Part 37 (1/2)

'You mean '

'I mean that Trau Bannen and his son will be staying.'

He brushed a smattering of non*existent dust from his lapel. 'Well, Ace,' he said softly, 'did you get what you came for?'

'With Legion dead and IMC legging it, I doubt if there's any way I can get the information to where it would do any good.' She sniffed. 'Can't say I'm sorry. And what about you?'

'How do you mean?' he said carefully.

'I saw you give something to Piper. What was it?'

'I don't know what you're on about, Ace.'

'I may have asked to come here, but I've never known you not to take advantage of a situation. What was it?'

He tried to avoid her gaze, but she kept walking around him until he was forced to look her in the eyes.

'A little concoction of mine,' he said sheepishly. 'To make things easier for myself in a few years time. Or was it a few hundred years ago? No matter.'

'For what?' Bernice asked from the sidelines, but the Doctor just tapped his nose.

'Secrets,' Ace said dismissively. The Doctor scowled.

'I know what it was,' Bernice announced suddenly. 'You tried to tell me about it, back when you were locked up in the conference room. d.a.m.n it, I knew there was some kind of subtext to that chat. ”Tomorrow's problems I solve yesterday,” you said. Yes, and I guess the logical corollary is that yesterday's problems you solve tomorrow. It's got something to do with that Dalek invasion that's coming up when is it? Twenty*one sixty*three? Twenty*one sixty*two?'

'Twenty*one fifty*eight,' the Doctor said. His face was impa.s.sive. The clown had gone. 'You've already noticed the news reports: as the Dalek battlefleet gets closer it destroys any planet which might render aid to Earth. Their biological warfare drones have already started seeding the planet with diseases to weaken any resistance. When you told me you wanted to ”pop back to the year twenty*one fifty*four or so”, I decided to set up a little something that would prove useful to a younger version of me, so I knocked together a batch of a highly contagious virus that will confer some small measure of protection on a handful of potential freedom fighters.'

He grimaced. 'I originally put some into Trau Bishop's tea, thinking that he would be returning to Earth sooner than the rest of the Project Eden team, and could spread a little happiness for me. We all know how that worked out. Piper was my next best bet.'

'You always take the complicated way around, don't you?' Ace marvelled. 'You never make it easy on yourself.'

'I prefer the scenic route to the short cut,' he snapped, and walked off towards the door, then paused, and said, 'but don't worry. You may not have to endure my secretive little ways for long.'

'Do what?'

He removed his hat and turned it over in his hands. 'I feel a change in the air,' he muttered darkly, then crammed the hat back on his head and strode off again.

'Well,' he called back over his shoulder, 'are you coming?'

'Are we coming?' Bernice asked Ace.

Ace gazed levelly at the woman, savouring the taste of jealousy that Bernice had left behind her: a dark and bitter envy of the depth of the relations.h.i.+p that still existed between Ace and the Doctor.

Bernice's smile slipped slightly, and Ace wondered what emotional flotsam and jetsam she she had left behind. had left behind.

There were depths here that wouldn't be plumbed in a hurry.

'Who else would have us?' she said finally, and walked off after the Doctor, stopping after a few seconds to allow Bernice to catch up.

Side by side, they walked in silence to the Mushroom Farm's entrance. There the Doctor ushered them across the threshold.

He lingered for a moment after they had gone, gazing into the silvery distance. Then, with a grimace, he poked at a metallic parasol with his umbrella. Without a sound, the lights in the chamber began to dim. As the last dregs of light glimmered and died, he turned on his heel and stepped across the melted doors into the darkness of the Base.