Falls the Shadow (23 page)

‘Nothing!’ Page confirmed.

‘Actions have consequences.’

‘He that kills a breeding‐
sow,’ Tanith chimed in, ‘destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation.’

‘Bugger the consequences!’ Page straightened up, shaking too freely to cut an impressive figure. ‘They get in the way of freedom.’

‘Freedom.’ Tanith was humourless. ‘Of course.’

‘Don’t you think your actions might have an effect? That you might influence the future?’ Gabriel asked.

‘The future sorts itself out,’ Page asserted.

‘Of course, but think. Every time you act, you negate all the potential futures in which you didn’t.’

‘Blink, and you erase a future in which you didn’t,’ Tanith suggested. ‘Of course, bigger actions have bigger consequences, more futures erased. More potential lives burned away in a moment’s thoughtlessness.’

‘But there’s chaos theory. The departed Professor Winterdawn was working on a holistic model of the universe. Every action affects everything else.’

‘Blink,’ said Tanith, ‘and you kill millions who might have lived.’

‘Crap,’ Ace spat, barging back into the conversation. ‘Okay, what we do affects the future, you can’t avoid that. Doing nothing would have the same effect. You can’t tell! You take the plunge and hope things work out.’

‘You’re right.’ Gabriel spun round. ‘That’s wonderful, wonderful common sense. Now tell me, what happens if you’re a time traveller and you wander into a time or place where by rights you should never have been. What effect do you think you’d have?’

‘Time travel!’ Page leered. ‘You almost had me going for a moment.’

Ace opened her mouth to say something, but found nothing there.

‘Oh please shut your mouth,’ Tanith said disapprovingly. ‘You look like a dead fish and you’re dribbling on your jacket.’

‘Just think, everything you’ve done – or haven’t done – since you appeared on Svartos. The smallest actions irrevocably altering futures of a hundred worlds on which you had no right to be. Millions of potential, real futures dislocated. You – every other time traveller – guilty of genocide to an unimaginable degree. How d’you like them apples?’

Tanith placed a friendly hand on Ace’s shoulder, and adopted a sad, wide‐
eyed expression. Then, with exaggerated slowness, she winked. Ace stared back at her, old feelings of revulsion returning to her. That face was so close to her, so disgusting in its proximity.

‘Those things in the nursery,’ she began, tentatively. ‘I thought they might be dead things. They’re not, are they?’

‘The dead have no reason to hate the living.’ Gabriel clapped his hands in an extravagant mockery of delight. ‘Besides, lurching zombies are
passé
. They aren’t the undead, they’re the unborn.’

Ace nodded, trying to turn away, but Gabriel’s stare had her fixed.

‘They may have been erased from destiny, but the possibility of them is still imprinted into the structure of the universe. We can sense them dimly, perhaps we even have a vague affinity with them.’

‘Careful,’ Tanith checked him. ‘She’ll think you’re fond of something.’

Ace scowled.

‘We can draw them from the structure, with our power we can remake them. The TARDIS came in handy. We set its computers to do all the leg‐
work, while we got on with something more interesting. Not only does it have the power required to calculate all the probabilities but it also kept the system tied up so you never got a chance to leave.’

‘You brought the TARDIS here?’ Ace blurted the question hurriedly, remembering the mystery that had seemed so important the previous evening. Gabriel shook his head.

‘As far as we can tell, that was an enormous coincidence.’

‘These things,’ Ace asked. ‘Why are they coming out of that window?’

Tanith laughed, pushing her face closer.

‘For effect!’ she announced. ‘Why else?’

‘Yeah.’ Ace nodded, feeling shaky. ‘Look, there’s this insect…’

‘One of them,’ Tanith admitted. ‘A dominant evolutionary life‐
form on Earth in one potential. You seemed bored searching those rooms, not finding anything remotely interesting. We introduced it to liven things up for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Ace muttered softly, half‐
closing her eyes and mulling over what Tanith had told her. Something had softened her sense of aggression and anger. She had a great deal to think about.

‘I’ll tell you what I think.’ Page’s voice cut through the careful silence of the bedroom. She slunk deliberately across the room, her body bursting with a desire for confrontation. Gabriel and Tanith wheeled round slowly to match her stare.

‘You know what I think?’ Page snapped.

‘Very little,’ Gabriel suggested. Page let it pass.

