‘Oh yeah.’
‘Essential. Don’t tell me there’s no jam.’
‘Doctor,’ Defron said seriously, ‘I do appreciate the value of maintaining a cover, really I do.’
‘A cover?’
‘Pretending to be eccentric and, well, a bit daffy.’
‘Doctor Daffy Duck,’ Martha murmured.
‘While of course underneath the pretence you are a coiled spring of razor-sharp intelligence observing every minute detail and planning every nuance of strategy.’
The Doctor sighed. He brushed mud from his lapel. ‘You’ve rumbled me.’
‘So, tell me please – what should I say to the press?’
Martha was astonished. ‘You want the Doctor to tell you what to say to the press? I thought you were the expert at that.’
‘But about the assassination. What information do I – can I – release?’
‘For the moment, tell them nothing. Well, almost nothing. That is, very little.’ The Doctor held his thumb and forefinger close together to show exactly how much Defron could say. ‘Nasty accident, regrettable incident, all under control, that sort of thing.’
‘And that the GA team is actively investigating?’
‘If you’re pushed, you can say that, yes. Good luck.’ The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder.
‘But, you won’t be there? Observing?’
‘Got to maintain our daffy cover,’ Martha said.
‘You taking the Mickey, Mouse?’ The Doctor looked very pleased with himself.
‘Very good,’ sighed Martha.
‘And where will you be?’ Defron asked.
‘Investigating.’ The Doctor took Martha’s arm and led her back towards the doorway into the castle.
‘But you will be there for the ceremony?’ Defron called after them.
The Doctor swung through 180 degrees, pivoting Martha round him as he headed back to Defron. ‘Of course. Absolument. What ceremony?’
‘After the press conference. In a couple of hours. The ceremony in the Great Hall to officially open the negotiations and sign the preliminary treaty documents.’
‘Live on telly?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Galactic News will be covering it, yes.’
‘Millions watching? Just the place for a great gesture from one side or the other?’
Defron shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘You don’t think…’ Martha said slowly.
The Doctor put his finger to her lips. ‘We’ll be there,’ he said. ‘And we want ice cream tubs in the interval. Chocolate, strawberry, raspberry ripple. The works.’
‘I’ll talk to Hombard in the kitchens.’
‘One other thing,’ the Doctor said.
‘Yes?’
‘A girl died. A girl called Tylda. A while ago. She was killed by a landmine out in the grounds.’
‘Is this important?’
‘She’s dead,’ Martha said sternly.
‘Well, yes, regrettable, condolences. But does it impinge on the current situation?’
‘Might do,’ the Doctor said. ‘So, how do I find out more about what happened?’
‘Talk to Colonel Blench. As the GA Force commanding officer, he has access to all Castle Extremis security archives. He’s in the Security Centre making final arrangements for the ceremony.’
Colonel Blench’s thin moustache twitched slightly, but otherwise he showed no surprise at the Doctor’s request.
‘We’ll see what records we can find,’ he said before giving instructions to a soldier sitting at a large computer console. ‘I warn you, there may not be much. Despite being on the front line, in recent times internal security here has been woefully lax.’
‘Searching now, sir,’ the soldier said as he worked at the keyboard. ‘Looks like there are some still images of the event. Nothing much. Three-line report, which says just what you’ve told us, Doctor.’
‘Defron has filled me in a little on your role,’ the Colonel said. His eyes flicked across to include Martha in his comment. ‘Are you anticipating any trouble at the ceremony?’
‘Should we be?’ Martha asked.
‘After the death of Secretary Chekz? You tell me.’
‘So long as you’re ready for anything,’ the Doctor said.
‘Accessing those pictures now,’ the soldier called.
‘We’re ready,’ Blench confirmed to the Doctor. ‘Give us the release codes and we’ll do the job. Whatever it is.’
‘Excellent,’ the Doctor said. ‘Er, release codes?’
Blench was leaning over the screen as the images appeared – three overlapping pictures. So he didn’t see the Doctor and Martha exchange puzzled looks.
