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The Well-Mannered War - Chapter Ten
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Explanations
The Glute-screen shimmered and went blank.
Immediately the Darkness shivered and convulsed, and a moment of panic rushed through the Onemind. A clamorous chittering spread in a wave' throughout the central cavity. The Caring stilled it, releasing a warm stream of fluid particles to soothe the constricted carrier vessels. Then the Onememory set to work, piecing together the seconds leading up to the cessation and trying to discern a reason. The imaging nets behind the screen were in perfect order, glistening with the spoor-juice of the telepath species that had given the Darkness its talents, and the remote reports from the surface of Barclow - from both the human source and the dissociated Cloud - were coming through clear and strong.
Perhaps, a section of the Onemind suggested, it is the humans' communications that have failed them.
Another put in, Yes. The path of electrical technology is unreliable.
The Onememory replied, This is possible. The Space-Cloud Ones are still in floatation near the army's east satellite. The Onememory suggests they investigate its systems and report.
The Onememory is wise, replied the Onemind. We shall send the Space-Cloud Ones to the satellite. It connected with the Space-Cloud Ones and relayed the order.
Fritchoff edged very slowly through the control centre, even more slowly
through the connecting passageway beyond, and entered the Chamber of Death at a
pace that a snail could have disparaged. As he moved he pressed himself flat
with his back against the walls, going by the assumption that if he kept out of
the Chelonians' way - and they had their feet tied at present with the war -
they would forget to kill him, at least for the moment. Fortunately nobody
looked up from their business, and he was able to stay alive, if
teeth-chatteringly terrified, all the way to where the Doctor was suspended, his
extremities spreadeagled in the slowly stretching Web. General Jafrid, his shell
perpetually rumbling, was at the forefront of the watching group. His old eyes
were angled up, and Fritchoff saw moisture in them. He was wary of reaching
conclusions about non-verbal signals sent by such an unfamiliar being; even so,
an air of regret seemed to hang in the air in much the same way as the Doctor
was doing.
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'There's still time,' the Doctor called down. His arms and legs were pulled out to what looked like their fullest extent. 'Call up your chum the Admiral and make friends.'
Jafrid sighed. 'You will soon be unable to speak, or to express anything but your agony,' he said. 'Would it not be better to make your last words full of repentance?'
'I've nothing to repent,' said the Doctor. 'Nothing that concerns you, anyway.'
An aide shuffled into the chamber, thankfully ignoring Fritchoff, and crashed to attention before the General. 'Sir, something strange is happening. The sensornet says that the computer guidance of all the humans' systems has ceased to function.'
'Strange?' Jafrid perked up. 'But this is excellent news. How did we manage that?'
The aide looked down. 'That's just it, sir. We don't think we did. Their guidance beams just suddenly stopped registering.'
Jafrid heaved himself up. 'Interesting. Perhaps it's some sort of trick. I shall come to have a look.' He shuffled off towards the control centre, again ignoring Fritchoff. He called behind him, 'I shall not forget you, Doctor. I shall return to witness your death.'
'Thank you,' the Doctor called after him. 'I'm touched to be in your thoughts.'
Jafrid's assistant followed him out, brushing right past Fritchoff The edge of his shell actually brushed Fritchoff's arm. But again, Fritchoff was ignored.
As soon as the chamber was empty of Chelonians, the Doctor hissed down, 'I'm very pleased to see you. Good job I saved you earlier, wasn't it?' He wiggled his fingers. 'This is getting quite uncomfortable. Be a good chap and cut me down, will you?'
Fritchoff moved over curiously to the control panel located in front of the
Web. 'They want to kill you, do they?'
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'Well spotted.' The Doctor winced. 'The pressure's building. Quickly, cut me down, before they come back.'
Fritchoff folded his arms. 'I'm not sure whether I should.'
'What?' The Doctor stared down at him, incredulous.
'Well,' said Fritchoffm, 'when it's placed in a historical as well as a socio-economic context, their action in putting you up there is actually worthy of my support.'
'I beg your pardon?'
