Cruger considered. ‘A good move, my Lord. Very good.’ He stretched out and moved a bishop. ‘But not good enough.’ His lips parted in a thin smile as he sat back on the hard wooden chair.
The light from the lanterns glimmered into the dark recesses in the bare stone walls and spilled across the flagstones. Heavy tapestries seemed almost to absorb the illumination, and the simple wooden furniture was thrown into stark relief.
The figure opposite Cruger leaned forward to consider the game’s development. He reached out a gauntleted hand towards the board, then hesitated and clenched his fist. The glove’s flexibility belied its appearance. The metal was intricately jointed to match the bone structure beneath. The man’s face was a blank mask of the same bronzed metallic material. Dark, recessed screens took the place of the eyes, and the nose was a stylised bulge in the centre of the burnished face. Grilles either side of the head allowed sound through to the ears, enhancing it on the way. Beside them small wing nuts held the front of the mask screwed to the backplate. The mouth was a tight mesh with riveted steel lips holding it in place.
The man in the mask reached out again, his glove closing over a rook. He moved the rook forward, past the bishop. The bearded man’s queen was removed from the board, and the rook took its place.
The voice was filtered through the grille-mouth, an electronic rasp that amplified the words but drained them of intonation and inflection. ‘Once again you look to the battle front while leaving your king undefended, my friend.’ The gloved hand placed the taken queen carefully by the side of the board. ‘Check.’
‘And once again, my Lord, you pull victory from the jaws of defeat.’ Cruger shook his head as he examined the positions on the board. ‘If only real life were as straightforward as a game of chess.’
A discordant splutter erupted from the grille in the man’s metal face.
Cruger gently laid his king on its side. ‘I’m glad that I can still offer some amusement to alleviate the tedious hours, my Lord.’
The mask turned slowly to face him. ‘The ancients called it the Game of Death.’
Floating somewhere between the now and the then, between the here and the there, the TARDIS swirled through the eddies and waves of the space-time vortex. Hordes of angry chronons hurled themselves at the battered police-box shell of the craft; temporal paradoxes tried to lure it through the more vicious parts of the maelstrom. But despite its inconsequential appearance, the TARDIS continued on its course, unwavering and unimpressed.
Regardless of the chaos outside, the interior of the TARDIS was calm and quiet. The almost clinical pallor of the decor was a soothing accompaniment to the gentle rise and fall of the central column of the hexagonal console which formed the centrepiece of the main control room. And round the edges of the console, a quite different storm was brewing.
‘Why can’t we go somewhere nice for a change, Doctor?’
The Doctor was staring at one of the control panels, a half-eaten sandwich clasped in one hand. ‘Mmm,’ he said in a tone that suggested he was not really listening. ‘Yes, Victoria, I’m sure.’ The sandwich sagged. It was drying at the edges.
‘I mean somewhere safe.’ Victoria folded her arms. She was still not entirely comfortable in what she considered an almost indecently short cotton summer dress. Even the sleeves were shorter than she would have liked. But it was comfortable, and it was practical.
Jamie, like Victoria, could see that the Doctor was paying more attention to the TARDIS than he was to the conversation. ‘Och, come on, Victoria,’ he said. ‘You know he doesn’t decide where we end up. It’s a complete mystery to him as well as us.’ He edged closer to her. ‘But at least you’ve got me to protect you from whatever he wishes on us.’
Victoria giggled despite herself, not managing to stifle the reaction in time. ‘Oh, I’m sorry Jamie,’ she spluttered. ‘But strength and good intentions aren’t always the answer to everything.’
‘Yes, well, tell that to Toberman,’ Jamie said sulkily. ‘Or Kemel.’
Victoria looked down at the floor, shuffling her feet uncomfortably. ‘I think that proves my point,’ she said quietly.
But not so quietly that Jamie did not hear. ‘Oh yes?’
She looked straight at him. ‘Yes. They were both strong, and they both meant well.’
‘And they both died saving us.’
‘But strength and good intentions aren’t any good without intelligence and common sense.’
Jamie drew himself up to his full height. ‘Are you saying I’m stupid?’
‘Of course not, Jamie. Not really.’ She looked away. ‘I’m just saying that being strong is no use if you’re… dead.’ She hesitated over the final word, as if embarrassed by it.
Jamie seemed unsure what to make of this. So, as ever, he turned to the Doctor. ‘What do you say, Doctor?’
The Doctor continued to stare at the panel. Then suddenly, he was a blur of motion as he pulled his crumpled handkerchief from the top pocket of his equally crumpled jacket and flicked it across the top of the console. Crumbs flew from the panel, and the Doctor nodded in approval. Then he used the hanky to polish a readout and blow his nose loudly. Finally, he wrapped the remains of the sandwich inside the hanky and stuffed it back into his pocket.
