The Well-Mannered War Part 28

'Although the Chelonians and I go back a long way. Perhaps too far back.'

The chamber's interior door slid open and a Chelonian, wide-eyed and with a sprightly carriage, motored through. His mottled sh.e.l.l carried the three red stripes of high command. Fritchoff had seen many holovids of the creatures, and studied their oppressed culture, but nothing could have prepared him for their sheer size, their very improbability, or their leathery odour. 'You are the Doctor,' he said simply.

'That's correct, yes,' said the Doctor. 'Now, I'm known to your commanding officer, General Jafrid, and there's been a terrible misunderstanding -' His explanation was curtailed by the arrival of two more Chelonians, equally burly and with aggression in their eyes. The first, slightly larger, grabbed the Doctor by the hem of his coat, pulled him crashing to the floor, and started to drag him into the craft, knocking his knees against the metal flooring.

The leader indicated Fritchoff and told the second of his juniors, 'This one is not important. Dispose of it.'

Fritchoff had no time to draw breath before a ma.s.sive pair of Chelonian claws were locked around his throat. Then he started to kick and struggle, to no avail.

Dimly he heard the Doctor's voice. 'Wait a moment. I'll have you know that's a friend of mine you're strangling.'

'We have been given special orders concerning you,' said the leader. 'Your life is to be spared...'

'That's nice to know,' interrupted the Doctor. 'But would you mind putting him down?'

'... until we reach the command base. Then you will be placed in the Web of Death.' He stomped out of the chamber and back into the main body of his craft.

'Not that old thing again,' the Doctor muttered.

Fritchoff felt himself blacking out. Then the Doctor said, 'Excuse me, I'm going to have to do something about that,' and suddenly the Chelonian's grip on his neck went limp and the creature crashed to the floor.

The Doctor gripped his hand firmly and wrenched him up and on to his feet.

His own captor was sitting dazed on the other side of the chamber. 'There we are,' said the Doctor. He handed Fritchoff another confectionery coin.

'Have another one of these.' He threw a couple more to the two Chelonians. 'And you.'

Fritchoff shook his head to clear it. 'But how?' he gasped.

The Doctor tapped his forehead. 'The cybermechanical control plate. It's just a matter of finding the correct interconnection and pressing down.' He nodded to the saucer's interior and turned to proceed. 'Come on.'

Fritchoff gripped his arm. 'We can't go through there!'

The Doctor frowned. 'But it's what we came here to do.'

'Oh dear,' said Fritchoff

To the tune of explosions, violent and sudden death, and the collapse of his entire civilization, Harmock sat back in his antique chair and watched his poll rating rise and rise. He wasn't worried at all. The orange glow of the light suspended over his desk shone down benevolently, as steady. and strong as ever, blotting out all his doubts. 'Fourteen points ahead,' he said, drumming his fat fingers on his desk. 'Time to celebrate.' He looked around the study. There was a bottle of fine Bensonian wine somewhere about here. He could crack it open and raise a toast with - whoever. Not Galatea, obviously. Somebody else, then. One of his many friends.

There was a frantic rapping on the door. He sighed and shouted, 'Come.'

The door slid back and Romana, Stokes and his pathetic opponent bundled in, an unseemly urgency - the urgency, he thought, of defeat - in their eyes.

'Harmock, you've got to listen to us,' said Romana, striding forward. 'Is this a stunt of some kind?' Harmock reached under the desk and produced his wine bottle. As he fiddled with the self-popping cork mechanism he said smoothly, 'If it is, it's come rather late. Fourteen points, a clear lead.

n.o.body's ever come back like this before.'

'Negative images and warmongering have fuelled your success,' said K9.

'Envious, envious,' Harmock said lightly. The cork popped.

'This is all irrelevant,' said Stokes, who came bounding forward and pounded one of his big fists on the desk. 'Listen, you self-important prig. Go on, Romana, tell him.'

Romana leant over the desk urgently. 'Harmock, don't know why, but the Femdroids are your enemies. They've manipulated us all.'

Harmock threw back his head and cackled. 'I can't believe I'm hearing this.

It's pathetic, so desperate. I can have you thrown out.' He reached for a b.u.t.ton on his desk unit. 'I will have you thrown out.'

Romana gripped his hand. 'Please. You must listen to us. They're plotting to kill us all.'

