"Ah - so these are your friends," said an angry voice. "I see that they include the man who ordered our people killed."
"I think you"re under a misapprehension -" began the Doctor, but the young man had raised his gun. As Jo watched in horror, he started firing at them.
The Doctor shouted "Get down!" but Jo didn"t need to be told. She dived for the cover of a rock, heard a bullet whistle past her ear as she scrambled for safety.
Then, abruptly, the firing stopped.
A voice shouted, "Not the girl! She helped us at the camp! She is a nurse!"
The voice was familiar. Jo cautiously popped her head up, saw two of the men facing each other, another three running up across the rocks. Benari was lying flat on his face on the ground, his hands over his head. The Doctor was nowhere in sight.
Three guns swung to cover her. Jo ducked down again.
"Miss Grant! You can come out! We will not hurt you!" called the familiar voice.
This time Jo recognized it. She raised her head again. "Vincent!
How did you get here?"
Vincent grinned. "Well, I didn"t have a ride in a Martian helicopter,"
he said. "But I managed all the same."
While he was speaking, Jo saw the Doctor"s head appear behind a rock. "Good morning, gentlemen. I think we should - "
A fusillade of automatic fire interrupted him. Jo shouted "No!" The Doctor dived to the ground - or fell, Jo wasn"t sure which. "Don"t shoot the Doctor!" she yelled, scrambling out into the open and waving her hands desperately. "Please. He"s not your enemy. He"s my friend."
The firing stopped once more.
"The Doctor"s my friend!" repeated Jo into the silence.
"He is a doctor?" Vincent"s voice again. "He is unarmed? You can vouch for him?"
"He"s a non-combatant," she said carefully.
Vincent turned and whispered to one of his companions.
"Okay," said the second man. "We agree that he can come out. But with his hands up."
Almost immediately the Doctor emerged, his hands in the air. He gave Jo a grateful glance. "Now, what I think we should do is -" he began again.
"We give the instructions here!" interrupted Vincent. "We are going into the nest. You will return with Jamil here and attend to our wounded."
The one called Jamil gestured at the p.r.o.ne figure of Khalil Benari and muttered something to Vincent, who nodded.
"Well, as far as the wounded are concerned," the Doctor was saying, "Jo and I will be happy to help as far as we can. But I really think the rest of you will be wasting your time going into the nest now. What you have to worry about straight away is whether - "
The Doctor broke off as Vincent shouted something, pointed his gun over Jo"s shoulder. Jo looked round, saw that Benari had got up and was scrambling away across the rocks. Vincent fired a single shot and Benari stopped, slowly crumpled backwards and collapsed.
"No!" screamed Jo, far too late.
Vincent walked over to Benari, looked over his shoulder at the others. "My honour, I think," he said. He turned the man over with his foot, put the gun against his mouth.
Jo could see that he was still alive, his eyes terrified, staring at Vincent. "No!" she screamed again.
"Wait a minute -" began the Doctor at the same moment.
But Vincent had pulled the trigger. Blood and pieces of flesh and bone spattered over the ground.
Jo felt her stomach heave and collapsed onto the cold stone.
Somewhere through the ringing in her ears she heard the Doctor"s voice. "That wasn"t really necessary, gentlemen."
"It wasn"t necessary," said Vincent"s voice, thick with some emotion that Jo didn"t want to identify. "But it was justified."
Twenty-Three.
The Brigadier looked around at the twitching bodies of the Kebirian soldiers. They were rolling on their backs, faces blank, limbs beating against their sides in what looked like a fruitless attempt to fly. One young man was persistently banging his head against a rock: blood pooled on the dry ground beneath him.
The Brigadier shook his head, looked up at Yates who was standing on a high rock, scanning the landscape with binoculars. "Any sign of Rashid?"
"Nothing, sir," said Yates. "Just a lot of these Kebirian fellows." He paused. "All out of action by the look of it."
The Brigadier sighed. "Those shots must have come from somewhere." He struggled to his feet, winced as he put his weight on his injured ankle. But it wasn"t as bad as it had been ten minutes ago.
He reckoned that he could walk, as long as he was careful. He cautiously climbed the incline to the base of the rock where Yates was standing.
There were two single shots in the distance, from the direction of the ruined nest. The Brigadier shielded his eyes from the low sun, stared, thought he saw some figures moving amongst the reddish rocks and slabs of fallen nest material.
"It"s the Doctor!" said Yates suddenly, the binoculars still against his eyes. "And Jo!"
They were alive!
The Brigadier felt as if a set of clamps had been removed from his head and chest. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Certain," said Yates. "Take a look."
He handed over the binoculars. The Brigadier saw the familiar figure in his cape and coloured shirt, Jo"s head of blonde hair. There were some other people there - Arabs by the look of them. They seemed to be arguing.
