The Well-Mannered War Part 26

'So it's not just in my head,' the Doctor said.

'Eh?'

'I had postulated a limited telepathic field. But if not, then how's it done?'

As if the cloud had heard him, its centre parted a fraction and revealed a sight so disgusting Fritchoff had to fight to keep his bile down. Suspended in the cloud's centre were the rotted remains of a human's lower head and neck. The mouth was open, the tongue flopped out grotesquely.

'Doctor' the voice said again, the Adam's apple on the dead neck pulsating, 'the Onememory knows you...'

'Good,' said the Doctor. He sounded genuinely relieved as he stepped from his hiding place. 'I know I'm a bit out of my way, but I was beginning to wonder if I'd been totally forgotten.'

'The Onememory says... you set aflame... our feeding grounds in the Zirbollis sector...'

'Really?' The Doctor scratched his temple. 'I don't recall that at all. My memory obviously isn't as good as yours.'

The cloud buzzed more loudly. 'Many void-times ago... no creature lives so long...'

'Well then, perhaps it was just somebody who looked a bit like me,' said the Doctor.

'No,' said the cloud. 'You are one of the... chosen of Gallifrey... the self-appointed masters of time and s.p.a.ce... a being of great power...'

The Doctor looked bashful. 'I bet you say that to all the Time Lords.'

'We have never... met one of your kind... before ... Not in person...' The tongue let fall a cascade of drool. 'Your people acted against us ...

destroyed hundreds of the hives...'

The Doctor spread his hands wide. 'I had nothing to do with that. Just look at my record. I don't hang about with the interventionists. They've always been rather too heavy-handed for my liking.'

The voice ignored him. 'We are the last of the great hives... We fled the Time Fleets... drifting after millennia of hibernation... until we found this place... a place of much feeding...'

The Doctor took a step closer. Fritchoff was startled by his boldness, and the casual way in which he addressed this gruesome creature; he might have been chatting with a friend. He held up a finger. 'Let me see if l'm right. You agitate the natural conflicts of a population and cause carnage, then swoop down and feed on the carrion. Am I on the right lines?'

'The feeding cycle... is necessary... for our survival...'

'A natural symbiosis, you'd say? You exploit the aggressive nature of h.o.m.o h.o.m.o sapiens sapiens.'

'As they they exploited us!' the voice said. 'The Earth was our world and they ruined it... We fled with them through s.p.a.ce, pus.h.i.+ng ever outward... exploited us!' the voice said. 'The Earth was our world and they ruined it... We fled with them through s.p.a.ce, pus.h.i.+ng ever outward...

expanding at their side... We learnt... Our intelligence grew... Our mind is strong now... We exist to feed and now nothing can stop us... There are billions waiting in the great hive...'

'There are herd animals you could use as well. Creatures of lesser intelligence. Why humans?'

'Their violence, their fruitfulness... They are ideal material...'

The Doctor snorted. 'You mean they do nearly all your work for you. Offer themselves up on a plate, you might say.'

[image]

The cloud came closer, hovering just before the Doctor's face. 'You escaped us once... but soon you will die ... and we shall be waiting... Your brain holds many secrets...' It started to split up and move away, individual flies pa.s.sing through one of the small airholes of the cave roof 'The choice rests with you... Leave now or stay and... we will feast upon you...'

A few seconds later it was gone.

Fritchoff emerged from hiding. 'There we are. It proves what I was saying.'

The Doctor was staring grimly up at the roof. 'It does?'

'The states of the major ancient s.p.a.ce powers have brought this disaster on us by flagrantly ignoring the rights of other creatures and exploiting s.p.a.ce for short-termist advantage and electorally related economic boom.'

Fritchoff was rather proud of this summation, but the Doctor ignored it. 'But why let me, one of their ancient enemies, go?' he said, chewing on a thumbnail. 'Did you feel the electrical aura, that tingle around them? When they're grouped together they must have enough of a kick to kill at least one person. It's how they must have got Seskwa. And I was just standing here, defenceless.' His good humour had evaporated. 'I have a horrible feeling I'm being manipulated.'

'Ah,' said Fritchoff 'Excellent. Awareness of your own coercion in the ways of the system is the first step on the upward path of consentientization.'

The Doctor seemed stirred by his words. 'You know an upward path? Yes?'

Fritchoff nodded and the Doctor patted him heavily on the shoulder. 'Good man. We must get up to the surface. Talk to General Jafrid. Lead the way.'

'Good thinking,' said Fritchoff as he led the way from the cave. 'We can join with him to throw off the shackles of our own people's crypto-imperialist discourse.'

Again, the Doctor's reply was pitched on an entirely different political plane.

'He's an intelligent fellow - he might just listen. We have to unite both sides against these creatures.'

Romana was gripped by a new fear as she walked hurriedly through the corridors of the dome. She paid little attention to the thundering of the riots, and even less to the occasional bickering of the orange lighting as another electrical connection was cut somewhere in the city. Her concern was with more abstract issues. If the people of Metralubit could not see their predicament because of some inbuilt programme, there was no reason for the Femdroids not to notice or take action. The reasoning's end was obvious. The Femdroids were part of it, deliberately standing back to let millions die.

