Part 29 (2/2)

'I'm not . . . Oh, never mind. What was so special about it? How exactly did icaron technology help you to construct a better wars.h.i.+p?'

Hater Of Humans shrugged. 'I am not a technician,' it said loftily, 'I am a ruler.'

The Doctor scowled. 'Indulge me. What can you remember?'

The guard started forward, but Hater Of Humans waved her back with a languid pseudo-limb.

'My advisors informed me,' it continued, 'that the main problem with our wars.h.i.+ps was the immense power they need to generate in order to enter . . .

hypers.p.a.ce? and thus move between the stars. With so much power dedicated to that task, there was less to use for weaponry and manoeuvring in ordinary s.p.a.ce. It seemed at the time a plausible argument.'

'So?'

'Somehow,' Hater Of Humans said, 'icarons helped solve this problem. I know not how. My only interest was in preventing the Earth Empire from raping our glorious planet. I would have grasped at any pa.s.sing opportunity.'

The Doctor turned to Professor Pryce, whose eyes were closed and whose body was relaxed. 'Professor? Perhaps you can help us out here.'

Pryce's eyes opened slowly, and he turned his black gaze on the Doctor.

'Icarons are elementary particles that exist in their rest state in hypers.p.a.ce,'

he whispered. 'As their energy levels increase, they slip from hypers.p.a.ce into the real universe. In this regard they are the opposite of normal matter, which requires energy to take it from the real universe into hypers.p.a.ce. It is that extra energy, over and above the rest-state energy of particles of normal matter, that makes them so dangerous to the human mind.' He smiled slightly. 'You appreciate that I use the term ”real” with some distaste. Nothing is real. All is illusion.'

'And so,' the Doctor added, 'by building a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p around a low-energy icaron particle accelerator, you ensure that it actually prefers being in hypers.p.a.ce which is, if you like, its natural habitat. The low-energy icarons act as an anchor in hypers.p.a.ce, whereas, if they are given energy, they pull it into real s.p.a.ce. Most of its power can then be diverted to weapons and manoeu-vrability.' He raised his eyebrows as the implications of the thought unrolled before him In a strange sort of way, the Hith had done with a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p what the Time Lords had done with a time craft. After all, TARDISes 'lived' in the time vortex, and only emerged into reality under protest and with much encouragement.

Beside him, Provost-Major Beltempest caught his breath. 'Incredible,' he said. 'A s.h.i.+p like that could have changed the course of the war if it hadn't been captured!'

184.Hater Of Humans s.h.i.+fted in its seat. Beside it, Hopeless Itinerant curled a pseudo-limb around the vestigial sh.e.l.l at the base of its tail and yanked hard.

'You have no idea how pleased I am to hear it,' Hater Of Humans murmured over Hopeless Itinerant's squeal. 'But you distract me.' It turned to Pryce.

'Professor Pryce, where is is our s.h.i.+p? Where is the our s.h.i.+p? Where is the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske?'

Pryce shook his head.

'I do not know,' he said simply.

'But . . . ?' Hater Of Humans jerked upright in its seat. The guard grabbed for her gun.

'After my mind was opened to higher possibilities,' Pryce whispered, low and compulsively, 'after the sacrament of pain and degradation was revealed to me, the Imperial Landsknechte took your s.h.i.+p away. I believe it was given to an independent company with experience in subatomic particles. They were contracted to take it apart, on the basis that they could patent any spin-off technology. I don't know which company it was.' He smiled. 'By then, I was past caring about such mundane things as finance. Only death interested me.

Death, and the prolonging of the moment of death, the stretching of pain until it became like a fine, taut wire that, when plucked, rang out in a scream of pure agony.'

Pryce closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. All eyes and eyestalks turned from him to Provost-Major Beltempest.

'Don't look at me,' he protested. 'Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you.' He turned to look at the Doctor.

'Who would be likely to get such a contract?' the Doctor said.

'Doctor, I will not discuss cla.s.sified information with aliens!'

