There wasn't much in the way of attractions on the outskirts of town, and naturally no one realised that Pent Central had seconded the area for secret s.p.a.ce-slug research.

149.

Pent Cent security treated her like dirt. Falsh Industries' presence here was plainly endured under sufferance; they'd been allocated a small shed situated at the back of the compound, part.i.tioned from the main hub of activity by a military checkpoint. The President might have wanted Falsh in on this, but the military didn't.

Once she'd made it unscathed through the leers and jeers of the squaddies at the checkpoint, Tinya walked on to the makeshift labworks. It was quiet and deserted, the rusted buildings like great tombstones. They had marked the end of one age; now they found themselves pressed into service to help usher in a new. She found the Falsh shed without difficulty: an escape capsule a large, silver cylinder was sat on the loading pad just outside, the distinctive Falsh brand picked out on its side in sparkling Halcytone.

Tinya marched up to the shed entrance and waved her pa.s.scard over the entry-panel. A desultory bleep told her she had no access. But a neat young man in a sterile mask swelled out of a bubblescreen, looking her over.

'Cinnamin Tinya, PR. Falsh Central Station,' she said primly. 'I got you in here.'

The young man raised his eyebrows, tugged down his mask and smiled. 'So we've got you to blame, huh?'

The door slid open and Tinya walked inside. She squinted the light was brighter and harsher than the fake sunlight outside. Despite the glare, it was actually like walking into a freezer, the air-con rumbling out of an antiquated system high on the corrugated iron wall. A collection of workstations had been set up by the door, ringed in by portable equipment banks lining the wall. But most of the floors.p.a.ce had been part.i.tioned off and a sterile chamber erected a diaphanous plastic tent suffused with light. Misshapen silhouettes loomed against the walls as staff milled about inside.

She waited for the man to come over to her. 'Where's Phaedra?'

He gestured to the sterile tent.

'Get her,' said Tinya. 'All right, everyone.' She dapped her hands, like a teacher bringing a kindergarten cla.s.s into line. 'Gather round.'

A slim woman, anonymous in headscarf and sterile mask, emerged from the sterile tent. She freed her red hair from the scarf and looked at Tinya with a mixture of irritation and expectancy. This must be Phaedra. Her staff, all dressed identically, bobbed behind her like shadows.

'You've come to open the escape capsule,' Phaedra surmised.

'It won't open?' Tinya frowned.

'Requires code override.' She shrugged. 'I haven't the time or the manpower to spare, lady. Whoever Falsh put inside, they can stay there and rot for all I care.'

' Falsh Falsh put them inside?' put them inside?'

150.

'Turns out the capsule was transmitting his personal recognition codes.

Once we set the beacon it touched down on automatic.'

'Pent Cent gave you no trouble admitting it to land?'

She shrugged. 'President told them to give us a free hand. So long as it stays on our side of the fence they don't care.' Phaedra's eyes narrowed. 'You've got a lot of questions, lady. I was figuring you were here to give us some answers.'

'I'm here,' said Tinya, reaching down the neckline of her tunic, 'to give you these.'

She placed two tiny capsules in Phaedra's hand.

Phaedra stared down at them, confused. She opened her mouth to speak then the communicator chimed.

Tinya was already making for the door.

'Call coded red maximum,' the comms-voice informed them.

'Falsh, and about time,' said Phaedra.

The capsules burst open in her hand and a thin, evil-smelling gas steamed out.

The doors closed behind Tinya just as the screams started up.

151.

Chapter Nineteen.

Trix wasn't sure if Falsh was laughing or crying. 'Years of research,' he said.

'Billions of wasted dollars. High levels of foreign investment '

'You mean fish-face chipped in,' said Trix.

'Shhh,' hissed the Doctor.

'And nothing but those d.a.m.ned slugs to show for it.' Falsh mopped at his forehead with the sleeve of his expensive suit. 'Oh, Klimt was a clever son of a b.i.t.c.h. Fobbed me off with plans and promises and prototypes. . . when all the time he was redirecting the finance into his own pet project.'

Trix looked at him doubtfully. 'Slugs?'

'The development of an ent.i.ty that can flourish in any environment. An animal that can bring life to the galaxy's wastelands, dead areas.' Falsh shook his head. 'Turns out Klimt was a bona fide nut.'

'And that's why you wanted the Inst.i.tute blown to bits,' Trix realised. 'Not to cover your tracks once you stole the weapon '

'But to cover up the fact that the entire venture was nothing but a spectacular failure,' the Doctor interrupted. 'Why involve yourself in weapons research in the first place? Your portfolio was surely broad enough.'

Falsh looked at him as if he were mad. 'That's like saying a man can be rich enough. I'm a businessman, Doctor. I see an opportunity for profit and I'm not supposed to go for it?'

'Not if this is how things end up,' said Trix.

'Klimt misled you,' said the Doctor thoughtfully. 'But he gave you the paint. . . '

Falsh shrugged. 'Some offshoot of his crazy research.'

'How can it be an offshoot?' Trix pulled a face. 'I mean, paint and slugs don't really go together, do they?'

'But nevertheless, that doctored Halcytone's a useful tool,' said the Doctor.

'I see now why you're so keen for your conference podules to catch on. Paint them with that stuff and you've got eyes and ears in every company that happens to hire them out.'

Trix had to admit the simplicity of it was beguiling. 'Then you just sell on insider information or act on it yourself.'

'Wait,' said the Doctor. 'Halcyon's the President's favourite. She must use this stuff herself. . . '

153.

Trix threw back her head and laughed. 'You're spying on the President?'

'You could spy on anyone who uses the stuff, in theory,' the Doctor agreed.

