Doctor Who_ Autumn Mist Part 20

Bearclaw fired, the sh.e.l.l exploding against the King Tiger's frontmost wheel, and sending smashed track links flying away. He fired again, this time clipping the track on the other side. 'They ain't going nowhere now.'

'Good.' The Doctor gunned the Panther's engine, and reversed out of the square. Through the viewport, Fitz could see the driver's hatch of the King Tiger the only hatch still free open, and men start to emerge. They looked very unsteady on their feet, and it was obvious that they were in no condition to fight any more.

The second King Tiger was now burning merrily, and men were jumping from that too. Fitz would have given a bottle of single-malt Scotch to eavesdrop on what the two crews would have to say to each other.

Once they were outside of town, Fitz managed to contort himself enough to tap the Doctor on the shoulder. 'Stop the tank.'

The Doctor did so, and Fitz levered himself out and dropped to the roadside. He grabbed a handful of mud, and climbed back up to smear it on the '4' until there appeared to be just a '1' left. Then he climbed over to repeat the action on the other side of the turret.

'What are you doing?' Garcia asked.

Fitz tapped the side of his long nose. 'Unless the crew of that other tank were blind, they probably noticed our number. That means they'll be telling the first other Germans they meet that tank 421 is in enemy hands. This way anyone looking for us will hopefully see the number as 121, and ignore us.'

Lewis couldn't believe the strength in Oberon's arms as the Amadan Amadan threw him across the room. The Sidhe might be as light as a feather, but he was as strong as an ox. 'You fool!' Oberon snarled. 'Why did you not do as I ordered? Why did you not kill the Doctor?' threw him across the room. The Sidhe might be as light as a feather, but he was as strong as an ox. 'You fool!' Oberon snarled. 'Why did you not do as I ordered? Why did you not kill the Doctor?'

'I have done,' Lewis insisted, strangely forgetting to be angry. He knew he should be for some reason, and knew that Oberon must be interfering with his perceptions again, but somehow couldn't put the two things together. 'Just in a roundabout sort of way.'

'Roundabout? So circular it comes back to not having happened.' Oberon perched on the corner of Lewis's desk, and helped him up. 'What exactly did you do?'

'The Doctor wanted to walk headlong into enemy lines. I gave him a map to lead him into a German ambush.' He was quite proud of his ingenuity.

'Idiot. The Evergreen Man has walked the paths through a thousand wars. He will clear this one unscathed.' Oberon put on a mock-thoughtful air. 'Still, perhaps it doesn't matter. After all, it's only your plans he will ruin.'

That drew Lewis's attention. 'What do you mean, my plans?'

'The Evergreen Man is, as we speak, on his way to close the rift that will make the pa.s.sage of your new war machines into our realm easier. If he closes it, you will have to start again, and may never succeed.'

Lewis stared at him. 'We have to go there and stop him.'

'You have to,' Oberon corrected him. have to,' Oberon corrected him.

'You're not coming?'

'Eventually. But first I must know how he intends to close the rift.'

'How will you find that out?'

Oberon smiled. 'I'll ask those who know.'

Chapter Ten.

No Friendlies Fitz and Kovacs sat on the ruined bridge, watching as the others attached some steel cables from the Panther to the TARDIS.

Kovacs had found a hip-flask of Jack Daniels in his gear, and Fitz had found a new streak of laziness. Well, he was knackered after all the running about he'd been doing.

'Shouldn't you be down there helping them?' Kovacs asked.

'Both of us should, but I guess we have the same problem.'

'Which is?'

'We're too smart to waste our efforts on manual labour.'

Kovacs grinned. 'A man after my own heart. Best way to live. Of course out here...'

'You think about dying?' Fitz shrugged. 'I suppose that's a stupid question; out here if you thought about that all the time you'd go nuts.'

'h.e.l.l, half of us are nuts anyway.' Kovacs gave a cynical and distant smile. 'Actually I got my death all planned already: of exhaustion in a wh.o.r.ehouse, aged about a hundred and fifty. That saves me from having to worry about it.' He took a slug of Jack, and pa.s.sed the bottle back to Fitz.

