City of Death

by Douglas Adams

  Baron Haussmann had been many things, of course, the Doctor remembered. He’d been a town planner, he’d been Napoleon’s right-hand man, he’d been a lover, a collector, a schemer, and terribly dull company. He’d also been a criminal, a blackmailer and, actually, not even a baron at all. Not that Paris seemed to mind a fraudulent aristocrat or two. They’d not even paid much attention to his reforms of their streets. After he’d finished his grand boulevards, Parisians simply shrugged and then flâneured along them much as usual, still finding bits to wander through and corners to linger on. That was Paris. It survived.

  ‘Tell me, Hermann,’ the Doctor asked as they turned a corner and went down another flight of steps even more worn than the last, ‘how long has this château been here?’

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘Long enough! I like that. Really, that long?’ There were a lot of stairs, the Doctor thought. They really were going a long way down. A rattle told him that the Metro went quite close by. Interesting that the Château hadn’t been disturbed by that. All things considered, its survival was quite remarkable. ‘And modernised, at least four or five hundred years ago?’

  ‘May have been.’

  ‘Really? Stimulating, how very stimulating.’

  Modernised half a millennium ago? If you could call that modernisation. What would you call it, then? The steady accretion and evolution of a building that was quite remarkably old. He passed a bit of wood jutting out of a wall that was an improbable mixture of brick and stone and rock. It was as though they were descending into a cave. The wood was so old it was practically fossilised, as though a tiny fragment of mud hut remained. Imagine that, eh, a tiny bit of a prehistoric mud hut dating back to when people . . . when people . . .

  The Doctor passed a bit of rock where someone had, a long time ago, carved a crude drawing of two people hunting a bison. One of the people had one eye and wild hair and was holding a spear. Surely this was just graffiti.

  Imagine that, thought the Doctor. Imagine if the house had always been here and the city had simply grown up around it? Wouldn’t that be funny?

  The Doctor rather wanted to examine the drawing more. He turned to Hermann to ask for directions down the stairs. ‘Where to? Down here?’

  ‘To the very bottom.’

  The stairs opened out into a cavernous space that dripped with cold and time. The Doctor could imagine a team of archaeologists getting very excited down here. Once they’d swept the machines and bottles of wine out of the way.

  ‘So this would be the cellar, would it?’ Cellar? More like a catacomb.

  The Doctor carried on talking while his mind got on with important things. He was, for instance, dying to have a look at that computer. On the one hand, of course, it was a terribly advanced piece of engineering for its time. On the other, it was an antiquated piece of junk. And the Doctor had always been terribly fond of antiquated pieces of junk. He asked Hermann where the plug was.

  Hermann had finally had enough. ‘Doctor, your conversation does not interest me.’

  The Doctor pouted. ‘Really? Oscar used to find me most amusing.’

  ‘Oscar?’ asked Romana. She was feeling left out. She knew the Doctor was up to something. She was trying to work out exactly what. This was, she thought, somewhat hard at gunpoint. Guns annoyed Romana. They did tend to go off at the wrong moment, just when things were getting interesting.

  As far as she could tell, at a rough glance, the cellar was 20.3 metres below sea level and stretched out 17.4 metres from where she currently stood. Although the computer bank took up only about eight per cent of the volume of the chamber they stood in, it did rather seem to dominate. A very curious design. Anyway, there’d be time enough to work that out in a moment. When the man with the gun locked them up, got knocked out, or simply went away of his own accord. She rather hoped he would wander off as she found guns, on the whole, rather a chore.

  The Doctor was sharing her fascination with the computer.

  ‘Oscar?’ she repeated.

  ‘Wilde.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘In some of his habits.’ The Doctor strolled casually over to the equipment next to the computer. ‘Good heavens, and a laboratory!’ He wheeled on Hermann so quickly that the butler nearly shot him. ‘Hermann, are you locking us in a laboratory?’

  That would, thought Romana, be a massive mistake. Especially if you didn’t want the Doctor accidentally blowing up your house.

