Part 17 (1/2)

Benny pulled herself to her feet as the hatch closed beneath them. The two politicians who had come up before them hadn't made it any further than this first reception chamber. She wondered whether they realised that the room was little more than a storage area. In the Martian scheme of things, such details of etiquette were very important, and it was probably the Lord's idea of a joke. Martian humour was occasional y elusive to humans, and most of it got lost in translation.

The Lord - Benny was still trying to remember his name from the Declaration - towered over the humans, as might be expected. The n.o.bility of the Argyre had not adopted the sleeker bio-armour that most of the Martian clans wore by this time. That gave a couple of important clues to his character: he was a soldier, not a diplomat, he was a reactionary, he wasn't too concerned by the fas.h.i.+ons of his people.

He was also large, taller and broader than even most of his fel ow Martians. A great crack on his shoulder blade had been crudely patched up, and the carapace had long grown back over it, leaving a dark green scar.

63.Unlike many of the Martian n.o.bility, he'd been on the front line, fighting sh.e.l.l to sh.e.l.l with his men.

The Doctor was moving forward. Benny caught his arm. 'I'l do it,' she offered.

The Doctor nodded, stepping aside. 'Xznaal,' he reminded her.

Benny stepped off the disc and walked calmly up to the Martian, keeping her head bowed. 'Da.s.s hunnur, ssli hoos-urr, Xznaal.'

'Ssperr hunnur urr ta.s.s.' The reply came automatical y, but Benny thought she detected a grudging tone in his voice. He'd also left off the honorific form. 'You know of us. 'he wheezed. It was a statement, delivered with a hint of suspicion. Benny wondered for a moment whether she'd betrayed too much knowledge.

The Doctor stepped forwards. 'Good evening, my Lord,' he glanced back at Greyhaven. 'My apologies. Good evening, my Lords. I am the Doctor, and this is my friend Bernice Summerfield. I believe that you need my help.'

'Inssolent commoner,' Xznaal hissed, straightening his claw. Nestling in the patch of green hair at his wrist was a stubby metal tube. It flowed out of the joint, like a protruding bone rather than something that had been grafted on.

It was a weapon, of course, a sonic disruptor.

The Doctor stared right down the barrel. 'You, sir, may be a Lord of Mars, but I am a Lord of Time. You wil show the respect due to me.'

'A Gallifreyan?' Xznaal whispered. He lowered his arm, and bowed his head.

The Doctor's lip curled until he was almost sneering. 'That's right. As I was saying, you need my help. Tell me everything you know.'

The Doctor stood there, listening to them as first Xznaal, then Greyhaven recounted their versions of events. The Home Secretary, Staines, was hanging on every word as well. It didn't need an expert in body language to tel that he was terrified. Benny watched the Doctor closely. Before he had changed, he rarely referred to his home planet, and had never used it to pull rank on anyone. On the other hand, it was the perfect way to gain the respect of a Martian n.o.blebeing.

Xznaal and Greyhaven had been in contact for over twenty years. Throughout that time, Greyhaven had kept mankind away from Mars, and Xznaal had sent him the odd snippet of technical information.

'Lord Gerayhavunn ha.s.s kept hiss sside of the bargain,' Xznaal concluded, inhaling loudly. Greyhaven had been happy to relate his part in the scheme, the Martian had been more reticent. 'Now we sshall keep ourss. With our ssupport,' he wheezed, 'he sshall rule thiss country a.s.s he sseess fit, and,' another hiss,'together we sshall ussher in an age of interplanetary co-operation.'

'All it needs is this Martian s.h.i.+p,' Greyhaven proclaimed, flinging his arms wide. 'We've got supporters on the ground, we've got troops and equipment, but with just one Martian war rocket, we can suppress any opposition.

But we don't need guns, we don't need bombs. Just think: a thousand new factories, pouring out technology that's a century ahead of anything on the market at the moment. It's the start of a new Industrial Revolution, with Britain at the forefront! Jobs, prosperity, security, international prestige and power. Not just international: Interplanetary!

Interstellar! Intergalactic! Together, humanity and the Martians will travel to the stars hand in hand.'

