Chris gripped the stick hard, pulled back, felt the nose rise.
The plane continued to fall. The c.o.c.kpit was swaying from side to side. Chris tried again for the foot pedals, pushed at one, then the other.
The swaying of the c.o.c.kpit increased. With startling suddenness, the white shape of one of the enemy planes appeared in front of him. He saw the flash of the gun firing, but the bullets went wide.
He remembered Chevillon"s last words: "Climb!"
He had to get up some forward speed, he realized, to give the wings lift. No antigravs here. He pulled at what he hoped was the throttle cable, but it wouldn"t move any further.
The engine was already working as hard as it could.
OK. The only other way to gain speed was - He shoved the stick forward, felt the nose drop.
Chevillon"s body flopped forward, letting Chris fall sideways.
He caught one of the rudder pedals with his foot, felt the plane lurch. Air buffeted his face. He thought he heard Roz shouting something, but he wasn"t sure.
The c.o.c.kpit rail cracked, splitting into two parts centimetres from his hand. Two holes had appeared in the dashboard, one on either side.
Bullets. From behind.
Chris pulled back on the stick, hoping he"d gained enough speed. The nose rose, his stomach was pulled down.
His hand slipped on the rail, caught on the broken piece. He winced as the sharp wood cut his palm. He could see another bullet-hole now in the engine cowling. He could only hope that nothing inside had been damaged. He scanned the dashboard for diagnostics, saw nothing except a crude altimeter. It showed 2500 metres. As he watched, the needle nudged up a notch.
"We"re going to make it," he said aloud.
Then he wondered where they were going to make it to.
He could hardly keep climbing until they reached orbit.
There was no way down, unarmed, past the two planes. And anyway, he wasn"t sure he could land this thing.
Sooner or later, the plane would run out of fuel, and that would be that. It occurred to him to look at his watch: it was 5.45 a.m. The kids were due to be taken at six. He realized that, even if they could get down in one piece, there was no way they were going to make it to the factory on time.
He stared ahead, keeping his grip on the stick, knowing that for the time being he had no choice. The air was steadily getting colder.
Josef crouched down behind the wall and watched as the insect-things took the enemy sergeant and the pilot into the building. Should he try to follow them?
One glance at the ground-engines answered that question. He could see the turret guns slowly turning back to cover the ground between him and the doorway of the building. As he watched, the doors swung shut: for some reason they made no sound as they closed.
Slowly, Josef let himself sit down. There didn"t seem to be anything else he could do. Ingrid was gone. Because he hadn"t had a weapon, and because of the insect-things, he had failed to kill the enemy and avenge her. He didn"t know how to get back to his unit: it was probably further than he could walk. His feet were painful. It occurred to him that he ought to do something about them, but he didn"t know what.
Ingrid would have known, but Ingrid was dead.
He curled up on the dry soil and began to cry.
Manda hadn"t been walking for long, but it felt like hours.
Charles led the way. Two Biune followed them, each carrying a rifle. From time to time Manda felt the cold snout of a rifle touch the back of her neck. Her legs had started to shake, until she could scarcely walk; she only kept going by virtue of the Doctor"s firm grip on her arm.
Their route wound and twisted, sloping generally downwards. Eventually Manda felt a warm dry breeze blowing against her face, and saw a set of heavy metal doors ahead. As they approached, the doors opened, revealing a brilliantly lit room. The light pulsed with quickly changing tints, as if there were a fairground roundabout in there, with coloured electric bulbs.
Manda glanced at the Doctor. He was smiling broadly, nodding to himself, as if he were eagerly awaiting the meeting with whatever was in the room. She hoped that his optimism was justified. She hoped, too, that whatever he was going to say to the Recruiter would cure Charles, would make him remember her, would make him back into the brother she had known.
They reached the doors, went inside. Manda gasped.
The room was huge, as huge as the inside of a cathedral.
Bigger. And the Recruiter almost filled it. At first all she could see was silvery metal and coloured light: then details resolved themselves as her eyes adjusted to the brightness.
