Doctor Who_ Placebo Effect Part 11

'How did they know where to find me?' she had asked him.

'Because I told them,' he had replied, hoping she would take the hint. He wanted her here, with him. She obviously did, because she relaxed immediately and started being her usual ebullient, cheerful-to-the-point-of-aggravating and talkative self to Commandant Ritchie. It was a routine they'd had plenty of opportunities to perfect over their time and adventures together, and by now Sam took to it like a duck to water. Ritchie had given away quite a bit without realising they were manipulating him and - The Doctor's reminiscences broke when the voice from the darkness barked.

'So, Doctor. Why are you here?' Ritchie had restarted his pointless questions.

'I came to be best man at a wedding.'

'Did you know the dead Foamasi?'

'No: 'Are you with a Foamasi Lodge?'

'No.'

'Did you kill the medics in Sterile Room Four?'

'No. I didn't know they were dead. All three of them were doing the xenoautopsy when I left.'

'Why did you steal the remote?'

'I thought I could reprogram it to work for me.'

'Why?'

'To find out who killed the Foamasi.'

'Most humans don't give a d.a.m.n about dead Foamasi. If you weren't working with it, why were you so interested in its death?'

'I'm not acquainted with any Foamasi, really. I'm just curious. That Foamasi was beaten particularly viciously, and even given the typical human xenophobic att.i.tude prevalent nowadays, despite the Federation, I thought it alarming that a murder had taken place this close to the Olympic Games.'

The Doctor paused, then added,'Oh, and your security around this building is a shambles. I just walked in. No one challenged me. Maybe that's how the person who killed the medics in Sterile Room Four got in. Through the back door...'

There was silence, then the Doctor could pick out whispers. Suddenly the photon beam cut off and he staggered slightly, free of its grip, just as the room was flooded with light. The Doctor shielded his eyes, wincing at the momentary twinge of a headache that followed. Slowly he moved his arm and looked ahead.

The room was bare apart from Ritchie seated at a gla.s.s desk, a smallish-looking panel of coloured switches built into it. Standing beside him was a female SSS agent and, behind her, a medic.

The Doctor smiled. 'How interesting.'

'Please be quiet,' said Ritchie.

There was a silence, so the Doctor sat down. He slowly dug into an inside pocket of his coat and produced a pack of cards, then began playing Clock Patience on the floor.

'Stop doing that,' the woman said.

The Doctor ignored her.'You're not very comfortable about this, are you, Commandant Ritchie? I mean, you've probed me, questioned me and shouted at me, and, having got the truth, you don't know what to do with me.' The Doctor paused, then flipped another card over. King of Hearts. He moved it to the twelve o'clock position.

'Who are you?'

"The Doctor. Your prisoner.' He flipped a Three of Spades and moved it to its rightful place.

Ritchie glanced back at the medic.'Is he telling the truth?'

The response was a nod.

'You need my help, don't you, Commandant? With the Games so close, you can't be seen to get your hands dirty.'

Ritchie waved his agent and the medic out of the room. They obeyed without question. After a few moments, he got up from his desk and crossed over to the Doctor.

'And if I did, would you give it?'

The Doctor stared hard at Ritchie. 'Why should I? IVe been accused and abused by your people from the moment I arrived here.'

Ritchie sighed. 'Some of my agents have gone missing in the tunnels beneath the Stadium. I've given their leader, Quartermaster-Sergeant Dallion and her remaining troops until the opening of the Games to discover what happened - but I think someone wants them dead. You see there are... other parties with a stake in this, and my hands are, as you point out, tied. Now some of my science and medical team are either dead or missing.'

Ritchie placed a small plastic card in front of the Doctor, who reached forward and slowly pushed it back. 'I can't be bought, Commandant. If you want my help, you have to take it on my terms.'

'Which are?'

'Wait, watch, and see. Give me free rein here, access to your computers - are you still using the Compuvac system? Oh, and a man in your position must have contacts in... shall we say, other areas?'