Fritchoff relished the chance of explaining his cleverness. 'By dint of standing against the oppressive regime that has destroyed all chances of a peaceful settlement, the Chelonians are engaging in intrinsically socially productive activity. Your death is a token of their belief system, which as a non-aligned rebel I feel to be the most logical and correct one at present.'
The Doctor yelped as one of the strands tightened around his neck. 'Fritchoff,' he called, 'if you don't cut me down this planet won't stand a chance against the real enemy.'
'There you go again,' said Fritchoff 'You criticize anything that prevents you, as a bourgeois male, from exercising an automatic right to power, characterizing it as an enemy in order to increase an area of mythic threat in the meaning structures of those around you.'
The Doctor groaned and let his head fall back.
For six hours Cadinot had been hunched over his station, giving commands he
had never expected to give, watching displays that were normally empty fill up
with the blips that signified losses of men and equipment. Even now it was hard
to remember that this was not a drill, and every few minutes he shivered with
realization of the carnage going on in the war zone. The Chelonians had deployed
their forces with aplomb, selecting sheltered ground sites for missile attacks
and following through with barrage fire from their saucer fleet. The post's
defences were stretched to their ultimate capacity as wave after wave of
Chelonian firepower rained down. The strategy would be effective in the end,
Cadinot knew. They could hold out only an hour or two longer. It would take only
one plasma missile to strike the Strat Room, and the war for Barclow would be
all but over.
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He was dragged from these musings by an urgent sequence of clicks and bleeps originating from the satellite link display in front of him. He watched, startled, as one by one the indicators that charted the satellite's computer guidance snapped out like stars covered by dawn.
'Admiral!' he called over his shoulder. 'The east sat's playing up again.' He punched in an auto-check program on the link. 'All our guidance lines have snapped out!'
Dolne's natural quietness had increased over the last few hours. He had been content to sit back in his command chair, apparently lost in thought and unconcerned with directing the progress of the team. But now he was crouched forward; his face contorted, as if in silent communion to some god. When he spoke it was in an unfamiliarly gravelly voice, empty of much of his usual inflection. 'Cadinot,' he said, dragging himself over. 'The time has come.'
The Strat Room had gone unnaturally quiet as the computers went off-line. The team's heads turned to watch the Admiral as he tottered forward. He seemed to have gained about ten years, thought Cadinot. 'Are you all right, sir?'
'The time has come,' Dolne went on, 'to leave this place and go to the surface.'
'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.
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'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 glass 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 nobody 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.'
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'Then there's nobody outside the dome,' said Romana. She pressed her ear to the glass 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 glass 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.'
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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?'
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K9 turned from the window. 'My study of the plant life and associated 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 greenspaces. 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?'
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'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 Space-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 space, 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 prongs 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 passed from Metralubit to
Barclow. It was as if the huge, populous planet on which they were to feast was
already dead.
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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 reassured 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 Space-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.
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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 passed 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 is a lie.
The Onememory quivered, and a chill ran through its strands. We have been deceived.
A ghostly cry went up. There is no meat on Metralubit!
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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.
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'Nothing.' The Doctor, using the limited space 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 cluster 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.
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'It is too late for lies,' snarled the General. He turned his back on the Doctor. 'When I return you will be a mass 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.
'Of course,' Fritchoff whispered back. He stopped cutting to explain. 'I can't support the concept of honour in war. It's a construct of cultural forces.'
'Never mind that, just carry on sawing,' the Doctor urged.
Romana stood in the doorway of the Femdroids' master control room and gave a long, heartfelt sigh. It seemed that not a single piece of their equipment had survived Stokes's onslaught, and clumps of fizzing, sparking circuitry lay on all sides, along with shattered glass, chunks of metal and toppled panels.
K9 made a swift survey of the room. 'Component failure estimated at sixty-eight per cent, Mistress.'
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Romana threw Stokes an accusing look. 'Did you have to be so thorough?'
'It did the job.' He pushed past her and gestured to the wall screen, on which they could see Harmock talking to some of the dome's workers, the immobile Femdroids in the background. 'There, you see. If I'd reined my energy in, we might all be dead by now. They were shooting at us, remember.'
Romana considered. 'In fact, they were shooting at me and K9. You and Harmock were just going to be reconditioned. We were the threat.'
