'We knew the Hive would return imminently. Our illusion was meant for them. Liris's studies had told us how they used psychic interference to worsen conflict situations. So we provided one, in the shape of the war over Barclow. The Chelonians were preparing to depart from the Metra system at the time of the Bechet Treaty's signing. We prevented this by regularly conditioning their leader, General Jafrid, on his visits to the dome for peace summits.'

'So that's why the Chelonians were apparently so keen to take Barclow as their own,' said Stokes.

Galatea went on. 'When the Hive picked up our transmissions about the war, they would use it to create much death in order to feed.' The image showed the war zone of Barclow. 'This was our lure. Using the simulation we intended to create images of devastation on Metralubit and increase their confidence. We would simulate the release of the long-awaited Phibbs Report to lend credibility to these actions. Then, as the Hive readied itself to descend, we would send a conditioning impulse to Barclow, uniting the remaining soldiers there on both sides to launch a missile attack.' An animated display showed missiles streaking from Barclow towards the Hive, shown as a louring black triangle in s.p.a.ce. 'The Hive would resist by coming into low orbit and releasing parts of itself to swarm down to the surface. At which point a zodium bomb we have placed in the core of Barclow would be released, destroying them.'

'And the remaining soldiers,' said Romana bitterly. 'Obviously they would be expendable.'

'Maximum happiness for the maximum number,' said K9 primly. 'The Femdroids' plan is a masterpiece of logical reasoning extrapolated into action. Any short-term solution devised by organics would almost certainly fail and lead to more loss of life.'

'Listen,' said Stokes. 'Without us, there wouldn't be any of you. So don't give yourself airs.'

'Thousands of years and millions of deaths,' countered K9. 'A cycle broken by machine intelligence.'

'Stop bickering,' said Romana.

'The Hive would not expect our retaliation,' said Galatea, 'as the mean time between their harvests - two thousand years - does not account for the increase in technology provided by intercultural encounters.'

'There we are,' said Stokes proudly. 'It's actually me who's the cornerstone of this business. Without my feeble human brain they'd all be done for.'

'After the Hive's destruction,' said Galatea, 'we would release the dome-dwellers to repopulate Metralubit with the citizens returned from Regus V.'

She frowned. 'This message is programmed only to be played in the event of a total mechanical failure in the dome before the completion of the project. If the scenario has failed, then I am afraid you will die. The Hive will be made angry by the discovery of our deception. They will swarm in great numbers and consume you, alive. They prefer their meat to be dead and decaying, but they have been known to bring down their prey in extreme circ.u.mstances.' She bowed her head. 'Goodbye.' The hologram clicked out.

'Oh my G.o.d!' Stokes shrieked. He looked around the smashed control room. 'Oh my G.o.d, what have I done? We're all going to die!' He started to shake. 'The insects must be coming here - they started the war up again.

When they see it's all a fake, the election and everything, they'll swarm and eat us all.'

'This is the unproductive organic reaction known as panic,' said K9. 'It was precisely to avoid such condign action that the Femdroids concealed their plan from us.'

Romana was considering what action to take, and K9 wasn't helping. 'If you're as clever as you keep saying, then think of a way to get us out of this!' She had never raised her voice to K9 before, she realized.

K9 flashed his eyescreen at her. 'Please do not displace your guilt on to me, Mistress.'

His tone was hurt, and she dropped to her knees and pressed her head against his. 'I'm sorry, K9. But we have made a pretty big mistake, haven't we?'

'Affirmative, Mistress,' he said quietly. 'Advise return to TARDIS and depart.'

'That's a b.l.o.o.d.y good idea,' said Stokes. 'We can use the shuttle we came in and get back to Barclow.' He pointed to the door. 'Come on, let's go.'

Romana caught his arm. 'That Hive will be near, out in s.p.a.ce between the two worlds. We might run straight into them.'

'And we might slip on a bar of soap in the shower tomorrow morning and break our necks,' retorted Stokes. 'If there's a chance we should take it, don't you think?' His mood was more sombre and practical than usual, the affected veneer of his personality stripped away.

'I never thought I'd hear you talk like that,' she told him.

He looked over his shoulder at the wall screen and its I view of the empty city. 'I really thought I had it all,' he I muttered. 'The people here loved me, and they adored my work. You don't know how much it meant to me. All these years I've been the only person who believed in what I did. And then I came here, and it really meant something to people. Finally, I was breaking through.' He shook an angry fist at the s.p.a.ce where Galatea had stood. 'Except it didn't, did it? My b.l.o.o.d.y career still doesn't actually mean a thing. It was all a sham.' He looked upwards, shouting at the ceiling. 'All a b.l.o.o.d.y trick!' He looked tearful.