'Green Fingers.'

'I'm sorry?' The Doctor c.o.c.ked his head to one side.

Try the Foamasi Temple. I understand it's a very pretty building.' Ritchie turned towards the door.'I have to go.'

'Think about what I've said; the Doctor called out without actually watching him leave.

He scooped up the cards and put them back in his pocket - and felt the comforting sphere of the stolen remote. Some people never learned how to do a decent search. Although with his pockets... well, he couldn't blame them.

For a few moments nothing happened. Then the doors at the far end of the room slid open, revealing Sam and two SSS agents, guns holstered.

The Doctor walked over to her put an arm protectively around her shoulder.'And what can we do for you two gentlemen?'

The SSS agents didn't answer.

'And the odds on an explanation that makes some kind of sense are...?'

Sam looked up at him, a wry smile on her face.

The Doctor grinned. 'Too high right now.'

'So what happens next?'

The Doctor looked at the guards. T think we've been asked to help in one of those no-one-can-actually-pinpoint-exactry-when-we-asked-the-Doctor-to-help-and-so-will deny-it-all-if-it-goes-wrong sort of ways.'

'Nothing new there, then.'

He smiled at her.'Ready for action?'

'What do you think?'

Then an agent leaned over, pa.s.sing a strange ID badge to each of them.

Both had holo-images of their wearers and claimed they were citizens of The Federation.

'Great. More military nonsense. One day I'd like to meet up with someone serene and nice who doesn't carry guns.' Sam turned to walk away, but the Doctor stopped.

'I might be able to help you there. Remember the Church of the Way Forward?'

'Like I'm going to forget them. They ruined Stacy's wedding.'

The Doctor nodded.'Sadly, that's unimportant right now. I want you to go and make peace with them. Find out exactly why they're here. And whether or not they have a grudge against the Foamasi as a race.'

'Can't you do that?'

'No.' The Doctor smiled. 'I need to go and see a man about a murder.'

The medic and his two killer friends, all still wearing their tight white gloves, sat in a circle at the centre of the tunnels. Above them, white Wirrrn coc.o.o.ns were split open, their occupants having successfully hatched.

And standing in the centre of the circle they formed was one of the fully grown Wirrrn, a Swarm Leader.

The medic could hear its voice inside his head, communicating through the special bond they possessed. He tugged at the base of one of his gloves, to scratch at an irritation. The irritation was caused by his human flesh bubbling slightly where it was trans.m.u.ting into the green, blistering skin of a Wirrrn pupa. He replaced the white glove, apparently completely unconcerned by this physiological change.

The Wirrrn was asking to see the pills.

He produced the container from his pocket and opened the lid, tipping a couple of them into his gloved palm. "They successfully inhibit the full external conversion process without altering the mind in any way,' he explained. 'We are currently working on a slightly different strain that will enable the athletes to carry on without exhibiting any signs of Seeding. The plan is to use three per planet as carriers. That gives us a more than acceptable risk of failure.'

The Swarm Leader acknowledged this, and asked how they were to be distributed.

'The Foamasi. Once the Lodges here learn that there is a new drug to enhance the athletic prowess of the sportspeople, they will do anything to discover the source. We suspect that the Dark Peaks Lodge are already investigating these tunnels as they appear to be aware of the missing human troopers. The Twin Suns Lodge are also on the planet - one has been brought in dead to the s.p.a.ce Security Service already. The South Lodge will no doubt be here soon. One of them will try to obtain the exclusive rights to distribute the drugs, charge a lot of credits and make a killing.'

The Wirrrn asked how long was left before the Olympic Games would commence. How long did they have before the pills needed to be distributed?

'I'll have them ready this evening. The Games open in twenty-four hours, so we will let the Foamasi have them then.

The Wirrrn began easing itself across the ground, towards one of the tunnels that went lower, towards the solar generator.

