Doctor Who_ To The Slaughter Part 5

The Doctor's face dropped down beside her with a manic bounce. 'Rather a stroke of luck. Another ship in the bay, fuelled up and ready to go.' He slapped her heartily on the back. 'Come on. We're hijacking it!'

'Oh G.o.d,' she moaned, and let him drag her along after him for a few metres. Then she pulled free. That was another thing she wasn't. A helpless trail-along-behinder.

Then again, how else was she going to find the c.o.c.kpit? She settled for grabbing hold of his coat-tail. He didn't seem to take offence, just the lead as they legged it through long, black circular corridors.

27.'Very sumptuous, all this,' the Doctor observed. 'A Rolls-Royce of the s.p.a.ceways.'

This was news to Trix, still rubbing her streaming eyes on the cuffs of her tunic. 'Well, unless you can fly this thing, we'd better hope the chauffeur's on board.'

They were soon standing in a roomy c.o.c.kpit, with three seats placed before a long, bare, black console. There was probably some black sky out there through the wide, wraparound window but it was buried under a thick smat-tering of shining stars. Distant moons managed to eclipse tiny handfuls here and there, their fixed faces half-turned in shadow.

Then a white metal curtain seemed to sweep across the vista. Trix gulped as she realised it was a s.p.a.ceship, so close outside she could see the rivets in its hull. Slowly it swept through the starry silence, turning its rear to them with astounding grace. Trix shielded her eyes as a vent flared magnesium white.

Once she'd blinked away the glare, the ship was a distant speck bleeding a faint golden trail in its wake.

The TARDIS was gone. Fitz was gone.

It bugged Trix that she felt the loss of both as keenly.

'We need to get going as soon as possible,' said the Doctor, already crouching beneath the console with sonic screwdriver and the guard's swipe card. 'While I get busy, tell me all you know about this decoratiste decoratiste chap who's kidnapped Fitz.' chap who's kidnapped Fitz.'

Trix slumped in the nearest of the three seats. 'He looks a bit like a skinny version of the baddie out of Thunderbirds Thunderbirds. Only with worse dress sense.'

The Doctor's first fiddling paid off as an array of virtual screens and b.u.t.tons appeared on the bare console. 'And is is he a baddie, do you think? Or just an irresponsible vandal?' he a baddie, do you think? Or just an irresponsible vandal?'

'Well I don't think you're going to like him much,' said Trix, looking out at those myriad moons. 'Not when you hear what he's planning to do to your precious solar system. . . '

'Go on.'

Trix rather enjoyed knowing more than the Doctor for a change. Her story wasn't pretty, and she made no attempt to dress it up.

'Two hundred years ago or whatever, we Earthlings went cosmic walkabout you know all that part, the big stride out across s.p.a.ce, building an Empire, all that.'

'Yes,' he said, clawing messily through a handful of glowing cables. 'You'd messed up your own planet, it was time to get busy elsewhere.'

'Earth's mined out. Stripped down. Washed up. We all b.u.g.g.e.red off and left the leftovers to the Third World lot. They're living pretty much the same as they always have done.'

28.'With difficulty,' the Doctor suggested.

'Anyway, humanity's the weevil, and the solar system's been the biscuit.

Everywhere's been spoiled. Shafted. There's pretty much nothing precious, rare or useful left. Just rock, ice, a few metals maybe the scrag they could live without, which no one could be bothered to shift or dig up.'

He nodded stoically, taking the news on the chin.

'Venus was used as a rubbish dump for a while,' she went on. 'Good for burning everything up. Toxic waste, CFCs, nappies. Nappies take hundreds of years to biodegrade, did you know? Anyway, it all went t.i.ts-up when they tried terraforming the whole atmosphere boiled away into s.p.a.ce or something. . .

Hey, pity they couldn't get old Welwyn Borr to help them out, isn't it?'

The Doctor was looking grim. 'Where does Halcyon come into this?'

'I haven't got to that bit yet,' she chided. 'I was lucky his infomercial was a really handy story-so-far. He wants it cut back for the actual vidcast.'

'Does he?'

