"Now if you"ll excuse me," said the Doctor, "there is something I must do."
"You"re not leaving me here with him," said Ace. "He"s a spy."
"I"m no spy, man," said Ray, suddenly downcast.
The Doctor paused on his way out of the room, looking back at Ace sitting there. "I suppose you could come with me."
"Yes please."
"But only if you feel well enough."75.
Ace lurched up from the chair. She felt a trifle woozy, but otherwise all right. "Anything is better than staying around here with him."
"Sticks and stones, man, sticks and stones," said Ray, resuming the Sisyphean task of changing needles on his record player.
The night air was warm and balmy but it helped clear Ace"s head. She said, "How could you, Doctor?"
"How could I what?"
"Give him that record. It"s something the enemy was trying to smuggle to him, and you let it get through."
"Well," said the Doctor. "In a sense you could say that Rosalita died trying to get that record to him. You could say that I was merely honouring her last wish."
"Trust me, those are two things that I"m not going to be saying any time soon. She tried to poison us and she tried to shoot you. Me. Us. I"m not honouring any last wish of hers."
"Be that as it may, I gave the record to him."
Ace stole a look at the Doctor. "I hope you know what you"re doing," she said.
"At the moment I"m very certain indeed of my course of action."
"And what"s that?"
The Doctor told her, briefly and concisely.
"Well, count me in," said Ace when he finished explaining.
The Doctor sighed. "It looks as if I"m going to receive some more reprimands about getting you back to your barracks late. Now the first thing we need to do is stop at the Fuller Lodge and collect my umbrella."
"Why, do you think it"s going to rain?"
"No," said the Doctor. "No, not at all."
Moonlight was falling through the window of Professor Henbest"s office in his prefabricated hut. Henbest was sitting at his desk, working late, writing up his notes on that afternoon"s session with the English girl who was called Acacia but liked to style herself Ace. There was a noise in the darkened office.
Henbest only had the light from his green-shaded desk lamp, which was directed at his papers, and the thin white light of the moon through the window.
He peered into the shadows of the room.
"Is someone there?"
A small figure stepped out of the shadows. It was that Dr John Smith character. Like everyone else, Henbest seemed to have fallen into the habit of referring to him simply as the Doctor. The Doctor was standing there holding an umbrella. Henbest glanced at the window. It wasn"t raining. While 76Henbest was looking at the window, the Doctor sat down in one of the armchairs facing his desk. Henbest frowned at him. He didn"t return Henbest"s gaze. At length, Henbest cleared his throat.
"Can I help you?"
The Doctor looked up at him as if surprised to hear him speak. "Help me?
Yes, I believe you can."
"Then I suggest you make an appointment and arrange to see me during proper office hours. I am finished for the day now. Quite finished."
"Not quite," said the Doctor. He stood up, though, as if he was about to leave.
Then he turned to the desk and lifted his umbrella, pointing it at Henbest.
There was a faint spitting sound and Henbest felt a sudden tiny pain in his neck, as though a mosquito had bitten him. He swatted his neck with his hand, but there was nothing there. The Doctor remained standing in front of his desk, watching him.
"He"s ready now, if you want to join us," said the Doctor. At his words, Ace stepped out of the shadows and sat down in one of the chairs. The Doctor set his umbrella carefully on the floor and sat down again in the other chair.
Both he and Ace stared at Henbest as though he were some kind of animal in a cage, exotic but dangerous and also mildly distasteful.
Henbest tried to clear his throat and say something, but found that he couldn"t. He must have made some faint sound, though, because the Doctor nodded and said, "Don"t worry. You"re paralysed but the muscles which control your breathing will remain unaffected. If you just relax I think you"ll find that you"re reasonably comfortable. You may be wondering how I managed to administer a dose of a paralysing toxin to you. Earlier today you may recall that you used a syringe to perform a similar procedure on Ace."
"Two syringes," said Ace, rubbing the bruised flesh of her inner arm.
