"A fleet of about a dozen s.p.a.ceships has landed in the desert some way away."
"Hostile?"
"There"s no sign of it. They"ve sent a message to say they"re sending an emissary by scoutship. He should be landing at any moment."
"We"d better go and greet him, then," said the Doctor.
"One moment, if you please, Supremo," said Vidal.
Unwrapping his parcel, he produced a black uniform tunic, very like the one the Doctor was wearing, but considerably more ornate. It was obviously made of much finer material, a rich and soft velvety black cloth. It had a higher, more military collar, gold braid at collar and cuffs and a gold "S" embroidered over the heart.
The Doctor looked at it with distaste. "Do you really expect me to wear that?"
"Please, Supremo," pleaded Vidal. "It is the wish of your officers and indeed of their troops that you should wear a uniform befitting the dignity of the Alliance." Seeing that the Doctor still looked unconvinced, Vidal played his trump card.
"Your senior officers collaborated on the design, and the flagship tailor worked all night to construct the garment. Everyone will be hurt if you refuse to wear it."
"Oh, very well," said the Doctor sulkily. He shrugged out of the plain black tunic and put on the new one.
Vidal fussed round him, adjusting the fit of the collar and cuffs.
"Unfortunately, the black trousers with the gold braid and the jackboots are not yet ready, but this will serve for now.
There!"
Vidal stepped back and the Doctor studied his reflection in a highly polished steel bulkhead. Instinctively, his back straightened and his face fell into harsher lines.
"Am I wearing the uniform," he wondered, "or is the uniform wearing me?"
It was the Doctor who looked into the mirror but it was the Supremo who looked back at him.
He turned and marched from the room followed by Vidal.
Outside the door, two Ogron sentries crashed to attention and presented arms. Not the same two, the Doctor noted, but two others. Their sacking shirts were clean and neat, their leather trousers and jerkins were new, their boots highly polished.
The weapons they carried, ancient blaster-rifles, were oiled and gleaming.
Even their straggly hair had been brushed and groomed as far as it"s possible to groom an Ogron.
The Doctor studied them for a moment and gave a brief nod of approval.
He marched down the wide metal corridor, Vidal at his heels, and the two Ogrons fell in and followed.
As they emerged onto the landing ramp, there were more surprises in store.
An honour guard had been mounted. There were Sontarans to one side, commanded by Battle-Major Streg, Draconians headed by High Commander Aril to the other. Behind the Sontarans were ranged the Ogrons, tidied, like the two sentries, into something very near smartness. Ryon"s irregular troops, headed by Ryon himself, were behind the Sontarans, their motley uniforms neat and clean.
The Doctor stood for a moment at the top of the ramp, surveying the scene.
"Ensign Vidal?"
Vidal came forward. "Supremo?"
"What"s all this?"
"A dress parade, Supremo. Like the new uniform, it was the wish of both officers and troops."
"But why?"
"Soldiers set great store by such things, Supremo. They wished to show you what they could do." Vidal looked across the hot and dusty plain to where a silver scoutship was just landing.
"The arrival of the emissary was fortuitous, Supremo. But the parade may serve to impress him with the strength of the alliance."
The Doctor nodded. There was nothing he could say or do.
The military life had him in its grip and he must play his role.
As he set off down the ramp, followed by Vidal and the Ogron bodyguards, martial music struck up. The Doctor heard the dull boom of Sontaran drums and the shrilling of Draconian bagpipes.
When he reached the bottom of the ramp, the music stopped. Streg, Aril, Ryon and Vogar marched forward and saluted. Simultaneously, their troops crashed to attention.
The Doctor"s eyes moved over the serried ranks.
Draconians, Sontarans, Ogrons, humans and humanoids, all standing gleaming and motionless in the hot desert of Aridus.
He turned to his officers, raising his voice so that it carried to the ranks.
"Thank you, gentlemen. I am surprised and impressed. A splendid display."
Battle-Major Streg looked disappointed. "Do you not wish to inspect the troops, Supremo?"
The Doctor shuddered inwardly at the thought of spending hours under the burning sun, inspecting Draconian b.u.t.tons and Sontaran belt-buckles.
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure although I can see the excellent standard of turnout from here. However, duty calls. We must welcome our visitor. Come with me, gentlemen."
The Doctor marched across the burning plain towards the scoutship.
Ensign Vidal, the Ogron bodyguards, High Commander Aril, Battle-Major Streg, Vogar and General Ryon fell in and marched behind him.
