Deceit

by Peter Darvill-Evans

  ‘A boar, then,’ Francis said. He had to admit that the Doctor was right: when he started thinking, the fear subsided. ‘Perhaps a fox.’

  ‘There are no wolves? Or bears?’

  Francis knew the words. He couldn’t picture the animals. He shook his head slowly, trying to remember. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Only in books. But, Doctor...’ The fear had gripped him again. He could hardly speak. ‘If the squirrels eat the nuts from the trees. And the boars eat the shoots and roots of the bushes...’

  ‘Yes?’ The Doctor was almost smiling now.

  ‘That plant – the one you showed me. The one I couldn’t touch.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What sort of creature lives on that, Doctor?’

  ‘Well done,’ the Doctor said. ‘I was wondering when you’d work it out.’

  There was another crashing of undergrowth. The noises were getting closer.

  ‘More to the point,’ the Doctor added, ‘what kind of creature lives by predation on the animals that live on that plant?’

  ‘I really don’t want to find out.’

  The Doctor looked disappointed. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘The rain might be the lesser of the two inconveniences. Time to move on, I think.’

  They stood up. As Francis walked away from the wide trunk of the tree that had given them shelter, he saw something move in the bushes beside him.

  The Doctor came up and whispered in his ear. ‘Don’t dawdle, Francis,’ he said. ‘Run!’

  Footsteps were approaching. Bernice shrank into the armchair. The door in the corner of the cloister started to open..

  Gerald, Lord Delahaye, stepped through the doorway, smiling.

  Bernice was so relieved she could have run up to him and hugged him.

  ‘I have informed His Highness about you,’ he boomed as he strode along the terrace towards her. ‘He approves of my decision to offer you hospitality here until he has had time to confer with the Counsellors.’

  ‘Am I going to meet him?’ Bernice babbled. ‘Just fancy, a real Prince. This could be the start of a fairy-tale romance. Will I have to wear my new frock?’

  Gerald continued to smile indulgently. ‘An audience may be granted,’ he said, toying with the gold chains at his chest. ‘The Prince will doubtless proceed according to the advice of the Counsellors.’

  The subject appeared to be closed, and for a moment the nobleman seemed at a loss. ‘Are you comfortable here?’ he asked. ‘Do you require anything?’

  I could do with getting out of here and finding the Doctor, Bernice thought. I’d like to know what made the noises upstairs. I don’t understand how a pre-technological society can manufacture blocks of dressed stone that are as completely uniform as the ones this building is made of. I’d like to know, even approximately, where and when I am.

  ‘Do you always wear enough gold and jewels to fill the average treasure chest?’ she said.

  Lord Gerald stepped back. ‘I am accoutred according to my rank as head of the Delahayes,’ he said, obviously mystified by her question. ‘Metals and gems are surely not remarkable? But of course: you are from another world.’ He nodded his head sympathetically. ‘The Counsellors tell us that Arcadia is furnished more plentifully than any other place. They tell us where to dig; they train the Masters of the Guilds in the arts of metalwork and gem cutting. Our forefathers came here to escape death and disease, misery and violence.’

  Arcadia. Bernice didn’t recognize the name. But she had some idea, at last, of what was going on. This was, as she had suspected, a colony on a terraformed planet. A colony that thrived in blissful ignorance of the rest of the galaxy. Perhaps the Counsellors were an elite corps of administrators, a team of corporation bureaucrats who were in the know and who maintained the planet as a medieval paradise. Now the question was: why?

  ‘I’m an archaeologist,’ she said. Lord Gerald looked blank. ‘A historian – a historian of buildings. Could I possibly inspect the villa? It’s absolutely fascinating. I’d like to look in all the rooms.’

  Lord Gerald’s eyes darted upwards for a moment. He smiled gracefully. ‘I regret that it’s not possible. Most of the doors are locked. And my chamberlain has the keys. The house is unoccupied at the moment, you see.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘You are quite alone here.’

  ‘I see. It’s just that... Well, never mind. I’ll just have to sit and watch the rain, won’t I?’

