Doctor Who_ Ultimate Treasure Part 9

'I've had enough of this. I don't care what that woman said, we're going to take a short cut.' He took out a miniature inertial compa.s.s and looked at the sun as it sparkled through the branches.

Then he pointed between two of the paths. 'Right, that's the same line as the first path that led in here, so we'll stay on that.

If we keep going straight ahead we're bound to come out somewhere soon enough.'

'But she said it was dangerous to leave the paths,' Gribbs reminded him, peering anxiously at the tangle of lush greenery ahead of them.

'How do we know that?' Qwaid retorted. 'Maybe that was a lie as well, just to get us running around like rats in a maze while they laugh at us. Perhaps working it out is part of the test, and this is how you're meant to go.' Gribbs still looked unhappy.

Drorgon shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders. 'Anyway were all kitted up for trouble, aren't we? Maybe we can't use our guns on the others, but n.o.body said we couldn't use 'em on anything else that gets in our way. Go to it, Dro.'

Drorgon's huge machete with its ultra-fine diamond slick coating hissed effortlessly through a hanging tangle of creepers, and they marched forward off the path and into the green-tinted shadows. Gribbs held his own blade ready and hacked nervously at an innocent bush. In two minutes they had pa.s.sed through the spur of wood and came to a path that crossed their line of travel. Unhesitatingly Qwaid led them across it to the next wall of green.

Down at the end of the path they saw the figures of Thorrin's party cl.u.s.tered round another signpost.

'Hah. Let 'em run around in circles,' Qwaid said contemptuously.'This is the way the really smart types go.'

They had taken perhaps twenty steps from the path when there was a sharp snap. Drorgon gave a howl of pain, dropped his machete, and crouched down clutching at his ankle. The heavy spiked jaws of a plant head that had been inconspicuously spread open flat on the ground had closed about it like a man trap.

Gribbs flinched away from Drorgon even as the Cantarite tore his leg free, looking about him wildly for any new danger. There was a sudden rustle and swish in the gra.s.s at Gribbs's feet and a tall slender sapling that had been bowed over a few metres away from him suddenly sprang upright. With a yell he was jerked off his feet and up into the air, a thin noose of wirelike ivy tight about his left ankle connecting him with the top of the sapling.

His frantic struggles subsided as he realised nothing worse was going to happen, and he hung upside down swaying gently to and fro. Then he saw that the DAVE drone hovering a little way off was recording his undignified elevation. 'I don't think this was such a good idea, Qwaid,' he said faintly.

Inside his ship the Stop Press Stop Press, Dynes beamed in satisfaction at the monitor image of Gribbs. Good knockabout stuff and just what the social cla.s.s Ds and Es lapped up, along with the rest of their predigested newspap. Actually, everybody secretly liked seeing other people's misfortunes, especially if they were known criminals. Could he play the ambivalent card there and slant the angles to make them into the comic element of the story?

Blundering crooks getting what they deserve, but struggling bravely on, so that they subconsciously inspired a touch of sympathy for being such hopeless foul-ups? Yes, it was a distinct possibility.

He checked the monitors that were following the other two parties. Now these were more for his prospective A and B audience to relate to. They were going about the business of solving the sign problem methodically. If he could record enough of their chatter they could feature it as a brainteaser for the viewers over a station break, or something.

That oversized man, Falstaff, was obviously an eccentric. You didn't see many body styles like that nowadays. Maybe he'd come up with something interesting. At least he could be relied upon to fall over amusingly or get stuck in something somewhere along the way.

And of course these groups also had the two attractive human women with them, one from an aristocratic family, and also Inspector Jaharnus, who was quite a slick-looking Tritonite if he was any judge. They should please the humanoid male audience, and a few related species besides.

He remotely adjusted the bias of the DAVEs following them to hold them in shot more often. He hoped as they went along they might pick up a few suggestive tears in their costumes and some tasteful smudges of dirt here and there. After all, there was nothing like seeing pretty women a little dishevelled to boost the ratings.

Dynes had long ago renounced personal scruples and pa.s.sing judgement on anything he reported. Priorities to him were exemplified by the fact that there were fewer mutual agreements between planetary law enforcement agencies than between rival news organisations. People wanted gossip and entertainment in preference to law and order, and his job was to deliver what the market wanted with single-minded efficiency. Which was why he was the best in the business. And he had a feeling that this story would shape up into one of the hottest items of the year.

Peri realised that the two-way junction ahead of them was not marked with a signpost. Instead, one of the native Gelsandorans stood there waiting impa.s.sively, his hands folded into the sleeves of his robe. While they considered their next move, Falstaff sat down heavily on a convenient boulder by the side of the path and ma.s.saged his knees.

'I must catch my wind. I am not suited to this means of travel.

Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me.'

Peri had some sympathy for him. They seemed to have been wandering up and down woodland paths for hours. Falstaff had several times complained about the soreness of his feet and wiped his brow regularly, but for a man of his size he'd actually kept up the pace quite well. She suspected he didn't want to get left behind in these rather sinister woods. She looked at the silent native again, then at the Doctor. 'Now, he might tell us the truth or he might lie, right?'

