Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 27

He wasn't sure how he'd just kept pressing b.u.t.tons, hoping none of them was the self*destruct switch. Not a perfect method, but the best he could come up with.

Now it was talking to him, showing him pictures, instead of spraying perfume at him. The voice was pleasant, male, vaguely Celtic.

He'd called it Pad.

'Pad, when the leader went through his invasion plans, he said he could disable all the electrical equipment with an Ee and Pee something or other.'

'The EMP cannon.'

'In English?'

'The EMP cannon,' it repeated.

'Er... in shorter English words that, say, a small child would understand.'

'A...' it hesitated, whirred, '...gun that... uses electricity to create a... big magnet... that breaks electrical equipment.'

'A powerful weapon.'

'Yes.'

'A big weapon?'

'Yes.' There was an edge of impatience in Pad's voice.

'Where is it?'

'The EMP cannon runs the full length of the ship, from the engines at the rear to the parabolic projector at the front.'

'What defence is there against it?'

'None. It is crude, but totally effective. It is possible to shield against small electromagnetic pulses, but this weapon can burn through all known shielding.'

'If the Ee and Pee cannon was disabled, then would the Onihrs be able to invade Earth?'

'They would encounter heavy resistance, and face twenty percent casualties. The probability of total victory is over ninety*nine percent, with a ninety*five percent chance of that victory within one day, a ninety*two percent chance of that victory within six hours. There is a fifteen percent chance of humans destroying their own civilisation with nuclear weapons rather than surrendering, or as an accidental or collateral consequence of the Onihr attack.'

'Would they go ahead with the invasion in those circ.u.mstances?'

Pad whirred. 'The EMP cannon is active, so no statistical data or precedent exists.'

Fitz mused on that for a while. Was a nuclear holocaust after a day of hopeless resistance any better than five minutes of no resistance at all? He was tempted to ask Pad.

It bought more time, that was certain.

Anji was definitely alive, the Doctor almost certainly was. Anji knew about the Onihrs, now, so perhaps the Doctor did. The two of them might only need a day to sort things out.

'How would I sabotage the Ee and Pee cannon?' he asked.

And Pad told him.

Baskerville was in the rear compartment with Anji, and he'd just called Dee in with them. Leo was safe in the c.o.c.kpit.

So Cosgrove and Mather were alone for the first time.

'Where's he taking us?' Cosgrove asked.

'No idea.'

'You don't have a GPS tracker?'

'If it was working, I'd know where we were, wouldn't I?'

They were both peering out of the window. They'd crossed the Black Sea. The terrain below looked like it could be the Ukraine. Equally, it could be Russia, or Georgia. Maybe even Eastern Turkey or Kurdistan. Five countries that just about covered the spectrum of political affiliations, none of which were entirely safe, three of which were in the middle of civil wars.

'We've a chance to agree strategy, while Baskerville's busy with that alien.'

President Mather's instinct was to keep his mouth shut, but then he remembered who he was talking to. Cosgrove had been entrusted with secrets that were kept from Prime Ministers and Presidents. Mather knew more than most he'd been CIA, he'd been an astronaut working on all three SDI projects, he'd been Secretary of State during the Canisian invasion. But he suspected Cosgrove knew more than he did.

'Those aliens,' Mather said. 'Do you recognise them?'

'No,' Cosgrove said. 'You?'

'No.'

'It adds another dimension to all this.'

'Makes a squabble between the United States and the Eurozone look insignificant? I suppose they'd be above all this.'

Cosgrove laughed. 'I was wondering if they'd take sides, actually. The Eurozone might be able to offer them something they want.'

'You, a loyal servant of Europe? We both know you'd fill in the Channel Tunnels given a chance.'

Cosgrove looked offended. 'I'm no Little Englander. There's not a drop of English blood in my veins. But, then, there's no such thing as Eurozone blood, is there? You've dealt with them, Felix. They're bloodless, faceless. There's no history, no values, just political expediency. All they want is someone else to pay their farmers and fight their wars for them. When I speak up, they offer to increase my salary. They've turned me into a mercenary mercenary. The only reason they have power is that there's not been a major war on their watch. And that record is going to come to an end, in a matter of weeks.'

