Trial Of A Time Lord _ Mindwarp Part 6

'I prefer not to spoil the secrets of the Matrix.'

'Do not bait the accused, Valeyard.'

The Valeyard bowed before the Inquisitor. 'My apologies.'

The Inquisitor looked enquiringly at the Doctor who was frowning with the effort of recail. 'Anything further to add, Doctor?'

Abstractedly the Doctor shook his head, looking a little like his image that still stared vacantly from the Matrix screen.

'Very well. Proceed.'

The screen switched abruptly back into the wreckage of Crozier's laboratory. Kiv and Sil watched Crozier trying to untangle a jumble of wires that had erupted from the Brain Transformer.

Kiv's dry testy voice grated out. 'We must have the Transformer operational; how can we rule without its influence?'

Crozier sighed impatiently. 'Everything will be restored before your slaves realise their situation.'

'Never mind them. What of my predicament? The pain in my head increases.'

'Your brain will continue to grow until...' Crozier shrugged at the obvious conclusion to his diagnosis.

Appalled, Kiv stared at the scientist. 'What?'

'Your skull, Kiv, is not designed to allow for increase of brain size and power. That's the trouble with mutations and hybrids like you. Your cranium is too thick. It lacks elasticity, hence the pain.'

Kiv knew just what Crozier meant for at that moment the pressure within his skull was causing him increasing anguish. 'Yes...' he moaned. 'Yes...'

Crozier regarded Kiv coolly. 'Unless I can operate, you will suffer fatal brain compression in a few days at most.'

Through a film of pain Kiv tried to concentrate on the scientist whose knowledge alone might save his life.

'You were brought here to give me new life!' the voice of Kiv wavered reedily. Crozier began to speak to him as if to a backward child.

'The Doctor has the answers I need. If the Raak did attack, my intended experiment of cerebral transfer must also fail when attempted on you. You would enjoy a few weeks of relief then you would revert to the base instincts of whoever was the donor.'

Kiv could stand no more. 'Words!' he screamed.

'Excuses! This is a conspiracy to stop my life being prolonged!'

Sil, alarmed at his master's growing hysteria, began to babble a mixture of flattery and empty promise. 'The intruders will be caught all I want is to share in the light of your intelligence and profit from its s.h.i.+ning wisdom...'

For Kiv this rivulet of inanity was worse than Crozier's condescension. 'Enough, Sil, do you want to talk me to death?'

'I will pray to the Great Morgo for your immediate recovery, Magnificence.'

'You will do better than that. If the Doctor has the answer Crozier needs you will find him!' Kiv paused, wincing under the onslaught of another compression of agony. When it paused a peak he continued, 'You will find him or you will both share my death with me. I can only stand this suffering for one more day. One day, that is all you both have...' Kiv gathered all his remaining strength and spat out a final imperative. 'Do something or die!'

Sil signalled for his bearers to lift him. 'We will act, Magnificence. Bearers, bear me away!'

Driven by Sil's panic the husky bearers charged enthusiastically for the door, causing a tidal wave inside Sil's tank.

'Not that fast, you Alphan oafs!'

The bearers slowed and carried the irate Sil away in search of the Doctor, while Crozier returned to the repair of his beloved consciousness adjustment and transference systems. Kiv watched him work for a moment than wearily indicated to his servants that they could convey him back to the Profit Room. One day, he thought, I can stand this agony, for one more day but after that, no more. After tomorrow all those who have failed me will be no more.

The decision made his spirits lift and Kiv leaned back and closed his eyes. The careful sway of his water tank soothed him a little. A memory came to him; a memory of his home mire before his brain had started to develop. He remembered how the awakening had commenced, how the world of swamp and slime had become not home and safety but just the mire from which every embryo Mentor must crawl. When Kiv had eventually reached the caves of the Mentors he was welcomed by other mutant arnphibians whose intellects and bodies had developed further into enlightenment than had his own. All Mentors were due to perish after a few brief years of brilliant ac.u.men that wrested a living for their planet from the universal stock and futures markets.

Now was it his turn to die, Kiv wondered. Yes, unless Crozier could avert the fate of all Mentors whose expanding volume of brain came up against the restriction of an unyielding skull. Tomorrow would decide, Kiv told himself as the rocking of his carrying poles lulled him into a few moments of blessed sleep.