'It must be b.l.o.o.d.y handy to not worry...'

'It probably is, but I wouldn't know.' He nodded towards the others. 'I still got these a.s.sholes to worry about. I gotta get them all back home in one piece.'

'So they can kill j.a.ps?' It had slipped out before Fitz even realised what he was going to say. How much of the booze had he had, anyway?

Kovacs's face darkened, but then he shrugged off the mood. 'So they can get back to their lives.' The expression that masked him slipped, and he looked both haunted and driven. 'I wanna kill j.a.ps, but that don't mean I want to put their lives on the line as well. Already lost enough people to them, so why risk anyone else but myself?'

'You can't win a war on your own.'

Kovacs was silent for quite a long time. 'Depends what war you're fighting. The one outside, or the one within.'

Sam stood on the deck of the ship that had taken her across the lake earlier, when she had first visited the Sidhe levels at least, she a.s.sumed it was the same ship; she could see one or two thoroughly identical ones across the waters. She got the uncomfortable feeling that if she looked closely enough at them she'd see herself, either on the previous journey or this one.

Galastel leaned on the wooden rail beside her, as the crew lowered a stone anchor into the water. It didn't splash, and didn't create any ripples at all. 'A fine day,' Galastel said.

'It always seems to be fine here.'

'Naturally. We wish it to be so, and so it is.' He toyed with the bodkin that hung at his belt. It was far too small to be called a knife, let alone a sword, though he wore it as one.

'Are you sure your people want to do this?'

'Samanthajones... The Queen says we are to protect you and your friends from harm. We cannot do that if we are not there.'

'But this isn't your fight.'

'No,' Galastel agreed, 'but the Rift is our problem. It merely allows mortals to move, but it kills us. And although the battle is not ours, one of us is involved. We must... moderate the effects he would cause.'

'But not just stop him doing anything?'

'The Queen is risking her position just by allowing this. If it became felt that allowing our presence here was in some way an act towards holding Oberon responsible for his actions... She would have to be replaced.'

'There's another Queen?'

'No. There's only one Queen. But she has many aspects,' he added cryptically. 'In any case, we are where we have to be.' Galastel nodded to a small knot of Sidhe gathered amidships, and sang to them. At once, they began to vault over the side, dropping into the blue below.

Sam heard no splashes, and no water seemed to be displaced, yet they vanished smoothly into it. She didn't relish the idea of trying it herself. Especially given that the view through the water looked more like the view from a plane at high alt.i.tude.

'Don't fear,' Galastel said. He took her hand and led her to step on to the rail. 'This is the quickest way. No harm will come to you, while I carry you.'

He wasn't holding her, so Sam a.s.sumed his presence was enough to 'carry' her. She must be mad, trusting him, she thought. By the time that had gone through her mind, they had both stepped forward.

There was a sudden coolness, and then they were in the forest, standing on the roadside under the invisible glow of the Rift.

Garcia put a hand on the rear edge of the turret to steady himself as the Panther rumbled back up the riverbank. He was curious to see what vehicle the Doctor wanted to recover.

To his astonishment, it wasn't a vehicle at all, but a police telephone booth similar to the kind he'd seen in London before his unit was sent to the front. It gouged a large furrow in the snow and mud as the Panther dragged it on to dry land.

'This is it?' he asked the Doctor, who was standing to one side, rubbing his hands with glee.

'This is it. Just an old Type Forty TARDIS, but she's home to me.'

Garcia, not for the first time, wondered if the Doctor was entirely sane, especially when he unlocked the police box and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.

Kovacs jumped down from the Panther's turret and regarded this... TARDIS dubiously. He turned to Fitz. 'OK, we've got your equipment whatever the h.e.l.l you call that but how do we transport it to the Eifel? I mean, it's a good fifteen or twenty miles south, through the German columns.'

'We are in a German tank,' Fitz pointed out. 'So long as we keep low in the hatches, n.o.body can tell we're not its crew.'

