Part 26 (1/2)

'Thankie, my liege.'

Xznaal grunted. It offended him to hear his language desecrated by a lower lifeform. The conversation would have to continue in the crude human dialect. 'The domesstic ssituation remainss volatile. Why?'

'The rabble are trying to take advantage of the new government. The riots are being orchestrated by extremists.

We'l capture the ringleaders. With your help, we've completely removed the enemy stronghold at Portsmouth. If you would authorise the use of the wars.h.i.+p again - '

'That attack wa.s.s in retribution for the incident at Gatwick.' He paused to suck in more air. 'Our operation there wa.s.s dissrupted. One of our sshuttlecraft was desstroyed.'

Xztaynz faltered. 'Yes, I heard reports. But your crew?'

'My crew wa.s.s unharmed.' Xznaal barked. 'But al the livesstock esscaped.'

'How did it happen?'

Xznaal didn't reply. The Terran weapons were primitive, but they had penetrated the war rocket's armour. Xznaal had always known that his s.h.i.+p would be unable to withstand a nuclear blast, but last night human conventional rocketry and artillery had proved a great deal more effective than Martian military intelligence had suggested. It was a worrying development, but one that only confirmed the urgency of his endeavours.

'That iss of no importance. I will not authorisse the usse of the warss.h.i.+p except where Martian interesstss are directly threatened.'

'But Adisham - '

'The Time Lord wa.s.s a threat to Martian operationss. Enough of thiss: what of the other human clanss?'

'The foreign situation has stabilised, as we knew it would,' Xztaynz continued. 'Very few emba.s.sies have closed, and now that the foreign nationals are beginning to return home, and it's clear that it's business as usual - '

'Enough. Lord Gerayhayvun informss me that you are an expert on human art.'

The human s.h.i.+fted from one foot to the other, as it was wont to. 'I know a little. The curators here will be happy to help us if my knowledge proves imperfect. This place is so much more impressive without the mob surging around it in their backpacks and T-s.h.i.+rts.'

Xznaal looked around at the high ceilings and long galleries. Normally this place was open to humans of al ranks.

He understood that as the British state owned the exhibits, all taxpayers had free access to view the finest Earth art acquired in a millennium of conquest and commission. A n.o.ble arrangement for such a savage race. When he returned to Argyre, Xznaal vowed to throw open his own galleries to his subjects. The first exhibition would be one of human painting, weapons, flowers and sculpture.

He turned to the canvas on his right. 'What iss thiss one?'

'The Hay Wain. By Constable.'

'I like it. It sshowss the bounty of your human flora and fauna. Have it removed and taken to my chamberss in the Tower. Thiss one iss by the ssame artisst?'

'Correct, your majesty.'

'That one too. And that big horsse.'

'The Stubbs? Yes, King Xznaal.' The Home Secretary motioned to the curator and repeated the order.

When the curator had gone, Xztaynz turned back to Xznaal. 'Your majesty, I was at Television Centre yesterday.

The doc.u.mentary on Martian history is proceeding very well. The photographs you provided of the last Marshall's funeral were very powerful.'

'Yess.' They showed the funeral barge moving up the Araxes Ca.n.a.l into the Fields of the Dead. Every Lord was there, their armour bedecked in gold. Xznaal had stood sh.e.l.l to sh.e.l.l with even his bitterest rivals, the leaders of the clans of Thaumasia and Erythraeum, united in grief for the ruler of all their people and in support of the new Marshal , the boy-king Paxaphyr. The funeral of a Marshall was such a contrast to the normal austerity of Martian life.

'I had no idea that your civilisation was so old. Hundreds of thousands of years. It makes human history seem so insignificant.'

'Indeed,' Xznaal whispered. 'Report on the consstruction of the ss.p.a.ce freighterss.'

'Er, yes, that is ahead of schedule. The first s.h.i.+pments to Mars wil begin at the end of the month.'

'Good,' Xznaal said.

'If I might return to the subject of Martian culture. I couldn't help noting an Egyptian influence. That fascinates me.

It seems that your people and ours have encountered one another before.'

Xznaal shuffled around to face the Home Secretary. 'Egyptian?'

