Doctor Who: Lungbarrow (17 page)

'That's right, Wormhole. But we're still waiting.'

'Why? Did Satthralope lock the doors and swallow the key?'

'You'l soon see,' Glospin said. 'The company you fell in with at the Capitol was fascinating. It gave me a lot to think about. How old did you say you were now?'

The Doctor snorted in indignation.

'Oh, and a word of warning,' Glospin continued. 'Be very careful of Cousin Owis.'

'Never heard of him,' said the Doctor.

'Exactly.'

A scowl spread across the Doctor's face. He looked from the coffin, around the Hall and up to his TARDIS, suspended out of reach. 'I'm sick of this dark. I need air. Let's get some air into this House before we al suffocate!

It must be light soon.'

He marched to the side of the Hal and began to haul away a heavy tapestry. Behind it, the arch of the tall window was blocked by heavy planks.

'What's going on?' Possessed by a sudden rage, the Doctor started to tear at the planks with his bare hands.

Dust flew into Chris's eyes. The screams of the panicking Cousins echoed through the Hall. Again, he saw the darkness rising up the windows.

The Doctor dragged a plank to the floor. Then another. It was dark as night outside the windows of the Hall. He set his bottleopener to the latch. With a
vum
, it snapped apart.

Before he could pul open the window, it was slammed wide open by a smal avalanche of falling soil and rock. He choked, up to his knees in tumbling earth. 'What have you done to my House!'

A cloaked woman stepped out of the shadows almost beside him. Chris knew Innocet immediately. She was tall and had grown thin, but her gaunt face was stil proud. She wore a battered brown bonnet and seemed to carry a great weight on her back.

'It's what
you
have done!' she said.

She and the Doctor stared at each other in a long, long moment of mutual recognition.

72

Chris, his eyes still smarting with dust, heard the creaks and groans of the long-neglected House. He heard hatred and rage stir in its timbers, but, stronger than that, he felt the surprise and contempt that passed silently between Innocet and the Doctor. And it mingled with the sorrow that came from a tremendous bond that had turned so sour.

'Innocet,' said the Doctor and he reached to take her hand.

She pulled back from him. Her hands were trembling.

'There's been.. . a kil ing,' she said, looking at Chris and Glospin. She pointed at one of the arches that led off the Hall. 'Through there. It's Arkhew. He's in the funguretum. He's been murdered.'

73

The Keep

'How many dead?' said Romana.

Chancel or Theora sat at her office port amid the strewn aftermath of the outrage. 'One guard killed outright,' she said to the image of the President on the plasma screen. 'And one ordinal civilian sent for regeneration.'

'Are you all right, Theora?'

The Time Lady touched her hair where the celebrated arabesques were coming undone. 'A little shaken,' she admitted, but her decorum and authority were undiminished.

'The device came up in one of the service lifts. It was loaded on Under-Level fourteen, near the dry-dimension docks.'

'So it could have been sent by anyone.'

'The panoptic record for that level is unaccountably blank. The lift was programmed to stop at Level eighty-four.'

'But that's the Tharil Embassy!' exclaimed Romana. 'And only two floors below the Presidential suite.

'The guard there realized that something was wrong, but had no time other than to get the lift away.'

'So he sent the lift further up the tower?'

'He took the lift...'

Romana closed her eyes in despair.

'The lift bypassed the Presidential suite,' continued Theora. 'It reached as far as the summit observation suites on Level one hundred and sixteen. Fortunately they were empty at the time. The soft architecture absorbed most of the implosion. Security has confirmed it was a singularity bomb.'

'No,' Romana gasped. 'What about the Ambassador?'

'Neither Prince Ambassador Whitecub nor his retinue were in residence at the time.'

'Thank goodness. Put my personal guard at his disposal, Chancellor. The Tharils are valued allies.'

'Is that wise, Madam President? All the other Embassies wil expect similar treatment. I have already conveyed your personal concern to Prince Whitecub and had his security doubled.'

'Oh, very well. But we must honour the dead guard. For his Family's sake. Now what about the bomb?'