'What nonsense. I'll call Galatea at once, we could all do with some light relief. And she can bring some gla.s.ses.' He stretched out his hand again.

Stokes slapped it. 'You're a bit of a cretin on the quiet, aren't you, Harmock?' he bellowed.

Liris turned from the screen with her smuggest smile. 'Galatea, witness the outcome of your conditioning.' Galatea's expression was unreadable. 'This cannot be allowed to continue. 'Shall I decirculate her, for the second time?'

'Unnecessary.' Galatea crossed to a panel in the wall and sent a coded instruction on her amulet. A hidden mechanism whirred and a large section of the wall swung open on a concealed hinge. Behind it were a row of identical Femdroids dressed in tight-fitting black suits. 'You two.' She pa.s.sed the flat of her hand over the amulets worn by a pair in the centre of the group and they came jerkily to life.

Liris gasped. The killer squad had lain dormant since the Creators had brought Galatea into existence. 'You can't mean to kill her?'

'I shall kill them all if need be,' said Galatea. She sent another command and the two Killers rose from their berths. Their gun arms clicked upward with savage swiftness. Moulded into the grips of both women were slender, wand like crystal units that glowed and crackled with deadly power.

'This was not the Creators' intention,' said Liris firmly as the creatures brushed past her unseeing. 'The Killers were devised to protect the dome.'

'Exactly,' said Galatea. She waved the Killers towards the screen.

'But it's at the core of our programming,' Liris protested. 'To serve the humans.'

'And to preserve the maximum happiness of the maximum number,'

Galatea completed. 'That, Liris, is what I'm doing.' She pointed to the image of Harmock's study. 'The female is an alien agitator. Kill her and disable the robotic creature.'

Chapter Nine - The Web of Death.

The Doctor sauntered into the command centre of the Chelonian base with a nonchalance that made every officer on duty - and the air was alive with commands and orders as the war went on - stop what he was doing and look up with a mixture of horror and deep loathing. General Jafrid was slumped in his webbing, a microphone attachment clipped on his head.

'Continue bombardment in sectors 15 to 74. Ships five and seven are to return to base immediately for recharge. Remember, missile stocks are to be used sparingly.' He broke off as he heard the Doctor's familiar bounding footsteps. The mike dropped away from his lips. 'You!' he gurgled, the claws on one of his front feet curling and uncurling.

'I have the oddest feeling I've been here before,' said the Doctor. He nodded to the stunned war team. 'Deja vu, very common among time travellers.' He paused, and added significantly, 'Have you ever had the feeling, General?'

Jafrid threw back his head, emitted a terrible feral roar, and spat at the Doctor. A ma.s.s of bubbling, b.l.o.o.d.y phlegm smeared across his coat. Jafrid turned to the officer who had brought the Doctor in. 'Dekza,' he ordered, 'cut out its lying tongue.'

The Doctor raised a hand. 'Wait, wait. What about the Web of Death?'

'What about it?'

'Well,' said the Doctor, 'without my tongue I won't be able to plead for your mercy or confess my treachery profusely. I'd just sort of froth and spit blood all over the place and you wouldn't like that. It would take the edge off the whole occasion, don't you think?' He used the opportunity afforded by this spiel to move around the centre and peer at the various instrument displays. The war was proceeding apace, he noted. The war zone, never the most picturesque of places, was now not much more than a splattered, irradiated, gas-infested mess, from the mountains to the marshes.

'Step closer,' Jafrid ordered. The Doctor obeyed, coming to stand directly in front of his dangling support. 'You have made an enemy of me, Doctor. I placed my trust in you and was humiliated before my men. They saw me place my trust in you, and I would go to any lengths to regain their respect.

Even if I have to tear this miserable moon apart with my bare claws.' He took a deep breath. 'Out there my troopers are giving their lives. Thirteen are already dead. We will all die if necessary to avenge the death of poor Seskwa.'

'I didn't kill Seskwa,' said the Doctor.

Jafrid snorted. 'We saw it.'

'You saw it through the mist of your own anxieties.' He stooped to look Jafrid right in the eye. 'Seskwa was already dead.'

A flicker of curiosity pa.s.sed through Jafrid's livid yellow eyes. 'What are you saying?'

'A walking corpse,' the Doctor continued, lowering his voice to a dramatic whisper, 'a cadaver animated by a psychic force so malevolent and so concentrated it threatens the lives of everybody in this system. Remember the way he groaned and clanked?'