  Hermann was no fool. He gestured to a small, dank recess under the stairs with a sturdy-looking door. ‘In there,’ he growled.

  The Doctor, Romana and Duggan trooped through into what was best described as a storeroom. The number of chains hammered into the brickwork suggested it had had many uses before. Currently it was somewhere where the owners of the Château left empty packing cases, and heaps of foul-smelling straw that squeaked and rustled.

  A small table sat amongst the rubble. In an antique shop it would have had pride of place, possibly its own little pedestal. A grubby oil lamp and a box of matches sat on it, spent matches burnt into the exquisite marquetry.

  ‘There’s a light if you want it,’ said Hermann dryly.

  ‘How long will that last us?’ asked Romana dubiously.

  ‘Two hours. Maybe three.’

  ‘But what happens after that?’

  ‘I don’t really think you’ll be needing much light after that,’ smiled Hermann and left. He locked the door and went up the stairs. He didn’t cackle, which was a relief. Romana couldn’t stand a cackler. She listened to the muffled sounds of the computer. In as much as a 1979 computer could be said to have a processor, the computer’s processor was clearly going full tilt. Interesting. Probably trying to work out how to boil an egg.

  She looked around the storeroom. Apart from some light seeping through a grille in the door, they were in complete gloom. Romana, very slowly and steadily, started to pace the cell.

  * * *

  Duggan rounded on the Doctor, and looked as though he was going to hit him.

  ‘What do you think you’re playing at, Doctor?’ he demanded furiously. He felt betrayed and confused and very angry.

  ‘Be quiet, light the lamp,’ the Doctor hissed. Gone was any trace of the children’s party entertainer, the amiable bohemian or even the prattling fool. Instead the Doctor was deadly serious. He needed Duggan to light the lamp because his brain had quite a lot of thinking to do.

  The Doctor handed the box of matches to Duggan. There was only one inside.

  ‘And get it right,’ snapped the Doctor.

  ‘You tell me to get it right?’ thundered Duggan. ‘We could have escaped twice just now if you hadn’t—’

  Boring boring boring humans.

  ‘Exactly.’ With an effort, the Doctor adopted a reasonable tone. ‘What’s the point of coming all the way here just to escape immediately? First we let them think they’ve got us safe. Now we can start to escape. Light the lamp.’ He clicked his fingers impatiently, pointing at the lamp.

  Feeling utterly dismissed and rather miserable, Duggan lit it. He noticed that Romana was watching him severely as she paced up and down. He nearly fumbled it and only managed to get the wick to catch as the match was burning down to his fingers. Duggan had been trained, rather successfully, to endure a large amount of pain, but he really hated being burned by matches. The fish-oil lamp gave off a bout of choking black smoke before filling the room with meagre light and the smell of haddock.

  The Doctor had pulled a novelty silver pen out of his pocket and was waving it delicately around the door. If he’d intended doing something eccentric just to annoy Duggan, then he’d accomplished his goal. Duggan scowled as the Doctor held the device over the ancient iron lock. It emitted an undulating whine.

  ‘Sonic screwdriver,’ put in Romana helpfully, retracing her steps.

  Duggan, nev
er having heard of a sonic screwdriver before, was puzzled. Was it a new kind of lock-pick? It didn’t seem to be doing much. ‘Well?’ he asked impatiently.

  The Doctor just grunted. Clearly, whatever he was trying to do to the lock wasn’t working. The sonic screwdriver’s piercing whine had settled into an accusing bleat.

  ‘Wretched thing doesn’t work,’ the Doctor admitted, confirming Duggan’s worst suspicions.

  ‘You and your clever ideas,’ he snapped, grabbing it from the Doctor’s hand. That was the problem with fancy lock-picks. Never worked. The thing buzzed resentfully in Duggan’s hand as he jammed it into the lock. If only he could get it to bear against the catch and get some leverage there was a slim chance. He twisted it, feeling it bend back like one of Uri Geller’s spoons. Rubbish.

