Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 32

'The one he was carrying just now?' The Doctor looked a little annoyed he'd been almost within arm's reach of it.

'Uh*huh. I looked in it, but I only found the coffee machine. The time machine components must be in a hidden compartment.'

'We need that case.'

'Why does he need the President?' Anji asked. 'He's got a time machine, he's got enough money to buy a Concorde, he's got a robot army...'

'He said he wanted to get back to the future.'

Anji held up her hand. 'Right... you missed that bit. He's not from the future. He used to be in the Russian army.'

'So where did he get...?'

'I don't know, he wouldn't tell me that bit. He's ruthless, resourceful. I imagine he stumbled across the time machine somewhere, then killed its original owner.'

The Doctor winced. 'The damage he could do if he used the time machine without understanding it...'

Anji stopped, closed her eyes.

'Are you all right?' the Doctor asked.

It didn't add up. Baskerville had a time machine and no moral scruples. Or, more precisely and more dangerously a moral framework that meant he could justify just about anything in his self*interest. So why wasn't he using the time machine for himself?

'He could make a fortune,' Anji said. 'He could go back and sell weapons, he could play the stock market, he could set himself up as an adviser, an inventor, a brilliant medicine man... there are a million ways a time traveller could make money.'

'There are?' the Doctor asked.

'h.e.l.l... he could buy up old Batman comics for a cent a time, or get autographs, or go back and pretend he'd written Harry Potter.'

'I don't think he's really the '

'He could bet on every horse race, raid the pyramids, take paying tourists to see the Crucifixion, buy up land...'

'Er, Anji...'

'Stake a claim for every oil field. He could clear up in the insurance market, buy up Van Gogh's unsold stock, he could put his money in an high*interest account two hundred years ago and '

'I think you've made your point,' the Doctor said gently. 'Perhaps he lacks your business brain.'

'No. I've talked to him. Doctor, do you know the one thing I'd do if I had a time machine?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Go home?' he said finally.

Anji bristled at that. 'No. The one thing I'd do, of all the things I could do, is simple: I wouldn't sell it. I wouldn't sell it.'

The Doctor took a deep breath. 'So he doesn't want money.'

'He does. He said he wanted money. Wait. IFEC... I have heard the word before.'

'It does ring a bell,' the Doctor admitted.

Something small whooshed over Anji's head, and exploded a few feet away.

Anji saw Baskerville and Leo, aiming chunky guns at them they looked more like flare pistols than ordinary pistols.

'Gyrojet guns!' the Doctor said. 'Mini rocket launchers. Fascinating.'

Anji pulled him down behind a pile of steel oil drums. If they were empty, they'd provide perfect cover. If they were full of oil, then at least it would be quick.

'It's not a question of how interesting the bullets are, it's how hard they hit us,' she said.

Pad had given Fitz a running list of instructions.

The workings of the EMP cannon, the ones in this chamber at least, were vast machines, like the turbines of a power station. The Onihrs weren't big on miniaturisation.

One of the control panels was open, and the components inside were, variously, reconnected, disconnected or just lying in bits on the floor.

Pad had explained the exact functions of the bits of electronics. It all sounded fascinating, and Fitz harboured a degree of regret that he wouldn't be around to become a travelling EMP cannon repairman.

He connected the emitter power supply to the emergency buffer. Apparently. He stuck the big fat silver connector into the big green socket.

'Almost there?' he asked.

'Just four more connections,' Pad said cheerfully.

'You know what I'm planning to do here?'

'Of course, sir. The EMP cannon generates a vast amount of energy. You intend to channel that into the ship, rather than away from it. You want to attach the two yellow cables to that capacitor.'

'And?'

'Well, sir, the ship, everything on board, and everything else for a couple of light seconds around it will be annihilated. Now set that output level to maximum. And shut off that emergency override.'

'Is a light second like a light year?'

'The princ.i.p.al is the same, although it's a little less far.'

'Cool. You learn something every day. Er... you appreciate you'll be destroyed, Pad?'

'Well. Once you press that red b.u.t.ton, sir, the one that's flashing there, then the ship will be destroyed in a chain reaction. It will start at the emitter at the front of the ship, then work its way back.'

Fitz took a deep breath. 'But the Onihrs will be stopped, the Earth will be saved, and there would be nothing they could do about it?'

'Not in the seven seconds the destruction of the ship would take, sir, no.'

Fitz pressed the b.u.t.ton.

Pad squealed.

'Take it like a man,' Fitz suggested, a little weakly. He could hear the ship throwing itself apart. It sounded like the biggest china tea service in the world hitting the floor. Fitz was proud he'd come up with such a great simile under such pressure. It proved he was 'Sir, I was rather hoping you'd use my teleport function to get us off the ship.'

The sound was deafening now. 'You can do that?'

'SIR!!!!!'

