Match of the Day

by Chris Boucher

  Something peculiar was going on.

  The first attack came as they were walking through the concourse at Aerospace Main. While the return to full gravity had slowed them all up, in the case of Ronick and Sita it had caused giddiness and nausea as well. The Doctor himself was slightly discomfited, though he wasn’t about to admit it but Ronick had no such inhibitions. ‘I’m going to spew,’ he groaned and stopped abruptly. The others stumbled to a pause, uncertain whether to help or dodge. It was this that saved Leela and Keefer. The shots were meant for them but they missed and the noise of the long guns, echoing through the cavernous space, sent everyone in the concourse ducking for cover. Wordlessly Leela and Keefer moved to flank the shooters.

  The Doctor watched the two young fighters working as a team, zigzagging across the open spaces, distracting their opponents and narrowing the distance inexorably. They were closing for the kill, he realised. The thought was a mixture of resignation, dismay and, if he was honest, a sort of admiration.

  ‘Get down, Doctor!’ Sita shouted.

  Too late the Doctor noticed that one of the shooters had targeted him. He froze. He thought he saw the muzzle flash as the gun fired and then something hit him and knocked him to the ground. He thought he heard a bullet sting past above him. He was winded and struggling for a breath.

  ‘Which part of get down did you not understand?’ Ronick said rolling off him. ‘You’re lucky I don’t vomit all over you, you stupid scuffler.’

  The Doctor took a deep breath. ‘That was quick,’ he gasped.

  ‘If you say: for a fat man, I will vomit all over you,’ Ronick said.

  They left Aerospace Main in a runner Ronick commandeered using his police credentials. After some discussion Keefer and Leela got their way and a detour was made to the launch-and- recovery crash zone to collect the duelling handgun Keefer had buried there. The Doctor was slightly irritated that Leela’s attachment to her knife was made to seem less irrational because Keefer had a similar attitude to his gun, but under the circumstances it would have been churlish to object too strongly.

  ‘There is no appeal against an open contract,’ Keefer said.

  ‘We’re dead as yesterday and you know it.’ He was walking through the firebreaks while his wrist unit processed and located the pre-set coordinates, but it was taking too much time.

  ‘How much further?’ the Doctor asked. Sita had given them an estimate of the response times of Aerospace Main Security and he was conscious that they were getting close to the point when the first gun-ship would be scrambled.

  ‘This is it,’ Keefer said, and knelt down and began to dig.

  When he came up with nothing he said, ‘It should be here.’

  The Doctor wasn’t really surprised. ‘Come on,’ he said. It was as he expected. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘This is where I buried it.’ Keefer dug around more determinedly. ‘It has to be here.’

  ‘It won’t be,’ the Doctor said.

  Keefer waggled his wrist. ‘This may not be the most expensive on the market but it does the job.’

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m sure this is the right spot. And I’m sure the gun will turn up. Just not here.’

  Whoever they were, they were more than one step ahead yet again.

  Keefer stared up at him. ‘What is it you know?’

  The Doctor turned and strode away. ‘I know I don’t like getting shot at,’ he said without looking back, ‘and unless we leave now that is what’s going to happen.’

  The Doctor’s New Way training compound looked as deserted as it had the last time, only this time it really was empty. They parked the runner out of sight and while the others were checking everywhere else, the Doctor went to his office. It had been stripped bare. The TARDIS had gone along with everything else. It was really no more than he expected.

  Was it just random looting, he wondered? And without money and influence how was he going to find it? He stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed a deep sigh. He had thought there was a short cut out of all this but now it seemed...

  ‘Where is the TARDIS?’ Leela asked behind him.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re finally ready to leave,’ he said.

  Leela shrugged noncommittally. ‘How will we find it?’

  For a black moment the Doctor had no idea and was tempted to say so. Instead he smiled and said. ‘I shall have to talk to some old friends.’

