Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (10 page)

Brock nodded. 'That is the title of their organization. Does it matter what they call themselves?'

But Pangol still wasn't satisfied. 'What do they propose to do with our planet?' He flourished the document. 'They don't explain that here.'

^They don't have to, Pangol. That's because what you're holding is a contract to purchase - not an application for building permission. And don't ask me what they propose to build either,' continued Brock. 'Because I don't know.'

He drew a deep breath. Don't get angry, he told himself. Keep your temper. It's just Pangol behaving like a typical Argolin.

'Look,' he said. 'Let's be honest. Forgetting suicide for the moment, you have two choices as I see it-bankruptcy or the Foamasi. In your position I know which I'd choose.'

'There is another way,' declared Pangol. 'We can build the new Argolis.'

The corridor between the cabins was clear. There was no one about. The holidaymakers were all in the First Observation Hall, while all available Security guides were trying to preserve some semblance of order. It wasn't easy.

No one therefore raised the alarm when Hardin and the two prisoners emerged from the cabin. Hardin and Romana each took the Doctor by an arm and helped him down the corridor.

He suddenly paused.

'Where are we going?'

'To the generator,' said Romana.

'It was your idea, Doctor,' said Hardin.

The Doctor nodded and tried to look as if he knew what he planned to do once he got there. The truth was he didn't. He recalled that he had had some plan back there in the cabin. But what it was he couldn't for the life of him remember.

'Don't worry,' he told the others. 'It'll come back to me.'

Brock was unimpressed by Pangol's rhetoric. The new Argolis,' he sneered. 'What's that?'

'It is waiting to be born.'

'I'm delighted to hear it,' declared the Terran. hope you'll call me when it happens. In fact, I wouldn't miss it for the worlds - because it will need a real miracle to bring it about.

'Forgive me for reminding all you nice people,' he went on, 'but this is a sterile planet. You are a sterile race. There hasn't been an Argolin born here, or anywhere else for that matter, since the War. And that was forty years ago.'

'You're wrong, Mr Brock.'

'About the War?'

Pangol smiled. 'I'm not over forty,' he said. 'I'm twenty-five. How do you explain that?'

Night on Argolis was perhaps even more spectacular than the day. At night the 'jewels of Argolis', as some long-forgotten poet had christened them - the seven Argolin moons — reflected light from the suns. The rainbow-hued atmosphere of the planet, the ever-changing kaleidoscope of colours, was transmuted into tones of blue and silver and grey as the moonlight was refracted by the dust clouds.

Argolis, thought Romana, was one of the most beautiful planets she had ever seen, particularly if you saw it from behind glass. She, Hardin and the Doctor had paused in the shadow of the wall of the Great Recreation Hall, and she was staring upwards through the dome at the night sky. The Doctor meanwhile was leaning against the wall panting for breath. He was discovering that adventure was hard on the lungs and the knees at his age. The other two waited for him to recover.

'In a minute,' he gasped. 'Just give me a minute. I'll be all right.'

They waited.

Facts,' he said at last. 'Fact: the Argolin have devoted years to research and vast sums of money they can ill afford to the study of tachyonics. Yet apparently all they have got out of it is a cabinet of illusions, which may be ingenious but is hardly worth all that expenditure.'

They nodded.

'Fact: the Argolin are sterile. Fact: there are no children on Argolis.'

He stood gasping for breath, like a fish out of water.

'Well?' demanded Romana. 'What's your conclusion?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'I can't remember,' he confessed. 'I've forgotten.' Then his eyes lit up. 'No, I haven't. The tachyon recreation generator must represent some attempt on the part of the Argolin to solve their population problem.'

But Romana remained unconvinced. 'A machine won't give them children. No machine can create life from scratch.'

'You're forgetting the significance of the name.'

'What name?' asked Romana.

'Recreation?' suggested Hardin.

'Right,' agreed the Doctor. 'The recreation generator. It must have some capacity for cellular reduplication.'

'Cloning?'

'No. The tachyon particle is too unstable.'

'Then what?'

The Doctor sighed and closed his eyes. 'I don't know,' he said at last. 'I've forgotten.' He sounded weary. The effort of concentration had proved too much for him.

