‘I have an idea,’ she announced. The Doctor looked at her gratefully.
She went over to the Rebel Leader.
‘Hello,’ she said, her voice so bright it edged into trilling. ‘About this plan you were looking for – I was wondering, have you a template we can use? Or one of your favourite plans we can study? Just to get to grips with the format.’
The Rebel Leader’s face fell. ‘Oh. We’ve not exactly carried any plans through … We’ve done modelling, of course …’
‘Not to worry.’ Sensing an advantage, Romana pressed home. ‘If you can supply us with the approved forms then I’ll get right on it.’
‘The … approved … forms?’ The Rebel Leader frowned.
‘Absolutely. We don’t want to set a precedent now, do we?’ Romana nodded encouragingly. ‘In triplicate.’
‘I’ll – I’ll see what I can do.’ The Rebel Leader looked uncertain.
‘And, of course,’ Romana hurried ahead, ‘you can’t supply it to me until I’ve filled out a stationery requisition form. That just wouldn’t do, would it?’
‘Well, no.’ The Rebel Leader found a lot to interest her in her boots.
‘And some pens,’ added Romana. ‘One of each colour.’
‘Look, can I have a word and get back to you?’ The Rebel Leader headed off.
Romana nodded to herself. The BBC had taught her two things. Firstly, that it was impossible to get actual paper out of an organisation obsessed with Paperwork. Secondly, how hard it was to deliver lambs whilst undergoing marital difficulties.
Gradually, the clearing emptied, muttering about meetings to attend and strategies to implement. Finally, when Romana thought herself alone, she exhaled.
‘Nice work,’ said a voice.
Sat on a tree stump was the Rebel Leader. She was breathing heavily and there was something wrong with her. Romana squinted and finally worked it out.
‘Are you pregnant?’
The woman laughed. ‘What gave it away?’ She patted the tree trunk and Romana sat next to her. For a moment Romana listened to the woman’s pained breathing. She waved away an offer of help.
Feeling at a loss for what to do, Romana told her her lovely long name.
‘I’m Jal,’ the Rebel said. She stood up, arching her back as she did so, and taking long, painful strides around the woods.
‘Are you all right?’ Romana asked. ‘I mean, wouldn’t you be better off at home—’
The look on Jal’s face silenced her. ‘You think I should be at home knitting?’
‘Oh no.’ Romana frowned. ‘I was thinking of sitting in a quiet corner with some algebra. It’s supposed to help improve the intellect of the spawn.’
‘You aliens are awful.’ Jal winced, and then snorted with laughter. ‘I got involved in this movement because I’m pregnant. And no, it’s not because my lover used to be the leader but got tragically gunned down.’
Romana had been about to suggest nothing of the sort.
‘I just got involved because this –’ Jal pointed at the sky and the trees – ‘seemed an insane world to bring a child into. Just because the rest of the Universe can’t be seen doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten it’s out there. I find it hard to be near you, but that doesn’t mean that my child won’t be better at it. Children always bring progress.’ She patted the bump proudly.
Romana reached out a hand. ‘Can I touch it?’
‘No.’ Jal stepped back hurriedly. ‘I’m trying. We all are. But lately, it’s been so difficult to get something done. I don’t understand why. All we’re asking from the Doctor is a little … structure.’
‘I’ve been asking for that from him for a long time,’ Romana sighed.
‘Not a structure person?’
‘No.’
‘Structure’s the one thing we need on Krikkit.’ Jal’s eyes rested on Romana, and she was smiling the saddest smile. ‘Being sealed up here – it has been strange.’
There are all sorts of words to describe what happened to the people of Krikkit after they were locked away. The closest analogy is going up to someone who is paranoid, telling them, ‘You’re right, everyone is plotting against you,’ and then handing them a brown envelope stuffed with proof.
The people of Krikkit had thought themselves alone in creation. They’d discovered this not to be the case. Instinct told them that all other life was wrong and must be wiped out because … it wasn’t like them. They’d followed this plan thoroughly, and, when, unfairly, they’d failed, the rest of the Universe had responded by telling them they wanted nothing further to do with them. It was a pretty classic example of doubling down.