  ‘Don’t!’ howled the Doctor, swatting him away, and cradling his sonic screwdriver like an injured pet.

  ‘Well,’ sneered Duggan, ‘it wasn’t much use for anything else, was it?’

  ‘It was,’ said the Doctor protectively, ‘very useful against the Daleks.’ He held it up to his cheek as though about to add, ‘Weren’t you, my little darling?’

  ‘Daleks? What?’ He was clearly spouting gibberish.

  ‘The planet Skaro. You wouldn’t know it.’

  This is all I need, locked in a cellar, no way out, and a couple of lunatic saucer people for company.

  The Doctor blew at his sonic screwdriver, dislodged a bit of dust and switched it on gingerly. It emitted a confident whirr.

  ‘Oh, it works now.’ The Doctor beamed with delight. ‘Been meaning to fix it myself. Thank you, Duggan.’ He waved it over the lock. It conked out again. The Doctor, without a moment’s hesitation, thumped it furiously against the wall. It sprang angrily back into life and the door flew open.

  Delighted, the Doctor swept an arm around Duggan’s shoulder. ‘I say, would you like to stay on with us as our scientific adviser?’

  ‘Uh?’

  The Doctor made to leave the cell, but Romana was blocking his way, firmly.

  ‘Doctor, the horizontal length of the stairs is about 5.48 metres, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so. Why, are you thinking of re-carpeting them?’

  ‘Well, the storeroom is alongside the stairs and only 2.49 metres in length.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ muttered the Doctor, trying to get past her. Out there was a laboratory and a computer. And he was keen to get his scarf away from that lamp, otherwise every planet they landed on for weeks would smell of fish. Romana continued to block his way. ‘Can I go and look at that lab now?’ he begged.

  Romana stepped aside. He strode purposefully past. ‘Come on, K-9,’ he said, and Duggan trotted obediently behind him.

  Romana stood in the cell a moment longer, looking thoughtfully at the walls.

  * * *

  Freed at last, Duggan was itching to escape.

  ‘Right then, straight up the stairs and out of here,’ he announced, balling a fist into his palm.

  ‘No. There are bound to be a couple of guards posted at the top,’ cautioned the Doctor, a word of friendly advice. After all, he knew his guards like he knew his cells.

  ‘Exactly!’ For the first time all day, Duggan looked happy. ‘I’m about ready to thump somebody.’

  ‘No,’ sighed the Doctor. ‘I want to look around the lab first.’ Lab. Computer. Then maybe, if nothing else interesting presented itself, escape.

  ‘What use is a lab?’ It was such a stupid thing to say even Romana heard it and she was carefully occupied in collecting test tubes. As she strode back into the stockroom, she gave Duggan the kind of withering look his mother gave queue-jumpers at the Post Office.

  The Doctor jammed his hands in his pockets and leant back against a bench, trying to concentrate on Duggan and not on the gloriously complicated tangle of wires sitting invitingly on the bench behind him.

  ‘Duggan. In the last few hours I have been thumped, threatened, abducted and imprisoned. I have found a piece of equipment that is not a product of current Earth technology.’ Hang on. Not of what? The Doctor guessed his thought and nodded. ‘Yes. I think this lab might have something to do with it.’

  ‘Look,’ Duggan growled. ‘Just cut that stuff out, will you? Leave off and forget it. What about the Mona Lisa?’

  ‘What about it?’ The Doctor was sorting through the cables. He hadn’t been able to resist.

  ‘You reckon the Count and Countess are out to steal it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Fibre-optic cable, sub-etheric beaming wire, headphone lead. Glorious.

  The Doctor’s single, absent-minded remark was all that Duggan needed. The greatest painting in the world was under threat. The thing about fighting crime was that it was all a matter of getting your priorities right. ‘Look, you do what you like. I’m going to stop them.’

