Lights had come, on beyond the doorway. A straight corridor, with no side doors or passages, stretched as far as Bernice could see. Gesturing with their blasters, the androids encouraged the Doctor, Bernice, Francis and Elaine to step on to the platform beside the TARDIS.
With its motor whining in protest, the transporter started to crawl along the corridor.
‘Do you know,’ the Doctor said, ‘I rather think we’re getting somewhere at last.’
In near-silence made even more oppressive by the continuous engine hum and the laboured breathing of the six androids, the transporter glided along the passageway. It was a wide corridor, gloomy and undecorated and very long, but at last Bernice was able to see the far end: a wall moulded into the likeness of a grotesque face. As the transporter approached the dead end without slowing, Bernice remembered that she had something else to tell the Doctor.
‘Doctor,’ she whispered: ‘There’s another thing you should know. Elaine has told me about her sister’s death. She says –’
‘Hush,’ the Doctor said. ‘Look.’
There was movement at the end of, the corridor. Bernice peered ahead, and gasped. She took an involuntary step back. She heard Elaine whimper. The huge face was changing. The eyes widened, the mouth, opened to form a smile, and then a gaping O, and then with a cry that Bernice heard in her mind rather than with her ears the nose and chin split in a vertical line, the eyes moved apart, and the entire face divided in two.
Lights shone in the darkness beyond the widening fissure. The transporter squeezed between the two halves of the parted face, and came to rest in a large, high-ceilinged, circular room, like the inside of a drum.
Despite the simplicity of the structure, it was a disconcerting place. The floor was covered with dust, tumbled heaps of shattered stone, fallen statues, and unidentifiably broken machines. Half-demolished walls and staircases suggested that until recently the chamber had been a warren of antique stonework. Bernice found her eyes caught by flashes of light, as if mirrors were suspended at random all round the room. But there were no mirrors, just almost-invisible pockets of shining darkness where some still-standing stairs and statues disappeared, as if cut with shears, or, seemed to be folded at impossible angles.
‘Don’t go anywhere near the reality faults,’ the Doctor told his companions.
Not everything was in ruins: rising through the rubble were banks of communications and control consoles, housed in cabinets with flowing, plastic lines that must have been designed at least a century previously. A stylized hologram of a stellar system flicked near the ceiling.
Nothing in the room was as disconcerting as its occupants. The blond girl looked abnormal only, in that she was out of place: her wide blue eyes, her long hair and long bare legs, her petulant expression, all these Bernice noticed at one glance, and dismissed. It wasn’t just that Bernice had no time for women who made themselves look like that; the other woman demanded attention.
She was taller than Bernice, and thinner. Almost emaciated. Everything about her seemed elongated: her fingers, her face. Her head. Bernice couldn’t help staring at that head. Englarged, depilated, domed, cleft, and pierced with a gleaming cylinder of metal. Obscene head-gear for a monstrous head.
The woman waited, silent and unmoving, while the androids struggled to shuffle the TARDIS off the transporter and then drove the vehicle out of the chamber. Bernice couldn’t take her eyes from the tall woman, and realized that her companions, too, must have been staring. She glanced round: only the Doctor had avoided displaying an expression of fascinated disgust. The woman’s face showed no emotion, but her eyes glared, unmoving and unforgiving. Bernice felt guiltily glad that, she was not the target of that gaze.
‘Greetings, Doctor,’ the woman said. Her voice was harsh and loud. ‘I am Lacuna. I will speak for Pool, as you keep your mind closed to communication.’
‘Pool?’ Bernice whispered.
‘The name of the intelligence I detected, presumably,’ the Doctor said. ‘It’s all around us.’ He took a step towards Lacuna and raised his hat. ‘Charmed, I’m sure. I imagine introductions are unnecessary?’
‘Entirely unnecessary, although for the sake of compIete understanding you might like to know that this,’ Lacuna turned abruptly to the blond girl, who recoiled, ducking her head, and then looking up meekly at the tall woman, ‘is called Britta.’
‘Hello there!’ the Doctor said, sounding to Bernice like an aged relative addressing a very young child. I
Britta gave him a curiously conspiratorial smile. Lacuna was suddenly impatient. ‘You have arrived just in time to witness the final stage of the experiment. Pool finds your presence – suspicious.’
