With a sickening realization, the Doctor could see where the conversation was leading. If he hadn't spent so long talking to Pryce on board Beltempest's s.p.a.cecraft he wouldn't have believed it himself, but he knew what the man was going to do. The Hith, with limited knowledge of the limits to which the human mind could be driven, had no chance. He opened his mouth to warn Hater Of Humans, but he was too late.

'Yes,' said Hater Of Humans. 'As the shielding around the icaron ring is removed and the radiation builds, more and more people will be affected every time the door into hypers.p.a.ce is opened. According to the fastline reports we have been receiving, there are already riots on Earth and insurrections on some of the colony planets. Murder rates are rising steadily. Earth is on the verge of collapse. If you value the lives of your fellow humans, put the nexus down! It's your only chance!'

192.Pryce suddenly clenched his hand. The nexus screamed shrilly for a brief moment before it ruptured and a pink liquid splattered up and across the table. Pryce smiled at the other six people in the room.

'My only regret,' he said licking at the gelatinous remains that slid down his wrist and forearm, 'is that I will not be around to watch it.'

'Kill him,' said Hater Of Humans.

Pryce made no attempt to escape as the female guard aimed her weapon at him and pulled the trigger. His face creased into a smile as the beam of pure, unsullied energy burned its way through his forehead, blackening and blistering his flesh. Amazingly, he stood up and stretched his arms wide. For a split second, light shone from his eyes and mouth as he was consumed from within. The Doctor wasn't sure, but he thought that Pryce said something just before his head imploded and his body slumped to the floor. Whatever words he said, the Doctor couldn't make them out, and he was glad that he couldn't.

Whatever message Pryce had sent back from the edge of death, it wasn't one the Doctor wanted to hear.

Pryce's death took just under three seconds, but the Doctor felt as though he had been sitting watching the man die for an eternity. When he turned back to Hater Of Humans, he felt older than he ever had before.

Hater Of Humans was ashen and shivering. Beside it, Hopeless Itinerant reached down towards its tail.

'No!' the Doctor shouted, but before he could stop it, Hopeless Itinerant curled a pseudo-limb around its vestigial sh.e.l.l and, without a moment's hesitation, pulled it right off.

It screamed, and died before its blood could hit the walls.

The Doctor shook his head sadly. There were moments in his life when he felt as if he was in the last act of a Jacobean tragedy.

193.

Chapter 14.

'Please listen carefully. This is an announcement by the Imperial Landsknechte. By order of Her Highness the Divine Empress, Glory Landsknechte. By order of Her Highness the Divine Empress, Glory of the Empire, Ruler of the High Court, Lord of the Inner and Outer of the Empire, Ruler of the High Court, Lord of the Inner and Outer Worlds, High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets, Lord General of the Six Worlds, High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets, Lord General of the Six Armies and Defender of the Earth, a state of martial law has been Armies and Defender of the Earth, a state of martial law has been declared across the planet. From this moment forward until further declared across the planet. From this moment forward until further notice, a twenty-four-hour curfew is in effect. This is purely for your notice, a twenty-four-hour curfew is in effect. This is purely for your own protection, and law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. The own protection, and law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. The punishment for rioting is immediate death. The punishment for loot-ing is immediate death. The punishment for sabotage is immediate punishment for rioting is immediate death. The punishment for loot-ing is immediate death. The punishment for sabotage is immediate death. The punishment for breaking the curfew is immediate death. death. The punishment for breaking the curfew is immediate death.

The punishment . . . '

'Powerless Friendless?' Bernice hissed. 'Where the h.e.l.l are you?' The spongy walls of the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske absorbed the sound of her voice, deadening it, stripping it of the tension that she felt and leaving it sounding flat and almost bored. absorbed the sound of her voice, deadening it, stripping it of the tension that she felt and leaving it sounding flat and almost bored.

