Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (9 page)

Mena found the whole idea difficult to grasp. 'I am dying,' she said. 'I know that. My metabolic rate has begun to speed up. Do you mean to say that you could stop the process?'

'Stop it?' cried Hardin. 'We could reverse it! Make you twenty, thirty years younger.'

'Possibly,' interjected Romana.

'Very possibly,' she added, 'after we've made a few tests with living organisms.'

Pangol laughed mirthlessly. 'You want to test a living organism,' he said. 'So do we.' He indicated the Doctor. 'What about him?' Trial by ordeal. It's the ancient Argolin way.'

'You must have lost a lot of litigants over the years,' observed the Doctor.

'At least we don't need any court of appeal on Argolis.'

Much to Romana's horror, Mena and the assembled Argolin thought it the ideal solution. The Doctor would be the guinea-pig in Hardin's test.

'But there isn't room in the laboratory,' objected Hardin. 'The Doctor won't fit into an hourglass.'

'As I understand it,' said Pangol, 'all you need for your process to work are tachyon projectors. Right?'

Hardin nodded.

'Then use the recreation generator. There are twenty-five projectors incorporated into that.'

So it was decided that the Doctor would submit to trial in the generator.

The Doctor, however, was less than enthusiastic about the idea.

Don't worry,' Romana told him.

'Well not much; she added. 'We know the technique works. But I doubt if it will take more than ten or twelve years off your age.'

'You're sure of that?' demanded the Doctor.

'No. But it's probably only a temporary effect anyway,' she replied. 'It's not likely you'll get total tissue regeneration.'

The Argolin were arguing the legal niceties of his case. The Doctor held up his hand. 'Am I correct in assuming that if I survive this ordeal by tachyon generator, then I am deemed to be innocent of the crime of which I am accused?' he asked.

'That is the legal position according to ancient Argolin law,' agreed Mena.

'Good,' said the Doctor. 'Then I volunteer for the test. Indeed, I insist upon it.' He extended his arms to the Argolin Security guides. 'Lead me to the generator.'

Romana took Hardin to one side. 'We ought to record this,' she remarked. 'You're needed here to make sure Pangol programmes the generator computer correctly. I'll go down to the laboratory and switch on the recorder.'

The Argolin had a talent for parades and processions - no doubt the result of their military tradition. They fell into formation around the Doctor, and in slow time, with everyone - except the Doctor-in step, marched down to the Great Hall.

At the door to the recreation generator the Doctor turned to make a speech to his Argolin audience. 'I am innocent of the murder of the Earthling,' he declared. 'The generator will prove it.' He bowed to his audience and shut the door of the generator behind him.

When Romana opened the door of the laboratory, an extraordinary sight met her eyes. The exploding lower vessel of the hourglass had been trapped in an expanding time bubble. The flying sand and shards of glass were frozen in mid air, trapped like flies in amber. They hung there as if caught by the lens of a camera. But when Romana wonderingly touched one of the particles of glass, it disintegrated into dust.

Realizing the significance of what had happened, she turned and ran from the room.

'Doctor!' she cried. 'Don't!'

But she was too late.

Pangol was already activating the recreation generator when Romana reached the Great Hall.

Lights were flashing on the control console. The bubble screen was filled with a kind of grey smoke.

Ignoring Pangol, Romana hit the stop button on the generator's console.

The screen, went dark.

Romana tugged at the door of the generator. At last, with agonizing slowness, it opened.

'Doctor,' she cried, 'are you all right?'

Yes,' said the Doctor. 'I think so. A bit out of breath, of course. And my legs feel strange.' He looked round the circle of anxious faces. 'What's wrong?' he demanded. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'

He put his hand to his face. The skin of his cheeks felt rough and hard. He looked at his hands. The fingers were gnarled and twisted, like oak twigs. The skin on the back of his hands was blotched with brown spots.

He had no mirror. But the exterior of the generator was covered in black, shiny glass. He turned and peered shortsightedly at his reflection.

A bent, wrinkled, white-haired figure stared back at him.

Who was it? It couldn't be him surely. But it was. A terrible caricature of himself stared back at him.

