Part 3 (2/2)

Darnak looked at the red plastic plunger and nodded dumbly.

'Well?' said Jason. Darnak didn't move.

'I thought you said there were rumours of an imminent lizard a.s.sault on the Citadel. The Superior must be worried!'

Jason nodded encouragingly. 'I bet he'd be grateful if he woke up and found the monsters gone.'

'She,' Darnak corrected him, absentmindedly. He was nodding again, but more because he couldn't think of anything to say than for any more communicative reason. The visitors looked at him expectantly and he realized that a decision had to be made. His whole future, he thought uncomfortably, lay ahead of him. One way or another.

Darnak reached out for the box.

Then he withdrew his hand. He was beginning to sweat. 'No, I'll talk to the Superior first. In the morning.' He caught Jason's disapproving glare. 'It's not that I don't believe you, it's . . . I mean . . . a decision like this, it can't be taken lightly.'

Jason sighed. Then he reached forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the device impatiently. 'Let me do it!'

He depressed the plunger.

Chris woke with a start and doubled over, coughing foul-tasting water from his mouth and nose. For a second, he thought he had been dreaming. But he was still in the Undertown, lying half-submerged in its brackish water, head aching from where he 29 had hit it against the wall. The shattered pieces of his flitter lay about him, drifting on the sluggish tide. There was no hope of repair; he was on foot from now on. But if he could reach the Overcity . . .

A shadow fell across the tunnel wall and Chris smelt ammonia again. He clambered to his feet, waded to the water's edge and tried to pull himself out. His limbs were too heavy to respond, but somehow he knew that something terrible was coming his way and that gave him the strength to succeed.

The stench had grown to almost unbearable proportions by the time Chris stood, shaking and dripping, on the walkway.

This part of the Undertown was strange to him and he couldn't work out how he had got here. He started to run blindly, shadows dancing and clawing at his face. He turned twice and let off blaster shots, but they ricocheted uselessly from derelict buildings and Chris chided himself for over-reacting. He sprinted on, hearing only his own laboured breathing and the moist slap of his shoes. His heart rose when he finally saw the null-gray shaft, a temptingly short way ahead. He changed course, fingers crossed, but something leapt from the darkness between him and it. Something a lot like a smaller, more mobile version of the insect that had . . . killed Roz Forrester.

He yelled and jumped back, bringing up his gun. But the monster sprang, feelers probing for his neck. Chris lashed out and knocked it to one side, losing his balance and taking a dive back into the water. The monster didn't seem too willing to follow; it waved its mandibles and emitted a frustrated clicking as Chris floundered away through the filthy liquid. He steadied himself against the wall of the far bank and shot at it. The thing squeaked and reeled beneath his blaster fire, but it took five direct hits before it fell. To Chris's alarm, it toppled the wrong way. Its steaming corpse floated towards him on the water and he scrambled onto dry land as fast as his battered body would allow, There was no point heading for the shaft now: at least six insects had scuttled from hiding and were blocking his route.

He would have to find an alternative means of egress.

Chris turned to run again, but someone was behind him, He 30 pulled up his weapon, then let out a squeal of relief when he saw that it was Roz. 'Thank G.o.d, I thought you were . . . I mean, you . . .' She didn't look pleased to see him. Her gun was aimed at his chest. 'What . . . what's wrong?' he asked uncertainly. She swung her right arm and her weapon cracked against his head, drawing blood. Chris stumbled backwards, almost taking a third plunge. 'What -?' His erstwhile colleague silenced him with another blow, This time he hit the floor, and Roz stood astride his body, a contemptuous sneer distorting her face.

'You left me to die, you coward! I'll kill you for that!'

The air was electrically charged and laden with blood and fire.

The lizards were screaming and dying, thick clouds of dust exploding as their heavy, armoured bodies toppled face-first into the grime.

Kat'lanna screamed too, fists pressed against her temples until it felt like her head would bleed. She was caught in the dead centre of the carnage, fighting the urge to vomit, trying to make some sense of this unheralded apocalypse. Her mind kept returning inexorably to Thruskarr and she stumbled through the ranks of the dead and dying, yelling for him but knowing that the harsh wind was tearing the name from her throat unheard.

When the sickening sights and the cacophonic sounds of death were too much for her, Kat fell to her knees and cradled her head in her arms, whimpering. She thought of the kind, gentle, happy world that existed only in her mind and she prayed for the end of this nightmare but knew that it could never end now.

There was no point in having good dreams any more.

31.

4.Who's Been Sleeping . . .

'Okay,' Bernice said, sitting astride the Quiz's torso and resting a restraining arm against her fallen enemy's throat. 'My turn!

I've got a question for you: who are you? Who lurks under that ridiculous head covering?'

The Quiz s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in the ball pool. 'You mean you can't guess?'

'Oh yes, I probably can. Some Freudian manifestation of my own repressed emotions and desires, I'll just bet.'

'You don't think I'm the butler then?'

Benny laughed hollowly. 'My father, perhaps. Or the Doctor - he's the biggest obsessive games player I know.'

'Doctor, Doctor, I'm feeling beside myself.'

Benny's face clouded and she snapped: 'Oh, b.u.g.g.e.r it!' She ripped off the Quiz's silver mask and revealed, as expected, the grinning features of Professor Bernice Summerfield. 'Why is it that everyone around here turns out to be me?'

'Who else is such an incorrigible show-off?' her doppelganger asked. 1 kept you coming in the right direction, didn't I?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' Benny snarled.

'What's more, when I've woken up and I'm recording this experience in my diary - in a slightly amended form to make myself look better, of course - I, quite frankly, won't give a toss.'

There was silence after that little outburst. When a few seconds had elapsed, her double asked: Is that it?'

'Yes, I feel much better now, thank you.'

'Pretty confident, aren't you?'

'You're the one with my elbow planted in your oesophagus.

32.'About waking up, I mean.'

Bernice sighed. 'Can't I a.s.sume you're here to tell rile how?'

The other Benny rolled her eyes in a long-suffering manner.

'I'm supposed to represent your subconscious, woman, How obvious do you want it?'

'Try ”b.l.o.o.d.y”!'

The unmasked Quiz sighed and looked deliberately down at her own chest. Benny tensed and steadied her elbow, prepared for a diversionary ploy. Only then did she allow her eyes to flick briefly downward. And again, her gaze resting longer this second time, a mixture of incredulity and outright annoyance spreading over her features.

The red question mark on the Quiz's costume was not, as it seemed from a distance, solid. Rather, it was picked out by thin block letters which, starting from the top and curving towards the point, read: TAKE THE PILL, YOU STUPID b.i.t.c.h!.

Benny frowned and, sensing that her captive would make no further move, she slackened her hold and patted her coveralls down. She found it in the front left pocket: a large white disc, so c.u.mbersome that she couldn't believe she hadn't felt it before.

She inspected the pill and nodded ruefully at the words chiselled onto its surface: WAKING TABLET.

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