'An ancient Earth clan. But Egypt is a hot country, too hot for Martians, I would have thought. Luckily, we've got a lot of Egyptian pieces at the British Museum. I brought a catalogue.'

Xznaal took the doc.u.ment, tried to manipulate it in his claws. It slipped between his pincers and dropped to the floor. Xztaynz bent down to pick it up, holding open and in front of his eyes. Xznaal studied the pictures. Ancient human artefacts, all bearing crude, but recognisable images.

'You worss.h.i.+p thesse G.o.dss?' Xznaal hissed curiously.

'Heavens no, I'm Church of England,' Xztaynz gurgled. 'No-one has wors.h.i.+pped this lot for thousands of years.'

92.Xznaal glared down at him. 'They will,' he ordered. 'You will insstruct your teacher ca.s.ste to include religiouss insstruction in the curriculum.'

'Martian religion?'

'Reformed Martian, yess.'

Xztaynz gurgled again. 'I'm not sure the Archbishop of Canterbury would like that.' His face was contorted into a rictus.

Xznaal angled his head and exhaled. 'Then behead him and replace him with one loyal to uss. I thought you were a politician.'

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield: I finished my ablutions and began to trudge back up to the officer's mess. My thoughts at the time were preoccupied with how I could escape. I'd decided that my best bet was to build myself an interstellar distress beacon and signal for help. That was the current plan, the only real flaw with it being I hadn't even the slightest idea how to build an interstellar distress beacon. I knew that I wanted to try and contact my father, but wasn't sure where to start. He'd be lying low, too low for me to find on my own. Failing that, I told myself, I could stay in Windsor Forest. Why would anyone want to leave such a peaceful wood, with deer and squirrels, for motorways and town centres with a roadblock at every junction?

I slid the door of the mess open and stepped inside. Most of the soldiers were up now. One of them had made us all a mug of tea. I took mine grateful y. The two Brigadiers were checking their maps. Lethbridge-Stewart doing so while he shaved. The radio transceiver was stil on, but now it was playing the Radio Four Breakfast Programme.

The presenters' voices were unfamiliar. There had been purges at all the broadcasters and newspapers. For the most part, UNIT had used the radio only to listen to messages, they'd maintained their own radio silence for almost the whole week. We couldn't afford to draw attention to ourselves.

'Portsmouth has fallen,' Alistair announced grimly. 'In the last hour or so. The Martian s.h.i.+p attacked the docks, they sank every s.h.i.+p there. All the Royal Navy buildings were demolished with that ray thing of theirs.'

I sat down, unable to think of anything to say. There were many tiny resistance cells, but only a handful of real strongholds still stood in England: Bristol, York, Aldershot, Manchester and here in Windsor. Perhaps a couple of others. The one at Portsmouth was the best-defended. The coup leaders included senior officers of the Army and RAF, but the Royal Navy had been almost untainted. The s.h.i.+ps around the British coast had moved in to defend Portsmouth, to maintain a foothold on British soil and to keep the supply lines open. Now Portsmouth had fal en.

'Scotland's our best hope now,' Captain Ford noted. The Provisional Government's tacticians had been most anxious to secure the capital and the further north you went, the less their grip on power. Unfortunately, that didn't rule out airstrikes and rapid deployment of men parachuting in. Or the ever-present threat that the Martian s.h.i.+p could up sticks and attack any city in the country within minutes.

'It's the first time they've used the Martian s.h.i.+p since Adisham,' I noted. 'It's been over London for the whole week, hasn't it?' I moved over to the Brigadier. He'd unfolded a big map of the South of England over Bessie's bonnet and had marked off intelligence reports in red felt-tip. He'd been careful not to note down the location of the resistance groups they knew about - a basic security measure, but not necessarily one that would have occurred to me. The resistance cells were doing a good job in tracking ProvGov troop movements, and they had an almost complete record of where the Martians were. So far, the resistance had agreed not to attack any military targets, simply to observe them.

Bambera consulted a notepad. 'Not quite, Professor. The Martian s.h.i.+p headed this way on Sat.u.r.day - we thought it was coming for us, but it went straight past before returning to London. It was sighted over Bradford during the rioting there on Monday night. Yesterday it was tracked over Surrey. But it's never been used in combat before.'