The Romance Of Crime Part 9

She knew there was nowhere to hide so she stepped from cover. 'h.e.l.lo,' she said, returning her boots to her feet.

He jumped. 'What are you doing here?'

'I've just been having a look around,' she said. 'I'm free to.

This is a public area, isn't it?'

Zy stared up at her, trying to judge the situation. She could see that he was considering what action to take. 'What are you? An investigator? Or one of Stokes's mates?'

'Neither,' she replied.

Zy sprinted for the staircase. He pushed past her and clattered up the steps. Romana pulled herself up and hurried after him. He couldn't be more than ten seconds in front of her. She followed him around the corkscrew staircase without pausing to take a breath.

'Wait! I only want to talk with you!'

The rattle of Zy's footsteps stopped abruptly. She imagined that he must have pa.s.sed through a doorway and returned to the main building. She vaulted the next steps three at a time, wishing for once that her legs could be as long as the Doctor's.

But there was no sign of a doorway.

She stopped and looked about, confused. Her lungs panted like bellows as she drew short breaths. Zy had disappeared.

Perhaps into a secret pa.s.sage or something? It would be only natural for a building like this to contain several.

Another sound came from the steps above her. A gentle percussion on the edge of her hearing. A dripping noise.

The lights went out, above and below.

Romana gathered her wits and turned the corner. 'Zy?' she called.

No response.

The dripping continued. She climbed another few steps slowly. The toe of her boot nudged something sticky. She knelt down and dabbed at the glutinous patch with a finger.

She let out a cry.

Human blood.

Somebody started to walk down the steps in front of her. In panic, she tried to retrace her route but lost her footing. She tumbled down the staircase. Her head banged painfully against a strut on the landing below and she lost consciousness.

The lights flickered back on.

Standing over the body of Romana was Margo. She stood proud and upright, her hands on her hips. The boots of her uniform were caked with blood.

Clamped over her face was the shining silver mask of Xais.

Her eyes glinted cruelly through its slanted slits.

5.

The Ghost.

-tokes's consciousness creaked him awake. He blinked and S rubbed away blood that had flowed into his eye from the wound on his brow. The lights of the gallery revealed devastation to his slowly focusing gaze. Pictures were torn from their hangings, sculptures smashed into dusty chunks.

Spilled paints congealed in shiny multicoloured pools.

With an effort he stood up. The muscles in his back wrenched and he immediately toppled down. His bleeding head fell back. 'This will be your undoing, son,' he muttered.

'I'll have the old scratcher throw the book at you.' He pulled himself up again and staggered over to the sink.

His feet crunched over the slashed canvas of Mrs Blakemore. He gasped and picked up the pieces of the splintered frame. 'Priceless,' he whispered. 'My greatest work in oils.' He howled and started to shudder. Patches of deep purple coloured his cheeks. 'You won't be able to walk after I've finished with you!'

The Doctor walked down one of the corridors on level three, looking for the relaxation centre. It had to be around here somewhere, and from there it was only a short distance to the TARDIS. He looked from side to side, weighing the possibilities. His sense of direction really was appalling, but then there had been a lot of corridors in his life.

A familiar whirring came from his left. He turned to see K9 trundling along with customary merriness.

'You took your time,' the Doctor said.

'Delay occasioned by variations in topology of environment, Master,' K9 reported.

'Yes, and I don't suppose all those stairs were too easy, either.' He knelt down to address the dog. 'Listen, K9. What do you know about the Uva Beta Uva system?'

'Uva Beta Uva system. Fourteen planets around torroidal ellipt'

The Doctor put a hand over K9's muzzle. 'Yes, yes, I know all that.'

'Thus request for information illogical, Master.'

The Doctor stood up. 'Let's go and find Romana.' He set off along the corridor.

K9's sensors swivelled and he set off the other way.

'Mistress located in this direction, Master.' He paused before adding, 'Suggest error in your cartographical a.n.a.lysis.'

The Doctor shook his head impatiently. 'No, no. She's on the move. That girl just can't stay still for a moment.'

K9's tinny voice stepped up in pitch. 'Master, alert. Further a.n.a.lysis indicates local release of,' he clicked and ticked, 'radiation in vicinity of the Mistress.'

'What kind of radiation?'

'Spectrum not in my memory. Mistress may be in danger.'

K9 sped off down the corridor. The Doctor hurried after him.

Margo opened her eyes. She felt better than she had for months. Her head was clear of the worries and doubts that had been whispering through it. She was in her bed, in her cabin.

The clock on her bedside table told her that it was 1840 hours.

What was she doing in bed? She swung her sheets aside and saw that she was wearing her uniform. The single-breasted lapel was stained with blood.

She screamed and leapt from the bed. The whispering voice returned. A ghost in her head. The time has come. Surrender The time has come. Surrender yourself to me. yourself to me.

'No,' Margo whimpered. 'No, leave me alone.' She pushed her knuckles to her mouth to stop herself screaming again.

You cannot resist, the voice said. You must die eventually, You must die eventually, like all Normals. Why prolong your existence? like all Normals. Why prolong your existence?

Margo put her hands to her head. It was filled suddenly by memories that she knew were not her own. An image was being fed to her, a.s.sembling itself segment by segment.