'Teleport now!' Fitz screamed, as the ship exploded around him.

Fitz appeared in what looked like an aircraft hangar. It was a bit chilly. And dark. But he felt like he was full of helium after several days on the Onihr ship, with its intense gravity.

He jumped up and down, enjoying his new*found freedom of movement.

'Well done,' Pad squeaked happily. 'I look forward to serving you again, sir.'

'I'm alive! I'm alive!' Fitz shouted, leaping for joy.

Anji grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him down, just as a streak of fire blew Pad out of his hand and smashed it against the back wall of the hangar.

The Doctor and Anji were squatting behind some oil drums.

'Hi,' Fitz said quietly.

'Where have you been?' Anji asked.

'Hey, I just saved the Earth from a race of invincible would*be time*travelling s.p.a.ce rhinos.'

The Doctor smiled. 'In all of the history of the English language, I doubt that sentence has ever been spoken before. Well done. For the last few minutes, it's been nothing but "Doctor, help!", "Doctor, look out!", "Doctor, they've got us pinned down", "We're not going to make it". I'd begun to think I would never hear an original sentiment expressed again.'

Anji glared at the Doctor. 'Believe me, Doctor, I've thought of some great new words in the last couple of minutes. Swearwords, designed for unique circ.u.mstances like this, that ordinary swearing just doesn't cater for. Just before Fitz arrived, I was just thinking that you were a completely useless otterfuc'

Another barrel exploded, drowning out Anji and showering them all in shrapnel.

'Who's the guy with the gun?' Fitz asked.

'Baskerville. He's a Russian arms dealer who's stolen a time machine.'

Fitz shrugged.

'A shrug?' Anji said, exasperated. 'Is that the best you can manage?'

'Look, I've just spent three days in s.p.a.ce with a bunch of super*intelligent alien rhinos on a s.p.a.ceship the size of Manhattan. This is normal by comparison. By the way, here's your phone back.'

Anji looked suitably impressed.

'Baskerville,' the Doctor called out. 'You can't possibly win.'

This was so clearly ant.i.thetical to the facts that Baskerville responded by increasing his rate of fire. The last few barrels were exploding, now.

'Er... what are those chaps?' Fitz asked.

Three chrome vehicles were taking up positions behind them. They were hovercraft, but with smooth, egg*shaped bodies. They looked a bit like tanks, an impression confirmed a moment later, when guns started emerging from hatches in their fronts.

'Cla.s.s two RealWar robots,' the Doctor said.

Anji was lying flat on the floor. A moment later, the Doctor and Fitz realised that she was doing something rather sensible.

The tanks opened fire simultaneously, the bullets pa.s.sing right over them, perforating the barrels. They were firing at Baskerville the Doctor, Fitz and Anji just happened to be in the way.

A male scream. The mini*rockets had stopped. A moment later, the cannon fire had, too. Fitz kept his head down, though, and a.s.sumed the Doctor and Anji were doing the same.

'Baskerville!' the three tanks barked simultaneously, with a Scots accent.

Fitz was pleased to recognise the voice it was the old man at the theme park who'd kicked his head in. Excellent perhaps he'd get to see the really fit Korean bird again.

'Baskerville! This is Cosgrove. I have control of the RealWar robots here. All of them. I have control of this base. Nothing is going to arrive or leave unless I want it to. All your men are dead. It's just you and Dee. And you can walk away from this. I want the time machine. Now, you can tell me where it is, then leave, or I can kill everyone I haven't killed so far, and search this place at my leisure.'

Fitz sighed. 'Well, at least things can't get worse,' he suggested.

The air behind the tanks swirled, and six fully armed Onihr warriors stepped out of thin air and into the hangar.

'Eradicate all humans!' the deputy leader growled.

Fitz started banging his head against the concrete floor of the hangar. He couldn't think of anything better to do, and this way he'd save someone else the trouble.

Chapter Nineteen.

Action The Eurozone security service monitors in and around Istanbul were all starting to reach the same conclusion.

The President hadn't been seen since he'd entered the hotel, several hours before. The White House spokesmen had been waffling for most of that time the President was being briefed, the President was unavailable. But something wasn't right. There were riots in Tripoli, now. The ma.s.sacre of the children on the school bus might have been a rogue teletroop, but it was an American rogue teletroop and demanded a response at the highest level.

As soon as CNN and the EZBC had reported it, both the Americans and EZ got more troops on to the street and more planes in the air. They knew it was just the sort of incident that could start a whole cascade of other incidents.

The EZ President, the President Minister of England, the leaders and relevant secretaries of state and spokesmen from just about every country there was had made a statement about the Tripoli shootings by now.

But not the President of the United States.

The press corps knew the procedures, they knew what normally happened with this sort of incident. Most of all, they knew when the White House press office were trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

EZ monitors watched all this with interest.