Part 7 (2/2)

'What were you doing there?'

'Looking for an earring. Ace lost an earring. Didn't you Ace?'

'Yes,' said Ace, touching one of her earrings. 'But we found it. Thanks.'

Butcher stared at them in silent disgust. It was clear that he didn't believe them, but he seemed disinclined to say so.

'May I ask why you are brandis.h.i.+ng a gun?' said the Doctor.

'I thought I heard a shot,' said Butcher. He holstered his pistol and went back into the building without a backward glance. Ace and the Doctor looked at each other.49.

'I don't understand,' said Ace.

'It's all fairly clear,' said the Doctor. 'Somebody tried to take a shot at me.

Or you. Or both of us. Major Butcher heard it he must have good ears to have done so over the sound of Ray's music, but then I imagine he's heard gunshots before and recognises them. So he came das.h.i.+ng out, just too late to be of any use to anyone.'

'No, I understand all that,' said Ace. 'What I don't don't understand is why he just left us here. If he's so suspicious of us and if there're records being smuggled in and gunshots going off, why isn't he interrogating us?' understand is why he just left us here. If he's so suspicious of us and if there're records being smuggled in and gunshots going off, why isn't he interrogating us?'

'Clearly he's pursuing an investigation that began before we came on the scene and he knows we're not connected with it.'

'Are we not connected with it?'

'Not yet.' The Doctor smiled. 'Now can I buy you dinner? I know that being shot at gives you an appet.i.te.'

Dinner consisted of steak, baked potatoes and a tomato salad served at the dining room in the Fuller Lodge. Ace was just sitting back to enjoy digesting it, with the Doctor sitting across from her, eating a banana and jotting notes on his napkin, when she looked up to see that someone had joined them.

It was Professor Apple. He was holding a bunch of red roses wrapped in paper and Ace felt a terrible sinking feeling. The perfectly cooked piece of rump steak suddenly became a lump of dead meat nestling in her stomach. Apple thrust the bunch of flowers at her, ignoring the Doctor completely. 'Acacia. I just wanted to see that you're all right.'

'Why shouldn't I be all right?'

'I mean working with him.' Professor Apple nodded at the Doctor, taking account of him for the first time. 'If you find you're in any way uncomfortable or unhappy, or if he makes any demands on you you're not entirely at ease with. . . I hope you'll do me the honour of working with me. I've never seen anyone perform complex calculations with such. . . '

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' said Ace.

Her obvious impatience and irritation didn't seem to give Apple pause. He simply changed tack. 'Do you like the roses?' He jutted the bouquet at her again, letting go of it, so they fell onto the plate where her steak had rested a little earlier, their red petals nodding gently.

'Yes, the roses are beautiful,' said Ace in a weary, rote, singsong voice.

'They're for you.'

'Thank you very much,' said Ace in the same singsong voice. Professor Apple beamed at her for a long moment during which neither the Doctor nor Ace said anything to him. Specifically they didn't invite him to sit and join them. At length Apple realised that the invitation was not forthcoming, and 50withdrew, still beaming at Ace. When he'd left the dining room Ace looked at the roses, then at the Doctor, who was smiling wryly.

'You were rather short with the poor fellow.'

'He narked me off. The way he treated you as if you weren't there.'

'I notice you didn't make him take the roses back, though.'

'Nope,' said Ace, studying the bouquet. 'Just wait until the girls back at the barracks see these. I suppose I'd better put them in some water.' Some water and a container an empty Coca Cola bottle fas.h.i.+oned from green gla.s.s were duly found and the WACs at the barracks were suitably impressed or envious, or both, though Ace made d.a.m.ned sure none of them found out that it was Professor Apple who was her benefactor, attributing the flowers to a mystery admirer. The only WAC who didn't take any interest in the bouquet was the ginger-haired girl with a hawk nose, whom Ace suspected of being one of Butcher's flunkies. Ace thought she spotted the girl watching her as the lights went out and she rolled over in her bunk bed.

The following day she dutifully took her fish oil tablet as soon as she awoke, which was just as well since the Doctor put her to work immediately after breakfast. They had been given their own cla.s.sroom in the schoolhouse and the Doctor had a blackboard full of his own equations, which generated a lot of numbers for Ace to apply in calculation. 'Sorry about this,' said the Doctor.

'But it's our first day here and everybody's going to be watching us.'

'Especially Butcher.'

'Especially Major Butcher. And since I am supposed to be a world-renowned physicist and you're my walking computer, we should attempt to live up to our billing. Now can you solve this simultaneous equation for me?' Ace and the Doctor threw themselves into the work on the blackboard and it was lucky that they did. In the course of the next few hours they had a steady stream of visitors, including an amiable Oppenheimer, a sceptical Fuchs and a fum-ing Professor Apple, who peered at the blackboard for a long time, shot a venomous glance at the Doctor and then went out again.

During one of the intervals when they were safely alone, Ace said, 'I didn't think you liked interfering with history.'

'I don't.'

'But you're helping them to build the atomic bomb.'

'Not really.' The Doctor stared at the smudged blackboard, crowded with formulae chalked in his distinctive, eccentric handwriting. 'All this is just a kind of smoke screen. I mean, it's all very well as far as it goes, but I don't actually add add anything to the project here. I'll simply offer them solutions they were coming to anyway, just a little before they would have made the discoveries for themselves. And sometimes a little bit after.' anything to the project here. I'll simply offer them solutions they were coming to anyway, just a little before they would have made the discoveries for themselves. And sometimes a little bit after.'

'So you won't look too perfect,' said Ace.51.

'Yes. For the same reason I will sometimes deliberately put mistakes in my equations.'

'Not in any of the calculations I did for you, I hope,' said Ace. 'I have my reputation to think about.'

They worked a long, arduous day, not finis.h.i.+ng until well after the sun had set and the other cla.s.srooms were dark and empty. 'That ought to do it,' said the Doctor, clapping his hands to remove the chalk dust. 'It's always sensible to make a good impression on one's first day at a new job.' The darkened hallway of the schoolhouse was echoing and spooky as they walked out. The cool dark desert night was fragrant with the smell of woodsmoke and blossom, and the sky was studded with the precise, bright, infinitely intricate gleam of the stars. Ace's stomach rumbled.

'Sorry to spoil a beautiful moment,' she said.

The Doctor chuckled. 'Not to worry. I knew you would be hungry after your mental excursions. The brain burns an astonis.h.i.+ng number of calories. So I've arranged a late meal for us.'

'But isn't the dining room at the Lodge closed?'

'Certainly. So I contracted with the Oppenheimers' cook, Rosalita, to provide some of her famous chilli.'

'Wicked. I loved that chilli.'

'Yes, you did seem to enjoy it at the party. Now if you don't mind a walk on this beautiful night we shall go to the Oppenheimers' and collect our supper.

I believe it is just a pleasant stroll away, down the road locally known as Bathtub Row.'

'A stroll along Bathtub Row in the moonlight? You certainly know how to treat a girl.' In fact, the curve of road leading to the Oppenheimers' house was quietly beautiful in the moonlight, handsome rows of houses with trees and lawns. 'It's lovely here. Why do they give it that stupid name?'

'Because the new buildings hastily erected for the project only provide showers. If one wants the luxury of lolling in a bathtub, one needs access to these fine dwellings along here.'

When they reached the house they found the lights in the front room on and the curtains open, affording a view of Kitty Oppenheimer sitting on the sofa with her feet tucked under her, reading a magazine. She seemed so absorbed and content, like a cat curled up happily there, that Ace felt reluctant to disturb her. But in the event the Doctor didn't knock at the front door.

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