Ace knew that this was impossible. She even suspected that she might be dreaming. But it all seemed horribly real.
Everything she’d collected during her various tours of duty was being laid out in rows and labelled. Drums of nitro-nine and its derivatives; the logic crystals she’d smuggled out of the Procyon system; various hand-held weapons, variously modified by Ace, and the tripod-mounted surface-to-air cannon; the bales of circuit membrane she’d bought for a song from the tailor on Antonius just before the Daleks arrived; even the converted X-ship in which she was gradually buying a quarter share.
Most of it hadn’t been in her locker on the station, anyway. Most of it was stored in an anonymous container in a warehouse on Zantir, and the X-ship was being refitted by a dealer on Harato who owed Ace a favour. So Ace knew it was all a dream.
Nonetheless, the police sergeant had arrived at her door to disturb her sleep.
‘Open up!’ he shouted, as Ace tossed on the bunk. ‘Open up in the name of the law!’
And then he started banging on the door, hitting it so hard that Ace could feel the vibrations through the structure of the cabin. Her conscious mind strove to overcome her subconscious. When your dreams get this noisy, she told herself, it’s time to wake up.
She woke up.
Someone was still banging on the door of her cabin.
‘Who is it?’ she called, and started climbing into her black combat clothes.
There was no reply. The banging was replaced by a series of heavy thuds, each of which caused the door to buckle inwards a little more.
‘That door’s Spacefleet property,’ Ace yelled. She backed to the far wall and picked up her blaster.
The thudding continued. Ace ran her fingers through her hair and tied it loosely behind her neck. She touched the comms button on her collar, but didn’t use it. She’d handled Daleks on her own; why not a DK?
‘Open,’ she said, and the door started to slide. It stuck half-way, but a muscular, hairy arm appeared in the opening and forced the buckled panel further into its recess.
The Dalek Killer stood on the threshold.
He was tall: his head almost touched the lintel. His long, black hair was loose, and hung straight down his back. His scarred and muscular torso was hardly covered by his torn, ill-fitting singlet; his trousers were equally distressed and figure-hugging. His fists were clenched, his eyes were burning under furrowed brows, and his face was twisted into a leering grin.
Ace thought he looked gross. He’d obviously been wearing the same clothes and gone without a shave for weeks before he went into the cryo pod.
‘I’m Daak,’ he said.
Ace couldn’t believe her luck: it was a dream feed. ‘Donald or Daffy?’ she said, wide-eyed.
‘I’m looking for someone name of Ace,’ Daak said, oblivious to Ace’s verbal dexterity.
‘I’m Ace.’
‘You?’ Daak was momentarily nonplussed. His post-cryo instructions were completed. He snarled to cover his discomposure. ‘Then you’re the one I’m looking for, girl. You’re going to start giving me some answers.’
‘Sure,’ Ace said, lifting her blaster, ‘but don’t call me “girl”, OK?’
Daak acted before Ace had finished her sentence. He dived to the floor of the cabin, rolled forward, jumped up and snatched the weapon from Ace’s hand.
His grin even wider, he backed away from Ace and kept the blaster trained unwaveringly on her midriff.
‘I like it better this way,’ he said. ‘With me holding the gun. Now start talking.’
Ace sighed and folded her arms. ‘What would you like to talk about? Lovely weather for the time of year, isn’t it?’
Daak scowled. ‘Cut it out, girl. This is a ship, right? So what ship? Where are we going? And why? I want to know everything you know.’
Ace told him, but she didn’t tell him everything. She didn’t tell him that she knew that he was going to die by self-immolation, that he was destined to be destroyed himself while destroying the Daleks’ instrument of planet-wide genocide.
She told him the name of the ship and its captain. She said that it was a troopship, bound for the Spinward Corporation planet Arcadia, and that the troops were auxiliaries under the command of Agent Isabelle Defries of the Office of External Operations.
Daak’s eyes gleamed ferociously when Ace mentioned the OEO, but this was as nothing compared to his reaction when Ace told him that their mission was a Dalek hunt.
