Part 27 (1/2)

'Impossible.'

'I don't mean set her free to be a fugitive from justice. I mean, clear her name.'

'No chance.'

'On the contrary, I think there is every chance. You have the true leader of the spy ring now.' The Doctor nodded at the broken body lying below the window. 'You can make the case for Silk just being an innocent dupe who was in his power and terrorised by him. After all, it's the truth.'

'Is it?' Butcher turned and looked at the frozen woman standing across the room. Her eyes met his. She seemed to be taking in everything, understanding what was happening but helpless to take any action.

'Show him, Ray,' said the Doctor. Ray took a sheet of paper from the stack in his lap and carried it over to where Silk was standing. He peered at her helplessly for a moment.

'She's paralysed, man,' he bleated.

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake,' said Ace. She went to Ray and took the paper from his hand and carefully tucked it between Silk's frozen fingers. As soon as Ace let go of it, the woman twitched and came to life again. But she was no longer holding the piece of paper.

And she was wearing the raincoat again. 'Please don't send me back there,'

she said. 'Please let me stay here. I don't care if you put me in jail. Don't send me back there again.' The Doctor went to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

He looked at Butcher.

'Of course you can stay here,' he said. 'And if Major Butcher acts on what he's seen tonight, what he knows to be true, then you won't have to go to jail.

In time you'll even be able to resume your singing career, as if none of this ever happened.'

Lady Silk began to cry, folding herself against the Doctor like a broken blossom. Ace rolled her eyes. 'Here we go,' she said. Butcher looked at her.

'I don't understand,' he said.

'What else is new?' said Ace.

177.'That umbrella-gun the Doctor had he could have used that at any time.'

Butcher stared at Ace. 'Why didn't he just shoot Imperial Lee as soon as he turned up?' She just shrugged and didn't reply. Instead she looked at the Doctor. Butcher looked at him, too. The Doctor gently disengaged himself from Lady Silk and turned to them.

'There would have been very little point shooting Lee as soon as he turned up, since I specifically asked Ray to perform the calculations that enabled Lee to turn up.'

'You brought him here?' said Butcher.

'I needed to put paid to the threat that Imperial Lee represented to this world. To do that I needed Lee to fail and I needed Lady Silk ' he nodded at the woman who stood close to him drying her tears ' not her, but the other other Lady Silk, to witness his humiliating failure. And then return to her home world where she spread news of the debacle to any other members of their kamikaze movement. Which I fully expect her to do in her home dimension as soon as the effects of the paralysing pellet wear off.' Lady Silk, to witness his humiliating failure. And then return to her home world where she spread news of the debacle to any other members of their kamikaze movement. Which I fully expect her to do in her home dimension as soon as the effects of the paralysing pellet wear off.'

'So,' said Butcher, cursing himself for even falling into discussion of this nonsense, as if any of it was real, 'is the threat over?'

'As over as it ever is,' said the Doctor.

178.Epilogue.

Trinity Ace said, 'So how did you know that the atom bomb would be detonated a day later in this universe?'

'I didn't,' said the Doctor. 'In fact, it wasn't. It was originally scheduled to take place on exactly the same day, at exactly the same time, as in your universe.'

'What happened to change it, then?'

The Doctor just smiled and said nothing. After a moment, Ace said, 'You mean it was you?'

The Doctor shrugged modestly. 'Through rather clever manipulation of my calculations I managed to cast some doubt on the exact geometry chosen for Kistiakowsky's explosive lenses, which are used to detonate the fissionable material.'

'Just enough doubt to delay them by one day?'

'Exactly. Kistiakowsky was very annoyed.'

Ray Morita came up behind them. 'Hey cats, Zorg says we're in position now.' The Doctor and Ace turned and followed him down the winding transparent corridor to the spherical chamber that was the control room of the s.h.i.+p. Here the obscene crablike form of Zorg crouched over the transparent hemisphere of the c.o.c.kpit. Below, Ace could see the tiny toy-geometry form of the hundred-foot tower with the 'gadget' suspended on it on the desert floor below.

'Is it safe here?' said Ace.

'We are hovering in dense cloud cover,' said Zorg. 'With just our c.o.c.kpit protruding at the cloud base. They cannot see us, and their instruments can't detect us.'

'No,' said Ace. 'I meant, are we safe when that thing goes off?'

'Fear not, Zace,' said Zorg. 'We are sufficiently distant to be unaffected by the physical impact of the blast, and our radiation screens will cut in at the exact instant of detonation.'

The Doctor took out his pocket watch and scrutinised it. 'Which is. . . well, more or less now now,' he said. They all gathered around the c.o.c.kpit and stared 179down. There was a blast of white light. To Ace it looked like the flashbulb on G.o.d's camera going off.

The transparent dimple of the c.o.c.kpit suddenly darkened, like those sungla.s.ses that change in bright daylight. Ace looked at the Doctor. Was that it?'

she said. The Doctor nodded. Ace kept staring down, as the painfully brilliant light faded and the mushroom cloud built itself in tiers in the sky. After a few minutes she became bored even with the Luciferian majesty of this terrifying spectacle and turned away. The Doctor followed her as she wandered from the c.o.c.kpit, leaving Zorg and Ray staring down through it.