Chris floundered. 'Look... Wel , I mean... Oh, h.e.l.l. We saw Quences murdered.'

'Thank you.'

'What for?'

'You didn't say sorry.'

'Oh. You don't seem surprised.'

'About Quences? No. I don't think anyone round here would be surprised, despite that visual display downstairs in the Hal . Did you see who the murderer was?'

'Not clearly. It was an elderly man. About one metre seventy. Quite vigorous though. He wore black and he had longish swept-back white hair.'

The Doctor was silent.

95.Chris couldn't see his expression, so he continued, 'He stabbed Quences with a sort of dagger with two parallel blades. Arkhew recognized him, but he didn't say a name.'

'Or wasn't allowed to,' said the Doctor.

'Quences seemed to recognize the murderer as well. Just before he was stabbed. If only Arkhew had said. And now he's dead.'

'Maybe the kil er got to him too.'

'Maybe.'

The Doctor sighed deeply. 'How's your head now?'

'Fine. It's cleared.'

'Good. Then go and take another look at Arkhew.'

There was a sudden burst of light beyond the curtain. The Doctor drew back the heavy material and looked out.

The lamps along the corridor had lit themselves.

'Candleday,' he said. 'And the coast is clear too.'

'What are you going to do?'

'Me?' The Doctor smiled with a grim determination. 'I'm going to talk daggers to Satthralope.'

He sauntered off along the pa.s.sage, whistling his little two-note tune as he went.

96.

Chapter Seventeen.

Have You Seen the m.u.f.fin Man?

The wordless protest started on the high-benches and quickly spread down through the lower amphicircles to the Panopticon floor.

To any observer on the Public Register network, the silence would appear to mark a time of contemplation or remembrance. In the great drum-shaped Council Hall of the Time Lord Citadel, it was deafening.

Chancel or Theorasdavoramilonithene was delivering her report to the High Council on investigations into the bomb outrage, when the thoughts began to project across the chamber. It was the Arcalian claque, always ready to stir trouble, who started it.

Where is she? Where is she?

The thought chant was taken up by Councillors of the minor Dromeian and Cerulean Chapters on the opposite galleries and on the Patrexean circle lower in.

Theora tried to continue, but she was drowned out. She glared up from the floor around the taciturn ranks of unmoving Time Lords above her. Councillors and Cardinals alike. The weight of their thought-chorus almost floored her. On the Prydonian circle, among those on whose support she had reckoned to count, many sat with lowered heads, neither attacking nor defending. That abstinence was more d.a.m.ning than either active stance.

Gold Usher, the Guardian of the Chamber, who should have been regulating the debate, also lowered his head; so impartial as to take no side at all.

Chancel ery guards gathered on the Panopticon entrance ramp, muttering among themselves about whether to intervene.

The protest continued and Theora sank to her knees under its weight. 'My Lords,' she struggled to call out loud against the uproar in her head. 'My Lords. . . the President is engaged in negotiations of momentous consideration.'

'Who with?' a single voice shouted out.

'Her Tharil astrologer,' shouted another wag.

'Her hair stylist,' cal ed a third.

'She's opening an emba.s.sy for the Daleks,' sneered an Arcalian Councillor.

There were shocked cries of 'Never!' and 'Shame!'

'But only,' he added, 'if the Amba.s.sador's the right colour!'

Some laughter from the high-benches.

'My honourable Lords!' protested Theora. 'You insult the President's integrity. She is working tirelessly to further Gallifrey's policy towards the other worlds with whom we share the Universe...'

'Dragging us down,' someone shouted.

'And ... and she will deliver her report to the High Council in the appropriate time.'

There was a moment's silence.

From somewhere on the Patrexean circle, a quiet voice said, 'It's an insult.'

The entire Panopticon erupted in shouting.

97.The Chancellor, focus of the protestations, shut her mind and walked from the Chamber with as much dignity as she could maintain.

Lord Ferain, Director of Allegiance to the Celestial Intervention Agency, flicked off the plasma image of today's Panopticon proceedings. He took down a datacore from its rack.

An Alternative History of Skaro: The Daleks without Davros His own study of the most strategically dynamic race in the Cosmos. He inserted the core into an invisible socket between the arms of a compa.s.s set on his office wall. He turned it four times. His own study of the most strategically dynamic race in the Cosmos. He inserted the core into an invisible socket between the arms of a compa.s.s set on his office wall. He turned it four times.

A new plasma screen appeared in the air. 'Is it time?' said the grey-helmeted guard on the screen.

'Yes, Commander. It is time. We move immediately.'

The garden shimmered. Dorothee and Leela were encircled by light. Blues and greens in dabs and strokes that seemed to move on gauzes around them. The light and colour had texture which, in places, coalesced into shapes that were both defined and insubstantial. An impression of things. The thought of things. Clouds of grey and green, moving like the sky reflected on deep water.