  The nobleman stared through the glass doors at the growing puddles in the paved courtyard. He looked worried. ‘I apologize most sincerely for the inclement weather,’ he said. ‘It really is most unusual. Or it used to be. The Counsellors have no explanation. Most unusual.’

  He made a slight bow and hurried away, frowning.

  Bernice heard the outer doors open and then close. She started to sing again, softly at first, and then more loudly.

  Above her, in one of the rooms above the terrace, the knocking started. The sounds were not equally loud, and sometimes strayed from the rhythm of her song. She didn’t like to imagine what kind of wounds or mental impairment would cause someone to keep time so badly. Still singing, she rose from the chair. She was going to investigate.

  Francis ran. Something was coming out of the undergrowth. Something big.

  A sharp pain cut his ankle. As he fell face forward he had time to realize he had snagged his foot in a loop of thorns. He gasped for breath. The thing was upon him.

  He looked up, ready to cry out. The scream died in his throat.

  A vision from a nightmare stood over him.

  He saw, four legs, straight and bristling with hairs. He saw a huge head, flat-fronted and grey. Two blank eyes as big as plates. A round mouth filled with spines.

  ‘Fascinating,’ the Doctor said.

  The creature hissed as the Doctor lunged at it with his umbrella.

  Francis felt the Doctor’s hand on his shoulder, pulling him up with surprising strength.

  ‘He’s hungry,’ the Doctor said, holding on to the Scribe as he retreated step by step. ‘A long way from his hunting grounds. He won’t venture into the open.’

  Francis felt the rain on his head and sobbed with relief.

  They were out of the forest. The Doctor’s hand released its grip and Francis fell into the wet grass; shuddering. He rolled on to his back and stared up at the dark, writhing lumps of cloud. The cold, driving rain was as sweet as a summer shower.’

  Some time later he shook himself, and looked around. The Doctor was standing nearby, under the opened umbrella, watching the shadows under the trees. ‘You’d better get up,’ he said. ‘Catching your death of cold is as bad as being eaten by an alien carnivore.’

  ‘Doctor. I have to tell you...’

  ‘Get up, man.’

  Francis struggled to stand. His cloak was waterlogged. ‘Doctor, I’ve been very foolish. I knew – or I suspected. I found books in the library. Books I shouldn’t have read. Things are wrong here. Things have been wrong since the beginning. And getting worse. I was the only one who realized. And I didn’t let myself believe...’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ the Doctor said cheerily, holding the umbrella over both of them. ‘It’s very common, particularly in your species. Ignorance is just ignorance. You need knowledge to achieve self-delusion. And more knowledge still for enlightenment.’ A distant look appeared in his eyes. ‘Sometimes it seems there is never enough knowledge.’

  ‘But I didn’t tell you. I saw your friend.’

  ‘Bernice?’

  ‘Yes. She was walking towards Beaufort.’

  ‘Good.’ To Francis’s surprise and relief, the Doctor seemed suddenly cheerful.

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Francis, let me tell you something. Very little has pleased me since the TARDIS landed here. My companion has wandered off, almost certainly into danger. Something terrible and inexorable is going on here, and I can’t tell what it is. But I have a nasty feeling that it might be my fault, in a way. I have been under telepathic s
iege for the past few hours. And I fear that the TARDIS is no longer where I left her. Now I know, at least, where Professor Summerfield is. And,’ he added, flapping his umbrella, ‘it’s stopped raining, Shall we return to the town and rescue Benny?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Doctor. Look.’

  Francis pointed across the fields. Two black-robed figures had appeared as if by magic, and were advancing towards them with ungainly haste. Glancing behind him, Francis saw two more Counsellors standing beneath the trees and barring a flight into the forest.

  ‘I think we’re going to be escorted to Landfall,’ he said.

  The Doctor’s face twisted in anger. ‘All right,’ he shouted. ‘I really don’t care. I just want some answers!’

  Weak, watery sunlight fell in thin stripes through the row of shuttered windows. Peering through the slats, Bernice looked down on the rain-spangled fruit frees in the orchard.

