Doctor Who_ Infinite Requiem Part 11

He nodded. Hogarth operated a sequence of controls on the panel in front of her, and a crackling holovid began to form on the table in front of them.

Within about five seconds, they were looking into the glittering web of the Phracton communications network.

Cheynor stared into the heart of the web.

'This is Captain Darius Cheynor of the s.p.a.cefleet vessel Phoenix Phoenix. I request an audience with the Phracton Commandant.' The network of glittering blue whirled and crackled. Fractal images formed into a giant, pulsing eye which could have been that of a Phracton itself, or simply the computer's representation of an interface portal.

'What message do you wish to convey?'

Cheynor took a deep breath. Leibniz raised his eyebrows.

'I wish,' Cheynor said slowly, 'to meet your representatives in one hour at a venue to be arranged. I wish to make arrangements, as the advocate of Earth Council and the Colonial Office, for the surrender of the Earth forces on Gadrell Major, as represented by the Phoenix Phoenix. With the Commandant's consent, I wish to accede to the Phracton claim to Gadrell Major, and to arrange for the dominion to be handed over to Phracton control as soon as possible.'

There was a brief silence. Understandable, Cheynor thought, in the circ.u.mstances. Blue light played over his darkly handsome face, as if searching it for any betrayal of irony, mockery.

Then came the reply. 'The Commandant sends thanks for your decision. You and your senior officers will a.s.semble, unarmed, in Londinium Plaza in one hour. Your ship's weaponry and communications systems are to be deactivated during the meeting. You will not bring extraneous personnel. You will listen to our arrangements, after which you and all remaining human civilians will leave Gadrell Major immediately.'

'Agreed,' said Cheynor.

The link snapped off.

'Smart,' said Ca.s.sie Hogarth from the shadows, her arms folded. 'Remind me never to play you at poker, sir.'

90.'Poker?' said Cheynor, straightening up. He wore a hint of an exhausted smile. 'I'm playing snap, Ca.s.sie.' He looked at her calm, stern face, then over at the more edgy Leibniz, who had been about to say something. 'I'm perfectly serious. I meant what I said. In one hour, I intend to hand Gadrell Major over to the Phractons.'

For the first time since being appointed Cheynor's advisors, Horst Leibniz and Ca.s.sie Hogarth were united in stunned, silent disbelief.

Trinket lifted the hatchway very slightly and peered up through the crack.

There was only the desolate, empty street to be seen in either direction. He braced himself, pushed the cover off and climbed up, then reached down and helped Benny up.

She slotted the cover back into place and shivered slightly in the early morning wind. 'Where now?'

'My folks had a house off Londinium Plaza. We've got a sort of base there.

It's like a bunker. If Livewire got away, she'd make for there.'

'You think Livewire did get away?' Bernice did not want to hurt the boy, but she wondered at his optimism, after what he'd told her.

'I have to keep thinking that, don't I?' he answered, and his voice was dull and blank, like unpolished metal.

'With your new resident in town, I'd keep an open mind.' Benny knew that didn't sound rea.s.suring. 'Come on, then.'

They scurried along, keeping close in to the shattered shop-fronts. Bernice saw Trinket scoop up two cans and stuff them into a pocket without even breaking his stride. She wondered how long it would take her to relearn the art of scavenging.

They stopped at a corner. Broken gla.s.s crunched under Bernice's feet. She could see that, beyond the stumpy remains of what had probably been com-memorative trees, the street gave out into a broad square with chequered paving. Four statues with broad, conical pedestals stood at the corners por-traying famous governors, she guessed from looking at the braided uniform of the one nearest to them. The statues looked rather like larger-than-life chess pieces awaiting their move. At the centre of the square, Benny could just make out the inert, curved nozzles of a fountain display, pointing in silent dryness towards a central metal pillar in the shape of a hand. The fountain-sculpture had probably been quite beautiful when it was in action, but now it just looked sad and abandoned.

'Just a minute.' Bernice put a hand on Trinket's shoulder to stop the boy from making a run. 'Let's do this sensibly.'

She took out her motion detector and scanned the readouts. After a moment, she whistled softly to herself. Over such a broad s.p.a.ce it was hard to 91 get an exact fix of direction, but still . . .

Oh, Doctor, Bernice thought. On a scale of great ideas, this ranks right up there with doing baked Alaska in a microwave.

'Right,' she said, 'we need better cover. What about over there?'

Shanstra, pausing in the desolate street, stepped on a fragment of something brittle. It broke like fine china beneath her booted foot. When she looked down, the Sensopath was mildly interested to see that she had crushed the remnants of a human skull.

