Part 21 (2/2)

'If you only knew what I've been through to get here.' A sigh. 'You wouldn't understand.'

'Oh, fine!' cried Fitz, aware that his voice was cracking. 'Yeah, I wouldn't understand because I'm only human and you're, you're... I don't know what or who you are any more. Hey!'

She was ignoring him, was walking over to the spider-flower thing.

Fitz watched her through his spit-flecked faceplate and fumed. He opened his mouth for another tirade but why bother? What notice would she take of him? And, more to the point, did he really want to annoy the one person who could rescue him? He fought down his anger. There would be time to have it out with Compa.s.sion later, he hoped. Right now he had better play along with her.

He went to stand beside her. d.a.m.ned if he was going to apologise for his outburst, though. 'What do you think it is?'

Compa.s.sion was running her hands over the black skin. Close up, Fitz could see that it was covered in tiny pores and wrinkles.

'It's alive, in a sense,' muttered Compa.s.sion. 'This torus is an organic power generator, a giant living battery. It's been growing. for the past month or so, tended by our friend over there' She waved a dismissive hand at the p.r.o.ne form of Arielle and stood back, hands on hips. 'By now it must have stored up a colossal energy charge.'

Fitz stood back, gazing warily at the legs and tendrils of the thing. They were pulsing, tensing, as if in time with a giant heartbeat. He shuddered. It made him itch all over. What had Arielle to do with this? 'What's it for?' he wondered aloud.

Compa.s.sion licked her lips. 'It's a transmitter.'

Images of aerials and pylons flickered through Fitz's head. Nothing like this thing. 'For what?'

Compa.s.sion smiled grimly. 'It's a good job I turned up.'

She placed her hands on the skin of the transmitter and closed her eyes.

'What are you doing?'

'I have to destroy it. It's a transmitter for a teleport carrier beam. When it activates it will bring those black s.h.i.+ps we saw.'

She said it so casually that it took a few seconds to sink in. A teleport beam... those black s.h.i.+ps... raining acid death on to Yquatine...

Fitz stared at the transmitter. So this was it. The beginning of the invasion. How long had this thing crouched obscenely here, growing, pulsing, waiting to summon the invasion fleet? A dreadful thought struck him. 'What if you set it off accidentally?'

Compa.s.sion glared at him. 'Out of the question. I'm going to flood it with Artron energy, burn out its sensory network. I wouldn't stand too close if I were you.'

Fitz found himself taking a few steps back, turned to look at Arielle, only to see that she wasn't there any more. He glanced wildly around. There a silver blur vanis.h.i.+ng around the back of the machine. He ran after her, loping in the low gravity.

Round the back of the transmitter, Arielle had sunk her arm into a flowerlike opening. The black skin of the transmitter started to ripple. Fitz stared at it helplessly for a second, then he lunged forward, grabbed Arielle around her waist and pulled. She was caught fast, up to the elbow in the guts of the thing. Fitz pulled harder. Suddenly she came free and fell against him.

They stumbled backward together. Arielle's hands were scrabbling at her throat and Fitz turned her round.

Her eyes were back to normal and bulging out of her head.

Compa.s.sion appeared by his side. 'We're too late. It's activated.'

Fitz shoved the convulsing form of Arielle at her. 'Take her in! She'll die!'

Compa.s.sion stood impa.s.sively as Arielle fell, clutching at her black robes.

'Oh, Christ, do it!'

Compa.s.sion shrugged, there was a white flash and Arielle was gone.

'Is she OK?' gasped Fitz.

Compa.s.sion seemed to consider for a second. 'Not by any definition of the word.'

A shadow pa.s.sed over them. Fitz looked up. The sky was full of dark oval shapes.

It had started. It was Treaty Day. The circle was complete. Somewhen about now, an earlier version of him was standing on Yendip Esplanade with an earlier version of Compa.s.sion watching the sky of Yquatine fill up with death.

Compa.s.sion was staring up at them, an absent look on her face.

Fitz, terrified of the threat of acid rain, all but threw himself at her. 'Let me in!'

Her smile was playful but her eyes were cold, dead things. He shuddered. Was she going to leave him here to die? Suddenly there was a flash of light, a falling sensation and he was inside the console chamber.

He reached up and undid the catches of his helmet. The cool air of the console chamber felt like heaven. He looked around the chamber. 'Where's Arielle?'

'Somewhere safe.' came Compa.s.sion's voice from all around him.

Fitz looked up at the roofs.p.a.ce scanner. The sky was full of the black s.h.i.+ps and they were pouring out spined missiles which were plunging into the surface of Muath.

Fitz ran up to the console, gripping on to the railing. 'Compa.s.sion, dematerialise! We've got to find the Doctor!'

A sound came from all around him which was something like a sigh, something like an autumn wind rattling through bare branches.

Fitz put his helmet down on the grating next to the console. 'Compa.s.sion?'

Two words, small and packed with frustration. 'I can't.'

d.a.m.n her! 'You found me, didn't you?'

The chamber darkened and there were flashes of blue from below. Fitz touched his throat nervously, remembering how she'd cut off the air supply and almost killed him.

Compa.s.sion's voice came again, thick and low, as though she'd been crying. It struck Fitz then how calm Compa.s.sion sounded when you were outside her, and how unhinged she sounded when you were inside.

'I can't dematerialise or I would randomise into the vortex. No control. No control.'

Evidently she hadn't mastered the Randomiser. 'So how did you find me?'

'I was trapped in the vortex. Feels like I've been everywhere, every-when. Eventually I found a way past the Randomiser. I anch.o.r.ed myself to your biodata signature. Used it as a focus. But the Randomiser kept pulling me back. Had to keep rematerialising, getting nearer each time. Took years, decades I don't know know how long.' how long.'

Fitz sank to his knees. He didn't realise how she'd suffered. But he still had to know. 'Why did you abandon me in the first place?'

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