‘For release of weapons,’ Blench said. ‘As you know, we’re on a safety footing. So we’d need a formal release of weapons from you political guys.’
‘Ah, of course,’ the Doctor said. ‘Never trust soldiers with guns. Wise policy. So you need official sanction for use of force from an accredited GA representative.’
Blench laughed. ‘I don’t know about accredited. But if you have the code that unlocks my soldiers’ weapons, then that’ll do just fine.’
‘Because without it,’ Martha said, wanting to be sure she’d understood this properly, ‘the guns won’t work.’
‘That’s right. So it’s a good thing we’ve got you here in case things do go wrong.’
Martha forced a smile. ‘Isn’t it just.’
‘There’s certainly something wrong here,’ the Doctor said. He was examining the three pictures, which the soldier had arranged next to each other on the screen.
‘What is it?’ Blench asked.
‘Martha?’ the Doctor prompted.
Martha examined the pictures. They showed the twisted, broken body of a girl – a girl exactly like Janna. They were unpleasant and unsettling anyway, but even more so as it seemed she was looking at the girl she knew.
‘Well, she’s certainly dead,’ she said. Sadly, it didn’t need much medical training to know that for sure. ‘There’s no way that girl is still alive.’ She turned away.
‘I was looking at the mud, here.’
‘The ground’s pretty churned up,’ Blench said. ‘Effects of the blast. It’s a pretty standard disruption pattern by the look of it.’
‘And here?’
‘The area was shielded by the poor girl’s body. So the ground is still intact.’
Martha forced herself to look. There was still grass growing where the Doctor was pointing. And footprints pressed into the grass, exposing the mud beneath.
‘Looks like she was on tip-toe,’ Martha said.
‘Colonel?’
‘Looks like she was running.’
‘Even though she knew the area well, she also knew it was dangerous. Why was she running? Why wasn’t she picking every step with care?’
‘Maybe she was tip-toeing,’ Martha said.
The Doctor tapped the screen thoughtfully. ‘Can you pull back? Is there more of the background on the image?’
The soldier at the keyboard nodded. ‘Can do. It’s just grass and mud though. I thought you’d want—’
‘Just do it,’ Blench said.
‘Sir.’
The view of the image zoomed out. The girl’s body was tiny and alone on the broken ground.
‘Now zoom in here.’ The Doctor pointed to an area close to the body, between the girl and the wall of the castle just visible from the high angle of the camera.
The image zoomed in again. They all leaned forward, peering at the footprints stamped into the ground.
‘There’s two sets of prints,’ Martha realised. ‘She was running,’ the Doctor said. ‘And someone was chasing her.’
‘There’s no images or video of the actual event,’ the soldier said. ‘So we’ll never know if that’s true. Or who it was. Or why.’
‘Unless Gonfer knows,’ Martha said.
‘With respect, Doctor,’ Colonel Blench said, ‘this happened a long tim
e ago. Before the treaty negotiations were even considered. Are you sure this isn’t just a distraction?’
‘A distraction?’ Martha said angrily, pointing at the screen. ‘Look at the pictures. Look at what happened to her.’
The Doctor put his hand on her arm. ‘The Colonel may be right,’ he said quietly. ‘We need to know what happened, not least so we can help Janna put it behind her and move on. But maybe we are getting distracted. The press are here, there’s this ceremony in an hour or two. There are more urgent things.’
‘Like what’s happening in the mirror?’
‘Like shutting down the mirror.’
‘What mirror?’ Blench demanded. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ the Doctor told him. ‘I hope. Just an attempt to sabotage the talks and stage a coup live on telly.’ He held up his sonic screwdriver. ‘Nothing a couple of undercover GA Agents can’t sort out in a jiffy.’
‘You think the Zerugians inside the mirror are a sort of fifth column?’ Martha asked. ‘Ready to come out and fight behind enemy lines, sort of thing?’
The Doctor led the way through Castle Extremis. They were heading for the Great Hall, by way of Gonfer’s quarters.
