Part 35 (2/2)

CHRISTOPHER RODONANTe CWEJ.

ROSLYN SARAH FORRESTER.

If there was one thing that an Adjudicator hated more than anything else, it was an Adjudicator gone bad. The Creed demanded only one penance for that: the penance of death. They wouldn't last long enough to tell what if anything they knew.

She sighed, pleased with herself. She hated loose ends. Now she was safe, and the mysterious man who paid her wages her other other wages would be grateful. wages would be grateful.

Perhaps she would even get a bonus.

Something warm trickled down the Doctor's cheek. He didn't know whether it was perspiration or blood. He'd lost a lot of both in the past ten minutes.

Ten minutes? It felt more like half a lifetime. The years he had spent on Pella Satyrnis during his fifth incarnation seemed like a snap of the fingers compared with the time he had spent held down in Tobias Vaughn's chair while the metal claws of the butlerbot went to work on him. Pain had a way of stretching time like warm toffee, until every second was a year and every year a millennium.

If the something that he had been waiting for didn't happen soon, it was going to be too late.

Red light flooded in from the window, making the office look like an anteroom of h.e.l.l. How very apt, the Doctor thought. He s.h.i.+fted slightly in the chair, and suppressed a cry as he tried to find some part of his body that was untouched, a few square inches of flesh upon which he could rest, but the butlerbot had done its work well. Under Vaughn's expert tutelage it had in-flicted so much pain upon him, abused his nerve endings to such an extent, that he had felt the dark shadow of his eighth incarnation hovering over him, 224awaiting the signal to take over. Not that it would have done him much good.

Vaughn would quite happily have tortured his way through the Doctor's remaining bodies, one by one, in his obsessive and so far fruitless quest for the secret of temporal control.

Concentrating on each part of his body in turn, the Doctor tried to a.s.sess the damage. Sad to say, there wasn't very much: some bruising and painful but superficial lacerations, a little internal bleeding, a snapped ligament or two. After all the agony, he felt strangely cheated. The least Vaughn could have done was to break a couple of bones. How was he ever going to get any sympathy from Bernice if there wasn't a mark on him?

a.s.suming, of course, that he was going to see Bernice again. Numerous times during the questioning session he had noticed Vaughn break off and look away, staring through another set of eyes at events occurring elsewhere, issuing orders perhaps, or just monitoring the actions of his bots. He was doing it again now. Unfortunately, the Doctor hadn't been able to take advantage of the man's distraction. The bot's claws had dug just as deeply, held him just as tightly, in the temporary absence of any controlling authority.

And yet . . .

Something was biting at the back of the Doctor's mind something that Vaughn had said earlier. He flicked back through the memories of the last twenty minutes, picking over the words that Vaughn had spoken, trying to spot meanings or implications that he had missed at the time.

'Well, Doctor?' Vaughn said, coming back to life, 'are you ready to cooperate yet?' His metal face was so close to the Doctor that the Time Lord could see every detail: the fake pores, the metal jowls, the artificial bristle that would never need shaving.

'Give me a moment to catch my breath,' the Doctor whispered, still trying to rediscover the words that he thought might be important. His mind was like a lumber room, full of odd memories, cross-linked in the strangest ways.

He would have to have a clear-out at some time.

'Doctor,' Vaughn said in his silk-soft tone, the one that meant he was at his most dangerous. 'Doctor, I'm impatient.'

There! He could see Vaughn's lips moving. What was he saying? 'I am 'I am every bot built by INITEC.' every bot built by INITEC.' That was fairly unambiguous; Vaughn could operate every single robot built by the company that International Electromatics had become. And yet, a few seconds later: That was fairly unambiguous; Vaughn could operate every single robot built by the company that International Electromatics had become. And yet, a few seconds later: 'I was in the bot who waved to you when 'I was in the bot who waved to you when you first arrived in your time machine . . . Every few minutes I would send my you first arrived in your time machine . . . Every few minutes I would send my attention skipping from one bot to another, all over the Earth . . . ' attention skipping from one bot to another, all over the Earth . . . ' The Doctor went carefully over the words. 'Send my attention skipping . . . ' Did that mean that Vaughn could only be in one bot at a time? Did it imply that Vaughn's consciousness flitted about from one bot to another but was always in one The Doctor went carefully over the words. 'Send my attention skipping . . . ' Did that mean that Vaughn could only be in one bot at a time? Did it imply that Vaughn's consciousness flitted about from one bot to another but was always in one and and 225 225only one bot at a time? bot at a time?

Hmm . . .

A flare of white light beside him made the Doctor turn, and quickly turn away as the cold light from the plasma scalpel seared at his eyes. The butlerbot's claw held it steady a few inches away from the side of the Doctor's head.

