ORIGINAL SIN.

by Andy Lane.

Acknowledgements

Round up the usual suspects Chris, Tina, Molly, Craig, Liz, Ben, Jim, Justin and Gus, with special mentions to Mark ('An excellent read . . . a real contrast to All-Consuming Fire All-Consuming Fire') Benoy, Sarah L. ('Have you considered seeking professional, medical, chemical or other help?') Winters and Andrew ('Don't quibble grammar with a psycho') Martin. And to Rebecca Levene, for trusting me enough to let me abandon the plot and make this book up as I was going along. I promise it won't happen again.

'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned [ . . . ]

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?'

W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming The Second Coming 'We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure and by riot; we will sing of the multicoloured, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervour of a.r.s.enals and shipyards blazing with violent elec-tric moons . . .

Emilio Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, The Manifesto of Futurism The Manifesto of Futurism Prologue Prologue A cold wind blew orange dust across the landing strip and into Homeless Forsaken's stalked eyes. He blinked slowly.

'I'm dying,' he hissed, surprised.

'Not if I can help it,' Bernice said, but she knew that it was too late. His sluglike Hith body was turning grey and the mucus that coated his skin was drying out as she watched. The laser blast had caught him just above the base of the vestigial sh.e.l.l on his tail, damaging him beyond even the legendary Hith capacity for survival.

'I'm dying,' Homeless Forsaken repeated, this time in resignation. 'Bernice, there's something I need to ask you . . . '

Bernice knelt beside him, listening to him talk. He spoke for a few minutes, then his voice abruptly stopped. Bernice ran a hand over the moist skin between his eyestalks, checking for a pulse, but it was too late.

She heard tracks churning up the plastic surface of the strip behind her.

If there was one thing that Bernice had learned about during her time with the Doctor, it was death. She had seen too much of it. She had come to recognize the cold brush of its wing as it pa.s.sed her by and selected some friend, colleague or innocent bystander. This time it had taken Homeless Forsaken Betrayed And Alone, but it could so easily have been her.

Next time, perhaps.

She ran a finger around the base of one of his stalked eyes. Apart from a bubble of blue blood at the corner of his mouth he could have been asleep.

'Don't move!'

She flinched at the harsh, amplified Oolian voice.

'Get up slowly, hands behind your head.'

'You didn't have to kill him,' she shouted, obeying the shouted instructions.

Her voice echoed off the hangars and the slab sides of rusted manipulator robots.

'Take five steps backwards.'

'I said you didn't '

' Do it! Do it! ' '

She stumbled over the uneven plastic as she backed away. With a rush of feet, two winged and mech-suited Oolians rushed past her and grabbed the Hith warrior's head.

'Turn around!'

1.

She stayed where she was, watching as the Oolians hauled her friend away.

His columnar body left a single furrow in the dust. The sight looked strangely like two sparrows fighting over a worm, and she laughed a short, harsh laugh.

'I said said ' '

'Yeah. I heard.'

She turned slowly, and found herself face to face with Karvellis. The Oolian militia commander had thrown her helmet back across her shoulders, and she was carrying a weapon whose barrel still glowed red from the single shot that had brought Homeless Forsaken down. Her beaked face reminded Bernice of a dodo.

The tracked militia tank behind her had clipped part of a hangar on its way round the corner. She gestured towards it with one suited wing. 'In the back,'

she snarled. 'Now!'

Bernice gazed levelly at her, and nodded towards the weapon. 'If you didn't outnumber and outgun me,' she said quietly, 'I'd make you eat that thing.'

'Yeah,' Karvellis sneered, 'and humans might learn to fly like us, rather than slink through the dust like the Hith.' She gestured to one of her troops. 'Throw her inside and drive her back to town.'

The Oolian pushed Bernice towards the back of the tank and threw her into a darkened holding cell which smelled of alien sweat, alien dirt and alien things she didn't even want to think about.

'That's you crossed off my Christmas card list!' Bernice yelled as the hatch slammed shut. Score one for the birds. It wasn't going to be easy, getting out of a metal box on tracks while driving through a desert. She couldn't even rely on the Doctor to help; when the warehouse exploded, he'd been inside.

She'd seen him escape from tighter corners before, but one day his luck was going to run out. Perhaps it already had.

Light from outside shone through a grille high up in the wall, casting a patchwork glow across the ceiling but illuminating nothing of the cell. She climbed to her feet and began running her hands along the metal walls, searching for seams, hatches or weak spots.

