Part 35 (1/2)

The Doctor thought back to his conversation with Professor Zebulon Pryce.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Nothing gives me the right, but having got it, I will not relinquish it. I am time's champion, Vaughn, in the same way that you claim to be Earth's champion, and it is my responsibility to protect history. Humanity doesn't even come close to developing usable time travel until ' He bit his tongue, thinking about the Crystal Bucephalus. Best not to give Vaughn too much help. 'Well, for quite some time yet.'

'Then you will not help me?'

'I would rather die first.' The Doctor folded his arms and tried to look firm, while wis.h.i.+ng that his words hadn't sounded quite so much like a dare.

Vaughn watched the Doctor for a long moment, smiling slightly.

'I promise you,' he said quietly, 'by the time you have screamed out your knowledge, one agonized fact at a time, you would would rather have died first.' rather have died first.'

A gloved metal claw scratched oh-so-lightly at the Doctor's temple.

'Where's the Doctor?' Forrester shouted as they pounded through the twist-ing, turning labyrinth of corridors that made up the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske. Hith warriors paralleled their course, sliding along the walls and the ceiling, regardless of gravity. Cwej brought up the rear.

'We went our different ways,' Beltempest panted. 'Not still interested in arresting him, are you?'

A bot leaped out of a side pa.s.sage and skewered three Hith on a beam of light. Even before their charred bodies had fallen to the floor, the combined firepower of four more had sent it staggering backwards in a spray of molten metal.

221.'Not at the moment.' Forrester gasped and wiped a quick hand across her face.

'But I might think of something.' Her gaze flickered over Beltempest's face.

'You've been using him, haven't you?'

Beltempest nodded. 'We've known for some time that there's been corrup-tion in the highest levels of the Landsknechte,' he puffed. 'Blackmail, bribery, undue influence, you name it. What we didn't know was who was doing the corrupting and why they were doing it. I was put in charge of a special team trying to track down the top dog.' He broke off to fire shots down another side corridor. 'd.a.m.n, thought I saw something. Never mind. Where was I?

Oh yes, I'd set up a special monitoring team checking all incoming messages.

When one of our provost-majors received an anonymous order to arrest and kill two people who were about to arrive on Purgatory, I got suspicious.'

'The Doctor and Bernice?'

'Indeed. The provost-major was arrested and I subst.i.tuted for him.' He looked down at himself. 'This was a rush bepple job. Used a time tank. Bit of a shock when I woke up, I can tell you.'

'So you're not the real Provost-Major Beltempest?'

Beltempest shrugged. 'I had a partial brainwipe. I can't remember who I used to be. As far as I'm concerned, I am Beltempest.'

'Why, for G.o.ddess' sake?' Forrester was appalled.

'You know. It's in case I'm captured and interrogated. All that a mind probe session would reveal is that I am Provost-Major Beltempest. We couldn't afford to tip off Mr Big, whoever that turned out to be.'

'But you were going to let the Doctor and Bernice die,' Cwej protested from behind.

'They had to,' Beltempest said without any hint of remorse. His trunk shook as he ran, making his voice quaver. 'The top dog would have got suspicious otherwise, and we had to a.s.sume that he had other agents who would have notified him if their bodies didn't turn up. The intention was to track back the movements of the Doctor and Bernice and find out who they had offended enough to get themselves killed.'

'That's very calculating,' Forrester said. She wasn't sure whether she approved of amorality on that scale or not.

'Perhaps,' Beltempest said, shrugging.

'What about the provost-major you arrested?' Cwej persisted.

The Provost-Major didn't reply for a moment, concentrating instead on catching up with the Hith warriors. 'He died,' he said finally. 'Someone had set up a mental b.o.o.by-trap. The minute we arrested him, he pulled a gun and killed himself. No choice it was an implanted reaction. We suppressed the news, brainwiped the Landsknechte who saw the body, and I took over. We 222couldn't trace the Doctor or Bernice back more than a few hours, so the only course left was for me to go along with the Doctor and hope he would lead me to the person behind the conspiracy. We couldn't risk questioning the Doctor, for obvious reasons.'

'Good thing we forced you to keep him alive,' Forrester muttered sotto voce sotto voce.

A sudden volley of blaster fire ahead, down a side corridor, made the leading Hith slow to a halt. Extruding a pseudo-limb, she waved the rest of them back.

'Wonder what's going on,' Cwej said as they all flattened themselves against the wall.

'Well, there's one way to find out,' Forrester replied as another outbreak of firing made them all flinch. 'Just stick your head around that corner. If it comes back black and crispy, we'll know there's a problem.'

'Thanks,' Cwej said.

Ahead of them, the Hith were having a conference. Eventually one of them split off and slithered back towards them.

'There's one of us and one of you up ahead,' it said. 'They're under fire. Any ideas?'

'It must be Bernice and Powerless Friendless,' Forrester said grimly.

'Rescue them!' Cwej exclaimed.

The Hith just looked at him.

'Good idea,' it said finally. 'I'll pa.s.s that one back.'

It slid away.

'G.o.ddess!'

Adjudicator Secular Genial Ras.h.i.+d s.h.i.+fted her position, trying to ease the ache of her piles as reports of the riots fought for attention on her centcomp screen. With her centcomp gla.s.ses on she couldn't see the flames outside, but she knew that they were getting closer. Much closer.

She should be concerned about the spread of violence, she knew that. She should be deploying her forces, rounding up ringleaders, protecting the innocent majority who were squirrelled away in their homes and their shelters, waiting for peace to be restored. The riots, although violent and apparently spontaneous, only involved a minority of people. She should be thinking about moving the lodge.

She should be concerned about others, not herself.

And yet . . .

Forrester and Cwej had left Earth on the trail of two suspects without telling her. That meant they suspected something. They suspected that the official conclusion of the case was wrong, and if they suspected that, then they suspected her, because she had warned them off.

And they had come back. Again, they hadn't told her.

223.She reached out with a fat finger and touched a virtual b.u.t.ton that hung in mid-air. A menu appeared before her. She navigated through several nested menus until she found the one she wanted: a list of known and suspected riot-ers and killers still at large. Faces of people seen running away from sabotaged walkways, recorded by nearby securitybots. Descriptions given by victims of acts of random and senseless violence. Names mentioned in the dying breaths of relatives and friends who had been murdered over lunch, or in bed, or during casual conversation. People who were to be shot on sight under the new emergency powers that the Adjudicator in Extremis had brought into effect by order of the Empress. Every Adjudicator had immediate access to the list through centcomp, wherever they were.

Ras.h.i.+d ran a hand over her oiled quiff, smoothing it back to perfection. Her puffy face creased into a smile as she typed two more names into the list.