Doctor Who_ Lucifer Rising Part 26

Silence.

'Allow me to introduce myself,' said a mult.i.tude of voices. 'My name is Legion, and I am your new Managing Director. Earth Central has ceased to exist. The Earth Alliance of Corporations now rules your planet.'

'Didn't your mother ever tell you it was polite to knock?' the Doctor exclaimed, turning. 'a.s.suming you had a mother, of course.' He reached up, plucked his b.a.l.l.s from Legion's body and stashed them inside his capacious pockets. He frowned, and looked around. One missing. Ah!' He stood on the tips of his toes and stretched a hand above his head. Bernice squinted through the air vents, trying to get a better look.

Hang on a tick, she thought. That can't be right.

The Doctor's hand appeared to have vanished from the wrist up. His arm waggled, as if he were groping for something, and then his hand appeared as softly and suddenly as it had vanished: holding the fifth ball.

'You have knowledge of higher dimensions, I see,' Legion boomed.

'A smattering,' the Doctor said, carefully dusting off his ball. 'Trau Bishop?'

'Doctor?' Bishop detached himself from the watching crowd.

'Arrest this being.'

'On what grounds?'

'Sabotage and murder.'

'You can prove these allegations?' Bishop asked levelly.

'Of course.'

'Forgive me,' Legion interrupted, sincerity oozing from each of its voices, 'but I have only just arrived in this solar system. I was light years away at the time these alleged crimes took place. IMC records will prove it.'

'But the responsibility is yours,' the Doctor trumpeted. 'You gave the orders. You provided the virus which caused the software to crash in Paula Engado's starsuit, resulting in her death in the atmosphere of Lucifer. That same software caused a rogue malfunction in another starsuit, killing Sam Russell. Your agent on Belial also murdered Federique Moshe*Rabaan in an attempt to divert Adjudicator Bishop's suspicions: an attempt which would have succeeded had it not been for my,' and he preened himself, 'abilities at detection. That same agent blew up the room I had been in because I was getting too close. Fortunately, Trau Bishop and I had set that room up as a trap, knowing that your agent wouldn't be able to resist the bait. But they pulled the plug on the Belial neural net before we could use the security drones to trace their actions, risking the lives of everybody. Another crime to add to the register. And it was, of course, your troops who invaded Moloch Base, killing all the people who were there. Apart from one...'

'This is pure fabrication,' Legion protested as the Doctor looked across at one of the troopers, the one in the mirrored visor who had followed him in. The trooper stepped forward, raising the visor to reveal Ace's face.

The food dispenser seemed to sway around Bernice's body. Pins and needles tingled in her fingers and toes, creeping along her limbs until she felt as if she were disconnected from the world. Ace! She was alive! And with IMC? Something in the back of her mind was saying: shock, Bernice, you're in shock, snap out of it, woman, but she tuned it out and just stared at Ace until the world came back into focus around her and she heard Bishop saying calmly: 'So, this is the agent IMC planted on Belial.'

'No,' the Doctor sighed. 'Ace is just confused. Legion's agent is someone else.'

'Who?' Bishop asked calmly.

'I... I can't say.' The Doctor's gaze momentarily flickered across the room, but too fast for Bernice to tell who he was looking at.

'Really? You surprise me. Or rather, you don't. A transparent attempt to protect your former friend.'

'Permission to speak, Legion,' Ace said.

'Permission granted, Staff Sergeant.'

'The Doctor is lying.'

A murmur ran around the unwilling audience.

'How so?' Bishop asked.

'All of the people from Moloch are still alive.'

'You have seen them?'

'Yes. Well, no... but I've seen their med pallets. There was some shooting some people were injured but the people from Moloch, they're okay, I think...'

To Bernice, Ace seemed to be losing the thread, getting confused but, never the less, she could see the relief in people's faces. They hadn't wanted to believe that Kosi, Lars, Rachel and the rest were dead. It was far easier to think that a terrible mistake had been made.

'It's not true,' the Doctor protested. 'We found the bodies.'

'The bodies were of IMC troops,' Legion said; softly, loudly, and in tones ranging from baritone to treble. 'I sent them in to retrieve Christine LaFayette, the female offspring of the woman who now... manages... your Earth. As Staff Sergeant Ace said, the people on Moloch became violent. The only deaths were of IMC staff.'

Bernice almost wished she was out there in the refectory so that she could confront Legion. The alien was lying. Genetic tests had matched up the body parts on Moloch with everyone who had been there, apart from Ace and Christine. d.a.m.n Miles for wanting the information suppressed until the crisis was over and the shock could be minimized. Now, whatever they said, it was too late. Good news was always more palatable than bad. Teal, Craig, Tiw they wanted to believe. Faith was a powerful drug.

