Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues Part 14

Butcher grinned again. 'He already did. In exactly those words.'

'Just a coincidence of terminology,' said the Doctor. 'The point I'm trying to make is that we're not your enemies.' Butcher snorted and turned away and 85started towards the door. 'That's a good idea,' said the Doctor. 'Go home and sleep it off. It's been a long day and you have killed a woman.'

Butcher stopped in his tracks. He had his back to them but Ace could see the tension in his shoulders. He turned back to them and said, 'What did you say?'

'Merely that you have every reason to be upset,' said the Doctor. 'Why don't you sit down and talk to us. Ray could offer you a beer, couldn't you Ray?'

'Sure,' said Ray uncertainly, his big frame bobbing towards the refrigerator without actually moving in that direction.

'I'm not sitting here drinking beer with you,' said Butcher.

'But we never finished our discussion about your work, your writing,' said the Doctor. Butcher came back into the room.

'What about my writing?'

'I told you how much I admired your first four books but I never mentioned your short stories. Small vivid cla.s.sics like The Woman in the Night, Tarpaper, The Woman in the Night, Tarpaper, Fire Escape, The Head on the Coin Fire Escape, The Head on the Coin.'

'I wrote those years ago.'

'Nonetheless, small cla.s.sics one and all.' Major Butcher ignored him. He turned and walked towards the door. The Doctor called after him, 'And how could I ignore your other novel, the masterful Shadow Man Shadow Man?' Butcher said nothing, going out and slamming the door behind him.

'Hey man,' said Ray. 'Could someone open that door again. It's a hot night and we need some breeze in here, baby.'

Outside in the night, Butcher walked swiftly, trying to raise enough of a breeze to cool himself down. He was almost back at his quarters when he realised what the Doctor had said. He had mentioned a novel of Butcher's called Shadow Man Shadow Man.

But Butcher had written no such novel. He fully intended to do so, but so far the novel only existed as notes. Butcher's heart began to hammer in his chest. He felt himself sweating in the warm night. There was only one explanation.

The Doctor had broken into his quarters and found Butcher's notebook.

He hurried back to the prefab hut and unlocked the door. There was no trace that the door had been forced in his absence, but then a professional would leave no such trace. He left the door open behind him so that the fresh air from outside displaced the hot stale air trapped in the tin hut. He took off his s.h.i.+rt and poured himself a drink. There was no hurry now. He checked the lock on his desk and it showed no signs of being forced, but again that signified nothing. He took out the fat brown notebook and opened it at a 86page marked with a braided black cotton bookmark. Here were his notes on Shadow Man Shadow Man. This is what the Doctor must have seen.

Then a disquieting thought occurred to Butcher. He went through the note book, checking every page. He felt the sweat gather on him again, despite the air flowing in from the night. Nowhere in the notebook had he written the t.i.tle Shadow Man Shadow Man. He had only thought of it recently and hadn't yet written it in the book.

He hadn't written it anywhere. He had only thought it.87.

Chapter Seven.

Into the Desert There was the sound of weeping up at the Oppenheimer house.

Butcher had woken up that morning with a clear determination to get to the bottom of the puzzle about the Doctor. But the events of the day soon overtook him. First he had to deal with the first wave of the considerable amount of paperwork generated by the violent demise of Rosalita Gracia Cruz Tenebre, as he learned was the full name of the dead woman. That took all morning and well into the afternoon. Next he had to pay a call on Oppy. Although, of course, he'd already relayed the news of Rosalita's death, Butcher hadn't been up to the house in person and this was something he felt obliged to do. Oppy met him outside the house and diplomatically guided him around to the back door.

They went into the kitchen to talk. The kitchen was cool and dark, the tiles s.h.i.+ning. Oppy told him she had washed the floor just before she had left, to take what he thought was an afternoon off work to be spent shopping.

Instead Rosalita had taken the revolver she had kept in an oil cloth under her bed (Butcher had the oil cloth along with a typed report from one of his sergeants) and gone down to the pond where she'd tried to blow Butcher's head off.