Romana tugged his sleeve. 'Never mind that. We must go.'

But he carried on, his voice directed upwards. 'And I intend to stay alive, because there are certain people I want to have a word with about this!'

The valley lay in the exact centre of the war zone. From their vantage point high on a crag, the Doctor and Fritchoff observed preparations for the final battle.

Moving in on their side was General Jafrid, shuffling forward under a watchful armed escort. He was flanked by Chelonian troopers, four in each group, who fanned out in a semicircle to cover all positions. They moved at incredible speed for such large creatures, their limbs sawing back and forth through the air like the arms of a rowing team. Behind them were their tanks, parked in a line with the typical neatness of the species.

From the other side of the valley came the humans - shambling, slow, uncertain, their weapons small and stubby, their flimsy clothes of no protection against the harsh wind and driving rain. Bringing up the rear of their party was Admiral Dolne, who moved with agonizing slowness.

'Dolne knows he's been defeated,' Fritchoff told the Doctor. 'It's heartening to see a lackey of imperialist cant at the moment of raised consciousness.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'I rather think he's been taken over. Admiral Dolne is dead. That's just a walking corpse.' He pointed above their heads.

'And there's my confirmation.'

Fritchoff squinted. He could just discern the hovering ma.s.s of the Cloud, suspended halfway between the sides, readying itself to descend on the flesh that would soon be behind. The flies were buzzing and circling frantically, with an anger they had not displayed before.

His attention was taken by Jafrid, who had been pa.s.sed a loud-hailer device by one of his aides. 'Dolne,' his voice boomed, rolling about the sides of the valley, 'in all the years of our acquaintance, I never knew how much you truly hated me. Before you die, know this. I am a Chelonian, a warrior and a patriot. But I bear you no ill. I cannot bring myself to.' He gestured with a front foot. 'It is you who have brought this on yourself, as surely as if you had put a gun to your own head. Did our friendship truly mean nothing to you?'

There was a strange silence, pregnant with possibilities. Fritchoff felt that the situation was salvageable, that it was still possible for them all simply to walk away unharmed.

Dolne staggered forward. His voice carried strangely, echoing around the valley.

'Kill them,' he said. 'Kill them all.'

The Chelonians raised their hand weapons; the humans raised their feeble pistols; the cloud of flies buzzed themselves into even greater excitement.

And then the Doctor stood up, and shouted, 'Hold on a second!'

All heads in the valley turned to face him.

'Look up there,' the Doctor cried, pointing at the cloud. 'Look. The flies!'

'Oh, not again.' Jafrid mumbled. 'I thought you were in the Web of Death!'

The Doctor bounded down the side of the crag effortlessly, talking as he did, his deep tones resonating with authority and command. 'Forget the Web of Death. Forget this squalid little battle. Too many people have died today already.' He turned his head from humans to Chelonians. It seemed impossible to Fritchoff that n.o.body had opened fire; it was as if the sheer force of his personality made him bulletproof 'Look at each other. You were friends. You still are friends. Wouldn't you rather stay alive? If you kill each other now the only ones who'll be happy are them.' He pointed up, and his audience followed his finger. The black cloud had descended, and was hovering only a few feet above the gathered heads. The Doctor crossed over to it. 'h.e.l.lo. You seem to be losing your temper.'

The cloud spoke in its dreadful, dragging way. 'Time Lord... we are hungry... and we have been... deceived...' It swooped lower.

To Fritchoff's relief, the human soldiers and Chelonian troopers stopped looking at each other and started to look at the cloud with fear and incomprehension.

'You're pretty powerless up there, aren't you?' the Doctor goaded it. 'You want us to cut each other down: If we won't it leaves you rather in a pickle.'

He waved mockingly. 'Go away. Lunch is off'

'We shall... consume you all...' the cloud raged. It formed itself into a threatening sharply pointed V-shape and reared up.

'By Mif,' General Jafrid breathed. 'He was right all along.' He turned to his troops. 'Fire at will!'

The troopers obeyed, lancing the Cloud with bright pink bursts of energy.

The valley echoed and re-echoed to the lacerating whizz of the blasts.

Fritchoff saw one of the younger human officers raise his pistol. 'Come on!'

the man shouted to his fellows. 'That's the real enemy!' The humans joined in, blazing away with as much enthusiasm but to lesser effect. He looked for Dolne, but there was no sign of him.

