Doctor Who_ Autumn Mist Part 9

'That's right.' Bearclaw paused. 'Someone you know?'

'Yes.' The Doctor just stared at him. His mouth kept opening and closing, but no words would come for a good few minutes then, finally, desperately, he managed, 'Are you sure she '

Bearclaw nodded sadly. 'I'm sorry. She was. .h.i.t at least twice in the back. When the Krauts were going round finishing people off, two of them picked her up. I think they wanted to... Well, they weren't planning to help much. Anyway, I guess they decided she wasn't good enough, so one of them ' Bearclaw held two fingers in a gun gesture and put them to the centre of the Doctor's chest 'put a gun right to her like this and pulled the trigger.' He let his hand fall back against the pillow. 'You don't survive a wound like that.'

The next morning at least he hoped it was only the next morning, and he hadn't slept for a full day or more Jeff Kovacs was wakened by a knocking at the door to his room in the brothel. It was decorated horribly, full of red velvet, but it was comfortable. He had the room indefinitely, for services rendered. He had his pick of the girls, for free, too, though still only by the hour.

'Go to h.e.l.l,' he groaned back at the knocking. 'I got a three-day pa.s.s, so come back when it's over.'

'Open the d.a.m.n door or I'll have it revoked right now.'

G.o.ddam officers, Kovacs thought. He pulled the door open, not bothering to put on anything over his shorts and vest. The man standing outside looked like he had caught a whiff of something stinking. Which he probably had. 'This room ain't free, sir. Not my decision, but the management's.'

'I didn't want a room. I wanted to speak to you, Kovacs.'

'I ain't for sale. If you're that desperate, there's a house round the corner.' He leaned casually against the door frame. He'd seen this guy around. Garcia, that was it, from the hospital.

'I was thinking of the scam you're running,' Garcia said. 'Payoffs at the officers' restaurant, you know? Trips to see certain local shopkeepers you deliver, they pay you off.'

'OK, OK,' Kovacs protested. 'Not so loud...'

'Then tell me what exactly you were doing there.'

Kovacs grimaced, looking around the corridor, then pulled Garcia inside and closed the door. 'I was just fulfilling a little deal with the local hoteliers, that's all.'

'Deal?'

Kovacs sighed. 'Look, you know what the catering service is like, don't you? For a company of two hundred men, they bring in enough food for two hundred and fifty. Then, when you count guys who get killed or wounded and shipped back behind the lines, there's maybe only a hundred and fifty to feed at any one time. And what do they do with the extra?'

Kovacs watched the man think it over. Garcia was probably about to say that the extra food would be redistributed among the troops or held over for later use.

'I'll tell you what they do with it,' Kovacs said. 'They throw it in the trash. The whole lot a hundred extra meals a day, at least.'

Garcia looked horrified. 'But... But that food could be... It shouldn't be wasted!'

Kovacs smiled. 'Exactly, sir. That's what I been doing, see. I sell the extra to the local hotels and cafes just behind the lines. In return I get free booze, free nights in the local wh.o.r.ehouse no waiting in line, either and a little retirement fund. I'm telling you sir it's wide open. Now, I know this ain't exactly legit, but at least this way it's helping out some of the civilians the Krauts have starved, instead of just going in the trash to feed the rats.'

Garcia was glaring at him. 'And I'm supposed to agree with that?'

Kovacs sized the man up. 'You'd be letting a lot of people starve if you don't. Hey, let me sweeten the pill a little. You're a hard-working man, a good man, I know you. You help me out, I can help make things a little more... comfortable for you. I can cut you in for a piece. You can take it in cash if you want, but something else can always be arranged. A case of Scotch a week... free time with a couple of hookers, whatever you want. Your call.'

Garcia looked down at his shoes, and Kovacs tried not to smile. Garcia was biting, he knew it. 'You know I should turn you in,' Garcia said quietly.

Kovacs shrugged. 'Sure. And if you do, then I go to the stockade, which won't exactly break my heart, seeing as I'll be out of the line that way. And like I say, the extra rations will go back to being dumped in the trash, where they ain't no good to anybody.'

'All right,' Garcia said. 'I'll turn a blind eye to this... for now, anyway. But I'll want something in return.'

'Just name it, partner.' Kovacs smiled, relishing Garcia's discomfort and waiting expectantly to hear the price.

Garcia turned and walked away. 'I don't know yet. But when I do I know where to find you.'

The Doctor held a bandage he'd just removed from a wounded man for changing. Death. It was so random, yet so inevitable. This was bound to happen sooner or later, he told himself. How lightly he took death in the run of things. He'd seen so much, and never so much as blinked. And now Sam...

He threw the bandage aside. 'Time to go and find them myself.'