The Recruiter was a huge cylinder lying on the ground, tapering at each end to a wire-thin tip. It was perhaps fifty feet high and three hundred long. The centre section - perhaps a hundred and fifty feet long - was open, long metal doors folded back above it like several pairs of rectilinear wings. In the exposed s.p.a.ce, upright cylinders of metal, like truncated pillars connected by cobwebs of cabling, glittered with intricate patterns of colour. It seemed almost alive. The light made swirling patterns on the white tiled floor that surrounded the machine, shifted and danced off the human and Biune guards who stood around, rifles shouldered, their eyes on the Doctor.
The Doctor doffed his hat again. "Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said aloud. "I"m the Doctor, and this is my friend Manda." But there was a frown on his face.
The frown deepened as the ground began to shake, and a huge, metallic chiming noise filled the air. Slowly, it resolved itself into a voice, a booming, mechanical, crescendo of a voice, loud enough to make Manda"s ears hurt.
"YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO DAMAGE ME."
The Doctor nodded. "I didn"t intend anything permanent. I just wanted to get your attention. You see, I think you should stop this war." His voice became louder, harder. " Now Now."
"THE REASONS FOR YOUR ATTEMPT AREN"T IMPORTANT. WHAT INTERESTS ME IS THE.
KNOWLEDGE YOU MUST POSSESS IN ORDER TO HAVE.
MADE SUCH AN ATTEMPT. I REQUIRE THAT.
KNOWLEDGE FROM YOU."
At this, the Doctor seemed to lose patience. "I require some knowledge, too!" he shouted. "What do you think you"re doing? Don"t you know how many sentient beings have died because of this ridiculous war that you"re running?"
"THAT DOESN"T MATTER," said the huge, echoing voice of the Recruiter. "WHAT MATTERS IS HOW YOU"RE GOING TO GET ME OUT OF HERE."
Chapter 14.
"It"s all right," said the Q"ell officer softly, clicking the joints of his long thin fingers and tilting his head on one side. "You won"t suffer. We will give you a chemical sedative before we cut your throat."
Benny looked around at the room: it was walled with red brick, decorated with tattered tapestries, shards of china and shiny bra.s.s b.u.t.tons taken from uniforms. Diamond-shaped lamps hung on the walls, giving off a soft, amber-coloured light. She struggled against the ropes holding her, heard the wooden post she was tied to creak, felt it shift a little. But she knew that any hope of escape was wishful thinking: the officer"s rifle was leaning against the edge of the desk, and occasional chitinous noises told her that the guards who had brought her into the room were still standing behind her. In case she was in any doubt as to the primary purpose of the room, a look down at the guttering beneath her feet, stained with several different types of blood, was enough to confirm it.
Benny had glanced down several times by now, and each time wished she hadn"t.
"I don"t want you to kill me at all," she said patiently. "I can help you. I know things you don"t."
The officer pulled the tattered combat jacket he was wearing tighter around himself, as if he were cold. "So you informed my men. That"s very useful. If you could tell me those things now, before we administer the sedative, I would be very grateful."
Benny closed her eyes for a moment. How could any apparently sentient being be this stupid?
"Look," she said. "I"ve overcome the control of the Recruiter. I could - "
"Yes, yes, so do many animals, in time. It isn"t important."
"I"m not an animal!" protested Benny. "How can I be an animal if I"m talking to you?"
For the first time she seemed to have the officer"s full attention. His head snapped up, his mouth opened, his thin tongue emerged and began tasting the air.
"You did say that you broke the power of the Recruiter?"
At last! thought Benny. "Yes. I - "
"So you were in its power, and then you broke free?"
"Yes. That"s what I"ve been trying to tell you. So did Gabrielle - I helped her. If I could do it, then so could others - "
"Any that succeed in escaping from the power of the Recruiter, and aren"t killed by the Recruiter, are killed by us.