A few metres to her right and in front, Livewire walked, slowly and carefully.

She was Shanstra's hunting dog. She moved like a warrior, her pale hair fluttering in the breeze, her crossbow in front of her like a part of her body.

To either side of them both, high, shattered buildings cast their shadow.

Shanstra could feel the minds growing stronger. The unified minds which threatened to crowd her own.

They strode on. Shanstra needed battle, and she needed to draw suste-nance.

Benny and Trinket had taken hasty cover in what used to be one of Banksburgh's best-known night bars, at the edge of Londinium Plaza. Fragments of bottles and the crusted stains of drinks still decorated the sc.r.a.ped, burnt chrome of the elegantly curving bar and its mushroom-like tables. To Bernice it looked like a graveyard of entertainment, somewhere that the ghosts of sodden old drunks came to haunt.

From the mostly intact window, they could see out into the plaza with its golden statues catching the light. And they could see the arrival of the skimmer whose approach Bernice had detected.

The skimmer came gently to rest in the centre of the plaza, the hum of its propulsion unit fading to silence. They saw three figures alight from the vehicle, and move to stand beside it. All three, Bernice could see, wore the simplest grey and brown s.p.a.cefleet uniforms, and one of them was a woman, but she could not make out any more details.

She could hear her own breath, and Trinket's.

And there was a familiar whining sound, getting closer.

'What a h.e.l.lish place this has become.'

Darius Cheynor, hands on hips, gazed across the deserted, rubbish-strewn Londinium Plaza, wondering what it had been like when it was alive, bustling with colonists on their many missions of the day.

92.Ca.s.sie Hogarth, arms folded, was leaning against the skimmer. 'I don't reckon it was ever much of a holiday camp. Do you?' She glowered at the captain with her one visible eye. Cheynor made a noncommittal sound.

Leibniz, his gla.s.ses filled with sunlight, did not join in the conversation. He was thinking about the fate of Gadrell Major, and was beginning to wonder if he had been more gullible than he ever imagined he could be.

Like bubbles carried on the wind, four Phracton airborne units floated in from the southern apex of the plaza.

Cheynor and Hogarth straightened up. Leibniz remained at a distance, his fingers pressed into his palms. He didn't like this, and he was not going to pretend that he did. It upset his innate sense of balance and precision.

Hogarth, meanwhile, was filled with a rush of emotion, much of it conflicting. Excitement, awe, fear, but also frustration. She had argued with Captain Cheynor for nearly half an hour, trying to get him to allow her to have a slimline fusion grenade concealed in the sole of her boot. He had refused point-blank. He said he had made a deal with the Phracton Commandant, and that he did not intend to break his word: it was to be the senior officers, alone, unarmed, on a mission of peace. He would not have her jeopardizing that. A mission of peace! She doubted it even now.

Ca.s.sie was beginning to wonder about her own audacity. Not only in questioning her captain outright, but in the way she was still burning with resentment now, still thinking he had been wrong.

Still thinking of the anger she would die feeling if those Phracs floated over and blasted them. Defenceless and clueless what a way to die. It made Ca.s.sie want to spit.

The Phractons advanced across Londinium Plaza.

93.

12.

Alive in the City

'Tell me,' said the Doctor.

Nita Bedi clutched the plastic cup of coffee and let it warm her chilled hands. Her eyes looked up at those of the Doctor across the whitewashed hospital room, her expression hostile and challenging. 'You knew this would happen.'

'No, no,' said the Doctor softly. 'Please. I had no idea. Tell me the story.'

Nita took a deep breath, and began to intone in a dead, flat voice.

'There was a princess called Savitri who reached the age when she should marry. She told her father that she wished to go out into the world before she married, to pray at the temples and to hear the words of the holy men. She knew that this would bring her closer to the Guardian Spirit, and she thought also that destiny would bring her a husband when the time was right . . . '

Trinket had not known whether to trust this woman with her array of alien devices, but right now he was glad of her presence, given the situation out in the plaza.

He saw the Phrac globes hover and settle about twenty metres from the officers, on the other side of the fountain.

Words were being exchanged. The captain, a medium-sized man with a beard, seemed to be doing most of the talking. The other two officers stood one on either side of him, the woman with her arms folded, and the skinny, whitish-blond man looking uncomfortable as if he did not want to be there at all. Trinket's eyesight was excellent much better than he had ever let Livewire know but they were still to far away for him to be able to read any expressions.

'Do you know what's going on?' he hissed to Bernice.

