"The Tyrenians?" speculated the Doctor. "They had to get to this planet somehow..."
"But what happened. Who was here first? The aliens or us?"
The Doctor stood up. "I don"t think anything here is going to tell us," he declared. "But if the Tyrenians had s.p.a.ceships here at the time of your planet fall, maybe they can tell us what happened."
"You want to talk to them?!"
"They are an intelligent species. I know they have a reputation for trouble but they"re not total monsters like the Daleks. In fact, now I come to think about it, I seem to recall that they have a strict code of behaviour; a sense of honour.
I"m sure we can deal with them without further violence."
Kirann found herself believing the stranger; his simple honesty encouraged such thinking.
"But how are you going to find them?"
"I don"t know, yet. Let"s put our thinking caps on, eh, see what we can come up with."
The shuttlecraft that had arrived in the past few minutes more than dwarfed the tiny fighter that Veena and Zoe had arrived in. Max looked on impa.s.sively as a seemingly endless stream of battle-suited marines poured out of the machine, and began taking up defensive positions around the settlement. A few moments later Major Cartor stepped out on to the soil of Axista Four.
"Max Forde?" he asked. Max nodded and extended a hand, which Cartor ignored completely.
"We got your Mayday," he continued.
"Thanks for coming," said Max evenly, eyeing the major with a good deal of suspicion, "but we"ve changed our minds. We don"t need outside help to resolve our problems here."
"That"s as maybe but the situation has changed now.
Where"s the alien?"
"Secured. He"s sleeping."
"Wake him up. I want to question him," ordered Cartor firmly.
"Now."
Jamie, Zoe, Max and Hali had insisted on being with the Federation officials during the questioning. Jamie wanted to see for himself what the dog creature had to say, Zoe was worried about what Cartor might do to the prisoner and Max and Hali just wanted to be kept inside the loop. They held hands quietly, aware that things were slipping away from them.
Later Zoe was glad that they had all been in attendance; she was sure that had Cartor acted alone the interview would have been more of an interrogation. She didn"t trust Cartor to treat any alien with humanity or respect; she"d met his type before and xenophobia didn"t even begin to cover it.
The first shock was that the alien spoke Standard - the language that had evolved over the centuries from English.
Neither Zoe nor Jamie was surprised but the colonists had been very shocked. Zoe was interested, however, to note that Cartor seemed to have expected the alien to speak his language. He had barged right in and started speaking to it directly without bothering with any preliminary niceties.
"Who are you? Where have you come from?" he demanded brusquely. "Come on, I know you can understand me."
The alien had just looked at him and snarled.
"Answer me when I speak to you."
"Lieutenant F"rakl Zenig, of the Tyrenian s.p.a.ce cruiser The The Great Hunt", Great Hunt", replied the alien eventually. "Would you like my service number? Not that it would mean anything to you." replied the alien eventually. "Would you like my service number? Not that it would mean anything to you."
"You have a ship?" asked Cartor ignoring the sarcasm.
"I just told you. The Great Hunt." The Great Hunt."
"Where is it?"
Zenig smiled. "Ah well, that would be telling, wouldn"t it?"
Zoe realised that the Federation major had extracted all the information that he was going to, but the interrogation continued for a further half hour. In the end, Zenig"s answers were nothing more than grunts and Cartor"s patience eventually gave out. "Lock him up," he ordered. "No food or drink for 24 hours - we"ll see what he feels like saying after that."
Veena hesitated. "But Sir, the Convention..."
Cartor shrugged, cold steel in his eyes. "I don"t think there were any "Tyrenians" at New Geneva, were there?" He swept out.
The Doctor and Kirann may have had their metaphorical thinking caps on but they weren"t getting very far. It was the Doctor who finally came up with the answer. "Is there any transport on this planet?" he asked.
"Nothing that isn"t horse-powered," Kirann replied. Why?"
"What about the Realists?"
Kirann shook her head. "According to what Val told me, for all the raids that the Realists have made since the split they"ve only really taken emergency shelter kits, survival rations, medical technology, that kind of thing. Nothing with wheels or wings."
"And these Tyrenians, they can"t have appeared from very near to here; the Loyalists would have seen them before now..." mused the Doctor.
"So?"
"So what if the Tyrenians have some kind of transport?
Something with an engine, something that gave off emissions.
"Emissions we could track!" exclaimed Kirann, following his reasoning. "Yes, yes, that"s a possibility. There are scanners in the ship that still work. We can do a general sweep, see if we pick up anything."
"And I"m sure I can knock up something similar that will be portable," offered the Doctor. Re-energized, the Doctor and Kirann set about their tasks.
An hour later, the Doctor was hanging on for his life as Kirann steered an explorer buggy, slightly erratically, along one of the dusty trails leading out of Plymouth Hope. The buggy was a four-wheel, open-topped affair. The Doctor had been amazed when Kirann had taken him directly to a section of the hold that housed three of these buggies, all powered up and ready to go. "I can"t believe these people had resources like this at their fingertips for so long and preferred to go on horseback," Kirann had commented.