There was no answer. Bernice moved farther down the corridor, sweat cool-ing her brow, continually swivelling her head to check that none of the sleek bots were creeping up on her or lurking around the curve ahead. Everything was curved in this ship; there wasn't an angle or a flat surface anywhere in sight. Question: why did the Romans build straight roads? Answer: so that the Saxons couldn't hide around corners. She wished she had a gun. Cancel that; she wished she had a big gun, one of those ones that took two hands and a shoulder strap to carry, and was linked by a big curly cable to a power supply so huge that it had to follow along behind on caterpillar tracks. Alternatively, she wished she had the Doctor there. Better than any gun. Not quite as impressive to the casual glance, but far more effective, and didn't need reloading. Just shutting up occasionally.

She stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. The tension was getting to her. Even her thoughts were babbling. Think calm, Bernice. Gently lapping waters. Birdsong. Chocolate mousse.

As her heartbeat slowed to a level where she could actually distinguish the separate beats, she sank against the wall, resting her back and her hands against its moistness. It gave slightly beneath her weight. Perhaps it was her 194imagination, or perhaps she was just picking up her own pulse, but she could have sworn the wall throbbed slightly beneath her palms.

Like huge, bloated flies, her thoughts kept circling around a particular notion. What if, somewhere deep inside her brain, a, vein of fire was beginning to glow? What if she was already being driven mad by the icaron radiation from the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske's engines? What if it was already too late?

Then again, what if she'd just stayed on Earth and joined s.p.a.cefleet? What if she'd never gone to Heaven and met the Doctor? To think of all the things she would have missed, all the glorious sights she never would have seen . . .

She shook her head slightly. Never say die, that's what the Doctor had told her the last time she had thought about giving up. Never say die.

She remembered finding a book of poems in the TARDIS library, during her period of moping after Ace had left. The poems had been written by a man named Dylan Thomas. According to the introduction, he had been something of a drinker. That's what made her read on. A man after her own heart. A phrase still echoed in her mind from one of those poems, a gauntlet flung in the face of the universe.

'Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

Never say die.

She pushed herself away from the wall. If she was going to go as mad as a Dalek in the middle of a universal battery shortage she'd do it standing up and cursing, thank you very much. She had a job to do, and she'd better get on with it.

They had split up on entering the ship. They had agreed that, with hunter-killer robots on the case, the important thing was to search the ship to ensure that n.o.body else was aboard, and then try and find some way of taking off and getting the h.e.l.l out of there. Forrester and Cwej had headed towards the engine room; Bernice had volunteered to make for the control room with Powerless Friendless.

But by the time this had all been agreed, Powerless Friendless had vanished.

'Powerless Friendless?' she hissed again, just in case he was around.

'Bernice?' The voice was loud, and came from just above her head. Bernice remembered to clap a hand over her mouth before screaming against her clammy palm.

'Did I startle you?' Powerless Friendless asked. She looked up. His mollusc body was attached to the ceiling with mucus and his eyestalks were almost on a level with her eyes.

'No!' she exclaimed, her voice so high that even the sound-deadening walls of the corridor couldn't disguise her surprise.

'I've found something interesting,' Powerless Friendless said. 'Follow me.'

He slithered off around the bend in the corridor, his course taking him across 195the ceiling and halfway down the wall before he vanished from sight. Bernice ran a hand across her forehead, and followed, keeping to what she thought of as the floor.

There was an open doorway just around the bend, and through the doorway was a room lined with organic control panels. The whole thing looked suspiciously to Bernice like a garden centre.

'Communications room,' Powerless Friendless said succinctly as he reached the floor. 'I've checked over the controls. They're still operative. INITEC obviously started their deconstruction in the middle of the ship, at the weapons bays, and are working their way in both directions. They haven't got here yet.'

'And this helps us how?' Bernice asked.

'It doesn't help you,' he said, 'it helps me.' He extruded a trio of pseudo-limbs and began caressing the controls. They bloomed and sprouted beneath his touch. 'I'm sending a distress call.'

'To whom?'

He rotated an eyestalk to face her. His gaze was thunderous.

'To whatever remains of the Hith,' he said.

The Doctor was standing outside the Hith encampment, enjoying the cool breeze and the sight of Purgatory's sun poised above the distant horizon. If this replica was anything to go by, he thought that he would have liked Hithis.

It had a certain calmness about it, a rightness that reminded him of Florana and Metebelis in the good old days. The feeling of a planet at peace with itself.

