Part 25 (1/2)

'Young ladies? Oh, I get it. You must mean Bernice.'

She stared strangely at me.

'Are you for real?' she asked.

'Indubitably. Shall we go?'

She lowered the gun and, with a couple of quick twists, disa.s.sembled it into components which she hung off her belt.

'Show me the way.'

I pointed, and without another word she moved off. I took a last glance back at Baron Maupertuis's ruined body. I could not find it in my heart to regret what Ace - I supposed that I should call her by that appellation - had done to him, but something in me had responded to his fervent, if misguided, patriotism.

But what now? Would his invasion fall apart with his army scattered and its general dead, or would the mysterious hooded man that Holmes and I had seen in Euston weld it back together again? Only time would tell.

We moved across the ravaged landscape, trying as far as we could to avoid the bodies. The explosions seemed to have ceased, but I could see a large number of survivors forming up into lines closer to the slopes of the mountain. It looked to me as if they were preparing to take the fight to the Ry'lehans.

Ace quickly impressed me with her skills. She moved quickly but carefully, maintaining a constant watch upon our surroundings. She threw questions back over her shoulder and, under their prompting, I told her the story of how we came to be there.

'He shouldn't meddle,' she said at one point. 'He doesn't know the half of what's going on here.'

'What do you mean?' I asked, but she gestured impatiently for me to continue.

I finished talking as we pa.s.sed the last row of tents, and persuaded her to wait for a few moments whilst I found the beast which had been roasting as I entered the camp. The spit had been knocked over during the attack, but the carca.s.s was still in one piece, and I managed to pull two of the legs off.

They did not look appetizing, but I was ravenous. I rejoined Ace, who refused the food I offered with a secret little smile. As we walked off I asked her how she came to be there. Whilst I ate the tender, spicy flesh, she explained in a few terse sentences that the Doctor had left her on Ry'leh in the same way that he had left Bernice in India, and for the same reasons.

She was meant to scout out the area, prepare the way for the Doctor and report on anything interesting that happened. Having seen my confrontation with Maupertuis, she had decided to act.

'Does he always do this sort of thing?' I asked.

'What sort of thing?'

'Move you and Bernice round like pieces in a game of chess?'

'You don't know the half of it. Trouble is, I've seen him play chess, and he's c.r.a.p.'

By now I had finished both legs and discarded the bones. My stomach was beginning to rebel against its unfamiliar contents, but I ruthlessly suppressed the incipient insurrection. I would not give Ace the satisfaction of seeing me ill.

The camp was a few miles behind us now, and we were approaching the area where I remembered leaving my friends. Looking round, I could see no sign of Bernice, Holmes or the Doctor. I caught hold of Ace's arm to stop her whilst I got my bearings. At the touch of my hand she whirled and knocked me to the ground. My head slammed against rock: I blacked out for a moment, and awoke to find her fingers pressed into my windpipe.

'A word of warning,' she hissed. 'Don't touch me. Too many people have done that already, starting with a sc.u.mbag named Glitz. I don't like it, and these days, what I don't like, I stop. Violently.'

'Glawp!' I said. It was all I could manage to get out of my compressed larynx.

'I'm glad that's understood.'

She stood up and looked around.

'So where's the party, then?'

I rolled over to enable my arms to take the strain of lifting my body, bruised and battered by recent events, to its feet. A dark stain on the ground caught my attention. I touched it tentatively, and my fingers came away sticky.

It was blood.

I ran a hand across the back of my head to determine whether I had hit the ground harder than I had thought, but my scalp was clear of any wounds.

'Ace,' I said.

'I know.'

I rose, to find her holding the torn remains of the Doctor's paisley-pattern scarf.

'Why is nothing ever easy where he's concerned?'

To that I had no answer.

Casting around, we found little else to indicate that they had ever been there. The most significant discovery was a patch of charred ground where a fire had obviously been lit. The ashes were still warm.

As a pearly, directionless sheen spread across the sky, heralding the approach of a new day, I sat down upon the hard, cold ground. A patch of moss squirmed beneath me, so I shuffled sideways. It tried to follow, so I stood up again and watched it cast itself unsuccessfully upon my boots.

Sounds of gunfire suddenly drifted across the plain. Maupertuis's shattered army had regrouped enough to go on the offensive. I wondered who was leading them now.

Hearing a sound, I glanced round to where Ace was talking softly into a small box. I wondered if it was some marvellous form of communication, but I soon realized that she was leaving no s.p.a.ce for a reply. A dictation machine, perhaps, akin to the phonograph but much smaller.

I glanced around at the harsh landscape now emerging from the shadow of night. The murmur of Ace's voice ceased.

'Who do you think took them?' I asked.

'How do I know?' She sounded bad-tempered. 'It could have been this Baron's men, or it could have been the spindly sack-things with five legs, or it could have been those winged creatures with the spiky tails. We won't know till we find them.'

'I doubt that it's the raksha.s.si,' I said patronizingly. 'They're only animals.'

'Raksha.s.si?'

'The winged creatures. The red ones.'

'Who told you they're only animals?'

I frowned.

'Well . . . it seemed obvious.'

'Nothing obvious about it, mate. They're as intelligent as you or me. Well, you at any rate.'

I didn't know what to say for a moment.

'But...' I stammered finally, 'they've never shown any sign of intellect . . .'

She looked pityingly at me.