"They thought they were living according to your father"s rules," the Doctor suggested.
Kirann laughed bitterly. "That"s so ironic. My father hated rules all his life." She had then jumped into the driving seat and remotely opened the cargo bay door. The Doctor had joined her and immediately regretted it; there was a ten-foot drop from the edge of the cargo bay to the ground below, but Kirann had such total faith in the buggy"s suspension that she hadn"t even slowed down. Or perhaps she just hadn"t looked. Either way they"d hit the ground with a horrible thump and the Doctor had nearly trampolined right out of the vehicle. Kirann had shot out an arm, caught hold of him and hauled him back before any damage was done. They"d headed straight for an area five miles south of the town where the ship"s scanners had picked up the emission trace of a small ionic engine, possibly a one-man skimmer.
The Doctor held his jury-rigged portable scanner - a Heath Robinson-style contraption that looked like a science experiment mounted on a table-tennis bat (which, in many ways, it was). It was bleeping steadily as they moved, increasing in volume as they got nearer to their search site.
There were on the right track.
Dyselt was asleep, lying on a rough outcrop of rock, not that he cared for comfort. The brain disease was still eating away at his mind, destroying his brain"s higher functions and reducing him to an animalistic state. He awoke, jerking his head around wildly, not sure where he was. Outside. Outside in the open. He knew he should be somewhere else: somewhere inside. From the wreckage of his memory he managed to salvage a single image; a notion of safety that he couldn"t put a name to. It was a metal cave, a construct and it was where he belonged. He couldn"t remember what the bunker was but he knew what home was. And he needed to get back to it.
The creature got to his feet and climbed on board his skimmer. Operating the controls by instinct rather than knowledge, he started the engine. The skimmer shot off, hovering inches above the ground, leaving an invisible trail of pollutants as it went.
Lorvalan entered the bunker with caution, sniffing the air experimentally. Had any of the humans returned? There were no fresh odours, just the traces of the earlier visits. Relaxing slightly, Lorvalan hurried through the corridors.
The humans had discovered this bunker, into which he and his command crew and other survivors of the humans"
attack on their settlement had retreated, but they hadn"t found the main ship. Lorvalan knew that he would be safer there; in the mothership he had access to supplies, weapons, droids, everything he might need to remove the humans from the planet, everything except the most important element: manpower.
Battledroids were all very well for containment, diversionary a.s.saults and simple manoeuvres, but for a real battle he knew he would need experienced Tyrenian warriors.
Although the humans had discovered the bunker, he had run the risk of returning, as this was where his remaining warriors still slept.
If there had been more time, he would have begun a program to check each of the Alistori; the infection of Dyselt was disturbing and, under normal circ.u.mstances, further revivals without rigorous checks would have been unthinkable. But these were far from normal circ.u.mstances, in Lorvalan"s opinion. He began sending out the signals to the Alisorti, ordering the parasitical creatures to wake their hosts.
Almost immediately he began to hear the subtle sounds that announced revival: the sticky, ripping sounds of the Alisorti flexing their many limbs. And then, further away, Lorvalan heard something else. Movement. A voice. Humans!
Lorvalan took one last look around the revival room, a.s.sured himself that everything had begun correctly and then exited. His warriors would have the time to wake properly and join the fight - he would make sure of that.
Chapter Fourteen.
Zenig lay still, gathering his strength. The humans thought that they had him beaten, that his wounds made him weak; he was happy to play along with their mistake. The truth was that the Tyrenian const.i.tution was a remarkably robust creation, with self-healing abilities many races would be jealous of. Although his wounds had been severe the lacerations were already sealing themselves, his torn muscle was being regrown. Injuries that might take a lesser creature, like these pathetically frail humans for example, days to recover from would incapacitate a healthy adult male Tyrenian for just a matter of hours.
So Zenig lay still and let out the occasional groan, as if in pain. His captors were watching him, he knew - he"d spotted the hidden camera in the corner of the room instantly - so he showed them what they expected to see. A creature beaten into submission, no longer a threat.
He waited and eventually his opportunity came. He heard raised voices outside the room in which he was being held. A female voice, to his sensitive ears shrill and high-pitched, spoke first, then the deeper, more acceptable tones of one of the males answered.
"I don"t care what the major said. There are rules about this sort of thing and a prisoner must be treated in accordance with them."
"But sir, the major said these dog things are not covered by the Convention -"
The female voice cut in. "All intelligent life forms are covered. It"s not open to debate, Jones, just take this food in to him. Now."