  ‘You haven’t got any scuffling friends any more, old or otherwise,’ Ronick said. They were sitting in what had been the locker rooms. It was the only place left that had seats, possibly because it was the only place where they had been bolted down. He scowled at Keefer. ‘Tell him what an open contract is.’

  ‘He’s an agent. He knows what an open contract is.’

  ‘If he’s any sort of agent at all,’ Sita said, ‘he’s not that sort of agent. Tell him what an open contract is.’

  ‘I know what an open contract is,’ the Doctor said. ‘Anyone can kill you at any time using anything that comes to hand.

  Civilisation at its finest.’

  ‘You can say it,’ Ronick said, either not noticing or deliberately ignoring the sarcasm. ‘But do you understand it?’

  ‘I understand that Keefer, Leela and I have been sentenced to death in absentia and in something of a rush. First question: why us three and not you two? We’ve all been involved in whatever this has been about.’ He saw Ronick’s expression darkening. ‘I’ll tell you why,’ he went on, heading off a confrontation he was not yet ready for. ‘It’s because we three are the ones who are directly involved in the noble contest.’

  “That makes no sense,’ Ronick said flatly. ‘Why do it that way? Dead is dead, and there are easier ways to get you dead.’

  Sita said, ‘Actually, as far as the system is concerned, I’m already dead.’

  Which left Ronick as the odd one out again, the Doctor thought. How many variations on that theme would it take before it bothered someone enough to mention it? The answer was immediate.

  ‘So I’m the only one left alive then,’ Ronick said, his eyes disappearing behind a smile. ‘I must have been doing something right.’

  As an attempt to divert suspicion it was an obvious failure.

  The others were suddenly looking at Ronick with varying degrees of unease and hostility. The Doctor gave up on the idea of postponing the confrontation. ‘What you’ve been doing,’ he said, ‘is keeping it all moving. Keeping us all moving.’

  Ronick gave a small shrug. ‘I’m one of nature’s facilitators.’

  ‘Which is why you were picked and it’s what you were paid for isn’t it?’ the Doctor said and watched Ronick’s smile squeeze into a narrow scowl.

  ‘Paid for?’ Sita said. ‘Are you saying he sold us out? You sold us out?’ She looked ready to kill Ronick with her bare hands. ‘I trusted you.’

  ‘No you didn’t,’ Ronick said. ‘One word from him? This is what you think of as trust?’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘What am I supposed to have done apart from saving your life, and his?’

  ‘He did save your life,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Mine too.’

  ‘Don’t bother to thank me,’ Ronick said, ‘it was a mistake.

  One of my many mistakes.’

  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor said, ‘you did make a number of them.

  Small things. Nothing conclusive. Circumstantial evidence of corruption.’

  Ronick shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re guessing aren’t you? Hold your nose and hope. You can’t prove a scuffling thing.’

  Leela drew her knife. ‘What do you want to do with this traitor?’

  ‘Kill me, what else can you do?’

  ‘It’s got my vote,’ Sita said.

  ‘Are you going to do it?’ Ronick scoffed at her. ‘Thought not.

  You people are a laugh riot.’

  ‘I’ll challenge you if that’s what you want,’ Keefer said and offered him the sheathed hakai-
warrior’s sabre he was carrying. ‘You can use this.’

  ‘And what are you going to use?’ Ronick asked, making no move to accept the weapon or the challenge.

  Keefer smiled thinly. ‘I think one between the two of us should be enough, don’t you?’

  ‘Stop it,’ the Doctor said, giving his irritation full rein. ‘We haven’t got time for that nonsense. We have to think our way out of this situation and threatening each other doesn’t help.’

  ‘You are going to let him stay with us,’ Leela said. ‘After he has betrayed us?’

  Truthfully the Doctor couldn’t think of any alternative.

  ‘He’s been on our side most of the time, certainly since he finished doing what he was paid to do. That’s true isn’t it, Sergeant Ronick?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Leela sheathed her knife, ‘If he lets us down I will deal with him.’

  ‘Don’t push it girlie,’ Ronick snorted. ‘Aren’t we forgetting that one of us is a policeman and everyone else here is dead?’