Seven.

Peri had been staring at the huge back of King Yrcanos for what seemed like hours. They trudged on and on deeper into the caves. The Doctor stumbled along behind.

'Quiet,' Yrcanos held up a hand.

'What?'

'Listen...'

All Peri could hear was the slow drip of water falling somewhere within the shroud of mist ahead. Then the mist thinned as the glare of search lamps began to cut through the pink vapour.

'Back. Retreat, move!' Yrcanos shepherded Peri and the Doctor back the way they had just travelled until they reached a cleft in the rock that might hide them from the probing lights of a patrol of guards. Crouching down, Peri and Yrcanos realised that the Doctor was making little attempt to hide from the approaching lights of their enemies.

'Doctor...'

'Wha...?'

'Get down!' Peri pulled him down next to where Yrcanos crouched on the floor of the natural alcove. Light blazed above them but only momentarily the sound of the guards' steps continued their progress without breaking stride.

When the patrol had gone, Yrcanos stepped out into the pa.s.sageway and helped Peri to step clear of the rocks that littered the floor of the entrance to their hidey hole.

Slowly the Doctor emerged to join them, his eyes dull and devoid of his usual intelligence. Worriedly, Peri pa.s.sed her hand before his unblinking eyes. Not a flicker of response came from her movement.

'Yrcanos, you must help me get the Doctor back to the TARDIS.'

'This is not the time to run away but to fight. We should follow the guards. Annihilate them one by one just as I did on my long march to Kronwart.'

'How? What with?' Peri demanded. 'We're unarmed!'

Yrcanos shrugged casually. Peri tried again, 'What would be the point?'

'Victory!'

A wolflike grin came to the mouth of Yrcanos. Placing a platelike hand on either side of Peri's head he stared into her eyes.

'I am the victor of 97 battles, 1008 skirmishes, none of them minor.'

Peri felt his hands begin to exert frightening pressure.

'Can you feel my power, my strength?' Peri tried to nod but that was made impossible by his powerful grip. A voice cut in. A voice dripping with s.a.d.i.s.tic pleasure.

'Go on, flatten her face, slowly, slowly...'

With a gasp, Peri realised the voice belonged to the Doctor who was trying to egg Yrcanos on to crush her skull for his entertainment.

Yrcanos laughed. 'Blood, Doctor, is that what you crave?'

'Yes, oh, yes. But do it slowly so that the victim feels the terror of an extended death.'

Peri yelled out. 'Yrcanos, don't add me to your victims!'

'Why not?' the Doctor urged.

The laugh of the warlord echoed around the gallery bounding back at them from the rocky walls.

'The Doctor thirsts for blood. Let us not disappoint him. Let's move.' Yrcanos released Peri and shoved her playfully towards the inanely grinning Doctor. With a guffaw the King strode off into the mist. In imitation, the Doctor pushed Peri ahead of him.

'You heard the King... move...!'

'Doctor...'

'Move!' The voice of the Doctor was harsh and fearsome in its intensity. Frightened by the latest turn in her predicament Peri hurried after Yrcanos, not sure if she might not be safer with the warlike King than the increasingly treacherous Doctor.

A line of Thoros-Alphans, clutching their djellabas for warmth about them, shuffled along in a line that wound in a half-circle following the curve of the induction centre.

They were waiting to be examined and a.s.sessed for suitability for labour in the service of the mentors. Black-uniformed guards watched the miserable line of men and women and children move towards the screening centre where an aged medical officer, Marne, sat at the controls of a body scanner that could a.s.sess the state of health of a body almost instantly.

'Next,' the Mentor said, his voice weary with boredom.

Already that day he had dealt with 424 immigrants.

The latest scrawny specimen grasped the computer terminal rods under instruction from a technician. 'Mentor Marne, we are ready.'

'Yes, don't shout,' Marne had unusually sensitive hearing and the everyday sounds of life underground were often distressing to him. Marne extended a long index finger and pressed the key of a.s.sessment. The a.s.sessor Unit buzzed and clicked busily before displaying data on its VDU. This was echoed by a ghostly metallic synthesised voice that intoned 'Reject disease renal incipient. Reject! Reject!'