'Uh-huh, so I almost missed out on all this stuff.' She leaned back in her chair. 'Anyway Venus couldn't he used as a furnace any more, but they decided to keep bunging rubbish there anyway since it wasn't good for anything else. And on Mercury too. Dump stuff on the hot side, and the Sun burns it up. Not such a bad idea. The iron miners took huge hauls out with them. But then they knackered its...o...b..t somehow, trying to make it less ballistical. . . '

'Elliptical.'

'Just checking you were listening.'

'Against my better judgement.'

'So, anyway whoomph! Mercury falls into the Sun. But it didn't matter, 'cause by then they were already going through the asteroid belt and Jupiter's moons, and, this lot out of the window there. . . '

The Doctor crawled out from beneath the ship's controls and pressed some b.u.t.tons, his face grave. 'I get the picture,' he said as an encouraging hum started up. 'Earth's system's in ruins, plague of interplanetary locusts, blah, blah, blah. But that was all scores of decades ago. Humans must have an empire stretching out for light years by now. So why return to the ancestral seat? Why is sonic big business organisation here in orbit around Saturn? And why demolish Jupiter's moons?'

Trix sighed and savoured the moment like a smoker's first puff of the morning. 'Halcyon and Falsh have already blitzed a load of littl'uns around Neptune and Ura.n.u.s, you know. And the Asteroid Belt that's been properly unbuckled. Mined hollow and the bits left over swept away and sold off to aliens to use in their high-rises. . . ' She gestured out of the window. 'He's got his eye on some of this lot, too all part of his Grand Orchestration. But Jupiter's the showpiece. Over sixty satellites going up in smoke. Bringing down the 29 numbers to a nice, cla.s.sical twelve. They've already started knocking out the smallest ones. . . '

The Doctor looked like someone struggling to be brave at a funeral. 'Please, Trix. Why?' he said quietly.

'This is the best bit,' she said. 'He reckons '

A stern but slinky synthesised voice cut across her. 'Your attempt to disengage from this station is not authorised.'

She jumped. 'Jesus, who was that?'

'Ship's computer,' the Doctor reported, as the hum in the control room rose louder. 'Ignore her. Carry on, sorry.'

'Well,' said Trix, 'he's doing it so '

'This craft is registered for the exclusive use of Robart Falsh,' the computer interrupted again. 'You are performing an illegal activity. Automatic control has been re-established.'

The Doctor tossed some loose wires on to Trix's lap. 'It hasn't, you know.

She only thinks it has. The computer will tell us off for a while, but she's all talk.' As the ship lurched forward and listed to one side, the Doctor gave the sort of grudging smile a grizzling child might give when presented with a balloon. 'See?'

Trix gripped the seat's armrests as the ship began to accelerate. 'So, anyway: Halcyon. Basically '

'This is an illegal operation,' stated the computer. 'Security forces have been informed.'

'They haven't really.' the Doctor told Trix candidly.

'Then what's that?' She pointed at a large point of light that was growing larger and brighter.

The Doctor squinted at the UFO. 'Some kind of robotic probe?'

The point of light resolved itself into a sphere. Then it flashed orange, and the c.o.c.kpit shook with sickening impact.

Trix glared at the Doctor. 'That would be some kind of robotic probe sent by the recently informed security?'

He looked more affronted than sheepish. 'But I disconnected the main router!' He stabbed at a bunch of b.u.t.tons and the ship shifted starboard.

'The computer must have been on standby, sub-linked to the station systems.

Falsh had this ship set up to leave in a hurry.'

'How about we pick up where he left off?' said Trix, as the window burned orange and the ship shook again. 'They'll blow us to bits!'

'Ha!' cried the Doctor defiantly. 'It won't do them any good to threaten us.'

'It won't?'

'No. We can't hear them.' He pulled out the sonic screwdriver and started fiddling again. 'I broke the communicator when I cracked the flight protocols.'

30.Trix decided she would throttle him. 'Doctor!'

'Don't worry. They're only warning shots it's Falsh's ship, they won't want to damage it.'

'They'll do more than damage us when they've caught us and towed us back to the station!'

The ship lurched violently as a miniature sun appeared in the c.o.c.kpit window, blinding Trix with its intensity. Security had switched from wagging a finger to raising a fist. It couldn't be long now before it came crashing down. . .