Garcia was coming into reception as the Doctor pa.s.sed through, but the Time Lord took no notice. Instead, he made his way through the kitchen to a small courtyard outside. Perhaps he could make contact with the TARDIS's telepathic circuits out here.

'Lost friends and lost souls,' he murmured to himself.

'Evergreen Man,' a voice said. There was a hint of music, not just in the voice, but accompanying it, at the very edge of hearing. The Doctor turned, looking to see who had spoken. There was no one else in the little courtyard. Something was changing, however. The sky was strangely unfocused, and the shadows that crossed the buildings bore no relationship to the light around them.

'Do you have only human eyes? Can you not see me?'

He turned again, realising that the voice was coming from under the tree in the corner. There was a slight shadow there not deep enough or dark enough to hide a person, but that was definitely where it came from. As the Doctor watched, a small and feminine figure stepped out from behind the tree that could never have concealed her.

She had a slender waist, but wide hips. Her cheeks were also wide, and her chin narrowed to a point. The rest of her unearthly features shifted and changed constantly, and the Doctor found her quite beautiful. Her shining hair, parted in the middle and curling inward over her shoulders, was red yet pale, the whitest of gold.

She was wearing the greenest green, like the gra.s.s on the other side of the fence, and sheer enough to display every muscle under the skin. Bells sewn into the material tinkled softly, though the sound didn't seem to travel very far at all. It certainly didn't attract anyone's attention from within the building.

'h.e.l.lo,' the Doctor said politely. 'I'm the Doctor, and to be honest I'm feeling more blue than green right now. How can I help you?'

'I came to ask the same question of you. You spoke of lost friends a moment ago. Perhaps I can find them for you.'

The Doctor glanced sadly at the ground. 'Sometimes that's not possible.'

'Everything's possible, to the imaginative.' She approached, silent and barefoot, heedless of the cold. 'Friends are important.'

'Who are you?' he asked.

She smiled, stroking his hair. 'An old friend, who would not see you suffer in silence.' She c.o.c.ked her head, and slid an arm around his waist.

'I'm sure I would have remembered you...'

'Are you? It appears otherwise.' Suddenly her lips were on his, her tongue gently courting his.

He stepped back hurriedly, looking somewhat puzzled. 'That's not right, is it?' he murmured to himself. 'And yet it doesn't seem terribly wrong...' He turned, taking quick, nervous paces back towards the gate. She was in front of him when he got there.

'Come along, and perhaps we'll find your other friends.'

She stepped forward and vanished. The Doctor could still hear the faint musical tinkling of bells in the air. She left it behind like human women might leave a waft of perfume.

In spite of himself, the Doctor found himself following her. Hope, he realised, that she might be able to help him. As it did so often, hope was moving him automatically.

But, instead of the Bastogne side street, he found a quite different landscape outside the gate.

He was in a wooded glade, filled with vibrantly coloured leaves in spite of the season. Through the trees, he could glimpse white walls and golden domes. A city of some kind, woven throughout the forest. Dark patches on the walls slunk away from the eye, and the Doctor had an uncomfortable feeling of recognition, though he couldn't say why.

She was waiting for him there, and this time her dress seemed appropriate for the surroundings. 'I almost feared you would not come.'

'Who are you?' he asked again.

'A traveller, like yourself. A seeker of knowledge.' She touched his cheek with one finger, and he was unaccountably speechless. 'A philosopher, if you like.'

'And an old friend?'

'Better than that.' She stepped out of her dress.

The Doctor focused on her eyes, which didn't shift or change. 'My friends '

'Will still be there.' She fell into his arms, and he found himself holding her to stop her from falling. She insinuated herself into his embrace, pressing herself against him. 'Later.'

Chapter Five.

The Undiscovered Country Garcia had followed the Doctor through to the kitchen, and was standing in the doorway. 'Doctor!' he bellowed. If the man was anywhere anywhere in the city, he had to have heard that. Garcia was rewarded with the sound of a thud to his left. He hurried out into the little courtyard, and saw the Doctor leaning against the little tree there, looking dazed. in the city, he had to have heard that. Garcia was rewarded with the sound of a thud to his left. He hurried out into the little courtyard, and saw the Doctor leaning against the little tree there, looking dazed.

'Are you all right?'

The Doctor dusted himself off and nodded. 'I think so... How long was I gone?'

'Gone? Gone where? I followed you out just a moment ago.'

The Doctor frowned, then took a hold of Garcia's arm to look at his wrist.w.a.tch. 'No elapsed objective time at all...' He knelt by the foot of the tree, running his fingertips over the footprints there. As far as Garcia could tell, there were only the Doctor's own prints. 'No sign of anyone else being here, either.'

'Was someone here?'

