Part 27 (2/2)

153.

Trix threw back her head and laughed. 'You're spying on the President?'

'You could spy on anyone who uses the stuff, in theory,' the Doctor agreed.

'Different batches could be made to transmit on different wavelengths a simple tweak of the receiver could let you switch views. Range would be a problem but I'm sure the likes of Phaedra are working on that for you. . . '

Trix clicked her tongue. 'Falsh, you are such a naughty boy.'

'Klimt had to give me something to get me off his back,' Falsh said finally, as if this exonerated him from any personal blame. 'The Inst.i.tute was conceived as a two-year project. It wound up dragging on for four.'

The Doctor nodded. 'And the Icthal were growing keen for a return on their investment. They wanted their promised weapon at a bargain price.'

Falsh looked at the ground.

'But it wasn't just the Icthal, was it?' breathed Trix. 'You were going to flog it to other people!'

'How else could you recoup your operational losses?' said the Doctor sympathetically.

Falsh responded to the comment, looked up almost hopefully as if he expected understanding. Then he saw the Doctor's sardonic expression and laughed it off. 'I had other people interested, sure. But I don't have to justify myself to you.'

'Nor the Icthal, it seems,' agreed the Doctor. 'You've convinced them that your barefaced lies on this subject are truth. People like you think you can get away with anything, anything at all. But we've gathered a little evidence on our recent wanderings to back up the stuff I heard under your table. We know you instructed Blazar to demolish Carme, and the Inst.i.tute with it then made out it was an accident.'

Falsh smiled. 'Is that so?'

'We know that you had Thebe demolished so that no one at Blazar could ever contradict you. To erase any evidence of your ever requesting the charges to be set.' The Doctor leaned in up close. 'Unlucky. We got hold of that evidence before Thebe went up. It led us to the chunk of Carme where the Inst.i.tute still clung, like a limpet.'

Falsh didn't say anything, but his face had given away his surprise. Trix pounced. 'You didn't know about its little ejector seat, then?'

'Yes, clever old Klimt.' The Doctor smiled. 'The Inst.i.tute blasted clear of your demolition work before it could be consumed by the charges.'

'That's a heap of c.r.a.p.'

'Then where did I get this?' Trix moved in front of him, showed him her jacket with Klimt's name emblazoned over the breast like a logo. She saw Falsh's mask slip, saw something like fear in his eyes, just for a moment. Then the shutters came back down.

154.

'You could have got that anywhere.'

'I got it from the Inst.i.tute,' Trix said loudly and clearly like he was slightly deaf. 'We found Klimt and his staff all dead, and any evidence as to what had been created there destroyed.'

'Not just dead,' said the Doctor softly. 'Torn to pieces. Still, they would have died anyway, wouldn't they? When the charges went off.'

'What about their families?' said Trix.

'Oh, I imagine the people who worked there had already discarded any official existence. . . You could hardly have them on the Falsh Industries payroll, now, could you? Still, I'm sure they were well rewarded. While they were alive.' He was looking deep into Falsh's eyes. 'Something terrible happened there, Falsh. But I don't think it was your work, was it? A little gruesome for you you only tried to blow up the place, and you failed. Yes, failure that's that's your style.' He stuck out his bottom lip. 'So who your style.' He stuck out his bottom lip. 'So who did did wipe out the staff of the Inst.i.tute?' wipe out the staff of the Inst.i.tute?'

'Fish-face?' Trix suggested.

'No. I spoke to the Icthal, and he was ignorant of whatever the weapon was.

The creature who committed those atrocities we saw systematically removed all evidence. Whoever it was, they knew exactly exactly what was there.' what was there.'

The realisation hung oppressively in the air.

'And then these slugs appear,' the Doctor went on.

'Apparently from nowhere.'

'Klimt created them to survive in any environment,' said Trix. 'Perhaps they got wafted over to Leda by the shockwaves of Carme blowing up.'

The Doctor looked at her. 'Or perhaps they were left there by Klimt himself.'

Falsh couldn't let that one lie. 'Klimt is dead. You said so yourselves.'

'Extremely dead,' Trix added, with a shudder.

'We saw a corpse wearing his jacket,' said the Doctor. 'Klimt fell from a very great height, didn't he? He landed with some force. Enough to break his head but not the pencil in his pocket.'

'Huh?' said Trix.

He mimed tapping the pencil against his knuckles. 'Broken pencils make a little springy sort of noise when you do that. The cracked section of lead is free to vibrate in the hollow channel drilled down through the wood.'

Trix folded her arms.

'It's the twenty-fifth century,' she said patiently.

'They've presumably learned to make indestructible ' She broke off. 'Except you snapped the pencil, didn't you.'

The Doctor nodded, a little gleam in his eyes.

'You're trying to tell me Klimt faked his own death?' said Falsh.

'He'd already gone to a good deal of trouble to cover his tracks. Probably antic.i.p.ating someone like our friend from Icthal would come visiting. But the 155 Agent was too slow. . . while we were just in time.'

Trix nodded cautiously. 'With everyone thinking he was dead, Klimt could move more freely. But why put s.p.a.ce slugs on Leda?'

'Revenge,' said Falsh hoa.r.s.ely. 'To screw up the demolition. To get back at me.'

The Doctor slapped him cheerfully on the shoulder. 'It does seem rather likely, doesn't it?'

'Well, the s...o...b..-Doo deductions are fine for pa.s.sing the time on these little jaunts,' said Trix, 'but you did promise not to get involved, Doctor. We want Fitz back, we want the TARDIS back and we want to go somewhere altogether less c.r.a.p.' She sighed and closed her eyes, wis.h.i.+ng herself home. 'And we're so close, now! I can feel it!'

'Yes, we are,' the Doctor agreed distantly, crossing back to the computer screens. 'Five-hundred-thousand miles and counting.'

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