‘I think you are talking meaningless, metaphysical shit. I don’t know whether you’re mad enough to believe it yourselves – I don’t know how you got Ace to believe you. All you are is psychotic! You’re as human as I am.’

‘You shot us at point‐
blank range, yet we live. You may have noticed?’

‘Tricks. Drugs, something hypnotic. There’s nothing more. I know the truth. Ace!’ she appealed to her former ally.

Ace shook her head, expecting to despise herself. But for that moment and no longer she felt good. She knew that she had more in common with Gabriel and Tanith than she ever would with the wretched, hateful woman she had been forced to ally herself to.

‘Remember Page,’ she snapped, ‘I don’t
like
you.’

Gabriel broke away from his partner, sweeping towards the angry figure.

‘You know the truth.’ His voice rang with terrible sincerity. ‘Know this! Your world doesn’t exist. You don’t exist. You’re another lost soul, a phantom from a potential reality destroyed by some clumsy time traveller. We pulled you into existence because we needed a wild card and you – because you wanted to make trouble for Winterdawn – were the perfect choice.’

Page stopped in her tracks, glaring at the oncoming figure,

‘Crap! A figment of your imagination!’

‘
You
are a figment of our imagination!’

‘No!’

‘You don’t exist in this world. You know it’s the truth.’

‘Know… I mean, no… I mean…’

‘Yes!’ Gabriel snarled triumphantly.

‘No,’ Page mouthed, a hollow denial. She sank to her knees, fierce but hopeless anger blazing from her eyes. For a minute Ace thought that she was going to break down and cry. She didn’t. Too proud. Gabriel floated closer, and as he moved his body unfolded like a cloak billowing in a gale. The folds of his body swept around her, enveloping her, swallowing her. Ace saw a final despairing scream play soundlessly on Page’s mouth before she was engulfed.

Then she was gone. They were both gone.

Ace was alone with Tanith and the oblivious husk of Bernice.

Ace was weary. She let her body sink under its own weight. Everything that had happened in the house had led her here, now, to this moment. The big confrontation. And it was an anticlimax. She felt impotent – unable to do anything but watch and understand.

‘Ace,’ the Doctor’s voice echoed, ‘if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your form long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you, except the will which says to them: “Hold on!”, then you’re the Ace I remember.’

‘Yeah, thanks a bloody bunch Doctor,’ she muttered.

She had a deal to make.

Look Mum, I’ve sold my soul twice in one day!

‘Is Benny dead?’ she asked, forcing herself despite the weariness she felt, knowing what she wanted to say, what she was going to say.

‘Her soul has been wrenched from her body.’ Tanith shrugged.

‘Is there any possibility…’ Ace proceeded slowly through the sentence making certain she used the most meaningful words possible. ‘Any potential hope, that she could still be alive?’

‘I know what you’re saying.’ Tanith smiled, not unkindly. ‘I can’t do that. There are only a few thousand potentials open to us. The chances of one of them being a Bernice Summerfield is remote to say the least. Besides, it wouldn’t be your Benny. The woman you’ve known is gone.’

Ace nodded, raising a hand to her face to mask her disappointment.

Slowly, almost grudgingly, she began to cry.

‘If it’s any consolation, we didn’t want her to die.’

‘Does it matter? She’s dead.’

‘She’ll fade in your mind. You won’t forget her, but the pain will die.’

‘I’m sorry, but that sounds bloody stupid.’

Tanith placed a palm against Ace’s cheek. Ace pulled her head back to stare long and soft into her eyes.

‘Think of it this way.’ Tanith’s voice was high and sweet. ‘You’ve got me now.’ Ace’s eyes narrowed as she broke into a weary nod.

‘I’ve got you now,’ Ace agreed, dreamily whispering the electric phrase. Her hands leapt to lock round Tanith’s neck, eyes alive with blood and fire.

‘I’ve got you now, you bitch!’ she snarled and tightened her grip.

Ace knew the pressure it took to kill quickly, the pressure it took to be certain of a killing, the pressure it took to snap a neck. All three became one pressure in her hands. She applied it, teeth gritted into a perverse grin.

Tanith’s face burst open into a thick and hateful smile. Her eyes were black and burning. Ace’s hatred was a furious storm, blind to everything, but she realized that the woman didn’t even seem uncomfortable.

‘You give me myself,’ Tanith hissed, forcing the words through lack of breath. She broke into a stunted giggle.

