Match of the Day
Page 28
‘No,’ Leela said.
‘You cannot refuse my challenge.’
‘I can refuse it. I have refused it.’
Keefer raised the handgun. ‘I must kill you either way.
Fight me or die.’
Leela stared at the gun. She could not stop looking at it.
She could see death was a moment away. The Doctor had said no matter what they must not fight. She had given him her promise. So had Keefer. She forced herself to raise her eyes to his face. It was expressionless. His eyes were as blank as the watching lenses all around them. He was waiting for her to make a move. He was waiting to kill her.
The Doctor struggled to free himself from the security men and get up from the floor. He couldn’t see a screen any longer. He couldn’t see what was happening. He hadn’t planned to leave Leela and Keefer down there in the arena for so long. He hadn’t planned for Leela to challenge Keefer’s beliefs like that. He hadn’t planned very much of this at all.
Then he heard the shot, it sounded deafeningly close, and he heard the gasps of excitement from the suite behind him.
Leela had no gun. It was Keefer who had the gun. ‘Let me up,’ he demanded. ‘Let me up.’ Without a word the two security men released him and he rushed back to look at the main screen, only to find that it was no longer showing the scene on the arena floor but was showing the tri-dee suite itself. Security men were filing in and it appeared everyone was being arrested.
The Senior Umpire and High Referee of Duel, his grey uniform spattered with blood, was standing over the body of Hakai with a smoking gun still in his hand. ‘Nobody takes the Rules of Attack into their own hands,’ he said solemnly.
The Doctor thought he must be talking to himself but then he realised he was talking to several tri-dee cameras. ‘The Lady Hakai’s co-conspirators will be taken into the custody of the Court of Attack. This matter is at an end.’
Once the main screen had returned to showing the arena floor where Leela and Keefer were standing with their backs to one another, the High Referee nodded at the Doctor and said, ‘It’s not at an end of course. After what you’ve done there can only be chaos.’
‘After what I’ve done?’ the Doctor said.
‘I assume your plan was to unmask the Lady Hakai to this little group, who were then supposed to deal with her?’ He indicated the camera. ‘I...’ He waved his hand vaguely. ‘I played your little drama to more people.’
‘You broadcast what happened.’
‘And now they know the death records can be tampered with, the interrogation computers are not reliable, there are machines masquerading as fighters.’
‘Was Ronick working for you all along?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Clever policeman, Ronick,’ the High Referee said. ‘Very clever. If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s fat, greedy and corrupt, you wouldn’t be able to trust him at all.’
On the main screen the Doctor could see that Keefer was fiddling with his gun and Leela had her hand on the hilt of her knife. ‘My fighters,’ he said.
The High Referee looked at the screen. ‘What about them?’
‘There are open contracts on them.’
‘Cancelled. Yours too.’
‘Would you mind telling them that?’
The High Referee flicked a switch and said, ‘Nobody move!’
On the screen Leela and Keefer both looked up. ‘I’m coming to sort this out.’
‘That’s more or less where we came in,’ the Doctor said.
‘It seems ungrateful,’ Leela said. ‘That is all I am saying.’
‘It’s not ungrateful,’ the Doctor said, happy to feel the sound of the TARDIS whispering like a shiver across his skin.
‘There is no other way to leave.’ He closed his eyes and breathed in the rasping murmur as it rose and fell. ‘This is the way I do it. This is the way I have always done it. As far as I remember this is the way I always will do it.’
Leela took out a whetstone and began to work on her knife.
‘Benron and the others were pleased when they got your office back to how it had been.’
‘So was I,’ the Doctor said. And I did say thank you.’
‘And then you put a complete stranger in charge of the fight school.’
‘He wasn’t a complete stranger.’ The Doctor smiled. ‘You just didn’t like Keefer.’
‘He did not think as the fighters in the school thought. He was not the same as them.’
‘I imagine that’s why Benron suggested him.’
Leela looked up from the knife. Her expression was sceptical. ‘Benron suggested him?’
He said everyone could learn a lot from Keefer and that his late father would have approved of the appointment.’
Leela snorted and went back to working on the knife. ‘And then,’ she said after a moment, ‘we take the big decorative box and disappear.’
‘Here today and gone tomorrow,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Or should that be here tomorrow and gone today.’ He shrugged.
‘Whichever.’ He was pleased to be finished with that world, he was pleased to be back in the TARDIS, he was just generally pleased. ‘Tell me something,’ he said. What stopped you and Keefer from fighting in the arena? He did challenge you.’
‘I had given you my word.’
‘I’m impressed,’ the Doctor said. There was a lot of pressure.’
Leela smiled, ‘It was never a real match, was it,’ she said.
‘No?’
Leela shook her head. ‘Only a fool would use a knife against a gun in that sort of duel,’ she said. ‘I am a warrior not a fool.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘You’re certainly not a fool,’ he said.
‘Except where that knife is concerned. I know: how would you like to learn to play chess?’
‘What is chess?’
‘It’s a very violent war game,’ the Doctor said encouragingly. ‘A game for warriors. But you don’t need a knife. Or a gun.’
‘What do you use?’
‘The most powerful and dangerous weapon of all.’
‘Is this one of your puzzles?’ Leela said and sighed. ‘What is the most powerful and dangerous weapon of all? How many guesses do I have?’
‘You should only need one,’ the Doctor said, ‘otherwise it isn’t.’ And he wandered off to look for the chess set.
About the Author
CHRIS BOUCHER is a respected writer of both novels and television drama. He wrote three highly popular scripts for Tom Baker’s incarnation of Doctor Who - The Face of Evil, The Robots of Death, and Image of the Fendahl - and has continued the Doctor and Leela’s developing relationship in his novels for BBC Books.
Chris is also well known to genre experts as the script editor of every episode of Blake’s 7 and author of many of the most popular episodes of that series. As well as working on BBC
drama series like Bergerac, he created Star Cops, which has just been released on DVD.
Document Outline
Front Cover
Back Cover
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
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