'It might not.'

'You don't sound convinced.'

Mather took a deep breath. 'Well, perhaps that's because I know you're right.'

'It's madness, it's suicide, and it's inevitable.'

'Nothing is inevitable. Jonah... we've known each other for a long time.'

'Yes.'

'I trust you. More than pretty well any of my advisors.'

'Good.'

'We work together? We can stop the war?'

Cosgrove nodded. 'Mr President, if we have a time machine, we can do anything we want. We can un undo anything we want.'

'Undo?'

'It must have occurred to you.'

'I saw time technology as a...'

'A what? Something to open up a new market for American goods? Somewhere else for your tourists to go? A major employer, like the Apollo programme?'

'All of those things. It'll revolutionise the world, Jonah. It'll change the world, like the Industrial Revolution, or the creation of the atomic bomb.'

'And we'll be the masters. Are you familiar with the works of Agathon?'

Mather looked witheringly at him. 'Can we a.s.sume I'm not.'

'He was a Greek philosopher. He said that not even G.o.d could change the past. We'll be able to. We'll be above the G.o.ds themselves.'

'You and me?'

'Just you and me. We'll rule over Time itself. As partners.' you and me. We'll rule over Time itself. As partners.'

The Onihr deputy leader filled the small TV screen in the rear compartment. Anji and Baskerville were hunched in one corner she'd pointed out that having their dead comrade in the background of the picture might send out the wrong message, but it was difficult to work round.

'You want time travel,' Baskerville said. 'I have time travel. You have advanced technology I suggest a trade.'

Anji translated, not knowing how. It sounded like she was just repeating everything that was being said.

'Onihrs don't trade with primitive lifeforms.'

Baskerville looked uncertain.

Anji didn't wait for him. 'Then you won't get time travel, and this discussion is at an '

'Wait! We will negotiate.'

Baskerville smiled. 'Good. We should meet face to face. I will prepare a meeting place, and contact you with the co*ordinates. We will speak soon.'

He cut the link. The screen went dead, the Onihr deputy leader faded from view.

And the Doctor was up there. How had he managed that?

Anji turned to Baskerville. 'Happy?'

He didn't look it.

'I think I might be in too deep.'

'You've kidnapped the President of the United States and some senile psycho with a licence to kill, you want to trade time travel with a bunch of giant alien rhinos, and you think you're in too deep? What could possibly make you think that?'

He looked troubled.

'Are you all right?' she asked. 'The last thing we need now is for you to go off the rails.'

'We're nearly there,' he told her.

'Where?'

'A facility I own.'

'A base?'

Baskerville seemed amused by the idea. 'A secret hideout? No, it's a factory. I've never been there in person, before.'

'In Russia?'

'On the Steppes, yes. A secure place to negotiate with Mr Mather and Mr Cosgrove. The personnel at the factory have got orders to fire on everyone except me, and the capability to bring down anything that's launched against them. No one else, not even those creatures, will be able to track me there.'

'What do you want?' she asked.

'I beg your pardon?'

'You have a time machine. So, leaving aside the aliens for a moment, what else could you possibly want?'

'I told you access to ULTRA.'

'You told me at first that you needed it to calculate a course back home to the future. But if you're not from the future...'

Baskerville looked at her. 'I think it would be instructive to hear you finish that sentence,' he said carefully.

If Anji could finish the sentence, she wouldn't have asked him. She considered it logically, tried to go for the simplest solution.

'...then you need the ULTRA for something else,' she concluded, after a moment.

'That something else being?'

'I'm not sure what the ULTRA is. So I don't know what you'd do with it. You said it was an intelligence database... so it's got some information on it that you want. Or want erased. But it isn't about you, because you don't have an electronic presence, or whatever you called it. There's nothing on there for you to erase. So what else does the ULTRA do? Surveillance? Access to another system?'

Baskerville looked up, worried.

Warm.