‘Tin-plated vermin!’ he shouted, waving Ace’s blaster above his head. ‘I’ll slice ’em open. I’ll stew ’em in their tins.’
Ace was looking forward to giving him the bad news.
‘Just give me my chain sword and put me on that planet,’ Daak exulted. ‘You auxies can sit and watch the fun. I’ll slice up everyone of those metal monsters. And don’t give me that look, girl. You think I can’t do it?’
‘You look crazy enough,’ Ace said. ‘There’s just one small problem: I think this mission’s a cover. We’re here on false pretences. You included. There are no Daleks on Arcadia.’
Daak’s eyes narrowed. For the first time since he’d broken into her cabin, Ace felt in real danger. Daak’s imposing body was as still as a statue – except for his right hand, which slowly lifted the blaster to point straight into Ace’s eyes.
‘No Daleks?’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t tell me that, girl.’
‘Then I’ll tell you this,’ Ace said, pulling back the sleeve of her jacket to reveal the device strapped to her right forearm. ‘This is a voice-activated dart gun.’
Daak didn’t move. ‘I can dodge a needle,’ he said. ‘Think you can outrun a laser?’
‘I’m in Special Weapons. These darts are heat seeking, and each one has a warhead that will blow through steel carbide armour. That blaster, on the other hand, has a deactivated power cell. I let you take it, spongehead. Now shut up and keep still. I don’t want to have to redecorate my cabin walls with your insides.’
And I can’t, she thought, because if I do you won’t live to destroy the Daleks’ Death Wheel. God, have I got to spend my time worrying about keeping this creep alive?
But Daak had understood. The blaster hung limply in his hand. He looked deflated. His shoulders slumped, he moved his head from side to side like a dazed bull facing a matador.
Now what? Ace thought. And the comms link in her collar buzzed.
‘Ace? This is Defries. I’m told you have a visitor.’
‘Yeah,’ Ace said. ‘We’re getting acquainted. No problems.’
Defries chuckled, ‘Well, bring him up to the bridge. We’re about to drop into the Arcadia system.’
‘Great! Don’t start without me, OK?’ She touched the off button and made for the door, brushing past the Dalek Killer. ‘Come on, big boy. Don’t hang about. Let’s go and look at this planet we’ve come to see.’
Daak swung round with a curse and followed Ace into the corridor.
If Francis had taken the direct way, he would never have come across the big, blue box. But he told himself that he needed time to think; he told himself that to walk on the hard road would hurt his feet; he told himself anything to avoid admitting that he wanted to put off his arrival at Landfall for as long as possible.
Since Christina’s death, his life had become an indistinct nightmare. He had no evidence that she had died other than naturally; after all, she hadn’t been young. She hadn’t been ill, either, but it wasn’t unusual for anyone, once he or she had reached the third decade of life, to be taken suddenly.
His suspicions seemed to others to result from an unhealthy obsession. Christina’s family had rejected him when he had become a nuisance. The Delahayes were a proud house, and they had trouble enough with Elaine, driven mad with grief at her sister’s death.
He couldn’t blame Caroline and little Antoinette, either. One or other of them might have taken back Francis the troubadour, Francis the handsome, witty flirt. But why should they spare a thought for a Francis
preoccupied with the death of another, more recent lover?
He had had no-one else to turn to, and the Counsellors had come every day to urge his departure to Landfall. They had never threatened; they merely made a point of offering, at length and frequently, their condolences on the death of Francis’s lady friend.
When the Counsellors had stopped coming to see him, Francis became scared. He had spoken to no-one for two days, and he found himself starting at every noise from the street outside his cell. He was going mad, he was sure of it.
He had reached some kind of decision, however. If Beaufort and its inhabitants offered no comfort or security, going to Landfall became comparatively less threatening. He was in danger anywhere.
He would at least set off from the town. The Counsellors would see that he was following their strictures. And the change of air might restore his spirits.
He had started walking at dawn, avoiding the road and following instead the farmers’ paths through the fields and orchards. To his surprise, he found that the birdsong-filled groves and the scented meadows did, slowly, steal into his heavy reveries and lift his heart.
