"She"s right, you know," said Roz, turning the volume down again. "Peace has broken out everywhere. Everyone"s certain again."
"That, and a ma.s.sive ISN redeployment to a dozen colony worlds. Walid making a show of strength. No more monsters?
N-forms or altered humans?"
249.
"Nope. The Empire"s calm. Even the resistance are quiet: they"re probably trying to decide what they think of the new boy."
"So the crisis is past. Everything"s settling into place."
"Looks like it."
"And what about you?"
Roz lit up another cigarette. The Doctor waved the smoke away. "The Emperor"s personal secretary has offered me the position of Pontifex Saecularis. Head of the Order of Adjudicators."
The Doctor looked at her, one of his slow, considering looks.
"Are you going to accept?" he said at last.
"I already have," she said.
He reached out and shook her hand, solemnly.
"Congratulations. There"s a happy ending," he said.
"The position ranks just below the Emperor in importance,"
said Roz. "I"d be in a position to shape history. Get some justice out there, clean up this corrupt dump of an Empire. Starting with the Order of Adjudicators, which is filthy to the core. I"d start by ferreting out the conspirators who murdered my nephew and niece. Purge the Brotherhood"s infiltrators. If Chris wants to stay, I could appoint him Lord High Sheriff, set his family up with a nice little moon of their own."
She took a drag, puffed out a cloud of smoke. "It also gives the Emperor a way of keeping an eye on the House of Forrester. An additional tie with Leabie can"t hurt. Keep her on side." She sighed. "I"d really like to believe that it really is all over. I really don"t want to hear any more bad news."
"I don"t have any," said the Doctor.
"You"ll find some." Roz sighed.
"Mmm. This peace is too quick. I don"t trust it."
"The Council doesn"t reconvene for a week. That"s when the real work of restabilizing the government and the Empire will begin."
"So history is still in disequilibrium." He waved a hand at the screens. "One push, in the right place..."
"I"m not worried about little pushes," said Roz. "It"s hulking great battleships zooming about and blowing planets up that I"m 250 worried about." She ground out the cigarette on the console.
"Why"d you kill the Empress?"
"Is that an official question?" said the Doctor.
Roz smiled a little. "I"m not going to be invested for a month."
"She asked me to," he said.
"Yeah," she said, "but you were expecting that, right? You went in there with the intention of giving history one almighty shove."
The Doctor shook his head. Roz lifted an eyebrow, but she believed him. He didn"t lie to her very often.
"She would have found some way of dying," said the Doctor.
"But she might have spent another ten years looking for it. Or she might have really been a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the Empire would be at war right now..."
"All the possibilities," said Roz. "As usual, we drop in, and history coalesces around us."
"I don"t think you should take that position."
"You don"t agree?"
"I mean the Pontifex Saecularis position."
"Doctor," said Roz. "I"m flattered. But I can"t stay aboard the TARDIS for ever."
He was shaking his head. "You ought to stay well clear of history. Especially now."
"A while back, you said my life had more possibilities than Chris"s life. What did you mean by that?"
"I mean, when you see history coming," he said, "duck."
"Leabie was looking for you," said Roz. "Didn"t your beeper go off?"
The Doctor pulled the map out of his pocket. "I wondered what that was. I switched it off."
"She"s up in the observatory. It sounded important, you"d better go and see her right away."
The Doctor got up. "Movement at last," he said.
"Quack," said Roz.
Leabie was watching the stars, sitting in a reclined, padded seat, one hand on the controls of the observatory. The whole room spun slowly at her touch.
251.
The Doctor stood on the curved floor of the great observatory.
It was a translucent ball, ten metres across, able to tilt up to forty-five degrees in any direction.
Leabie moved the controls until Callisto was directly overhead.
Tiny points of light were visible, ships to-ing and fro-ing from the Empire"s new seat of power.
"Isn"t it marvellous about Roz?" she said.
"Indeed," said the Doctor. "It"s quite a comeback, from renegade to top of the totem pole."
"I wanted to thank you for looking after her," said Leabie. "For rescuing her from the Adjudicators in the first place. For bringing her back intact."
"My pleasure," he said. "Though Roz does most of the looking after herself. Your sister is a remarkable woman, Lady Forrester."
"That she is," said Leabie. "Doctor, there"s another reason I asked you to see me the Emperor has requested your presence,"
she said.
"Ah," said the Doctor.
"He says he needs to clear up some matters relating to the killing of Helen the First. He"s been crowned, so the circ.u.mstances of her death don"t affect his claim to the throne."
Leabie sat up and looked at him. "I"m sure he wants to have a proper talk with you about it. After all, he doesn"t want to end up the way she did. It sounds ghastly."
"Did he ask me to go alone?"
"He didn"t make any specific instructions. But I"m sure you could bring servants, secretaries. I"ll provide whoever you want.
And a shuttle, of course. He"s expecting you at eleven hundred IST. That"s in about two hours."
"Thank you, Lady Leabie," said the Doctor. "I"ll leave within the hour."
"Give His Majesty my best wishes. I"ll be seeing him in two days for the planning conference, of course."
"Don"t go," said Roz.