The floor vibrated as the tank's gravimetric engines revved up. A sudden lurch threw her sideways. She stumbled, trying to regain her footing, but the vehicle shifted into gear and moved off, causing her to fall. What with the smell, the motion and the darkness, Bernice began to feel queasy.

The tank turned a corner and, with a metallic grinding sound, a hatch in the front of the cell slid open. A familiar gnomish face looked at her.

'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?' asked the Doctor.

Bernice bounded to her feet, relief and happiness flooding through her, dissolving the little knots of tension and fear that she had not even acknowledged were there. 'Doctor? I thought you might be '2.

'Yes, so did I,' he said.

'How did you '

'Find you? The usual method. I just followed the militia.'

'Er . . . Doctor?'

'Hmm?'

'Who's driving?'

He looked hurt. 'I am,' he said.

'But you're talking to me,' she said.

With a terrible grinding sound the tank lurched sideways and stopped dead, sending Bernice sprawling into the metal bulkhead. The gravimetric engines whined, setting her teeth on edge, then cut out altogether. She waited for an explosion that never came.

Deprived of power to its magnetic locks, the hatch at the back swung open.

Bernice scrambled out and took great whooping gulps of fresh, clean air.

She looked around, still breathing heavily. They were in the middle of a stretch of desert. The churned-up tracks led back across the orange dust to where the neglected manipulator robots reared like giant insects above the hangars, silhouetted against the eye-searing purple of the sky. Ahead, their path was blocked by the comforting blue shape of the TARDIS. It appeared to be intact, which was more than could be said for the tank, which had crashed into it. Apart from the tank, the TARDIS and the buildings and cranes behind it, the landscape was empty.

One of the doors at the front of the tank fell to the ground with a loud metallic clatter. The Doctor stepped carefully out, using his umbrella for support. He was still wearing the Oolian mech-suit, and his arms fitted badly into the wing-slots.

'Typical,' Bernice said, shaking her head. 'The only obstacle between us and freedom and you have to run straight into it. b.l.o.o.d.y typical!'

'You wouldn't have me any other way,' he said with a twinkle in his eye.

'Just make sure you never give me the choice,' she said.

He gazed out towards the warehouses. 'They'll soon spot the guard whose suit I'm wearing,' he said, shading his eyes. 'I left him my scarf, but it clashes with his plumage.'

'We'd better get a move on then.' She glanced at him with tears in her eyes.

'They killed Homeless Forsaken, you know?'

'I know.' He nodded. 'I saw it. What was the reason? I know Oolians aren't the friendliest of races, but that was uncalled for.'

She shrugged. 'I don't know. He wasn't even armed.'

'Well, there's nothing to keep us here now. Unless, of course, you fancy a little sightseeing?'3.

She surveyed the flat landscape. A small cloud of dust appeared to be racing towards them from the distant strip.

'The only sight I want to see at the moment is the inside of a tumbler of whisky. Let's go.'

Within seconds, they had left the planet entirely and entered the dimen-sionally ambiguous interior of the TARDIS. In a few seconds more, even the TARDIS's outer plasmic sh.e.l.l had dispersed upon the dry Oolian wind.4.

Chapter 1.

'Good morning. I'm Evan Claple and this is The Empire Today The Empire Today , on , on the spot, on and off Earth. Today's headlines: the Imperial Landsknechte should be sc.r.a.pped, claims Duke Marmion, Lord Protector the spot, on and off Earth. Today's headlines: the Imperial Landsknechte should be sc.r.a.pped, claims Duke Marmion, Lord Protector of the Solar System and its Environs, in an exclusive interview on of the Solar System and its Environs, in an exclusive interview on this programme. And offworld: twenty-nine alien races file claims this programme. And offworld: twenty-nine alien races file claims for reparation from the Imperial Court for damages during the Wars for reparation from the Imperial Court for damages during the Wars of Acquisition. We ask whether these alien sc.u.m should ever have of Acquisition. We ask whether these alien sc.u.m should ever have been left alive to complain . . . ' been left alive to complain . . . '

The sun was rising across the towers of the Overcity.