Really?’ The Doctor was a picture of wide-eyed innocence. ‘And what is the nature of the experiment?’
‘Mankind’s greatest step forward since the evolution of the human brain.’ Lacuna spoke, quickly, apparently frustrated by her inability to fathom the Doctor’s thoughts.
The human brain; Elaine’s sister; so many early deaths on Arcadia. Bernice felt cold. It all fitted together. Pool was all around them. And she knew what Pool was made of.
Lacuna was still talking.
‘You are not human. Pool cannot read you. Your blue box is equally impenetrable.’ She threw a venomous glance at the TARDIS. ‘That is suspicious. There were other unexpected visitors.’
‘Were?’
Bernice recognized the sudden concern in the Doctor’s voice.
‘There are survivors,’ Lacuna said. ‘One of them knows of you. That is also suspicious.’
‘Survivors.’ The Doctor’s voice was low. He was almost growling, his hands white-knuckled on the crook of his umbrella. ‘What have you done? Where are they?’
Lacuna laughed. ‘They are on their way. Come and see.’ She turned and gestured towards a bank of video screens. Only one screen was lit. Bernice, on the Doctor’s heels, saw the glowing blue curve of a planet set against the darkness of space.
‘Arcadia,’ the Doctor said. ‘As seen from this space station, I presume?’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ Lacuna said, and pointed. ‘There is what remains of the intruders.’ A silver dot emerged from the planet’s aura. ‘One unarmed shuttle. A crew of three. I don’t think they’ll trouble the station’s defence systems, do you?’
‘Leave them alone,’ the Doctor muttered. ‘What harm can they do?’
‘You’d be surprised, Doctor. Each of the three seems to be highly dangerous. In any case, they seem determined not to leave us alone. If they attack, we will defend the station.’
‘You could let them land here.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Doctor. We intend to. Although I think I’ll play a few games with them. I don’t want them to have an uneventful journey. There are cameras in the cabin of the shuttle, of course. Shall we see how they’re getting on?’
Three more screens flickered into life.
‘I’m not here to watch television,’ the Doctor said. But he stared at the screens as the pictures sharpened into focus.
As a child, Ace had never wanted to be a nurse. She had defended this unconventional opinion, and undercut the threatened ostracism of her playground peers, by broadcasting her intention, too ludicrous to take seriously, that she should grow up to be a spacewoman. She had never changed her mind, and now she was more convinced than ever that she had been one hundred per cent correct.
Abslom Daak was not a good patient.
‘Keep still, you burnt-arse chip-sucker,’ Ace said, ‘You need more shots and I can do a better graft job on that arm – but only if you keep still.’
‘Don’t need it,’ Daak said. ‘Fit enough already. And strong – see?’
‘Let go of me, dogmeat, or this surgical knife’s going straight through an artery, you register?’
The Dalek Killer tightened his grip. ‘You’ve got guts, girlie.’
Gods, he was strong. ‘Which is more than they’ll say about you, Daak. Remember the knife.’
But she wouldn’t use it, of course. Daak had to stay alive. And the big slob didn’t even realize how objectionable he was.
Daak swivelled on the sick-bay couch and planted his feet on the floor. ‘See? I’m OK.’ Ace found herself suddenly sitting on his lap. His stubble grazed her forehead. ‘And don’t struggle, girlie. You’re asking for a slap.’
‘What?’
Ace couldn’t believe this was happening to her. It had been a long time since she had had to stop herself simply blowing away an enemy that she found herself unable to either maim or restrain. ‘I’ve still got the knife,’ she said, but she knew she’d already said it too many times.
‘You won’t use it on me,’ Daak said complacently. ‘I feel good. You know how to look after me, girl.’ He had both arms round her now. Ace felt very small, perched on the muscular thighs of this bear-hugging, hairy giant.
Oh well, she said to herself. Lie back and think of – where? Garaman? Harato? Heaven? The TARDIS? Iceworld? Perivale? You had to laugh, really. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad. He was so big. And muscle’s heavier than fat, too. If she could just stay on top...
‘Ace! Daak!’ It was Defries’s voice, from the front of the cabin. ‘Come and take a look at this.’