‘Perfect place to hide an army.’
‘But why in a mirror?’
‘Where better? Activate the portal between the mirror world and our own and out they come. No one will guess, and the scanners – even if they were up to the job – don’t scan glass.’
‘General Orlo?’
‘I don’t know. Not for sure. OK, he provided the mirror so it seems likely. But why kill Chekz? He seemed as upset and surprised by that as anyone.’
‘Someone else then?’
They had arrived at Gonfer’s rooms, and the Doctor didn’t reply. He knocked on the door, and moments later Gonfer appeared.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Hi. I’m supposed to be getting ready for this ceremony. We’re all being roped in to act as guides and hand out refreshments and stuff. Nice to be allowed out of our rooms again, really.’
‘Tell us what happened to Tylda,’ the Doctor said quietly.
Gonfer shrugged. ‘There was an accident. I told you before.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Martha said. ‘You said she ran into the garden. You didn’t say she was being chased.’
Gonfer looked pale. ‘I told you, she upset one of the kitchen boys.’
‘You said she ran off,’ the Doctor said. ‘You said no one dared to follow her into the grounds. But someone did, didn’t they?’
Gonfer nodded. ‘That last day. The kitchen boy – she was always playing him up. Always teasing, bullying. I think he’d just had enough. We all had, really.’
‘So he chased her,’ Martha said. ‘And he didn’t stop when she ran into the gardens.’
‘He was so angry,’ Gonfer said. ‘He was close behind her. He thought, I suppose, that he could see where she was putting her feet and he just kept following.’
Martha could see Gonfer’s eyes moving as he spoke. As if he was watching the girl running, the kitchen boy close on her heels.
‘I guess she panicked when she realised he was going to catch her. Who knows what he’d have done to her if he did.’
‘But he didn’t catch her, did he?’ Martha said quietly. It wasn’t hard to guess how the story ended. And she’d seen the pictures.
‘No, he didn’t.’ Gonfer turned away, unable to look at them as he spoke. ‘She strayed from the safe path across the lawn. The explosion knocked the boy off his feet and blew out the windows in the East Wing.’
Martha reached out and put her hand on Gonfer’s shoulder. ‘You saw it happen, didn’t you?’ she realised. The pictures were bad enough, but Gonfer had known the girl, had known the kitchen boy too, wherever he was now.
‘I saw it happen,’ he echoed. ‘Now I do what I can to help Janna. But she’ll never get over it. Not ever.’
They left him alone with his memories.
‘So we just turn off the mirror thing and that’s it?’ Martha asked.
‘Well, the controls are deadlock sealed so I’ll have to work out how to shut it down gracefully.’ The Doctor grinned. ‘But yes, that’s about it.’
‘And that traps the Zerugians inside.’
‘For the moment. We can always let them out later.’
‘And we’d do that – why exactly?’
‘Would you want to spend longer in there than you have to?’
‘But they’re planning to kill everyone at the conference. Aren’t they?’
‘They’re soldiers. I think they’re just obeying orders. Which is no excuse, but since Colonel Blench’s soldiers are in effect unarmed I don’t think there’d be much of a fight. Not here at any rate. But once they have control of Castle Extremis, Anthium is only a metaphorical stone’s throw away. Nothing else in the way to prevent them just rolling in.’
‘Invasion?’
‘Conquest. But we’ll stop them.’
The Great Hall was empty, the doors standing open.
‘I guess the canapés and drinks are somewhere else then.’ Martha’s voice echoed in the empty room.
They walked slowly towards the mirror – which looked exactly like an ordinary mirror. Martha found it hard to believe that she had actually been into the mirror, been trapped inside it.
‘Right,’ the Doctor announced. ‘Bit of a delicate operation, but for a genius like me it shouldn’t take too long. Just shut down the Mortal Mirror and we’re done.’
‘Go on then.’
The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver in one hand, and in the other he was holding the glass diary. He flipped it open and held it up to the mirror to see the reflected writing.