Two guards hustled away the Alphan, pausing only to salute Officer Frax who had entered the area of the Induction centre at the head of a search patrol. Then it was the turn of Frax to salute, for, from another linking pa.s.sageway, came Sil and his party. Meeting in the centre the leaders of the search parties began to confer.

There was a third entrance that led into the circular s.p.a.ce that contained the Centre for Induction. Aleng this, drawn towards the light and activity, came Yrcanos, Peri and the Doctor.

Cautiously Yrcanos peered around the corner, taking in the line of Alphans, the guards and the patrols of Sil and Frax who had merged together.

'What's going on?' Peri tried to stretch her neck to see around the bulk of the King.

'They bring all new slaves here. But see, lady, those guarding them have weapons: liquifiers that we must obtain.'

'We? That includes me, huh?'

'On my planet a Warrior Queen fights alongside her King.'

'We're not on your world, Buster!' Peri's voice was almost as pugnacious in tone as his. A slow smile of delight spread across the broad mouth of Yrcanos. 'It does not matter. The same rule applies, come...'

The Doctor seemed dazed again. He had propped himself up against a wall and stared across at the wall opposite. Peri could not decide what had more expression, that wall or the Time Lord.

'Come on!' A large hand took hers and pulled Peri into the light of the open chamber.

After the mists and semi-darkness of the caves and tunnels the glare seemed intense, but still the strong hand propelled her towards the line of Alphans.

The guards responsible for watching the immigrants had eyes only for the meeting of Sil and Frax who were involved in an angry exchange.

'Which corridors and tunnels have not yet been searched?' the voice of Sil carried across to the guards around the computer a.s.sessor unit.

'Ow!' Marne winced at the angry tones of his fellow Mentor. 'How can someone like Sil possess a voice that can both shrill and grate at the same time?' he asked plaintively of no one in particular.

'Everywhere has been searched,' Frax was saying in reply to Sil. 'Except for those outlets to the Sea of Turmoil.'

'Then search there there, stupid!'

Frax motioned to his patrol to follow Sil's order. As the guards began to disperse Yrcanos prepared to make his move. Having taken Peri through the queue of immigrants the King was now within striking distance of a guard who had a weapon held loosely in his holster belt. Yrcanos glanced over his shoulder and indicated his target. Peri nodded in dumb a.s.sent. Then stealthily Yrcanos closed in on his quarry. Three steps away from his prey Yrcanos froze as a voice called urgently across the chamber.

'Look out, behind you!' It was the voice of the Doctor.

The threatened guard turned, saw the danger from Yrcanos and went to draw his phaser while another guard bravely ran to tackle the barbariam King. Easily checking the rush of the guard, Yrcanos then hoisted up his attacker like a sack of barley and hurled the unfortunate guard towards his fellows.

Vaulting over the terrified Marne, who sat with his hands pressed to his ears, Yrcanos made for the nearest exit, a.s.suming that to be the direction in which Peri had gone. Instead, Peri had momentarily dropped from sight, having seen a phaser weapon fall to the floor during the chaos that ensued from Yrcanos hurling the guard across the chamber. She retrieved the phaser, then stood and levelled the weapon towards the guards who had started to regroup. Sil, halfway across to where the Doctor was being held prisoner, frantically made his bearers halt as Peri turned her attention towards him Everyone waited for Peri to make the next move.

Praying that her voice would be strong and firm she called across to the Doctor. 'Doctor come over here!'

'No thanks...' came the reply.

'Doctor...?' the bewilderment was clear in her faltering reply.

'Charge her down!' Sil yelled.

Peri turned the panel on the phaser b.u.t.t and pressed the activator trigger. Nothing happened. With guards rus.h.i.+ng towards her, Peri threw the useless weapon at them and ran for the corridor down which Yrcanos had disappeared. The guards ali hesitated, turning to Sil who was interested only in the Doctor. The latter smiled as his enemy approached him 'Doctor, the pleasure of your company is, of course, infinite.' Sil paused to savour the moment. 'But why have you chosen to warn us rather than help your friends?'