combine like this, everything is confused. Space is affected
by time. It's a dimension of time and it also has its own
dimensions. It has to obey whatever rules apply. In Chaos,
these storms are usually benign. In Law they aren't. Far from
it. So if this quadrant is controlled by Frank/Freddie Force
and his Antimatter Men, we're probably in serious trouble.'
'Is there anyone out there who can save us?'
'Probably.' He was helping her into her suit. 'Like I said,
it depends who's in control. I've already sent out a wide-
band SOS. Well have to wait and see who picks it up. If it's
Frank/Freddie or Lady Peggy the Invisible, don't hold your
breath. I'm trying to get us into the Second Aether. If that
works, at least well be in territory occupied by both Law and
Chaos, Matter and Antimatter. You'd better hope Captain
Abberley and the Bubbly Boys hear my SOS first. The sonic
screwdriver's been set to that signal for ten minutes.'
The ship stopped bucking. Outside, the strands of the
black tide had vanished. They were drifting against a field of
intense scarlet. Cosmic no man's land, thought Amy.
The Doctor was gleeful. 'I did it! Didn't think I could. Are
you amazed?'
'But where are we, Doctor? Have you any idea?'
'I certainly have, Amy. See over there?' The blurred outline
of what looked like a seagoing yacht, somehow behind one
layer of scarlet with many more layers on the other side of it.
'That's old Quelch's ship, as I live and breathe.'
'Who's Quelch?'
'Captain Quelch? Chaos Engineer. A possible enemy if
there's something in it for him. But then he'd do pretty much
anything if there was something in it for him. Good rule of
thumb - don't trust him. Don't believe a word he says. He's
as likely to be in league with Frank/ Freddie Force as not.'
'And where are we?'
'Oh, sorry. I got us into the Second Aether. It's how we
escaped from the storm. It was so violent it might even have
destroyed us. I've never known a time storm like it. Not in
this region, anyway. That ship was built to survive the hearts
of stars and she's about to be smashed to bits! I don't know
if I can get us out.' He peered through the observation V.
'Ouch! It hurts your eyes, doesn't it?' He turned, frowning,
pursing his lips, thinking hard. 'We're in a rendezvous point.
You have to have them in this kind of environment.'
'Which is?'
'Didn't I tell you? Should be obvious.' He allowed himself
a hint of self-congratulation for getting them there. 'That,
Amy, is Ketchup Cove!'
Chapter 17
The Red and the Black
KETCHUP COVE GLITTERED WITH a thousand shades of scarlet, twisting
and rolling. Amy made out tiny specks drifting in it, specks
which converged and came closer. Soon she realised that
each one was a vessel of some kind. Yet not one of the ships
resembled anything she had ever seen in space before. These
were old-fashioned schooners and steam tugs and slender
yachts. They moved up and down slowly as if riding at anchor
upon some gentle sea. Other ships fashioned of ebony and
ivory, onyx and coral were not so familiar but were as bizarre
and beautiful as anything she had ever seen in all her travels
with the Doctor. She realised she was outside the Gargantua
standing on her endless hull.
'We can't be in the Second Aether long,' the Doctor was
saying. 'Not now. We might be able to get back here. In fact
we have to get back here at some stage. But those plates have
popped and others could still go. They need time to make
repairs.'
'Why, Doctor, why?' / 'Why, Doctor, wh-?'/ 'Wh-?' She
shook her head, trying to clear it of the echoes filling it.
A small skiff skipped past, skimming the scarlet and pink
waters of a bloody lake. A great roaring of surf filled her ears,
growing louder and louder, yet still her own voice continued
to echo as she watched his lips moving, forming words she
could not hear. It was her own voice roaring.
'Nowhere else is as safe,' he said, very clearly and calmly.
'And even here we are going to find as many enemies as
friends.'
'What is, what is, what is, what is...' She drew a deep
breath and forced herself to stop.
'The Second Aether? It's the space between. It's where
I think we'll find the Roogalater. The Regulator. In that
space.'
'Between what?'
'Between everything. Between the First Aether and the
Third. Between Law and Chaos. Between Life and Death.
Between Matter and Antimatter. Between Dreams and
Waking. You name it, Amy...'
'Me name it? I can't name anything. I don't even know
where we are.'
'I told you.'
'The centre? The centre of the multiverse? The centre of
reality? The centre of nowhere? How did we get here?'
He brandished his sonic screwdriver and winked. Reflected
light gave his face a bloody appearance. Then he vanished.
Suddenly she was terrified. She had no resources left, no
courage, no intelligence, no physical energy. Nothing.
She felt that she was buoyed up on water. She was
swimming. Doing her best to stay afloat. A mist was rising
and there was something coming up under her feet. A ship?