'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'but only about which path to take, according to Shalvis, so we can't catch him out with a question about the sky being pink, or anything on those lines.'

'Then how shall we know whether he speaks true or false?'

Falstaff wondered.

'This is going to be worse than the signs,' said Jaharnus. 'I don't want us to fall behind Qwaid and his friends.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Fortunately there is a solution. On Earth it was originated in the mid-twentieth century by a philosopher called Goodman, though of course it's been independently discovered many times on many other worlds. We'll see if it works here.'

The Doctor walked over to the Gelsandoran. 'I believe you may or may not tell the truth if I asked you specifically which path leads to Rovan's treasure?'

'That is correct, Doctor.'

'And have you already determined whether you will be one kind or another, that is either a liar or a truth-teller, in this matter?'

'I have.'

'Then tell me if you're the kind who would tell me that the right-hand path leads to Rovan's treasure?'

'No, I am not.'

The Doctor raised his hat politely and turned to the others.

'We'll take the left pathway,' he said.

When they had gone round the next corner, Peri asked, 'Now how did you work that out?'

'Well, if he was telling the truth when he said no, he wasn't the kind who would tell me the right-hand path was the correct one, then the right-hand path would be wrong, since only a liar would say otherwise. If he had intended to lie, then he would say the right-hand path was the correct one in an effort to deceive me, therefore it would still be the wrong choice. If he'd said yes, meaning he was the kind who would tell me the right path led to the treasure, and he was telling the truth, then the right-hand path would have been the correct one. If he had said yes and was lying, then he was actually not the kind who would say the right-hand path was the correct one, since only a truth-teller would say that, and so again the right path would have been correct, whether answering "yes" was true or not.

'Either way, if he'd said yes I would choose right, and left if he'd said no. I came across something similar on Mars, once. It's very simple, really.'

Peri shook her head and shrugged. 'I'll take your word for it.

But you still don't know if he was lying or not?'

'No, but it doesn't really matter, does it?'

'Uh, I guess not.'

They trudged on. The path no longer branched. Perhaps they were getting somewhere at last. In the near silence she became aware of the slight hum of the DAVE unit that still trailed after them. She'd almost forgotten it was there during the last few hours.

Back inside the Stop Press Stop Press Dynes checked his monitors. The Doctor's party seemed slightly ahead of Thorrin's, who had just encountered a native in a different part of the wood and were going through a similar logical debate. Both were well clear of Qwaid's group. The three criminals had given up any attempt to force a way through the woodland between the pathways, and had settled on following a compa.s.s course as closely as they could, notching signposts and blazing marks in pathside trees to help them keep their bearings. Dynes checked his monitors. The Doctor's party seemed slightly ahead of Thorrin's, who had just encountered a native in a different part of the wood and were going through a similar logical debate. Both were well clear of Qwaid's group. The three criminals had given up any attempt to force a way through the woodland between the pathways, and had settled on following a compa.s.s course as closely as they could, notching signposts and blazing marks in pathside trees to help them keep their bearings.

There were two other monitors presently active in the bank before Dynes. They relayed images from a couple of DAVEs he'd sent out to pick up establishing shots around the white pyramid and the Gelsandorans' settlement. He also hoped they might catch any newsworthy local customs or practices, of course.

Regrettably, so far, they seemed entirely too civilised, but he maintained a watch just in case. You could never tell with these quiet types.

The trees thinned and suddenly they were out in the open. Peri looked about her. The edge of the woodland stretched away on either side in a line that could hardly have been natural; while lying before them, already shimmering under the near midday sun, was the most unusual plain she had ever seen.

Inexplicably, Dynes's cameras failed to record Shalvis and the other Seers emerging from the pyramid. They moved in a ring at the centre of which was the plasma cloud. Carefully maintaining their formation they set off towards the landing fields.

CHAPTER 9.

THE TILED PLAIN.

By eliminating every path through the woods that seemed to lead back towards the white pyramid or the landing grounds, Qwaid felt they were at last making some progress. At any sign he couldn't make sense of he simply chose a direction at random.

The important thing was to look decisive. That had been Alpha's secret, he decided: always act as though you know what you're doing.

Whatever happened, he mustn't lose any more face before Gribbs and Drorgon. Not that they'd have the guts to do to him what he'd done to Alpha, but they might just give up, which would be nearly as bad. He'd already caught some reproachful glances as they limped along beside him. That hurt because what he wanted, perhaps even more than Rovan's treasure, was to hear them call him 'boss' to his face, and mean it.

Qwaid knew he had it in him. Hadn't he jiggered the Falcon's Falcon's systems neatly enough to dispose of Alpha, for all his brains? systems neatly enough to dispose of Alpha, for all his brains?

But he simply didn't have the sort of mind to untangle word games and such abstract problems. And suppose there were more obstacles of the same sort ahead. OK, so they could get through in the end by blood and sweat, but by that time the rest would have lifted the treasure. There had to be a way to even things up. There just had to be.

