‘Yes,’ he said at last, the word escaping from his lips like a sigh. ‘I see. I can’t read you, and you can’t read me.’
He turned away from the Counsellor and bowed his head.
‘Doctor?’ Francis hadn’t seen the Doctor look defeated before. ‘Is everything...’
‘All right? Oh yes. Everything’s splendid. Couldn’t be better. I’m just a prize idiot, that’s all.’ He clenched his fists and threw back his head. ‘By the Rod and the Sash, what have I done this time?’ he shouted at the sky. ‘I was only trying to help,’ he added bitterly, ‘as usual.’
They were in Bernice’s bedroom when Lord Gerald returned. In between bathing and feeding the girl, Bernice had coaxed from her a name, Elaine, and a garbled story that added considerably to Bernice’s suspicions about the world called Arcadia.
Bernice had taken a pair of scissors to the costume that had been provided for her. Elaine had smiled her first smile on seeing her reflection dressed in the cut-down finery, and Bernice had almost wept again. She had just swept the girl into a hug when there was a peremptory knock and the door flew open.
Elaine’s body froze in Bernice’s arms.
Lord Gerald stood on the threshold, too surprised to speak.
Bernice had no such difficulty. Her anger gave her the strength to lift Elaine with one arm. She advanced towards the door with the scissors in her free hand.
‘What have you done?’ She didn’t know what she wanted: answers, revenge, an apology. ‘How could you do that to a child? Talk, you aristocratic bastard. What did you think you were doing?’
‘Lady, be peaceful,’ Lord Gerald said. ‘My niece was—’
‘Your niece? You did this to your own niece?’
‘I am the head of the family, it was my responsibility to care for her.’
‘Care? That’s what you call care?’
Lord Gerald was standing against one of the columns of the terrace now, with the scissors at his throat. Bernice was beginning to control her anger, and she had to admit he was keeping his cool.
‘My niece was out of her senses,’ he said, with deliberate calm. ‘We did everything we could. We tried purging and bleeding. We used poultices. We plunged her into hot and cold baths. We—’
‘Don’t go on,’ Bernice said. She dropped the scissors and wrapped both arms round Elaine. ‘She just needed time, you idiot. Time and a bit of affection.’
Lord Gerald shook his head sadly and spread his hands. ‘We didn’t know what to do. We did our best. We followed the best advice.’
‘Something bad is going on.’ Bernice spoke slowly and carefully. ‘You know that, don’t you? Don’t just shake your head. Think! The truth is being kept from you. Elaine is still very frightened, but I believe what she says. She saw the murder of her sister.’
‘Murder?’ Lord Gerald was incredulous. ‘You must be mistaken, I assure you. She was in the room, I know, and it must have been a terrible shock, but there’s no question of murder. None at all. It was a natural death, and not untimely. The Humble Counsellors always know.’
Elaine had started to wail. Bernice comforted her, and Lord Gerald took the opportunity to retreat along the terrace.
Bernice became aware of strange noise: shuffling, irregular footsteps, and laboured breathing. She felt Elaine’s body go rigid with fear.
‘I have not yet had a chance to tell you,’ Lord Gerald called from the end of the terrace, ‘that both you and Elaine are to be moved from here. The Counsellors say that we risk an epidemic if you stay in the town. My niece needs some sort of special treatment, apparently. So you’re both to go to Landfall. The Counsellors are here to take you.’
The door behind him opened. Three thin figures, robed and hooded in black, advanced towards Bernice and Elaine.
‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ Bernice said, fighting down a wave of panic. ‘I’ll look after you.’
Now it was the Doctor who slowed their progress. Francis was by no means ungrateful for the change in pace, but the change in the Doctor’s demeanour worried him. The usually piercing blue eyes were shadowed; the Doctor looked neither to right nor left, but seemed to be staring at his shoes, as they dragged him across fields of scree and hummocks of mountain grass.
The Counsellors were apparently prepared to match the Doctor’s pace. They staggered, wheezing, over the rough terrain, maintaining a square formation around the Doctor and Francis.