The flitter rose from the pad on top of the Central Adjudication Lodge like a leaf trying to reverse the pa.s.sage of autumn. Chris Cwej watched from the pa.s.senger seat as the shadows of the shrubs and trees extended like clutching fingers across the parkland. The greenery stretched as far as he could see: individual squares of green and brown on top of each tower, separated by the black gaps and linked together by a web of bridges and walkways. It was said that a man could start walking in s.p.a.ceport One and end up back where he started without changing direction. It wasn't true, of course the Seacities weren't continuous across the ocean floor for a start but it was a romantic notion, and Cwej wished that it were true.

Cwej's golden fur glowed in the rosy light. He ran a proud hand up and down his forearm, feeling the luxuriant growth bend and spring back beneath the pressure. The body-bepple had been worth every penny. Every single penny.

People were moving in the park, even this early in the day. Some were running, some were walking hand in hand, while others were standing by the edges of the buildings, gazing into the gaps. In every open s.p.a.ce, groups of elderly people were practising some form of slow martial art akin to a solo dance. Cwej found it all fascinating. His family lived down in one of the lower levels, and it wasn't often that he got the chance to see the top of the city, especially at sunrise. He wanted to make the most of it.

A couple were kissing over by an Arcturan sheckt bush. The sun backlit them with a golden glow, casting their shadows across the lush gra.s.s. Cwej felt a pang of envy, and looked away. Far below, the shadow of the flitter rushed between patches of darkness like an animal occasionally breaking cover.6.

The pilot glanced over at him. Cwej could see his own bearlike face reflected in the man's eyes. The sight still brought him up with a slight shock of pleasure and surprise. He gave a thumbs-up.

'Great view,' he shouted.

The pilot's expression didn't change. Cwej smiled. Pilots belonging to the Order of Adjudicators were notoriously juvenile. Cwej had been one himself, not too long ago. He knew the tricks of the trade. The guy would probably dive the flitter towards one of the gaps at any moment, expecting him to scream or something. Like all h.e.l.l he would.

As the sun crawled upwards, the shadows contracted. The pilot's hand suddenly moved sideways. The flitter banked, and dropped towards a narrow gap between the green tops of two towers.

Cwej smiled. Knew it, he thought, as the shadow of the flitter rose up to meet them. The pilot's gaze slid sideways. Cwej yawned ostentatiously.

The edge of the gap flashed past. A row of faces along the rim watched openmouthed as they plunged between the buildings. Darkness suddenly engulfed them . . .

. . . and then the flitter was descending on a spiral path, with the slab sides of the buildings looming like cliffs all around them. Cwej craned his neck, but all he could see of the sky above them was a rose-tinted slit. The buildings themselves were dark, unbroken cones, towers and inverted pyramids, dimly illuminated by the light from above, dripping with condensation.

Far below, Cwej could just about make out the dim glow of firelight glittering on water.

'Welcome to s.p.a.ceport Five Undertown,' said the pilot.

The walls of the TARDIS were closing in on her.

That's what it felt like, at least. Bernice lay back upon her bed and put her clenched fists over her eyes, pressing her knuckles hard against the lids until fireworks began to explode on the inside of her head.

d.a.m.n it, she'd liked the stupid slug. Why did he have to die?

She threw herself off the bed and looked around her room. Piles of clothes and junk collected from half a hundred worlds littered the floor. On a whim she picked an object up: a spiky ball made of soft, red metal. What the h.e.l.l was it? Where had she found it? She threw it to one side and picked up another memento: a translucent blue seash.e.l.l with the image of her face etched into its surface. It triggered a vague flash of memory, but nothing more. She'd been to too many planets in too short a time. Living with the Doctor was like living in a huge restaurant full of the finest food and wine in the universe. For a while it was fun, but after a while you craved bacon and eggs and a cup of tea.7.

She threw the sh.e.l.l aside and marched out of her room, kicking a pile of dirty laundry to one side as she went. With an incensed 'Meow', Wolsey the cat shot out of the pile and past her into the corridor.

The white walls and enigmatic roundels of the corridor walls mocked her.

Wherever she went in the TARDIS, the view was always the same. The swimming pool, the golf course, the rose garden, the art gallery . . . White walls and enigmatic b.l.o.o.d.y roundels. The outside was supposed to be infinitely re-configurable at least, it had been until the Doctor sabotaged the chameleon circuit but the inside never changed its appearance.

It was always the way. You spent a couple of days being chased around some alien planet or robot battleship in fear of your life, desperate to get back to the TARDIS, and five minutes after you did you were climbing the walls to get out again. Frying pan to fire to frying pan in one easy lesson.