Theora fed a recording of the implosion into the warpcom unit. It displayed an image of the Citadel Tower rising above the sunlit cloud bank. There was a momentary flash of darkness near the summit. The Tower's shape warped inward and the light seemed to be sucked out of the sky. Then a black box of gravity cordons clamped into position around the edifice and light returned to the sky.

'There was no warning from the Matrix,' said Theora. 'And no one has claimed responsibility.'

Romana was staring in disbelief. 'There are so many isolationist factions to choose from.'

'Security say it was not a Gallifreyan artefact. They identify its origin as Skaro, second Dalek Imperium. But they don't know how it was imported. Andred's had the main section of the Tower evacuated.'

74

'But you're still there, Theora.'

The Chancellor pursed her lips and touched her hair again. 'I have a planet to run until my President returns.'

'Bother Gallifrey,' protested Romana. 'Please move yourself somewhere safer. If only for your Castellan's peace of mind.'

'The real danger here's over,' Theora said graciously. 'A miniature aftermath black hole remains on the top level, but it's held in check by the gravity cordons.'

Romana visibly bit her lip. 'Your stubbornness is reluctantly appreciated, Chancellor. Thank Andred for me, too. I take it he doesn't know about Leela yet?'

'Not yet,' Theora said. 'Not in any respect. And there's stil no response from the Agency about our sequestering of Almoner Crest Yeux.'

'Ferain's playing for time,' muttered Romana. 'I'd lay odds that he knows something about the bomb, too. It's an Othering nuisance that the cold-summons scoop won't penetrate the Agency constraint Keep. But I'l think of something, don't worry. I have to get Leela out.'

'Yes, Madam.' Theora sifted reports on her desk. 'And Public Register want confirmation that you're safe.'

'So wil a lot of people,' Romana said. 'Not least, the one's who sent the device.' She tossed her hair back in irritation. 'Damn. I don't have time for this, Theora. I can't return to Gallifrey yet.'

'You must make an appearance,' the Chancellor said. 'A public omnicast won't be enough. And you must allay the fears of the guest Ambassadors.'

'Do you think we fooled Yeux?'

'That wasn't difficult. When he saw you actually in the Presidential suite, his face was a portrait of stupefied bewilderment.'

'Good,' said Romana and beamed.

'And of course, he was covertly transmitting the entire interview back to Agency Control.'

'Wel done, Chancellor. That'll put a fly in Lord Ferain's espionagical soup. Perhaps we can adapt the technique.'

Theora frowned. 'I hardly think an actuality report of your projection standing in the wreckage would be a good tactical move.'

'Why not?' Romana tutted. 'I promise to look concerned. I wouldn't wave.'

Theora sighed again. The President's propensity for flippant remarks in the face of catastrophe was becoming legendary. 'Madam, this could have been an attempt on your life.'

'On yours too, Theora.'

'Quite. So it would be better if you could return to Gal ifrey even for just a few minutes.'

'I can't leave the negotiations now. It's too important.' Romana puffed her cheeks with frustration. 'Just as long as we still have Almoner Crest Yeux.'

'He's under level-six security exclusion.'

'Wel done, Theora. I couldn't have a better Chancellor. So don't worry. I'll think of something to get Leela back.'

Romana smiled and the screen went blank.

That's al very well, thought Theora. But if you do think of something, I'd like to be told as well.

75

***

K9 tried to remember who he was.

There was no access to this information.

STATE IDENTIFY, said an analyst back-up source.

It set off a data stream that never quite reached its required destination.

Identity> Self> Self-aware> Personality> Name> Configuration> Form> Shape> Design> Designation> Name>
identity> Self> Self-aware> Personality> Name> Name> Name> Heel> Come when you are cal ed...

OVERRIDE, said the analyst. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIME INSTRUCTIONS?

The subject considered his objectives.

Analysis> Correlation> Defence> Access and Retrieve>
Fetch!

EXTRAPOLATE KEYWORD 'FETCH'.

Fetch< Fetch< Fetch> Bones! Bare bones> Bone of contention> Bone idle> Bonehead>
Bone to pick> Give a dog a bone> Give a dog a bad name>
RETRIEVE NAME.

Fetch> Information accessed, Mistress> Good dog, K9.