'Oh yes, Lord Greyhaven,' the Doctor shouted, although he was almost face-to-face with him. 'I can see what's in it for you. You think you'l go down in history as the man who put the Great back into Great Britain and the sofa back into the United States of America. The suns will never set on the British Empire.' He turned to Xznaal. 'But you won't be going hand-in-hand anywhere. Martians don't have hands. What exactly do the Martians get from this deal?'

Benny could imagine Xznaal's eyes narrowing behind his visor. 'Marss iss in itss dying dayss. Over a million yearss of civilissation, of technological progressss, iss coming to an end.'

'Your mineral wealth is exhausted,' Benny said. She'd seen the worked-out mines, the metal stripped from old buildings to complete new ones. At one point, the Martian civilisation had spread from the poles almost to the equator. Something had caused ma.s.sive retrenchment even before the Thousand Day War. Most archaeologists agreed that there must have been an ecological disaster.

Xznaal faced her. 'Ssummerfield, my entire planet iss exhaussted.' He paused to draw breath. 'For centuriess there ha.s.s been no new metal, no new ssource of energy. 'Another pause. 'Al Martian life iss dying from the ssmallesst plant to the largesst bea.s.st of burden. Our blood is thin, my people infertile. Within a century, our world will be dead.'

'So you want to plunder Earth?' the Doctor countered.

'There's no question of ”plunder”, Doctor,' Greyhaven snapped. 'We wil open a trading relations.h.i.+p with the Martian people. Both planets will benefit.'

'In the la.s.st few centuriess, our major citiess have become depopulated. Our people are impotent and dissea.s.sed.

Our fieldss are barren. Lord Geryahavunn ha.s.s been a.s.sssissting uss.'

'Staines,' Greyhaven prompted.

The Home Secretary pul ed a test tube from his jacket pocket.

'Martian soil,' Benny said. It was one of the tubes from the crashed helicopter, or one very similar.

'Not quite,' Greyhaven said, taking it from his colleague. 'Martian soil is little more than rust. It's mildly radioactive and completely sterile. You have as much chance as growing crops on the hul of this s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p as in Martian soil.'

He handed the test tube to the Martian Lord. 'But when Xznaal's men a.n.a.lyse the contents of this test tube, they will discover that our scientists have reintroduced biological agents that make the soil fertile. It is a simple chemical treatment process.'

64.Xznaal's held the tube in his vast pincers. 'Our sscientisstss theorissed that ssuch a processss would exisst, but without raw materialss, it remained just a theory.'

'One of my refineries is already producing the fertiliser. To human eyes it is a laughably cheap procedure, but it will save an entire planet. Soon, s.p.a.ce freighters built by British Aeros.p.a.ce will be transporting the fertiliser, and raw materials like it to Mars. '

The Doctor straightened. 'Not Martian wars.h.i.+ps?'

Xznaal hissed. 'Thiss will be the only war rocket needed to ssecure our interesstss here. Thiss iss not an inva.s.sion, Doctor, thiss iss a trading partnerss.h.i.+p.'

'The Martian s.h.i.+p is here for the same reason we maintain the garrison on Gibraltar,' Greyhaven explained.

'Exactly,' Staines brightened. He was plucking up his courage now. 'I must say, Teddy, I was a little sceptical before, but the more I hear, the more it sounds like an excel ent idea.'

'I take it Staines gets to keep his job in the new order?' Benny said.

'Oh yes. He will be Home Secretary and Chancel or, I wil be the Prime Minister, serving Xznaal as head of state.'

'This doesn't sound very democratic,' the Doctor noted. 'Don't the British people get a say in all this?'

'No,' Greyhaven said coldly. 'There is nothing to discuss. Once the situation has stabilised, dissenters may be allowed to emigrate.'

'And if they don't want to?'

'Then they won't be allowed to dissent. The ill-informed opinions of a rabble won't stand in the way of mankind's destiny. People want strong government, they want security, they want a better standard of living. Do you seriously think that the current generation of politicians can provide that when they spend most of their time arguing amongst themselves over trivia and they are afraid to look beyond next week, let alone into the new millennium?

No offence, David.'

'None taken, Teddy.' The second half of the speech was almost word-for-word what Staines had put in his electoral address.

The Doctor's mouth was open, ready to object when there was a rumbling noise far away from them. Another sound the same. Benny turned to the Doctor, who was frowning.

'Lord Xznaal,' a disembodied voice echoed, 'we are under attack.'

The Martian roared, turning to face Greyhaven.