Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (11 page)

Pangol switched on the power supply. He pressed the start button and felt the generator surge into life.

As it happened, at that moment the Doctor was sitting on a stool in the laboratory, trying to get his breath back. 'There's no doubt about,' he panted. 'All this rushing about takes it out of you when you get to be twelve hundred or so.'

'Do you think Romana's all right?' asked Hardin.

'She knows what she's doing,' replied the Doctor. 'At least I hope she does. Anyway, if she doesn't, she'll make a very attractive old lady.'

The door of the laboratory slid noiselessly open. There was a curious clicking noise behind them. The Doctor and Hardin leapt to their feet in alarm at the creature that entered.

It was something like a Terran lizard in shape, but tall as a man and covered with dark green scales. Two clawed hands gesticulated frantically, while from the throat of the creature came a succession of clicking and whistling noises.

'What the devil is it?' demanded Hardin,

'I don't know,' replied Romana, emerging from behind the creature and closing the door behind her. 'But at least he's a friend. He just saved my life. He got me out of the generator just before Pangol started it up.'

The Doctor frowned. 'You mean he was already in the image chamber of the generator when you got inside?'

Romana nodded.

'I wonder what our friend was doing there,' he mused.

The creature began to make a succession of whistling and clicking noises.

Is he in pain?' asked Romana.

'I think he's just trying to communicate.'

'Where's he from?' demanded Hardin. 'What is he?'

'I don't care what he is,' declared Romana, patting a scaly shoulder. 'He saved my life, or at least saved me from becoming a very old lady.' She produced a small object which she handed to the Doctor. 'And he found that in the Image Chamber behind the second baryon shield.'

The creature whistled and clicked and gesticulated while the Doctor inspected the object. It turned out to be a transparent box containing a complex of slim gold leaves with a mirror on one side. The Doctor studies the box for some time. Then he handed it back to Romana. 'What is it?' he asked.

A cell duplicator, of course,' she said. 'You ought to know that.'

Yes,' replied the Doctor. 'Of course I should. He sighed. 'It's just that I forget lately.'

The creature seized the Doctor by the arm and drew him over to the video screen. He pointed to the screen and then to the Doctor.

I wish I knew what you wanted, my friend, said the Doctor.

'Perhaps he wants to show us something on the screen,' suggested Hardin.

He switched on the video screen.

But the shots of the Great Recreation Hall were obviously not what the creature wanted. He whistled and clicked briefly and shook his head.

It was only when Hardin switched them through to the boardroom that the creature broke into a cacophany of clicks and whistles. He kept pointing to the screen. Pangol and Brock could be seen arguing, while Mena lay back weakly in her chair.

'Maybe he wants to talk to Mena,' said Romana.

The Doctor shook his head, 'It beats me,' he said.

Obviously despairing of making himself understood, the creature took the Doctor by the hand and pulled him towards the. door.

'Come on!' cried the Doctor.

'Where to?' asked Hardin.

'Ask our scaly friend.'

The creature led the Doctor out of the laboratory, along the corridor and into the elevator. The other two followed closely on his heels. The creature took the elevator up three levels and then led them down another corridor.

'This leads to the boardroom,' complained Hardin.

The Doctor nodded. He was too out of breath to speak.

Hardin held Romana back for a moment. 'Are you sure this is a good idea?' he whispered. 'How do you know we can trust this lizard?'

'He saved my life,' said Romana. 'That's good enough for me.'

 

'Did he?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you don't actually know what he was doing in the Image Chamber of the generator in the first place. Do you?'

Before Romana could formulate a reply the creature flung open the boardroom door.

Pangol and Brock looked up, startled.

The creature moved with extraordinary speed. Before anyone else had time to react he launched himself into the attack. He seized the Terran accountant, grappled him to the floor, and-to everyone's horror - forced one clawlike hand down his throat.

Brock's screams were swiftly stifled.

The whole attack was so swift, so merciless, that no one had a chance to go to Brock's aid. Nor was anyone prepared for what happened next.

