Part 13 (1/2)

'They've gone. They've left us here. They think we're dead, and even if they didn't, after that, after that happened, who'd stay here? You'd leave as fast as you could.'

Iaomnet sat down on the floor, cross-legged. After a moment, the Doctor came up and stood over her.

'What did you see?' he said.

'I don't know.'

'Come on, Iaomnet. You're an operative, a trained observer.

You must have seen something.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Never mind that. Tell me what you saw in there.'

'Zatopek had a gun,' she said. 'And he said we were going on no matter what you said, and...' Iaomnet shook her head. She had a weird urge to curl up in a ball, a bulky, awkward ball with fat arms and legs and a head shaped like an, er, ball. 'Oh G.o.d,'

she said. 'I'm not making sense.'

The Doctor put his faceplate close to hers. His eyebrows were drawn together in a worried frown. 'Never mind,' he said.

'Are we going to get out of here?' she said.

The Doctor paused. 'Do you feel that?' he said.

Iaomnet said, 'No.' The Doctor knelt, took her gloved hand, and pressed it, palm down, against the floor.

107.

She felt the distant vibration. 'What is it?' she said. Almost.

Almost but not quite remembering. Remembering the machinery in the central chamber, the way it. Moved. 'Oh G.o.d.' She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away from the floor.

'It's our rescue s.h.i.+p landing,' said the Doctor. 'Unless I'm very much mistaken.' She looked up at him. 'Are you ready for one last stint of walking?'

'Yes!' She bounced to her feet. 'They'll go without us. We have to move now now!'

Roz was already pulling on her suit as the ISN Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen, Sa.s.soon Cla.s.s, touched down on the ugly surface of Iphigenia. It was a state-of-the-art All Hostile Environments Garment, skin-tight, elastic and light as a feather, the helmet made of the same stuff as the bodysuit but turned hard and transparent. It was more comfortable than her street clothes.

She felt the big engines shut down, the tremble in the walls quietening, a feeling of weight as the rock gave slightly beneath the shuttle. The two troopers with her, wearing their own AHEGs, waited patiently.

A few moments later, Captain Sekeris's voice came through the suit radio. 'All right, ma'am,' he said. 'Go ahead when you're ready.' The poor man had been acting like a servant ever since she'd managed to convince him she was on a secret mission for the Empress. A real Forrester, right there on his s.h.i.+p, probably working for one of the intelligence agencies to boot. He was young for a captain, eager to do the right thing.

The troopers followed her out of the airlock, a ramp unfolding to take them down to the rocky surface. Each of them carried heavy sensor equipment, the output appearing on a palmtop Roz carried on a strap over her shoulder. 'Still nothing on the s.h.i.+p's sensors, ma'am,' Sekeris told her.

'Stand by,' she said. 'We'll spread out and search the area between the s.h.i.+p and the mountain.'

'What if they went... inside, ma'am?'

'I want to avoid entering the mountain if at all possible. We don't know how deep those structures go. All right, let's go.'

108.

The troopers started walking, one to the right, one to the left.

Roz blew out a sigh and headed for the mountain.

She seriously did not want to go inside. They'd seen the structures half buried in the mountain on their approach, and she had no doubt that it was the real goal of Martinique's expedition.

But whatever was in there had screwed up reality to the point where there were G.o.ddess knew how many extra Doctors walking about, appearing like sad ghosts in a Chinese fairy tale.

Another one had appeared to her in her cabin en route, furiously scribbling coordinates on the wall with a stick of crayon. A short guy in an oversized dark suit. 'Don't tell the Time Lords I was here,' he insisted. 'I keep to myself, one step ahead of them. But only one step.' Then he'd vanished.

At least out here it was just rocks and empty s.p.a.ce. You knew where you were with rocks and empty s.p.a.ce.

The scream nearly burst her eardrum. ' sake, wait! Don't leave without us! Don't go! Can you hear us?'

'Shut the cruk up up!' Roz yelled into her suit mike. 'Turn your b.l.o.o.d.y gain down!'

'Roz, can you hear me?'

'Doctor!' She tried not to sound as delighted as she was. And d.a.m.n, he'd used her name. Now they knew he knew her. 'What's the sitrep?'

'What are you doing here?' he said.

'Oh, thanks. I came to rescue you.'

'But I thought you were living in Hampstead.'

'What?'

'With George.'

Roz felt something cold worm its way down her back. 'What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?' she said.

'We've just this moment got out of the mountain complex. It's just me and Iaomnet Wszola we think the others left us for dead. We're tired, but unhurt.'

'Oh yeah, you sound just fine.'

'Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus,' Iaomnet was whispering.

'Thank you, thank you, thank you.'

'I'm afraid Iaomnet is understandably upset.'

'Stay put. We'll come up and get you.'

109.

'Roz '