Doctor Who_ Placebo Effect Part 15

The Doctor nodded.'OK, third right,fifth left then... ahh...' but Gielgud was merely looking at him with a kind of bored expectancy.

With a sigh, the Doctor wandered down the corridor, having of course memorised the instructions perfectly. He just wanted to make Gielgud think he was a bit more stupid, but Gielgud had either guessed otherwise or couldn't care less.

Within moments, the Doctor was outside Room 101. If Sam had been here, he could have bet her a bag of toffees that Green Fingers would sound like a Chicago gangster. Had to be Sydney Greenstreet.

He knocked.

'Do come in,' said a very deep, Welsh accented voice.

Room 101.1984 . He owed Sam a bag of toffees.

'Richard Burton, of course,' said the Doctor as he went in.

The room was very dark and rather dingy. The curtains were frayed at the edges, the paint was peeling and various stains of dubious origin littered the uncarpeted floor and even the ceiling. A number of wooden benches were arranged haphazardly around, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with rather old laptops, monitor screens and a holographic projector that flickered rather badly, displaying three naked female Jadeans and a Pakhar frolicking in mud.

Amid all this were welding irons, bits of broken circuitry, and smashed communications equipment from a variety of different cultures.

Standing over an inoperative holocamera, probably stolen from one of the broadcast companies covering the Olympics, was the thinnest Foamasi the Doctor had ever seen, with skin more a sickly greeny-yellow than the bright vibrant colour of the other Foamasi on Micawber's World.

He wore a simple white gown just like the human scientists back at the SSS Building, and a strange ocular device was clamped around his left eye. The Doctor could see himself reflected in it, upside down and bloated, rather like the image seen through a fish-eye lens.

'h.e.l.lo, I'm the Doctor.'

'Really?'

That was it? The Doctor harrumphed.' "Really" as in "Oh, are you really the Doctor, how nice"? Or "Really" as in "Are you really here or just a holographic projection?" or "Really" as in "So what?" I wonder?'

Green Fingers removed the ocular device slowly and plopped it into a pocket of his gown. 'As I've never heard of you and I can see you're not flickering at the edges, have no thick blue line around you - and my alarms would have alerted me to any unwarranted carrier waves anyway - I presume I mean the latter. What do you want, human?'

Before the Doctor could answer, Green Fingers put up a hand, displaying his... well, green fingers. 'No, wait.' He dug out his ocular device, refitted it and stared at the Doctor.

'My apologies. Not a human at all. Two hearts, very odd arrangement of haemoglobin and some other internal organs whose origin or purpose I wouldn't like to guess at: Green Fingers nodded.'Bit of a mongrel, aren't you, Doctor?'

The Doctor smiled, not so much winningly this time as disarmingly. 'I hope so, Mr Fingers. Keeps everyone on their toes, anyway.'

There was a sudden sound, like that of a tiny generator breaking down, and from behind his bench, Green Fingers moved towards the Doctor. His lower body was missing from just below his thighs, his legs and feet replaced by a square box on tiny elongated wheels covered with caterpillar tracks.

'Indeed,' said Green Fingers, apparently without a trace of irony. 'Now, what do you want?'

The Doctor carried on, ignoring his faux pas. 'I actually don't know. I was undertaking the autopsy of a Foamasi from, I believe, the Twin Suns Lodge who may have been known as Sanders.'

'Ah, George. Yes. We call him Typtpwtyp.' This came out as a series of chirps and twitters, the traditional Foamasi language -hence the vocal synthesisers.'Is he dead, then?'

'Most people undergoing an autopsy tend to be, I believe.' Green Fingers laughed suddenly. 'Oh, not at all, Doctor. Not in my line of work. Who sent you?'

'Commandant Ritchie of the -'

'Yes, yes, yes. I know who Ritchie is. Blasted SSS. Dreadful types, always prying into Foamasi business, trying to stop us running our Lodges our way.'

The Doctor eased some useless-looking equipment away from the corner of the nearest bench, and sat on it. 'The way the Foamasi conduct business is a little... different from most members of the Federation.'

