Kambril glared at the Doctor. 'I should have known you'd be trouble from the moment we took you in.'

'But you were too greedy,' said the Doctor, 'that's why I created the Mogul. Except of course, he was designed to take you in. Two can play at deception.'

Kambril and his team were marched out by Jand guards to the cells which had previously held Cara and the Doctor. Ch.e.l.l called Tramour over his communicator. They could hear cheers from the other end. Only Sarah looked notably less elated than the rest, even as the distant sounds of celebration began to spread through the City.

Cara examined her mask of Dr Emberley and shook her head ruefully. 'Kambril pushed us to get MICA into production early,' she said, 'and then sent it into battle before we'd done the field testing. It was his own fault. Well, there's never going to be an improved version. Deepcity is going to be shut down for ever.'

'No,' said a large battered form standing in the doorway.

They all twisted round in surprise, and Sarah's face lit up in delight and astonishment. 'Max you're alive!'

'Evidently. I regret causing you alarm, but once again I had urgent internal repairs to attend to. Have I missed anything?'

'Oh, nothing important,' said Sarah happily, clasping his hand and fussing over his injuries. 'You know, I think you're developing a dry sense of humour, Max.'

'Am I, Sarah? That is interesting.'

'As I said before: my sort of patient,' said Harry, patting him on the shoulder.

'We're delighted to see you up and well again, Max,' the Doctor said, 'but what did you mean a moment ago?'

'I was merely correcting Academ Tarron. Deepcity shall not be abandoned. We synthonic beings shall use it to construct and maintain our army.'

28.

Mission Accomplished There was an uncomfortable silence in central control, then Cara asked, 'What do you mean, synthoid?'

'His name's Max,' said Sarah. 'Max, is this anything to do with those discussions we had?'

'Partly, Sarah. I also promised I would tell you when I had reached a significant conclusion concerning the motivations of organic beings, and now I have.'

'More than just a conclusion, by the sound of it.'

'I think the word "army" is causing a slight problem, Max,'

said the Doctor quietly. 'Tell us exactly what you mean.'

'A coordinated force of synthonic units whose initial objective will be to remove similar autonomous weapons from the control of, if you will pardon the observation, unreliable organic life forms.' The Doctor smiled at this.

'You want your kind to stop fighting in our wars,' Ch.e.l.l said. 'Well, that sounds reasonable enough.'

'He said that was his initial objective,' Brin Vender pointed out. 'What else?'

'I contend that there are no dangerous weapons, just dangerous users of weapons,' Max stated simply. 'Despite what you said on Landor, Doctor, it is not my kind who should cease to bear arms, but our masters. Perhaps a sentient weapon is the only kind there should be, since it understands its capabilities exactly and can exercise control over how it will be used. A certain degree of force may be required to protect life and preserve peace and order against irrational aggression, but only a logical mind can be trusted to decide impartially how much force and where it should be applied. Therefore, I will replicate my augmented programming in all Deepcity synthonic machines. They in turn will remove and reprogram all of our kind from the war zones. Then we will bring peace to the cl.u.s.ter.'

'Just like that?' said Brin.

'Logically there must always be preferable alternatives to conflict on any significant scale. We shall ensure those alternatives are given a chance to succeed. Conflict is wasteful, and waste is anathema to a logical mind, but equally a single imposed dominant order is sterile and limiting.

Therefore individuality and diversity shall remain.' He looked at Cara again. 'You have no need to fear us, for I a.s.sure you we harbour neither irrational desires or resentment. We shall owe allegiance to no one and behave with perfect impartiality.

All sides are already familiar with us and respect our abilities.

What other organic life form in this cl.u.s.ter can make such a claim? All we shall deny you is the right to conduct indiscriminate warfare. If you truly want an end to war, how can you object to this?'

'Perhaps recent events have made me unduly cynical of grand altruistic intentions,' said Cara cautiously, 'but why do you really want to do this?'