The Doctor removed a gold Hunter watch from his waistcoat pocket and opened the face. As Beltempest, Pryce and Hater Of Humans watched, fascinated, he counted off ten seconds, then put the watch away.

'Based upon my earlier calculations in your laboratory,' he said, 'fifteen people have just gone mad on Earth as a result of the release of icaron radiation from the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske. How many more will you allow to die? What proportion of humanity will have to be sacrificed before you change your mind? Who knows what the effects will be on the Empire? We have to make them realize the dangers of dealing with icarons!'

Beltempest took a deep breath. 'You have an unerring knack of reducing everything to a simple choice between two unpleasant alternatives,' he said through clenched teeth. 'If I wanted robotic workers for something, I would choose INITEC. Their experience in cybernetics and robotics is unparalleled.'

'INITEC?' the Doctor queried. 'I thought I'd come across most of the major corporations in my time, but that's a new one on me.'

'It stands for Interstellar Nanoatomic ITEC,' Beltempest replied.

185.'If I knew what ITEC stood for it might help,' grumbled the Doctor.

Beltempest sighed. 'Where have you been? ITEC is an acronym for Independent Terran Empire Corporation.'

A bit like the words 'limited' or 'incorporated' back in the time of his exile on Earth, the Doctor reflected. Interstellar Nanoatomic ITEC. Something about that name caused a s.h.i.+ver to run up his spine. Not the name itself, but its component parts. He'd heard them before, in a different order, and not in a pleasant context.

'Interstellar Nanoatomic ITEC is the only major corporation whose head-quarters are still on Earth,' Beltempest continued as the Doctor rolled various alternatives around in his mind 'Every other one has moved to the outer Rim planets, but INITEC stayed. Their building is in s.p.a.ceport Five Overcity, but '

Now that that name rang a bell, as Quasimodo once said. name rang a bell, as Quasimodo once said.

's.p.a.ceport Five Overcity,' the Doctor said grimly. 'The area of Earth that everybody who went mad had pa.s.sed through, if you remember our calculations on Purgatory.'

It fell to Beltempest to sum up what they were all thinking All except Pryce, whose thoughts were of a colour and texture that n.o.body else could understand.

'So the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske is on Earth,' Beltempest whispered, 'and the radiation from its engines is driving people mad.' is on Earth,' Beltempest whispered, 'and the radiation from its engines is driving people mad.'

The null-grav lift shaft was only large enough to carry one normal-sized person, and Viscount Henson Farlander, aide-in-chief to the Empress, could feel its curved walls sc.r.a.ping his sides. He rose gently away from the vast ball-room with its teeming flocks of the aristocracy toward the Imperial Presence.

The walls were cold cold enough that ice was forming on them and he tried his best to pull his flesh away to avoid blisters. Still, it was a miracle of engineering. Not six inches away was the hard, cold vacuum of s.p.a.ce. Here in the shaft it was just a trifle uncomfortable.

The shaft deposited him at the base of the spherical Imperial Throne Room.

He looked around, stunned as always by the view. The transparisteel walls were polished so well that he couldn't even see them. All that he could see was Saturn's majestic bulk, and the rainbow of its rings arcing away from him, front and back, as if the Imperial Throne Room were a transparent bubble sliding gracefully along an endless road of ice.

The Divine Empress's naked body hovered above him: a warty excrescence of flesh with stumps for limbs, bloated by the incurable, inoperable tumours and diseases of extreme old age. Thin wires haloed her asymmetric head, leading to the machines that boosted her intelligence and sent it flying across s.p.a.ce. She had ruled for so long that generations had lived and died without 186realizing that she was centcomp; that she was the controlling intelligence that ran the solar system. And yet . . . and yet . . .

There were some problems that even she couldn't solve.

'NEWS?' her voice boomed. Farlander knew that only a fraction of her attention was directed at him. The rest was shunting information for hundreds of trillions of people across billions of miles.

'Most Supreme and Puissant Majesty . . . ' Farlander began in his most humble voice.

'NEWS?'

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