'Affirmative,' said K9. 'Perhaps because we were the only ones to begin to perceive the illusion.'
Stokes righted a chair that had fallen in a comer and sat in it. 'Pure conjecture. It won't get you any further. I say we should just put this down as being one of the great, unexplained mysteries of the universe, and clear out. We could use your TARDIS for that.' He made the suggestion with a casualness that unnerved Romana. 'We're too far out from anywhere important to make the journey any other way, I should think. After all, it took me millions of years.' He clapped his podgy hands together. 'What I'd give to see a good, old-fashioned transmat pad.'
Romana clicked her fingers. 'What did you just say?'
'Transmat pad,' said Stokes again. 'Why, have you got one? There are none about here - it's shockingly primitive
Romana paced around the room, her mind piecing together recent events. 'They
have a Fastspace link to Barclow, but no transmat.'
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'I pointed this out earlier, Mistress,' said K9.
'Yes, yes.' She stopped in front of a large, glass-fronted unit that Stokes had all but ripped apart. 'And it's a ridiculous anomaly. They work on the same principle.' She turned to Stokes and pointed a long finger at him. 'And you come from a place with both. Tell me, how does a Fastspace link work?'
'What?' Stokes screwed up his face. 'How am I expected to know that? I've no interest in technicalities. As long as it switches on and it does what I want it to do I don't care how it works.'
'But you've seen enough Fastspace engines? You could picture one in your mind?'
'Just about, I suppose.' Stokes looked uncomfortable. 'Where is this leading to?'
'Duplication from mental image manipulation,' suggested K9 cryptically.
Stokes kicked his casing lightly. 'What does that mean?'
'K9,' said Romana. 'Retrieve data from our last encounter with Mr Stokes, on the Rock of Judgement. Compare the technological specifications of this room to the specifications of that environment.'
K9 whirred. 'Cross-indexing.'
Stokes stood up. 'Do you mean what I think you mean?'
She looked him in the eye. 'When you drifted here, Stokes, I don't think it was the Femdroids that found you but their creators.'
'Mistress,' said K9 brightly. 'Correlation is almost total. The Fastspace technology used here was adapted from Mr Stokes's memories of similar systems from his own homeplace. He also has knowledge of detailed computer simulations such as the one used to create the world outside the dome.'
'No, I don't,' Stokes protested. 'I don't understand the first thing about
computers.'
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'But the image of them was in your mind,' said Romana. 'You'd come into contact with them. The Creators teased out the image from your mind and from it learnt the rudiments.'
Stokes shook his head firmly. 'I only came here three years ago. The stuff you're talking about is hundreds of years old.'
'Suggest your lifecycle and mental state were conditioned,' said K9. 'You were returned to a cryogenic state and only revived recently.'
'Probably for quick reference.' Romana tapped him playfully on the shoulder. 'The Femdroids wanted you up and about so they could tap your brain in an emergency.'
Stokes sank back down in his chair and put his hands up to his temples. 'I have the most appalling headache.' Then a smile started to play about his lips. 'You mean to say, all that's happened here centres around me?'
'Not all.' Romana glanced at the row of deactivated Killer Femdroids in their berths. 'I don't know how they created such sophisticated machine intelligences. Anybody can make an android, but the brains inside are staggeringly advanced. I can't think how you'd ever have met something as clever as Galatea.'
K9 beeped insistently and shot forward. 'Mistress. Mr Stokes and I spent two hours and fourteen minutes together during the affair of the Xais mutant.'
Stokes laughed openly. 'You mean, you are the blueprint for Galatea?'
'It is very likely,' said K9.
'Hmm.' Stokes raised a finger. 'But I don't see any time-travel boxes like
your TARDIS.'
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'Duplication of the TARDIS is impossible,' K9 said smugly. 'It would take a human many years of study to understand the least of its workings.'
Romana's attention was once more taken up by the screen's view of Harmock talking to the citizens. 'So, the Creators made the Femdroids, and the link to Barclow. I can see why they would want to improve the lives of their people. But then why the simulation?'
Stokes waved a hand. 'I hardly think anybody is going to just pop up and explain it all, dear.'