'Are you sure they won't risk harming the ship?' she asked lamely.

'Fairly. But they may well have weapons designed to eliminate organic life while leaving the ship intact.'

'Had to spoil it, didn't you.'

The Doctor ducked back under the console. 'We need more power if we're going to outrun these probes.'

'Feng Shui!' she yelled.

'I'm sorry?'

'That's it! What Halcyon's doing it all for.'

The Doctor scrambled back out, a keen interest in his eyes. 'Feng Shui?'

'Yeah, you know. Move around your furniture, point ornaments north all that c.r.a.p the property shows were trying to flog us in my time. . . ' Trix bit her lip as the ship rocked so hard she swore she could feel the floor buckle beneath her feet. 'He's rearranging the solar system, see? Clearing out the clutter, making it "spiritually pure" or something, a better place to live and work in. . . '

The Doctor just went on staring at her.

'He works out what aligns with what and where, and Falsh makes it happen,'

she babbled. 'It's like inner-city development tempt big businesses to set up back in the old neighbourhood, hold their meetings and Christmas parties in a Falsh orbiting-conference-podule thing, knock down the slums, generate more wealth, employment, blah blah blah. . . ' She frowned at his trancelike state.

'Sorry, is this distracting you from saving our necks?'

He shook his head in a flurry of chestnut curls. 'No, no, no.'

'Well, could you maybe hurry up a bit and '

'I mean: no, you're wrong.'

'I heard them talking!' she said indignantly. 'I saw the whole pitch on one of those bubble-TVs!'

'You're wrong about cla.s.sical Feng Shui.' He disappeared beneath the console again, leaving Trix nonplussed. 'It's a philosophy. A serious study of how the unseen energies of our living environment affect us,' he called to her. 'Its proponents believe that through the arrangement and placement of rooms 31 and buildings we can interact with those energies in a way that promotes good fortune. First practised back in the Chou dynasty, around 210 BC.'

'Sounds about right.' Trix looked out helplessly at the starry blackness.

' Chou Chou is French for cabbage, isn't it?' is French for cabbage, isn't it?'

The Doctor chattered on, the screwdriver whirring away. 'Most cla.s.sical Feng Shui formulae were structured on mathematical calculations according to the science of the I-Ching, you know. . . '

She swore as another probe spun into view, speeding towards them. Halcyon was right the knowledge that a body existed did did lend it heightened influence. 'Doctor there's another one!' lend it heightened influence. 'Doctor there's another one!'

He didn't seem to hear her. 'Once students grasp how the theories are formulated, they can be taught how to apply them. . . '

Up close, the probe looked like a giant silver Malteser.

'. . . in innumerable ways under different circ.u.mstances. . . '

A giant silver Malteser with guns extruding.

'. . . to create optimum results!'

A thrum of power warmed the air, and Trix yelped as the ship tugged away sharply, as if yanked on a string. She was pinned back in her chair by the sudden acceleration. Her vision blurred. It was hard to breathe. Never mind G-force, this was somewhere nearer J or K. She was going to throw up. She was going to pa.s.s out. She was going to do both at once, and how messy would that be? And then. . .

. . . it was over. The ship gave one last, determined lurch, like a dog on a leash straining to bite a postman's ankle, and then seemed to stop still. The lights dimmed. The thrum of power shushed itself to a murmur.

'There are many different schools of Feng Shui,' came a weak voice from under the console. 'Ba Chai, for example. The schools of major and minor wandering stars. I studied that for a while in Peking during the roaring Twenties. . . '

'Just get back out from under there and steer this thing,' grumped Trix, clutching her delicate stomach. 'Are we out of trouble?'

'I burned a lot of fuel, there,' said the Doctor, dragging himself back into the pilot's seat with a heavy sigh. 'Enough to put us well out of range of the probes.'

'Thank G.o.d!'

'But I don't know if we've got enough power left to go where we're going.'

'Which is where?'

'I don't know.' The Doctor shrugged. 'I was hoping to follow the ion trail from Halcyon's ship. But I suppose we might have overtaken him by now.'

'OK,' said Trix, trying to remain calm. 'What if we run out of fuel?'

'We drift out of control.'