The Doctor knew it too. Bernice could tell as she glanced over at him. He seemed to have shrunk inside his clothes. Legion had outmanoeuvred him. Getting Ace on his side had helped: the Doctor had an attachment to the woman that went deeper than either of them would admit. It made Bernice jealous, but she would never let that dictate her behaviour. Ace had a prior claim on the Doctor's affections. No matter what he and Bernice had been through, she knew in her heart of hearts that his guilt over what he had done to Ace on Heaven and before was a weakness: a b.u.t.ton which would always work to throw him off balance when pressed.

Everybody's attention was on the centre of the room, where the IMC logo had been replaced with a densely written virtual doc.u.ment.

'Study it closely,' Legion was saying. 'You will find your terms of redundancy are fair. You will each receive one month's salary and a reasonable amortization of your pension contributions. As of this moment, Project Eden is no more.'

Tiw Heimdall stepped forward, his golden teeth glittering.

Before he could say anything, Legion answered his question in a prim falsetto. 'IMC cannot be held responsible for the fact that your Earth Central contracts failed to guarantee your return journeys.'

'And what about the return to Earth?' Tiw asked, trailing off into a mumble as he realized that Legion had antic.i.p.ated him.

'However,' Legion rumbled on, 'despite the fact that IMC is a mining company, not a people*mover, we may be able to provide some berths.'

'For a price,' the Doctor said, scowling.

'For a reasonable price,' Legion agreed. 'Now for the doc.u.mentation. Where is Coordinator Engado?'

'Here...' Miles staggered forward, with the support of Teal Green and Craig Richards. He waved them off, and pulled himself upright to face Legion. His knees looked to Bernice as if they were on the verge of buckling.

'I believe you'll find everything in order,' Legion said. For a moment, the voice echoed inside the dispenser casing, as if somebody were leaning close behind Bernice and whispering in her ear. She jumped, thinking she had been discovered. The feeling only lasted a second, but from the way Tanetoa, Belial's Samoan cook, flinched, some thirty feet away, Bernice guessed that Legion's voice was doing a little travelling. Not that his body was terribly stable. The pink lacy curtain had been slowly turning green and rolling up into a thin worm, studded with tiny thorns, that hung in mid*air. Little silver spheres at either end seemed to scan the crowd hungrily.

Miles's eyes were dull. His body sagged. A computer crystal had appeared in his hand, and he looked at it in mild bemus.e.m.e.nt, as if it were a fish, or a coloured party hat.

'Please scan the doc.u.ment and affix your personal ident code,' Legion was saying brusquely, his voice faint. Across the far side of the room, Shmuel Zehavi jumped as if goosed.

Something large and black stepped in front of the air vents. All Bernice could see was a large utility belt with a screamer pistol in a holster and a row of charge packs. A huge hand loomed in her field of vision. Was that the sound of keys being tapped? s.h.i.t! Some IMC trooper obviously couldn't wait for lunch. Bernice looked around desperately. She didn't even know what they had ordered. She scrabbled around on the floor of the dispenser, frantically trying to find something edible, anything that she had overlooked when she had cleared a s.p.a.ce for herself; but it was useless.

'Come on. Come on...' the trooper growled.

A robotic dispenser arm was whirring nervously and jabbing into Bernice's neck as it tried to locate an item that wasn't there from a shelf that had been removed. Bernice took a few moments break from her search to reach up and snap it off. It flexed once or twice in her hand, then died. She went back to her frantic exploration of the machine's interior.

There! In the corner. Some kind of cylindrical container. Bernice grabbed it and shoved it through the dispensing slot.

'What the zark! I didn't order this,' the trooper grumbled, shoving the container back into the slot. It split, drenching Bernice with some sticky fruit drink. With a sinking sensation in her stomach, she heard the trooper's fingers pound the keys again. She fumbled around her feet again, but there was nothing but crumbs and sc.r.a.ps of wrapper.

'Oh s.h.i.t,' she said, surrept.i.tiously pushing the access hatch open a crack and thrusting her fingers through, hoping n.o.body would notice.

'What's wrong with this thing?' the trooper snarled.

Trickles of sweat dripped from her hair and down her temples, leaving an itchy heat behind them. Her coveralls were damp, and stuck to her body as she writhed, trying to find something anything outside the machine. Her fingers clutched vainly at empty air. It was useless.

Her fingers suddenly brushed against a plastic wrapper. Yes! It was one of the items she had shoved beneath the machine's rubber skirt to make room. She quickly pulled it in and shoved it through the slot, hoping it was the right thing. Or even close.

'What is the problem problem with this machine?' with this machine?'

Oh h.e.l.l, Bernice sighed. What was happening out there? Was the trooper's behaviour attracting attention? She twisted herself and tried to see through the buckled plate again. n.o.body in her line of sight was looking her way, but that didn't mean anything.

'Hey, popcorn!' the trooper in front of Bernice's food dispenser said, surprised. 'I didn't know this thing had popcorn.'