Does that answer your question?" The officer pulled at his jacket again. "Now, as I have said, you will not suffer." He began pouring something out of a battered hip flask on to a piece of khaki-coloured cloth: to her horror, Benny smelled the sweet scent of chloroform.
"Think about the weapons you"ve got," she said desperately. "Those huge ground-engines, the artillery on the Citadel. Why aren"t those weapons available to the combatants in the war?"
"The True People need to have the best weapons, in order to defend the Recruiter." He had finished soaking the cloth now. He stood up and walked around his desk towards Benny. "The Recruiter is all-important to the war effort."
The cloth was inches from Benny"s face now: the fumes were making her dizzy. She struggled to keep a clear head, to think quickly before it was too late. "Why is it so important to the Neutral Brigade that the war carries on? You"re Neutral, aren"t you?"
The officer tilted his head to one side: Benny wondered if the gesture corresponded to a nod, a shake of the head, a shrug, a smile - "We will be released from service when the war is over,"
said the Q"ell calmly. "We will be allowed to return to our homes and families." He pushed the cloth over Benny"s mouth: frantically she jerked her head away from it, took a gulp of relatively clear air.
But not clear enough. Her voice was slurred as she said, "That"s ridiculous!" Suddenly she realized what it was that her conversations with the Q"ell reminded her of. And what the Q"ell were doing when they paused and put their heads on one side.
They were listening. Listening to the voice of authority, to -.
"You don"t control the Recruiter!" she yelled. But the Q"ell simply pushed the cloth over her mouth again, this time holding on to the back of her head with his other hand, so that she couldn"t jerk away. "The Recruiter controls you!"
But her voice was m.u.f.fled by the cloth. The image of the officer blurred and danced in front of her eyes, then slowly faded away.
The last thing she heard was the officer"s voice saying, "A lot of them tell us that before they die."
"THE MOST URGENT MATTER IS THE REPAIR OF THE COORDINATE SEARCH DEVICE ON THE MATTER.
TRANSPORTER. WITHOUT IT I"M RESTRICTED TO THE DIRECTION GIVEN BY THE LIMITED PSIONIC POWERS.
OF THE Q"ELL. THIS DIRECTS ME ONLY TO PEOPLE AT A SIMILAR LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY TO THE Q"ELL.
THESE PEOPLE HAVE PROVED TO BE OF LIMITED USE."
Manda, her hands over her ears to m.u.f.fle the Recruiter"s booming voice, watched in amus.e.m.e.nt as the Doctor searched his pockets. "I"m sorry," he said at last, but I seem to have left my screwdriver somewhere else. Perhaps if you could return my ship, I could be more help. I could give you the coordinates but then you"d know those, wouldn"t you?"
"WITHOUT THE COORDINATE SEARCH DEVICE THAT INFORMATION ISN"T ANY USE," boomed the Recruiter.
"And there"s a hole in the bucket, too," said the Doctor.
"WHAT BUCKET?" asked the Recruiter.
The Doctor began casting around the s.p.a.ce in front of the glittering web of colour that was the Recruiter, for all the world as if he were looking for the missing bucket. Charles and the various alien beasts looked on in obvious confusion.
Manda giggled. She couldn"t help it: the conversation between the Doctor and the Recruiter reminded her of a music-hall comedy act she"d seen with Charles when he"d come home on leave - except that the Doctor was a better comedian.
"Why can"t you just repair yourself?" asked the Doctor suddenly.
"THE ENEMY PLASMA BOLT DESTROYED SOME OF MY FEEDBACK CIRCUITS. I HAVEN"T GOT ACCESS TO MY REPAIR SYSTEMS. AND I"M TOO FAR FROM THE NEAREST ALLIED BASE TO SIGNAL FOR HELP."
"The enemy?" The Doctor frowned. "Perhaps you could tell just who you are."
"I"M A LEARNING WEAPON. MY JOB IS TO a.n.a.lYSE THE ENEMY AND LEARN HOW TO KILL THEM ALL, WITH.
MINIMUM COLLATERAL CASUALTIES."