Part 29 (1/2)

Then a booted foot swung up under Frog's chin.

Haunt.

Frog's body slammed back into the force mattress.

Haunt sat up beside her. Saw the knife sticking out of Frog's stomach like a lever. Plucked it out of the wound and threw it aside.

'Shade, fetch something to clean this up,' she snapped impatiently. 'Move.'

Shade turned and practically fled for the much-depleted medical kit.

Polly just gaped. She could see new strength in Haunt's eyes. An almost wild look.

Haunt must've noticed her staring. 'Frog will will be all right; she said. 'I give the orders. No one dies round here without my say-so.' be all right; she said. 'I give the orders. No one dies round here without my say-so.'

Joiks shrieked one final time as the two stone angels tore his arms from his sockets.

'No!' Tovel yelled.

Ben saw the rest of the creatures swoop down on Joiks's body. They tore the corpse to pieces in mid-air, all seven of them in a silent frenzy. Joiks's blood sprayed over their beatific stone faces, soaked the sharp fingers.

The Doctor stared on, appalled. 'You are intelligent creatures,' he cried. 'Why this senseless killing!'

'Move out!' Tovel yelled.

Ben turned his back on the scene. He took the Doctor by his elbow and steered him away, back across the s.h.i.+fting blue landscape towards the way out, urging him on as fast as he could.

The Doctor was still mumbling to himself, shaking his head, sh.e.l.l-shocked. All prepossession gone. He looked about him nervously, not with the usual air of the brilliant academic, but as a bewildered, frightened old man. Ben practically had to drag the old boy along to where Tovel was waiting grimly on the jagged slate promontory. Behind him, in the shadows, stood Roba and Creben.

Creben's face was white as dust. 'We have to get back to control.'

'Please, a moment, please,' the Doctor muttered hoa.r.s.ely, trying to catch his breath.

'It's all right, Doctor,' Ben told him, with a hesitant backwards glance over his shoulder. 'It's all right, they're not coming after us.'

'But if they choose to do so, my boy,' the Doctor whispered, 'as inevitably they shall... How will we fight them?' He gripped Ben's wrist, stared chillingly into his eyes. 'How can we resist such evil?'

II.

'So,' said Haunt stiffly. 'You lost Joiks.'

Tovel, standing rigidly to attention before her, nodded once - though to Polly, from the story he'd told, it hardly sounded like he was responsible. 'For a few moments I thought the Doctor was getting through to them, that they were going to let Joiks go...'

'They were like ruddy great kids,' Ben chipped in, slumped between Creben and Roba against the barricade. 'Just playing about.'

'Not kids,' said Roba, scratching his neck furiously.

'Animals.'

The Doctor tapped his chin. Polly saw he was looking a little more his old self now, and shuddered to think what they all must've been through in the blue cave. 'The wielders of any kind of power are animals, seeking to dominate animals less fierce.'

Haunt didn't look impressed. She fiddled uncomfortably with the bandage around her waist. 'What are you talking about?'

'Power flourishes because people respond to talk of freedom but prefer not to be really free,' the Doctor informed her.

'They seek the comfort of acceptable strictures in their societies, of a ruler to govern them, of set territorial boundaries that enable a tribal ident.i.ty to exist.'

Ben grimaced. 'You've lost me.'

'And so the people with power in these tribes, these factions, seek to extend their territories.' He jabbed a finger at Haunt. 'Your kind sought, for example, to a.s.similate the Schirr into your culture. To a.s.sert your power over them.'

'A pacifist,' Haunt said with all the disgust she could muster.

'So we are the animals,' said Creben, yawning midway through. 'Is that the ba.n.a.l point you're making?'

'No, sir, it is not.' Polly was glad to see the gleam in the Doctor's eyes had returned. 'I am merely observing that the Morphieans are acting in a similar regard. Wielding superior strength, attempting to a.s.similate us since they consider us less fierce. Ergo, they are animal also, for all this unhelpful talk of disembodied mysticism and magic - and therefore they are fallible. They can can be beaten.' be beaten.'

'Yeah, but how?' said Shade gloomily. He was stronger now since his illness, but all the act of the perfect soldier had gone out of him. He stood beside Polly, glanced at her now and then, perhaps hoping she would return Lindey's computer to him. She hadn't told him she'd accidentally wiped the incriminating evidence on his behalf. She didn't like to just yet.

'Well, we must give the matter some thought,' said the Doctor. He gave Polly a comforting smile.

'Great,' Roba said. 'We've got so much time to sit around thinking.'

'The websets we found may tell us something useful,' said Tovel.

'Shade, you take one,' said Haunt. He nodded, and retired back to his couch, almost gratefully, it seemed.

Haunt paused, then handed the other set to Polly. 'Give this to Frog.'

'Frog?' Roba scowled. 'She ain't one of us now, she's one of them.'

'She remains a part of this team,' Haunt said icily, quas.h.i.+ng all other possible resistance to the idea. 'She is currently incapacitated but will contribute to our war effort for as long as she is able.'

That might not be long at all, thought Polly fearfully as she approached Frog's makes.h.i.+ft bed, dragged into a gloomy corner of the pentagonal room. The blood had stopped flowing from her stomach, but it still looked a dreadful mess.

Shade had covered the gashes in some sort of plastic skin; it sat like white custard on the tacky raw pink beneath. The alien flesh now covered her chest and neck, and was creeping under her chin.

Polly noticed Frog's black voice-disc had fallen from her neck and rolled away across the floor. She retrieved it, and studied it blankly. It had been embedded in Frog's skin, but the Schirr flesh had rejected it.