  The Doctor checked his watch. Ah, what a pity, the little bookshop by the Sacré-Cœur he’d quite fancied popping into would be shut. ‘Listen Duggan, they’re not going to steal it at six o’clock in the afternoon, are they? Whilst we’re here, let’s find out how they’re going to steal it. And why. Shall we? Hmm? Or are you just in it for the thumping?’

  Romana strode past, very carefully holding a large bottle of acid and quite deliberately ignoring the two arguing men.

  Duggan, handed a high horse, climbed on. ‘I am in this job partly to protect the interests of the art dealers who have employed me—’

  ‘But mostly for the thumping. Yes, I know.’ The Doctor patted him gently on a sleeve and leaned in confidentially. ‘Listen, what do you think Romana’s up to?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Nor do I.’ The Doctor grinned with delight. ‘It looks terribly intriguing, don’t you think?’

  Duggan pushed the Doctor away and made for the stairs. ‘I don’t care. I’m going.’

  At that moment the door at the top of the stairs opened and a figure started to make its way sluggishly down.

  * * *

  Professor Nikolai Kerensky awoke refreshed from his slumber. No, that was a lie. He awoke surprised. Surprised to find he had been asleep, stunned to find it was actually in the small bedroom he’d been allocated but rarely got to visit. How had he got here? He stumbled around the room, cast a wistful glance through the bars of his window at a café where people appeared to be having quite a good time near some food, and then went over to the sink where he splashed some brackish water over his face and tried not to notice how miserable his reflection was in the cracked mirror.

  The Count was not a monster, he told himself. He was just a driven man with money, and that was an unusual combination. There are plenty of driven men and there are plenty of men with money. But it was very rare to find the two combined in a way that’s utterly focused on changing the human race. Kerensky sat despondently on the bed, hearing each of the springs creak, and thought about his situation. He was very lucky, all things considered. The Count wasn’t someone with a foundation who spoke airily about Progress as though it were a museum he fancied visiting some day, sooner or later, eventually, once he’d fixed that shelf and gone down the shops. No, the Count had a definite idea of changing the world and was running it to quite a ruthless timetable. Perhaps a bit too ruthless. For some people’s tastes. Not Kerensky’s. No. Not at all. He liked to be driven.

  He’d been working so hard down in the lab. Two tests in a day.

  Forget exhaustion. He’d gone through that. Exhaustion was like a fondly remembered seaside resort. He was now trapped in some hideous concrete new town of tiredness, stuck in its endless one-way system and roundabouts. It was all so grey and desolate and the road signs to places that were much nicer had all been taken away. Actually, maybe he would have just a few moments more sleep. Since no one was banging down the door.

  What Professor Kerensky did not realise was that Hermann had c
arried the Professor up to his room as he wanted him out of the way for a bit. The Count had things on that were more important, and so, for a few minutes, the Professor could quite happily slip his mind.

  Kerensky, however, took this slight as a sign of great benevolence. One that must be rewarded. No. No more sleep for him. He had a vocation. He stood up, ignoring the sad sigh from the bed and, wobbling only a little, made himself head out of the door, and back down to the basement.

  The human race had to be saved, and he, Professor Nikolai Kerensky was going to do it.

  As he walked down into his laboratory Kerensky had the momentary, and quite absurd, notion that he was being watched. He looked around. Had he heard something? Or was it simply weeks of sleep deprivation finally catching up with him? He would be hearing voices in his head next.

  Something was different about the lab. A few small, irritating changes. The mirror he used to shave was broken. Hermann had promised him that the housemaids would not come down here but he knew that occasionally they did. Things would be cleaned, straightened or generally tidied. Kerensky did not disapprove of the theory of tidiness, he just believed that it was a glorious thing to do only once one had absolutely and finally finished a piece of work. Like lighting the candles on a cake. He enjoyed disarray. Many of his finest ideas, he had once lectured the Count (who had made every show of listening while demolishing a plate of madeleines), many of Nikolai Kerensky’s finest ideas were nestled between one scrap of paper and the other. Mess was an excellent incubator.