Kovacs shook his head. 'We'd have to get out at some point fuelling, checkpoints, that sort of thing. And then there's the language barrier...'

'That's not a problem,' Fitz said, hesitantly. 'I can talk German.' At least, they'll hear it as that, he thought.

There was a sudden rushing sound. The GIs looked panicked, but Fitz recognised the sound of the TARDIS's drives. He turned to see what the Doctor was up to, but instead of the TARDIS on the riverbank he found himself looking at the wall of the little garage s.p.a.ce that used to house the Doctor's VW Beetle before it was melted down. The Panther's sides were jammed solid against the walls.

As the soldiers looked around in awe and bafflement, the Doctor hurried into the room.

'Getting through the German lines to the Eifel isn't going to be a problem,' he grinned.

'What the h.e.l.l's happened?' Kovacs demanded, looking half terrified and half in wonderment. He touched the wall suspiciously, as if he was afraid his hand would go right through it.

'You know that police box we just pulled out of the river?' the Doctor asked mildly.

'Yeah...'

'Well, now we're inside it.'

Kovacs looked momentarily fazed, for once. 'Inside? But this place is huge!'

'Yes. The interior dimensions transcend the outer one,' the Doctor explained.

'I may be just a dumb old grunt,' Kovacs said slowly, 'but you're not going to tell me any human beings made this. Not in a million years.'

'You're right, I'm not going to tell you that, because if I did I'd be lying.' The Doctor rubbed his hands together. 'I don't know about you, but I could use a bite to eat. "An army marches on its stomach," and all that.'

'Do we have time for R and R?' Bearclaw asked dubiously.

'We want to be at our best, don't we?' The Doctor rubbed his stomach. 'Besides we can have our council of war at the same time.'

Oberon watched their efforts to recover the Doctor's TARDIS with interest. He knew of the Evergreen Man's mode of transport, of course.

It was always possible the Doctor merely wanted to recover it to leave later, but Oberon doubted that was all there was to it. If the Doctor planned to interfere with Oberon's own interference, then perhaps this machine was a part of it.

Unlike the Sidhe, other races needed to use mechanisms to walk through time, since they had no natural affinity with it. Perhaps, then, the Doctor sought something in the past or future?

They were all gathered in the kitchen Fitz had found earlier. The soldiers were tucking in to unhealthy fry-ups, and even the Doctor seemed to be not immune to the charms of greasy cooking. Fitz remembered not to offer Sam a bacon b.u.t.tie when she came in, though.

't.i.tania's got a contingency plan, so at least the few of us here won't be alone,' Sam said.

'Good,' the Doctor said, finishing off his lunch and licking the grease off his fingers. 'Down to business. We have to find some way of repairing the damage the Beast and the war have caused...'

'Wouldn't destroying this Beast do the same job?' said Fitz.

'We can't.'

'Right, sure we can't.' Fitz grumbled. 'I know. They're like ants or termites, just doing what they do. But... if you get termites in your house you call in the exterminators.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'You know we can't interfere with our own subjective past.' His voice softened. 'No matter how wonderful it would be to save your mother. The Beast leave of their own accord. I can't risk disrupting causality...'

'What's the hurry here, anyway?' Kovacs asked.

'Three things,' the Doctor explained. 'First the dimensions have to be separated to stop damage being caused to both levels of reality. Second, this colony of the Beast are trapped and just making things worse. Third, the Amadan na Briona Amadan na Briona has been helping Lewis build some rather special tanks, which could easily be here by dusk.' has been helping Lewis build some rather special tanks, which could easily be here by dusk.'

'The ones I saw? Some kind of camouflage field, making tanks invisible?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'I should think it goes rather further than that. I imagine that what Lewis wants, and has been given, is a way to move those tanks out of phase altogether, so they can move in a completely different level of reality before phasing back into this one.'

'Like the Sidhe?' asked Garcia.

'Exactly.'

'Then... The tanks would be travelling through the Sidhe's realm,' Bearclaw concluded.