The route back to the guest suite was easily memorized, particularly for a person with Romana's alertness, and so she was surprised when she turned a comer and found herself at a dead end, a simple white wall. 'I must have taken a wrong turning,' she said, although she was positive she hadn't.

She tried to move and found she couldn't. Her shoes, still grey and muddy from the war zone of Barclow, were gripped by the floor. At the same time an orange light began to flash from somewhere above her head, pulsing in a heartbeat rhythm and overlaid by an insistent, high-pitched electronic squeal.

She put her hands to her head and tried to keep conscious as static shocks coursed through her legs. A red blur descended over her vision and the squeal turned painfully loud, making her eyes water and her ears sing.

For a second she felt she was falling. She opened her mouth to call for help. Then came darkness.

In his dreams, Stokes was strolling along one of the causeways of Metron, looking out over a greens.p.a.ce in which citizens were cl.u.s.tered around one of his sculptures. 'Oh dear,' he told his appreciative, understanding friends, 'I'm bound to be recognized, and they shall all press me for an explanation and autographs. How trying.'

The crowd below raised their heads, saw him, cried his name, and came running across the gra.s.s shouting accolades. One of them carried a large red torch. Its light grew closer and closer, blotting out the world about it.

And Stokes woke with a jolt to be confronted by K9's eyescreen. The dog was nudging him awake with its nose. 'A conference is needed,' he said.

'Oh, what do you want?' said Stokes, turning over. 'I'm asleep. Shove off'

K9 bleeped. 'Your actions do not concur with my extrapolation of your personality matrix.'

Stokes sighed, his face pressed into his pillow. 'Isn't there some way I can switch you off?'

'My batteries are self-recharging,' said K9. He nudged the bed again.

'Please wake, Mr Stokes. Your behaviour is characterized by extreme cowardice. Your desire to sleep in this situation is not congruous. Explain.'

Stokes blinked and stirred slightly. 'I'm very tired,' he said. 'Look at me, I'm yawning.' He was nagged by unease as the words came out, as if he was only repeating lines in a play.

'Your actions are predictable within a four-per-cent error estimate,' said K9.

'Your personality type is expressive, extrovert.'

Stokes sat up and wagged a finger at him. 'You'd better watch what you're saying.'

K9 edged closer to the bed and said, in a dramatic whisper, 'I postulate mind interference.'

'n.o.body's been at my mind,' said Stokes. Again, he felt he was reading from a script. The words felt very natural, but there was no substance beneath them. 'My mental barriers and sense of self-will are resolute.' He reached for the switch at his bedside, automatically, and switched on the lamp built into the wall just above where his head rested. The lamp lit with a soft orange glow.

K9's eyestalk slid out. 'I wish to examine this apparatus,' he said, angling the tiny dish at the end of the stalk towards the lamp.

'It's only a reading light, for goodness' sake,' Stokes grumbled.

K9 whirred. 'Negative. This fitting is extraneous to the lighting function. It is a reconditioning device.'

Stokes hauled himself out of bed and smoothed his pyjamas down. 'Don't be ridiculous.'

'Records confirm my visual a.n.a.lysis,' K9 twittered. 'It is a low-frequency, low-power, psychotronic wave transmitter. Remove the housing.'

To Stokes, it was as if a strange bell was tolling at the very back of his mind. 'Somebody's been fiddling about? With my head?'

'Affirmative,' said K9.

Stokes stood up, feeling suddenly refreshed, his tiredness dissipated in an instant. In fact, the beginnings of panic were churning at his stomach.

There was a riot on, and a war imminent. Why on earth was he trying to sleep?

The first thing Romana saw when her eyes opened was a large, gun-shaped instrument, its nozzle pointed right at her forehead. The device was suspended on a bracket, which a lithe figure in the shadows was adjusting.

'A high-frequency psychotronic wave transmitter,' Romana said. She gulped to conceal her fear. A transmitter of that strength could wreak havoc even on a Gallifreyan mind. 'Centuries ahead of your technology. Where did you get it Liris?'

'Please relax.' Liris stepped into the soft orange light and looked down on the folded-back chair to which Romana was strapped. 'The conditioning process is painless.'

Romana hardened her voice. 'Whatever you're about to do, don't. I'm not human.'

Another face appeared above her. But Galatea looked a lot more certain than her junior. 'Your mental processes will be unharmed. Only redirected.'

She leant closer, reached out and drew back a strand of Romana's long blonde hair from her face. 'You have a powerful intelligence for an organic.

You see further than most.'

'I've seen through you,' said Romana. 'I'm not so susceptible to your charms.'

Galatea stood. 'You will thank us for this, Romana.' She turned to Liris.

'Begin the conditioning. Level five.'

A switch clicked over, and there came a steadily rising hum of power. The needle-thin tip of the transmitter glowed a fierce orange. Romana marshalled all her training, including the techniques of mediation she had learnt from the Doctor, and formed a barrier in her mind.

The pain was immediate. She let out a strangulated cry and shook.

'Do not resist,' she heard Galatea say.

'Relax,' said Liris.

The grey sky over Barclow was made vivid green by a rapid series of explosions, and Fritchoff ducked his head instinctively. He clutched his gurgling chest, stopped and said simply, 'Heck.'