She was watching intently, her hand never far from her obviously important canvas satchel. 'Looks like we might have caught them at an awkward moment,' said Bernice.

Trinket had already got used to her saying things like that. He wasn't sure he understood them all, but they were at least better than Livewire's sharp words or Polymer's sneering.

Polymer. He closed his eyes for a second, unable still to believe it.

95.When he opened them again, he saw the sunlight falling on another distant figure. She was striding out from the buildings on the other side, heading for the group in the centre of the plaza.

He gasped.

It was his half-sister, Livewire.

'And so Savitri went out into the world and did as she said she would, learning, sleeping under the stars. One day in the forest, she met a handsome woodcutter named Satyavan. They fell into conversation, and Satyavan told Savitri of his sorry fate how he used to be the son of a king, and how the king had been overthrown, had his palace and fortune taken from him. Now the old man was blind and frail and the two of them lived alone in a cottage in the woods.' Nita paused, sipped her coffee.

'Go on. The point of storytelling is to finish, you know.'

'It's going to be all right, isn't it, Doctor?'

The Doctor leaned back. His face was in shadow. He looked sideways at Nita, his gaze unreadable. 'No,' he said. 'Not for the moment.'

She took another gulp of coffee. Her hands were shaking.

'Savitri returned to her family and announced that destiny had brought her a husband, as she always said it would . . . '

Trinket felt Bernice's hand pulling him back.

'No! You can't go out there!'

'It's her,' he managed to say.

Bernice swung him round and looked into his eyes. 'Do you feel anything strange? Because I certainly do. It's something I felt on Earth, a kind of tingling like someone running their fingers over my thoughts. It's mind control, Trinket! The Doctor was right!'

Trinket, horrified, broke away from her, and backed into one of the crumbling tables, sending it and its debris toppling into the mirrored wall, shattering their reflections with a crash. It echoed out into the square.

He backed away from the woman Bernice. To think he had almost fallen into her trap, he thought. Not only an off-worlder, but a madwoman too.

Didn't she see he had to go to Livewire?'

He judged the distance, and ran.

'Then?' coaxed the Doctor.

'Savitri's marriage was announced. But there was a holy man in her father's palace, a man with the power to see things that others did not. He warned her that she should not marry this man Satyavan, for he was cursed to die, and had only twelve months left to live.

96.'She was determined, though, and soon the ceremony was arranged. An iron ring was fixed around her wrist, and they walked around the fire seven times while chanting the ancient prayers. And after they were bound together, she went to the woods with him to his poor cottage, to be his wife. She did not tell him what the holy man had foreseen, but she knew it had to be true Yama, the G.o.d of death, never breaks his word.' Nita's voice faltered and she let the coffee cup bounce to the floor, scattering droplets.

'As true as death,' said the Doctor softly. 'Isn't that what you say?'

The rain had stopped and the afternoon sun was seeping in behind the gauze curtains, a sickly yellow. It was too thin, and too late.

Bernice had to think through her options fast. But she knew what she was going to do. Her mind was tingling with the voice of . . . what?

She broke cover. The plaza was before her, unfocused. She swung to the left, saw the smooth globes of the aliens, and then to the right, where the human officers were turning, turning towards her. And there, straight ahead, running right into the danger zone, was the boy with his tangled hair. And his tall half-sister was standing with her feet apart, confidently lifting a large and lethal-looking crossbow.

'Stop!' Bernice Summerfield shouted.

As an opening gambit, she knew it lacked panache. She would never even have tried such a thing had she not seen it work for the Doctor on several occasions.

The Doctor . . .

It was worth a try.

Bernice grabbed the little pyramid from her pocket and hurled it out on to the ground. It clunked as it hit, and sprouted a wisp of light, which metamor-phosed with alarming rapidity into the smiling figure of the Doctor.

'Well,' he said, 'what have we here?'

The tall girl dropped to one knee, changing her aim with incredible skill and swiftness.

She fired. The crossbow bolt went right through the hologram and hit the foremost Phracton globe with a resounding crack.

Nita's eyes were glistening. They reflected the earnest, closely listening Doctor. 'The marriage was a happy one. Savitri proved a loyal and loving wife, but each day she was possessed by the thought that the hour of her husband's death was growing nearer, though she said nothing to him about it.

'After twelve months, he came. Death. They were out in the forest one day, walking, and he stepped on to the path in front of them, a dark, robed figure, 97 carrying a noose. He said he had come for the soul of Satyavan, and he took it, leaving the body limp and lifeless there in the forest clearing.