The words were barely out of his mouth when there came an electronic whistling noise, and the air in the centre of the room shimmered to form a hologram. Galatea stood before them again.
'I leave this message,' she said coolly, 'in the hope it shall never be needed...'
Fritchoff marvelled at the Doctor's recovery from the agony of the Web. In short order, he had reset his own shoulder joint, sneaked from the base under the very noses of the few remaining Chelonians, and stolen an unmanned patrol vehicle. They were now rolling through the war zone, which had returned to its previous soothing silence, the forward screen leading them at a safe distance behind General Jafrid's larger armoured vehicle.
The Doctor piloted the craft with the ease of familiarity, changing gears and
traction settings without paying much attention as he ran through their position
in his own mind. 'The flies are going to come in soon and start their feast.
We've no allies, and pretty soon no enemies either, when this lot have torn each
other apart. My friends Romana and K9 are far away on Metralubit, and I'm not
sure if I could find the TARDIS again if I tried.'
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Fritchoff wasn't certain about the details of the speech but he caught the general drift. 'It's a nihilistic outlook, and one with which I have to agree. What we're seeing is the inevitable, irrecoverable end of a non-revolutionized society.'
'I thought the revolution was inevitable?' asked the Doctor.
'There may be certain extenuating circumstances, especially when, as here, there is an invasion or subjugation by a hostile power.' He slumped back, which was difficult in the cramped surroundings. 'We must both accept our deaths, and accept that whatever personal hopes and fears we may have had in our lives have been made irrelevant.'
The Doctor gave a cynical laugh and nudging him with a bony elbow. 'I don't know about that, Fritchoff. You might still get your revolution yet.'
The hologram expanded, replacing Galatea with a shimmering network of
unfamiliarly arranged stars. Romana moved closer, feeling that she could reach
out and touch the myriad points of light and snuff them out like candles.
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'The Fostrix galaxy, Mistress,' said K9.
Stokes edged nearer. 'I hope this is going to be an apology as well as an explanation.'
Galatea's voice came from the centre of the image as the representation shifted, narrowing down on the enormous cerise sphere of Metralubit. 'Our world was settled by pure-strain human colonists centuries ago, and has developed into a thriving, economically self-sufficient society of several billion.'
'She should have been a travel agent,' muttered Stokes. The image shifted to show a view of Metron similar to the one they had seen from the window of Harmock's study. But this city, although markedly similar in design principles and in its general layout, with curving towers and transparent travel tubeways, was dirtier; and the people moving around between the buildings were more varied, more hurried. More real, thought Romana.
Galatea's voice went on. 'We had developed a limited spacefaring capacity. So it was that our scientists were able to intercept a stray space capsule that wandered into our ambit. Inside we found a human from a far distant time.'
The picture now showed a team of white-coated scientists prising open a metallic coffin to reveal Stokes, who was in perfect condition after millennia of sleep. He was wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown, and clutching a teddy bear to his chest. His duffel bag lay at his feet. 'I don't remember that at all,' said Stokes as he watched his own eyes opening. 'I could have sworn it was the Femdroids who revived me. I recall the moment distinctly.'
'Hypno-conditioning,' whispered Romana.
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'The human, Stokes, came from an age of great forward strides in technology. His mind was rich with information, which our scientists drew out over a long period.' The picture changed to show Stokes, still in his dressing gown, attached to a recording device by electrodes fixed to his temples. His lips were moving rapidly although his eyes were unfocused. 'After several years, much was learnt. The pace of Metralubitan technological development was increased greatly. Many uses were found for this knowledge: hydroponic rearing of vegetation, Fastspace travel, the invention of conditioning machines.'
'I never knew there was so much in my head,' said Stokes.
'But the greatest innovation was the creation of mobile artificial intelligences. Stokes had witnessed the repair of one such intelligence and his memory of the interior components provided for the creation of the Femdroids.' The hologram now showed a production line of the beautiful women, doll-like faces being positioned over positronic brain cases.
Romana was pleased to have her theory confirmed. 'They're just like you, K9.'
'Negative,' said K9 emphatically. 'The component array is entirely
mismatched, a rough approximation of this unit's complexity.'