The Scribe had no idea how many hours they had been stumbling up and down rocky slopes. He was exhausted, hungry and thirsty, and he was sure that the soles of his sandals had worn perilously thin. When he glanced behind him, he saw that the comforting vista of fertile valley and wooded hillsides had disappeared, cut off from his sight by the sharp ridges the party had crossed.
Ahead, the view was the same, or worse: crags of rock, boulder-strewn plateaus, and occasional gulleys containing trickling streams and dense, thorny, scrub. A steady wind stung his eyes and stole the warmth from within his cloak. At least half of the sparse vegetation, he realized with a shock, was unfamiliar – no, it was worse than unfamiliar, it looked wrong, misshapen, unnatural. He didn’t like to look at the plants, but they held an awful fascination. He tried to imagine meadows of the stuff, forests of giant specimens; it was all too easy to visualize such places, and all too obvious that men and women wouldn’t survive there.
There were no signs of people on the slopes ahead, no obvious places to rest or take shelter, and no hint that the going would become any easier. The consolation, from Francis’s point of view, was that there was no indication that they were approaching Landfall, either.
The Doctor walked past. His step had recovered some of its former liveliness, and his eyes were scanning the horizon.
‘Doctor,’ Francis said, hurrying to catch up, ‘are you well?’
‘I’ve done some thinking. It usually helps, even in the worst situations. Do your people keep hamsters?’
‘Hamsters?’
‘Small, furry rodents. White mice, perhaps? Gerbils? In cages? With wheels inside?’
‘Mice, yes. Children like to keep them as pets. The cage usually has a spoked double wheel, like a water wheel. The mice run in it. They seem to like the exercise.’
‘I know what they feel like.’ The Doctor sighed. ‘I used to think I liked it, too. But the trouble is, the harder you run, the faster the wheel spins. And the faster the wheel spins, the harder you have to run. You see what I mean?’
Francis had no idea. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘You think you’re to blame, in some manner, for – all this?’
‘In some manner. I’ve been sifting through the time lines. It’s more difficult outside the TARDIS, but I think I’ve identified where this anomaly comes from. And it comes from something I did on Earth. I thought it was very clever and successful at the time.’
‘I don’t understand, Doctor.’
‘Well, I saved humanity again. Good old Doctor, riding to the rescue as usual. But you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs. I looked ahead, of course. Couldn’t detect any tremors. Only four centuries. Less than a thousand light-years from Earth. It wasn’t very far away. And I missed it. I was under a lot of strain at the time. So was the TARDIS, poor old dear. I pulled you out of the frying pan then, but it looks like you’re in the fire now as a result. Am I making myself clear?’
Francis looked sideways at the Doctor, and tripped over a stone. ‘Is it something to do with cooking?’ he said.
The Doctor’s frown of annoyance suddenly turned into a wide grin. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t do to take things too seriously. Nor should we jump to conclusions. The genetic manipulation isn’t anachronistic. The block transfer mathematics is, but perhaps it’s not intrinsically damaging, But the mind that’s capable of carrying out the computations – that’s what worries me. It shouldn’t be possible, you see. It knows I’m here. And I have no idea what it is.’
‘Will it be waiting for us at Landfall?
’
‘Quite possibly. I’m looking forward to the meeting. There’s no reason to expect the worst. I sense a mind not unlike mine. A deep mind. A mind that perceives the currents. Let’s press on.’
The Doctor strode ahead, almost overtaking the vanguard Counsellor. Francis struggled to keep up. ‘Restrain your optimism, Doctor,’ he said. ‘If this thing, this mind that you expect to find, it unfriendly, then we are walking to what could be our deaths.’
‘Or worse. On the other hand, it wouldn’t do to assume evil when we have evidence only of great power.’
‘But we are alone, Doctor. We can hope for no prospect of help.
The Doctor chuckled. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I’d quite forgotten. A friend of mine should be dropping in at any moment.’
He looked up at the sky, as if he expected some sort of assistance to break through the rolling clouds.