Now Florana was a dumping ground for the waste products of thirty-six races, Metebelis was a desert wasteland and Hithis had been terraformed into a suburb of Earth. All that remained was a hexagonal section some three hundred kilometres across on somebody else's planet. Sometimes he despaired.

'Doctor?' Provost-Major Beltempest emerged from the tent behind him, past the Hith guards who were watching the Doctor and studiously ignoring each other.

'Over here.'

Beltempest lumbered over, wheezing asthmatically at the effort of moving his elephantine bulk. For a moment, he too watched the sun slide down beneath the edge of the world.

'Beautiful, isn't it?' the Doctor said rhetorically.

'No,' Beltempest said, and shivered. 'It reminds me too much of spilled blood. And spilled blood reminds me of '

'He's gone,' the Doctor murmured without turning away from the thin sliver of light that showed above the skyline. 'He won't come back.'

196.Beltempest shook his head, his trunk swinging from side to side as he did so. 'No,' he sighed. 'He'll be back every time I go to sleep.' He caught his breath. 'Why does he bother me so much? Why can't I get him out of my mind?'

The Doctor watched as the sun finally slid from sight, leaving a crimson stain behind it that faded as he watched to a deep, meditative blue.

'Because you could have done the same,' he said finally, 'and that knowledge scares you. In the end, Pryce was right. There is no reason why one person should not kill another. No argument against murder stands up to scrutiny.'

He sighed. 'For every religious prohibition saying, "Thou shalt not kill", there's another one that allows killing under certain special circ.u.mstances sinners are fair game, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", and so on. Moral codes are no better; they're just formalized opinions, without any logical backup.'

He was aware that his voice was getting louder and louder, but he couldn't seem to help himself. 'The sociological history of almost every race,' he continued, 'is riddled with examples of laws against murder standing beside legal-ized examples of murder, be they executions, wars or euthanasia. Ultimately, every single argument that we can come up with, stripped of its pretty words, boils down to a fundamental truth: we disagree with murder because we don't we don't want to be murdered want to be murdered. No more and no less than that.' He closed his eyes for a second. 'Does that help?' he said finally.

'No,' Beltempest said sadly. 'But thanks for trying.'

There was silence for a few moments as darkness spread across the sky.

High above, moving stars denoted watchful Vanguard laser satellites and the comings and goings of Landsknechte ships. Odd, the Doctor thought, that the Hith should choose to live under the noses of their enemies, conducting their affairs of government from hiding. Odd, and rather courageous. That seemed to be the Hith way.

'Did you come out for anything in particular, or just fresh air?' he said finally.

'There's some sort of flap going on,' Beltempest replied. 'I think a message has come in. The slug in charge wanted me to come and fetch you.'

The Doctor sighed. 'The slug?' he said, raising his eyebrows. 'You mean the Hith.' The Doctor's tone was dark with foreboding, but Beltempest either didn't or wouldn't take any notice.

'If you like.'

'It's got nothing to do with what I do or do not like,' the Doctor explained as if talking to a small child. 'How would you like it if the Hith referred to you like that?'

'They wouldn't dare.' Beltempest walked away. The Doctor watched him for a few seconds, then shrugged and followed. There was no hope for some 197people.

Together, they re-entered the tent. Hater Of Humans was slumped in its chair. There was a feeling of suppressed excitement in the air.

'Good news?' the Doctor asked brightly.

'We have received a message from Daph Yilli Gar, the navigator of the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske!' Hater Of Humans said, quivering slightly. 'He is calling himself Powerless Friendless And Scattered Through s.p.a.ce now. He has found the ship!

You were right, Doctor, it is in hypers.p.a.ce, occupying the same coordinates as the INITEC building.' Hater Of Humans's eyestalks gleamed with pride. 'To think that after all this time, the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske still works as it was intended to!' still works as it was intended to!'

Hater Of Humans was ecstatic. 'We are preparing our fleet now.'

'Fleet?'

Beside the Doctor, Beltempest frowned. 'Yes,' he said. 'What do you need a fleet for? I thought you were worried in case the radiation from this ship of yours interfered with the efforts of your diplomats?'