'Is that me?' he asked wonderingly.

'There must have been a hardware malfunction,' said Romana almost in tears.

'But I've got so old.' He continued to stare at his reflection. 'Why should it have this effect? It doesn't make sense.' He frowned desperately, trying to whip his failing memory into life. 'There was something I was going to check when I was in there.'

'What?' asked Romana.

'I can't remember,' he said. Mena patted the Doctor's hand comfortingly.

'You're not well, Doctor,' she said. 'Go and lie down in one of the cabins.'

He's still on trial for murder,' objected Pangol.

'I thought that was his trial!' snapped Romana. 'Trial by ordeal.'

'It was,' replied Pangol. 'And how would you describe the verdict?' He turned to the Security guides. 'Confine them both.'

The guides looked to Mena for confirmation. But she was leaning on Hardin's arm, gasping for breath. At last she nodded.

'Very well. I declare a limitation on them.'

With Romana holding one arm and a Security guide the other the Doctor shuffled slowly towards the cabins.

'What's a limitation?' he asked.

'A simple form of restraint,' explained the guide. 'Quite painless. Unless you do something stupid.'

The Doctor paused and cupped one hand to his ear. Eh?'

'Your movements are proscribed,' said the guide in a louder voice. 'Programmed. It's as if you were on a chain. Except there's no chain.'

The Doctor shook his head blankly. But he found out soon enough. Vargos was waiting for them in the cabin. He carried two ornate silver collars. One he clipped round Romana's neck; the other he fitted onto the Doctor's wrinkled throat.

'You'll find them quite comfortable to wear, so long as you keep within the limits ordained for you,' he explained. 'The collars are programmed to forbid you access to certain parts of the Leisure Hive. For example, you are forbidden to enter the Great Recreation Hall where your blue box stands or the laboratories or the board room or the shuttle station.

Otherwise you are free to roam where you like.

'What happens if we go into a forbidden area?' demanded Romana.

'The collar will contract around your neck. It will squeeze tighter and tighter until it chokes you to death.'

There was a choking sound from the Doctor. They turned to find him tearing at his collar, his face contorted in agony.

The collar also contracts if you attempt to remove it,' remarked Vargos. 'Take your hands away, Doctor.'

The Doctor obeyed and suddenly found he was no longer choking.

'It really is quite simple,' said Vargos. 'Behave yourself and you feel no discomfort. But put one foot outside your prescribed area and you will be unconscious within two minutes; dead in three.'

When Argolin had gone, the Doctor inspected his collar in the mirror. Gingerly he put up his hand to touch it, then stopped. He had caught sight of his own reflection. Good Lord, he thought, that old man is me. It was almost like a regeneration, where quite suddenly you experienced a total physical change. A new body, in fact. And when you first looked in the mirror, you didn't recognize yourself. He regarded his white hair and wrinkled skin with distaste. I don't recognize you, old man, he thought.

'Do you think I look twelve hundred and fifty?' he asked Romana, turning his head this way and that. His neck was as scrawny as an underfed chicken's.

'Be honest,' he said.

'You don't look a day over a thousand,' she replied lightly.

But the Doctor was in no mood for pleasantries. 'We've got to do something. And soon. Because I don't know how long I've got. It's difficult to work out the life-expectancy of a Time Lord in any one body. Still, if looks are anything to go by, I'll be lucky to see the week out in this one.'

'If only we could get you back into the generator and reverse the process.'

'Brilliant,' said the Doctor sourly. 'To get near the generator we've got to get out of these collars first. How do we do that?'

Romana didn't reply. Gently, using one finger, she touched her collar and immediately felt it contract round her neck. No, it wasn't going to be easy.

Brock meanwhile had been investigating the situation at the shuttle service desk. He had been watching queues of holidaymakers trying to get a seat.

'Its a mass exodus,' he reported back to Mena. 'Everyone's leaving, or trying to. And I can't say I blame them. There have been two murders and a nasty accident in one day. It's enough to put anyone off their holiday. And mark my words, once the visitors leave here they'll never come back.'

'I think you may be exaggerating—'

'Do you? Take a look.' Brock switched on the boardroom video screens.

