Part 18 (1/2)

Eventually he handed the Doctor a cup of steaming liquid that smelled of tar.

'Thank you,' the Doctor said. 'Now, how does one get these screens working?'

'Tell me what you want,' Beltempest replied, 'and I'll call it up for you.'

The Doctor hesitated for a moment, sipping at his tea. 'Can this computer of yours provide me with some kind of graphic display showing the locations of the various violent incidents that have occurred over the past few years?

Just those with no obvious motive where the perpetrator was easily caught.'

109.'I'm sure it can,' Beltempest replied, and directed a list of instructions to the ever-attentive computer. Within moments, the dome above them lit up with a map of the galaxy. The Empire sectors were displayed in red. Beltempest felt his breathing quicken at the sight of fully half the galaxy under the dominion of the Divine Empress: an Empire upon which several thousand suns never set. He was almost convinced that if he increased the magnification enough he would be able to see the edges creeping forward as inferior races were persuaded of the economic advantages that would occur when they relinquished control of their own sectors to the Empire.

The Doctor turned away. Beltempest was surprised to see a bitter expression cross his face.

'A problem?' Beltempest asked.

'So many cultures,' the Doctor murmured, 'such a diversity of philosophies and ways of living, all lost in subservience to the Empire. Such a terrible waste.'

'You disapprove of the Empire?'

'I disapprove of all empires, anywhere,' the Doctor replied. 'And all federations, confederations, hegemonies, oligarchies, autarchies and whatever other weasel-words are used to disguise the fact that a small group of people have taken it into their heads to treat others as though their opinions weren't important.'

'Touchy, aren't we?' Beltempest said.

The Doctor looked bleakly up at him. 'Doesn't it bother you,' he asked, 'that the wealth of other races is being sucked away to make Earth richer?'

Beltempest frowned, the word 'No' on his lips, but he took a moment to think about the Doctor's question. He had developed a strange sort of respect for the Doctor's intellect, and didn't want to fob him off with an unconsidered answer.

'No,' he said finally, 'I'm sorry but I don't. Look at us. While other races stayed at home honing their philosophies, their religions and their artistic skills, we've spread out, developed and taken the universe by the scruff of the neck and shaken it. Other races are weaker than us: it's a fact of life. That means we have a responsibility to help them. We replace whatever archaic governmental system they have with the enlightened rule of the Empress and we give them education, technology, and protection from invasion.'

'Another invasion, you mean. And all you ask in return is unquestioning loyalty, and the chance to skim the wealth from their economies.'

Beltempest tried to see the Doctor's point of view, but couldn't. 'We impose taxation, of course, but only to pay for the help we give them.'

'Did you ask them whether they wanted your help?'

110.'If someone is ill, you don't ask whether they want to be cured or not,'

Beltempest snorted, 'you cure them. If someone's flitter is malfunctioning, you don't wonder whether they want to keep it broken; you fix it. On a far vaster scale, the Empire is the same. If the Divine Empress sees a planet or a sector wasting its resources, or which could be run better, then she steps in. One of the responsibilities of power is that you should help those who aren't as powerful as yourself. Sometimes, races are too shortsighted, or too primitive, to recognize that they need help. In those cases, the imposition of help is necessary.'

'How right you are,' the Doctor said. 'Now, who was saying the same thing just the last time I saw them?' He put his hand to his forehead and mused theatrically for a moment. 'Oh yes. The Daleks.' Without allowing Beltempest to respond, he turned back to the display across the dome. 'Now, overlay the locations where these inexplicably violent occurrences have taken place,' he said.

The provost-major, smarting from the unwelcome comparison with mankind's oldest enemy, snapped an order to the computer. The display zoomed in on a particular portion of the Empire. One star in the centre of the dome glowed bright blue. 'As you can see,' he said, 'they are cl.u.s.tered heavily on Earth, although there have been a number of them scattered throughout the solar system, and one or two on other planets.'

'Like Purgatory,' the Doctor said brightly.

'Like Purgatory,' Beltempest agreed.

The Doctor thought for a moment. 'I presume that if there was any connection between the times or the places, it would have been noticed.'

'Yes,' Beltempest agreed.

'But we know that these events are caused by people just like poor Fazakerli.' He patted the corpse's leg. 'People who may have been affected by icaron radiation.'

'I'd still like to have proof of this connection between icaron radiation and madness,' Beltempest growled, wondering how the Doctor could refer with such apparent pity to the man who had almost killed him and his companion.

'And I'd still like to know how you come to recognize the name of a very rare sub-subatomic particle,' the Doctor murmured. 'Can you arrange this so that the display shows us where the people who caused the events were at the time?'

'But the display will be almost exactly the same!' Beltempest protested, 'at this level of resolution, anyway.'

'Humour me,' said the Doctor.

Another command. The display flickered slightly, and one or two of the dots seemed to move sideways by a fraction, but otherwise it remained unchanged.

111.'As I said, if this is the sort of help you are supposed to be providing us with, Doctor, then '

'And what I want now,' the Doctor interrupted, 'is to see the time-histories of all those people for . . . well, let's say the week before the events took place.'

'You what?'

The Doctor turned and raised an eyebrow. 'Don't tell me that your much-vaunted Landsknecht computer can't work out where these people have been?

Surely you can tap into security files, or s.h.i.+ps' records, or something?'

'If you think it will help,' Beltempest said with heavy-handed sarcasm. He snapped another set of orders. The blue dots were replaced with a set of wormlike lines. All of the lines converged on the Earth.

'Zoom in on the Earth,' the Doctor instructed.

Beltempest complied. The image on the dome blurred, s.h.i.+fted giddily, and became a globe of the Earth, cloud-covered and rotating as if seen from orbit.

The globe was covered with blue lines, some coming from outside the screen, others starting from various points on the Earth's surface, but all of them pa.s.sing at some stage through a particular area.

'That's where the answer lies,' the Doctor said. 'That's the source of all your problems. Zoom in again.'

They dropped through the atmosphere on a curving course, simulated clouds flas.h.i.+ng past, until they were descending towards a cityscape.

'And where is this?' the Doctor asked.

Beltempest was about to give an instruction when the computer, as if tired of waiting for him to continually pa.s.s on instructions, flashed up a caption.

s.p.a.cEPORT FIVE OVERCITY.

It was early morning in s.p.a.ceport Five Overcity, but Bernice had lost all track of time. Ahead of her, the eerily empty moving walkway pa.s.sed through a hole in the centre of a ma.s.sive building. Other towers loomed all around like ma.s.sive tree-trunks. She watched, while trying to overhear Forrester and Cwej's conversation behind her, as the three of them moved slowly towards the hole.

'Don't be so stupid,' Forrester was saying. 'We can't take her back to the lodge! Not after you know.'

'So what's your suggestion?' Cwej asked. Bernice could hear the nervous-ness in his voice.

'I dunno,' Forrester sighed resignedly after a moment's thought. 'If you've got any bright ideas, don't keep them to yourself.'

There was silence for a moment, and Bernice watched the building slide over them. She didn't want to be back on Earth. She wanted to be with the 112Doctor, and she wanted both the Doctor and herself to be in the TARDIS, and she wanted the TARDIS to be somewhere nice and peaceful.