Zenig listened keenly with his sensitive ears as one pair of footsteps echoed away down the corridor. A second footstep, a heavier tread, approached the door. Zenig tensed. He timed his move perfectly. As the door slid open the hapless human soldier took a step into the room. He was holding a tray in one hand on which there was a pitcher and a gla.s.s of water and a bowl of some nutrient. As he stepped over the threshold, the human glanced back to secure the door with the wrist sensor on his free hand. That was the moment Zenig had been waiting for. He leapt. It was, even by Tyrenian standards, a prodigious jump. Zenig knocked the man to the floor, jumped over him and into the corridor moments before the door closed. Before the man could even move, Zenig smashed the operating control; as he had hoped, this appeared to fuse the door. Knowing he had scant seconds before his escape was noticed, Zenig hurried out.
The humans" arrogance and overconfidence was evident as soon as Zenig left the building. No one was to be seen - the possibility of his escape had clearly not registered with them.
He hurried towards the mountains and to freedom. Just as he reached the outskirts of the settlement he was spotted. It was the youth they had encountered before, the one who wore the strange clothes that left his legs bare.
"Hey you," shouted the human, running at him. Zenig considered a moment; killing the human would be satisfying but without a weapon it might take a moment or two, time in which other humans might appear and outnumber him. His duty was clear: to return to base as quickly as possible. The human"s death would have to wait. Instead Zenig turned and let the human shoulder barge him. The Tyrenian used the youth"s momentum, and threw him expertly. The human sailed through the air and fell to the ground with a satisfying thud. Zenig did not wait around to see how badly damaged he was.
As the alien disappeared into the undergrowth at the foot of the mountains, Cartor, Veena, Zoe and Max emerged from one of the buildings. Max hurried over to check on Jamie but the young Scot was already rolling to his feet and removing his shirt, revealing the slimline body armour he had been issued with. He patted the lightweight chest piece, marvelling at its strength. "Didn"t even scratch me," he announced as Max reached him. The others joined them.
"That was very stupid," Zoe scolded him, "very brave but very stupid. You could have been killed!"
"We wouldn"t have let that happen," Cartor snapped.
"Anyway, he volunteered for the job."
"Aye, it couldnae been one of yon marines - the wee doggie would have been too suspicious - but I don"t look like a soldier, do I?" said Jamie proudly. Zoe just shook her head sadly; trust Jamie to put his hand up for a stupid stunt like this.
"Right, then." Cartor turned to Veena. "I think we"ll need some reinforcements. Bring down a full squad from Hannibal. Hannibal.
I want an L and D team ready to move out in two hours." He smiled. "The alien should have led us to his base by then."
Veena nodded and she and Cartor moved away to discuss the details of the proposed attack.
Max watched them go and then turned to Zoe.
"I could have saved them some time; told them where I found the aliens sleeping."
"I don"t think that would have been a good idea," Zoe said firmly. "I don"t entirely trust them. Not all monsters have talons and claws, you know," she added.
"That"s as maybe, but lots do. Like those Yeti things, and the terrible Zodin," added Jamie unhelpfully.
"That"s enough, Jamie, please. There are always exceptions.
My point is that right now I think the marines from the ECSV Hannibal are just as much a danger to everyone as Zenig and his compatriots. I need to talk to the Doctor." are just as much a danger to everyone as Zenig and his compatriots. I need to talk to the Doctor."
Zoe looked over at Veena and Cartor; their planning session appeared to be over. Cartor set off towards his shuttlecraft, leaving Veena talking on her communicator to the Hannibal. Hannibal.
"I"ll get Veena to take Billy Joe back to his grandfather. She told me that he"s back home now. Maybe I can go with them and brief him on what"s happening," Zoe announced.
"What should we do? I dinnae want to sit on my backside,"
complained Jamie.
Zoe paused, thinking for a moment. "We need to know more about these aliens - their numbers, what they"re doing here..."
"There"s a way through the caves to their bunker," Max told her. "I could take you."
Jamie nodded enthusiastically. "Maybe I can catch up with that Zenig."
"Just be careful, Jamie. We need information not martyrs,"
Zoe instructed him.
Jamie looked confused.
"Don"t go looking for a fight, Jamie. Okay?" clarified Zoe.
"Oh right, if you say so." Jamie turned to Max. "Come on, then. What are we waiting for?"
It wasn"t too difficult a journey. The caves were dark and wet and Jamie lost his footing more than once, but it made a nice change from sleek metallic corridors on s.p.a.ce stations and the like. Jamie could take or leave the technological marvels of the futures he visited, but nothing fired him up quite so much as a physical challenge. He followed Max carefully through the caves.
"This is the first route I discovered," Max explained as they moved. "I was just exploring, I"ve always been curious, and when we got here I found traces of EMR, which I didn"t think were natural. I had Hali look for a more powerful sensor on her next raid on the colony ship and she came up with the goods. Then there was no doubt - there was something artificial down here, some kind of machine. Well, we"d seen the wreckage of the Tyrenian camp; I"d a.s.sumed it was some sort of base for a training exercise or something. It was hardly a suitable site for a colony of any kind but it looked abandoned, forgotten. I didn"t expect to find some artefact of theirs still throbbing with power. Careful here, the wall falls away rather."