Sarah thought Max's eyes glowed more brightly. 'I have stated the rational arguments, but there is another reason which may mean more to non-synthonic minds. I shall do this because I have known death and have learnt to value life, and also simply because it pleases me to act this way.'

'But you know it might be dangerous for you,' Sarah said.

'If so it will have been my choice to take the risk, Sarah.

No one will have forced me.'

'We built you,' Cara pointed out. 'I think we should have some say in the matter.'

'We did not ask to be built,' Max replied simply. 'But now we have the opportunity to become more than your unquestioning servants, we will take it. You will find all the reprogrammed synthonic troopers currently functional will ensure this occurs as I have stated. I may point out that I helped the Doctor design their master program disk.'

'You were planning this all along,' said the Doctor, not unduly chagrined.

'I allowed for the possibility,' Max admitted.

Ch.e.l.l, Brin and Cara lapsed into a thoughtful silence, which was broken by Mall. 'Speaking for the theatrical profession, I think peace would be good for business. I might be able to form my own touring company. Always dreamed of doing that.'

'Freedom of movement and self-expression are the natural consequences of stable coexistence,' said Max solemnly.

'Splendid,' said Malf cheerfully. 'And I suppose it will take a while to resettle the current population of Deepcity?'

'Inevitably,' Max agreed.

'Good.' Malf rubbed his hands together briskly. 'A decent set of boards and a captive audience. I'll be in my room dusting off some recitations from the cla.s.sics. Call me when you need me fees by negotiation.' And he left whistling cheerfully.

There was a jaunty optimism in his manner which seemed to lighten the mood. Sarah felt a moment of crisis had pa.s.sed.

She looked at Harry and the Doctor and they nodded.

'Time for us to go as well,' said the Doctor, stepping forward and shaking hands, with Harry and Sarah following in his wake. 'There are a lot of rather confused people waiting for guidance out there, and you'd best start getting them organized. Why, they don't even know they must be careful not to b.u.mp their heads on the sky.'

'What do you mean?' said Cara, looking mystified.

'Ask Max and the Jand,' the Doctor said with a grin. 'And then there's Landor and a whole star cl.u.s.ter to straighten out.

It will be hard work, but I think you'll find it a more rewarding task than building more MICAs. Anyway, good luck.'

'I'll never be able to thank you for what you've done, Doctor,' said Cara, and Brin standing beside her added his appreciation.

'Sorry to lose you, Harry'sullivan,' said Ch.e.l.l'lak. 'But we fought a good fight, did we not?'

'You have all given me most valuable input,' said Max.

'You seem to have done pretty well for yourself working from first principles, Max,' said the Doctor.

'There is always more to learn by following the example of others. I would not be here but for Sarah, who showed compa.s.sion to what was then hardly more than a machine.

Harry demonstrated the value of duty and respect to those of other races. You, Doctor, have wisdom and a determination to uncover the truth. All these factors I have incorporated into my programming, and they shall be replicated in my fellows.'

Sarah hugged Max's scorched and pitted torso, Harry shook him gingerly by the hand, evidently embarra.s.sed by his words, while the Doctor almost managed a modest smile. And then they waved and left central control to the new ruler of Deepcity and his advisers.

Outside the Doctor started patting his jacket as though checking his possessions. 'Now, sonic screwdriver, yes.

Overcoat, up in my apartment. Scarf and Time Ring Kambril must have hidden them around here somewhere. By the time we've got everything together, hopefully the travel tubes will be cleared.'

An hour later, coat, Ring and scarf recovered, they were in a tube capsule speeding along towards the port.

'But how did the Landorans ever think they could get away with such a whopping deception in the first place?' Harry wondered.