She saw a cl.u.s.ter of tents pitched on cold grey soil, around which were gathered people dressed in simple sacking garments. Huge umber clouds filled a reddish sky. A hand was grasped tightly in her own. She looked up and saw a tall woman, dignified and beautiful. Somehow she knew this was her mother. The memories were those of a child.

Three horses were galloping into sight through a split in a nearby formation of rock. The riders wore suits of silver fabric and carried long rifles, their faces, angry and excited, visible through the clear plastic panels of their hoods.

'Ceerads!' their leader shouted, reining in his horse. 'More here!'

The child felt her mother's hand leave her own. The s.p.a.ce it left felt big and empty. She watched as her mother walked slowly towards the men. Her own people, who were backing from the newcomers in fear, parted to allow her through.

'Get back!' the leader of the riders shouted at her. He raised his rifle. The child thought he looked very young. Not much older than herself. 'Get back, Ceerad!'

The child hated that word.

'Put down the weapon,' her mother called out. 'Leave this place. This settlement is protected under the Mutants Rights Act 2278.'

The leading horseman laughed and some of his men joined in. It didn't sound like a laugh, the child thought. Not the kind of laugh she liked. It sounded dirty. 'You're Ceerads,' he said.

'You don't '

One of the men of the settlement rushed forward, an old man with hunched shoulders and a growth between his eyes. A cudgel was grasped in his hand. He was terrified. He did nothing but shiver and wave the rusty weapon up at the riders.

The leader put a bullet through his head. The child watched as the old man's face exploded in a red blur. Everybody started to scream. She tried to find her mother. Her heart was beating faster and faster until she thought it might burst from her chest. There was lots of shooting and screaming, and people were falling, covered in blood. She knew it was right to pretend to be dead, that's what she'd been told, so she flung herself down into the dirt and tried really hard not to move or make any kind of noise. Her insides felt mixed up and she wanted to cry and cry.

The noises stopped after a while, but she knew she had to keep still. She heard the horses coming closer. One of them stepped over her. She could tell it was frightened too from the smell it was making. She heard the voice of the leading rider, not far away.

'They're finished. Cleaned up, it's the last site.' He was trying to sound pleased.

'What do we put on the report, sir?' said one of the others.

'Ritual suicide,' said the leader. 'Ceerads at site AKB found dead. Cause of deaths suspected internal poisons.' He paused and then ordered, 'Burn them.'

'Yes, sir.'

The child understood every word. Her people had been slain by the Normals. Everyone she had ever known had died in the last few minutes, taken suddenly, for no reason. The Normals were going to say her people had killed themselves because they were unhappy and diseased.

A funny feeling started in the small of her back. It was more than anger. She had felt that many times before when she thought of Normals. It was even more than hate. It made the skin at her temples feel stretchy, as if her head was getting bigger and bigger. She knew she would have to open her eyes to let the feeling out, even though that was the stupidest thing she could do.

She rolled over. One of the men noticed her and called, 'Sir, there's one left, a kid.' He sounded nervous.

Her eyes opened. There were bodies all around, twisted and broken, covered in dirt and blood. One of the men was preparing to throw something from a can over the pile of dead.

Another held a flaming brand.

The leader said, 'Kill it.'

'But it's a kid, sir,' said the man who had seen her moving.

'It's a Ceerad sp.a.w.n,' the leader said. He raised his rifle and pointed it at her face.

The child felt the hate feeling leave her eyes before he could pull the trigger. It shot across the s.p.a.ce between them.

She blinked and looked again. Where the leader had been standing there was a bundle of b.l.o.o.d.y rags and scorched metal.

One of the other men shouted, 'Get back, it's a psi-killer!'

The hate feeling came back. Ceerad, psi-killer, mutant.

Words that she would never have chosen for herself. Words that were a trap. Hate words.

The men died as she looked at them. This time she looked as she did it and it felt really good. They just had time to scream before they burst. It pleased her. With the last one, she actually caught a glimpse of his bones coming through his skin as it happened.

Then there were no sounds at all. She stared at the heaps of death that surrounded her. The Normals had caused it all. They had to die. And not just these. All of them. There would be a ship somewhere. She could learn how to use it, she was very clever, she knew. And then she could leave Guaal and go into s.p.a.ce. There would be so much hate for her there.

Do you see? Do you feel my pain?

Margo's mind struggled to rea.s.sert itself 'I had nothing to do with that... please, leave me...'

Your species are all alike. You are all guilty. Inferior creatures. You are all to die. I will cleanse the universe of creatures. You are all to die. I will cleanse the universe of h.o.m.o sapiens. You will be the instrument of my revenge. h.o.m.o sapiens. You will be the instrument of my revenge.

Margo's hand jerked forward. It opened her dresser. The silver mask lay on top of the neatly folded clothing.

Take it. Wear my face. You will submit.

An inspection hatch on the stair-well creaked open and the Doctor's head poked through. 'More stairs, worse luck, K9,'

he said. He hoisted the computer into his arms and carried him into the semi-darkness of the stairway. 'How's that radiation?'

he asked.

'My sensors indicate that it is clear, Master,' K9 reported.

'Mistress Romana is approximately ten metres down and to your right.'

The Doctor hurried down the steps. 'Romana!' he called.

He caught sight of her body, put K9 down, and rushed over.