They were sitting around in Chris"s room. The Doctor looked over to Chris, who was surrounded by a tailor, taking 252 measurements. "You don"t have to come with me," he told the young man for the third time.
"Neither of you should go," said Roz. "I don"t like this at all."
"It"s the Emperor Emperor, Roz," said Chris. The tailor tutted, trying to measure his chest. "We can"t not not go." go."
Roz put her hands on her hips. "I can"t let you boys out of my sight for a moment without you getting into trouble."
"Relax, Roz," said the Doctor. "If there is something afoot, Walid"s hardly going to draw attention to his connection by letting it happen in his palace."
Roz said, "You mean, if he"d insisted on seeing you alone on some G.o.dforsaken asteroid, you wouldn"t go? But when he invites you to his palace, the centre of his power, where there are ninety-five billion guards, you don"t feel worried?"
"Of course I"m worried," said the Doctor. "Appallingly worried.
I just don"t think Walid"s ready to act yet. He"s only just been crowned; he has yet to consolidate his power."
"Do you really think Walid is up to something?" said Chris. "I thought Armand was the guy behind the conspiracy. Maybe we"re just being paranoid."
"That"s what I"m hoping to find out," said the Doctor.
The Doctor and his servant arrived at Callisto late in the moon"s morning, in one of Leabie"s personal yachts, the Model Model Citizen Citizen. Genevieve was waiting for them at the edge of the landing site. She was wearing mock chainmail and her ceremonial sword, and some probably very unauthentic but very gorgeous knightly clothes. Her yellow hair was tied up in a pair of elaborate pigtails, held by a lattice.
They walked from the yacht to where the gra.s.s began, half a kilometre from the palace itself. The Doctor"s shirt had actually been ironed, and he wore a matching Paisley waistcoat and tie.
He raised his hat. "My Lady."
Poor Mr Cwej looked terrified, a smile fixed to his face. He was dressed in the uniform of one of Leabie"s staff, a tasteful black suit with the red stone of the House Forrester emblazoned over his left shoulder.
253.
She took Mr Cwej"s hands. "Welcome, both of you," she said.
"The Duke has asked me to look after you until he can break free of the latest of these interminable meetings."
The Doctor smiled and set off across the gra.s.s. Mr Cwej was staring up at the palace. It was a ma.s.sive, inverted cone, more cones shooting up from its black, gla.s.sy surface, like a vast, sparkling artificial mountain. "Intimidating, isn"t it?" she murmured, as she led him towards the entrance.
"Yeah, I mean yes," he said. "A bit."
"I was petrified the first time I came here," she said. "I just about got back into my Hopper and went home. I felt like if I put a foot wrong, the whole building would fall down on me and squash me flat."
Chris"s smile relaxed into a real one. "The Doctor"s so good at just talking to kings and dukes and people. I"m much better at alien monsters."
"Don"t you worry," said Genevieve. "Everyone"s nervous around the Emperor, even the dukes and d.u.c.h.esses. Part of my job is making sure every guest feels comfortable. Even the servants, and by the way, that uniform looks marvellous on you."
"I decided not to go back to the Adjudicators," said Chris.
"After all these adventures, I need a rest. Leabie offered me a job as her personal pilot."
"That"s marvellous," she said. "Oh, the Doctor"s got away..."
"We"d better catch him up," said Chris.
"He"ll find his way," said Genevieve. "The reception staff will point him in the right direction." She put a hand on his sleeve.
"While they"re talking business, would you like to see the gardens?"
The Emperor Abu ibn Walid looked as excited and tired as a child who"d been up all night waiting for Santa. His advisers and staff were still packing up after the meeting, standing around the long table and waving bits of printout at one another. They looked stressed, rings under eyes, the look of people who"d not only seen some disturbing news footage but had to do something about it.
254.
The Emperor shook the Doctor"s hand warmly. Two security guards watched, both in the dark-blue and white uniforms of the household. Each had one enhanced eye. The Doctor could see the irises moving as they scanned him for hidden weapons. He wondered what technology was hidden by the Emperor"s own mismatched eyes.
"Please," said the Emperor, "I"ve been in this office all morning. Let"s talk in my private garden."
The "garden" was a rainforest, a vast dome. Callisto"s terraformed climate couldn"t sustain these damp plants, delicate ferns and exotic flowers. The Doctor expected that every guest was brought here. Fancy clothes, elaborate feasts, expensive gifts even mammoth starships wouldn"t impress another n.o.ble. A living garden, millions of miles from Earth now, there was a status symbol.
They walked along an AG path, half a foot off the ground, translucent enough to let the artificial sunshine through to the tiny plants beneath it. The guards walked a discreet distance behind them. The Doctor could feel their artificial eyes on his back.
The former Duke said, "In the last twenty-four hours, the new peace has been broken by a dozen riots on Earth. They started as peaceful, ma.s.s demonstrations. A variety of demands. The largest is in Australia twelve thousand Earth Reptiles walked out of the ocean and sat down on a tourist beach. After a few hours, the locals started attacking them with surfboards." The Doctor shook his head. "The Landsknechte have gone in, but I think you can also help me calm things down."