  Good. She was in the right place. This narrow corridor ran above the wing of the villa that contained her bedroom. The dust on the floorboards was thick, but not, undisturbed. Someone had been here, recently.

  The scuffed footprints led to one of the doors opposite the windows. Bernice tiptoed along the corridor until she reached the door.

  Now that the last drops of rain had been wrung from the clouds, the silence was absolute. Bernice could hear only the beating of her own heart. She pulled a stupid face, with crossed eyes and protruding jaw. No point in taking danger too seriously. She started to hum the lullaby.

  And the knocking started almost immediately. The noise was still muffled, hardly louder than it had sounded on the terrace, and still irregular.

  Now what? Bernice wondered. I can’t stand here humming at a door forever.

  She touched the handle. The door swung open.

  Bernice stepped back, half expecting something to leap at her from the gaping darkness. The knocking stopped.

  Nothing else happened.

  Bernice stepped into the doorway.

  The room was in darkness, its window shuttered and curtained. It smelt inhabited: Bernice wrinkled her nose at the odour of sweat and excrement.

  As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw that the room was bare: floorboards, plastered walls, beams and rafters criss-crossing under the slope of the roof-tiles. Nothing else – except for a bundle on the floor in one corner.

  Bernice hummed again. The bundle moved.

  It wasn’t a big bundle. It was smaller than Bernice.

  Never pick on someone your own size, she reminded herself. It’s easier to head-butt downhill.

  She walked across the room, pulled aside the curtain, threw open the shutters, and spun round to look at the bundle.

  It didn’t move. It still looked like a roughly-rolled blanket. She stepped towards it, avoiding the scattered pieces of filth and discarded food.

  She stopped when she saw the chain. A ring of iron was set into the wall, and a chain ran from it and disappeared into the bundle.

  A wild animal, Bernice thought. You might chain a wild animal. But why keep it in an upstairs room?

  She stepped forward again. She was close enough to touch the bundle. She hummed the tune, and the bundle jerked, as if surprised or frightened to hear a voice so nearby.

  Bernice rested her hand on the rough cloth. The bundle lay still.

  Human. It was a small human. Bernice could make out the shape of thin legs through the outer layer of cloth. She peeled back the material, and let out a gasp that sounded like a cry of pain.

  She blinked back the tears that welled in her eyes, and lowered herself to sit on the wooden floor. She no longer trusted her legs to support her.

  The bundle, contained a young girl, naked and dirty from the waist down. The girl’s torso was constricted, inside a linen garment with elongated sleeves that were tied together behind the back. The chain was connected to a ring in the collar. A leather bag, tied tight at the neck, enclosed the girl’s head.

  Bernice stretched out a shaking hand and touched the girl’s shoulder. The bound body jerked again.

  Bernice couldn’t help it. She let tears stream down her face and sobs burst from her lungs as she tore frantically at the buckles and knots.

  The girl would have been pretty, normally. Now she was emaciated and dirty. Her eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. Her cracked lips were slackly parted. She made no noise. She was free from her shackles, but she hardly moved.

  Bernice cradled the girl’s head in her lap and rocked gently back and forth, crying occasionally as she stroked the greasy, matted hair.

  She started to sing the lullaby again, and gradually the girl’s face came to life. Her eyes focused on Bernice’s face. Bernice smiled through her tears, and sang more loudly.

  The girl’s lips started to move, as if she was trying to speak. Bernice caressed her face, and murmured words of comfort.

  A choking noise came from the girl’s throat. Bernice hushed her, but she began to move her arms and legs agitatedly. And suddenly she jerked out of Bernice’s arms, and sat bolt upright with her eyes wide. She brought her hands to her face, and started to scream – abrupt cries of pain, as if in response to repeated and swift thrusts of a dagger.

  She didn’t stop screaming, even after Bernice had wrapped her arms round the skinny, rigid body, but she did eventually quieten. And at last the cries became softer and less regular as Bernice hugged and stroked her, until Bernice was sure she could make out words among the anguished moans.

  ‘He... He did...’

