Part 34 (1/2)

Ace smiled contemptuously. 'It's a horrible feeling, isn't it? Knowing you've been used.'

In the background, Legion's body was swelling from the size of a baseball to that of a small donkey.

The Doctor wrung his hands in frustration. 'Ace... Ace... I can't believe this is you talking. Not after all we've been through. All I've taught you.'

'All you've taught taught me? Like how easy it is to be manipulated, you mean used. Just as,' Ace gestured with her sidearm, 'as I'd use this gun?' me? Like how easy it is to be manipulated, you mean used. Just as,' Ace gestured with her sidearm, 'as I'd use this gun?'

'Like a good little soldier, blindly obeying orders that mean the death of her friends.'

Ace took a step forward and levelled the gun. 'It was you that manoeuvred me into s.p.a.cefleet, remember?' She smiled bitterly. 'Well, IMC paid a lot of good money into s.p.a.cefleet. All of the big corporations did after all, they didn't want the Daleks to win, any more than the rest of us did. I served on an IMC*funded s.h.i.+p called the Corporate Strategy Corporate Strategy for a while. They already had records of you and some pathetic companion of yours, and they knew that you were probably a time traveller. So they asked me to go on a mission for them. They didn't order me, they didn't even try and manipulate me. They asked me. And they told me that in the time of the Third Dalek War, the location of this star system is of paramount strategic value, and neither the Daleks nor the Alliance can come anywhere near it. There's some kind of total exclusion zone around it a force field or something. It started up just after the collapse of Project Eden. IMC wanted to know why, and whether there's any way round it. So they said, if you ever came back for me, I should go with you, and try and persuade you to take me to Lucifer at about this time, and then try to get the information back to them.' for a while. They already had records of you and some pathetic companion of yours, and they knew that you were probably a time traveller. So they asked me to go on a mission for them. They didn't order me, they didn't even try and manipulate me. They asked me. And they told me that in the time of the Third Dalek War, the location of this star system is of paramount strategic value, and neither the Daleks nor the Alliance can come anywhere near it. There's some kind of total exclusion zone around it a force field or something. It started up just after the collapse of Project Eden. IMC wanted to know why, and whether there's any way round it. So they said, if you ever came back for me, I should go with you, and try and persuade you to take me to Lucifer at about this time, and then try to get the information back to them.'

Legion's size changes, although slower now, had become even more extreme. Bishop raised his weapon in warning.

'Trouble is, a lot of IMC records got lost in four hundred years, so the only info they could give me was that IMC had an agent in place on Belial, and they gave me a message for someone called Legion. I a.s.sumed that Legion was the agent. And that was my first mistake...'

At the smallest extreme of his fluctuating size, Legion vanished.

A hideous scream shattered the air. Cheryl wrenched her eyes away from Ace and the Doctor in time to see Bishop lose his grip on Bryn's gun and fall to his knees, clutching in agony at his stomach and chest. She ran towards the Adjudicator. Something in the room was wrong. Something was... Legion was missing! Somehow it had managed to Cheryl gagged as Legion emerged from Bishop's body in a flood of multicoloured flesh, blood and torn shreds of clothing. Bishop gave a strangled shriek as his heart, lungs and other internal organs were forced through his ribcage, shattering it. Legion swelled into a baggy, green*hued pancake, flanked by two grey pears, shrugging off bloodied shards of Bishop's body as it did so. Christine staggered backwards, and was sick.

'Staff Sergeant,' Legion's many voices boomed, 'you are hereby reinstated as a line officer. Your orders are to facilitate the takeover of Project Eden by terminating the contracts of all non*essential personnel.'

The Doctor leapt forward. 'Ace, no! You can't do it! It's lives we're talking about. Human lives.'

Ace looked from Legion to the Doctor and back again. She swung her gun to cover the Doctor, then looked hesitantly back at Legion, her face a mask of indecision.

'Kill!' Legion's body stretched and altered as it pulled itself further into the moment, blossoming into a s.h.a.ggy, many*eyed ma.s.s supported on three spindly limbs.

'Not for you, Legion,' Ace said quietly, and threw the gun to the Doctor. 'And not for you either, Professor. I make my own choices from now on.'

The Doctor stared at the gun. 'I have often felt myself to be at a disadvantage when confronting evil,' he said to himself, 'given that I would rather have somebody other than me pull the trigger. I condemned untold billions to death by not destroying the Daleks at the moment of their birth, and I could have saved billions more by shooting down Davros like a mad dog when I had the chance.'

He sighed, and looked up at Ace. 'I have come to recognize that manipulating others into doing my dirty work is almost as evil as the acts of those I choose to fight. I have been so careful not to stain my hands that I have stained my soul instead.'

He glanced over at where the Adjudicator's shredded body lay amongst his bloodstained robes, then up at Legion, and both Cheryl and Ace took a step away from the ferocity they saw in his eyes.