Faced with the knowledge that the Universe was done with them, the people of Krikkit did not react with bitter self-recrimination. Safe in the knowledge that the next time they saw the Universe, it would be a dead wasteland unable to answer back, they blamed everyone else in the Universe except themselves.
The Elders of Krikkit, the people responsible for their current isolation, didn’t even shrug and say, ‘Well, we gave it a try.’ With only a whiff of a sulk, they decided that the thing their first go at universal obliteration had lacked was conviction.
The Elders had devoted themselves even more to their sacred cause, casting out such namby-pamby ideas as waiting until the rest of creation died, and instead threw themselves into making …
Jal had narrated all this to Romana. Her voice was strong, clear, and angry. The Doctor had slipped into the glade unnoticed. He’d been kicking a tree, waiting for someone to come and find him. No one had done this, so he’d gone to find out why.
As he’d entered the clearing, he heard Jal saying, ‘They threw themselves into making the Ultimate Weapon.’
‘Ultimate Weapon?’ The Doctor was magnificently alarmed. ‘Oh, I never like the sound of those. How’s it going?’
Jal frowned. Romana looked cross. ‘We were just getting to that, Doctor.’
‘Please don’t let me interrupt you.’ The Doctor fell briefly silent. ‘Only … do you know if this Ultimate Weapon has a big red button? They always come in handy.’
‘Doctor—’
‘Sorry, keeping quiet now. Silent. As a ghost. As a Trappist ghost.’
‘Even now—’
‘And a Trappist ghost is very quiet indeed.’
Jal continued her tale. Even now the Elders of Krikkit were putting the finishing touches to their Ultimate Weapon. Their pronouncements made it sound as though at any moment the planet would emerge from its prison prematurely and wipe out all remaining life in the Universe. The idea of waiting was just too much for their souls to bear. (‘Wait,’ interjected the Doctor. ‘How could they know that the Slow Time barrier was going to collapse? How?’ No one answered him.)
An Ultimate Weapon was proving popular among the people. Living on their planet had previously felt like all they’d needed. Now it felt stifling. Worse was the choking feeling that out there the rest of creation continued, living and teeming and laughing at them. Meanwhile the people of Krikkit were trapped in their bubble and there was nothing they could do.
At first their existence had been splendidly solitary.
Now it was a throttling confinement. One that they simply had to escape from and do something about.
There was dissent. It came in the form of two groups.
The first, the Balance of Nature Party, was loosely headed by environmental scientists who held that things would get a bit wobbly if you wiped the rest of the Universe out. They couldn’t quite put their finger on this other than that it felt a bit finky and there might be consequences.
The second group were the Veterans of the Great Krikkit War. These were soldiers who had come into prolonged contact with other life forms. Some had been interred in rehabilitation camps, tended in hospitals, or had just had ‘Why???’ screamed at them by anguished widows. At the time they’d remained splendidly impassive. But, when they’d got home, they found themselves unable to an answer that Why question. Muc
h as the rest of existence upset them, individually, the peoples of the Universe didn’t seem that bad. The war veterans were troubled. Having met other life, they weren’t sure why they’d wanted to destroy it. It was a sobering thought.
The Elders of Krikkit dismissed these two groups easily. They announced there was no evidence that anything bad would happen if they wiped out the rest of creation. They dismissed the veterans as disturbed victims of the war and offered them lots of deliberately tedious therapy, including the weaving of wicker baskets and the filling out of forms.
The Elders pressed on with the Ultimate Weapon. Only there was a problem. Firstly, there was suddenly a lot more paperwork than before. Secondly, there was less progress. Something was going wrong.
‘It was the Balance of Nature Party who spotted it,’ Jal said. ‘They were sheepish about it. They’d found they were just going over old ground in their arguments, rehashing old theories and not making any progress. They blamed the Slow Time envelope. They blamed each other. Then they blamed the Universe and realised that was a bit …’
‘Problematic?’ suggested Romana.
Jal nodded. ‘Absolutely. As soon as you admit that your problems aren’t the Universe’s fault then you’ll get somewhere.’