'Where is this?' whispered Leela, and Dorothee shook her head.

'Unreal,' she said. 'Like a painting.' The air was soft and soothing here. She caught the heady perfume of jasmine and buddleia. Her senses, so often closed against cruelty and harshness, opened to the stream of sensation.

From the Agency building, they and the K9s had been directly transmatted into an airy room high enough to overlook the Gothic towers and turrets of the Gallifreyan Capitol. An officiously formal secretary had asked them to wait there for the President. Only moments after her departure, the solid fact of the room dissolved in a welter of light.

There was no sky above them. The surface of the lake rose up into the haze. On it were strewn green-white-pink ideas like rafts of waterlilies. Between them on the deeper surface were the dark reflected shapes of towering trees. Somewhere there were pan pipes playing.

They walked forward across the gra.s.sy bank, pushing aside a green curtain of rustling leaves like brush strokes that hung from not even the idea of a tree.

Ahead of them, rising out of the willow curtains, was a grey-white bridge that overarched the green-blue-white water.

A young woman in a flowery dress and wide-brimmed straw hat with red ribbons stood on the bridge.

'It's Romana,' said Leela.

Romana waved. 'It's lovely, isn't it?' She started down the bridge and came through the drifting impressions of willows to meet them. 'h.e.l.lo again, Ace. Or is it Dorothee now?'

'Dorothee. I've had enough of Ace.'

Romana raised an eyebrow. 'I really must apologize again to both of you for the way you've been treated,' she said. 'It was an appalling security error. You see, your transduction beam from Paris was hijacked. Certain elements in the Celestial Intervention Agency are to blame. That's something else I'm going to have to deal severely with. You know that I'm President now.'

'I remember,' said Dorothee. 'Where's my bike?'

98.'Safe, thank goodness. It eventual y materialized in the Presidential Suite, only you weren't on it. But I gather all your shopping is still intact.'

President Romana turned to Leela. Dorothee thought she seemed almost too concerned. 'And Leela, you are unharmed, aren't you?'

Leela smiled with surprise. 'Of course, I am al right. But your enemies have black hearts, Romana. You should crush them. They are not worthy of you.'

'Yes, well ...' Romana looked fl.u.s.tered. 'Well, that's a relief. Um, I first met Dorothee when we were in E-s.p.a.ce fighting the Great Vampire. Just before I came back to Gal ifrey.' She stooped and looked from one to the other.

'You two have been introduced properly, haven't you?'

'Not exactly,' said Leela. She turned to Dorothee. 'I am Leela. You are a brave fighter.'

Dorothee smiled. 'I'm a good fighter. I don't know about brave. I'm Dorothee.'

'You realize that both of you have travelled with the Doctor,' said Romana.

'You're joking,' said Dorothee. Immediately she looked at the Lady Leela in a new light. 'Not my one? Which one?

G.o.d, the old b.u.g.g.e.r's a dark horse, isn't he?'

'I only know one Doctor,' said Leela. 'But I knew there must be more if he was a Time Lord. Al I get from him these days are notes apologizing for not having visited me.'

'From what I hear that could be any of them,' admitted Dorothee.

'I have a treat,' said Romana, who looked extremely satisfied with the encounter over which she was presiding.

'This way.'

They started to stroll along the edge of the lake, warmed by the reflection of the sunlight in the water. Time was lazy here. Dorothee closed her eyes and breathed in the stillness of the honeyed air.

Romana pushed her hat back on to her shoulders and said, 'What do you think of my garden?'

'Impressive,' said Dorothee. 'Anything's better than the Tuileries or on La Grande Jatte on a Sunday.'

They climbed up on to the bridge and paused to gaze out over the lake. Something like an emerald dragonfly flitted over the lily pads.

'It is beautiful here,' said Leela. 'But it is not real.'

'Not exactly,' Romana said dreamily. 'It was a gift from the Chairman of Argolis. It's a four-dimensional artform that they've just come up with at the Leisure Hive. It's proved very successful with the tourists. You can create an artistic concept like a painting and then actual y go inside it. I'm having it installed for public use in the Capitol.'

'But I've seen this place before,' said Dorothee.

Romana beamed proudly. 'I hoped you'd recognize it. I created this garden from the works of Claude Monet. The Doctor and I saw some of his paintings when we were in Paris.'

'My mum had a calendar once...'

'I hoped it would make you feel at home.'

'Thanks. That's erm... thoughtful.'

Romana turned to Leela. 'Dorothee travelled with the seventh Doctor. Yours was the fourth.'

Leela frowned. 'That's sad. He has died so many times. He must be so ancient.'

99.[image]

'That's a bigger bone of contention than you know,' said Romana.