  Whatever else he is, the Doctor thought, he isn’t a coward.

  I’ll challenge you if that’s what you want? It wasn’t what he wanted. The duelling culture meant nothing to him. It wasn’t a sacred rite, it wasn’t a noble contest, it wasn’t even important. In Ronick’s world killing was crime. In Keefer’s world rules made it acceptable. The two worlds were bound to collide. I’ll challenge you if that’s what you want. And suddenly the Doctor thought he saw a way out. ‘The arena,’

  he said. ‘That’s the sacred heart of the noble contest.

  Whatever happens there matters to everyone.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ Sita said.

  ‘I hoped I’d fight there one day,’ Keefer said. ‘It’s every fighter’s dream.’

  ‘I’ve been told you should always be careful what you wish for,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘You have a plan, Doctor,’ Leela said. ‘I can tell by your face that you have a plan.’

  He nodded. I have a plan, he thought. The question is how much of it is my plan. ‘We must stage a duel in the arena,’ he said, ‘in front of a very select and very influential audience.’

  He smiled at Ronick. ‘I think you can handle the invitations.

  You and Sita between you.’

  ‘Why should I do that?’ Ronick said. ‘Remind me again: why should I give a scuff?’

  ‘Laws have been broken,’ the Doctor said. ‘Doesn’t your ID

  say something about being a law officer?’

  Ronick thought for a moment and then said, ‘I take it these two,’ he jerked a thumb between Leela and Keefer, ‘will be fighting this duel?’

  ‘It’s what our guests will want. It’s what they’ll come for.’

  ‘You do understand,’ Ronick said, ‘that your average VIP

  doesn’t like to be made a fool of.’

  ‘That bothers you?’ Sita asked. ‘You’re full of surprises, Driftblubber. But then again perhaps you’re not.’

  Ronick looked bored. ‘The point I’m making is that if there is a fight it will have to be a fight to the death or none of us will get out of this alive.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ the Doctor said, sounding more confident than he felt. ‘Not if everything goes according to plan. And it will. But whatever happens Leela, I want you to promise me that you will not fight.’

  Plans go wrong, complicated plans go wrong complicatedly, simple plans simply go wrong, Leela thought, and something had gone wrong. Where was the Doctor?

  Around the bloodstained arena fence the tiny lenses glittered and waited. She and Keefer stood side by side.

  Keefer was examining a handgun he had found in the centre of the fight ground. ‘It is mine,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s been cleaned and oiled but it’s mine all right. The Doctor said it would turn up. How did they find it?’

  ‘You said they always knew you were coming,’ Leela said. ‘If they knew you were coming then they knew where you had been.’

  ‘Are we that powerless?’ he murmured. ‘No choices at all?’

  Leela looked across at the tunnel entrance. She half expected to see security men running in to stop them violating this place that was thought of as sacred. They had no more right to be here than she and the Doctor had had before. But this time there were no security men. This time there was no senior umpire. ‘We choose not to fight,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ Keefer said flatly. ‘We can’t do that. We should leave.’

  .’The Doctor said to wait.’

  ‘We can’t just stand around in here. This is the theatre of dreams.’

  ‘This is nothing more than a patch of ground where people kill each other,’ Leela said.

  Keefer looked horrified. ‘You can’t say that. Show some respect. Great fighters have died here.’

  ‘Why?’ Leela asked. ‘Why have they died here?’

  ‘You know why.’ Keefer was getting angry.

  ‘I know a warrior does not fight for the pleasure of others.’

  Leela strode to the arena fence and pointed at the stains. ‘I know these are not sacred death marks.’ She rubbed her finger across one.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ Keefer almost shouted.

  Leela said, ‘It is dried blood.’ She touched another. ‘Death is not sacred.’ She strode round the arena occasionally slapping her hand against the fence. ‘Blood,’ she said. ‘Blood.

  Nothing but dried blood.’

  Keefer watched her in tense silence.