"Better get over and say h.e.l.lo, I suppose," he said to Yates.
The Captain nodded, started out at a run across the rocks. The Brigadier followed as fast as he could. As he got nearer, he saw the Doctor standing on a rock shouting something, heard the unmistakable sound of Jo"s voice screaming.
Here we go, he thought. Never a peaceful moment.
He pulled his revolver from its holster and increased his pace to a trot, heedless of the pain from his ankle.
He almost collided with a man in combat fatigues and headscarf.
The man pointed a machine pistol at him, then relaxed and laughed.
"Brigadier! So it was your people who destroyed Al Harwaz Al Harwaz after all!" after all!"
The Brigadier recognized Tahir Al-Naemi, managed a tight smile.
"Never mind about that now. My scientific advisor and his a.s.sistant are being attacked - "
"More of a disagreement, Brigadier," said a voice from somewhere behind Tahir.
The Brigadier saw the Doctor with his arm around a shocked-looking Jo. Both of them were covered in pieces of flaky mud. Three more Arabs in combat fatigues were jogging up behind them, guns in their hands.
Jo turned on them, shaking off the Doctor"s arm. "You killed him!"
she shouted. "You didn"t need to kill him!"
"After what you saw yesterday you don"t think that I had the right?"
said one of the Arabs. The Brigadier recognized the face from somewhere.
"No!" Jo was shouting. "It was horrible! You"re -" She broke off as the Doctor put a warning hand on her arm.
The Brigadier stared at them. He was feeling increasingly bewildered and irritated. He wanted to say how glad he was that Jo and the Doctor were still alive. How happy he was to see them. How immensely relieved he felt that he hadn"t shot his friends. But n.o.body was giving him the chance. "Look," he said, "Could somebody please tell me what"s going on?"
"Monsieur Khalil Benari has been executed," said one of the newcomers. "In accordance with Revolutionary law." He gestured at the Brigadier with his gun. "Who is this person?"
Tahir told him who the Brigadier was, adding dryly, "It was he who ordered the nest destroyed, so I think you can say he is on our side."
Yates ran up from somewhere ahead of them, his hand on the holster of his gun. "Everything all right, sir?" he gasped, looking around the little group. "I thought that they were -" he gestured behind him.
"All under control, Yates," said the Brigadier. "Except that these people have just shot their Prime Minister; but that"s not our problem."
"It should be your problem," said Jo. Her voice still quavered with shock. "That"s what the United Nations is for, isn"t it? To stop the killing?"
The Doctor put his arm round her again. "You can"t expect the Brigadier to solve all the world"s problems, Jo." He looked up at the Brigadier. "Talking of which, was it you that ordered the nest destroyed?"
The Brigadier looked at the ground. "Yes," he said slowly. "Look, Doctor, I knew that you might be in there, but - "
"Really, Brigadier!" interrupted the Doctor. "Why do you always shoot first and ask questions afterwards? I should tell you that I very nearly had everything under control when you -"
The Brigadier decided that it was his turn to interrupt. "Under control! The Kebirians shot down my helicopter! They were going to turn Yates and I into - well, I suppose the same thing that they turned you into."
"What do you mean, turned us into?"
The Brigadier looked at the ground again, then glanced at Yates.
"Well, Doctor, it"s like this -" He told the Doctor everything that had happened since the false Doctor and Jo had joined him at Kebir City airport.
The Doctor listened mostly in silence, nodding occasionally. Jo gasped a few times, and when the Brigadier told them how many UNIT men had been killed she sat down on the ground and started sobbing. Behind her, Tahir and his men were holding a whispered consultation of their own; of the Arabs, only the Sakir Sakir Mohammad appeared to be listening to the Brigadier"s story. He nodded sagely from time to time. Mohammad appeared to be listening to the Brigadier"s story. He nodded sagely from time to time.
"You shot us?" the Doctor asked finally.
The Brigadier turned away, took a few steps across the loose sand.
The sun was already beginning to feel hot, though it was not yet far above the horizon.
"Sorry, Doctor," he said finally. "I thought I was doing the right thing."
"But of course you weren"t doing the right thing! Those things were third stage Xarax - perfect copies of human beings, in many ways.
But I can a.s.sure you that it would take more than a gunshot wound to put them out of action for good. I don"t suppose it occurred to you to have the bodies incinerated?"
The Brigadier turned and stared at the Doctor. "Incinerated? Of course not! I didn"t even know if - I mean - "
"Where are they now?" snapped the Doctor.
"Well - in the Army morgue. I asked Dr Moore there to give me an immediate autopsy report - by phone to Rabat if necessary."
"And has he given you the report?"
The Brigadier shook his head.