The Romance Of Crime Part 26

The main door slid open and the Doctor and Romana breezed in. 'h.e.l.lo, all!'

'Not you again!' Xais exclaimed.

'You're not very good at locking people up, are you?' the Doctor said politely. 'It's no wonder you prefer to kill them.'

He turned to the brothers. 'Gentlemen, before either of you do anything rash, like shooting anybody, I think it's time you found out a few facts.' He coughed. 'Er, Romana.'

Romana stepped forward. 'There isn't any belzite on this planet,' she said simply. 'We've seen a mineralogical survey.

There's none here.'

'She's lying,' Xais said. 'Believe nothing the girl says, she's an investigator!'

Charlie turned his black eyes on Xais. 'They expect me to be surprised.'

'We know that,' said Eddie, his mouth trembling with confusion and anger. 'But this mountain range. What's she after there? It's got to be worth something.'

'Only to her,' said the Doctor. 'You see, Xais is interested in helicon, which I dare say is to be found in the mountains, but isn't going to be much use to you. Unless you're thinking of going into the pipeline-making business.'

Xais, torn between priorities, swung her face towards him.

An orange beam shot from her eyes and he sank to the ground slowly, hands covering his face.

'Doctor!' cried Romana.

'n.o.body puts one over on us!' Eddie aimed his revolver at Xais and steadied his trembling gun arm.

Aware of his action, Xais turned instinctively, freeing the Doctor from the deadly beam of her eyes.

Eddie fired. The shot went wide of Xais.

Xais's angry stare transfixed Eddie. The revolver fell from his hand. The beam of pure hate lifted him off his feet. His eyes bulged with agony.

A second later, what was left of his body squelched to the floor.

Charlie pulled his own revolver from his jacket and fired four bullets into Xais. She was thrown back by each blast but still clung to life, the mask forcing her on. 'Fool!' she screamed.

Romana helped the Doctor to his feet. They watched as Charlie fired another three bullets into Xais's chest. b.l.o.o.d.y holes opened up all over her white tunic. Still she advanced.

'Do you think you can kill me?' she taunted Charlie.

The lips of the mask moved. The face of Xais lived again.

It twisted into an expression of grotesque silver hate.

'I exist!' the mask shouted. 'The transfer is complete! I cannot be destroyed!'

More bullets tore into the body beneath the mask. It crumpled and fell in a gruesome red heap. The mask screamed its defiance and closed its eyes.

Charlie ignored the Doctor and Romana and moved to the smashed remains of his brother. 'No,' he said through gritted teeth. 'No. Not Ed. My own...' He faltered at the sight of the splattered body. 'My own flesh and blood. I'll bring the lot of them down for this.' His eyes glistened. 'The whole lot of them.'

On the other side of the survey room, the Doctor was picking himself up. 'Are you all right?' asked Romana.

'I think so,' he said. He blinked rapidly and wiggled his fingers. 'Yes, I think I had a narrow escape.'

Pyerpoint had remained perfectly still during the blood-soaked altercations of the last few minutes. Suddenly he sprang into life. He leapt across the survey room, bent over the body of Xais, and ripped off the mask.

'Where are you off to with that?' the Doctor called.

Pyerpoint fired two beams from his laser pistol in the Doctor's general direction and sped out of the survey room.

The Doctor shuddered. 'It's just as well, Romana, that the people who try to kill me are all such bad shots.'

They looked down at the body of Margo. Romana knelt and turned it over. The arm flopped pathetically.

Where the mask had been, where the face should have been, was a flat lump of pink flesh. There were no features.

Romana recoiled. 'What happened to her?'

'She was absorbed,' the Doctor said sadly. 'Xais transferred totally.' He shook his head. 'The powers of activated helicon are more terrible than even I had dared to imagine.' He indicated the door. 'Let's get after him.'

Romana ran from the room, picking her way around the corpse of Eddie. The Doctor turned for a last look at the survey room.

Charlie's ma.s.sive hand clamped on his shoulder. The other hand still held the smoking revolver that had stopped Xais.

'Sc.u.m!' Charlie spat. 'Why don't I shoot your knees away right now?'

The Doctor backed away, but the grip on his arm was alarmingly strong. 'Please,' he said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. 'I understand how you must feel. But you don't want to do anything hasty. I mean, it's always better to allow for a sensible interval of grief before taking any rash action.

After all, you're not one of those people who gets into a rage and starts killing whoever happens to be about.'

A moist clicking sound came from the back of Charlie's throat.

'Well, perhaps you are,' said the Doctor.

Pyerpoint kept to the better-lit areas of the base, and followed them to a round junction halfway along one of the outer arms.

The mind that had kept ahead through forty years of deliberation in the service of the law had already formulated a new plan to cope with the altered situation. If this base had been constructed to standard design, the section he was searching for would be just here.

An open door ahead led to a room that smelt of fuel fluids.

He stepped through and saw his own face reflected in the plastigla.s.s window of the base's skimmer.

He looked about. Neatly arranged on a rail nearby were a row of protective suits. He set the mask down on a work surface and pulled at the laces of his tunic. In under a minute he had changed into one of the featureless grey plastic suits.

His own clothes he kicked away into a corner.

'Pyerpoint,' a voice whispered.

He looked down and licked his lips. The mask was speaking to him. Its eyes had opened and its lips were pouting.

Without a host to draw from its voice was high-pitched and metallic, pure and chiming.

'Pyerpoint. You know what you must do. You will never learn the secret of helicon unless you wear my face.'

