Part 17 (1/2)

'Be silent!' said Seskwa, pulling a blaster from his sh.e.l.l with his free front foot. 'Or your next word shall be your last!'

Jafrid came forward and studied this Doctor more closely. 'You speak in the ancient dialect of the imperial warriors. How do you know it?'

The Doctor indicated the chain, which was digging tightly into his neck.

'Erm...?' He made a breathless sound.

'Release him,' Jafrid ordered.

With very bad grace, Seskwa brought the Doctor to his knees and whipped the chain from around his neck in a swift movement.

The Doctor rubbed his neck, stood up, and cast his eyes about the place.

'Thank you. Well, General, you might say I've made a study of your warrior cla.s.s. A very close study at times.' He seemed oddly distracted by the surroundings.

'As part of your plan to destroy us!' shouted Seskwa.

'I haven't got a plan,' said the Doctor wearily. 'I nearly never have a plan.

But yes, I'm familiar with your history. I'm not from these parts, you see.'

'Not from Metralubit?' Jafrid blinked, astonished.

'Not really from anywhere,' said the Doctor. He wandered over to one of the work stations and studied its instrumentation. 'What surprises me is how similar you lot are to your forebears. I thought you'd left your expansionist period behind long ago.'

Jafrid waved a foot graciously. He liked this person.

'The seed of old Chelonia is spread far and wide through the galaxies, Doctor. In the times of which you speak, hatcheries were founded from the Great Ann of Quique to the crystal quasars of Menolot. As our paths diverged so did our cultures. My men and I claim descent from the lines of Nazmir and Talifar.' He broke off and lowered his voice. 'Do you really find this interesting?'

The Doctor nodded. 'Very. Do go on, please.'

'That's good.' Jafrid gestured around. 'Most of this lot have switched off by this point. Yes, Doctor, our ancestors' legends speak of their abandonment on a barren, hostile, ruined world. There's some mythical story behind it that I won't go into. What we know for certain is that they made a rough sort of living there for themselves for a few thousand years, founded a hatchery and force-cultured a range of soils. When they finally got back in touch with the homeworld they found the empire had fallen. But by then their culture was pretty much independent, although still bound by some of the old codes. Of course, without the technology for s.p.a.ce travel the tendency to aggression had been lost.' He cast a rueful glance at Seskwa. 'Mostly.'

'That must have been millennia ago.'

'As a species we're slow to change;' said Jafrid. 'We are an experimental, exploratory team, out of the homeworld known as Sarmia. We came to this Fostrix galaxy as part of a research initiative. It was not our wish to indulge in battle. The Metralubitans started it.'

'Really?'

'They had no interest in the place until we claimed it as our study base. It is of no value to them.'

The Doctor bit his knuckle, as if not sure how to ask the next question.

'Pardon me for asking,' he said at last, 'but what value is it to you?'

Indeed, Jafrid resented this. 'You are here to answer answer questions, Doctor, not to ask them,' he said. questions, Doctor, not to ask them,' he said.

'I wondered when you were going to say that.' The Doctor pulled himself upright and began to talk very quickly, each word following close on the heels of the last. 'Look, I'm as anxious as you are to see this affair settled amicably and I couldn't help noticing your spectro-a.n.a.lyser.'

Jafrid had no idea what he meant. 'My what?'

'That gadget.' The Doctor indicated one of the devices arranged on a podium in the comer. 'It's for examining the structure of things.'

'Is it?' Jafrid sighed. 'We never use it. Must have been one of the study team's gizmos. What do you want it for?'

'This.' The Doctor took a small gla.s.s tube from a pouch on his covering.

Jafrid could see an off-white, glutinous substance inside. 'I found it on the bodies of some human soldiers. It's the mark of the third force that's aggravating this conflict. And it's the same substance that did for his troopers.' He indicated Seskwa.

Jafrid reeled from the news. 'Your report was true, then, Seskwa? No prank?'

'In all details, General,' said Seskwa. 'The patrol I was sent to search out was killed by that substance.' He pointed to the Doctor. 'A substance it created! Do not be fooled by its charmed tongue, General. It lulled us earlier to divert us from the attack planned by its comrades.'

'No I didn't, and you know I didn't.' The Doctor gave Seskwa a disparaging look. 'Not very bright for a First Pilot, are you?'

Jafrid had long found Seskwa's jumpiness tiring, and so he relished the remark. 'You amuse me, Doctor. I may yet find a use for you.'

'What?' said the Doctor. 'You mean I've been spared the Web of Death?'

Jafrid chuckled. 'He threatened you with the Web? Stupid boy.' He gestured to the gadget mentioned by the Doctor. 'You may use the machine while I think on matters. Watch him, Seskwa.'

The Doctor nodded his thanks graciously and out-stretched a hand before Seskwa. 'After you.'

Admiral Dolne's red, breathless face filled the Glute-screen. He was leaning very close to the remote host, and his whispered words were amplified and carried through the many miles of the Darkness's interior. 'I know I'm not especially well up on giving commands,' he was saying. 'To be frank I never imagined I'd have to be. But I do know that your argy-bargying isn't going to get us anywhere. It'll lead to people getting inflamed.

There's a difference, Viddeas, between parade-ground exercises and...'

The Darkness almost lost its concentration. A vein was pumping on Dolne's flabby neck, and this served as a symbol for the Onemind, which was not without a certain degree of imagination. It pictured many such veins, all of them turning from healthy, pumping wells of red to clot-blocked cavities of pyaemic sludge, channels of disease.

This picture must have overwhelmed the host's mind, because Dolne was saying, 'Eh? Captain? I don't believe you've listened to a word I've said.

Viddeas!'

The Onemind relaxed its grip slightly. 'Sorry. Sir?'