‘Really?’ The Doctor frowned. ‘Blaming the Universe is the only way I can get out of bed in the morning.’
K-9 and Romana glanced at each other.
The Doctor tapped the table. ‘So, what was the conclusion of your scientists?’
Jal paused. ‘This is going to sound silly.’
‘Most of my favourite things do.’
‘The scientists declared they’d run out of science.’
As progress slowed, paperwork increased. The Elders of Krikkit were reluctant to admit that they had a problem. Building an Ultimate Weapon should have been child’s play. Surely they could knock something out in a few weeks. Weeks became months became five years. Their entire scientific elite was working on the Ultimate Weapon and it was still in ‘testing’. Eventually they drafted, redrafted, and laboriously signed off (in triplicate) an announcement that blamed their problems on the rest of the Universe.
‘See?’ The Doctor nodded. ‘It’s not just me.’
They claimed that something had been put into the Slow Time field that decreased their intellectual advancement. It was a terrible accusation, and one that played well. Supporting documentation was released, which no one quite managed to read. The accusation was that the whole race of Krikkit had been deliberately retarded by the rest of the Universe.
‘Well, strictly speaking, that’s true,’ said Romana to a shocked response. ‘It is true. We’ve slowed your rate of temporal progression, but that shouldn’t interfere with your intellectual evolution. Unless … well, Slow Time’s never been tested on an entire species before.’
‘Whose side are you on?’ asked the Doctor.
‘I’m not sure.’ Romana sucked a thumb thoughtfully.
Jal was walking up and down, her hands stroking her belly. ‘There are theories that the rate of intellectual progress is inverse to the time passing in the wider Universe. Some calculated that we’ve been in this envelope for as long as ten thousand years.’
‘Correction,’ piped up K-9 unhelpfully. ‘During the five years that have passed inside this time envelope, two million years have passed in the Universe outside.’
Everyone stared at the dog in horror.
‘Furthermore,’ the dog rattled on until even Romana was casting around for a boot to throw, ‘the time envelope has now ceased to operate. This was caused by the Krikkitmen. All five million existing units have been released and are relaunching their plan of universal destruction.’
The Rebel Leader grasped her stomach. ‘Oh,’ she winced. She waved away the Doctor’s offer of assistance. ‘I don’t think it’s the baby.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to arrange her features into some semblance of calm.
‘Sorry about my dog,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘He’s so terribly truthful. It’s why we came to this planet – to tell you the Krikkitmen are back.’
Jal’s eyes remained closed. ‘What do I tell my people?’ she muttered back. ‘If the Krikkitmen are released then it’s already too late.’
‘Oh, we should have a head start,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’re currently outside the Dust Cloud. They’ll work out a plan, and then show themselves on this world. You’ve got a while.’
At which point, of course, a Krikkitman strode into the clearing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE
Even though he knew it was hopeless, K-9 opened fire on the Krikkitman. The Doctor grabbed a fallen branch and ran forward, while Romana placed herself between the Krikkitman and the Rebels. ‘Run,’ she yelled at them. ‘Please, save yourselves!’
Nobody moved. They stood, rooted to the spot as the Doctor battered the white robot and K-9’s blaster chewed ineffectually at the machine’s armour.
Jal cleared her throat. ‘Please stop attacking my husband,’ she said.
Once the Doctor had stopped boggling, the Krikkitman made them tea, working with quiet industry at a camp fire, while the rebels watched.
‘It’s strange,’ said Romana. ‘Seeing him, I have a primal urge to scream.’
Jal smiled. ‘Now you know how we feel about you. Although, truthfully, the nausea I’m now feeling may be more down to the baby.’ As she said this, the Krikkitman approached her with a mug.
‘Here you go, my sweetness.’ The robot’s voice was unsettlingly mellifluous. ‘I’ve prepared wortle bark with honey.’
‘You’re an angel,’ said Jal, sipping at the mug. Romana found she was stifling the desire to knock the mug from her hands.