He took a pair of grey gloves from a pouch on the suit and pushed his hands into them. Then he picked up the mask by its edge and held it away from him as if it were radioactive. 'No,'

he told Xais. 'There is an alternative.'

'Yes,' said the mask. 'Yes. Bring me another host.'

The sound of tentative footsteps came from the corridor outside the garage. Pyerpoint crept over to the door and looked out.

The girl Romana was standing in the middle of the corridor, her hands on her hips, looking about. 'Pyerpoint!' she called.

'You may as well show yourself. The operation's over.'

Pyerpoint felt the mask jerk in his hand. 'Yes,' it whispered. 'Yes.'

He stepped from the garage and advanced on Romana. She whipped round to face him and saw instantly what he intended to do. He gripped her by the shoulder and tried to bring the mask forward. Her strength was surprising, and her long legs kicked at his midriff. If they had fought under more usual circ.u.mstances she would undoubtedly have come off better.

But the mask was too strong. It gave Pyerpoint greater strength and determination. He pushed Romana against the wall, held her there, and pressed the mask over her face. The cap fell from her hair.

She flinched, slumped, and was still.

13.

Sentinel.

For once, Flarkk had followed his pilot's training with accuracy. The inner air-lock of the base clicked open and the Ogron crew barged through noisily. If there was one thing a group of Ogrons could be relied upon to do well, it was to barge noisily through an air-lock.

The guard Ogron gave a clumsy salute of greeting to his comrades. 'Welcome to Planet Eleven. You have good journey?'

Flarkk nodded. 'Journey good and safe. Where are the Mister Nisbetts?'

'In survey room. I will lead you.' The Ogrons followed him away from the air-lock.

On the opposite side of the base, halfway along one of the arms that faced away from the landing pad, a large hatch set a few metres above the ground slid back and the base's skimmer emerged. It had been used by the survey team on computer-guided reconnaissance missions in the locality of the base. It was about twenty metres long by ten wide, and its silver paintwork was scarred and soiled by the various tasks it had undertaken. The upswept tail section contained two large rocket thrusters, designed to provide maximum resistance against the dense atmosphere. At the front was a clear bubble of plastigla.s.s which was doused constantly by automatic sprinklers.

Inside the bubble, at the guidance controls of the skimmer, sat Pyerpoint. His long bony fingers tapped confidently at the navigation panel, keying in a sequence of coordinates he had memorized for just such an eventuality. Next to him on the padded seating lay the body of Romana, still unconscious, her head thrown back. The glittering mask of Xais, unmoving, was framed by her long blonde hair.

The skimmer's motors responded to its new instructions and turned the tapered snout of the vehicle to face its destination. The rocket ports glared red and the skimmer shot through the gas clouds.

On the second row of seating, behind Pyerpoint and Romana, a bulky, irregular shape was covered by an oil-spattered tarpaulin. As the skimmer rocked and banked, the tarpaulin lifted for a second.

Stokes's terrified face was revealed.

The Doctor was still leading Charlie Nisbett in a macabre pas de deux around the survey room, neatly circling around the remains of Margo and Eddie.

'Who tipped you off about this operation?' Charlie snarled.

'Was it the judge man, old Pyerpoint?'

'Oh no,' said the Doctor. 'n.o.body tipped me off, I'm just a natural blunderer. If there's trouble, I'll find it.' He coughed nervously. 'As for old Pyerpoint, well, he's the man you want to be chasing about with a gun.'

Charlie stopped and straightened up. 'Perhaps you're right.'

'Thank goodness,' the Doctor said, and pointed over his shoulder. 'He went that way.'

'I'd better tidy up in here first, though,' said Charlie. He raised his revolver and pointed it directly at the Doctor's left heart. 'You talk too much. My old Mum used to say empty sandshakers make the most clatter.'

The Doctor prepared himself to jump Charlie. Just as he was about to spring, a crowd of Ogrons burst in to the survey room.

Flarkk stopped in shock at the sight of the two bodies. 'Mr Edward!'

Charlie turned to face his boys, the Doctor momentarily forgotten. 'Where have you been?'

Flarkk wrung his huge hairy hands. 'We had trouble with the docking clamps again.'

'I don't want to hear about your flaming clamps,' Charlie stormed. 'My only brother is lying dead on that floor! We've got to nail the villain that did it.'

The Doctor used the opportunity of this distraction to pick up the probe relay unit discarded earlier by Xais. He consulted the read-out screen, did a few mental calculations, and shook his head ruefully. 'That villain has done a lot more than any of us antic.i.p.ated.' He wiggled the device at Charlie. 'Somebody has sucked this planet clean of helicon. Mined out the seam in the Jilharro mountains, and cleared up the rest of the planet using selective gathering bugs. Before this survey had even begun. Now, the only person with the information, the opportunity and the motive to do all of that is Pyerpoint.'

'But he's the law,' Charlie said. 'And what would he want with helicon?'

The Doctor decided to take advantage of his temporary favour and sat down before the main console. 'Well, he's totally corrupt, for one thing,' he told Charlie. 'A greater danger to the system than your firm ever was or ever could have been, precisely because he was working from inside the law. And as for helicon...'

He punched up a picture from one of the base's external cameras. The rear of a skimmer was ploughing away through the grime. 'Through Xais, he can use it to unlock powers more dangerous than anything this sector of s.p.a.ce has seen. I think he's off to collect it.' He looked around, a worried expression creeping over his features. 'Where's Romana?'

'Coordinates are aligned with course program,' K9 p.r.o.nounced grandly. 'Materialization commencing.'