Part 21 (1/2)

'Major Angela always fetis.h.i.+sed weapons,' Gila said. 'When we operated as a troubleshooting team she would have daggers and scimitars secreted all over the place. Very handy in a fight, Angela. Once I saw her pull a stiletto out of her beard and dispatch a Corellian pirate.'

Sam shuddered. 'Apart from the obvious, I mean, her being blind and all, why didn't she recognise you?'

Gila slid down the wall to sit on the highly polished floor. 'She's playing it very carefully. Being stuck out here has made her paranoid, not surprisingly. And it's true, I could well be an illusion - a facsimile of her old accomplice, sent by the Scarlet Empress to bring her back to the city.'

Sam asked,'Why are you all so scared of the Scarlet Empress?'

'Who said we were?' he snapped. His teeth were sharp and wet with stringy spittle.

'The way you all jump to attention when you hear she's after you. The way you talk about her.'

'I'm not scared,' he said.

Then the round tower's door flew open and one of the bears announced to them that they were to have dinner in the presence of Major Angela.

'Maybe she's decided to believe in you,' said Sam.

'It takes more than that to win Angela's trust. We'll just have to be on our guard.'

Iris watched, rather dumbstruck, as the cyborg completed its swift, expert self-a.s.sembly. For a moment she was transfixed by a glimpse of its livid, pumping heart, secure in a golden chalice in its chest cavity. It was the one still-organic component she could see in the d.u.c.h.ess.

Impulsively, she decided to make an appeal.

'You must help me.'

'I have placed myself at your service,' said the cyborg, standing and steadying itself in the gangway of the bus.

'I want you to help me rescue the Doctor from the birds and the Scarlet Guard.'

'Show me,' said the d.u.c.h.ess curtly and led the way out of the bus. It - she? - smelled faintly of oil and of something left too long in the fridge.

Angela was stroking her luxurious beard, her senses aware of one of the bears as it ladled out a rich and steaming broth into golden bowls. Sam was ravenous. She ate hungrily, and listened to the one-time partners in crime begin a wary, halting conversation.

'Everything has changed,' Angela was saying pensively. 'The whole world was changing, as it tends to, and I thought I could escape all that by coming here and making my mark.'

'And creating your own little empire,' teased Gila.

'Why not? It's worked very well.'

He shook his head. 'You've no idea what's going on in the outside world.'

'I know enough. I know that the Scarlet Empress is overreaching herself.'

'She won't rest until the whole world is hers.' Gila watched the Bearded Lady blindly toy with her dinner.

'She can't be allowed to have it all.'

'At last you're talking sense.' Angela looked grim. 'If the Empress becomes as powerful as she wants to,' said Gila,'you won't be allowed to carry on here, in your own little kingdom of the bears, you know.'

'I know.'

Sam had finished with her broth by now.'So what's the plan? What are we going to do?'

When she looked at Major Angela, she suddenly saw a tired, oldish woman, well past her fighting years. She looked helpless.'What can we do? What are we? What were we ever, even in our prime?'Angela looked bitter.'A bunch of circus freaks.'

Gila said,'I've never heard you talk like that before.'

'IVe never felt like this before. Up till now I thought I was indestructible.'

'What's changed?' The alligator man's tone was oddly gentle.

Apart from being blind? Look at me, I'm useless.'

'Not that useless.'

'And it's you being here, too, Gila. You remind me how old, how plump, how self-satisfied I've grown.'

There was a pause.

'We've got no choice,' Gila said decisively.'We have to stand and fight.

She's coming after us.'

Major Angela looked stricken.

Gila said, 'She's sent agents after us. To gather up our group of four and return us to Hyspero and the Scarlet Palace.'

'What agents?'

Gila nodded at Sam.'This one here. And two others, who are coming after us.'

Angela raised her sightless eyes to Sam.

At least, the Doctor thought as he clung to the steadiest still-unburning branch he could find, at least the birds had got away safely. He watched their city's canopy burn brightly in acrid plumes of orange. He didn't owe them a thing, of course, and he'd been their prisoner and treated none too carefully, but he was glad to see they hadn't come to any harm. Now, he thought, he had to concentrate on himself. He looked down at his feet, hanging limply above the dense and smoky dark. There were several hundred metres to fall. He'd break his neck if he let himself go.

There was probably something in those capacious coat pockets of his to help with this kind of thing, but that would mean hanging by only one arm while he fished around with the other. The sinews in his shoulders were already aching and making the most disturbing crackling noises.

He wasn't, unlike some of the previous Doctors, convinced of his own superhuman faculties. He wasn't superstrong or even particularly brave.

Not always. Although he'd been in some pretty spectacular sc.r.a.ps in recent years. Jumping off an Ice Warrior s.h.i.+p over Central London.

Scuba diving with Zygons. Causing havoc once again on Skaro. He must be a fairly adventurous soul all in all, he decided happily. Then he started to cough and his eyes were streaming.

Me again. Iris.