Doctor Who_ Autumn Mist Part 16

Then there were the cables: thick, steel-ribbed ones that coiled around the hull and turret and connected to a large sealed box on the rear deck. Smaller cables branched off to attach on to those plates over the wheels. Kovacs was totally baffled: he'd never seen anything like it. The only thing he could think of would be that it might be for electrifying the outside of the tank, but what would be the point, even if you could do it without frying the crew inside?

As he inspected the Shermans, Lewis could be sure of at least one thing: Oberon could not come here. Not before the tanks' modifications were switched on, at least. Although Oberon was his friend, and had helped him, Lewis found almost guiltily that it was a relief not to have to worry about him showing up.

The crews were already waiting for him, so Lewis mounted the first tank.

'You can take the jeep back to headquarters,' he called across to Kovacs. 'I don't know how long this test is going to take.'

'Yes, sir,' Kovacs called back. With the speed of the jeep, he might still be able to collect some of his payments, he thought. Pleased with the idea, he drove the jeep back up the low hill into the town centre.

Kovacs absently glanced round on the brow of the hill, and was forced to stand on the jeep's brake to avoid cras.h.i.+ng it out of pure shock. One of the Shermans below had not only revved up its engine, but was generating a strange electrical hum. The cables and wheel plates that had been added to it were glowing with a faint ochre light. Worst of all, it seemed to be fading.

The light rippled around it, turning the tank briefly to crystal-clear gla.s.s, through which he could see the building on the other side, and then it was gone altogether. Its tracks were still leaving indentations in the ground, but those too stopped after a few yards.

Kovacs sat there for several long minutes, just looking.

Garcia had attracted a certain amount of ribbing for the strength of his faith, but he dreaded to think how much laughter the Doctor's story would generate in the ranks. What was really odd was that Bearclaw, Wiesniewski and the new guy, Kreiner, were all listening in total seriousness, and had even exchanged notes.

'Elves and fairies?' he scoffed. 'I know it's Christmas, but that doesn't mean I expect Santa's little helpers to get involved in the war. Mind you, if the guy in the red suit wants to drop off some supplies to us, that'd be fine with me.'

The Doctor frowned. 'Believe me, you wouldn't want these people packing your Christmas parcels.'

'Doctor, I do like to think of myself as having an open mind, but '

'"But but but but..." There's always a but, isn't there? Open minds are the best kind, but nature abhors a vacuum, so if you've got an open mind someone always tries to come along and put something in it.'

'But that is what you're saying, isn't it? That these creatures are what folklorists would call elves, or '

'In a way,' the Doctor admitted. 'They're beings who exist in our s.p.a.ce-time continuum, but out of phase with what we can perceive of it.'

'Out of phase? You mean like some sort of parallel world?'

'No no no. There are are such things, of course, but this isn't one of them. Their world is your world. This is a single continuum that you and they share. It's just that they can perceive and exist in more of it than we can.' such things, of course, but this isn't one of them. Their world is your world. This is a single continuum that you and they share. It's just that they can perceive and exist in more of it than we can.'

'I don't understand. How can there be more of the world?'

The Doctor grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, and drew a small circle. 'Imagine that circle is a two-dimensional being. It could move about anywhere on this paper, yes?' Garcia nodded. 'But it can't move vertically.' The Doctor waved a hand above the circle. 'It can't look up and see my hand, because it can't perceive the third spatial dimension.

'Now, Earth scientists will soon discover that the universe has more than four dimensions: in fact there are eleven at last count. That means the world has eleven dimensions instead of four. But life as you know it perceives only those four dimensions. You can't see the rest of it. The Sidhe, or whatever you want to call them, do perceive and exist in all eleven, and we are to them what our two-dimensional friend here ' he tapped the paper 'is to us.'

'Hang on, though. The one we saw was humanoid. But the reports from Wiesniewski and the others are completely different discarnate lights, shadows, movement... Are they humanoid or aren't they?'

'More than humanoid, perhaps.' The Doctor indicated the paper. 'If I put my hand through that, fingertips first, our two-dimensional friend would perceive it as four circles merging into a larger oval, with a fifth circle my thumb appearing to the side then merging with the rest...' Garcia nodded. 'But if I do this...' the Doctor slapped his palm down on the paper, fingers spread 'Then it sees a hand...' Garcia finished thoughtfully.

'Or at least a hand shape, though there's more to the complete hand than it can see.'

'All right, so Bearclaw claims to have seen humanlike figures. But what about the things Wiesniewski saw? They weren't partial limbs '

'You're still thinking in such limited terms. What the others saw could easily have been the kinetic energy of the Sidhe's movement, or their biodata reacting to the local environment, or any of a dozen other things.'