The sirens had been turned off, but the red lights were still flashing every five minutes. In the hologram pit, the red dot that represented the Raistrick was still inching towards the green golfball of Arcadia. The ghostly sphere that represented the unidentifiable barrier was shrinking inwards, confining the troopship to a smaller and smaller ball of space. On the forward screen the planet was now dead ahead, and getting close enough to show continents and cloud patterns. The rearward screen was blank.
There wasn’t much talking. There wasn’t much to do except wait, but the ship’s officers ran endless systems checks. Defries and Johannsen were together at a terminal, issuing orders to the auxiliaries’ section leaders. Heavy weapons were being assembled and programmed, combat suits and power armour were being donned, medicines and provisions were being allocated, drug and hormone implants were being triggered, transmat bays were being filled with battle-crazed troopers.
Ace wanted to be down on the landing decks, amid the fear and excitement, the shouting and crowding, the smell of hot circuitry and berserkaloid plastigraft, the whine and thump of the armoured infantry, the chittering of a thousand personal comms speakers.
But she also wanted to find out what was happening, and so the bridge was the only place to be. She and Captain Toko were the only still, silent figures on the bridge: both sat, apparently relaxed, their eyes glancing continually from the screen to the hologram and back again.
Abslom Daak was pacing back and forth behind Ace’s chair. Defries had reluctantly allowed him to have back his personal weapon, a chainsword capable of cutting through a Dalek’s steel carbide casing. Ace thought it was primitive. Every few minutes he pulled the trigger and the weapon made a noise like a dentist’s drill. Ace was beginning to get used to it, but she made a mental note to keep well away from Daak in a fight. He gave no indication that he would be careful about precisely who he scythed down.
It was Daak who saw them first, even before the ship’s defence system had reported.
‘Fighters,’ he said. The bridge fell silent. Daak pointed at the screen. ‘There. Coming from behind the planet.’
Ace couldn’t see them. She guessed that Daak had augmented eyesight. But the Raistrick had picked them up: a dozen red dots appeared in the hologram display, spreading out as they curved round the planet and headed towards the troopship. They were moving faster than the Raistrick.
‘Steady, everyone,’ Toko said. ‘This isn’t a problem. Agent Defries, are your people ready at the pipes?’
‘Yes, Captain. Are we going to use the fast-guided missiles?’
‘Only if we have to, Belle.’ He laughed. ‘We can handle this with nuts and bolts technology. I don’t entirely trust a weapons system with a range that’s bigger than a solar system. Henriks, patch the bridge comms through to all sub-stations.’
‘OK, Captain.’
‘Hear this, everybody.’ Toko raised his voice, as if addressing a crowded room. ‘This is Captain Toko on the bridge. We’re going to get some action at last. So far it’s only a dozen fighters, so don’t get too excited. We’ll use drones and torpedoes. I’ll put the hologram through the terminal screens so you: can watch the fun, and I’ll leave this channel open. Stand by for some fireworks.’
He rubbed his hands together and stared at the forward screen. Twelve silver specks were just visible now. ‘Launch six drones, Desoto,’ he said. ‘Forward, of course. Random distribution. And ready twelve torpedoes.’
There was no noise or vibration to indicate that the drones had been launched. Ace gripped the arms of her chair and gaped. Six troopships, identical in appearance to the Raistrick, had appeared on the forward screens in a scattered formation. Ace had seen drones used as decoys many times in space battles, but she had never seen drones that were as big as their parent ship. It wasn’t possible.
‘Captain?’ she called.
Toko waved in acknowledgement. ‘It’s the latest thing, Ace. Little devils are no bigger than you are, but even our own visual enhancement can’t tell they’re not troopships. As far as those fighters are concerned, they’ve got seven Raistricks to kill.’
Ace didn’t reply. She had felt – something. Something in her mind. It was like passing through a weak energy field, or stepping out of a warm room into a cold evening. But there was no physical sensation. She sensed that she had crossed some sort of boundary.
She looked at Daak just as he was turning to look at her. He grinned, as usual, but then raised a questioning eyebrow. Ace nodded. He’d felt it too.
‘Fire torpedoes,’ Toko said confidently. ‘Keep them back behind: the drones until I give the word.’
On the forward screen, twelve darts flashed into view and hung in space behind the huge images of the drones. A cheer went up from all round the bridge.