Ace felt Daak’s grip loosen, and she broke free. ‘One of us just had a lucky escape,’ she said, turning abruptly so that he wouldn’t see the smile on her face. ‘Come on. If you’re fit enough for groping, you’re OK for active service.’ She strode out of the cupboard that passed for the shuttle’s sick bay and into the cabin. They were beyond planetary atmosphere now; the vision shields had slid down. Defries was staring through the front window. ‘What’s up, Belle? Can you see the – oh. What – ? Belle, what is it?’.
‘According to the navigation, that’s the Spinward off-planet base. It’s a space station.’ Defries’s voice was flat.
Ace averted her eyes. It wasn’t just that the thing looked misshapen and ugly and threatening. It wasn’t just that it looked so out of place hanging against the speckled mystery of clean, deep space. It was something atavistic, a primal loathing, an embarrassingly little-girl fear. ‘Blast me, Belle, it looks so –’
‘Worse than the little horror inside a Dalek casing.’ Daak had come to stand behind her. ‘The kind of thing you hope you never find living in the toe of your boot.’
‘And if you do,’ Ace added vehemently, ‘you stamp on it.’
‘That thing’s five hundred kilometres across,’ Defries said. ‘It’s big enough to stamp on us.’
If Frankenstein had been some sort of intelligent creepy-crawly, Ace thought, that’s the kind of monster he’d have built. It sprawled across space, metal tendrils splayed randomly about its asymmetrically bulging central mass. It didn’t move. Of course it didn’t move, it was an artefact, a product of engineering. But its stillness was the motionlessness of a hunting spider, waiting on a wall.
And like a spider, it was horribly fascinating. Defries, Daak and Ace couldn’t take their eyes from it as the shuttle took them inexorably towards it and it grew across the window.
The interior lights started flashing. Alarms began to screech.
‘We’re under attack,’ Defries said. ‘Torpedoes, top and bottom.’
Ace didn’t need to consult the navigation screens. Scores of fire-tipped streaks were already visible, emerging from the flesh-like folds at the summit and the base of the station’s central mass. They fanned out to make two webs of silvery trails that extended far above and below the lines of sight afforded by the shuttle’s windows.
‘Wide trajectory,’ Ace ‘said. ‘They’ll get us if we climb, dive or double back.’
‘Then we’ll go dead centre,’ Defries decided, and planted her index finger on the forward speed button. Ace staggered as the shuttle accelerated with a kick.
Daak’s huge fist closed over Defries’s hand. ‘That’s where they want us to go.’
‘Too bad, Daak,’ Defries spat. The gauntlet of her combat suit protected her fingers from the Dalek Killer’s grip. ‘It’s that or the torpedoes.’
‘Leave it,’ Ace said, pushing between Daak and Defries. ‘The lasers have started.’ Thin beads of light were pulsing from a dozen locations on the convoluted spiral arms of the space station. ‘Are there reflectives on this shuttle, Belle?’
‘How should I know? Probably not. It’s an antique. But we’re OK if they can’t aim better than this.’
The laser pulses were going wide, creating at tunnel of light-streams down which the shuttle sped unharmed. The space station filled the front windows. It could be seen that the main structures, the twisted claws and the lumpy core, were themselves made up of accretions of smaller shapes that resembled nightmare exaggerations of arthropod and cephalopod forms. Some parts of the station were dark, and some of these were revealed as empty gulfs, while other areas blazed with unnecessary illumination. Like warts and bristles, structures protruded from the main mass: long strands of metal gridwork, a heap of vitreous bubble-forms, metal boxes welded together at haphazard angles. Some of the structures simply ended, hanging in space; others terminated in smaller versions of the main station, like a cluster of eggs carried on the leg of an insect; still others, following their skewed paths, met and became united with each other, producing strange hybrids. It was all metals, silicates, carbon derivatives. Completely lifeless. It looked completely organic.
Nobody has designed that, Ace thought. Nobody built it. It’s grown.
As the shuttle dropped towards the station’s central bulk, Ace found it even more disturbing that she could identify, nestling between ridges of ruched titanium or perhaps in the centre of an ammonite-like coil, a few of the features that would be expected on the outside of a space station. Here the air-lock doors of a cargo bay; there a communications nacelle, a launch pad, a service hatch.