The four humans stood up, but one of them arched back and fell to the floor. Two others ran to him, but it was too late. His white smock was already splitting open and from every tear, every gap, green pupal fluids oozed and then gathered together into a single bubbling mound. Of the human body, nothing was left bar the destroyed clothing. The green ma.s.s gradually took a new shape, about a metre long, like a giant green slug. It reared up briefly, displaying a cl.u.s.ter of newly formed suckers and at one end, a large single eye stared out from under the canopy of a deep slit. The human was no more, and a new Wirrrn had been created in his place.

The medic knelt down at the pupa, observing it with cold detachment. It was irrelevant that it had been human just moments before. What mattered was that the pill it had taken to stop this final mutation had failed. Both he and his surviving compatriots were similarly Wirrrn-infccted, but the pills he had developed held back the initial change. Within a few hours, this pupa would be a fully grown Wirrrn. And if the pill had failed to work, then how long before he himself was fully absorbed by the wonderful, astonishing new cells that swam through his pathetic mammalian body?

Once upon a time, Dr Miles Mason would have been revolted by his work, by his transformation. But now, he just saw it as a thing of sheer beauty.

One day, when his work was done, he could drop the pretence of working as a xen.o.biologist for the SSS and allow the repressed Wirrrn genes to take over and he, too, would know the true freedom of being part of the Swarm.

But until then, he had work to do.

'Tell me about the work in Sterile Room Four.'

The Doctor and Professor Jeol, the scientist, he had met earlier, were seated in the latter's office.

"The medics were xen.o.biologists, brought in by the SSS much as I was.

With the Games going on, as many medical and scientific experts as possible were required.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Now, two of your team died. The other? The one I spoke to?'

'Dr Mason, a highly talented award-winning pharmacologist we brought up from Earth. Perhaps they took the body with them.'

'Or perhaps he wasn't there? Could he have gone back to his hotel or wherever?'

Jeol shrugged.'Some agents investigated, but he certainly didn't seem to be there.'

The Doctor stood up and began walking around the office, lifting odd boxes and datapads abstractly.

'I don't think you'll find him in here, Doctor,' snapped Jeol.

The Doctor ignored him and continued his bizarre examinations. He began scratching at the walls and ceiling, then crouched down and looked under the desk. 'Tell me, Professor, why do you think your medics were killed, hmm?'

Jeol paused. Then sighed. 'I've been trying to work that out myself. I mean, if another Lodge of Foamasi were responsible, why not remove the corpse?

Ditto if it was his Lodge.'

"The Church of the Way Forward?'

'No. You mentioned them before. Why do they interest you?'

The Doctor stopped.'! don't know really. I've never had a faith, as such. I had a House. And a birthsign. And a Chapter to be loyal to, but never really any kind of G.o.d. But I know plenty who have, and very few of them are still peddling such bigoted doctrines.'

Jeol carefully replaced a datapad the Doctor had knocked over. 'Not been to Earth recently then?'

'No. Why?'

'Religious fervour. Every week it seems as if some new Church of This or Path of That springs up. When so many of the old religions died out through war or boredom, new fashionable ones sprang up. Most were cultish, or faddish, but some stuck around. The Way Forward lot have been around for about thirty years, devoted to their G.o.ddess. No one knows exactly who she is, but she clearly doesn't approve of multiculturalism.'

'Are they against the Federation, then?' The Doctor lifted one end of the desk, shook his head, and replaced it, but away from its former indentations in the carpet by a couple of centimetres.

'I don't believe so, no,' Jeol said. "They're not racist or xenophobic as such - they just don't agree with different species breeding. Ironically, I think it's more to do with keeping each race pure rather than trying to suggest any race is better than another. They have non-human members scattered around.'Jeol eased his desk back into position with his foot, hoping the Doctor wouldn't notice.

The Doctor ran his hand along the side of the door, then checked his fingers.'How often do you have the cleaners in here, Professor?'

Jeol was surprised by this question. 'Er... About once a week, I suppose. I don't really see them come in. We use Tees.'

'Tees?'