As they began to approach the scoutship, the landing ramp descended and tall silver figures appeared in the doorway. The Doctor studied the weirdly blank metal faces with the little round eyes and the odd, handle-like projections in place of ears.
"Cybermen," he thought. "Arrogant and paranoid. They"ll make difficult colleagues. But they fight well enough. And twelve extra battlecruisers will come in useful when we attack Zandir."
His face impa.s.sive, the Doctor marched on towards the scoutship. The Cybermen had reached the bottom of the ramp by now.
The Doctor"s party halted and the two groups confronted each other.
The leading Cyberman spoke in his curiously fluting voice.
"You are the one called Supremo?"
The Doctor nodded.
"We are Cybermen," said the Cyberleader arrogantly. "We come to join your attack on Morbius."
The Doctor said nothing.
The Cyberleader looked at the black-uniformed figure with the hard eyes and the harsh, impa.s.sive face.
He looked at the menacing figures of the Ogrons behind him, at the Draconian, the Sontaran and the tough-looking humanoid behind them. He looked across to the ranks of motionless soldiers and the line of battlecruisers behind them.
He looked back at the Doctor and, almost unwillingly, his arm rose in salute.
With a curious note of uncertainty in the fluting voice, the Cyberleader said, "That is, with your permission Supremo?"
Recruits flooded in after that, and the Doctor spent long hours keeping the peace, soothing the ruffled sensibilities of different alien species. Sometimes he wondered where it would all end.
One night, as he lay struggling for sleep in his luxurious quarters, the Doctor thought he heard an all-too-familiar grating voice in the corridor outside his room.
" Where is the Doc-tor? We have come to join him. Morbius must be Where is the Doc-tor? We have come to join him. Morbius must be ex-ter-minated ex-ter-minated!"
But it was only a nightmare...
Interlude [II].
Peri sipped her third, or possibly her fourth, liqueur, aware that she was relaxed to the point of being pleasantly tipsy. But then, it had been an exceptionally long, hard day with an astonishing ending.
She had told the Doctor of her adventures, and now, somewhat reluctantly she sensed, he was telling her his. It was as though he felt ambiguous about all that had happened to him.
He had to be constantly prodded to go on talking.
"So the Ogrons gave you your new t.i.tle Supremo?" she said.
The Doctor laughed. "The rest of the Alliance took it up immediately. I suppose it had the right ring to it soldiers like a bit of swashbuckling arrogance."
"Then those Cybermen things joined you?"
"Cybermen, Ice Warriors, you name it. Plus contingents of every militant human and humanoid species in the galaxy."
"Why did they come?"
"Some because Morbius had attacked them, or one of their colonies. Others because they felt that he might might attack them, and they"d better get their retaliation in first. I think some came just because they liked a good fight." attack them, and they"d better get their retaliation in first. I think some came just because they liked a good fight."
"So what happened next? Did you take Zandir?"
"We did."
"And then?"
"Battles," said the Doctor wearily. "Battle after battle. We liberated half a dozen planets after Zandir. You don"t want to hear about them, Peri. All battles are much the same.
Bombardment from s.p.a.ce, troop landings, commando attacks, sieges. I get sick of slaughter sometimes."
Peri looked at him with tipsy shrewdness.
"But you like it, too, don"t you? Being the Supremo?"
The Doctor stood up, tossed back his drink and poured another from the decanter on the table.
"Do I like constant praise, adulation, almost worship?
Absolute, unquestioned authority? Dozens of people breaking their necks to fulfil my every whim? People desperately trying to work out what my next whim will be so I don"t even have to ask? As you Americans say, what"s not to like?" He paused. "But there"s more to it than that."
"Is there?" Peri held out her gla.s.s and the Doctor refilled it.
He had eaten little during the meal, but he had drunk a great deal though without, as far as she could see, the slightest effect.
"There"s friendship, Peri the kind of friendship that closes the gap between species, friends who would willingly die for you and you for them. Above all, there"s war! The greatest and most wonderful game of all, unbendingly complex and thrilling and unpredictable..."
"How can you say that?" protested Peri. "War"s evil, people die."
"They do," said the Doctor. "Your soldiers and the enemy"s.
Worlds are devastated, cities burn, the innocent suffer and die."
"That"s right," said Peri solemnly. "War"s wrong, it"s always wrong."
"Is it, Peri? Isn"t ours a good war?"