The shuttle was heading directly towards a set of airlock doors.
‘Looks like we don’t have much choice,’ Defries said. ‘It’s come into my parlour or get sliced into pieces with the lasers.’
‘I never like going in through the front door,’ Ace said, ‘but I guess you’re right.’ It took her a moment to realize that she’d expected Daak to add his comment, and that he hadn’t done so. She started to turn, just in time, to glimpse and duck beneath the hairy forearm that was sweeping towards the side of her head. Defries had no warning: Daak’s other arm caught her shoulder and sent her reeling away from the controls.
The Dalek Killer spread his hands across the panel of buttons. He laughed. ‘They reckoned without a DK with a death wish,’ he roared, and started jabbing at the controls. ‘We’ll get in there my way.’
Ace clutched at a chair back as the shuttle banked and climbed. The sudden gravity change sent her stomach into her boots. She shook her head and looked through the front window. The shuttle was speeding towards a barrage of laser pulses.
‘Now that’s more like it,’ Daak yelled.
Britta couldn’t help smiling. She agreed with the big, ugly Dalek Killer. Things were getting interesting at last, Lacuna was dumbstruck, and no-one except her was looking at anything except the screens.’
‘This was not anticipated,’ Lacuna hissed.
‘Never mind that,’ the Doctor shouted. He looked comical; his eyebrows twitching and his hands waving in distress. ‘Don’t let them get hit. If Ace is hurt–’
‘Yes. Of course. Ace.’ Lacuna lunged for the communications desk. ‘Cease firing. All units cease firing. Torpedoes to self-destruct. Acknowledge.’
Ace, Ace, Ace. Were they all obsessed? Britta thought it was unhealthy. The Ace woman didn’t even seem a very pleasant person. Not particularly clever, except at blowing things up.
Britta had been watching the other woman – the one the Doctor called Benny – when the screens had come on. Benny, Britta thought, appeared to be a sensible type. Calm, thoughtful. Her reactions on seeing the inside of the shuttle cabin had been interesting. Britta had watched closely.
>
‘Doctor! Isn’t that – ? Doctor, it’s Ace. That’s Ace in the shuttle,’ Benny had said.
The Doctor had grinned, rather sheepishly it seemed to Britta. But Benny’s face had showed bewilderment, then a frown that darkened, in Britta’s interpretation, to a frown of resentful anger.
And so when Lacuna was screaming instructions to the androids, and the Doctor was almost hopping from foot to foot with anxiety, and the pale young man and the little girl were staring open-mouthed at the screens, Britta omitted to speak. She even pushed the thought from her mind, in case Pool might hear her. She didn’t tell anyone that the woman called Benny was stealing away from the group; had found one of the perimeter doors; had slipped through it, and had gone.
Britta even managed to suppress her feelings of self-satisfaction. Another little show of defiance, Something else she’d got away with. She could sense that Pool was preoccupied. No-one knew about Benny but her.
So much for Lacuna’s precious Ace. Not as clever as Britta.
‘They want us alive, then,’ Ace said. The shuttle was on a curving trajectory towards a point above the centre of the space station. The torpedoes had burst harmlessly, many kilometres away. The laser cannon had stopped firing.
Other possibilities occurred to her. The Doctor was, presumably, somewhere on the station. She remembered that he had a knack for getting people to stop shooting, and usually only just in time.
She had another, less comforting thought. Defries, who had given up threatening Daak with a court-martial for assault, voiced the same fear. ‘Maybe,’ Defries said. ‘Or maybe they’re cooking up something worse. Remember the Raistrick.’
‘Damn!’ It was Daak, still at the controls. ‘Why can’t you keep your mouth shut?’
There was something ahead of the shuttle. Something, moving. Alive. And very large.
At first it looked like a dark patch of space. Ace could see it only because it was moving, blotting out more stars as it and the shuttle flew towards each other. A black sheet, flapping closer.
It shifted, became a narrow band of darkness, then widened again. Now its underside was illuminated by the lights of the space station, and by the reflected light of the planet. They could see what it was.
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