"But we had access to less crude technology. The toxin I used was contained in the hollow centre of a tiny gold pellet which I have just fired into your neck using this." The Doctor nudged the umbrella lying on the carpet with the toe of his shoe. "There are holes drilled in the gold pellet, allowing the toxin to diffuse swiftly into your bloodstream."
"You should shoot him twice," said Ace. "Like I said, he used two syringes on me."
"I"m afraid this device is only good for one pellet at a time, without a laborious and time-consuming reloading process." The Doctor got up from his chair and paced the carpet. Sitting there paralysed at his desk, Henbest noticed for the first time the peculiar aura aura that surrounded the Doctor. that surrounded the Doctor.
"You are now feeling the effects of that toxin," said the Doctor. "Just as the pellet mechanism is more sophisticated than your crude syringes, the toxin 77I"ve given you is immensely more sophisticated than the crude concoction you administered to Ace."
"That"s right," said Ace. "And you"re not going to like it one little bit."
The strange aura was just discernible in the dim light of the room. As the Doctor stepped away from the desk lamp into a deeper patch of shadow the aura became more emphatic. It was a kind of swirling rainbow glow, like the rainbow slick you see on the surface of water contaminated with gasoline. It flowed around the Doctor"s outline, gathering into busy roiling waves on his shoulder and, particularly, on the crown of his head.
"You drugged Ace so you could try and learn the truth about me," said the Doctor. The rainbow aura actually spiralled up from his head like steam rising to fade into the darkness, or like smoke from a chimney. The rainbow smoke kept rising, lifting from the Doctor"s head into the darkness of the ceiling.
"You"re interested in the truth? Very well." The Doctor stopped pacing and turned to face Henbest. Henbest noticed with a rising sensation of alarm that the Doctor"s eyes had been replaced with two smouldering red coals that looked like they had just spilled from a roaring fire. "I"ll give you the truth."
The glowing red coal eyes seemed to be staring into Henbest"s very soul. "I am a creature quite beyond your imagining, Henbest"s he said. The Doctor opened his mouth to reveal a vast number of extremely sharp teeth.
"I am a time traveller, a being from another world who can roam at will through time and s.p.a.ce. I am possessed of almost G.o.dlike powers."
"Tell him you can fly."
"Ace, please."
"Tell him you can fly. Tell him that we can both fly and that we fly around the universe fighting crime. And righting wrongs."
The Doctor turned back to Henbest. The smouldering coals had gone and his eyes were back, and as far as Henbest could tell his mouth seemed to only possess the usual complement of teeth. But the rainbow aura flowing around the Doctor had intensified now, spilling upwards into the darkness in a steady stream. "You heard, Ace," he said. "We can do everything she said, and more."
As the Doctor spoke, a number of small black things about the size of moths but shaped more like bats escaped from his lips and fluttered around the room before disappearing into the shadowed corners of the ceiling.
"Tell him I"m dressed like the devil, complete with horns and a pitchfork and I"m prodding him with the pitchfork."
"Really, Ace."
"It was me that got injected with drugs against my will. Twice."
"Oh very well. Ace is garbed like the traditional image of the devil, presumably all in red "
"All in red, right. With horns and a pointy tail and hooves."78.
"Yes, with the traditional horns and pointed tail and cleft hooves. And she is a.s.sailing you with a pitchfork as the flames of h.e.l.l lick all around you." The Doctor glanced at Ace, "Should he be able to smell the sulphur and brimstone?"
"You bet he should." They both paused to peer at Professor Henbest, the Doctor adjusting the desk lamp so that it shone into the man"s face. Sweat gleamed on Henbest"s forehead and, as they watched, several new beads of moisture gathered at his hairline and began the long crawl down his face.
"Really, Ace, I"m not sure how effective this is. We don"t even know if the man"s a devout Catholic."
"All right. Tell him I"m a dolphin."
"A what?"