A milling crowd of holidaymakers could be seen fighting for places in the queue for shuttle tickets. There was an air of barely repressed hysteria about the scene.

'Rats leaving a sinking ship. Not,' he went on, 'that I'm criticizing rats. If a ship is sinking, it makes good sense to get off it. And if there is a murderer loose on Argolis, why hang around and run the risk of becoming Victim Number Three?'

'What can we do?' asked Mena.

'Sell Argolis now before the Foamasi get to hear about all this.'

Mena shook her head.

'Sell,' pleaded Brock. 'All you have to do is to sign the contract. Let the Foamasi sort out the problems.'

Mena pointed to the video screen. 'If only we could find some way of restoring their confidence in the Leisure Hive,' she said.

'Give them justice,' suggested Pangol. 'A public trial followed by a public execution. We have caught the murderers. We have them under limitation. Let the visitors see them pay for their crimes with their lives.'

'The Doctor and Romana?' Mena stared at Pangol in horror. 'But he survived trial by ordeal. And we have no evidence at all against her.'

He pointed to the struggling mass of holidaymakers. 'They don't care about evidence. What they want is instant justice. Then the rats will feel safe.

'In any case,' he went on, 'who's going to miss an alien Doctor from some tinpot planet?'

When Hardin entered the cabin where the Doctor and Romana were, he found the former trying to remove his limitation collar.

'Try this key,' said Hardin. 'I borrowed it from the Security Office while all the guides were busy trying to control the crowds round the shuttle desk.'

He quickly released the other two from their collars.

'Look,' he explained. 'I need your help. I think we could save Mena-stop the cellular degeneration-if we can use the full power of the generator—'

'Ever thought why they call it that?' remarked the Doctor sitting up with some difficulty.

'What?'

The generator. The recreation generator.'

Hardin looked at the aged, white-haired figure squatting on the floor. Better humour the old chap, he thought.

No,' he replied kindly. 'Why do they call it that?'

'Recreation.'

'Recreation?' repeated Hardin. He looked for I elucidation to Romana. She shrugged.

'It means creating things anew.'

'What things?'

'New things,' said the Doctor vaguely. 'New creations.'

Hardin nodded. Humour him, he thought. Poor old fellow, his brain's gone.

'It doesn't matter,' said the Doctor. 'Just bear the thought in mind.'

So this is what it's like being old, he reflected. Everyone thinks you are a candidate for the funny farm just because you have a few white hairs and are a bit forgetful now and again.

Brock was pushing to close the deal with Mena. Her strength was failing fast, but she was Heresiarch of Argolis, and as such her agreement was required before the contract could be signed. She peered at the document, desperately trying to concentrate.

'The Foamasi are offering excellent terms,' he declared. 'Considering that as a Leisure Planet Argolis isn't exactly amongst the top money-spinners in the galaxy.'

'It means the end of our planet.'

'Which is finished anyway.'

'The Foamasi expect us to pack our bags and become galactic gypsies?'

'
Rich
galactic gypsies, Mena.'

'Suppose we stay?'

Brock sighed and shook his head. 'Don't you understand?' he said. 'You don't have that kind of choice. In a few months' time you'll be faced with the same problem. You'll still have to leave because the Hive is crumbling and you can't afford to repair it. What's more, you won't have thirty trillion galactic credits to cushion the shock.'

'There is an alternative,' said Mena. 'When the day comes, we can open the airlocks, and together the last of the Argolin will walk out onto the surface of our planet for the last time.'

Brock stared at her incredulously. 'You mean you'd all rather commit suicide than go off and live on some other planet. I don't understand you people. Tell me, what is so special about this place? The atmosphere's poisonous; the landscape's just sand and cinders, and not much of that. What is the attraction?'

'This is Argolis,' replied Mena.

Meanwhile Pangol had been studying the contract. It was stamped with a curious seal consisting of interlocking hexagons.

'This isn't an official Foamasi Government document!' he announced.

'Did I say it was?' demanded Brock. 'If you must know, this is a private deal. The offer is being made by a group of concerned Foamasi business creatures.'

Pangol pointed out the name on the contract. 'The West Lodge?'