By the time he was striding across the low hills from the brows of which Beaufort was no more than a smudge of rooftops in a valley, Francis felt fully restored. His head was up, his mind was clear, his step was confident.
He knew he wasn’t going mad.
Then he saw the big, blue box.
He staggered, recovered his balance, decided that face-down in long grass was the safest place to be, and allowed himself to fall.
He lifted his head, cautiously. The box was still there, motionless and silent. This was the stranger of the two strange sights he had seen that morning. The first, the tall woman, he had convinced himself was an insignificant phantom of his imagination. This was less easy to dismiss. Perhaps he was losing his mind, after all.
Or perhaps this was the off-world ship. The warnings had come so long ago that the Prince’s frantic preparations against attack had become the subject of tavern jokes. But the woman, if she had been real, had been strangely attired, as he supposed an off-worlder might be. And now this: whatever it was, it was like nothing Francis had seen before. And it must have arrived only recently.
Everyone had imagined that a ship from another world would resemble – a ship. This was just a box, and not large enough to carry a force of plague-infected soldiers, But where could it have come from, if it hadn’t dropped from the sky? And it was big enough to contain a few people: the side facing Francis contained a doorway, and the door was ajar.
And even as Francis lay in the grass and stared, a man stepped out of the box and closed the door behind him.
Francis knew everyone in Beaufort by sight, and many people from Clairy, Grandbourg; Fauville and beyond. He had never seen this little man before. In fact, he had never seen anyone like this little man. He was obviously an off-worlder.
Do all the people on other worlds wear such eccentric clothes, Francis wondered. Do they all carry parasols? He upbraided himself for worrying about trivia. Had he not discovered the invaders’ ship? Was he not witnessing the evidence – the first, incontrovertible evidence – that people lived on other worlds beyond the sky, and could travel between worlds, as the books had told him.
The little man was walking towards him. ‘Benny!’ the man shouted, suddenly, and Francis tried to bury himself in the grass. ‘Benny, where are you? Bernice! Professor!’
The off-worlder didn’t sound threatening. Worried, perhaps, and a little melancholy, Francis thought, but not dangerous, Francis risked another peek above the waving stems.
The little man had stopped in his tracks and was staring up at the sky. Francis followed his gaze, but could see nothing out of the ordinary: just the haze, which was normal these days, and the usual bands of darkness crossing the turquoise sky. The off-worlder seemed to find the heavens fascinating, however, and worrying. ‘Oh no,’ Francis heard him say. ‘Oh dear me, no. This won’t do at all. Just as well as I turned up.’
If the off-worlder was suffering from a plague, then the disease could only be of the mind, Francis thought. The fellow looked healthy enough, but his mood seemed to change by the minute, and he talked to himself continuously.
Now he was smiling like a loon, casting glances over his shoulder at the blue box, and chuckling. ‘But she’s back to normal,’ he was saying to himself. ‘Shipshape and Bristol fashion. Not quite as good as new, I’ll admit, but a perfect landing. Right on target. If only I could find Bernice.’ He put his hand against his forehead and scanned the countryside. ‘Bernice!’ he shouted. ‘Benny!’
Francis was coming to a decision. The off-worlder appeared to be unarmed, and if it came to fisticuffs Francis was the larger. Francis also doubted whether the stranger was infectious.... and anyway there should be no necessity to touch him. If Francis could bring the off-worlder to Landfall, he would surely reap some reward: perhaps, if the stranger or his blue box proved useful to the Counsellors, they would allow Francis to remain in his apprenticeship.
And if the off-worlder had no malign intent towards Arcadia, surely he would want to visit Landfall?
Francis once again peered through the grass. The little man was looking straight at him.
‘Hello,’ the stranger said, doffing his hat. ‘I’m the Doctor, and this is – a lovely day, isn’t it? I do hope I haven’t alarmed you?’
‘Oh – er, no,’ Francis said, getting to his feet and brushing grass seeds from his cloak. ‘I’m pleased to meet you. My name’s Francis, the Scribe. Well, I’m only an apprentice, really, but I work as a Scribe. I’m from Beaufort, the town in the valley over there.’