The heavy utility belt vanished from Bernice's field of view, revealing the refectory again. A wave of relief swept over her, making her nauseous and dizzy.

'You can't go down to Lucifer,' Miles said from somewhere in the refectory. Bernice twisted to see him. She hadn't been keeping track of the conversation, but he seemed to have pulled himself together over the past few minutes.

'I'm sorry?' Legion said.

'You can't go down to Lucifer.' Miles's voice was firmer.

'Trau Engado, IMC can do anything it likes.'

'No. You don't understand. You cannot go down. You will be prevented.'

'By whom?'

'By my daughter,' Miles announced.

A sound like an electric drill ran round the room. It was Legion's laugh.

'Your female offspring? As I understand it, Trau Engado, she is dead.'

'No,' Miles said obstinately. 'I've seen her. I've talked with her. She's alive.'

Bernice could see Legion's body splitting into a firework display of multi*coloured fronds, and slowly drawing together into a hairy black ovoid supported by three pipecleaner legs. The hairs on the ovoid waved gently in a non*existent breeze.

'I grow tired of the reasonable approach,' Legion said. 'The Earth Alliance of Corporations has bought out Earth Central. There are no limits any more. No rules. No regulations. Nothing about environmental impact, customer care, or good business practices. IMC have been given a free...'

There was a pause. Bernice heard Ace murmur something beneath her breath.

'...hand,' Legion continued, 'to exploit all planets colonized, occupied or claimed by Earth for their mineral wealth. This Project Eden of yours: five years and nothing to show for it. I personally do not have time for delays in this operation, and my approach has been ratified at the highest levels. You, Coordinator Engado, are a hopeless incompetent. I shall not be requiring your services any longer. Is there somebody called Bannen here?'

Alex Bannen's footsteps echoed hesitantly through the refectory. 'Yes, sir?'

'I am informed that you will be amenable to cooperation.'

Bannen's voice positively glowed with antic.i.p.ation. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'Oh yes indeed!'

Outside, Adjudicator Bishop cleared his throat. Events seemed to have overtaken him. To Bernice, he sounded suspiciously like a man whose job had evaporated, leaving him high and dry.

'I still have to find my murderer,' he announced.

'Well that's easy,' Bannen said nastily. 'Arrest Piper O'Rourke.'

There was a silence in the refectory.

'That is an as*yet unproven accusation,' Bishop said slowly, 'albeit with some corroborative substance to it. I shall require time to develop a case, to ama.s.s evidence '

'No time,' Legion said brusquely. 'IMC is the law here, and the law is death.'

'Wait,' Bishop and the Doctor chimed together. Bernice watched as the Doctor took a step forward and opened his mouth. Bishop grabbed his collar, hoisted him back and stepped in front of him.

'I am still an Adjudicator of the Guild of Adjudicators,' he announced, his voice ringing out around the refectory. 'And I will have justice done this day!' To emphasize his point, a ma.s.sive gun suddenly appeared in his hand. The troopers, reacting late, made Bishop the focus of their aim.

'Wrong on three counts,' said a gruff voice from the door. Bernice threw her weight against the side of the food dispenser, trying to swivel it discreetly around.

The refectory door was open again, and standing in it, filling it, was the most grotesquely fat woman that Bernice had ever seen. Her scalp gleamed as if freshly oiled, and p.o.r.nographic tattoos seemed to writhe across it with a life of their own. Her robes were long and black; the points of her collar rose high above her head. She stepped forward in a manner that was so delicate it was repulsive.

'The Adjudicators are finished,' she growled. 'IMC has ruled the Guild to be an illegal organization. And there is no justice.'

Bishop seemed to shrink within his robes.

'Staff Sergeant Ace,' Legion said. Its voice seemed to hover over them all. 'In accordance with IMC regulations, and at the behest of Trau Bannen, Coordinator Designate of Project Eden, take Krau O'Rourke away to somewhere private and have her made redundant. With prejudice.'

For a long moment, n.o.body moved. Finally Ace stepped forward. She gestured at Piper with her flamer. 'Come on,' she snapped. 'Let's go.'

Silence reigned after they had left.

n.o.body but Bernice caught sight of the devastated expression on the Doctor's face.

'You will all be segregated for the duration of the operation,' Legion announced to the a.s.sembled Project Eden team. 'To ensure a smooth transition of responsibility.'

Bernice had seen enough. She tilted her body sideways. The dispenser hummed as the null*gray units tried to compensate, and the machine juddered to one side.

Slowly, and with much complaining, the food dispenser wandered towards the door.

Piper slid from the Pit and into the transparent dome of the Belial Bridge terminal. Moloch hung overhead like a small but angry demon. Behind Moloch, the vast sphere of Lucifer cast a malignant crimson glare.

'Move,' Ace snapped behind her.

Piper stepped into the dome. Ace moved to cover her.

'Ace,' Piper said, 'I've talked to the Doctor. He said '