66 - Emotional Chemistry

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‘Love! Surely one of the most destructive forces in the universe. There’s

nothing a man – or a woman – won’t do for love.’

1812. The Vishenkov household, along with the rest of Moscow, faces the

advance of Napoleon Bonaparte. At its heart is the radiant Dusha, a source

of strength and inspiration – and more besides – for them all. Captain

Victor Padorin, heroic Hussar and family friend, meanwhile, acts like a

man possessed – by the Devil.

2024. Fitz is under interrogation regarding a burglary and ﬁre at the

Kremlin. The Doctor has disappeared in the ﬂames. Colonel Bugayev is

investigating a spate of antiques thefts, centred in Moscow, on top of

which he now has a time-travel mystery to unravel.

5000. The Lord General Razum Kinzhal is preparing to set in motion the

closing stages of a world war. More than the enemy, his fellow generals of

the Icelandic Alliance fear what such a man might do in peacetime. What

can possibly bridge these disparate events in time? Love will ﬁnd a way.

But the Doctor must ﬁnd a better alternative. Before love sets the world

on ﬁre.

This is another in the series of adventures for the Eighth Doctor.

Emotional Chemistry

Simon A. Forward

Contents

Heart & Mind 3

The Devils 27

War & Peace 49

The Kiss 70

The Three Sisters 87

Diary of a Madman 106

First Love 124

On the Eve 149

Resurrection 168

The Duel 175

Body & Soul 200

About the Author 213

Acknowledgements 214

Credits 215

For Karen:

Love has no understanding of distance,

but grows increasingly intimate with time.

Heart & Mind

Out of sight, out of mind. In this case, the Doctor’s being out of sight, while

the rest of us go out of our minds trying to explain how he’s disappeared,

thought Fitz, convinced he could still feel the heat of the ﬂames on his face.

Whereas it was probably just his cheeks burning under the scrutiny of

an inquisitor who knew his business inside out. Such was the natural glare

of that scrutiny, it was probably the only reason nobody had bothered to

shine a lamp in Fitz’s eyes. Yet.

The Colonel chewed a few thoughts and searched the ceiling, before

smiling tightly. A passing pretence of boredom, Fitz imagined, intended to

counterpoint the subject’s frustration and impatience.

Fitz thought he’d save the man some time. ‘There was this ﬁght, OK,

then this ﬁre just –’

The Colonel cut in, his knuckles beating a loud drum-ﬁll on the black

glass of the desktop. ‘We can go back to that,’ he said, his English ﬂawless

and the words delivered with care, like handmade sweets wrapped in the

crumpled paper of a Russian accent. His eyes stayed on Fitz as he arched a

brow. ‘Where is the Doctor now?’

‘I don’t know.’ Fitz spelled it out again.

And wondered if the Doctor, wherever he was, was still on ﬁre.

Cold slammed into the Doctor the way a pool hits a high diver. While

his body absorbed the shock, he thudded into snow and started rolling

around in a desperate attempt to beat out the ﬂames eating up his jacket

– a manoeuvre made all the more difﬁcult by the fact that he was still

wrestling with his assailant.

‘Do you think,’ he said, gasping, ‘we could stop ﬁghting for one minute?

We’re both still alight!’

Whether it was the Doctor’s voice breaking through or the shock of cold

air, the heavier man pushed himself away and rolled on to his back, ﬂapping

around in the snow. He lay there, his lungs rasping like sandpaper on balsa.

The Doctor, making quite sure he’d put out his own ﬁre, hauled him-

self up on one knee, concerned to know if any of the ﬂames had pene-

HEART & MIND 4

trated through to the man’s skin. The gunmetal harness seemed unscarred,

while the uniform underneath had been reduced to charred ribbons in large

patches. But the soldier effectively warned off any closer examination with

a swiftly raised arm and an animal scowl.

‘Fair enough.’ The Doctor showed his palms and sat back. ‘You’re in

poor health but you’re still powerful enough to have it your own way.’

He eyed the painting, clutched tight against the man’s chest. The man

had managed to keep a ﬁrm hold on the picture all the while they’d been

wrestling, so those arms might as well have been iron bars. A better look

was out of the question right now.

The Doctor wasn’t about to chance another struggle with the fellow. He

would have to wait until the soldier weakened, or preferably lost conscious-

ness. For the time being, the Doctor turned his attention to a sweep of the

landscape, thinking it might be useful to know where they had ended up.

Wherever it was, it was bitterly cold and endlessly white. It was a land

with no horizons.