'Welcome to h.e.l.l, Legion,' he said, and suddenly the gun was pointed at the dark bulk of the IMC Captain. Legion's body split and s.h.i.+mmered as it tried to pull itself out of the area, but the Doctor was too fast. The gun jerked in his hand, and a small grey node which had been blossoming above Legion's body exploded with a wet splat. Pink droplets showered the floor. Legion's scream spanned four octaves. Its body seemed to be sucked from the room in a s.h.i.+mmering montage of three*dimensional shapes. Flailing tentacles wrapped around banks of equipment and chairs, which were ripped from their anchors and pulled into nothingness as Legion's body shrank. Within moments, it had evaporated away to a spidery core of gristle and webby flesh. A last, despairing scream seemed to linger beyond the moment, pitch*s.h.i.+fting downwards as it echoed into silence. Legion was gone.

'Yay, Doctor!' Cheryl shouted, exultant. 'Way to go!'

A brilliant flash of light interrupted her words. When it cleared, there were four people sprawled on the floor. Hovering above the bodies was a s.h.i.+mmering drapery of light which Cheryl could not focus on.

'Are you...?' she began.

'Our temples are sacred,' the Angel said. 'You cannot pray here.'

It vanished.

Chapter Nineteen.

The ma.s.sive doors to the Mushroom Farm, already damaged during their earlier battering, finally shattered beneath Kreig and Ardamal's determined a.s.sault. As the troopers strode in, Bannen's pseudo*son ran ahead to find his father.

'Bannen? Professor Alex Bannen? We're under orders to... to... Jeez!' Ardamal's voice trailed off into silence as he took in the scene. The mushrooms were blazing white silhouettes linked by curved flux lines of energy, and the glowing column of the Pit had become translucent to the point where he could see the spiral of the Pit Path through its gently strobing walls.

Kreig muttered something to herself.

'What was that?'

'I said, ”Screw Legion”. If he wants to oversee Bannen's operation, he can d.a.m.n well ' Kreig choked. 'd.a.m.n well '

As Ardamal watched incredulously, Kreig's voice ran in a liquid stream from her mouth and splashed across her chest armour before hitting the floor in a shower of glowing syllables. Her face creased in horror as she lifted her eyes to his. Behind her, the glow from the Pit intensified, spreading throughout the chamber like ripples on the surface of a pond. As the waves began to pulse through his body, Ardamal felt himself begin to change change.

He tried to scream, but reality wouldn't let him.

In the Operations Room, the Doctor watched as Ace and Cheryl helped Piper, Miles, Bernice, and Christine to their feet. His voice rang out over the rising hubbub. 'Quiet!'

Everybody stopped and looked at him expectantly.

'Now,' he continued, 'nice as it is to have you all back again, especially you, Krau O'Rourke, and much as I would enjoy a cosy chat over a cup of tea about all of our respective adventures, I'm afraid we just haven't got the time. So if you would be so kind, a quick update from all of you is what I need. Bernice?'

The archaeologist seemed disconcerted by the Doctor's peremptory demand. 'Er... something happened to the black holes: it looked to me as if they turned inside out. Then an Angel brought us back.'

'Thank you. Christine?'

The psychologist waved a tired hand at Bernice. 'Like she said.'

'Miles?'

He held out the medicine wheel from his office. It glowed with a soft and calming light. 'My daughter's legacy,' he whispered.

'Paula's final gift,' Piper added softly. 'I had the starpod record her,' she glanced towards Miles, then reached out to touch his shoulder, 'her final moments. I'm no scientist, but I've spent enough time arguing with Alex Bannen to be able to interpret the read*outs. She changed, Doctor! As she died, the const.i.tuent elements of her body actually altered into something, well, something that the podbrain couldn't identify. And I think she deliberately changed Miles's medicine wheel into the same substance.'

'The high*ma.s.s elements that we've been searching for!' Cheryl said, stunned.

'We thought they were in the planet's core all the time,' Piper confirmed, 'and in a sense, we were right. We thought the Angels could help us find the elements. It didn't occur to us that the Angels were were the elements. I don't know how they manage it I don't even know if it's voluntary or involuntary but they can modify their body structures. When they die, they become heavier much heavier. And they sink down into the core of Lucifer. And before you ask, I don't know why they do that eith' the elements. I don't know how they manage it I don't even know if it's voluntary or involuntary but they can modify their body structures. When they die, they become heavier much heavier. And they sink down into the core of Lucifer. And before you ask, I don't know why they do that eith'

Ace slapped her forehead. 'It's like in RE at school. When the Angels die, they fall into the core of Lucifer. It's their Heaven! The rest of the universe is their h.e.l.l.'

Christine shook her head. 'Ace, listen to yourself. You're a.s.signing a human belief system, and an outmoded one at that, to an alien species. There's no way it could make sense. The Angels won't even talk to us.'

'Suppose they're scared of us?'