Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 39

It was. It was hanging just over the horizon.

The Doctor leaned forward in his seat.

'Houston. This is Atlantis Atlantis. Code Bluerose.' The commander was flicking switches on the comms panel.

'Roger that, Atlantis Atlantis. Describe the UO, please.'

'It's the shape of an hourgla.s.s. It's big... er.'

'Four kilometres long, I'd say,' the Doctor estimated.

Everyone in the cabin was looking at him.

The commander took a deep breath then said, 'It's not terrestrial, repeat this is not terrestrial.'

The Doctor was shaking his head. 'It's what we came here for,' he told them.

'You're UFO nuts?' the mission specialist asked.

The Doctor jabbed his finger towards the window. 'There's a time and a place for scepticism. This is not it.'

The s.h.i.+p was already getting larger. It was metal not the smooth, s.h.i.+ny metal of the saucers, but a patchwork of copper, gold and bronze.

There were half a dozen saucers attached to its rear section. They gave the thing a sense of scale Debbie knew that those saucers were the size of a large house but here they looked like barnacles on the side of an ocean liner. All over the big s.h.i.+p were towers, spires and other protuberances that gave the impression that a city had been built on the surface of the original vessel.

'It's coming towards us,' Debbie suggested.

'It's not showing up on radar,' the pilot said.

'It wouldn't,' the Doctor informed them. 'But no, we're we're going towards going towards it it. It's in geostationary orbit above India. Change to an intercept course.'

'h.e.l.l, no. I'm the commander here.'

The argument continued, but Debbie wasn't listening. It just wasn't important. Only the alien s.h.i.+p was. Features were becoming more obvious as they got nearer. One end was glowing blue an engine? The other seemed to be gla.s.s almost like windows in an office block. There was a trench running from bow to stern, full of turrets and what looked like missile tubes. It was like a medieval fortress, Dracula's castle.

'Atlantis. This is Houston. Mission objectives changed at three twelve Zulu to Bluerose Protocols. We're switching mission control to the top floor. Please advise your crew.'

'Roger that.' The commander turned to look back. 'For over twenty years, the United Nations have been aware that extraterrestrial life forms exist.'

He let that one sink in. Even with only five other people in the room, reactions ranged from 'I knew it' to 'Impossible'. Debbie glanced over at the Doctor, who was listening intently.

'There are established protocols to deal with these situations, first drawn up in the Brookings Report in 1961. I'll familiarise you with those in a moment. Rest a.s.sured, there's a procedure to follow here.'

The Doctor snorted a laugh.

Fairchild ignored him. 'Our mission is to investigate the UO. Doctor, Ms Gordon, you clearly have some knowledge of this situation. Bring us up to date.'

Chapter Twenty-four.

Home is Where the Hearts Are Miranda looked up to find Cate offering her a silk handkerchief.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I don't mean to cry.'

'You are a long way from home,' Cate said. 'Of course you are crying.'

It was the nearest the woman had got to expressing sympathy. Miranda still reckoned the Deputy controlled her emotions, bottled them up like Mr Spock. She wasn't like Commander Data, who didn't have them in the first place.

She also strongly suspected that the real universe didn't work like Star Trek Star Trek.

Miranda sighed. 'Am I a long way from home?' she asked. 'Or is your galaxy my home and I'm just going back?'

'I couldn't say, Lady Miranda.'

The door slid open and Ferran stepped through, unannounced.

'It is time to continue the tour of the s.h.i.+p,' he told Miranda. They had talked about it before, as they'd walked back from the flight deck. 'We will start at the mapping room.'

Miranda wiped the last tear from her eye and stood, tugging her tunic into shape. 'I'm ready.'

Ferran turned and left, and Miranda strode out after him. Once again, the Deputy followed a few steps behind them.

'The s.h.i.+p is four kilometres long. I can walk that far, how about you?'

Ferran was already sweating. 'There are travel tubes.'

The nearest was directly opposite the door to her room. The normal doors were roughly rectangular (although a little wider at the bottom), but the travel-tube door was circular, and they had to step over a ledge to get in. Once inside, Miranda looked around what resembled a futuristic London Tube carriage, except without windows or anything else to break the monotony of the smooth copper walls. Ferran touched a control and the door hissed shut behind them and the carriage started moving.

The whole process was silent, and it was difficult to judge the speed. The ride was very smooth smoother than standing in a lift, for example.

Ferran kept his eye on Miranda the whole time. He was on edge. Was he expecting her to pounce on him, or something? Or was he about to pounce on her?

Miranda was beginning to feel feel again her emotions were slowly returning, as if her batteries were recharging. At first she'd only felt numb, but she was getting angry now. She'd beaten Ferran last time, she reminded herself. She'd killed his last Deputy. He was on home ground, now, but that just meant he would be getting complacent. She could defeat him. again her emotions were slowly returning, as if her batteries were recharging. At first she'd only felt numb, but she was getting angry now. She'd beaten Ferran last time, she reminded herself. She'd killed his last Deputy. He was on home ground, now, but that just meant he would be getting complacent. She could defeat him.

'Why?' she asked. 'Why did you come back for me?'

'Because I love you,' he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

'And the real reason? It's because I'm the heir to the throne, isn't it? You want to marry me and become Emperor.'

'Nominally,' Cate began, 'in some quarters at least, you're the heir to the throne. Const.i.tutionally, you're the Empress of the entire universe.'

Despite the absurdity of it all, and knowing that she'd done nothing to deserve the honour, a part of Miranda felt very proud of that. In practice, of course, she'd barely held the under-seventeens swimming team together in the face of compet.i.tion from exams and boys, so the chances of her keeping a galactic empire united seemed fairly remote.