Mirrored in black glass, the Colonel’s expression was as dark and uncom-

promising as ever. ‘So if you can’t give me an answer, tell me your best

guess.’

Fitz shook his head, thinking this could go on forever.

The fact was, he didn’t have a guess. The Doctor was gone. Spirited

away or abducted. Past, present, future, Moscow or Mars, it was impossible

to say. He’d seen it happen. He was a witness to it all and he didn’t have a

clue.

‘You’re asking the wrong guy! Try asking the other bloke!’

‘We will, once he has undergone a thorough medical examination. He

is very ill.’

‘Yeah, and I’m sick and fed up with this.’

The Colonel laughed. And surprised Fitz by standing. ‘Me too.’ He

smiled. ‘We could both use a break.’

Fitz nodded, too eagerly.

‘When I come back we can talk about the ﬁre.’ The Colonel made for

the door and gestured to the guard, sparing Fitz an apparently friendly look

while the door was opened. ‘Meanwhile, I have other ﬁsh to grill.’

Fitz opened his mouth to correct him, but was stopped by the Colonel’s

incipient smile. The man was being funny, giving Fitz a break so he could

interrogate his other prisoner.

Well, Fitz thought selﬁshly, it was about time Trix had her turn.

‘Snow, snow and more snow!’ declared the Doctor, standing for a fuller

HEART & MIND 5

survey. ‘Far as the eye can see and probably some way beyond. Still, we

can be grateful there’s none falling at the moment, but there’s plenty of

cloud cover so that might not be the case for very long.’

The sky, in fact, was one big cloud. And daylight was dimming behind

its grey ﬁlter.

‘Nightfall’s close at hand,’ he added less spiritedly. ‘And no stars to guide

us.’

Behind him, the soldier’s breathing was quiet and steady. The Doctor

turned slowly, hoping to ﬁnd the man unconscious. His face fell as the

man’s suspicious eyes glared up at him.

‘I nearly gave my life to get this,’ the soldier growled, every word want-

ing to break out as a cough. ‘You think I’m going to let you have it for free?

Now we’re this close?’

The Doctor thrust his hands into his pockets and attempted a shrug,

despite the cold creeping into his bones. ‘Well, I’m a connoisseur of ﬁne

art myself; I can understand your passion. But, close to where, if you don’t

mind my asking? I can’t quite make out our location and there’s a shortage

of identiﬁable landmarks. And as for ﬁxing our temporal position, well, my

body clock is usually as accurate a timepiece as –’

The soldier sat up, grimacing at a sudden cramp that took a hold of him.

He coughed, then spat a glob of blood into the snow.

‘You should really let me take a look –’

‘Back off!’ The man looked ready to take a bite out of the Doctor. He was

young and proud with a rounded, boyish face, cropped hair and a goatee

to lend him a little maturity and something of a harder edge; built like a

wall, and looking about ready to crumble. He hung on tight to his stomach

and rode down the pain like there was a wild horse bucking in there. As

if ﬁxed in place, one arm held fast to the painting. Roaring, he launched

himself on to his feet, then swayed, blinking as he steadied himself.

His eyes found their anchor on the Doctor. ‘What do you know about

temporal ﬁxes?’

‘The basics. I can’t say I’ve ever travelled in such third-class conditions

before, but I presume it’s the belt.’ The Doctor nodded at the harness criss-

crossing the man’s ruined uniform. ‘Actually, I’m not sure if that even qual-

iﬁes as third class. More like travelling in the boiler.’

It was hard to tell if the soldier was laughing or coughing up a lung.

‘Tell me about it. You’re lucky, you only took the return journey.’

‘Then I suppose I should be grateful. The return journey to where,

exactly?’

The soldier’s face was as expressionless as the landscape.

HEART & MIND 6

‘I’m afraid your friend is proving very unhelpful.’

‘Oh, well, that’s Fitz all over.’

Trix had busied herself getting the measure of this colonel from the

moment he entered the small but grandly appointed ofﬁce to the moment

he settled in the seat across the desk from her. And she did it all under

cover of a smile at least as fake as the Colonel’s.

He was handsome in his way, so she couldn’t let that be a distraction.

Certainly in his forties, but just possibly towards the lower end; his thinning

dark hair looked stylish above a brow of expressive creases, and he had a

cute mouth, squashed up by a small chin, and deep-set eyes that were

always alive and taking notes, no matter how casual their sparkle appeared.

Oh yes, she concluded, this one was going to be a challenge.

‘So.’ He clapped his hands. ‘What can you tell us?’