'Different batches could be made to transmit on different wavelengths a simple tweak of the receiver could let you switch views. Range would be a problem but I'm sure the likes of Phaedra are working on that for you. . . '

Trix clicked her tongue. 'Falsh, you are such a naughty boy.'

'Klimt had to give me something to get me off his back,' Falsh said finally, as if this exonerated him from any personal blame. 'The Inst.i.tute was conceived as a two-year project. It wound up dragging on for four.'

The Doctor nodded. 'And the Icthal were growing keen for a return on their investment. They wanted their promised weapon at a bargain price.'

Falsh looked at the ground.

'But it wasn't just the Icthal, was it?' breathed Trix. 'You were going to flog it to other people!'

'How else could you recoup your operational losses?' said the Doctor sympathetically.

Falsh responded to the comment, looked up almost hopefully as if he expected understanding. Then he saw the Doctor's sardonic expression and laughed it off. 'I had other people interested, sure. But I don't have to justify myself to you.'

'Nor the Icthal, it seems,' agreed the Doctor. 'You've convinced them that your barefaced lies on this subject are truth. People like you think you can get away with anything, anything at all. But we've gathered a little evidence on our recent wanderings to back up the stuff I heard under your table. We know you instructed Blazar to demolish Carme, and the Inst.i.tute with it then made out it was an accident.'

Falsh smiled. 'Is that so?'

'We know that you had Thebe demolished so that no one at Blazar could ever contradict you. To erase any evidence of your ever requesting the charges to be set.' The Doctor leaned in up close. 'Unlucky. We got hold of that evidence before Thebe went up. It led us to the chunk of Carme where the Inst.i.tute still clung, like a limpet.'

Falsh didn't say anything, but his face had given away his surprise. Trix pounced. 'You didn't know about its little ejector seat, then?'

'Yes, clever old Klimt.' The Doctor smiled. 'The Inst.i.tute blasted clear of your demolition work before it could be consumed by the charges.'

'That's a heap of c.r.a.p.'

'Then where did I get this?' Trix moved in front of him, showed him her jacket with Klimt's name emblazoned over the breast like a logo. She saw Falsh's mask slip, saw something like fear in his eyes, just for a moment. Then the shutters came back down.

154.

'You could have got that anywhere.'

'I got it from the Inst.i.tute,' Trix said loudly and clearly like he was slightly deaf. 'We found Klimt and his staff all dead, and any evidence as to what had been created there destroyed.'

'Not just dead,' said the Doctor softly. 'Torn to pieces. Still, they would have died anyway, wouldn't they? When the charges went off.'

'What about their families?' said Trix.

'Oh, I imagine the people who worked there had already discarded any official existence. . . You could hardly have them on the Falsh Industries payroll, now, could you? Still, I'm sure they were well rewarded. While they were alive.' He was looking deep into Falsh's eyes. 'Something terrible happened there, Falsh. But I don't think it was your work, was it? A little gruesome for you you only tried to blow up the place, and you failed. Yes, failure that's that's your style.' He stuck out his bottom lip. 'So who your style.' He stuck out his bottom lip. 'So who did did wipe out the staff of the Inst.i.tute?' wipe out the staff of the Inst.i.tute?'

'Fish-face?' Trix suggested.

'No. I spoke to the Icthal, and he was ignorant of whatever the weapon was.

The creature who committed those atrocities we saw systematically removed all evidence. Whoever it was, they knew exactly exactly what was there.' what was there.'

The realisation hung oppressively in the air.

'And then these slugs appear,' the Doctor went on.

'Apparently from nowhere.'

'Klimt created them to survive in any environment,' said Trix. 'Perhaps they got wafted over to Leda by the shockwaves of Carme blowing up.'

The Doctor looked at her. 'Or perhaps they were left there by Klimt himself.'

Falsh couldn't let that one lie. 'Klimt is dead. You said so yourselves.'

'Extremely dead,' Trix added, with a shudder.

'We saw a corpse wearing his jacket,' said the Doctor. 'Klimt fell from a very great height, didn't he? He landed with some force. Enough to break his head but not the pencil in his pocket.'

'Huh?' said Trix.

He mimed tapping the pencil against his knuckles. 'Broken pencils make a little springy sort of noise when you do that. The cracked section of lead is free to vibrate in the hollow channel drilled down through the wood.'

Trix folded her arms.

'It's the twenty-fifth century,' she said patiently.

'They've presumably learned to make indestructible ' She broke off. 'Except you snapped the pencil, didn't you.'

The Doctor nodded, a little gleam in his eyes.

'You're trying to tell me Klimt faked his own death?' said Falsh.

'He'd already gone to a good deal of trouble to cover his tracks. Probably antic.i.p.ating someone like our friend from Icthal would come visiting. But the 155 Agent was too slow. . . while we were just in time.'

Trix nodded cautiously. 'With everyone thinking he was dead, Klimt could move more freely. But why put s.p.a.ce slugs on Leda?'

'Revenge,' said Falsh hoa.r.s.ely. 'To screw up the demolition. To get back at me.'

The Doctor slapped him cheerfully on the shoulder. 'It does seem rather likely, doesn't it?'

'Well, the s...o...b..-Doo deductions are fine for pa.s.sing the time on these little jaunts,' said Trix, 'but you did promise not to get involved, Doctor. We want Fitz back, we want the TARDIS back and we want to go somewhere altogether less c.r.a.p.' She sighed and closed her eyes, wishing herself home. 'And we're so close, now! I can feel it!'

'Yes, we are,' the Doctor agreed distantly, crossing back to the computer screens. 'Five-hundred-thousand miles and counting.'