He looked at her. Then down at the shattered remains of Roba.
His other hand inched stiffly over to the controls. Pressed one, two, three b.u.t.tons.
The knife clattered to the ground.
Polly watched as Tovel grasped a small silver lever and pulled.
IX.
Ben heard a crunching noise from inside his ears as the angel squeezed his skull still harder.
Then he fell to the ground, abruptly released, reeling from the pressure pounding at his temples.
It took several moments for his sight to clear.
He was sitting in a cloud of grey fleas. The stone angels had vanished.
"What happened?" Ben croaked.
Shade, flat out on the floor, laughed in disbelief. "They"re gone."
Ben stared at him. "What did we do?"
Shade shrugged, and Ben turned back to the Doctor in time to see his eyes snap wide open. He looked about at the thick carpet of fleas before him, baffled, like he"d dozed off and woken somewhere unfamiliar.
Then he jabbed a bony finger past Ben at DeCaster.
The Schirr was stooped and pitiful, slumped back against the gla.s.s. He reached out to them as if seeking their help.
"Quickly," gasped the Doctor. "Go to him."
"Help him, after all he"s done?" Ben asked in disbelief.
The Doctor stared at him, then shook his head crossly. "He will help us. Push him through the gla.s.s," he thundered.
"Feed him to the engines!"
Ben stared at him, not sure he"d heard the Doctor right.
But Shade set off straight away at a stumbling run for DeCaster. Ben limped after him.
"You, my little Shadow?" DeCaster hissed, with a crumpled smile.
"Come to kill me?" He choked, a liquid sound at the back of his throat. "You"re funny."
Shade kicked the creature in the chest with all his strength.
DeCaster crashed back against the cylinder. The thick gla.s.s sparked and glowed and seemed to part around him, and the screaming tornado of light sucked him inside.
On instinct, Ben threw himself to the ground before the deafening thundercrack could knock him there.
Then it was lights out.
Chapter Eighteen.
Curtain
I.
"He"s looking much better."
Ben"s head felt swollen and sore. Wasn"t that Polly"s voice?
He tried to open his eyes. Golden light from up high shone in his eyes. He was back in the control room.
"Gently, my boy. I"m afraid you were caught in the backblast."
That was the Doctor. Ben opened his eyes on the second attempt and found Polly looking down at him.
"He"s come through it," she said. "He"s going to be all right!"
She beamed down at him. And it really was was Polly, barely a trace of Schirr about her now. She looked just as gorgeous as she had done the day they"d met. Her hair was a mess, her face was speckled with burst blood vessels, but it was Polly, barely a trace of Schirr about her now. She looked just as gorgeous as she had done the day they"d met. Her hair was a mess, her face was speckled with burst blood vessels, but it was her. her.
"You still reckon I"m a dog person, Pol?" croaked Ben. "Got the lives of a cat, ain"t I?"
"Looks like we both have," she said.
"Yes, the power surge has taken the asteroid to the fringes of the Morphiean Quadrant, well out of range." Things must be on the up, thought Ben, the Doctor was back to his old self, confident and a.s.sured. "With the ritual unfulfilled, and away from the Morphiean influence, the damage to the cells is being undone, and the native DNA maps redrawn. The further we drift, the more the Schirr effect will diminish."
Ben found he was afraid to sit up, to look round. He might have nine lives, but had the rest of them? He stayed flat on his back.
"What happened to those angels?"
"Retribution." The Doctor nodded gravely. "Yes, I think so.
Those Morphiean dissidents presumed to attack their ruling mindforce, under the protection of the amplified neural network. When that protection failed..."
"The mindforce could get at them," Ben finished. "And all the angels went to heaven. Good riddance." He paused. "You all right, Doctor?"
"Oh, yes, quite well, my boy," the Doctor said as he turned and pottered away. "Soon I shall feel a new person..."
Ben felt his face. His fingers rubbed against his cheekbones, eyebrows and his hair, damp with perspiration.