Garcia didn't understand a word of the Doctor's explanations. 'Then why appear as human here?'

'Well, as you saw, they've obviously adopted a different phase position '

'No,' Garcia interrupted. 'I meant why? Out in the field they don't care whether their appearance fits in with the environment or the people around. But in here they take the trouble to "position" themselves as human-looking. They try to blend in. So why is that?'

The Doctor grinned. 'Excellent! A wonderful question, in fact. It's a pity I'm not sure of the answer. I mean, it could simply be a necessity to fit in with the environment, since these buildings are designed for human occupation. But my instincts tell me there must be more to it than that.'

'But if they're from Earth,' Garcia said, desperately trying to understand, 'surely they'd already be suited to the environment...'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Let me put it this way. Imagine Earth is a tower block. Each parallel world is a different floor. But each floor has eleven apartments, which correspond to the various dimensions or planes within that level. So, our perceptions keep us confined to apartments 1A to 1D, but the Sidhe have access to 1A through to 1K.'

'And would those parallel worlds have eleven dimensions, too?'

'If they're in a universe where the same physical laws apply, then yes, and they'd have their own parallel Sidhe as well.'

Garcia looked blank, trying to get it all straight in his mind. 'You said "your world "...' He hesitated, not wanting to upset the Doctor any more than he wanted to look foolish. 'You keep talking as if you're not one of us. Are you one of these Sidhe?'

'Oh, no, I'm afraid not. I'm just a normal guy from a different planet, that's all. A quaint little green one in a quiet neighbourhood,' he added.

Garcia just stared at him.

If he'd just heard what he thought he'd heard, then either he or the Doctor was a candidate for the nuthouse. Or, Garcia realised, the Doctor was bulls.h.i.+tting him to take his mind off the problems at hand. He couldn't really fault the guy for that. 'You picked a pretty c.r.a.ppy vacation spot.'

'A warzone...' the Doctor murmured softly. 'Where else is a Doctor most likely to be needed? I seem to end up in battlefields the way cigarette smoke is drawn to the only nonsmoker in a room.' He paused, then began to recite: 'With an host of furious fancies Whereof I am commander, With a burning spear, And a horse of air, To the wilderness I wander.'By a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to journey Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end, Methinks it is no journey.'

'Sounds like you,' said Fitz, casually. 'Don't recognise the poet; when was that written?'

'First published in Giles Earle: His Booke Giles Earle: His Booke, in 1615, by that prolific writer "Anon". He's always been my favourite poet, you know.'

'So you didn't write it yourself, then?' Fitz teased, lightly.

Garcia decided it would be easier to ignore this little aside to the main conversation and steer things back to the matters in hand whatever the h.e.l.l they were. 'But come on, even if these beings existed, wouldn't there be some kind of evidence? Fossils or something?'

'Not necessarily. Tell me: how long has h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens been around?' Garcia shrugged, and the Doctor continued. 'The accepted figure's about half a million years, though it's really nearer six. Now... Recorded history of been around?' Garcia shrugged, and the Doctor continued. 'The accepted figure's about half a million years, though it's really nearer six. Now... Recorded history of h.o.m.o sapiens h.o.m.o sapiens goes back only ten thousand years or so. So what was happening in the rest of that time?' goes back only ten thousand years or so. So what was happening in the rest of that time?'

Garcia opened and closed his mouth silently, trying to grasp the idea. 'Dinosaurs?' he said finally. 'No, sorry that was silly... I don't know. What was it then?'

The Doctor smiled. 'Lots of things. Things that have left race memories in humanity's collective unconscious. And those memories are what produces religion and folklore, to try to explain half-forgotten shadows in the psyche.'

'Like the Sidhe.'

'Intriguing, isn't it? A race dimensionally out of phase but still sharing your planet with you.'

'And getting caught in the crossfire of this war,' Fitz added.

'Yes. Either by accident or design. I think accident, though at least one of them seems to be taking advantage of the situation for his own ends. We'll have to deal with him too. What we're going to need is ' The Doctor stopped, as a column of whirling light suddenly extruded itself into the lobby. The whirlwind resolved itself into a few glowing embers which orbited each other, merging and pulsing.

'd.a.m.n,' a female voice said, sounding like something half heard from another part of the building, 'I'll never get the hang of this if I live to be a hundred.'

The Doctor blinked. 'Sam?'

'Hang on, I think I'm supposed to ' The lights disappeared, and a young blonde woman was standing in the middle of the room. Garcia's hand fumbled for the arm of a chair, and sat down without taking his eyes off her. It wasn't that she was attractive though she was but that she had seemed to be an invisibly thin line that had turned round and become solid. Behind her, a faintly glowing figure had also appeared.