Ace looked into Tanith’s eyes and saw herself reflected there. A vicious animal, face contorted with hatred. She saw her own eyes – mere sockets, wet and dark. She saw Gabriel’s hands locked round Benny’s throat at breakfast. She saw doubt.

She relaxed, releasing the throttling grip. She could see the bruises she had made on Tanith’s neck and discovered that she had lost the desire to tighten her grip.

‘Can you imagine?’ Tanith’s black eyes shone, a hundred points of light reflected in their facets. ‘Can you imagine what it is like to be dropped in at the deep end of existence, with intimate knowledge of everything yet not being a part of it?’

Ace shook her head grimly.

‘Gabriel and I have no meaning. We are utterly pointless people. We are the notes from underground, chords, maybe whole tunes. Cognizant of every culture, of every identity, yet having none of our own. You little person, you’re a programmed instrument, determined by influences around you.’

Ace shook her head again.

‘I’m not determined by anybody.’

‘Oh yes, good little rebel. Even a reaction against a system is a product of that system. You’re just so wrapped up in your own culture you don’t realize it! Deep down, you’re the biggest conformist of them all!’

‘So what are you then?’ Ace sneered.

‘We had no influences, no culture. We were born cold into reality. Christ, it’s difficult working on the level of one culture, addressing people as narrow and as limited as you. How can you possibly envisage the pain of using one rigid language? One grammar? One syntax? Just to get by? We have to make an identity for ourselves. Anything goes! Squeeze harder, it’s good for me. I’m Tanith, Tanith the victim, Tanith the tortured. Don’t care, doesn’t really matter, any way the wind blows. Th‐
th‐
th‐
th‐
that’s all folks!’

‘You’re sick.’

‘I am, aren’t I? But delicious with it.
Squeeze
.’

Ace shoved her away. She turned her back on her in disgust.

‘What are you now?!’ she yelled. ‘Apart from insecure?’

‘I’ll be anything you want,’ Tanith whispered, her voice a reedy exercise at Ace’s back. ‘I have to. Play games with me, my love. Anything will do. Tortured. Or
torturer
.’

A spasm of pain leapt up Ace’s spine. She arched backwards, mouth twisting half into a gasp, half into a silent scream. She tried to claw at the source of the pain – deep in her agonized, curved back – but her arms remained paralysed, locked at her side.

‘Sadist!’ Tanith’s voice rang clearly behind her.

Ace sank to her knees, a needle‐
sharp pain puncturing her skull and driving slowly into her brain.

‘Dealer of pain!’ Tanith declaimed.

Ace fell flat onto the floor and began to writhe. The pain was everywhere, encompassing all things, shrieking hideously through her body. She tried to howl, to cry out, but she couldn’t bear to move her tongue.

Tanith’s boot nudged her face gently.

‘See what I have found, my darling.’ The voice was high and distant and filled Ace with disgust. It wasn’t an emotion strong enough to fight back the pain. ‘Can you hear the sea?’

The grey man came to a standstill. He smiled, bowing slightly, removing his hat. The Doctor noted that there was a dark streak in his white hair. When he spoke, his voice was smooth and pleasant and as ageless as his face.

‘Hello, Professor Winterdawn, Theta Sigma. I had hoped that this meeting need not take place, but nonetheless I am honoured to meet you.’

Theta Sigma.

The Doctor considered the grey man with colder eyes than before. Theta Sigma was a secret he kept well guarded. It was not his name but it identified him uniquely among the Time Lords. It should not have been spoken outside the Academy of Gallifrey, and the Doctor was certain that whatever the grey man might he, he was not a Time Lord.

‘You know more,’ he said, the coldness in his voice matching that in his hearts, ‘than you should.’

‘I have followed your movements for some time. I have noted your vendetta against the Dalek empire with considerable distaste.’

The Doctor frowned, leaping instantly to his own defence.

‘The Daleks must he fought. They have no conception of morality.’

‘Indeed.’ The grey man clicked his tongue. ‘At times the contest seems to be one to find which of you can display the least possible morality.’

The Doctor’s next sentence was snapped and terse:

‘The Daleks are irredeemably evil!’

‘Nothing is irredeemably evil.’ The grey man was shaking his head slowly. ‘Especially not the Daleks. You should know, you’ve seen it.’

‘There must be justice,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘And vengeance.’

‘Nemesis?’ the grey man asked suggestively.