With a triumphant cacophany of whistles and clicks the creature held something aloft. Something small and oval in shape. Something he had removed from Brock's throat. Something which he proceeded to swallow himself.

The whistles and clicks suddenly died.

A voice said: 'Now at last I can speak to you.'

It was the creature.

Romana knelt beside the Terran accountant, who lay half-unconscious on the floor. 'Are you all right?' she asked.

His lips moved, but no words came.

'Mr Brock.'

Then something very strange happened. When Brock tried to speak, all that emerged was a series of whistles and clicks.

'It's all done by voice synthesizer,' explained the creature. 'Without his, our friend here cannot make himself understood.'

Mena sounded bewildered, 'Are you saying that Mr Brock has some sort of speech defect?' she asked.

'This isn't the real Brock,' replied the creature. With one knee on the chest of the recumbent Terran, he was tugging at the skin at the base of the neck. 'You'll find that the real Brock is alive and well and still living on Terra. In fact, he never left there.'

'But that's impossible.'

'Check, if you don't believe me.'

'I don't understand,' protested Mena. 'We've had dealings with Brock for the past ten years. I tell you that is him.'

There was a tearing sound.

'This,' said the creature, 'is the real face of the thing that you thought was Brock.'

With a gesture the creature ripped away the face of the accountant. The face came away like a mask. Underneath they could see green scaly skin and the features of something that resembled a lizard. '

'These flesh suits are amazing. Accurate to a micron. Believe me, even Brock's own mother wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between , the real man and what inhabited this suit!'

The creature deftly skinned the recumbent figure, removing the humanoid envelope that had formed such an impenetrable disguise for the green scaly creature beneath.

'On my planet flesh suits were banned years ago,' observed the creature. He fastened the false Brock's clawlike hands together with what looked like a strip of double-sided adhesive tape. 'Of course, there are still craftsmen who, for a price, will make one of these suits for you. But you will have to pay through the nose for it.'

Casually he rolled up the Brock skin, like a pair of old overalls.

Romana touched the skin. It still felt warm and soft as if it were made from incredibly fine suede.

'Originally these suits were designed for the professional assassins' market,' he went on. 'The idea was that, dressed in the guise of your victim's mother or best friend or even wife, the assassin could get close enough to make the kill. Our guild of assassins were furious when the Government banned these suits.

That was in the bad old days,' he added.

'What planet?' asked the Doctor. 'What Government?'

The creature produced a small circular plaque. 'Those are my credentials,' he said. 'I am an agent from the Foamasi Bureau of Investigation.'

'Foamasi!' cried Pangol. 'You mean that you are a Foamasi?' He clenched his fists and glared at the creature. 'Your race destroyed this planet,' he shouted furiously.

'Your race destroyed my planet,' snapped the Foamasi agent.

For a moment it looked as if the two might continue the war there and then.

Romana attempted to defuse the situation. She was also curious. She asked Pangol. 'Didn't you know he was a Foamasi?'

'Of course not,' he replied. 'I never saw one before.'

She turned to the Foamasi agent. 'What about you?'

He shrugged his narrow shoulders. 'No Foamasi ever met an Argolin before.'

Even though she was an experienced Time traveller and had journeyed vast distances through Time and Space, Romana found it difficult to absorb the information. 'Do you mean to say,' she enquired, 'that the Argolin and the Foamasi virtually wiped each other out and yet they never even met? They never saw each other face to face?'

'Why should they?' demanded Pangol. 'What do you expect in time of war-a gilt-edged invitation? An official introduction? Shake hands and come out fighting? The great Theron taught us that victory goes to him who is the swiftest and the most ruthless.'

'Shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Is that it?' she said.

Pangol folded his arms across his chest and refused to reply.

'I think it's pathetic!' declared Romana.

The Doctor found old wars a boring and sometimes dangerous subject for conversation. 'What happened to the Foamasi?' he asked, changing the subject.