'We had better find out then,' she said.

Hardin volunteered for the task of going into the generator, and Romana was tempted to let him do it

But she knew that in the end there was only one of them who could afford the risk.

'It has to be me,' she said. 'Unfortunately.'

'Why?' asked Hardin.

' Because the Doctor's too—'

'Say it,' snapped the Doctor. 'Too old!'

'If there's another tachyon surge while you're inside, you'd never survive it.'

The Doctor mumbled grumpily to himself, but he did not contradict her.

'What about me?' demanded Hardin.

'You're a Terran.'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Because you've only a limited life span. You can't afford to age five hundred years in a few minutes.'

'Can you?' asked Hardin. 'Yes,' said Romana. 'Unfortunately.'

What will I look like when I'm 650, she wondered? Unconsciously she stroked her long blonde hair. Will it go white? Will I be bald?

The Doctor pointed to the generator. 'Guards,' he said. They looked round and saw that two Argolin Security guides had taken up positions by the generator.

Brock was confused. He looked to Mena for assistance. 'I don't understand,' he said. 'If the Argolin have been sterile for forty years, yet Pangol's only twenty-five...

'Isn't he a pure Argolin?' he asked.

Pangol laughed. 'I'm the purest Argolin of them all,' he declared. Brock again appealed to Mena. 'Was he adopted?'

But she did not reply.

'I always thought he was your child, yours and Morix's.'

Mena would not meet his eyes.

'I am the first of the new Argolin,' declared Pangol proudly. He drew himself to his full height. ' I am born the of the Generator.'

The Security guides were obviously on duty for the next few hours. They did not move from the generator.

'What we need,' said Hardin, 'is a diversion.'

The Doctor, who had been showing signs of dozing off whilst leaning against the wall, suddenly jerked awake. 'Did I ever tell you what I thought the generator was really designed for?' he asked.

'You couldn't remember,' said Romana.

'Oh.'

The Doctor closed his eyes and began to snore.

Just at that moment two Science guides appeared. Their job was to carry out daily maintenance on the generator.

'That does it,' said Romana, not without a certain relief in her voice. I'll never get past the four of them.'

The Doctor woke up.' What we need, he said, is a diversion. Come on.'

And before the others could stop him he started to walk across to the maintenance crew. He waved to them. 'Hello,' he called. 'Could I have a word?'

'He's gone mad,' whispered Hardin. 'He must have done. Senile dementia, that's what it is. It attects people when they get old.'

They watched the Doctor's rather arthritic progress across the Great Recreation Hall. 'What's he going to do?'

'Heaven knows,' replied Romana. 'But no matter what it is-come on!'

Together she and the Terran scientist began to make their way, unseen, towards the generator.

The Security guides observed the Doctor's slow approach with some suspicion. Obviously he was no longer under official limitation, otherwise he would have worn a programmed collar. Nevertheless it didn't pay to get careless. They decided to keep an eye on him.

The two-man maintenance crew were busy running a routine computer check. The Doctor paused to chat to them. The Security guides could not hear what he was saying, but one of the men shook his head and pointed to the computer. The Doctor took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and began to scrawl equations on the top of the control console. The maintenance men studied them, scratched their heads and began to argue with him.

Meanwhile at Romana's urging, Hardin emerged from the shadows and began to stroll across the Great Hall in the direction of the generator.

Approached from two different directions at once the Security guides were distracted. When one of the maintenance men suddenly moaned and collapsed onto the floor, they left their posts and came over to see if they could help.

'Poor chap,' said the Doctor sympathetically, I tried to introduce him to the computer language they use on Hermes-4a. Must have been too much for him. Overheated his brain, I expect.'

While the Security guides were trying to revive the unconscious maintenance man, Romana was able to slip unobserved inside the generator.

Pangol smiled at Brock. His eyes glittered like chips of glass. 'I think it's time, my fat Terran friend,' he said that you learned something of the forbidden secrets of the Argolin.'

He put an arm round the accountant's broad shoulders. Surprised at the unexpected physical contact with someone from a race as noted for their reserve as the Argolin were, Brock recoiled. Pangol laughed. 'Don't worry, my friend,' he continued, 'you won't be expected to undergo any painful initiation ceremonies.'