The stranger – the Doctor – smiled, twirled his multicoloured parasol, and glanced in the direction Francis had indicated.
‘Ah yes,’ he said, his intense gaze, returning to the Scribe’s face. ‘And what, I wonder, takes you so far from your scriptorium?’
‘Christina’s dead,’ he said, wondering, as he heard himself say the words, why he was spilling his thoughts for this curious Doctor. ‘And the Counsellors say I must go to Landfall. I’m on my way there now.’ He shook his head, and looked away from the Doctor’s piercing eyes. He took a deep breath. ‘And you are my prisoner,’ he added.
‘Am I?’ the Doctor said, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘Well, in that case, it won’t matter if you tell me everything that’s been going on, will it? I get the impression you’ve been having a trying time.’
Francis and the Doctor walked side by side across the grassy hillocks and down to the road. As they walked, Francis spoke of his eternal love for the Lady Christina, an aristocrat separated from him by age and by society’s conventions, but united with him forever in mutual devotion, and now cruelly taken from him. He decided to gloss over the facts that Christina had never taken him very seriously, that she had only recently become the most important of his several lovers, and that he had already started to become bored with her.
Into this story he wove an account of his difficulties with the Humble Counsellors, and with the Prince who was the Counsellors’ catspaw. He wanted only to remain a simple apprentice, he said, and he didn’t relish the prospect of disappearing or losing his mind, which seemed to be the fate of Apprentice Scribes who went to Landfall. As an afterthought, he mentioned that he suspected the Counsellors of having something to do with Christina’s death, because she complained to the Prince about losing Francis.
As he finished speaking, he realized that his tale lacked all conviction. He knew that to the Doctor’s ears he must sound like a pusillanimous, love-sick swain, throwing wild accusations at everyone in authority, more because of fear of the challenges of Mastership than in reaction to his lover’s sudden death.
And I still haven’t told the Doctor that I saw his friend this morning, Francis thought. Bernice, for whom he was calling, must be the tall woman I spied in the fields. I should tell him that she was heading towards Beaufort. And I should continue to Lan
dfall alone.
‘Here we are,’ the Doctor said. ‘The rolling road, the reeling road, that rambles round the shire...’ He prodded the smooth, black surface with the tip of his parasol. ‘But this sort of thing wasn’t constructed before the Roman came to Rye, was it?’ He turned to Francis. ‘You did say your society was at a level consistent with the technology of pre-industrial Earth, didn’t you? Or words to that effect,’ he added, noticing the incomprehension on Francis’s face.
‘No matter,’ the Doctor continued. ‘It goes in two directions, and therefore, fulfils the most important requirement of a road. Landfall is – that way?’ He pointed into the hills. Francis nodded, and started to speak, but the Doctor cut him off. ‘Then I’d better come with you, I think. I am your prisoner, after all. And I’m most anxious to meet a Humble Counsellor or two. They’ve got some explaining to do.’
The Doctor was already striding off in his chosen direction. Francis hurried after him. ‘But – Bernice?’ he said.
‘Ah – you heard me calling, then. Professor Summerfield is a very resourceful woman. I’m sure she can look after herself.’
Everything had slowed. The shouting voices had receded into a confused hum of noise. Bernice could see nothing but the glinting tips of the crossbow bolts. Her mind was racing, but like a cat chasing its tail, her thoughts were futile and circular.
I never wanted to die like this.
That’s stupid. Do something, now.
What can I do? I never thought I’d die like this.
It seemed as though hours had passed. Bernice realized very gradually that the bolts were wavering, drifting away from their aim. The guards were lowering their weapons. A voice was shouting above the hubbub.
‘I said hold your fire, you idiots. She’s alone; she’s unarmed. We’ll hold her and let the Prince decide.’
The thing not to do, Bernice ordered herself, is to faint. But I really think I must sit down...
She sat in the dust with her head in her hands until her heart had stopped thudding. When she looked up, the guards were shuffling aside to make way for a young man who strode through the gateway and stopped a sword’s length in front of her. Bernice knew he was exactly a sword’s length away because the point of his sword was almost touching her nose.
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