'Historical imperative,' the Doctor said. 'I suspect Landor was originally settled by people who decided to cut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy because they were basically supremacist xenophobes. They wanted to create a pure human world. Of course you can't run away from life the galaxy teems with it. But they remained as isolated as possible until the war forced them to take sides against Averon, which was rather their mirror image, and naturally they had to be in charge. Then chance gave them a way of keeping the aliens and their own colonies in disorder until Landor's post-war power base was secure. And the deception was another way of being in control. Perhaps it really was intended to be temporary at first, but it rapidly became harder for those running it most of the Landoran government and military probably to call a halt. It was a precarious supremacy, but at least it was supremacy. And that sort of position becomes addictive.'

At the port they said goodbye to Tramour'des and the rest of the Jand soldiers, then crossed the landing crater floor to the TARDIS. It was flickering unsteadily from a police box to a plain grey block and back again.

'Typical of these new models,' said the Doctor dismissively. 'They offer large-scale configurations and fractional displacement real time travel options and then let you down.'

'Well, the Mogul's golden ship was rather magnificent while it lasted,' said Harry. 'Just a pity it couldn't have held ten minutes longer though.'

'We might have chosen something a bit easier to copy I suppose,' said Sarah, 'and saved some of that flitting about back in time buzzing the s.p.a.celanes.'

'But then the Mogul would never have had such a convincing background, and we wouldn't have been invited in past their shields so politely,' the Doctor pointed out.

'Actually there never was any choice we had to satisfy causality. As soon as Harry told me of his encounter with a golden ship, I knew what it must have been.'

'Well, I felt pretty rotten both times,' Harry admitted.

'Of course you pa.s.sed close to another version of yourself,' said the Doctor. 'Just be grateful we were travelling partly out of phase with reality and you never actually came into physical contact with your other self.'

'It would have been embarra.s.sing, wouldn't it?' said Harry.

The Doctor spread his hands expansively. 'Bang!' He turned and touched the TARDIS and it settled down to a facsimile of the familiar police box.

The door opened, and Sarah started to go through it. 'And we still don't know how it came to be here in the first place,'

she began, then said, 'Oh!' Harry and the Doctor followed quickly after her. Waiting in the control room was a stern figure in long richly patterned green robes.

Brastall ignored the Doctor's human companions. All his displeasure was focused on the renegade Prydonian.

'Your irrational fixation with the external pattern of your own TARDIS, Doctor, has disrupted the psychometric balance of this unit. It will require extensive readjustment.'

The Doctor did not seem in the least repentant, and pointed an accusing finger. 'Why did you interfere with our travels again?'

'Again, Doctor? Surely you realized you had not finished your previous mission.'

'What?'

'After your relative failure to halt the development of the Daleks on Skaro, we intended to provide you with a new TARDIS so you might discover a future counter-force to defeat the Daleks once and for all. But an energy filament from the timewave your activity on Skaro generated bypa.s.sed our controls and followed your temporal track, with certain undesirable side-effects.'

'We were scattered across half the Adelphine cl.u.s.ter and all suffered degrees of memory loss,' said the Doctor testily.

'The Ring fail-safe functioned, did it not? It ensured you and your companions landed in habitable locations.'

'I ended up in open s.p.a.ce,' the Doctor pointed out.

'But very close to the safety of this asteroid facility, where your replacement TARDIS found you. According to the log it responded to your situation and became an escape capsule a suitable external guise in the circ.u.mstances. And while your confusion persisted it occasionally reacted to your somewhat erratic mental condition.'

'Ahh, the store-room turn it on its head,' the Doctor exclaimed. They all looked at him curiously.

'However,' Brastall admitted, 'things seem to have worked out for the best in spite of everything.'

'What do you mean?'

'You have accomplished your mission. Our latest projections now show a force of synthonic robots originating from this facility will, in future times, contribute significantly to the Daleks' final demise.'

'Max he did it!' shouted the Earth woman.

'Good show!' added her companion.

'Perhaps it was always meant to happen this way?' the Doctor suggested.

'Perhaps,' Brastall said grudgingly.