"Me?"
"You"re going to prove this is just fantasy."
"How? I don"t have a ship!"
He pointed at Falsh. "Take his his."
"The Doctor already took off for Leda in my ship," Falsh lied, so coolly that Trix could almost start to believe in her own stories. "It"s become a habit with him."
"I can"t go out there, Klimt," Tinya protested. "It it"s not safe!"
"Ha!" said Trix. "Whose fault is that, then?"
"I"d go myself but I can"t trust you not to mess things up here," Klimt shouted.
"I can"t trust anyone!"
Or anything, Trix noted with a thrill of realisation. The paint on the floor, on Tinya"s dress, on Klimt"s tunic. . . it was starting to glow, just as it had on the podule. . .
The cavalry was coming. Kind of.
"What"s happening?" cried Tinya, brushing frantically at the ma.s.s of colour rippling across her body. She tore off her dress, flung it on the pile of bodies.
But that only heightened its hypnotic effect, and she wound up standing there in her underwear, transfixed.
As for Trix, as the colours swirled and washed before her, she was more transfixed by Tinya"s huge pants. How could someone so slinky wear such awful knickers? What a fraud!
Trix tore her eyes away from her. Falsh was fighting the effect, the sweat big and beading on his black brow. Klimt was struggling too. He was gasping and thrashing and gnashing his teeth, making for the door. There was nothing she could do to stop him. Tied to her chair, Trix could only grit her teeth and try to cling on to her senses as the maelstrom grew wilder. She tried picturing the light the Doctor had shown her to break the spell last time, but found Tinya"s big knickers kept billowing towards her from its centre like a sail. The ludicrous image helped her hold on; hold on until. . .
"Trix?"
The Doctor"s voice seemed to reverberate through her mind. It strengthened the light she was trying to shine there, and made the pants flap away.
"Trix, you may hear my words but you shall not be affected by them. The rest of you. . . You will remain calm and pa.s.sive. You will do nothing whatsoever unless Trix tells you to. You will be no bother to anyone." A pause. "Thanks for proving my theory, Trix. Now I really must be getting off to Sinope. . . "
210.
The light in the paint died away. Trix opened her eyes and found she felt wonderfully refreshed.
Then she realised that the door was open and that Klimt had gone.
211.
Chapter Twenty-seven.
The Doctor rubbed his eyes and put down the visor. He wiped his dirty fingers on his shirt. He"d done all he could for Trix. A clever girl, that one, and resourceful, too. Yes, she was coming along nicely. Together with Fitz. . .
Oh, Fitz.
"Right," said the Doctor, trying to focus on the ship"s controls. "Sinope, I believe." He paused. "Halcyon, you"ve not set the drive systems in motion!"
"Let me off this ship," said Halcyon. "Please, Doctor."
He sighed and readied the ship for takeoff himself with a few spoken commands. "I"d have thought you"d want want to come. We can discuss the terms of sale as we go!" to come. We can discuss the terms of sale as we go!"
Halcyon looked at him warily. "Really?"
"You"ll find I"m a very reasonable man, Halcyon." The Doctor"s fingers flicked over the controls. The engines started to build.
"And you"ll explain to me the principles of the dimensional anchoring?" Halcyon asked as the computer steered the ship smoothly, out of the stadium terminal.
"Oh, naturally. That should pa.s.s the first few minutes."
"It"s the gravitic shift effect I find it hard to get my head around," he admitted.
"Well, I"m not surprised," said the Doctor. He looked at Halcyon. "Though to be honest, I am am surprised you"ve even considered it." surprised you"ve even considered it."
"I"m an engineer, Doctor," said Halcyon softly. "Or used to be."
The computer chimed softly. "Warning incoming from Orbital Flight Control."
The Doctor leaned back in his chair. "Put them through."
"You"re all b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" screamed a loud male voice. "Ships! Ships up and down, all day and all night! You make my life h.e.l.l!"
"That wasn"t so much a warning as a diatribe," the Doctor observed.
"Sentinel approaching," the computer informed him.
The ship rocked as a blast glanced against the ship.
"Now that really was was a warning," said the Doctor. "The effect is spreading." a warning," said the Doctor. "The effect is spreading."
Halcyon was staring around wildly. "What effect? What?"
"Doesn"t matter. We can"t be put off now, our journey"s too important." He waved a finger at some virtual b.u.t.tons. "Manual control!"
213.
"What are you doing?"
"Not now, Halcyon." The ship banked steeply upwards. "I have to concentrate."
"Doctor! Please Please, you can"t just take "
"Tell me, Halcyon," he said gently, "your time as an engineer. Was it before you went blind?"
Halcyon started to say something. About half a dozen times. It let the Doctor get on with the business of keeping them alive long enough to reach Sinope.
Trix waved a hand in front of Falsh"s face. No reaction. Then she marched up to the zombie-like Tinya.
"I"m a.s.suming you"re protected from the slug effect?"
"Klimt gave me pills," said Tinya.
"Why does that not surprise me?" she murmured. "Well, Tinya, Falsh and me need to take these pills too. Where are they?"
"Klimt has them."