‘There was a bit in here about how the thing works. I only skimmed through it, but with a bit of luck it’ll give us some clues about shutting the thing down again…’
Something moved. In the reflection, behind the images of Martha and the Doctor. Martha caught just a glimpse, as the Doctor flipped over another thin, brittle, glass page. A flicker of motion. Where was it?
She peered into the mirror – and saw that something was moving on the side wall of the Great Hall.
At first she thought it was one of the suits of armour, poised on a plinth in an alcove. Then she realised it was just the figure’s sword. As she watched, the sword lifted free, as if of its own accord.
‘Doctor!’ She pointed at the reflected sword, now catching the light as it twisted towards them.
‘Mmm?’ He turned to look at her. Saw over her shoulder. Froze.
Tearing her gaze from the sword dangling impossibly in the air in the mirror, Martha also turned.
The sword was held by a man – the expert and historian Thorodin. He angled it towards the Doctor and Martha.
‘You can’t stop us now,’ he snarled.
The flickering light danced along the blade of the sword. It reflected off Thorodin’s hand, off his face.
Martha checked the mirror – and saw that he cast no reflection.
When she turned back, Thorodin was charging towards them. His left arm raised behind him balancing his sword arm. And Martha saw that the trailing arm had no hand. It ended in a broken, ragged stump, facets reflecting the light like mirrors.
The sword sliced through the air. The Doctor spun away, but not quite fast enough.
The blade caught the Doctor’s hand, as he parried with the only thing he had. The sword jarred on the glass book and sent it spinning across the room. The Doctor and Martha both leaped back.
With an explosion of sound, the diary hit the ground and shattered into fragments. The floor was strewn with shards of broken glass, glittering and shining.
Just as Thorodin’s face was glittering and shining. The sword arced again, ready to slash down.
The Doctor sucked his fingers, looking annoyed more than scared.
And Martha stared at the man in utter disbelief – the man who cast no reflection in the
mirror.
‘He’s made of glass,’ she gasped.
‘Are you the man in the mirror?’ the Doctor demanded as he backed away. ‘Was it you following us?’
Martha was backing off too, but away from the Doctor. If they kept separate, Thorodin would have two targets to deal with. One of them should be able to get to the door and go for help.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Thorodin said, turning and swinging the sword as he tried to keep both of them in view. ‘And, you know what? I don’t care.’
He charged at the Doctor again, who stepped nimbly aside. ‘I’d offer you a hand,’ he said. ‘Only I gave it back to Stellman. It was your hand, wasn’t it?’
Thorodin didn’t answer. He thrust the sword at the Doctor again, and again the Doctor dodged aside at the last moment.
‘No idea what I’m on about?’ the Doctor wondered. ‘Got you stumped has it?’
‘That’s awful,’ Martha told him. She leaped out of the way of the backswing as Thorodin wielded the sword once more.
The glass man missed the Doctor again. The sword smashed into one of the suits of armour. The armour collapsed in a clanging heap. The helmet bounced across the floor. A sword clattered, and the Doctor snatched it up.
‘Ha-ha!’ he cried. ‘Have at you.’ He raised the sword, but it was a heavy and cumbersome gesture. ‘Ah, no – hang on.’ The metal gauntlet from the armour was still attached to the handle, and the Doctor tugged it free and tossed it away. He tested the weight of the sword as he waited for Thorodin to close in. ‘That’s better. Have at you!’ he tried again.
They were blocking the route between Martha and the door as they fought. She tried to edge round and past a couple of times. But, on each occasion, Thorodin swung at her, and Martha was forced to retreat.
The Doctor seemed to be enjoying himself. He easily parried Thorodin’s sword thrusts, but was unable to get through the man’s guard. They circled each other warily and attacked again.
Thorodin lunged suddenly forward. The Doctor was up against the long table and was forced to lean back over it. Blades locked, and the Doctor managed to force Thorodin back. But not for long. Thorodin thrust again, and the Doctor leaped backwards – up and onto the table.
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