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'They're a damn sight better looking,' said Stokes. 'If I was the Doctor I'd pop your brain into one of those dollies right away.'
K9 swivelled about, outraged. 'The Doctor Master has stated he is very fond of my outer aspect.'
'Of course,' said Romana soothingly. 'We like you just the way you are.'
Galatea continued. 'Each Femdroid was assigned to a particular task in administration, thus lightening the menial load of the organics. We do not feel tiredness or boredom and are thus more efficient.' They saw a quick-cutting montage of scenes: Femdroids assisting in all areas of life, lifting crates, making beverages, walking through the corridors of the Parliament Dome (corridors that were genuinely crowded). The image settled on Liris, seen at work in the computer room. 'This unit, our senior researcher, was assigned to investigate the history of the Metralubit colony. She discovered something sickening. The periodic collapses in the great Metralubitan civilizations - and the huge amounts of deaths - were not because of earthquakes, internal dissent, civil strife, et cetera, as had been thought.' They saw a graphic display similar to the one Romana had created. 'About every two thousand years the people of Metralubit have been harvested, eaten as carrion by a nomadic race of tiny intelligent insectoids. The truth lay dormant in the folklore and culture of our world, but an organic would never have seen it.'
'Insects? What's all this about now?' protested Stokes.
'Mistress,' put in K9, 'recall insect life on Barclow.'
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Romana remembered the tiny bite to her cheek. She rubbed at it thoughtfully. 'Yes, I do.'
'Liris took her information to me,' said the hologram. 'We acted according to our utilitarian programming - the maximum possible happiness for the maximum number of the population - and formulated a plan to trap and destroy the Hive. We knew that, alone, our organic masters were helpless prey; they had proved that by falling to the previous five harvests. What we had discovered could not be made public, as the humans would panic and make mistakes.'
Stokes nudged K9 with the toe of his shoe. 'They've certainly inherited your superiority complex.'
'To my reasoning, their course of action is merely logical,' K9 retorted.
Galatea returned to the forefront of the image. She seemed to be addressing them directly, only her shimmering outline indicating that she wasn't standing right there. 'We constructed a massive transmat engine using information from the mind of Mr Stokes. One night as the organics slept we sent them all away.'
'They did what?' Stokes was incredulous. 'Those girls think big, don't they?'
'All but a handful of the organics were sent to the verdant planet Regus V in the next system but two. Food supplies are plentiful there, and Femdroids were dispatched to organize them and keep them in effective social units. On Regus V the citizens were protected from the inevitable return of the Hive.'
'I'm beginning to understand,' said Romana.
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'I'm glad somebody is,' Stokes grumbled. 'I'm going to wind this thing back and watch it all over again. I'm sure I've missed something.'
'We continued to run the administration in the dome,' said Galatea. They saw the familiar scenes of Harmock and the overalled citizens tramping about the corridors. 'We used our conditioning machines on the humans here, together with a complex computer simulation, to enhance the illusion that Metralubit remained a densely populated world. It was essential to use real humans in the dome, particularly the leading political figures, to lend verisimilitude to the trap.'
'I wish she'd say why,' said Stokes.
'We knew the Hive would return imminently. Our illusion was meant for them. Liris's studies had told us how they used psychic interference to worsen conflict situations. So we provided one, in the shape of the war over Barclow. The Chelonians were preparing to depart from the Metra system at the time of the Bechet Treaty's signing. We prevented this by regularly conditioning their leader, General Jafrid, on his visits to the dome for peace summits.'
'So that's why the Chelonians were apparently so keen to take Barclow as their own,' said Stokes.
Galatea went on. 'When the Hive picked up our transmissions about the war,
they would use it to create much death in order to feed.' The image showed the
war zone of Barclow. 'This was our lure. Using the simulation we intended to
create images of devastation on Metralubit and increase their confidence. We
would simulate the release of the long-awaited Phibbs Report to lend credibility
to these actions. Then, as the Hive readied itself to descend, we would send a
conditioning impulse to Barclow, uniting the remaining soldiers there on both
sides to launch a missile attack.' An animated display showed missiles streaking
from Barclow towards the Hive, shown as a louring black triangle in space. 'The
Hive would resist by coming into low orbit and releasing parts of itself to
swarm down to the surface. At which point a zodium bomb we have placed in the
core of Barclow would be released, destroying them.'
