Part 11 (1/2)

'None of the others have asked after her,' the Doctor said: 'Thank you for your concern. Benny will appreciate it.'

The com*link seemed easy enough: a simple plasma*gel to stick the suction cup to her forehead and then Ace would be at one with the machine. For what it was worth.

'Krayn told me it slowed him down,' Fortalexa told her. 'But you have to link in or you might miss something important.'

The interior door slid open.

'Lannic.' Fortalexa nodded politely and stood almost to attention, towering over the dark*haired woman.

Ace went back to her study of the equipment. She had little time for Lannic, who struck her as cold, aloof and interested in nothing other than the dead past. At least Benny had some appreciation of living people, of technology, and of hard liquor.

'How are you getting on here?'

'Just about done, actually. Aren't we, Ace?'

Ace answered without looking round: 'Give me a while to get plugged in, then I can start the pre*flight checks.'

'Good. Since we still have some time, I have a request, Fortalexa I need your help.'

'Oh?'

'Bannahilk is ready to leave as soon as possible. I agree that seems the best course of action, although obviously we'll be leaving most of our work here undone. I want to salvage something from this mess. Despite the problems, we have the chance to create quite a performance when we get back. Will you help?'

'What is it that you want?'

Ace held her breath: here it came.

'That machine. I want to know if it can be moved.'

'And if it can?' Ace could tell from his voice that Fortalexa already knew the answer.

'Then I want it back here I want to take it back to Heletia. I want to present it to the Exec.'

Bannahilk was supervising the work troupe which was reloading the lander from the base camp. The troupe consisted entirely of Tashman, who was not wasting any opportunity to point this out.

Fortalexa smiled as he approached. It seemed almost as if Tashman had taken over Krayn's role of chief moaner. Bannahilk seemed to welcome the opportunity to get away and they moved to the start of the tunnel and spoke in low voices. Fortalexa told his officer about Lannic's request.

'Seems fair enough, I suppose. Get that Doctor to give you a hand he seems to know his stuff.'

'Perhaps too much so, sir.'

'He is supposed to be a colleague of Professor Summerfield.'

Fortalexa nodded. 'And she was a late member of our cast.'

'So she was.' Bannahilk thought for a while. 'Have you seen her recently?'

Fortalexa had not. 'She may have wandered off like she did before.'

'Or she may be dead.'

Fortalexa did not think that likely. But then again, so many of the others were dead now why should the professor be any luckier?

'No,' Bannahilk told him. 'We have to trust the Doctor. And the woman, Ace. She is after all our only hope of getting out of here.'

'True.' Fortalexa had seen how Bannahilk watched Ace. And he knew what that meant; he had served with Bannahilk before. He shook his mind to clear the images he remembered from sh.o.r.e leave on Avidos, and the sounds from his commanding officer's cabin after they had overrun the Pletillon quarter of Cortasplay. They all tried to cope with the stress in their own ways. He favoured humour, diffusing the emotion rather than giving it free rein. Bannahilk, he knew, had other methods. Fortalexa took a deep breath. 'I'd be careful of her, sir.'

Bannahilk snapped his attention back to Fortalexa. 'What do you mean?'

'Just that I think the Doctor is a man to be reckoned with, sir.' He searched for a way of expressing what he meant without seeming insubordinate. 'I think we should help him see that nothing happens to her.' Bannahilk's eyes narrowed as he took Fortalexa's meaning. 'And, as you say sir,' Fortalexa went on, 'she is our only hope of getting out of here.'

Bannahilk was about to reply when a voice from behind startled them: 'Ah, there you are.'

They both whirled round, in time to see the Doctor replace his hat.

'I was thinking, perhaps we should take advantage of this lull in the proceedings to have another look at our dream machine.'

The two soldiers exchanged glances, both wondering how long the Doctor had been standing behind them.

The VIP suite was certainly plush. Bernice had installed herself at a workstation in the corner of the s.p.a.cious lounge. The lounge walls were lined with red silk and hung with portraits framed with heavy gilt. One wall was dominated by a huge marble fireplace, another was almost entirely taken up with a bay window which looked out on to the main lawn as it sloped away from Mansionhouse. Doors led off to a washroom, a simularity chamber and back into the main area of the archaeology department.

Bernice had kicked her shoes off and was curling her toes into the deep rug which ran almost to the sides of the room, the onyx floor just visible as a margin round the edge. She was impressed by what the research a.s.sistants had managed to dig out for her a '59 Chardonnay. She sipped at it appreciatively as the computer on the desk in front of her chewed its way through millions of facts and figures from Lannic's original survey, generating a simularity of the Menaxan theatre.

'Done,' said the computer. She had given it a deep male voice. It was attractive and sonorous, and the hint of an extinct Scottish accent was somehow comforting.

'Okay,' Benny told the machine. 'Feed that through to the simularity chamber and give me a direct voice link and control.'

'Done.' She might have to do something about the vocabulary and personality.

The simularity chamber was just a dark room, until a simularity filled it. Benny stood in the doorway. 'Playback,' she commanded, and at once the room stretched out and down before her. She was standing at the back of the theatre, looking out over the seats and stage below. I t was bright, twin suns s.h.i.+ning in no canopy of plastic, no rain, no mud. Exactly as it had been when Lannic's team had first uncovered it. Rather than the dark oppressive place she had seen on Menaxus, the theatre was bright and welcoming. She could imagine comedy playing here, the walls echoing with laughter. On Menaxus she had a.s.sumed that the only performances given were tragic.

'Are you familiar with Hamlet Hamlet?' she asked.

'Yes,' replied the deep voice from above and around her.

'Good. Give me Hamlet, on the stage. Play back a soliloquy something to test the acoustics. Normal human volume for an actor.'

'Done.'

Far below her a man appeared, standing centre stage. He was wearing traditional doublet and hose. He walked slowly forward and began to speak. His voice was the same as the computer's.