"I"m a dolphin and he"s a tuna, or some other small game fish. And I"m on his tail and I"m about to eat him. But first I"m going to bat him around a bit in a painful, playful way with my other dolphin friends. We"re all swimming together in a school and. . . What"s the matter with him? Why"s he making that funny noise?"
The Doctor moved quickly to Henbest and examined him where he sat. "I think he"s drowning. Or at least, I think he thinks thinks he"s drowning. In any case he seems to be drowning." he"s drowning. In any case he seems to be drowning."
"But I said he was a tuna."
"Clearly he doesn"t know how to use his gills. . . I suggest we abandon the dolphin imagery. Under the influence of this medication, the suggestion he"s drowning might be powerful enough for his body to accept it and indeed kill him."
"OK, OK. We"re back on dry land and he"s not a tuna and I"m not a dolphin.
In fact we"re in the middle of the desert and I"m an Arab princess and he"s my prisoner and I"ve got him staked outside my tent in the blistering sun and. . . "
"And I suggest that we abandon this line of suggestion before he acquires a nasty sunburn. Do you think possibly that he has now atoned for what he did to you?"
"Not even close," said Ace. "But you can go ahead and get down to business if you like."
The Doctor turned to Henbest. "First," he said, "I want you to emerge from this experience with the strong conviction that Ace and I have both been fully interviewed by you and have emerged from our psych evaluations with flying colours."
"Flying colours," agreed Ace.
"You will conclude that neither of us could possibly be any kind of a security risk and, indeed, that we"re both very nice people."
"Don"t push it," said Ace.79.
"And that is all you will remember." The Doctor leaned closer to Henbest, who sat, silent and helpless, behind his desk. "You will not remember any of the devil or dolphin business or any strange impression you might fleetingly have formed of me. Nor will you remember any of the questions which I am about to ask you."
"Questions?" said Ace, sitting up in her armchair. "I thought we were through here."
"Not quite."
"But he can"t talk," said Ace.
"He can now," said the Doctor. He turned back to Henbest and said, "Is that not the case, Professor?"
"Yes," said Henbest.
"What do you know about Lady Silk?"
"Some kind of subversive j.a.p propaganda s.e.x bomb. Major Butcher spends a lot of time chasing around trying to stop people listening to her broadcasts and her records."
"And you think that"s a waste of time?"
Henbest snorted. "I think he"s secretly in love with her. In any event, he has to do something to fill the empty hours of his day. Let him go around confiscating music."
"What would you say if you knew that Major Butcher believes that Lady Silk"s songs contained coded messages from enemy spies?"
"I would laugh heartily and I would underline what I said earlier about him having too much time on his hands. I might also add some unflattering remarks about him being incipiently paranoid."
"Does the name Imperial Lee mean anything to you?"
"Imperial Lee? No."
"And you know nothing at all about a group known as the Rising Sun Apocalypse Commandos?"
"I don"t like the sound of that," said Ace.
"No, I know nothing about them," said Henbest.
"Very good." The Doctor glanced at Ace. "That"s all the questions I"ve got. Is there anything you wanted to ask him?"
"Yes." Ace rose from her chair and stepped towards the desk. "Why are you such a b.a.s.t.a.r.d Professor Henbest?"
"Because I was hopelessly indulged and spoiled as a child as a result of my older brother"s tragic death in a swimming accident," said Henbest promptly.
They left Henbest sitting there at his desk, one lonely lamp burning in his darkened office. "He"ll come back to full awareness in a few minutes and have no memory of our visit," said the Doctor. They made their way between 80the giant half-pipe shadows of the prefab huts, heading back towards Ashley Pond, where moonlight gleamed on the dark water.
"Listen, Doctor," said Ace.
"Yes?"
"You want to get Edward Teller to change his mind, don"t you? About the chain reaction. About the world blowing up. That"s one of our main objectives on this caper."
"Mission, Ace, mission. Yes, that"s one of our main objectives." The Doctor was a vague silhouette, swinging his umbrella as he loped along.