'I will ask you one last time,' Vaughn said in the same tone of voice with which he had offered the Doctor a cigar earlier on, 'and then I shall start causing permanent damage. A heart, I think. After all, you have two of them, or so my infrared eyesight tells me. Given your amazing physiological capabilities, you may even be able to regrow it, but I suspect that the process will hurt more than a little.'

Vaughn's sleepy eyes continued to stare at the Doctor while the bot moved the plasma blade closer. On a hunch, he s.h.i.+fted sideways in the chair, wincing at the pain in his limbs. Vaughn's eyes didn't track him; they stared at the position he had had been sitting in. Point proven. been sitting in. Point proven.

The plasma blade was so close that he could see it as a bright pink glow if he closed his eyes.

'You win, Vaughn,' he said, trying to put as much defeated resignation into his voice as possible. 'I'll let you into the TARDIS.'

'No, Doctor,' Vaughn purred. 'Your treachery is legendary. Tell Tell me how to get in.' me how to get in.'

'Isomorphic controls,' the Doctor sighed, hanging his head in an attempt to convey utter humiliation. 'Only I can operate them.'

Vaughn was silent for a moment. Casting a glance at him from the corner of his eyes, the Doctor a.s.sumed that he was scanning his database of knowledge about the Doctor's various adventures on Earth in the past thousand years, looking for confirmation of the statement. The Doctor did the same, hoping that he hadn't actually contradicted them himself. The controls were isomor-phic, but only when he bothered setting them up that way.

'Very well,' Vaughn said. 'But remember, the pain you have endured so far has been a mere headache compared to what I can put you through. I've learned a great deal in the past thousand years.'

The clamps on the Doctor's shoulders released. He staggered upright using the arms of the chair as support, unsure if his legs would take his weight. The butlerbot waved the plasma blade towards him, and he retreated towards the comforting blue shape of the TARDIS. The surface was cool, and he rested his cheek against it for a moment.

'I'm waiting,' Vaughn prompted.

226.

Chapter 17.

'I'm Shythe Shahid and this is The Empire Today The Empire Today , on the spot, on , on the spot, on and off the Earth. s.p.a.ceports around the planet are being besieged and off the Earth. s.p.a.ceports around the planet are being besieged by people desperate to leave the planet, despite the fact that no s.h.i.+ps by people desperate to leave the planet, despite the fact that no s.h.i.+ps have landed since last night. The skies above the Earth are reported have landed since last night. The skies above the Earth are reported to be full of s.h.i.+ps whose captains are unwilling to attempt a landing to be full of s.h.i.+ps whose captains are unwilling to attempt a landing in case somebody shoots them down . . . ' in case somebody shoots them down . . . '

The bot had ripped the muscular door into shreds of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh and was reaching towards Bernice's face with its gun arms when its head exploded.

To Bernice, crouching in the control cell, it seemed that a great number of things suddenly happened at once, and most of them were noisy. The cacophony lasted for what seemed like hours, but could only have been a few minutes. Thinking about it later, over a drink in a seedy bar on a backwater planet, she found that her memory was good enough for her to be able to cla.s.sify the noise into various categories: blaster fire of three different types, explosions, screams, war cries, shouts of 'd.a.m.n you, Cwej, get out of the way!'

and 'Look, if you were shooting straight, I wouldn't be be in the way!' but at the time it was just noise. in the way!' but at the time it was just noise.

At one point she looked down, to find that Krohg was cowering in her arms, its eyestalks retracted so far into its slimy body that they made three dimples in its head. She looked around for Powerless Friendless, worried that if Krohg was seeking safety in her arms then he must be dead. She saw him flattened to the ceiling, his pseudo-limbs extruded and twitching as if he was returning fire. In his mind, perhaps he was.

As a stray blaster bolt turned the air above her head to ozone, she scrunched up in the corner. Her hand pa.s.sed across Krohg's flat underside. Terrified by the noise, the light and her proximity to death, her mind retreated, finding solace in details. She became very aware of the way that Krogh's underside wasn't flat at all, but contained countless small pits, like a very fine sponge.

And something went click in her mind as two separate ideas collided.

Fascinated by the conclusion that her mind had accidentally sidled up to, it took her a few moments to realize that the firing had stopped.

'Hi, Bernie!' a voice said from the ruins of the doorway. She glanced up.

The bits of Cwej's face that weren't covered with soot looked as if they'd been badly sunburned.

227.'Unless you want that blaster inserted rectally,' she said, 'don't call me Bernie. Benny, if anything. Bernice, at a pinch. Not Bernie.'

'I thought you'd be pleased to see me,' he said, hurt.

She climbed unsteadily to her feet, grabbed hold of the top of his chest plate, pulled him halfway through the doorway and kissed him, long and hard.

'I'm pleased,' she said finally, pus.h.i.+ng him away. 'All right?'

'All right right!' he said. It was difficult to tell through the blaster burn, but she thought that he was blus.h.i.+ng.

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