No. It was a man. A man she had never seen before. He had
a sallow hatchet face with cold, mocking eyes. He wore a
crumpled linen suit, a white cotton shirt, a dark blue bow tie
and on his head was a white naval cap. At first he seemed to
be standing on a small wooden platform but, as he rose up
towards her through clouds tinged with pink, she saw that
he was standing on the deck of a small seagoing launch.
He raised his hat and held out his hand to help her aboard.
'Good day to you, Missy.' His voice was oddly cultivated,
sarcastic. 'Welcome aboard my little ship. Captain Horatio
Quelch at your service. What brings you to our part of
Creation?'
Amy felt frightened. Where was the Doctor? Had
something happened to him? She hardly knew how to
respond. 'We were in a storm. I'm looking for my friend,' she
said. She desperately wanted the Doctor to find her. She had
no idea what to do here. 'I'm looking for the Doctor. Do you
know him?'
'Know him? Why, of course. He's an old pard. Is he
here?'
'He's somewhere around.'
Suddenly she heard the distant sound of an engine. She
tried to see through the mist.
'Well,' said Horatio Quelch. 'Let's get you to a place of
safety.' Raising his cap again, he opened the wheelhouse
door for her but she held back, calling towards the sound of
the engine.
'Doctor! Doctor! I'm here.'
Lifting and falling on invisible waves, a small paddle-
wheeler, like the old Thames pleasure boats, came chugging
towards her, its engines clanking, its funnel pouring grey
steam against the scarlet. She could make out a
big, hearty,
bearded man wearing an old naval cap on the back of his
curly hair, standing in the wheelhouse, his meaty hands
steering the boat towards her.
And, gathered on the foredeck, waving their hats, were
the three boys she had seen before. What had the Doctor
called them? No. They had named themselves. The Bubbly
Boys? A crazy little rhyme they'd sung which she couldn't
remember.
'Bah! Oh, blooming bah!' With a pettish spin of his wheel,
Quelch and his boat vanished, leaving her sinking into scarlet
goo.
Then her feet were on deck again.
Not Quelch's deck, however. The Bubbly Boys stuck their
faces around a funnel. They were still singing. She could hear
them now:
We're the Bubbly Boys from Relish Ridge
That's Old Grandpa Quelchy on yonder bridge
Hot as an oven, cold as a fridge.
The voice that boomed out of the wheelhouse was not one
of theirs. It was a big, rich Yorkshire voice. 'Make way there.
Look lively, yon lads. How do, Doctor. Dost tha know me?
It's Cap'n Brian Abberley. Abberley, come to visit. And here's
me boys. Tha knows t' Chaos Kids, 'appen.'
The Doctor was beside her on the deck of the Now the
Clouds Have Meaning, laughing. 'What's all this about, Captain
Abberley? Have you come to do us a good turn?'
'Wish I could, Doctor. Anything to disoblige the Original
Insect. Anything to help an old pal. And I'd be helping the
Spammer Gain herself, what's more. But we're only just in
alignment here. We need to be in deeper space than this. Old
Quelchy's got your Roogalator. That's my guess. Got it off
his lady friend, Peg the Unseeable. I'll look out for that, never
fear. Meantime tha ship's about to give at t'seams. Big 'un,
too, she looks from here. Oops. Sorry. Dialect. Just trying to
fit in, lad.'
'We can't drop any deeper, captain. Not with the storm so
bad. Have you any idea where you're heading?'
'Back to the centre. Too fast. Too soon. Why?'
'You know why. I think Quelchy's pinched the Roogalator,
but he can't want to destroy everything including himself,
can he? So who would?'
Abberley drew his great grey brows together, took off his
cap, yawned. 'Only the Force.'
The Doctor took her hand. 'Come on, Amy.'
They were back on the hull of the Gargantua. The little
paddle-wheeler chugged alongside.
'Madness.' Amy held on to the Doctor as he inched his
way up the slick coppery hull of the Gargantua.
'Do you still have the beads they gave you?' he asked.
'Not yet,' she said.
'Here,' said Captain Abberley. 'I'll take those for you.'
'Take what?'
'Doesn't she know yet?' The captain stepped outside his
wheelhouse.
'How can she?' said the Doctor. 'I don't. Time's all over
the shop and so are we! Without the Regulator in place it's
only going to get worse! Trust is all we have now, Cap'n
Abberley.'
The big Yorkshireman stuck his cap on the back of his head
while the three Chaos Kids, grinning, grouped themselves
on the deck.
We are the merry Chaos Kids
Our friends are all around us.
The very merry Chaos Kids
Old Quelchy's out to hound us.
'Where are we, captain?' Amy asked. 'Can't you help us?'
'Just told yer, Miss!' he shouted over the swelling sound
of the Bubbly Boys:
Well spinyer there capan, never fear
For we're the mighty Bubbly Boys,
No system can confine us
Or even wine and dine us
So ask us what and ask us why
Don't ask us Who in case we cry
Toot oo ta toot
How's the future looking down there, cousin?