  In the tri-dee viewing suite, at the top of the arena, the Doctor watched the two young fighters on one of the main screens. ‘She is remarkable isn’t she?’ he said. ‘I knew her when she was nothing more than a superstitious savage.

  Now look at her. She thinks, she reasons, she understands.’

  ‘Is she going to fight or not?’ the State Security Minister asked.

  ‘She does seem reluctant,’ the Enforcer of the Guild of Agents said. ‘I assume from the size of the purse that there is not going to be any sort of hitch at this late stage.’

  There was a murmur of agreement from the other dozen or so people who were present in the suite.

  ‘The fight will begin when Hakai says it will begin,’ the Doctor said, hoping that he’d pitched the flattery right and that the vain old woman would want to make the others wait.

  ‘This is her project.’

  ‘It is the last match of the day,’ she said. ‘I want them to be spontaneous.’

  The Doctor said, ‘I suppose when you’ve planned every detail up to now, spontaneity would be the final triumph. I am right in thinking you did plan every detail up to now?’

  ‘What is it you want to ask me?’ she said without looking at him. ‘Speak up, Doctor, stop wasting time.’

  The Doctor was surprised by her directness. He had thought he would have to draw her out gradually, perhaps trick her into a confession. But if directness was what she wanted... ‘Why did you send the android to kill Keefer?’

  Hakai continued to stare at the screen. ‘He is the remarkable one,’ she said.

  ‘Believe it or not it was a trial run,’ the Enforcer said, matter-of-factly. ‘Keefer was picked because he was promising: a strong fighter who was good enough to be a genuine test but not too famous and with a small-time agent.

  We had to adjust death records and so on without drawing unwanted attention.’

  This wasn’t what the Doctor expected. He looked around at the others. Nobody was shocked. His plan seemed to be going spectacularly wrong. This wasn’t just about Hakai. This was some sort of a conspiracy.

  ‘You may have noticed there were other high-profile deaths around that time,’ the Enforcer went on. ‘Most of them were as they appeared to be. But there were two other androids being tested. Both of them were successful.’

  ‘The redheaded woman who killed Baloch?’ the Doctor suggested.

  ‘And Maidenly. And there was one that killed Starvil.’

  ‘Only Keefer has
prevailed,’ Hakai said.

  The Doctor was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand why you’ve done what you’ve done.’

  The minister stood up. ‘We’ve decided this is over,’ he said.

  ‘The system has to be changed. We cannot have all this killing any longer. It has got to stop. We have to move on.’

  ‘If that’s a campaign speech,’ the Doctor said, ‘I think it needs work.’ He could almost have laughed. It was almost funny. ‘What you’re saying is: you’re killing everyone involved in order to stop the killing? You do know that’s insane don’t you?’

  ‘We are undermining, sidelining and ultimately destroying duelling and all it represents. That isn’t mad,’ the Enforcer said. ‘That’s progress.’

  What do you give someone who has everything, the Doctor suddenly thought, looking at Hakai. ‘How many of you are there in this psychotic conspiracy?’ he asked. You give them a faith, something to believe in.

  The minister smiled. ‘You have to keep a conspiracy small,’

  he said wryly, ‘otherwise it’s a political movement. Actually most of us are here.’ He glanced around. ‘Actually all of us are here I think.’ He looked uncertain for a moment. ‘You managed to invite everyone involved. How did that happen?’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘Lucky coincidence I imagine.’ How

  did that happen he wondered? ‘I suggested a couple of people. Sergeant Ronick invited the rest.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ Hakai commanded, staring obsessively at the screen. ‘They are going to fight.’ Her voice was thick and slurred with excitement.

  The Doctor looked at the screen. He saw Keefer square up to Leela. They were going to fight. ‘They most certainly are not going to fight,’ he said, heading for the exit. Hakai clicked her fingers and two heavy-set security men appeared in the doorway and grabbed him and threw him to the floor.

  ‘Enough!’ Keefer raged. ‘You will not defile this place any more! We fight. I name and claim the ground. Right here, right now.’