When they finally came upon a native waiting patiently at an otherwise unmarked junction he didn't waste any time in futile debate, but pointedly drew a coin from his pocket and flipped it to decide their route. He'd show them all that Crelly Qwaid played by n.o.body else's rules but his own.

The plain stretched away into the distance before them, into the shimmering heat haze, where it was just possible to make out a line of green that suggested another wood might lie on the far side. Peri estimated it was five miles across, perhaps more. To left and right the plain extended at least as far as the point at which it was lost in the haze, out of which rose two parallel walls of rock, apparently the sheer sides of a very wide, flat-bedded valley. It was the largest level surface she had ever seen, rivalling the monotonous expanses of those dry desert lake beds where they held land-speed record attempts. But none of them had ever been paved.

She could think of no better description of the neatly jointed pale-grey, hexagonal slabs, about ten or twelve feet across their flat sides, which covered the plain for as far as the eye could see.

She saw that Jaharnus was equally surprised by the spectacle, which had left even Falstaff momentarily speechless. The Doctor crossed to where the straggling turf and weeds of the wood gave way to the first of the tiles, and touched the hard surface.

'Hmm. Stone, or some very fine concrete, I think.'

They all moved to his side. Peri noticed that finer grooves divided up the tile into six equilateral triangular segments. 'Why does it have a red dot in its centre?' Jaharnus asked.

It was a small circle, perhaps six or eight inches across, apparently painted on. From where Peri stood every slab in sight seemed to have one, though the colours differed.

'I've no idea,' the Doctor admitted.

'Well at least we can see where were going,' Peri said. 'I suppose we've got to cross to the other side. I wonder how long it'll take.'

And she walked out a few yards.

As she put her weight on the third tile it soundlessly split open into its component segments under her feet and she dropped into darkness. Then there was a splash and green-sc.u.mmed water closed about her head with a roar of bubbles.

She kicked upward frantically and surfaced coughing and spluttering and drawing in a deep breath. But immediately she felt the weight of her backpack pulling her under again. She flailed about but there was nothing to catch hold of. The sides of the hexagonal well shaft were smooth and sheer, and the segments of its cap lay flat against them. She tore in panic at he pack's straps, trying to wriggle free, but it was taking in water and growing heavier every second.

The Doctor's head and shoulders appeared over the lip of the shaft some eight feet above the surface of the water as he threw himself flat on the ground and stretched out his staff to her, handle first.

'Grab hold, Peri,' he shouted.

As the water was closing over her head again, her fingers closed about the end of the staff, and she pulled herself back into the air again, trembling with fright. Jaharnus was lying beside the Doctor, reaching down with her staff.

'Peri,' the Doctor said, his words crisp and steady and very rea.s.suring. 'We can't lift you and your pack if it's full of water.

Take it off and hook it over the inspector's staff.'

Numbly Peri obeyed, struggling one handed with the straps, but managing to remove it and twist them about the staff's handle. The pack was lifted clear, then the second staff reached down again and she was able to grip both handles. In a few seconds she was sprawled on the hard stone on the edge of the well.

'It had to happen to me!' she panted miserably.

'Well what do you expect if you will start off without thinking?'

the Doctor scolded, but she read genuine concern behind his eyes.

They retreated carefully to the edge of the wood, stepping only on those slabs they had already used. While they considered how to proceed, Peri emptied her pack and spread out the contents to dry. She hadn't brought a change of clothes, so she settled for taking off her boots and wringing her socks out as well as she could. With the midday heat, everything else would soon dry.

'I suppose it could have been worse,' she said, trying to make light of her misfortune. 'I only lost my staff.'

'Yes, it could have been much, much worse,' said the Doctor coolly. 'Even if you'd been able to remove your pack quickly enough, how long would you have survived if we hadn't been here to pull you out?'

The full enormity of it struck her, and she felt giddy for a moment. She had been thinking that there could have been more dangerous things waiting for her at the bottom of the shaft than water, but now she realised it might only have prolonged the inevitable if she'd been alone. 'I guess I really could have died down there.'

'Let that be a lesson to us all,' the Doctor said, his stern gaze pa.s.sing over Jaharnus and Falstaff. 'However artificial and contrived all this seems, it's not a game. If you want to go back I suggest you do it now, while we've only the wood to contend with.'

Falstaff puffed himself up. 'John Falstaff retreat from danger?

Never!'

'We go on,' said Jaharnus. 'I'm not letting you three out of my sight. Besides, if there is any treasure I want to be sitting on it ready and waiting for Qwaid and his friends. As soon as this ridiculous quest thing is over and the locals remove their protection, I'm going to arrest them.'

'Well one dunking's not going to make me give up,' Peri said, hoping her voice sounded steady.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Very well. But we must take some sensible precautions, until we work out which slabs are safe and which aren't. At least we now know why they're colour-coded.'

'Oh,' said Peri, 'you mean there's a pattern to it. What colour was the one I dropped through?'

'Green,' said Jaharnus.

'For a start, we'll avoid those,' the Doctor said, rummaging in his pack. 'Sir John, you will have the honour -'

'I pray you, good Doctor, do not deny yourself the satisfaction of being the leader of our brave band on my account. I crave not the glory -'