'Ah yes, those nice little people sitting in nice big skysc.r.a.pers, making awfully nice deals, handing over vast amounts of capital, acquiring and losing stocks and shares. And then, when it suits them, turning to my Lodge for help. Do you know, Doctor, most of my customers these days aren't from the Lodges. They're from other planets, other races across the Federation and a few outside - although I draw the line at Daleks. Won't work with biomechanoids, because they never live up to their side of bargains, claiming that to do so would be 'illogical' or some such rubbish.

But on the whole I work for Martians, Pakhars, humans, Cantryans, Chelonians, the Tzun, Lurmans, Vegans -'

The Doctor coughed. He could sense this list going on for hours. Foamasi were so verbose.'And what exactly is your service? The Commandant omitted to fill that part in.'

'Me?' Green Fingers trundled back noisily behind his bench and tapped his jumble of tatty equipment. 'I'm an a.s.sa.s.sin, Doctor. Appointed by anyone anywhere to kill anyone else.'

'A sort of court poisoner, then. Don't you fear that someone will kill you one day?'

'Me? Why ever would they want to do that? I'm a professional, Doctor. I work for whoever pays me. I have no grudges, no axe to grind. I rarely know the victims and make it policy not to meet my employers. No, I provide a service - and a very good one at that, at very reasonable rates - which everyone needs at some point or other. No point in getting rid of me.

Or asking questions. As I said, I never meet my employers, deliberately to avoid the possibility of being asked by aggrieved relatives or friends to name their dearly departed's unloved ones.'

The Doctor looked straight at him, frowning. 'And does the Foamasi Amba.s.sador know you do this?'

Green Fingers laughed in his deep, faked, Welsh accent.'Oh yes, he's well aware of it. He wouldn't dare argue. After all, he might have to poison himself if he did.'

'I'm sorry?'

Green Fingers trundled back to the Doctor, throwing his stubby three-clawed hands out in a conciliatory gesture. 'I am the Foamasi Amba.s.sador, Doctor. I'm the only person not affiliated with a Lodge, therefore, I act as the independent adviser to all of the leaders of each one. Simple really. No one argues with the court poisoner, do they?'

The Doctor digested this. If Green Fingers was the Amba.s.sador (and by the typically convoluted Foamasi logic of honour, mistrust and deceit - in that order - he must be the only possible candidate) then that was why Commandant Ritchie had sent him here. The Doctor suspected that someone else was pulling Ritchie's strings, apart from the SSS Headquarters here and on Earth. The Foamasi made sense. They would easily find a use for the military power on any world and infiltrate it.

Was Ritchie a disguised Foamasi? Unlikely, otherwise why send him here?

Foamasi were good strategists, but it was a pointless double-bluff. Which meant the Foamasi Lodge he had contact with were blackmailing him.

Why? And why, if he didn't want them to know the Doctor was being employed, was he sent to Green Fingers?

After the Doctor provided a precis of these thoughts to the Amba.s.sador, Green Fingers scratched at the apparatus covering his left eye. 'I imagine your Commandant does not have enough support to get rid of whoever is blackmailing him. And I suspect, as you do, it is blackmail. Which narrows the Lodges down. The West Lodge infiltrate. The South Lodge extort. The Twin Suns Lodge, hmm, they're not opposed to blackmail. And if it were the Dark Peaks Lodge, then they're breaking the rules. This world is off limits to them.' He looked straight at the Doctor's face and, if the Doctor was learning to read Foamasi body language correctly (never easy with reptilian species), then he was frowning. "They're banned from Micawber's World.'

'Why?'

'Because they do a mixture of everything and cause havoc for everyone here. Strictly speaking, the Dark Peaks Lodge don't exist. They're new, only been around for a couple of centuries. No official standing, you see, in Foamasi criminal society.'

"There's another kind of Foamasi society?'

Green Fingers thought about this. 'Good point, Doctor, but actually irrelevant to our discussion. I shall call a meeting of the Patriarch of each Lodge and find out more.'

'They'll tell you? Just like that?'

'Of course. I am the Amba.s.sador. And the Foamasi Government. And the Foamasi Bureau of Investigation. And, of course, the official poisoner and a.s.sa.s.sin, as well. No one argues with me. Give me twenty-four hours, Doctor, then return. I'll let Gielgud know he is to expect you.'