"Great." Trix sighed. "OK, we"ll just have to hope time"s on our side. Come on, you two, let"s get on with it."
Trix felt like some cut-price pied piper as she led her sullen slaves out of the crumbling shed. The night was dark but the temperature mild, like Jupiter was a fat furnace burning in the black sky to warm them. Pity it was really just motors and magnetic fields and make-believe keeping Callisto alive. She knew that if she didn"t act quickly, the whole world would freeze over, Jove"s deadly radiation eating through a thick frost and into a million mutilated corpses buried beneath.
Well, the royal "she" at any rate.
A force fence rigged up to look like a real high-wire fence demarcated the Pentagon Central part of the compound. Lights burned at a few windows in a few buildings beyond, but there was no one around.
"All right, you two," she said, and Tinya and Falsh came to an obedient halt.
Each carried a tub of doctored Halcytone. "We"ve got to get inside this place and blitz those slugs. While trying not to get shot. Are you with me?"
Neither Falsh nor Tinya said a word.
"Good. Let"s look for the way in, then."
There was a checkpoint built into the fence, a sort of sentry-box that housed the field generator.
"See if there are any guards," she told Tinya, reasoning optimistically that a slip of a girl in her slip would arouse more curiosity than aggression in any soldiers still patrolling despite the big knickers.
214.
Tinya came to a halt beside a sprawling bundle of b.l.o.o.d.y limbs. Trix had an unpleasant flashback to the Inst.i.tute.
"Onwards we go," she said queasily. "Duck at the first sign of trouble, OK?
And stay down. Chances are not everyone"s affected and that they"ll shoot first and ask questions later."
As they crossed the silent compound, Trix saw an ashen light somewhere off on the built-up horizon. A fire maybe. Distant shrieks carried through the still night air, distant shouts. . .
Roddle ran blindly, stumbling over bodies, whimpering, bile burning in the back of his throat, not caring where he was going. People who were quick enough to get out of his way scrambled aside, out of reach. Those who were too slow the old, or the very young, chiefly they paid for it.
He came to a sudden stop, dimly recognising the quiet street he stood in, puzzled by just how b.l.o.o.d.y his bruised, puffy hands had become. He was back where he"d parked the flyer. It had been overturned, pushed through a window, but it seemed sound enough. He would ride it high and far and away. He would ride it through the panicking crowds. He would kill loads more people that way.
Once he"d dealt with the man trying to free the flyer from the smashed window display.
This man wasn"t raving. He wasn"t screaming or trying to kill anyone. He had silver, spidery hair growing wildly around a big bald patch. His dark clothes were splashed with Halcytone a man of discernment, then.
"That"s my flyer," Roddle snarled.
The man turned slowly, fixed Roddle with a warning stare. He used; even in his confusion, Roddle could tell that at a glance. The man"s lined skin was grey, dead-looking. But the eyes were bright.
"Thought you could help yourself to my property?" Roddle sneered. "You"re crazy. . .
The user looked at him and gave him a strange, almost wistful smile. "I"m not crazy," he said. "I"m a genius."
A sliver of gla.s.s glinted in the user"s hand. Roddle gasped as it was pushed into his stomach.
He fell, lay there on the hard pavement, clutching feebly at the wound with both hands. Felt the man going through his pockets for the flyer"s prime-key.
When he opened his eyes again the flyer was rising into the sky, yellow and sleek and angled against the grey and white urban sprawl. "Come back!" he roared. He could hear the footsteps coming up behind him but he shut them out. Kept watching his sleek and graceful flyer get smaller and smaller until it dwindled to nothing. "Come back! I haven"t finished with you yet!"
215.
He was still yelling and screaming his defiance as the first fists rained down on him.
The Doctor had out-manoeuvred the sentinels on his departure from Callisto s.p.a.ce, zigzagging wildly over the city while the deranged threats of the orbital flight controller poured out from the speakers.
It wasn"t the fear of destruction that stayed with him now as they sped on towards Sinope, but the terrible view of Callisto City his flight had afforded.
Streetlights. Buildings ablaze. An ambulance, roaring up on to a pavement, mowing down brawling men, women and children.
For a facile moment the Doctor reflected that being blind had some compensations. But he kept the thought to himself.
Channel ten-one-one spoke of Callis...o...b..ing in the grip of fierce rioting.
Various extremist groups were getting the blame. Scenes of graphic violence recorded by camdroids were doubtless getting record ratings.
"So much for restoring the wonder," said Halcyon softly. "That was what I was here to do. As much for myself as for the Empire." He paused. "How did you know, Doctor? That I was. . . "
"I checked you quite thoroughly after you fell. Your pupils. . . "
"Sook"s under strict instruction never to leave me unattended." Halcyon looked pained and miserable. "No one"s meant to know. No one."
"Well, Sook had problems of her own. Why such a secret?"
"Am I to be pitied? I, whose future was so bright?" He set his mouth in an unhappy line. "I, whose very name is synonymous with colour and light. . .
forced to endure an endless dark. How could people ever take me seriously?"
And this from a man with diamonds in his scalp and wraparound shades, thought the Doctor. "How did you lose your sight?"
"Experimenting with Halcytone. I wanted to take it all so much further. . .