons of his shirt. 'I evidently found the part of the Ant which allows it to communicate with Ship.'
'So it was putting out a signal? Did they trace it, do something to you?'
He shook his head. 'They did something to me a long time ago.'
Ace put her hand against the Doctor's collar bone, gingerly, as though expecting to feel a kick. 'Oh, God. They installed installed something, didn't they?' something, didn't they?'
'Their mistake. It makes everything so much more convenient.'
She gave him a long, critical look. 'What are you planning to do?'.
'Wouldn't they like to know.' He smiled sweetly. 'What goes bang thud, bang thud, bang thud?'
There was a queue outside a butcher's shop. It wasn't moving. Benny joined the end of it, listened to the dialogue between the tired women. Empty baskets gripped in dusty hands. They didn't say much, didn't even complain about the wait.
She had been there almost an hour when Nicolas's cart pulled up. She watched his reflection in the shop window. He was a big bear of a man.
Eating too well, not like the stick-figure soldiers, the skinny women.
He hefted a huge rolled carpet from the back of the cart, handling it awkwardly. Benny's mouth was a little dry.
The building had been badly damaged by shellfire. A wooden sign hung at an angle over the front, the letters LACE TAPI visible through the plaster powder. The front doors and one of the shattered windows had been boarded up. Nicolas disappeared through a side door.
He re-emerged into the sunlight ten minutes later, still carrying the carpet, which seemed to have become lighter. He loaded it aboard, tied down the tarpaulin on the cart, and trotted away.
The ladies in the queue watched his horses with hungry eyes. Benny crossed the street while they were distracted. The side door was locked. She glanced back at the women, but they weren't interested.
Carefully, she slid the Doctor's Chinese lockpick out of her sleeve. It took a couple of minutes to get the door open.
169.
The shop inside was musty, full of grubby carpets standing in tall cylinders.
Like forgotten totem poles. Not a lot of carpet selling was going on here. In one or two places the ceiling gaped open, beams of light striking down into the room, dancing with dust motes.