They felt almost normal. It was really him. "How do I look?" he croaked to Polly.
"Horrible," she said with a beautiful big smile. She was crying. A tear plonked from the end of her nose onto his forehead.
"Clever move." Tovel leant over Ben, squinting through rheumy eyes. He looked like his face had taken a right kicking. "Shade chucks some Schirr in the propulsion units to get those blue energy waves really flowing, and you dive head first into them."
"Glad you made it, Tovel," Ben said with a grin. "Honest I am."
"Reckon those angels did him some brain damage." That was Shade"s voice.
"Ha bleedin" ha."
"He"s all right," Polly said protectively.
"Yeah," Tovel said. "Ben"s all right."
"Likewise, mate," Ben murmured.
"Well," the Doctor declared, as he walked back into earshot.
"I believe I"ve succeeded in rigging some of the equipment in here so it should transmit a rudimentary distress signal.
Presumably one of you is acquainted with some universally recognised emergency code we can program into the circuits, hmm?"
"I"ll go," said Shade.
"Far, I imagine," said Polly softly, "now all the Shadows are blown away."
Shade looked at her, gave her a strange smile. Ben saw his face was still a little puffy, but his complexion was clear. The black markings beneath the skin had entirely vanished.
"They won"t be calling him a shadow no more," Ben remarked.
"Another life begins today," said Polly. "Good luck to him."
Ben was too tired to quiz her on what she meant. He pushed himself into a sitting position and grimaced as the world took a few seconds to catch up with him.
The first thing he saw was a body bag.
He looked at Polly.
"Roba," she said quietly. "He killed himself. The final straw that broke the back of that horrible ritual."
"Then at least it wasn"t for nothing," Ben murmured.
"When I saw him there... saw what he"d done... I had had to hold on." Tovel straightened up, his voice hardening. "We"ll make sure he gets full military honours, of course. Lindey and Denni too." He paused. "And Joiks." to hold on." Tovel straightened up, his voice hardening. "We"ll make sure he gets full military honours, of course. Lindey and Denni too." He paused. "And Joiks."
Ben nodded. "Suppose his story checks out now we know the angels got Denni." He looked around dismally. "So what about the others? Creben?"
"Creben"s fine," said Tovel. "As usual. Checking the life-support repairs are holding. This place could be home for some time."
Ben hesitated. "And Frog?"
Tovel shook his head dolefully. "I"m sorry..."
Ben looked away.
"I"m very very sorry, but her new voice is here to stay," Tovel went on, a smile spreading over his face. "And Jeez, don"t we all know about it." sorry, but her new voice is here to stay," Tovel went on, a smile spreading over his face. "And Jeez, don"t we all know about it."
"War is h.e.l.l," grinned Ben, relieved.
"Miss me, did ya?" Frog yelled as she bounced in through the doorway. "I"ve looked all around. You were right, Doctor.
Not a sign of them stone things nowhere. Just the fleas, and I"m gonna torch them all. Just in case anything else feels like making a big deal out of "em." She launched into a tuneless set of musical scales.
"You couldn"t sing before and you can"t sing now," Shade shouted over from beside the Doctor. "So shut it."
"I"m gonna learn," Frog promised. "And I"m gonna learn languages too. Learn "em and speak "em, loadsa languages."
"You might start with English," suggested the Doctor, with a malicious chuckle.
Ben gave Frog the once-over. The swelling round her face and neck would go down if the Doctor was right. And the scars that had train-tracked her face were barely noticeable.
Shoot her in soft-focus and you"d probably never notice. He was glad for her. "Course, she wouldn"t win no contests - she still had a face like a bulldog licking tar off a nettle - but she looked a lot better as a Frog than she did as a Schirr.
Creben entered the room. His face was red and covered in sores. Ben nodded to him. Creben smiled and nodded back.
Quite a show of affection, Ben decided as he got unsteadily to his feet.
"So - now you"ve done the training... gonna go Elite are you?"