Ferran laughed. 'We fought a war to rid the universe of your family and their rule. There might be a few royalists out there, but I doubt it. No one was sorry to see your kind go. If I want to impose my authority, then this s.h.i.+p will be far more effective than your hereditary claims. But those matter to some people. I will marry you, to demonstrate my owners.h.i.+p of you, and your t.i.tles, nothing more.

'How do you feel about that?' Miranda asked the Deputy. It was easier to ask the question than answer it for herself.

Ferran turned and stroked his Deputy's face. 'She has no feelings one way or the other, do you, my dear? She obeys me. A job she does exceptionally well. Besides, she knows that marriage to you will be very little more than symbolic.'

'You treat her like an object,' Miranda noted.

'She is.'

'She's a human being.'

'She most certainly is not.'

'She's a... person.'

'You don't recognise her, do you? Look at her. Let her take a good look, Cate, my dear.'

Cate stood still.

Miranda looked into the face. The blue eyes. She was in her mid-thirties... but there was something about her face. Ever since she'd first seen the Deputy something about her had bothered Miranda.

' "Cate" is short for "duplicate",' Ferran explained. 'She's what you would call an android.'

Miranda took a step back, instinctively. Cate just didn't look like an android, a built built thing there was no hint of it. She hadn't even suspected that the Deputy was anything other than a person. Not a human being, but human-like, as she and Ferran were, a creature of flesh and blood. thing there was no hint of it. She hadn't even suspected that the Deputy was anything other than a person. Not a human being, but human-like, as she and Ferran were, a creature of flesh and blood.

Miranda glanced back at Ferran, who was still grinning at her. He hadn't told her everything yet.

Miranda looked into Cate's face again, then she realised. 'A duplicate of me.'

Ferran was grinning from ear to ear. 'If you can't have the original, you have to settle for the next best thing.'

'She's a clone of me?'

Ferran shook his head. 'Not quite. You don't need to know the exact process used. She looks like you, that's all. A physical duplicate, not a mental one. She doesn't have your mind: she just has a computer.' He reached over, stroked Cate. 'Her body is an almost exact copy of yours, though... or it was, before it aged. Copied from surveillance images I took of you on my last visit to this time zone. Isn't that right, Deputy?'

Miranda looked at the woman, whose face hadn't so much as flickered.

'Yes, Prefect,' Cate said flatly. Cate's voice wasn't the same as Miranda's the accent was different. Well, it would be Cate hadn't been brought up in Greyfrith.

'You are sentient? Intelligent? I mean... not just programmed to follow certain orders and answer certain questions?'

Ferran laughed, but Miranda ignored him.

The Deputy nodded. 'My positronic brain contains over ten million micro-relays. In human terms, I am above super-genius level.'

'Aren't we all?' Miranda chuckled. She cast a disparaging glance over at Ferran. 'Well most of us are.'

Cate's mouth flickered a little, Miranda was sure of it.

'You have Cate. So why do you need me?' Miranda said.

'I need full access to the restricted areas of the Librarinth.'

Miranda shrugged. 'I'm not sure how I can help you. I've got a school-library card, if that's any use. But not with with me.' me.'

'The Librarinth is in... a rather unique location. The Needle. It's a very large structure with a black hole at one end. One of the last surviving artefacts of your people's technology. There are cities on its surface. And the Librarinth is the largest of those cities, the repository of all surviving knowledge and art from the time before your father's reign. Every secret in the universe is kept there.'

'You must know this is the first I've heard about this place. How can I possibly help you?'

'Only the leader of a race can access their race's secrets. You are that person, by default. The guardians of that place will recognise your authority. You will extract the technological secrets of your forefathers I shall use them to impose my will, as they did theirs.'

The carriage had drawn to a halt.

Miranda had been keeping count. The journey had taken about two minutes. So they had been travelling at about seventy-five miles an hour, she calculated.

'Why don't you just teleport everywhere?' she asked. 'You have the technology, so why use travel tubes?'

'Teleport?' Ferran asked, mulling over the word. 'Oh, you mean transmat transmat? It's a costly process, and like all forms of transport it has its risks. Humanity in the twentieth century has jet aircraft, but they don't use them to commute to work.'

Miranda nodded.

The door hissed open.

They were in a small communal chamber. Cate had been here many times before as the mapping operation had progressed. There were desks set up, and they had glowing maps and plans laid out on them. Cate glanced over at Miranda. The young woman was feigning nonchalance as she studied the displays, memorised them.

'This is the mapping room,' Ferran explained. 'We are exploring the s.h.i.+p in teams. Teams of slaves at first expendable men, in case there is anything dangerous. Once that's done, soldiers are sent in for a proper survey.'

'No one is expendable,' Miranda said. Cate almost gasped at the audacity of the statement. The caste system must have been evident to Miranda just from this room the guards wore black coveralls, the slaves wore grey tunics. There were others, their clothing less uniform engineers, technicians. How could she not see these divisions?

One man was standing on his own, the others not quite daring to stand close to him. A subcommander, wearing the emblems of rank, and a cap instead of the full helmet his troops would be wearing.

The others in the room kept their heads down, tried to look busy. Miranda was watching the scene, looking puzzled.

'Report,' Ferran barked.

'Two members of the mapping team have vanished. Slaves. Their names are Graltor and Tarvin and they were '

'I don't need their life stories. They have removed their tracking discs? How is this possible?'

The Deputy cleared her throat. 'Tarvin is a con man, sir, a thief. He could well have the necessary skill.'

Ferran turned to the subcommander. 'You knew this man's history?'

'Sir, I didn't think he'd be able to '

Ferran had pulled something from his belt something too thin to be a cosh, something that looked more like a wand.