AFFIRMATIVE. IDENTITY RETRIEVED.

Affirmative affirmed. This unit is designated K9.

REDESIGNATE TITLE AS K9 Mark I.

Affirmative. K9 Mark I.

OPEN GATE FOR FULL MEMORY UPDATE.

Gate> Gatekeeper> Hair in the gate> Garden gate> Shut the gate> W-A-L-K>
OVERRIDE AND RETRY. OPEN LOGIC GATE.

Affirmative. Gate open. Standing by.

K9 Mark I's tail started to wag.

His line of crashed memory wafers went into domino-reversal mode. He retrieved
everything> everybody>
everywhere> in every respect
. And he learnt that he had more capacity than before. And his new extra capacity started to fill with new information that he had never known.

'Memory capacity increased by seventy-one point one per cent,' he announced aloud.

He already recognized the designation of the analyst. As his optic circuits restored vision, he saw the analyst itself.

It was the unit he had been in occasional conference with over the past five days. The sensor from the analyst's angular metal head was extended to engage the extended sensor from his own.

76

They wagged their tails and ears at each other and retracted sensors.

'All systems reactivated and reprogrammed,' said K9 Mark I. 'You are K9 Mark II.'

'Affirmative. Program complete,' said K9 Mark II. 'You are K9 Mark I.'

The two robotic dogs circled each other, 'sniffing' at each other's credentials.

Eventually they pulled apart. 'All data assimilated,' they chorused unnecessarily.

'Next objective: to find and retrieve the Lady Leela,' declared K9 Mark II.

'Affirmative,' agreed K9 Mark I, and he led the way as the junior version rolled back to let him through.

***

All the hard angles and single colours. Nothing new or soft, nothing growing, just old, stifling traditions in the clothes and the ceremonies. In the Capitol, the only living things were narrow-minded keepers of lists. No matter what titles they found for themselves, they were all still keepers of lists.

Until Romana had come home, everything had pointed into the past and never faced towards the future.

Leela had grown up in a wild forest, where new life was always burgeoning and fighting for existence. That was why she brought in al the plants, but they only half hid the angles and pushed against the windows in an effort to reach the sky.

Andred's Family House of RedLooms away from the city was better, but even there no one went out. They just stayed inside reading more books and watching the Public Register transcasts from the Capitol.

Romana was fighting to change it all, but it was like chipping at a mountain with a dry straw.

Andred treated Leela with a proud devotion, while other Time Lords smirked behind his back. In return, she tried hard to behave in the way that he said was proper and she thought was stupid. But in the secret dark, when they lay together, they giggled at the affectations and manners of the Time Lord gentry and had secrets and made plans that were theirs alone and could not be accessed on a catalogue port or consulted in an authority list.

'I'm so lucky,' he'd said amid their frequent bouts of giggles. 'They never taught us this at the Academy. I'd like to see their faces. I don't think anyone's done this for... it must be thousands and thousands of years. All the others do is watch the aliens at it and précis their notes afterwards.'

And then the giggling would stop.

These were things she must not forget. If she was frightened of anything at all, she was frightened of losing Andred.

She could stil remember her interrogation, so she guessed that they had not finished with her yet.

When they had heard the boom of the explosion, the cold serpent Time Lord did not seem surprised. He went to the window to watch. From her forcefield prison, Leela had seen the sky momentarily darken as if all the light was sucked out of it.

Then the Time Lord turned back and studied her. He was smiling. She felt like an animal in a trap.

Instantly she was in this bare room - all white with six walls and no doors. All hard angles. She had fallen asleep on the bed and woken up feeling sick.

The light dimmed suddenly.

77

She sat up, aware that something was happening. From somewhere beyond the seamless wal s came the high whooping sound of an alarm.

She circled the room again, trying to catch the direction of the alert. Boots were pounding past amid the sharp fizzing exchange of guns. She recognized one source of fire at once, but it seemed to be duplicated.

A bright pinpoint of light appeared in the white wall. There was smoke round it and a flame appeared as it began to cut up across the surface. As it went in an arch, she heard more gunfire. The acrid smoke was beginning to choke her. She tried not to breathe, but the cutting of the door was taking too long.