Part 16 (1/2)

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The saucer had steadied itself by now, and Seskwa climbed from his webbing and shuffled across the s.p.a.ce between them. 'I have no interest in your external coverings.'

'Oh,' said the Doctor, looking at the ground. He noted again how much noise Seskwa's internal machinery made.

At times the squeaking was almost painful. And the leathery-old-shoes smell of all Chelonians was particularly p.r.o.nounced in Seskwa. 'You need some oil in those joints.'

'You will accompany us to the base,' said Seskwa. 'The General will turn your clacking tongue to sense.'

The Doctor pointed to the gun. 'I thought you were going to kill me.'

'That was before.'

'I wish you'd make up your mind. I don't like hanging about wondering if I'm going to be killed or not when I could be doing something more interesting.'

Seskwa made the gurgling noise that was his species' equivalent of a chuckle. 'Soon you will crave the luxury of extinction. You will scream for mercy when you are placed in the Web of Death!'

The Doctor gasped. 'The Web of Death?'

Seskwa nodded. 'You know of the ritual?

'No,' said the Doctor, 'but I thought you might like it if I looked impressed. I can imagine the sort of thing you mean. I'm an old hand with webs.' He grinned. 'And you do paint a very vivid picture.'

Seskwa growled and motioned him against the wall with the gun.

Romana was trying to catch up with K9 and his newly elevated position, and trying to ignore Stokes, who was cowering in a corner of the guest suite with his hands over his ears and protesting regularly - roughly in rhythm with the bomb blasts - that they were all going to die. She had given up telling him that, by her estimate of the resistance of alluvially formed rock to plasma bursts in ratio to the consequent release of atmospheric disturbance, they were in the safest place on the whole planetoid.

The worst of it seemed to be over, and now Stokes was uncurling himself and pinching the bridge of his nose as if this could in some way return his breathing to its normal rate. 'This,' he said, 'has got totally out of hand.'

But Romana was listening to K9, who had reached the end of his dissertation on the history of Metralubit and its political system.

'Const.i.tutional privilege, a precept established in the chivalric past of the Diurnary period of the Helduccian civilization on Metralubit, permits any being in political or military life to take up the position held by the deceased being whose existence they attempted to preserve.'

'You could have said no if you'd wanted,' pointed out Romana.

K9 waited a moment before replying. 'My reasoning circuits extrapolate that a position of authority will allow freer access to resources necessary to locate the Doctor Master. This was the primary motivation for my decision.'

Romana arched an eyebrow. 'The chance to show off never came into it, of course.'

'Charge refuted, Mistress. This unit's awareness of self is non-qualitative.'

Stokes started shouting again. 'In a full-scale conflict we don't have a hope.

The Chelonians are better equipped and better drilled. They haven't let themselves slip.' He shuddered. 'What if they've been planning this from the very start, for over a century? Cunning. Because all they need is to hit this place hard and we're done for. I could be buried alive.' Stokes made a fist and slammed it against the wall, which wobbled. 'This place might as well be made out of cardboard. We're all going to die.'

'Information, Mistress,' said K9.

'What is it, K9?'

He motored himself around a half-circle. 'My visual apparatus perceives an anomaly in this environment. Certain technological developments do not tally.'

This interested Romana far more than Stokes's witterings. 'Yes. I noticed a few things. Plasma missiles alongside primitive radio communicators.

Attrition of war?'

'More, Mistress.' K9 nodded upwards. 'The Metralubitans possess a Fasts.p.a.ce link between this planetoid and their homeworld, yet they have no transmat technology.'

This did shock Romana. 'That goes against all recognized rungs of development theory. Short-range transmats should come first. The leap to warp engineering is a natural progression from the discovery of vecificated disa.s.semblers. You can't really come at it any other way.'

Stokes snorted. 'You've not changed, either of you. In the midst of certain doom you sit there calmly and talk drivel.'

'Our conversation's been quite productive,' said Romana.

'Productive? You just don't understand do you?' He jabbed a fmger at the ceiling. 'All it's going to take is one well-aimed strontium shot and we'll be pulverized, blown to atoms.' He shook himself and made for the door. 'Oh, what's the point? I must see Dolne. My contract didn't cover this. I'll demand immediate pa.s.sage.' The last few words echoed back down the corridor after he flounced out.

K9 waited until he was out of earshot and said, 'Mr Stokes is non-contemporaneous, Mistress. Inference time travel.'

'It's a very long story. Ignore him, anyway. This place should stand up to quite a battering.' She stood up and examined the wall Stokes had struck.

'This looks like megalanium. Is it?'

K9's head fell and his tail drooped. 'Regret cannot reply, Mistress. My sensors. . .'

Romana felt guilty. She had the feeling K9 was trying to compensate for his incapacity by being extra helpful, and this touched her. 'Sorry. I was forgetting.' She patted her lap. 'Come here.' He crossed the room and she bent down and stroked his sides.

'Misunderstanding of the functional nature of this unit,' said K9. 'Petting unnecessary.' But he didn't pull away.

With the launchers disabled and the satellite ticking over as per normal, Dolne had called a small conference - just himself, Viddeas and Cadinot - in a corner of the Strat Room. 'Now, I don't like this one bit. Did everyone take leave of their senses? Viddeas, what happened then?' Viddeas was staring blankly at the floor. 'Report,' hissed Dolne. 'I'm coming very close to losing my rag.'