They held up cages containing four lizards wearing smart
little spacesuits. One of them squeaked at Amy. 'If you
can understand me, you must help. We're well educated,
ma'am, and captives of barbarian lunatics, as you can tell.
We had never heard of a Roogalator until recently. We have
no business in the Second Aether. We lived peaceful lives
u n t i l - '
'Until t'little buggers blew themselves up trying to destroy
a rival asteroid,' chortled Captain Abberley affectionately,
steering in alongside. 'We'll drop 'em somewhere safe. Beg
pardon, Miss.'
'We really do need help,' said Amy. 'The outside air's
getting thinner.'
'In the soup, are we, Missy?' Captain Abberley scratched
his chin. 'We can't help you out. But we can help you in.'
He felt around in his pockets, found what he wanted, and
threw them to her.
She caught them one by one. Five - or was it six - beautiful
glass marbles.
'Old Q's lost his marbles again. Try those! Sort of ball
bearings.'
She lifted them close to her face. They began to spin in the
air, four around the fifth, and maybe cycling around a sixth,
she couldn't be quite sure. She saw that they were a necklace
strung on a strand of pure silvery energy and she put it on.
A brilliant mustard yellow spread across the scarlet. 'If
old Quelchy's gone off with it, well find him. He doesn't
know we pinched his maps. He probably pinched them from
someone else. You'll have it in time for the Big Match. Ho
yus! Don't worry. He'll lead us to Force.' And the paddle-
wheeler turned, sending up a swirl of scarlet spray, and
pounded off.
'That's the Second Aether for you,' said the Doctor.
Wearing her suit, Amy waited in the big control cabin
watching the beads flickering and turning and then snatched
them off and put them in her pocket. Captain Snarri stood in
the centre issuing orders to his bots and crew.
'Please make sure all surviving passengers gather at the
central core. In the gymnasium. It's the safest place in the
ship.'
She still felt a little sick but she knew somehow that the
worst was over. Captain Abberley and the Bubbly Boys had
got her back to the Gargantua.
How can these weird people manipulate matter like that? she
wondered. But for some reason she was now even more
frightened than before. What's happened to the Doctor?
The Doctor hung somewhere outside space and time, drifting,
drifting...
He had fallen asleep. He hung above time, above space,
and he looked down towards the scarlet expanse that wound
into the quaking greenness of Emerald Edge. Here was now
and no longer. Here, only the scarlet expanse of Ketchup
Cove was stable, the old rendezvous point of the Chaos
Engineers. Here were four quasi-planets circling a heavy
sun. A star circling a black spot. One place. One time. Into
which everything used him as the node. The focus of all the
worlds of the multiverse. Stretches of yellow-silver spread
everywhere. The so-called moonbeam roads. Summer,
Autumn. Everything else was lighter or darker. Sooner or
later. Bigger or smaller. This was where it focuse
d and from
where it all radiated. And he thought his thoughts, reviewing
a million or more options. The Roogalator. The Silver Arrow.
Four planets circling a single star. Miggea, Circling a tiny
black sun. The time vault. A bucky ball, stronger than any
known metal. The - He considered his action. Acted. It would
kill him one day. Again.
Amy was gone. Captain Abberley and the Chaos Kids were
gone. Quelch had gone. Where was the Roogalator? It could
only be here, surely? He could smell it. But the ship itself was
gone. Somewhere unseen overhead came a grating squeal.
The Doctor awoke; looked up. He saw nothing there but a
slurry of grey-white. A conjunction of galaxies and a fine rain
falling. He wiped his eyes clear of the water and clambered
along the slippery outside of the space liner, a tiny figure like
a flea on a cat. Was Amy all right? He scratched the back of
his hand.
He was still in his spacesuit. He recognised a time-twister
when he was caught in one. Well, what had got him into this
would very likely get him out. He reached into his pouch for
his sonic screwdriver. So far it had served him well.
He had no idea how he had found himself outside the
ship, but the screwdriver should get him in. Amy was the
one to worry about. The Gargantua was safe for the moment,
drifting in the Second Aether, where neither rule nor misrule
applied. Captain Abberley and the Chaos Kids had guided
them out of immediate danger. Now the entire ship drifted
against the glaring scarlets and crimsons of Ketchup Cove,
the safest rendezvous for everyone who cruised the Second
Aether.
Barley sugar melted out of his mouth and coiled into
space.
But how were they going to get back? Was the big ship still
spaceworthy? She looked pretty battered. That was the worst
storm he had ever lived through. Assuming he was alive.
He found a little one-man airlock in the big ship's hull and
set to work with his screwdriver. A series of lights flashed as it
undid the locks from inside. A pressure from his gloved hand
and the circular hatch opened away from him. He slipped
in, closing the hatch behind him, rebolting it manually. He
slipped back down the hull's companionways and found
a lock into the main ship. The spacesuit and helmet were
slowing him down a little, but he decided to err on the side
of caution for now. He headed for the gymnasium as quickly