The Well-Mannered War Part 31

'But, sir,' Cadinot protested, 'we're thirty men down, and without computer guidance we're finished.'

Dolne's reply was a smile. 'Finished? Yes. As a species. The moment is close.' He staggered towards the door. 'Leave your stations and follow me.

We go to die.'

Cadinot sat transfixed as the other members of the Strat Team followed Dolne's shambling figure from the room.

'There were no riots,' said Romana, looking out of the window at the empty city. She looked down at K9, who was circling disconsolately around the study. 'And no election either.'

'And no electorate.' Harmock was slumped back in his chair. His head shook in disbelief like the mechanism of an overwound toy. 'I feel as if I've been thumped. All my hard work's gone for nothing.'

Romana refrained from pointing out that he didn't seem to have done any work at all and knelt to address K9. 'Give me your hypothesis.'

K9's sensors twitched impotently. 'Without full range of capabilities I cannot deduce certainties, Mistress.'

'Just do your best.'

'It is probable that the city we saw on the public broadcast screens and through the gla.s.s portals in this dome was a computer simulation.' He whirred in frustration. 'If my sensor array had not been damaged I would have been able to report this finding much sooner.'

Romana breathed out slowly. 'So n.o.body and nothing here was real. The detail was incredible.'

Harmock coughed. 'Excuse me.' He poked himself in the midriff. 'Young lady, I am no computer simulation. And look.' He pointed to the public broadcast screen built into his desktop. On the death of the Femdroids it had reverted to showing an image from one of the dome's internal security scanners. This showed the unspeaking, tabard-wearing administrators and officials stumbling about aimlessly, all their direction and wordless purpose drained. Dotted among the citizens were the collapsed bodies of Femdroids. 'They look jolly real too.'

'Then there's n.o.body outside the dome,' said Romana. She pressed her ear to the gla.s.s of the window. There was no sound but the distant keening of a low wind. 'Only this strange little kingdom, perpetuating itself. You and Rabley, slugging it out, all the while believing your actions were having an impact. And the war dragging on and on, over five generations.' She tapped the gla.s.s and looked over at the slumped body of Galatea. 'I wish we knew why.'

K9 nudged forward and cast a glance over the body. 'Although motivational and power circuits have been burnt out, Mistress, I postulate that the Galatea unit's cerebral core has endured. When my own full function has been restored it may be possible to affect a transition of data.'

'You mean to say,' Harmock said, 'you could read her mind?'

'That is what I said, yes,' said K9.

Harmock leant over and brushed a lock of hair from Galatea's forehead. 'I do hope you can get her back. I'm already feeling rather lost without her influence.' He giggled. 'My entire life has been a sham, concocted for her benefit.'

'Hers,' Romana said grimly, thinking disturbing thoughts, 'or somebody else's.'

'Suggest use sonic screwdriver to remove brain core,' prompted K9. 'It is imperative that we discover the reason for the deception.'

Romana pulled the screwdriver from her pocket and adjusted the setting. 'If I didn't know better, K9, I'd say you were curious.'

'Negative,' said K9. 'My advice is based on my extrapolation from known events.'

Behind them there was suddenly a commotion, the sound of breathless running and stomping feet. Then Stokes came tumbling through the still-smoking door, his clothing disarrayed and his normally flushed face a sallow shade. He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. 'You'll never guess,' he managed to gasp.

Romana was too engrossed in her examination of Galatea to really notice him. The Femdroid leader had no discernible hinges, inspection plates or access points. It occurred to her that there had been no human maintenance staff in the dome, and that presumably the Femdroids had carried repairs on each other. She traced the throbbing end of the screwdriver across Galatea's forehead in the hope of triggering a concealed mechanism. 'What is it?'

'They've disappeared. The entire city.' Stokes came charging into the room.

'And all my work's gone too. I looked out over the park, and my centrepiece has been removed. The design's been changed back.'

Romana couldn't help but feel a pang of pity. 'I don't think it was ever there, Stokes.'

'What do you mean?'

K9 turned from the window. 'My study of the plant life and a.s.sociated rates of decay visible from this portal suggest to me that the world outside has not been populated for approximately one hundred and twenty-one years.'

'Don't be ridiculous.' Stokes bit his lip. 'I've been out there, travelled the walkways, sat in the greens.p.a.ces. I've got friends out there. My special, discerning friends, the ones who appreciate me.'

Harmock crossed to him and tapped him on the shoulder. 'I could say much the same. We've all been conned.' He pointed to his head. 'It's as if my memory is up there, but they've put things into it.'

Romana nodded. 'We underestimated the scale of Galatea's plan, Stokes.

As far as we can tell, we're the only people left on the planet.'

Stokes rubbed his chin and looked out of the window. 'So where did they go? The real citizens?'

'That's what we're going to ask her,' said Romana, indicating Galatea. The head was not responding in the slightest to the screwdriver and she was beginning to wonder how cleverly the Femdroids had been constructed.

'We can remove the brain, supply just a fraction of its power, and link it through to K9.'

'Not likely,' said Stokes.

Harmock frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'Well.' Stokes shrugged and spread his hands wide. 'I got a bit carried away down there. The driving moment, you know, in which all considerations are dispensed with and the human animal comes into its own.'

Romana stood up and gave him a hard stare. 'Stokes.'

'I smashed the place to pieces,' he said. 'It's in total ruins.' He indicated Galatea. 'You won't get Miss Bossy Boots talking again, no matter how hard you might try.'

The s.p.a.ce-Cloud Ones' report hit the Darkness with the impact of a sting.