Hater Of Humans shifted slightly in its chair. 'To help Daph Yilli Gar,' it said.

'He is under attack, and cannot get into the control room. He requests our aid.'

'Don't you think,' the Doctor interposed, 'that a Hith fleet in hypers.p.a.ce near the Earth might be counter-productive?'

Hater Of Humans gazed at him for a moment, then slid away. The Doctor drummed his fingers against his lips. Much as he wanted to return to Earth, to Bernice and to the TARDIS, he didn't particularly want to do it at the head of what might seem to be or might actually turn out to be an invasion fleet.

The figures for profit and loss that flickered deep in the desk indicated that the riots were spreading. Insurance claims were climbing steeply, weapon sales were going through the roof, tickets for offworld flights were changing hands at vastly inflated prices. Accordingly, the artificial intelligence that controlled INITEC's financial affairs made various decisions in the absence of its master.

Property was obviously a bad investment at the moment, on the basis that it might not be there for much longer, so various buildings and prime sites on Earth were placed on the market or rather, on markets far enough away that the news of the riots probably hadn't reached them yet. Shares were purchased in construction and repair companies. All funds were transferred to financial systems offworld, just in case.

The flickering financial information in the desk reflected off the metal skin of INITEC's chairman and major shareholder. Its only shareholder. Columns of blue and red figures scrolled in reverse across his gleaming chest. He did not notice. His attention was elsewhere, flitting back and forth between fifty 198sleek killer robots as they hunted their prey through the corridors of the Hith ship. His ship.

For the first time in a millennium, he was enjoying himself.

In the Doctor's almost unparalleled experience of the various forms of s.p.a.ce travel, most of the time spent journeying from planet to planet was taken up by the manoeuvring through the solar system at either end. Comparatively little time was spent in hypers.p.a.ce. Because the Hith didn't intend leaving hypers.p.a.ce at all when they arrived in the vicinity of Earth, the journey time was cut to less than an hour.

The Doctor watched from the oval, mazelike control deck of the Hith flagship as they made their approach. He and Beltempest were standing beside Hater Of Humans in a central hub of the maze, obviously making the Hith leader uneasy by their proximity. Above the walls of the maze, the ceiling was one vast screen upon which the Earth showed up as a vast distortion, a gigantic twist in the grey, swirling non-realm of hypers.p.a.ce.

'We have a homing signal,' one of the Hith crew announced. It, like its compadres, was out of sight around a bend in the maze, sitting at its own set of controls, unable to see anybody else. Given the Hith dislike of company, it probably made them feel better if they could each imagine that they were the only Hith on the ship.

'Daph Yilli Gar has left the transmitter on,' Hater Of Humans announced.

'Head directly for it.'

Beltempest, standing beside the Doctor, said, 'Has it occurred to them that this might be a trap?'

'And what would they do differently?' the Doctor asked.

Beltempest shook his head. 'I don't know,' he said finally. 'I've lost track of who's doing what to whom, and why. If somebody had told me a week ago that I'd be standing on the flight deck of an armed slug battle cruiser heading for Earth I wouldn't have believed them. I keep having to stop myself from trying to sabotage the controls.'

'And why don't you?' the Doctor asked, interested.

'Because I have the sneaking suspicion that I might be doing more harm than good that way,' Beltempest said.

'Ship sighted!' a Hith crew member shouted jubilantly. 'Positive identification: it's the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske!'

A cheer broke out through the maze as a small, th.o.r.n.y shape appeared on the main screen. The hyperspatial distortion made it shimmer, as if it was being viewed through water, but it was apparent that large parts of it had been dismantled already.

'Bring us up close,' Hater Of Humans ordered.

199.As they drew nearer to the Skel'Ske Skel'Ske, the Doctor could make out the walkway that led away from the ship. At the other end there was a doorway, hanging in the void without visible means of support.

'See,' the Doctor said, pointing it out to Beltempest. 'That's how the radiation from the ship got to Earth.'

'That's a doorway to the real world?' Beltempest stuttered. 'I don't believe it!'

'That's human ingenuity for you,' the Doctor said.