Part 31 (1/2)

With a sickening realization, the Doctor could see where the conversation was leading. If he hadn't spent so long talking to Pryce on board Beltempest's s.p.a.cecraft he wouldn't have believed it himself, but he knew what the man was going to do. The Hith, with limited knowledge of the limits to which the human mind could be driven, had no chance. He opened his mouth to warn Hater Of Humans, but he was too late.

'Yes,' said Hater Of Humans. 'As the s.h.i.+elding around the icaron ring is removed and the radiation builds, more and more people will be affected every time the door into hypers.p.a.ce is opened. According to the fastline reports we have been receiving, there are already riots on Earth and insurrections on some of the colony planets. Murder rates are rising steadily. Earth is on the verge of collapse. If you value the lives of your fellow humans, put the nexus down! It's your only chance!'

192.Pryce suddenly clenched his hand. The nexus screamed shrilly for a brief moment before it ruptured and a pink liquid splattered up and across the table. Pryce smiled at the other six people in the room.

'My only regret,' he said licking at the gelatinous remains that slid down his wrist and forearm, 'is that I will not be around to watch it.'

'Kill him,' said Hater Of Humans.

Pryce made no attempt to escape as the female guard aimed her weapon at him and pulled the trigger. His face creased into a smile as the beam of pure, unsullied energy burned its way through his forehead, blackening and blistering his flesh. Amazingly, he stood up and stretched his arms wide. For a split second, light shone from his eyes and mouth as he was consumed from within. The Doctor wasn't sure, but he thought that Pryce said something just before his head imploded and his body slumped to the floor. Whatever words he said, the Doctor couldn't make them out, and he was glad that he couldn't.

Whatever message Pryce had sent back from the edge of death, it wasn't one the Doctor wanted to hear.

Pryce's death took just under three seconds, but the Doctor felt as though he had been sitting watching the man die for an eternity. When he turned back to Hater Of Humans, he felt older than he ever had before.

Hater Of Humans was ashen and s.h.i.+vering. Beside it, Hopeless Itinerant reached down towards its tail.

'No!' the Doctor shouted, but before he could stop it, Hopeless Itinerant curled a pseudo-limb around its vestigial sh.e.l.l and, without a moment's hesitation, pulled it right off.

It screamed, and died before its blood could hit the walls.

The Doctor shook his head sadly. There were moments in his life when he felt as if he was in the last act of a Jacobean tragedy.

193.

Chapter 14.

'Please listen carefully. This is an announcement by the Imperial Landsknechte. By order of Her Highness the Divine Empress, Glory Landsknechte. By order of Her Highness the Divine Empress, Glory of the Empire, Ruler of the High Court, Lord of the Inner and Outer of the Empire, Ruler of the High Court, Lord of the Inner and Outer Worlds, High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets, Lord General of the Six Worlds, High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets, Lord General of the Six Armies and Defender of the Earth, a state of martial law has been Armies and Defender of the Earth, a state of martial law has been declared across the planet. From this moment forward until further declared across the planet. From this moment forward until further notice, a twenty-four-hour curfew is in effect. This is purely for your notice, a twenty-four-hour curfew is in effect. This is purely for your own protection, and law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. The own protection, and law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. The punishment for rioting is immediate death. The punishment for loot-ing is immediate death. The punishment for sabotage is immediate punishment for rioting is immediate death. The punishment for loot-ing is immediate death. The punishment for sabotage is immediate death. The punishment for breaking the curfew is immediate death. death. The punishment for breaking the curfew is immediate death.

The punishment . . . '

'Powerless Friendless?' Bernice hissed. 'Where the h.e.l.l are you?' The spongy walls of the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske absorbed the sound of her voice, deadening it, stripping it of the tension that she felt and leaving it sounding flat and almost bored. absorbed the sound of her voice, deadening it, stripping it of the tension that she felt and leaving it sounding flat and almost bored.

There was no answer. Bernice moved farther down the corridor, sweat cool-ing her brow, continually swivelling her head to check that none of the sleek bots were creeping up on her or lurking around the curve ahead. Everything was curved in this s.h.i.+p; there wasn't an angle or a flat surface anywhere in sight. Question: why did the Romans build straight roads? Answer: so that the Saxons couldn't hide around corners. She wished she had a gun. Cancel that; she wished she had a big gun, one of those ones that took two hands and a shoulder strap to carry, and was linked by a big curly cable to a power supply so huge that it had to follow along behind on caterpillar tracks. Alternatively, she wished she had the Doctor there. Better than any gun. Not quite as impressive to the casual glance, but far more effective, and didn't need reloading. Just shutting up occasionally.

She stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. The tension was getting to her. Even her thoughts were babbling. Think calm, Bernice. Gently lapping waters. Birdsong. Chocolate mousse.

As her heartbeat slowed to a level where she could actually distinguish the separate beats, she sank against the wall, resting her back and her hands against its moistness. It gave slightly beneath her weight. Perhaps it was her 194imagination, or perhaps she was just picking up her own pulse, but she could have sworn the wall throbbed slightly beneath her palms.

Like huge, bloated flies, her thoughts kept circling around a particular notion. What if, somewhere deep inside her brain, a, vein of fire was beginning to glow? What if she was already being driven mad by the icaron radiation from the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske's engines? What if it was already too late?

Then again, what if she'd just stayed on Earth and joined s.p.a.cefleet? What if she'd never gone to Heaven and met the Doctor? To think of all the things she would have missed, all the glorious sights she never would have seen . . .

She shook her head slightly. Never say die, that's what the Doctor had told her the last time she had thought about giving up. Never say die.

She remembered finding a book of poems in the TARDIS library, during her period of moping after Ace had left. The poems had been written by a man named Dylan Thomas. According to the introduction, he had been something of a drinker. That's what made her read on. A man after her own heart. A phrase still echoed in her mind from one of those poems, a gauntlet flung in the face of the universe.

'Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

Never say die.

She pushed herself away from the wall. If she was going to go as mad as a Dalek in the middle of a universal battery shortage she'd do it standing up and cursing, thank you very much. She had a job to do, and she'd better get on with it.

They had split up on entering the s.h.i.+p. They had agreed that, with hunter-killer robots on the case, the important thing was to search the s.h.i.+p to ensure that n.o.body else was aboard, and then try and find some way of taking off and getting the h.e.l.l out of there. Forrester and Cwej had headed towards the engine room; Bernice had volunteered to make for the control room with Powerless Friendless.

But by the time this had all been agreed, Powerless Friendless had vanished.

'Powerless Friendless?' she hissed again, just in case he was around.

'Bernice?' The voice was loud, and came from just above her head. Bernice remembered to clap a hand over her mouth before screaming against her clammy palm.

'Did I startle you?' Powerless Friendless asked. She looked up. His mollusc body was attached to the ceiling with mucus and his eyestalks were almost on a level with her eyes.

'No!' she exclaimed, her voice so high that even the sound-deadening walls of the corridor couldn't disguise her surprise.

'I've found something interesting,' Powerless Friendless said. 'Follow me.'

He slithered off around the bend in the corridor, his course taking him across 195the ceiling and halfway down the wall before he vanished from sight. Bernice ran a hand across her forehead, and followed, keeping to what she thought of as the floor.

There was an open doorway just around the bend, and through the doorway was a room lined with organic control panels. The whole thing looked suspiciously to Bernice like a garden centre.

'Communications room,' Powerless Friendless said succinctly as he reached the floor. 'I've checked over the controls. They're still operative. INITEC obviously started their deconstruction in the middle of the s.h.i.+p, at the weapons bays, and are working their way in both directions. They haven't got here yet.'

'And this helps us how?' Bernice asked.

'It doesn't help you,' he said, 'it helps me.' He extruded a trio of pseudo-limbs and began caressing the controls. They bloomed and sprouted beneath his touch. 'I'm sending a distress call.'

'To whom?'

He rotated an eyestalk to face her. His gaze was thunderous.

'To whatever remains of the Hith,' he said.

The Doctor was standing outside the Hith encampment, enjoying the cool breeze and the sight of Purgatory's sun poised above the distant horizon. If this replica was anything to go by, he thought that he would have liked Hithis.

It had a certain calmness about it, a rightness that reminded him of Florana and Metebelis in the good old days. The feeling of a planet at peace with itself.

Now Florana was a dumping ground for the waste products of thirty-six races, Metebelis was a desert wasteland and Hithis had been terraformed into a suburb of Earth. All that remained was a hexagonal section some three hundred kilometres across on somebody else's planet. Sometimes he despaired.

'Doctor?' Provost-Major Beltempest emerged from the tent behind him, past the Hith guards who were watching the Doctor and studiously ignoring each other.

'Over here.'

Beltempest lumbered over, wheezing asthmatically at the effort of moving his elephantine bulk. For a moment, he too watched the sun slide down beneath the edge of the world.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' the Doctor said rhetorically.