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26
'And the remaining soldiers,' said Romana bitterly. 'Obviously they would be expendable.'
'Maximum happiness for the maximum number,' said K9 primly. 'The Femdroids' plan is a masterpiece of logical reasoning extrapolated into action. Any short-term solution devised by organics would almost certainly fail and lead to more loss of life.'
'Listen,' said Stokes. 'Without us, there wouldn't be any of you. So don't give yourself airs.'
'Thousands of years and millions of deaths,' countered K9. 'A cycle broken by machine intelligence.'
'Stop bickering,' said Romana.
'The Hive would not expect our retaliation,' said Galatea, 'as the mean time between their harvests - two thousand years - does not account for the increase in technology provided by intercultural encounters.'
'There we are,' said Stokes proudly. 'It's actually me who's the cornerstone of this business. Without my feeble human brain they'd all be done for.'
'After the Hive's destruction,' said Galatea, 'we would release the
dome-dwellers to repopulate Metralubit with the citizens returned from Regus V.'
She frowned. 'This message is programmed only to be played in the event of a
total mechanical failure in the dome before the completion of the project. If
the scenario has failed, then I am afraid you will die. The Hive will be made
angry by the discovery of our deception. They will swarm in great numbers and
consume you, alive. They prefer their meat to be dead and decaying, but they
have been known to bring down their prey in extreme circumstances.' She bowed
her head. 'Goodbye.' The hologram clicked out.
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'Oh my God!' Stokes shrieked. He looked around the smashed control room. 'Oh my God, what have I done? We're all going to die!' He started to shake. 'The insects must be coming here - they started the war up again. When they see it's all a fake, the election and everything, they'll swarm and eat us all.'
'This is the unproductive organic reaction known as panic,' said K9. 'It was precisely to avoid such condign action that the Femdroids concealed their plan from us.'
Romana was considering what action to take, and K9 wasn't helping. 'If you're as clever as you keep saying, then think of a way to get us out of this!' She had never raised her voice to K9 before, she realized.
K9 flashed his eyescreen at her. 'Please do not displace your guilt on to me, Mistress.'
His tone was hurt, and she dropped to her knees and pressed her head against his. 'I'm sorry, K9. But we have made a pretty big mistake, haven't we?'
'Affirmative, Mistress,' he said quietly. 'Advise return to TARDIS and depart.'
'That's a bloody good idea,' said Stokes. 'We can use the shuttle we came in and get back to Barclow.' He pointed to the door. 'Come on, let's go.'
Romana caught his arm. 'That Hive will be near, out in space between the two
worlds. We might run straight into them.'
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'And we might slip on a bar of soap in the shower tomorrow morning and break our necks,' retorted Stokes. 'If there's a chance we should take it, don't you think?' His mood was more sombre and practical than usual, the affected veneer of his personality stripped away.
'I never thought I'd hear you talk like that,' she told him.
He looked over his shoulder at the wall screen and its I view of the empty city. 'I really thought I had it all,' he I muttered. 'The people here loved me, and they adored my work. You don't know how much it meant to me. All these years I've been the only person who believed in what I did. And then I came here, and it really meant something to people. Finally, I was breaking through.' He shook an angry fist at the space where Galatea had stood. 'Except it didn't, did it? My bloody career still doesn't actually mean a thing. It was all a sham.' He looked upwards, shouting at the ceiling. 'All a bloody trick!' He looked tearful.
Romana tugged his sleeve. 'Never mind that. We must go.'
But he carried on, his voice directed upwards. 'And I intend to stay alive, because there are certain people I want to have a word with about this!'
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The valley lay in the exact centre of the war zone. From their vantage point high on a crag, the Doctor and Fritchoff observed preparations for the final battle.
Moving in on their side was General Jafrid, shuffling forward under a watchful armed escort. He was flanked by Chelonian troopers, four in each group, who fanned out in a semicircle to cover all positions. They moved at incredible speed for such large creatures, their limbs sawing back and forth through the air like the arms of a rowing team. Behind them were their tanks, parked in a line with the typical neatness of the species.