'Maybe. Or maybe not. I think it was probably wholly subjective, but I can't see it being imaginary.'

Garcia didn't like the way this conversation was going. 'You sound like you're trying to say you had a vision.'

'You could call her that.'

Garcia smiled indulgently. At least that was better than talk about spook lights and mist. 'You've been in the field too long, like the rest of us.'

The Doctor grabbed Garcia's arms. 'No. Don't you see? It was definitely a related phenomenon to what Wiesniewski and the others in there saw. It can't have been a coincidence.'

'And I thought you were a man of knowledge,' Garcia said, not unkindly.

'The world asks a high price for knowledge, Captain. When you live long enough to start learning how it works, it takes away those things you hold dearest, as payment. In the end, when you've lost enough, then you lose the ability to even feel loss. And that's the biggest loss of all.'

Garcia shivered. The Doctor didn't sound like he was quoting something he'd heard second-hand. 'And what can you do about it?'

The Doctor squinted into the distance, as if trying to read words written in the chilly air. 'Try to keep ahead of the world, by holding on to what you hold dear, and finding new things to care about when you can't.'

Wiesniewski was pa.s.sing Lewis's office on his way to the water cooler beyond. He hated being down here in the cell area. He imagined someone locking the door, trapping him here, denying him the chance to ever see his baby daughter. He wondered whether she had inherited his eyes or her mother's.

Lewis seemed to be in a good mood, whoever he was talking to. The acoustics down here were annoying, Wiesniewski had quickly discovered. You could always tell when someone was talking, but could never make out what was being said. Instead it just grated on the nerves and interfered with concentration.

He let his eyes wander sideways as he pa.s.sed, vaguely curious to see who was visiting. But there was no one else in the room. Wiesniewski paused in midstep at that realisation.

Lewis was leaning back, his long legs up on the table, his tanned face in repose as he enjoyed a cigar. His eyes were closed, even though he was still talking. 'I still need map coordinates. It's the way things are done here.'

Wiesniewski didn't hear a reply, but Lewis evidently did, as he sighed heavily. 'It doesn't work that way. We learned that last October, back in Philadelphia. Precision is what we need.'

Wiesniewski shivered. And this was the man asking him to keep disturbing thoughts to himself.

'Neither of us care about what Leitz has done,' Lewis said, agreeing with some unheard speech. 'So why bring it up? They're still playing catch-up, and you know it.'

Wiesniewski couldn't say why, but he got the distinct impression that it wasn't just Lewis losing it there really was someone or something with him. It just wasn't anything he could see or hear.

He knew how dumb the idea was. In fact it was downright crazy. But, call him paranoid, he was sure of it all the same: Lewis really was talking to someone who wasn't there. Suddenly, Wiesniewski wasn't so keen on fetching some water, even though his mouth was drier than ever. Instead he stepped carefully back the way he had come. He may not have been able to see Lewis's silent partner, but he didn't want to take a chance on whether or not the reverse was also true.

Bearclaw had been issued with some clean fatigues and was about ready to see if he could find some officer from his own battalion to report to. He wanted to get back out in the field, even though the field was closing around Bastogne. If he waited much longer, there wouldn't be an outside to get to.

He left his room, feeling weakened, but generally healthy. Once he got some good food some hope round here, but he could dream, wouldn't he? into his stomach, he'd be fighting fit.

He paused at the top of the stairs, as three figures pa.s.sed across his peripheral vision. He turned to look at them, wondering how they could have got past him without his hearing them.

They seemed to be surgeons, or at least they wore what looked like surgical gowns. Bearclaw's vision was out of focus all of a sudden, so he couldn't swear to that. He was still surprised that they were so quiet. His eyes flicked over to a clock on the landing. It was silent, too, and the pendulum was hovering to one side, apparently in defiance of gravity.

Confused, and a little dazed by his inconsistent vision, he turned back to the surgeons. The hems of their gowns wafted silently over the floor, but Bearclaw couldn't make out any boots or shoes under the gap. They seemed to have no feet at all.

One of the figures started to turn, and Bearclaw ducked back round the corner, instinctively knowing that if he caught their eyes he would be lost. There was no further sound, other than the drawn-out beat of his own heart, urging him to risk taking another look.

Like in a dream, like when you were a kid and you did something you shouldn't just 'cause you were told not to, he eventually found himself looking round the corner.

There was no one there.

Seizing his chance, Bearclaw darted over to the stairs, and went to look for the Doctor. Another word flashed through his head with that thought Nayenezgani. He shook his head to clear it.

Leitz and Farber were out for a const.i.tutional stroll, looking infuriatingly well rested to Fitz. His body was a ma.s.s of cricks and st.i.tches from trying to sleep lying against an armoured car's wheel after his shift was over.