The Doctor threw himself out of range, his features grim. The cloud showed little signs of weakening, in spite of all the firepower directed against it. It was maddened, its buzz now raised to a fearsome level.

'We shall... consume you... Doctor...' it managed to say.

With the last vestige of its energy it swooped down on him.

Chapter Eleven - The Hive Attacks.

The Doctor's face, viewed from above, filled the mile-high surface of the screen. Enraged by their personal hatred of him, some sections of the Darkness began to split apart, their wings beating furiously. They fled the nest cavities built into the walls and swarmed into the main chamber. Wave upon black wave descended until the colossal s.p.a.ce was almost filled. The Onemind struggled against the ma.s.ses to retain its still core.

The Onememory was fragmenting, the pieces of itself that were carried in the Glute-chutes and blood-tubes not standing effectively as a bulwark against escaping thoughts. The flesh-l.u.s.t, built up over centuries and now denied, was too strong.

Kill them them, the millions of tiny voices were saying, perhaps more united than they had ever been. Kill them all - now! Kill them all - now!

The shuttle journey back to Barclow was accomplished without the use of solar shields, and now Romana could see why the Femdroids had already deemed them necessary before. Viewed from cloud level Metron City was like a pristine tabletop model of a new development. Harmock had joined them in the docking bay, and he was sat at her side, marvelling at its deserted beauty. Since the end of Galatea all the certainty seemed to have gone out of him, she thought. She had related the full story behind the evacuation, and 'We're really going to have to take matters in hand and search for a suitable solution' had been his half-hearted response.

Now K9 was bringing them down over the war zone, and all three of his pa.s.sengers were crammed into the tiny c.o.c.kpit as the rusty iron clouds parted and the planetoid's ravaged surface came into view. 'Goodness,'

said Harmock. 'Certainly it's taken a battering since I was last here.'

'If you ever were,' said Stokes.

Harmock puffed up. 'I remember it distinct...' He trailed off. 'Unless I'm remembering being told to remember it, I suppose.' He put a hand out to support himself on a metal strut and took a deep breath. 'I don't care to think about this too much. Discovering that one's entire life has been a fantasy isn't very pleasant, you know.'

'Yes, I do know, actually,' said Stokes. He changed the subject, peering down at the approaching surface. 'Romana, sweet, I can't see your TARDIS.'

'We're not heading for the TARDIS,' she said. 'K9's going to bring us down at the war zone's centre.'

'He is what?'

K9 answered. 'Prognostication from existing data suggests the Doctor Master will be involved at the crisis of events.'

'I could have worked that out,' said Stokes, his fingers twisting nervously. 'It doesn't mean we have to be, does it, necessarily? Surely it makes more sense to hide ourselves away and let him sort his crisis out for himself'

'We're in this together,' said Romana hotly. 'I should have disconnected that Conditioner and brought it with me. I'd forgotten what you're really like.'

Stokes sneered back. 'Really.' He gave an affected cough. 'My dear, this planet and everyone on it is about to get invaded by a power against which we now have no defence. Does the phrase "p.i.s.sing against the wind"

spring to your mind, or just to mine?'

'We have a similar saying on Gallifrey,' said Romana. '"Like trying to close the Eye with a finklegruber."'

'There you are, then,' said Stokes.

Romana turned away from him. 'Except I've seen the Doctor accomplish such things on several occasions.'

Harmock pointed over their shoulders and through the window. 'I think I can see something.'

Romana looked. Somewhere in the murky, shadowed regions below there were definite traces of movement.

The Doctor realized he had two objectives. The first was to stay alive, which he was generally quite good at. The second was to lead the Cloud away from the a.s.sembled humans and Chelonians, as it would be a real pity if they were to be rewarded for joining forces at last by getting eaten.

These objectives joined neatly into a course of action, and fortunately this was also something the Doctor was very good at. He ran, guessing that the Cloud would choose to follow him in its entirety.

In this he was correct. Still in its aggressive V-shape it zoomed after him as his long legs took him out of the valley and into a series of low, b.u.mpy, waterlogged foothills that surrounded it. His boots splashed in the muddy water like waders, slowing him down. Finally, he leapt a narrow gulley and slipped, his fifteen stones crashing down like a felled tree.

When he looked up it was to see the Cloud hovering over him. The central black ma.s.s was throbbing with anger. 'I seem to have annoyed you gentlemen in some way,' he called up.

'Doc... tor...' its ghostly voice, now nothing more than a whisper, said. 'You must... die ... that we may live...'