Nevertheless, Butcher shared some of Oppenheimer's regretful nostalgia when he spoke of the dead woman. The kitchen still smelled spicily of Rosalita's chilli, and there was a small but genuine sense of inconsolable loss, somewhere deep in Butcher's stomach.

The sound of weeping that echoed from the living room was clearly Kitty Oppenheimer's response to the situation. Butcher noticed a bottle of gin, a jar of honey and a sliced lime on the kitchen table. Kitty was drinking martinis and mourning the loss of her cook. Dead drunk at four in the afternoon.

'Incidentally,' said Oppy, 'I've given Dr Smith some time off.'

'What?'

'And the Doctor's a.s.sistant Acacia and Ray Morita.'

'Why?'

'The Doctor is a keen amateur geologist.'

'I'll bet he is.'89.

Oppenheimer shook his head in amus.e.m.e.nt. 'I understand that you have a professional obligation to be suspicious, Major, but Dr Smith has written some very highly regarded papers about fossils. And while he's here in New Mexico he wants to examine the local geological formations. I can hardly say no to him, especially since his discussions with Teller seem to have got him off my back. And anyway it's going to be a working break.'

'What kind of a working break?' said Butcher. He noticed that the sound of crying from the living room had ceased. Somehow the silence was worse than the woman weeping.

'I told Ray Morita to go with him.' Oppenheimer shook his head affectionately. 'He and the Doctor share a very unusual way of looking at things. Their approach to physics is subtly different from everyone else's here. I thought it might be a fruitful combination if I threw them together.'

'And the girl is going along too? In case they feel the need to do some calculations while they're looking for fossils?'

'More or less, Major. That's right. Have you ever seen her in action? The girl is exceptional. A genuine prodigy. As you may know, we have some very sophisticated electronic computing machines here on the Hill. But this girl has them all beat. If we had twenty like her it would put this project on a whole new footing.'

'Yeah, it probably would,' said Butcher. His sarcasm was lost on Oppenheimer because Kitty chose that moment to emerge from the living room and come swaying down the short hallway into the kitchen. She gazed at Butcher for an uncomfortable moment without saying anything. Then she said, enunciating with great care, 'Murderer.'

Butcher turned away. He heard her go to the table and start fumbling with the gin bottle and the limes as he walked out the door. Oppy followed him into the yard and they stood in the dappled shade of the trees together, staring up into the hot blue sky. 'Kitty doesn't know what she's saying,' said Oppy.

Butcher cut off the apology. 'When are the Doctor and the others setting off on their little jaunt into the desert?'

Oppy consulted his watch. 'They left half an hour ago.'

Butcher cursed silently, suppressing his anger. He came to a sudden decision. 'I think I need some time off myself,' he said. 'After what happened yesterday.'

'Naturally,' said Oppy. 'The only reason I didn't suggest it was that I thought you'd refuse.'

'Just the rest of the day,' said Butcher.

'Of course.' When Butcher left, walking along the crazy-paving footpath, Kitty saw him from the living room window and swept the curtain shut. He hurried off down Bathtub Row, striding towards his quarters where he was 90going to change into some more suitable clothing. And then he would requisition a vehicle from the motor pool.

Something suitable for driving in the desert.

Ace bounced along in the front seat of a jeep borrowed from the motor pool.

'Are you sure you know how to drive this thing, Doctor?'

The Doctor grinned at her. He was sitting in the driving seat, his hat off and the wind blowing through his hair. He was wearing a heavy tweed jacket like a country gentleman on an outing. 'It's no Bessie, but nonetheless quite an enjoyable vehicle to drive.' He peered out over the downfolded windscreen, at the desert landscape that came rus.h.i.+ng towards them. 'I'm sorry if it's a trifle uncomfortable, Ace, but there's no roads hereabouts so the going is rough. And even if there was a road, these vehicles are not exactly designed with comfort in mind. The suspension in particular leaves something to be desired.' The Doctor kept on grinning happily as he s.h.i.+fted gears, steering the growling jeep across the forbiddingly rugged terrain.