Maybe he'd got a whiff of some ether or something...

Lewis didn't feel at all uncomfortable sitting in the back of Leitz's command truck. He had brought the same number of guards as Leitz, and their vehicles were about equally matched. He had nothing to fear from a double-cross.

Besides, nothing had gone wrong in their previous meetings.

'I don't suppose you'd care to share a few of the battle plans with us, Jurgen?' Lewis asked casually in English. 'Just for old times' sake?'

'Oh, come now, Allen, you know I can't do that. It would look bad if ever it got out. Not like discussing the Elfenhaft Elfenhaft. Besides, you and I both know that this offensive cannot last. Already it is beginning to crumble, and soon you will push our forces back.' Lewis nodded. That was true enough. 'The important thing is to prove that the Elfenhaft Elfenhaft's home, this... Marchenland Marchenland, is something worthy of exploiting in future military development. It will give the forces of the West a huge advantage when they eventually face the Russians.'

'If it can be proved that it can be exploited practically.'

'Exactly.' Leitz took a sip of his cognac. 'Which is why I'm sending a Panzer squadron a couple of Tigers, maybe ten Mark IVs to meet your forces. If the battle can be manoeuvred into Marchenland Marchenland, then we know it is a suitable subject for development after the war.'

Chapter Eight.

Natural History The Doctor and Fitz had both hugged Sam. G.o.d, it was good to be held again.

'I've had enough of losing you,' the Doctor said. 'More than enough. We were told you were dead. There were enough witnesses.'

'Apparently the Sidhe patched me up. Being seen with you has been a good thing, just for a change. They seem to like you.'

'You mean they want to keep on my good side so I'll help them,' the Doctor said, gently.

Sam nodded. 'I've been there. I mean, here. Well, wherever they live I've been, and the damage is appalling. It's like a warzone there as well as here.'

'Who's your friend over there, trying to cloud our minds?' Fitz looked around, clearly realising that the Sidhe had disappeared from his vision.

'The only bit I caught was something like Galastel.' Sam turned to look at him, hovering discreetly by the far wall, and smiled. 'He's not really bothered what we call him.'

The Doctor tapped his chin as if in thought. 'Hmm. "Radiant hope".'

'What?'

'You said you called him Galastel. It means "radiant hope". Didn't you know?'

Sam shook her head. 'I just caught a s.n.a.t.c.h of what he told me; it doesn't really mean anything.'

'All names mean something; it's what gives them their power.' He smiled rea.s.suringly. 'It's probably a race memory, like speaking in tongues. You humans have been dealing with these beings for all of your species' existence.'

'We have?'

'What else are fairy tales? Not the sanitised ones of your century, but the old tales, of the little people, and the changelings...'

'The whats?' Sam asked.

'Don't you know what a changeling is?'

'No, I never saw much of Deep s.p.a.ce Nine Deep s.p.a.ce Nine Dad was always watching the news.' Dad was always watching the news.'

The Doctor paused to look at her. 'I sometimes despair for the state of education in your decade,' he said finally 'People used to believe that fairies or elves, leprechauns, whatever would steal away a healthy human baby and leave one of theirs, or a half-breed, in its place. A changeling, in other words.'

'Some kind of genetic experiments?' Sam wondered aloud. 'Cross-fertilisation?'

'Possibly. Or it could just be human paranoia after coincidental side effects. Like I say, humans and the Sidhe have been in contact with each other for a very, very long time.'

t.i.tania could sense her Oberon returning. He didn't announce himself, of course: just phased himself into her private sanctum, in breach of all etiquette. He knew there was nothing she would do.

'Harridan!' he snapped. 'Witch! Adulteress!'

'Is something wrong?' she responded mildly.

'Apart from my consort attempting to seduce members of other races?'

A familiar argument. 'I was merely '

'Playing games, yes.' He scoffed. 'Games are fun, but old games are so dull. I much prefer new ones.'

'And I do not. There is a tradition that must be upheld.'

'That you must uphold,' he corrected. 'The only tradition I must uphold is rather different.'

'As you never cease to remind me,' she answered wearily. How wonderful it would be to not have to endure his excesses any more. 'Stop pretending to be something other than a fool, and admit you're simply jealous.'

'Jealous?' He seemed to think about this. 'And what if I am?'

'Your position as my consort is a political one, not a spiritual one. It should not matter to the Amadan na Briona Amadan na Briona if I take a thousand mortal lovers.' if I take a thousand mortal lovers.'

'Should? Should not? What do I care about should and should not? I feel what I feel. You "should not" be paying such attention to the Evergreen Man. You know he will never return your affections.'