  ‘What is it, my sweetheart,’ Bernice whispered. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘He killed her,’ the girl shouted. ‘He cut a hole.’

  The Doctor seemed delighted with the Humble Counsellors. Francis had never liked them: he remembered having bad dreams about them in his childhood, and he was sure that in those days the Counsellors had been less ungainly than they had become in recent years. One at a time they were disconcerting enough, arid being surrounded by four made Francis twitch with apprehension. He was glad the Doctor was with him.

  They travelled quickly into the hills. The Doctor was apparently tireless, and Francis was the slowest of the group. The Counsellors hissed and croaked disapprovingly whenever he insisted on a rest.

  Panting as he sat on a boulder half-way up a rocky slope, Francis tried to analyze his dislike for the hooded advisers. They seldom spoke to him, so the horrible gargling sounds they made could cause only a small part of his distaste. He decided it was the way they walked.

  Each one was different, he realized now that he could see four at once. One had a spine so curved that his head hung level with his chest; another seemed to be extremely thin except at his hips, where the black silk bulged strangely. Francis knew, from his illicit studies, that deformed babies used to be born, back in the bad old days on Earth. Everyone thought that none were born on Arcadia, but perhaps the malformed children disappear to be trained as Counsellors, he thought. All of them moved oddly, as if their legs were making irregular movements under their robes. But they could certainly move quickly, even over difficult terrain. He looked up the slope and groaned.

  The Doctor sauntered over and jumped lightly to stand on the boulder next to Francis’s.

  ‘I’ve been trying to take a look at our hooded friends,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ Francis replied. ‘You’ve been running in circles round them. I don’t know where you get the energy from.’

  ‘Gallifrey,’ the Doctor said absently. ‘They’re not human, you know,’ he added.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think they’re human. They’re organic, but I think they’re constructs. It’s the differences that intrigue me. Most androids are disappointingly standardized. Mass production, you know; economies of scale, and so forth. Shall we have a closer look?’

  Francis was about to decline the offer, but the Doctor had already jumped down and was walking towards the nearest Counsellor. He tapped the figure on the
back of its head and, when it turned round, he beckoned it towards Francis.

  The other three Counsellors remained standing like statues on the hillside. Francis had to admit that the Doctor was probably right, and that he should have recognized the fact himself years ago: the Counsellors weren’t human.

  Stationary, and silent except for its wheezing breath, the chosen Counsellor stood before the Doctor and Francis. The Doctor paced around the still figure.

  ‘What I would like to know,’ he said, his words coming in bursts as he increased the speed of his circling, ‘is why no-one, ever, in the history of this unadventurous planet, has ever done this before.’ And he stopped behind the Counsellor and yanked its hood backwards.

  Francis was almost getting used to shocks. This was no worse than the beast in the forest; slightly easier to look at, in fact, because it might once have been almost human.

  But it wasn’t human. It had a head, with eyes, ears and a mouth, but it wasn’t human. The worst of it was the scalp: it was hairless, but it wasn’t a smooth, bald dome. It had ridges, nodules, horns and spirals, shapes that Francis’s eye couldn’t follow, that seemed to turn in on themselves. Some of the crinkled, soft matter that nestled in the heart of these shapes, Francis realized with nausea, was like bits of a brain.

  The coarse skin, black and purple and green, was almost normal by comparison. The facial features, though distorted and unbalanced, were roughly of the same shapes and in the same places as a human’s. Francis was particularly intrigued by the curls and folds of the thing’s right ear, which seemed to become more complicated the longer he stared at them. The creature was odious, certainly, but Francis had no difficulty in stifling his exclamations of horror.

  The Doctor, to Francis’s surprise, was speechless, and grey with shock.

  ‘Oh no,’ Francis heard him say at last. ‘This is worse than I thought.’

  The Doctor placed himself a mere hand’s breadth in front of the Counsellor’s repellent face. ‘Let me look into your eyes,’ he said. ‘I want to communicate with your masters.’

  The creature’s eyes glowed red, and then became blank white discs. The Doctor’s brow creased with the effort of concentrating. His eyes were chips of blue ice.