From the other side of the valley came the humans - shambling, slow, uncertain, their weapons small and stubby, their flimsy clothes of no protection against the harsh wind and driving rain. Bringing up the rear of their party was Admiral Dolne, who moved with agonizing slowness.
'Dolne knows he's been defeated,' Fritchoff told the Doctor. 'It's heartening to see a lackey of imperialist cant at the moment of raised consciousness.'
The Doctor shook his head. 'I rather think he's been taken over. Admiral
Dolne is dead. That's just a walking corpse.' He pointed above their heads. 'And
there's my confirmation.'
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Fritchoff squinted. He could just discern the hovering mass of the Cloud, suspended halfway between the sides, readying itself to descend on the flesh that would soon be behind. The flies were buzzing and circling frantically, with an anger they had not displayed before.
His attention was taken by Jafrid, who had been passed a loud-hailer device by one of his aides. 'Dolne,' his voice boomed, rolling about the sides of the valley, 'in all the years of our acquaintance, I never knew how much you truly hated me. Before you die, know this. I am a Chelonian, a warrior and a patriot. But I bear you no ill. I cannot bring myself to.' He gestured with a front foot. 'It is you who have brought this on yourself, as surely as if you had put a gun to your own head. Did our friendship truly mean nothing to you?'
There was a strange silence, pregnant with possibilities. Fritchoff felt that the situation was salvageable, that it was still possible for them all simply to walk away unharmed.
Dolne staggered forward. His voice carried strangely, echoing around the valley.
'Kill them,' he said. 'Kill them all.'
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The Chelonians raised their hand weapons; the humans raised their feeble pistols; the cloud of flies buzzed themselves into even greater excitement.
And then the Doctor stood up, and shouted, 'Hold on a second!'
All heads in the valley turned to face him.
'Look up there,' the Doctor cried, pointing at the cloud. 'Look. The flies!'
'Oh, not again.' Jafrid mumbled. 'I thought you were in the Web of Death!'
The Doctor bounded down the side of the crag effortlessly, talking as he did,
his deep tones resonating with authority and command. 'Forget the Web of Death.
Forget this squalid little battle. Too many people have died today already.' He
turned his head from humans to Chelonians. It seemed impossible to Fritchoff
that nobody had opened fire; it was as if the sheer force of his personality
made him bullet-proof 'Look at each other. You were friends. You still are
friends. Wouldn't you rather stay alive? If you kill each other now the only
ones who'll be happy are them.' He pointed up, and his audience followed his
finger. The black cloud had descended, and was hovering only a few feet above
the gathered heads. The Doctor crossed over to it. 'Hello. You seem to be losing
your temper.'
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The cloud spoke in its dreadful, dragging way. 'Time Lord... we are hungry... and we have been... deceived...' It swooped lower.
To Fritchoff's relief, the human soldiers and Chelonian troopers stopped looking at each other and started to look at the cloud with fear and incomprehension.
'You're pretty powerless up there, aren't you?' the Doctor goaded it. 'You want us to cut each other down: If we won't it leaves you rather in a pickle.' He waved mockingly. 'Go away. Lunch is off'
'We shall... consume you all...' the cloud raged. It formed itself into a threatening sharply pointed V-shape and reared up.
'By Mif,' General Jafrid breathed. 'He was right all along.' He turned to his troops. 'Fire at will!'
The troopers obeyed, lancing the Cloud with bright pink bursts of energy. The
valley echoed and re-echoed to the lacerating whizz of the blasts.
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Fritchoff saw one of the younger human officers raise his pistol. 'Come on!' the man shouted to his fellows. 'That's the real enemy!' The humans joined in, blazing away with as much enthusiasm but to lesser effect. He looked for Dolne, but there was no sign of him.
The Doctor threw himself out of range, his features grim. The cloud showed little signs of weakening, in spite of all the firepower directed against it. It was maddened, its buzz now raised to a fearsome level.
'We shall... consume you... Doctor...' it managed to say.
With the last vestige of its energy it swooped down on him.