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With thanks to: Keith Topping – the creator of Johnny Chess. Martin Day – much patience. The MSCT – fraternity. Jonathan Head – research. Penny List – moral support. And to all my friends, for their love and patience. And thanks to Mum and Dad, for Bread and Butter and Honey.
For Julia Houghton & Lisa Wardle
THE NEW Doctor Who ADVENTURES LOVE AND WAR PAUL CORNELL
First published in Great Britain in 1992 by Doctor Who Books an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd 338 Ladbroke Grove London W10 5AH Copyright © Paul Cornell 1992 'Doctor Who' series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1992 ISBN 0 426 20385 2 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Cover illustration by Lee Sullivan Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks. Typeset by Type Out, London SW 16
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Scanned by The Camel Table of Contents The Prologues: Deaths 6 1: Heaven's Gate 11 2: Wild Horses 19 3: Twenty-Fifth-Century Boy 30 4: Twenties Kicks 42 5: Ace Dreaming 48 6: I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man 7: Necropolis 56 8: Burning Bridges 66 9: The Armies Of The Night 70 10: No More Mister Nice Guy 80 11: Continuity 87 12: Three Manuscripts 96 13: Something Terrible 100 14: Inside The Sphere 105 15: Ace Falling 108 16: No Escape From Heaven 111 17: The End 121 18: Afterwards 126 Epilogues: Deaths and Other Lives 131
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The Prologues: Deaths Two birds circled each other in the sky above the Lincolnshire marshes. They were owls in love, as much as owls could love. They were two predators, spinning past each other through the night. Their thoughts were animal concerns of nest and prey, and the moon shone bright on their outstretched wings. Owls in love notice little, but they know more than humans might think they do. Under the full moon, in the wind that breathed over the midnight marshland, they heard a noise. To you or I, it would be the noise of a car. The owls swept past each other again, and shared the thought in their pass that the noise was a dark thing, darker than they were. The noise was a memory-to-be, a little piece of tragedy. The owls looked down, and their eyes fastened, in and in, searching out the heart of the noise. They provided words for what they saw too, in the semi-language of owls. The words were
a kind of poem, a long song, and the poem began like this: Long ago, when love was real, an orange Allegro screeched around a corner, throwing up gravel on the single-track road. Its headlights caught a rabbit on the verge, and the animal hopped back into cover. In front of the car the road split into three, and there was no signpost. Wavering slightly, the speeding car shot up the middle path. 'How did you know that was the right one?' shouted the woman. 'I didn't!' called Julian, laughing. 'What's on your map, Ace?' 'A load of nothing.' 'We're getting there then!' There had been this road on the map that headed out towards the sea, and then stopped. Not in a town or anything, just stopped dead. Julian had shown up outside the school gates that morning, and thrown his L-plates at Ace. She was Ace by then, of course, developing that Ace frown that was starting to push her friends into two groups: the ones who wanted to walk over the line and the ones who wanted to walk away. She was fifteen. Julian was a lot older. He'd been over quite a few lines and walked both ways. Ace liked him loads, like he was an older brother. They'd shoved on a Bowie tape and driven north, eating at a motorway service station, and wandering around Lincoln Cathedral, talking. When Ace w