The Doctor nodded. "Thank you. I shall try to find something to do until then.'

'Talk to Ms Sox, Doctor.'

'Who?'

Green Fingers trundled back to a monitor and flicked it on. After a few seconds, it focused on the Jadean woman he had seen with Carrington at the wedding.

'I'm sure she will have been monitoring all your conversations with Commandant Ritchie.'

"That's a bit adventurous for a Jadean,' the Doctor said, thankfully. 'I mean, I thought they were genetically engineered to be quite submissive, almost drone-like.'

Green Fingers nodded. "That's how they were when the Federation first found them, Doctor. But whoever did that initial engineering left plenty of scope for further refinement. The Federation has spent some time and effort working out how to augment them, and Ms Sox is a prime example.

Taking the instinctive Jadean intellect and adding a healthy dose of... oh, I don't know really. Guile. Cunning.'

'Sophistication?'

'And elegance. Ms Sox is perhaps the first of a new breed.'

'Why? Who sent her here?'

'That I don't know. Possibly the Federation? Perhaps they don't trust Chase Carrington. Perhaps they think he's going to blow up the Olympic Stadium and start a galactic war.'

'Or perhaps that's what whichever Lodge is controlling Commandant Ritchie is planning to do,' offered the Doctor. 'After all, with s.p.a.ce Security in their pockets plus whatever it was your friend -' the Doctor attempted to imitate the Foamasi chirping to create 'Typtpwtyp' but it came out only as 'thweepipeep' - 'was up to, there'll be enough confusion out there to start a very good batde, with the Foamasi arising from the ashes as controllers of the Federation.'

'I hadn't thought of that,' said Green Fingers.

'I'm sure you hadn't,' replied the Doctor. "That's why you haven't told me any of this.' He offered his hand. 'A pleasure meeting the Foamasi Amba.s.sador,' he said.

Hesitantly the Foamasi returned the gesture and tried not to wince as the Doctor squeezed his clawed hand. 'A pleasure to make your acquaintance Doctor. I'm sure that between us, we can avoid any unpleasantness in the days to come.'

The Doctor smiled and left.

Today, Kyle Dale decided, was going to be a good day.

Sam was so engrossed in the view of the Stadium that she completely forgot she was holding on to Kyle's hand. Seeing a new variety of alien she hadn't spotted before, she lurched sideways to get a better look, dragging the startled young man with her.'Sorry,'she whispered.'Forgot you were here.'

'Gee, thanks, Sam,' he grunted.'So nice to be thought about.'

'What's that, then?'

Kyle had been showing her around the athletes' enclosure of the Stadium, giving her a unique insider's view of what went on behind the scenes of the games. 'Who needs DCS Lynham when you've got this lot?' she had said, but Kyle hadn't the foggiest notion what she was talking about. Come to think of it, Kyle realised he very rarely understood more than one in three of Sam's phrases, statements or questions. There was more to her than just being "a young woman from London", he was sure of that. Something about her manner, her phraseology and her moments of thoughtfulness combined to make her the single most interesting person Kyle had encountered since... Well, since Reverend Lukas, really. Or maybe before that. A comment of Reverend Lukas's rang in his memory, something about not letting a single individual get in the way of his life's work, his mission, for the G.o.ddess. But Samantha Jones didn't really fit into any of his preconceived categories of the type of person he felt sure Reverend Lukas had meant. Sam was, in her own way, as diverse and captivating as an entire species.

'The G.o.ddess be praised,' he muttered. 'You are beautiful.'

If Sam heard, she did not reply, which was probably a good thing after their talk the night before. Sam didn't seem to like discussing belief systems.

Which was sad, because she had a reasonable mind, if a little closed to some things. He looked forward to trying to prise it open. She didn't have to agree, or believe. But listening would be nice. He might not be able to alter her views, or shape them in any way, but just knowing she had at least listened - understood his point of view - well, that would be something.

Kyle found himself smiling. She was certainly a different kind of woman from those he surrounded himself with normally. They tended to be either members of the Church like Phillipa or aggressive athletic types. Sam had a clear mind, opinionated, certainly, but at least she had ideas. She understood the need to see new things, and observe new people. Kyle occasionally wondered if Reverend Lukas had really liked her or was being pleasant for his sake.