Ace bounced up and down in her worn leather seat, her motion echoing the contours of the ground they were driving over. 'That's all very well, but my b.u.m's going to be black and blue tomorrow.'

'What you need is more padding, man,' said Ray from the back of the jeep.

'You should be more like me. Have plenty of padding to sit on. That's always been my philosophy. A fat cat is a happy cat.'

'So long as you've got your music,' said Ace.

'That's right, man a comfortable seat to sit on and music to listen to.'

'I'm surprised you didn't bring a portable gramophone with you,' said the Doctor, steering quickly and nimbly around a long shallow ditch that suddenly appeared in the ground ahead. The jeep lurched, regained its traction, and roared along, paralleling the ditch.

'No way, man. I wouldn't bring my music out here in the savage splendour of New Mexico. Dust is the enemy of the LP, baby.' Then Ray hastily corrected himself. 'I mean of 78s, I mean of sh.e.l.lac discs. Records.'

'I'll remember that.' Ace leaned back in her seat and took a deep breath of the racing wind. It smelled of a mixture of petrol from the jeep and wild desert sage. The sun shone benignly down on her face. Despite the bruising brutality of the jeep ride, she was enjoying herself. Or at least she would be if her hair didn't keep getting in her eyes, swaying with the motion of the vehicle. She brushed it aside and turned to the Doctor. 'This is all very nice, getting away from Los Alamos and all that. But I thought you were supposed to be busy arguing with Teller.'

'Apparently our last discussion gave him so much to think about that he wants all day to ponder it.'91.

'Good for you,' said Ace. She took a rubber band out of the pocket of her denim jacket and used it to secure her hair.

The Doctor peered out over the steering wheel. He hardly seemed to move the wheel, but he was keeping them clear of obstacles despite their high speed.

He was obviously enjoying the drive. 'In fact it probably just means he's sick of me and wanted to avoid seeing me.'

'That Teller is one anti-social cat, man,' said Ray from the back seat.

'Nevertheless, tomorrow I shall renew my attack.'

'Attack?'

The Doctor smiled. He peered into the distance. 'Just a figure of speech.'

Events seemed to conspire to prevent Butcher getting away from the Hill. Receiving official permission had been the least of his problems. What should have been the simple business of delegating to his sergeants, for what after all promised to be only a few hours' absence, took a few hours in itself. And then, just when he was about to set off, he was ambushed by some last-minute additional paperwork concerning release of Rosalita's body to a civilian coroner.

More hours proceeded to grind slowly by as he unravelled the necessary red tape.

Then, when he finally managed to get changed and get to the motor pool, he had endless problems with vehicles. The first jeep he chose had a flat tyre, the second a ruptured fan belt, the third some kind of untraceable blockage in the exhaust system. 'Don't any of your jeeps work?' demanded Butcher of Lisetti, the motorpool chief, a greasy grinning Buddha of a man, who had a monkey wrench in one s.h.i.+rt pocket and a bar of Red Indian brand chewing tobacco in the other.

'They tend to the temperamental, that's for sure. They're supposed to be built for desert work, but I find they never really perform good in all this dust and fine sand. But there's one vehicle that always runs real sweet. Never had a single problem with her.'

'Then give me that one,' said Butcher.

Lisetti smiled and spat a stream of tobacco juice. 'Sorry. No can do. Already signed her out. To a little English gent called Dr Smith. Had a girl with him and that big Chinese fellow.'

'j.a.panese,' said Butcher.

'Hey, really. You don't say. Why isn't he behind bars?'

'You might well ask,' said Butcher. He waited another half an hour on the endless business of the first jeep having it's tyre changed, only to have it taken away from him at the last instant for use by General Groves' staff. That left Butcher with either the broken fan belt vehicle, or the one with the mystery exhaust problem. Two fan belts later he was finally driving down the Hill.

92.

