Doctor Who and the Empire of Glass | Page 4

the Doc had been kidnapped.'
"But we haven't explored the TARDIS completely yet," she said, trying to inject a note of calmness into her voice. Getting angry with Steven didn't work - he just grew more stubborn and defensive. "The Doctor could still be here."
"Where?" Steven challenged, hand still on the switch. The door control switch, Vicki reminded herself. She didn't know what would happen if he pulled it while the TARDIS was in flight, but she suspected the results wouldn't be pleasant. "We've checked the bedrooms, the food machine alcove, the lounge -"
"What about the locked doors?" she interrupted. "The Doctor won't tell us what's behind them. There might be more rooms, rooms that the Doctor didn't want us to see."
Steven slammed his fist against the console. "Look, we have to do something! And I still think that if we can just materialize somewhere, we can find a trail, or a clue,"
"And what are you young people doing to my TARDIS?" a peremptory voice demanded from the other side of the console. Steven and Vicki whirled around and gaped at the blurred, fractured bubble of darkness that had appeared - apparently inside the wall - and at the elderly figure within it. "Doctor!" they cried together.
He appeared to be sitting in a triangular framework, and he was frowning at them. Standing, not without some effort, he walked forward. Behind him, both the frame and the dark bubble were pulled apart into a coruscating web of lines which retreated into the far distance until they were lost from sight, leaving only the solid walls of the TARDIS behind the old man's figure.
"Doctor, we were -" Vicki began.
"Where have you been?" Steven demanded.
The Doctor fixed the space pilot with an imperious gaze. "Never mind where I've been," he snapped, "you were about to meddle with the ship's controls, weren't you?"
"No!" Steven protested. "I... I was just trying to -"
"Steven was trying to help," Vicki said calmingly. "You vanished without telling us where you were going. We were worried about you: we thought... Oh, I don't know what we thought. What happened?"
The Doctor's stern expression softened, as she had known it would. The one thing he couldn't resist was wide-eyed concern. "My dear child," he said, "of course you were worried, and I have no right to scold you, hmm? If you must know, I've been... " He frowned. "Well, that's most extraordinary. I can't rememberwhere I've been. The memory has gone. All I can remember is a dandy and a clown. A dandy and a clown." Ignoring the puzzled looks that Vicki and Steven exchanged, he raised a hand to caress his lapel, and appeared surprised to find that he was holding a small white envelope. "Hmm. Perhaps this will tell us something."
As Vicki and Steven watched, he opened the envelope and took out a slip of cardboard. He peered at it for a few moments, then took his pince-nez out of his waistcoat pocket and slipped them on. "Most extraordinary," he repeated, and proffered the card to Steven, who took it warily. Vicki had to pull his arm down to see.
The card was small and white. On it, in very small letters, were the words:
INVITATION
Formal dress required.
R.S.V.P.
"An invitation to what?" Steven asked.
"An invitation to a mystery," the Doctor replied, frowning and looking away.
Vicki took the card from Steven. "Who gave it to you?" she asked the Doctor.
"I don't... I don't remember," the old man admitted.
"It's a trap," Steven said firmly. Vicki watched with some amusement as he narrowed his eyes, squared his shoulders and generally tried to look heroic.
"Don't be stupid, Steven," she said, and placed the card carefully upon the top of the translucent cylinder in the centre of the control console. "How can it be a trap if it doesn't even tell us where to go?"
With a low hum, the collection of fragile objects in the centre of the translucent column, the things that had always reminded Vicki of a cross between a child's mobile and a butterfly collection, began to revolve around their central axis. The column itself began to rise and fall rhythmically, whilst lights flashed on the console and the deep vibration of the TARDIS in flight slowly spiralled down towards the grinding, clashing noise of landing.
"Well," the Doctor said, "it would appear thatsomeone knows where we are going."
There was a rat on the stairs again.
Carlo Zeno came face to face with it as he rounded the corner. He was standing on the tiny landing that lay between his own rooms on the second floor and his tenant's rooms on the third. The rat was seven steps higher than he was, on a level with his face. Bright afternoon sunlight streamed through the holes in the rotted window shutters, illuminating it: fat and fearless, its black