Kyle reached out and rested his hand on Sam's shoulder. She was eyeing a frankly bizarre spherical creature made, it seemed, entirely of silky white fur, tiny pink feet poking out from its lower regions. Two spindly pink hands fiddled nervously with a big red ball, and it had a smaller spherical head, with long ears, a snubbed nose and huge almond eyes.

'It's a Meep. They're not as innocent or gullible as they seem,' he told her.

Kyle smiled - when he had been a young boy, he'd had a cuddly Meep to sleep with each night, but when the Meeps found out that some cultures saw them as little more than toys, a diplomatic request was made to the Federation and subsequent lines of the stuffed toys were discontinued.

Kyle wondered if his Meep was still in his mother's attic back home on Mars.

'For many years,' he said,'they used their ability to make people see them as little more than a soft toy to cheat in negotiations and such like. They're actually very cunning and have an unpleasant past based around conquest and colonisation. Thankfully they are now one of the more peaceful Federation members, but are still very compet.i.tive in the Games. I'm up against one in the Discus.'

"That one?'

Kyle shrugged.'I've honestly no idea. They all look alike to me.'

Sam didn't return his chuckle. Instead, he realised she was giving him a strange look. 'What?'

'Sorry,' she said. 'But back home, a comment like that would have got my back up.'

'Oh.'

Sam looked away.'I don't know what's worse. The fact you said it without thinking or caring, or the fact that I'm not jumping up and down screaming at you for it.'

Kyle didn't quite understand this and said so.

Sam sighed and looked at him, her blue eyes clearly hurt by something - but he had no idea what he had done.

'When I was a few years younger, before I met the Doctor, I used to join up on what my mum called "Crusades". At the time I thought she was just being Mum, typically sarcastic. But looking back now, I can begin to see where she was coming from. Every time I saw an advert for some campaign to save whales, stop animal experiments, go on gay-liberation marches or demonstrate against racism, I was there. Building banners, decorating floats, whatever. I used to go and join people sitting in trees, stopping motorways, bypa.s.ses and airport runways being built. I did everything. Now I do it on other planets in different centuries... it's a struggle, you know? And it's a decent struggle. Sure, the bailiffs dragged you out of the tunnels eventually, or chopped the trees down and you fell out, but we'd say, "OK, we lost this one; but the bad publicity will make them think twice next time." But how many times do you have to go through it? Yeah, breakthroughs were made for gay people in laws and equality.

Yeah, peoples' consciousness was raised and fewer Pakistani shopkeepers in Stafford Row got their front windows smashed in. But for every victory we had, others lost somewhere else. The Dreamstone Moon was mined out, people died... it's just like a never-ending merry-go-round.'

She laughed hollowly. 'My last protest was in the twenty-third century. It's ludicrous, isn't it?'

Kyle said nothing.

'And here I am,' she continued, looking at the Meep. 'It's 3999, twenty thousand years since I started trying to make a difference in my own time, and still some guy looks at a Meep and says "they all look the same to me".

And I just wonder what the point of it all was. Is. Whatever.'

Kyle was lost. He didn't have a clue what to say. Should he say something to justify what was, after all just a quip, that would make her feel better?

Should he ignore it? Should he apologise?

His mouth opened and replied before his brain could stop it. 'Well, maybe Meeps think we all look alike.'

Her hand was pulled away from his before he'd finished and by the time he realised what that meant, Sam was running back towards the exit, away from the enclosure. He called after her but if she heard him - and he suspected that she did - she ignored him.

All around him, jostling athletes of many races, shapes and sizes blocked his view of her diminishing form until finally he lost track of her.

Frustrated, he wanted to yell. To shout But he knew that would be wrong - Reverend Lukas had instilled that in him from Day One. He had to keep his mind in check, and began slow-breathing exercises to help him. He closed his eyes, shutting out the visual stimuli, and gradually his mind drifted, allowing him to ignore the noise and the clamour of the outside world. He concentrated on that tiny spot of light, the Eye of the G.o.ddess, and let himself drift towards it, knowing he would never actually catch it up, but feeling his mind just float along.