Doctor Who_ Time Zero Part 16

On the other side of the table, Yuri sighed. 'I keep telling you,' he said. 'There are no time*travel experiments here.'

Hartford turned slowly to look at him. Anji could see the fear Penny's eyes, watched Miriam push her chair slightly away. Flanagh nudged Yuri to be quiet. Naryshkin shook his head.

But the Russian was angry. 'We are interested in slowing light to create a black hole. Imagine it an optic black hole here in Siberia. That is what we are trying to do.'

'Yuri,' Naryshkin said quietly.

'Black holes, huh?' Hartford said. His voice was low and menacing. 'And where do you find black holes then?'

Yuri seemed surprised, not registering the danger in Hartford's tone, 'In s.p.a.ce, at the moment. They are regions where s.p.a.ce is itself stretched to the very limit. Where gravity reigns supreme.'

'The journeywork of the stars?' Hartford said with evident distaste. 'I thought Whitman said that was a leaf of gra.s.s.'

'But you want to make a black hole here.' Anji could see that Hartford was holding his pistol by his side.

'There may already be black holes here. Black hole atoms, tiny nascent black holes of dark matter providing a positive charge in place of the proton.' He smiled weakly. 'There could be a black hole inside you, and you would not be aware of it.'

'Oh I'd be aware of it,' Hartford told him. He raised the pistol. 'Making black holes is easy,' he said. 'See if you're aware of this.' Then he pulled the trigger.

Yuri flew backwards, his chair falling over so that he was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. A dark hole torn into the centre of his forehead. Penny screamed. Flanaghan was on his feet shouting at Hartford, but Anji could not hear the words through the echoing roar of the shot and the pounding of the blood in her ears.

Then Thorpe was pus.h.i.+ng Flanaghan away, towards the two waiting figures, pulling Anji to her feet and shoving her roughly after him.

'Who are these people?' Flanaghan demanded when they were outside. They trudged for ages through the snow, eventually finding a narrow path where at least the ground beneath their feet was solid.

'I don't know,' Anji said. 'But they're not accountants.'

Flanaghan just stared at her. His eyelashes, she noticed, were very pale. His freckles seemed have faded slightly cold, or shock, she wondered?

'I'm not an accountant either,' Flanaghan said at last. 'But I don't go round quoting Walt Whitman and then shooting people.'

'Well, it takes all sorts. I guess.' Anji sighed, blowing out a stream of wispy air. 'So what do you do round here? Apart from struggling to keep warm. And not get shot.'

He seemed happy to talk. 'I'm an expert in optics,' he said. 'Not the sort you serve spirits from. Light. Refraction. That sort of thing.'

'Fascinating,' Anji replied.

He glanced at her, amused by her obvious lack of interest. 'Imagine two tiny slits in a sheet of card,' he said. 'A bit like the gaps between the mountains up ahead, where the sun is s.h.i.+ning through.'

Anji smiled back. 'OK. Then what?'

'Then you s.h.i.+ne a light at the card.'

'And what happens?'

'Well the light pa.s.ses through the two slits, and on the other side it spills out and you can see interference patterns. Bands of light and dark.'

Anji had heard this one before. Or at least, she thought she had. 'You're telling me that light is a wave form?' she asked. 'The light and dark is where the waves cancel out or acc.u.mulate, right?'

'That's right.' He nodded appreciatively. 'Yet light also comes in bits, particles. Called photons.'

'Heard of them,' Anji said.

'So what do you suppose happens if we fire just one single photon at the card with the two slits?'

Anji shrugged, though she doubted he could tell, she was so wrapped up against the cold. 'You just get a bit of light coming through?'

'So you wouldn't expect to see interference patterns,' Flanaghan asked her.

'I guess not. If there's just one photon, there's nothing for it to interfere with. There's no wave cancellation or acc.u.mulation or whatever they're called. No ripples.'

'Exactly.' He nodded enthusiastically.

'You mean I'm right?'

'I mean you're correct in a.s.suming that's what we'd expect.'

'Ah.'

'But in fact you do get the interference patterns, just the same. It's as if the photon went through both slits at the same time.'

'Which is impossible, right?'

They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then Anji asked. 'So what do you do?'

'Well, you can detect a photon of light. So you put a detector on each slit.'

'Because it seems like there's a photon going through each of them, right?'

'Right,' he agreed. 'But guess what?'

'Two photons?' Anji hazarded.

Flanaghan shook his head. 'No. Just one photon. And it only goes through one of the slits.'

'So how do you get the interference patterns?'

'Well, that's the strange thing.' He was grinning now. 'If you actually try to detect where the photon went, you don't. No patterns. No interference. Take the detectors away, and the interference returns.'

Anji considered this. 'But that's... weird.'

'Mmmm.'

'Impossible.'

'But it happens.'

'So what's going on?'

'According to Quantum Theory the light photon is sort of in both places at once, until you try to detect it. Then it has to make up its mind where it really really is. A superposition of states, we call it.' is. A superposition of states, we call it.'

'Seriously weird,' Anji said.

'Anyone who isn't shocked by quantum theory,' Flanaghan said, 'hasn't understood it. That's what Niels Bohr thought anyway.'

Anji nodded. 'And you think about this stuff for a living?' He laughed, and she shook her head. 'What about you?' she called over her shoulder to the soldiers behind. 'What do you think? Are you shocked?'

'Enough talk,' Sonya Gamblin shouted back at her.