Trix glanced at the impassive guard standing in the corner. He was

holding the assault riﬂe with an earnestness that seemed excessive for the

task. Trix didn’t doubt for one minute that he’d use it if she gave him the

slightest excuse.

As any decent actress would, Trix used that to inject a little genuine

nervousness into her role. Luckily, her story on this occasion wasn’t in need

of many embellishments. The tricky part was going to be convincing the

Colonel of the more fantastical elements of the truth.

‘Do forgive me, by the way –’ she sweetened her preamble with a little

sugar, careful not to overdo it – ‘if I don’t quite meet your gaze, Colonel.

I’ve nothing to hide and I’m not especially coy – but I’m afraid to say I lost

my glasses in the ﬁre. There was, as I’m sure you must have gathered, a bit

of a rumpus.’

The Colonel’s expression prompted her.

‘Kerfufﬂe, um –’ Trix looked slightly abashed and touched a ﬁnger to the

bridge of her nose, as if absent-mindedly attempting to reposition her lost

spectacles. ‘Fight.’

‘Yes, this brawl between the Doctor and the other soldier.’ The Colonel

sniffed and rubbed some fake sleep out of his left eye. ‘Can we just consider

that the endgame for the moment and start back at square one?’

‘Well now, square one.’ She made a point of pausing. ‘It really rather

depends on how you look at it. Events aren’t very much like objects, you

know; there’s rarely one clearly identiﬁable point at which one can say they

were made. They’re sort of like the links in a very intricate necklace –’

‘Miss Atherton.’ The Colonel’s temper was on a tight leash, but his eyes

made it plain there would be little left of Trix were he to let it loose. ‘From

the beginning, if you please. Your beginning will sufﬁce for now.’

‘Oh sorry, yes, of course. Do forgive me.’

HEART & MIND 7

‘Think nothing of it.’ His smile could have been a surgical incision.

Trix played modestly ﬂustered and pictured herself in some compromis-

ing positions with her interrogator to help bring a touch of authentic colour

to her cheeks. She tried on a number of smiles before ﬁnding one to ﬁt the

occasion.

‘My name,’ she said, ‘is Patricia Atherton. Trisha Atherton, as I already

told your, um, second-in-command. I run an antiques dealership in Covent

Garden. London.’ A simple enough check should conﬁrm the existence of a

prestigious studio – prestigious enough, Trix hoped, for it not to have gone

out of business – situated in Covent Garden and owned by a Ms Atherton.

‘I’ve been enlisted from time to time by the Doctor in the capacity of a con-

sultant in various matters concerning antiques, objets d’art and all manner

of valuables.’ Not much they could verify there. ‘He recently called on me

in respect of a series of antique thefts from a number of public and private

collections across Europe and the UK. Very probably, I imagine, related to

the thefts you and your men have been investigating, Colonel.’ A useful

titbit of information she had winkled out of the Colonel’s, um, second-in-

command during her preliminary interrogation. ‘Why, my own shop was

broken into, although that was some years ago now and probably far too

long ago to be connected.’ Another fact they could check: Trix was proud

that the burglary had made the press, but hadn’t exactly made a bundle

on the snatch. ‘All the same, I know how it feels. I might as well have

splashed out on a Beware-of-the-Dog sign for all the good my high-tech

security system did me.’

‘Quite, well, we’re certainly aware of all such thefts that have taken

place over the last two years. All the signiﬁcant ones.’ The Colonel looked

ready to start ﬁshing with a little live bait attached to the hook. ‘I take it

you’re aware of the Greenhalgh case. An English collector buys a chateau –

and its contents – in Provence, only to ﬁnd all the Russian items stolen just

a week before he takes up residence. Only it emerges he arranged a sale

via contacts in the Russian Maﬁa. Presumably the lead that brought you

here.’

‘Well, yes,’ lied Trix, as if the price of admission was somewhat heavy.

‘The Doctor was very concerned about the fate of certain treasures held in

the Kremlin Armoury.’

‘So the three of you came here to protect them. As what, an easier

alternative to alerting the authorities?’

‘Well, the Doctor has never been one for troubling the authorities un-

necessarily.’

‘In my experience, he always troubles authorities.’

That caught Trix off guard: clearly the Doctor was more widely known

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`Love!Surelyoneofthemostdestructiveforcesintheuniverse.There'snothingamanorawomanwon'tdoforlove.'1812.TheVishenkovhousehold,alongwiththerestofMoscow,facestheadvanceofNapoleonBonaparte.AtitsheartistheradiantDusha,asourceofstrengthandinspirationandmorebesidesforthemall.CaptainVictorPadorin,heroicH...

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66 - Emotional Chemistry

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