'Pangol, is this wise?' asked Mena.

Pangol ignored her.

'After the Foamasi War,' he said, 'the Argolin knew they were doomed to extinction within a generation. Unless they could find some other way of reproducing themselves. As you know, virtually the only Argolin survivors of the War were all members of the crew of Morix's hyperspace war galley.'

'I was communications officer,' said Mena.

'The scientific officer aboard
The Rage of Theron -
that was the name of Morix's ship-was called Verdrix,' went on Pangol. 'He devoted himself to the problem of the survival of our race. His answer was the generator.'

'What happened to him?' asked Brock.

'He died,' replied Mena. 'He was the first of the Argolin to age.'

'But he had completed the generator,' said Pangol. 'So twenty-six years ago the Argolin were at last ready for the great experiment.'

Mena spoke. Her voice was feeble but clear. Her eyes looked inwards, fixed only on the past. 'None of us will ever forget that day. For the first time it seemed as if a great dark cloud was lifting from us. It seemed as if once again the voice of our young would be heard on Argolis.'

'The Argolin,' explained Pangol, 'and there were many more of them then than there are today, the Argolin donated living cells from their own bodies. Thousands of cells. They placed them in the generator. The aim was to clone them. The cloned cells would then be incubated, fed on nutrients, until they became embryos and ultimately foetuses.'

Brock looked puzzled. ' Where are these clones?' he asked. 'What happened to them?'

Pangol did not reply at first. Then he said: 'The tachyon is an inherently unstable particle. At that time no one realized how unstable it was.'

'What about the cloning?' demanded Brock.

'There were many failures.'

'I don't understand.' Brock turned to Mena. 'What does he mean?'

Mena sighed. 'Poor, dead, disfigured creatures.'

'Mutants most of them, I imagine,' said Pangol. 'Few survived birth. Those that did were usually better off dead.'

'What about you, Pangol?'

'I was the sole survivor,' replied the young Argolin. 'The generator made me. The generator gave birth to me. I am the Child of the Generator.'

As he spoke, he switched the boardroom video screens to the Great Recreation Hall. All cameras covered the shining black bulk of the generator. One of them picked up an all-too-familiar figure. Bent, white haired, the Doctor could be seen at the computer control console.

Pangol reacted immediately.

'What's he doing there?' he cried. He pressed the alarm button and ran from the boardroom.

When the alarm sounded in the Great Recreation Hall, Hardin half dragged the Doctor away from the generator.

'But Romana's in there,' protested the Doctor.

'If the Argolin see us hanging around, they'll figure that out for themselves,' snapped Hardin.

Whether it was the logic of his argument or the fact that for one terrible moment he could not remember who Romana was, the Doctor allowed Hardin to lead him over to the elevator which took them down to the laboratory. It was fortunate that he did so-because just as the elevator doors closed behind them, Pangol, followed by a group of Security guides, entered the Hall.

On the order from Pangol the guides split up to search every corner of the Great Hall. 'Find them!' he cried. 'The Doctor. The girl. Hardin. I want them found.'

Afraid that the Doctor might have sabotaged the computer of the generator, Pangol went over to check it for himself. He punched out his instructions. On the diagnostic panel flashed the words: SECURITY. STATUS UP-DATE.

Pangol waited. 'Did you see anyone go into the generator?' he asked the maintenance man.

'No, sir.'

'All the same someone did get inside.' He pointed to the panel. On it appeared the words: INTRUDERS. INTRUDERS. INTRUDERS.

Some of the Security guides were about to open the door of the generator, when Pangol stopped them.

'I know who's in there,' he said. 'It seems a pity to disturb him. No, let him have his fun. And I think we ought to have a little, too'

Pangol busied himself adjusting the various settings on the generator. In spite of what had happened to him the last time he had entered the generator, when he had emerged five hundred years older, the Doctor had gone back inside. He had survived the first visit. But Pangol determined to make quite sure that he wouldn't survive his second. Pangol doubted if even the Doctor's remarkable constitution could withstand ageing a further two thousand years. Still they would soon see.