Ace's predictions about her bruised b.u.t.tocks proved to be amply fulfilled by the time the Doctor announced that they were finally approaching their destination. He was steering the jeep towards a range of low hills that looked, to Ace, no different from the many other ranges of hills they had already pa.s.sed in the repet.i.tive desert landscape. The sun was now sinking behind the mountains in the west and the sky was painted with bright, garish, sunset colours.

The Doctor skirted the base of the hills until he found a narrow track leading upwards that looked like it might give the most surefooted mountain goat pause. But he drove the jeep up it without hesitation, expertly s.h.i.+fting the gears and altering the engine's roar in an almost musical modulation as the engine laboured in various cycles of revolution against the steep incline. Dust boiled up off the track and Ace closed her eyes and held her breath. Then suddenly the noise of the engine died, the dust stopped, and the jeep came to a halt.

Ace opened her eyes. They were on the brow of a low hill with the slope of a higher headland rising in front of them. There were pine trees on the hillsides and these gave off a cool intense odour in the dying heat of the day.

Ace wiped the dust off her face.

'Oh man,' said Ray, from the back of the jeep. 'I hope this was worth the trip.'

'I think you'll find it interesting,' said the Doctor, fastening the brakes and hopping out onto the hillside. Ace joined him, breathing the cool pine-scented air and enjoying the sensation of walking on her own two feet again after the hours of jolting and bouncing in the jeep. The Doctor took her arm and guided her across the rocky ground covered with a soft blanket of pine needles. 'Do you notice anything about that hill slope opposite us?'

Ace studied the area he indicated. It was a hill with trees growing on it, their shadows stretching like long black fingers as the sun went down. There were no signs of life or any indication that man had ever intruded on it. It was a primal scene that might have remained unchanged for millions of years.

'Nope,' said Ace.

'Do you see anything in those shadows among the trees?'

'Nope.'

'Look more carefully.' The Doctor sounded a trifle impatient. 'Some of those shadows are in fact the mouths of caves.'

'Caves?' said Ray, coming up behind them, his feet crunching on the bed of pine needles. 'Who lives in them, man?'

'Oh, no one,' said the Doctor. 'Not for many, many centuries.' His head suddenly jerked up as he looked past Ray, peering at something with an expression of bright interest. Ace followed the direction of his gaze and saw that three men had stepped out of the shadows of the pines behind them and were 93coming down the hill, past the jeep, towards them.

They were all carrying guns.

'Which is not to say, of course, that these hills are uninhabited,' said the Doctor.

Butcher drove down the Hill along the winding rocky road, past the shadowed pines of Los Alamos canyon and the Omega lab, where Fermi maintained his reactor and performed dangerous experiments with plutonium.

By now the sun was declining steeply in the sky and the desert night was approaching fast. Butcher drove swiftly and efficiently but he couldn't outrace the setting sun. Soon the lengthening shadows of the broken landscape had swallowed him and the jeep whole.

Butcher kept driving, belting along in the desert darkness, with a growing sense of futility. He'd had a pretty good idea of the Doctor's initial route because he'd spoken to the MPs at the checkpoint who'd watched them leave.

He'd even managed to find the spot where the Doctor's jeep had left the road.

The tracks had been too fresh to belong to any other vehicle. Butcher had already followed them for about ten rough miles of broken terrain.

But now, caught in the darkness, the only way to make progress was to hazard a guess about the other jeep's direction of travel, drive for a half mile or so, stop, get out of the jeep and use a flashlight to check the ground and see if he could discern any tracks in the dirt. At first he'd got lucky, following them for another two miles. But then he'd lost the track and had to double back on himself, doing a sweep.

Now he'd lost the track completely. He was on the verge of throwing in the towel and heading back for the Hill, taking off his shoes, collapsing on his bunk and drinking half a bottle of whiskey. Then he saw the light in the distance, in the crevice of a line of hills whose dark bulk cancelled the stars hanging low in the night sky.

He pointed the jeep in the direction of the light, put his foot down hard on the gas, and drove towards it.