'So you don't understand it either,' Anji muttered in reply.

In front of them was what looked like piles of broken wooden planks. 'That's it,' Planaghari said.

'I thought you said it was a village?'

'I said it was the remains of one.'

As they got closer, Anji could see that the planks were the remains of floors and walls. Wooden supports stuck up from the ground, and there were several sections of flooring attached to a couple of them.

'They built the village on stilts,' Flanaghan explained. 'So the foundations wouldn't freeze.'

'Great.'

'I'll be back in a little while,' he said quietly.

'Right...' It took her a moment to realise what he'd said. 'What?'

Anji stopped and turned towards the Englishman. Immediately Jacobs stocky and brutal was there shoving her forward again with his gun.

Flanaghan winked at Anji as she stumbled and sprawled headlong. He bent to help her up. 'Give us a hand, I think she's broken her ankle.'

This was news to Anji. But she groaned as convincingly as she could. Jacobs bent to examine her. Behind him, Sonya kept her covered with her a.s.sault rifle.

And beside Sonya, Anji could see that Flanaghan was bracing himself. Then suddenly he was flying sideways in a rugby tackle that knocked Sonya over, winded her. He was up in a moment, running, stumbling, bent low to the ground.

Sonya Gamblin was struggling to her feet, grabbing her gun. Jacobs was straightening up, so Anji kicked his legs from under him and sent him sprawling.

Gunfire erupted, snow sprayed in salty puffs from the ground at Flanaghan's feet. Then he was gone, lost in the expanse of white.

'Get after him,' Sonya shouted at Jacobs. She was dragging a set of handcuffs from her jacket pocket. 'And you over there.'

She pushed Anji roughly to one of the upright stilts, and made her put her arms round it.

'Hugging trees is one thing,' Anji said.

'Shut up.' Sonya handcuffed her wrists together so she was tied to the upright post. 'We'll be back for you later,' she hissed. Then she was off, running unsteadily through the snow after Jacobs. After Flanaghan.

In the distance, over the howling of the Wind, Anji heard the sound of gun shots. She heaved as hard as she could at the wooden post. It barely moved. But a cold avalanche of snow from the remains of the broken floor above crashed down on her head, knocking her sideways and spraying icy crystals into her face. She breathed out a long chattering breath of frustrated mist and sank down to sit uncomfortably at the base of the post.

23: Sent Packing

Maxwell Curtis was surprisingly polite and friendly. Once the Doctor had explained that he was interested in the journal, and that really he just wanted to have a good look at it, Curtis told Holiday to stop being melodramatic and put the gun away. Without any apparent grudge, the manservant obeyed.

They were in the library where the Doctor had jumped round to test the floor. Now the lights were on, and outside floodlights illuminated the gravel driveway so that it seemed almost to be day. Curtis was seated in one of the chairs at the reading table, Holiday standing beside him.

'And what precisely is your interest in the journal?' Curtis asked, holding the book as he spoke.

The Doctor told him.

Holiday's lip curled, a barely noticeable reaction. Curtis laughed out loud. 'I hardly think so,' he said.

The Doctor shrugged. 'I haven't had a chance to examine it properly. But I a.s.sume you have copies of the pages from the British Museum.'

Curtis nodded. 'And they complete the journal,' he said. 'I have it complete now.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'May I?'

Curtis considered, his mouth moving as if he were rolling the idea round inside it. Then he handed the battered, leather*bound book to Holiday, who took it over to the Doctor.

As the Doctor leafed carefully through the brittle pages, a taxi drew up outside. It crunched to a halt on the gravel, and the driver got out to open the door for his pa.s.senger.

'Show the Grand d.u.c.h.ess in here,' Curtis told Holiday. The big man nodded, and left the room.

'Well?' Curtis asked, his voice husky with interest. 'Satisfied.'

'Oh yes,' the Doctor told him. 'Quite satisfied.'

'And your contention remains the same?'

'Exactly the same.' He turned back several pages. 'I a.s.sume you have read it?'

Curtis nodded. It was a ponderous movement, as if his head was heavy on his shoulders.

The Doctor was running his finger down the margin, hunting for a section he had seen earlier. 'Here we are, what do you think of this, then? The light in the cavern bad a preternatural quality It seemed almost to stand still in the very air itself When Price held his lamp behind an outcropping of ice, and moved it, the light seemed to move more slowly on the other side of the ice. As if the ice were sticky like treacle and the light was having trouble pa.s.sing through... The light in the cavern bad a preternatural quality It seemed almost to stand still in the very air itself When Price held his lamp behind an outcropping of ice, and moved it, the light seemed to move more slowly on the other side of the ice. As if the ice were sticky like treacle and the light was having trouble pa.s.sing through...' The Doctor looked up. 'Didn't that strike you as odd?'

Curtis frowned. 'I'm not sure I follow you, Doctor. The description of the cavern, the sketch map on the previous page 'Yes, and a very good sketch it is too,' the Doctor said, turning back to it. 'You'd scarcely guess that the author was frozen to the bone and struggling to survive.'

'These led Naryshkin to the ice cavern,' Curtis insisted. 'He said so. They found it, exactly as described.'

The Doctor nodded. 'I heard.' He smiled apologetically at Curtis's expression. 'Terrible habit, eavesdropping, I know. Sorry about that.' His smile faded away. 'Naryshkin also said they had found a body. That's not mentioned in here.' He held up the journal.