The Glute-screen came back to life, the surface ripples increasing in size and speed as the image re-formed. The Darkness saw s.p.a.ce, the distant stars of Fostrix's hub, the cursed sun of this system; then Barclow wheeled into the field of vision, half obscured by the shadow of mighty Metralubit.

Between them was the satellite, outwardly rather clumsy and unshapely, With silvery p.r.o.ngs and antennae bristling on its surfaces. The electrical lights that normally signalled its activity had winked out, and it could be seen only in silhouette against the arid grey surface of the moon it circled.

The Cloud moved in, penetrating the faulty inspection plate on the sat's topside as it had several times before. Again it found darkness and quiet.

No computer chattered, no display was lit, no information pa.s.sed from Metralubit to Barclow. It was as if the huge, populous planet on which they were to feast was already dead.

This thought shook the Cloud, and the tremor was felt in the Darkness. The hunger it had kept suppressed roared in hurt. But it was only a thought, the Onememory rea.s.sured the Onemind, a fleeting fancy. There was much meat on Metralubit, as always. The planet was crawling with humans, who were even now destroying each other by the thousand. They had seen it on the screens and in the bulletins. They had looked into the minds of the combatants. They believed it.

The s.p.a.ce-Cloud Ones were less certain. Perhaps they had been suspended too long between worlds and in the light to be so trusting.

For the first time in Coming From the Great Void they turned their attentions away from Barclow and on to Metralubit, straining their senses to detect the feverish, violent psychic activities of the dying humans there.

They detected none.

Cadinot stood back as the Strat Team filed through the entry hatch of the command post and up on to the surface. They carried their small, useless pistols awkwardly, and wore befuddled expressions, but none of them were going to doubt the words of Admiral Dolne. He was sensible and kind, and so his commands must be for the best.

Dolne himself was standing against a bulkhead, watching them go by with a look almost of hunger in his eyes. He seemed to be lost in thought, and a pulse in his temple twitched oddly. 'No,' he croaked. 'No, this cannot be.'

Cadinot walked over. 'Admiral, I feel we ought to stop and think about this.

What's the point in throwing away our lives?'

Dolne glared at him murderously. 'Your lives?' he spluttered. 'Your lives are meaningless.' He lurched forward and clapped Cadinot on the shoulders.

'Don't you see? You exist only to feed us. How can your lives-' He broke off and a spasm of shock pa.s.sed through his body, making it shake from head to toe. 'I can't... Cadinot, no ...'

Cadinot packed away, quite terrified by the change in his commander.

The Darkness shuffled through Dolne's mind.

Aged fifty-two. Good-looking, straight-backed, picked for his looks - looks good on the telly. A redoubtable, kindly character. Always does his best, and try to keep things convivial and people happy. Has a wife. The wife is called... the wife is called - The Darkness met a barrier.

He's great chums with General Jafrid. Ever since he first came to Barclow.

Before that, he was in training at a military academy. Put in there by his parents. They were keen he should enter the army, they'd always been...

they'd always been - There was no further memory of the parents.

Everything, stormed the Onemind. Everything under the surface of his mind Everything under the surface of his mind is a lie. is a lie.

The Onememory quivered, and a chill ran through its strands. We have We have been deceived. been deceived.

A ghostly cry went up. There is no meat on Metralubit! There is no meat on Metralubit!

One of the Doctor's joints cracked audibly. He gasped. 'I think my shoulder's been dislocated.'

Fritchoff looked up at him, caught in an agony of indecision. 'The thing is,'

he called, 'if I release you, how would I justify that course ideologically? It's not something I feel is as cut and dried as you'd like me to think. Try to remember that our willingness to expendability as individuals is quite possibly a powerful revolutionary weapon. Capitalists don't have an equivalent framework, only a loose collection of economically arrayed "morals".'

'There's a good chance you'll die too, Fritchoff,' the Doctor called. His face was now streaked with sweat.

'Well, exactly,' said Fritchoff. 'It clinches my point. And I like to think I live in a radically geared relationship to death.'

'You will if I ever get out of here,' the Doctor mumbled.

'What was that?' asked Fritchoff.

'Nothing.' The Doctor, using the limited s.p.a.ce available to him, nodded over to the door. 'If you really want to die I suggest you hang around. I hear footsteps.'

Immediately, Fritchoff scurried behind the Web control panel. From this hiding place he saw General Jafrid and Dekza enter. The General snorted up at the Doctor. 'I never thought your kind would fall so easily. In many ways it is pathetic.'

'What have I done this time?'

Jafrid held up a small monitor device in one front foot. Fritchoff could just glimpse a cl.u.s.ter of small dots, most probably life signs, moving uncertainly forward. 'Dolne is leaving the command post with his last remaining men,'

said Jafrid, 'and advancing, virtually unarmed, across the war zone, through the bodies of the dead. All his computer systems have failed.'

All of them?' The Doctor frowned. 'I'm sure that's the sort of thing I'd find terribly interesting and significant if I wasn't racked with pain.'

'I go now to bestow upon him an honourable death.' Jafrid pulled himself up. 'Once, I am sure, he was an honourable man. Until warmongering creatures like you took him and moulded him to your will.'

'I've never even met him,' the Doctor gasped. His shoulder was wrenched back again.

'It is too late for lies,' snarled the General. He turned his back on the Doctor. 'When I return you will be a ma.s.s of flesh jelly, your bones all broken, your internal organs punctured. It is a fitting death.' He stalked out, Dekza trailing behind.

As soon as they were gone Fritchoff raced out of hiding. Without saying a word he raced forward and started to cut at the strand curled tight about the Doctor's ankle.

'You've changed your tune,' the Doctor hissed down at him.