Jafrid nodded. 'I advised him to consult our medical officer.'

'There would have been little point. His implants were seizing up, General, the mechanisms inside rusting against decomposing flesh. The creatures that controlled his dead form forced him to fire missiles in this renewed conflict, just as they forced him to crash that tank. I've been examining their movements. Shortly after their arrival they were weakened and needed feeding. So they gobbled up a few humans they stumbled across and a couple of your troopers. And when Seskwa found those bodies the flies leapt on him, killed him and turned him to their will.' Jafrid's eyes remained implacable. 'A few slipped in here and did for your air-conditioning, knowing it would make you even tetchier than normal. By manipulating these little things they could turn the course of larger events. And in the tank they saw their moment and acted, knowing how you would react. A quick way for them to exacerbate the war. And I'll be bound something similar's been happening on the other side.'

Jafrid held his gaze for a long moment and then shook his head. .'I listened to you before. You sounded plausible then, as you do now. And I want so much to believe you, Doctor. But I cannot. You would have us weakened and then release your germ.' He nodded to Dekza, who advanced on the Doctor with a menacing gait.

'Germ?' The Doctor leant closer. 'Jafrid, you've seen that substance - you know it cannot kill. It preserves meat for the creatures invading this place.'

'There are no invaders.' Jafrid nodded to an officer. 'You. Is the Web prepared?'

'Yes, sir. The strands are loosened and ready to take the strain.'

Jafrid opened his mouth wide and gurgled. 'Slow agony, Doctor. The strands of the Web constrict at a rate of half an inch every ten minutes.

Initially you will experience only discomfort. Then a slight tingling across your shoulderblades, a tugging at the base of your spine. After a couple of hours your muscles will start to stretch and your limbs will lock. Then utter, infinite agony, until you are torn into four. And though it shames me to admit it, I will savour every moment. Take him.'

Dekza cuffed the Doctor across the back of his knees and he sank to the floor. 'I wish you'd stop doing that,' he told Dekza as he was dragged towards an internal door.

Jafrid lowered his webbing and made to follow. His attention was caught by Fritchoff, who had lingered on the threshold, whimpering. 'Who is this one?'

'I ordered it killed, sir,' said Dekza, sounding mildly surprised.

'Wait.' Fritchoff came forward, and babbled. 'I'm not with the Doctor. I only met him a couple of hours ago. I'm non-aligned to any recognized political grouping and I'm prepared to adjust my agenda to whatever you require in the spirit of affirmation for your long an arduous struggle against the imperialist denizens of my homeworld.'

Jafrid sagged. 'Oh yes. Have it put down straight away.'

'This is the most dismal farrago of lies I have witnessed in the fullness of my career,' said Harmock, picturing himself on public broadcast later delivering the same line. 'I never thought a member of the Opposition, weak-willed and p.r.o.ne to fancies as they are, would stoop to such a level.

The words came easily, as ever.

'Members of what Opposition?' Romana asked. 'So far as I can tell, there are none apart from us.'

Harmock sighed. 'Have you gone quite mad? I'm getting worried.' This was, he thought, going to look so good in the papers. The Opposition would never get in again.

'She's right,' said Stokes with vigour. 'Harmock, I've never seen any other politicians here in the dome. There's you, and the people walking up and down and up an down the corridors all day. And the Femdroids. And it never occurred to me, all the time I was here, that there n.o.body else in the dome.' He pointed to the lamp above the desk. 'Because of those.'

'It is part of the conditioning,' K9 put in. 'The technique blocks certain areas of meaning from the human mind.' His head dropped a little. 'Even my cerebral core was affected.'

'Rubbish!' Harmock stood up. 'I see the Opposition; often as I see my own ministers. There's... Rabley, and you lot, and ...' He faltered. His own ministers. He had mentioned them automatically. But he couldn't recall aIl of their faces, let alone their names. He sat down again 'This is silly. I have to think.'

'It's a charade, Harmock.' Romana gestured out at the city. 'Played out for the benefit of the people out there, to get them fighting. Everything in this dome, and possibly everything outside, is controlled by the Femdroids.'

At this Harmock smiled. 'Nonsense. No, no, young lady. They're very much under my control, as Premier.' He produced a red plastic card from his inside pocket. 'I have this.' The card felt good and solid in his grip.