The agent explained that after the Argolin War ('We call it the Foamasi War,' snapped Pangol) few of his race were left alive. Moreover, due to a cruel trick of Fate, most of those who did survive were criminals imprisoned in the largest underground prison on Foamas.

'So we were left,' he continued, 'with the remains of a society which was split between law and order on the one hand - represented by the surviving prison officers-and the criminals on the other. They came to be known as the White and the Black Foamasi.'

He went on to tell them how the Whites, though fewer in number, were more united than the Blacks, who were constantly rent by internal disputes. All the great Foamasi criminal clans, or 'families' as they were called, were represented amongst the survivors. In the past the clans had always devoted much of their time trying to eliminate their rivals. Their surviving brethren therefore continued the tradition. Ancient vendettas were pursued; old scores were settled; clan fought clan even more savagely than before. In time the clans themselves fragmented. They split up into smaller and smaller units, and thus could be picked off by the White Foamasi.

Some years ago the Foamasi Bureau of Investigation had been formed, with the object of breaking the power of the surviving clans-of which only two remained-the Twin Suns and the West Lodge. 'This contract carries the West Lodge crest,' said Mena.

'So does our friend,' observed the creature, turning the false Brock round so that everyone could see the design of interlocking hexagrams tattooed on his shoulder.

'He wanted to buy our planet,' declared Pangol.

The creature nodded. 'That's their usual approach. The West Lodge have been buying several planets lately.'

'What's wrong with buying planets?' asked Romana.

'Nothing,' agreed the agent. 'Providing purchaser and vendor agree a price. And providing the sale is according to galactic law. But the curious thing is that the West Lodge have never had to complete a contract yet.'

'What do you mean?'

It seemed that the West Lodge's purchases always followed the same pattern. Once they had located a suitable planet, they began discreet negotiations. If in the course of these they met any opposition, their opponents were apt to die in mysterious circumstances. There would also be a sudden spate of accidents. Power surges, computer failures, minor epidemics, defences against natural disasters unaccountably breached. Never any major calamities, but just enough to persuade the vendor that his planet was a less than desirable place to live.

With a great show of good faith the West Lodge would then make the first down-payment. Often a very generous sum. Say, three trillion galactic credits. Which the by now disillusioned and often desperate population would eagerly accept. Then, just as the second payment fell due, the planet would suffer some major catastrophe, like a multiple comet strike or a space-born plague. It was never the same catastrophe: on each occasion a different disaster would befall. But whatever it was it wiped out the population.

Since they had made the down-payment in good faith and since it was demonstrably no fault of theirs that they were unable to complete the contract, under galactic law the West Lodge were entitled to claim the planet. Purchase by default, it was called.

'All legal and above board.'

'I don't think I would call murdering the entire population of a planet legal,' observed the Doctor.

'Neither would I,' agreed the creature. 'But apparently the computer which drew up the law never considered that possibility. Probably it had never heard of the Black Foamasi.'

'Do you mean that is what this creature'- Mena pointed to the false Brock - 'would have done here?'

'Why should they treat Argolis differently from any other planet?' asked the Foamasi agent. 'I believe you had already had some accidents and sudden deaths. And you would have had more. Until no holidaymaker in his senses would want to come here at all. The offer from the West Lodge would still be on the table, and by now it would begin to look more and more generous. You would receive the down-payment - and that would be the last of the Argolin.'

Mena looked round the boardroom. 'Where's Klout?' she asked. 'I haven't seen him lately.'

'Klout?'

She pointed to the false Brock. 'His assistant. A lawyer. He never seemed to talk.'

'Couldn't, I expect,' remarked the Foamasi.

'Without giving himself away. Probably didn't have a voice synthesizer. Anyway he wouldn't need it. Klout will have been the sabotage expert and assassin. The West Lodge usually start by sending in a two-man team. The heavy brigade move in later.

'I'll order my men to find him.'

From under one of the large scales on his chest he took what looked like a tiny bone flute. He put it to his lips and blew a note. It made no sound.