The Krikkitman returned with a mug for her. Romana took it, trying not to flinch as the robot’s hand brushed hers. The fingers were white and felt like bone. ‘It is an infusion of wild berries,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a little unusual but, I am assured quite, refreshing.’
Romana made a pretence of sipping politely, then discovered the brew tasted warm and ripe against her lips. For the first time in hours she felt herself relaxing.
‘I know,’ said the robot. ‘Heavenly, isn’t it?’
Romana glanced over to where the Doctor was, once more, kicking a tree.
‘Should I take your friend a cup?’ the robot ventured.
Romana shook her head. ‘He’s had to do a lot of thinking today. I’m surprised his head is still attached.’
The red lights deep inside the Krikkitman’s helmet smiled. ‘I understand. I must be unnerving to you.’
‘Putting it mildly,’ Romana admitted. ‘I hope that doesn’t offend you.’
‘Not at all.’ The robot took Jal’s hand and rubbed it gently. ‘I am a manufacturing error. The rebels found me on a scrapheap and were kind enough to take me in.’
‘Actually,’ Jal coughed, ‘we were looking for spare parts to cannibalise.’
‘Sadly, I was of little use,’ the robot offered, and the red lights of his face twitched down. ‘I am outside the main control circuit, which is why I was junked. Apparently I am not unique. When the Elders restarted production of the Krikkitmen, something went wrong with the process.’
‘Ah-ha!’ The Doctor strode back into the group, grabbed Romana’s tea, swigged it and smacked his lips. ‘Delicious and exactly what I thought. They can’t make any more Krikkitmen for themselves. Because something’s missing in the manufacturing process, isn’t it?’ He tapped the Krikkitman on the helmet.
Typical of the Doctor, thought Romana. Sulk until you spotted a chance to be the cleverest person in the room. Still, she was curious to know what he’d come up with.
The robot was puzzled. ‘No part of the manufacturing process had been changed. Nothing had been left out.’
‘Ha!’ The Doctor boomed again. ‘Nothing had been left out, but something hadn’t been put in.’
The red lights of the robot frowned. �
�I do not understand.’
‘I’ll try again,’ the Doctor finished the last of the tea and handed it back to Romana. ‘Perhaps something wasn’t able to get in.’
‘He’s being deliberately obtuse,’ Romana apologised to the rebels. ‘There’s no use asking. You won’t get a thing out of him. Not until he can get the most attention.’
The Doctor pouted. ‘That’s unfair—’
‘Negative,’ affirmed K-9. The robot dog had been examining the Krikkitman with curiosity. His tail was now wagging. ‘My analysis suggests this Krikkitman is indeed independent and possessed of a high degree of intellect and free will.’
‘Why, thank you.’ The Krikkitman bowed. ‘I’ll make more tea.’
Jal held up a hand. ‘Don’t wait on them hand and foot. They’re aliens. Also, they tried to kill you.’
The robot waved this away. ‘A simple misunderstanding. How was the wortle brew?’
‘Soothing.’ Jal leaned against the robot, a radiant smile on her face. ‘You’re a marvel.’
The Doctor and Romana surveyed the surprisingly domestic scene. Jal caught Romana’s horrified gaze.
‘Sir looks after me,’ she said. ‘Which is a lot more than the baby’s father ever did.’
‘Sir?’
‘They call me “Sir Robot”,’ said the Krikkitman proudly. ‘It is not an apt, or even a good name. But it is what I have, and I make the best of it.’
As often happened when tea was produced, the Doctor became congenial. Within half an hour, he was on sincerely friendly terms with Sir Robot. If only, reflected Romana, news of this leaked out. She imagined the Cyber Controller advancing on the Doctor with a teapot and some digestives. Romana wasn’t quite so convinced – she kept staring at Sir Robot’s head, seeing if she could pick up that itch in her mind from when they’d possessed her. Nothing. The tame Krikkitman was clearly quite an aberration. But that was odd – why would the mighty war factories of Krikkit suddenly be only capable of producing friendly machines?
Sir Robot was suggesting that now might be a good moment for the Doctor to reveal his plans for gaining control of the planet.
Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen Page 17