The fighters from Arcadia didn’t stand a chance. They were too small to carry many missiles, and the drones would take the entire payload. In Ace’s opinion, Toko was being over-protective: three or four of these new super-drones would have been enough. And not one of the fighters would get back to base: a Starfleet torpedo would, unless intercepted or scrambled, pursue and destroy the fastest and biggest Dalek battle saucer.
Ace preferred a slightly more even fight, but that wasn’t why she felt troubled. Something was wrong.
She looked at the hologram. Nothing had changed, except... She squinted at the display. There was a vague shadow behind the red dot that was the Raistrick, as if that area of the display was overlaid with haze.
She spun her chair and looked at the rearward screen. ‘Bloody hell,’ she breathed.
The fighter attack had been a feint. The real danger was behind the troopship. Ace didn’t know what it was. It looked like a face. A face that dwarfed the Raistrick. The face of a beautiful young woman with streaming, golden hair.
Ace found her voice. ‘Captain,’ she said. She heard his chair turn.
‘Well, well, well,’ Toko said, after a long silence’. ‘Desoto, send those torpedoes out. Henriks, what is this thing behind us?’
Ace turned her head in disgust. The head was changing. At first the widening of the eyes and the opening of the mouth seemed to be a normal facial expression. It looked attractive; Ace thought it might be a greeting.
But the eyes grew into circles, and the mouth extended into a gaping beak, and the hair that spread like a halo round the face congealed into fibrous strands that started to wriggle towards the Raistrick like eels.
‘It’s not there, Captain,’ Henriks said. ‘I mean, there’s nothing physical..There’s some diffuse radiation, indicating that energy’s being used. But nothing physical. Not even a cloud of dust.’
Toko swore and stood up. ‘There must be something there. We can all see it. You can all see the same thing, I take it? It used to be a face, but it’s getting horribly like a giant squid, right?’
Everyone on the bridge murmured agreement.
‘In that case,’ Toko went on, ‘it’s real. Unless we’re suffering from a mass hallucination. And if it’s real, we can damage it. Desoto, fire a torpedo from one of the rear pipes.’
<
br /> The thing’s tentacles were so close that Ace imagined they might reach through the screen. The torpedo appeared, flashing along the undulating tunnel of tentacles towards the thing’s beak.
‘Impact,’ said Desoto.
The torpedo struck the centre of the face, and disappeared.
‘Dammit, Desoto, where’s it gone?’ Tako said.
Henriks replied. ‘It went straight through, Captain. Like I said, there’s nothing there.’
Ace was out of her chair. Something terrible was about to happen. The face was nearer now, and the tentacles were streaming along both sides of the ship, their tips almost meeting across the forward screens.
‘Captain!’ she yelled, but when Toko spun round she had no idea what to say.
Abslom Daak was moving. Ace had the breath knocked from her body as he ran into her and pushed her forward, towards the rim of the bridge. She stumbled, and he pulled her upright.
‘Escape pod, girl!’ he snarled.
Ace didn’t argue. ‘Defries and Johannsen,’ she gasped.
The couple were standing by the nearest iris door, staring up at the enveloping tendrils.
‘You get Defries,’ Daak said, ‘I’ll grab the auxie.’ Defries and Johannsen were five paces away. The escape pod door was another five.
Ace heard something slide across the ship’s hull. The floor rocked. Sirens started to blare.
‘Don’t argue;’ Ace said as she grabbed the front of Defries’s collar. The ship lurched.
Defries, off balance, failed to disable Ace with her instinctive open-hand blow. The chop glanced off Ace’s upper arm. Ace kicked and punched and shoved and screamed, and Defries stumbled backwards into the open iris valve.
‘Get in!’ Daak roared from behind. Ace leapt through the doorway and landed on top of Defries. Johannsen, tossed through the doorway by Daak, landed on top of Ace.
For a moment there was a strange silence. Then the ship lurched again, and Daak fell through the doorway. Ace thought she glimpsed a tentacle snaking down the tiers of the bridge. The grating noise of metal being torn was cut off as Daak’s hand found the door button and the iris valve slid shut.
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