‘What do I say?’ His face seemed to sag round the laughter lines as he frowned at the question. ‘It’s either tom-ar-to or tom-ai-to.’ His eyebrows furrowed in further thought. ‘Or is it potato? I can never remember which.’
‘He’s not listening,’ Victoria said. ‘As usual.’
‘Now that’s not fair, Victoria,’ the Doctor immediately responded. ‘I may be a little preoccupied, but I’m never too busy to listen.’ He looked across at his friends, his face suddenly set like drying putty. ‘Now then, what were you asking me about, Jamie?’
‘About strength and common sense.’
‘Ah yes. Well. Yes.’ The Doctor leaned forward and peered at a dial. He tapped it, as one would a barometer, then shrugged. ‘Both admirable qualities, and ones which I’m sure we shall need in abundance when we arrive.’
‘When we arrive where?’
His tone was suddenly light again. ‘Wherever we’re going, of course.’ He beamed at the inherent logic and elegance of this conclusion. Seeing no reaction from either of his companions, the Doctor coughed and turned his attention back to the TARDIS console. ‘Now I think it will be a little while before we land, and I for one could do with something to eat. I wonder, Victoria,’ he went on with a sudden brilliant smile, ‘if you could possibly rustle us up some sandwiches?’
Victoria’s expression betrayed her lack of enthusiasm. ‘All right.’
‘Splendid.’ The Doctor clapped his hands together in satisfaction. His smile somehow morphed into a slightly sour expression as if he were chewing a marble. ‘Now if I can just calibrate this meter properly, Jamie, you could tell me what you two have been muttering about.’
The chessboard was set again for a new game. Cruger was gone, the lamplight flickering on the artificial cheek of the man left sitting silent and still. The pale light picked out slight imperfections in the curves of his face, shied away from small pockmarks of tarnished metal.
Cruger’s voice appeared as if from the air, filtered by the communication system. ‘You wish to start another game, my Lord?’
‘Perhaps.’ The electronically enhanced voice betrayed a hint of tiredness. ‘But it is late. Not against the clock, Cruger.’
‘Of course not, my Lord. I would suggest just a few moves tonight. We can finish at your leisure.’
‘Very well.’
As if in answer, another chessboard appeared. It swam into pixelated existence in the air, hovering in the corner of the room. ‘Your turn with the white pieces, my Lord,’ Cruger’s disembodied voice said.
The Lord walked stiffly towards the virtual board, the servos that moved his left leg hissing slightly. He paused in front of the board. Then he took hold of a knight and jumped it forwar
d.
In his own room, Cruger watched as the knight moved apparently of its own volition. He nodded slowly as he contemplated his own move. Once again, the game was afoot.
Outside Cruger’s room, the stone-lined corridor rang to the solid tread of the guard as he checked the doors.
There was a heavy knock at the Lord’s door as he watched Cruger’s move. Without looking up from the board, he called, ‘Enter.’
The duralinium-core wooden door swung slowly open. In the dim light that spilled from the corridor outside, two figures could be seen. One was male, one female, each dressed in battle armour. The man carried a field blaster in a holster built into the armour.
‘Is it time already?’ He turned to face the soldiers.
‘It is, my Lord.’
He nodded to the man. ‘Then I wish you good night, Darkling. And you, Haden,’ he continued, turning to the female guard. ‘May your watch be uneventful.’
‘Thank you, my Lord.’ The figures stepped back, and the door swung shut again. After a moment, the deadbolts shot home, sealing the room.
The lone figure returned his attention to the game. It was late, and he was tired. He was tired of the game, tired of the room, tired of everything. Just a little longer, and then perhaps it would at last be over. He moved a pawn automatically, not really thinking through the move. At once he knew it was a mistake, and his mind was suddenly alert again as he began to work through the possibilities, to build strategies for recovering the situation and turning it to his advantage. If he could make the sacrifice he had offered into a poison pawn – a trap, a lure…
Beneath the heavy, uncomfortable mask, he smiled as Cruger responded with the predictability of a machine. He glanced up at a point in the stonework where he knew one of the cameras was concealed, watching his every move. Literally. Perhaps, after all, he would finish the game tonight.
Darkling and Haden continued their patrol, locking the doors as they passed. Occasionally a voice called out to them, and they responded with a cheery ‘Good night’, or a ribald comment.
At last they reached the edge of the Secure Area, a huge pair of heavy doors. A short walk brought them into the Banqueting Hall. The light was better here, largely because there were more lanterns. A long table ran down the centre of the room. Various displays of traditional weapons lay at intervals along it. In the alcoves and at the doorways stood heavy, metal-armoured figures, so still and stiff that one could tell at a glance that nothing living inhabited the heavy suits. A gallery ran high along one wall, a huge fireplace beneath it, in which the embers of a half-forgotten fire glimmered in the half-light. Blast shields and laser swords hung on the walls. The ceiling was a vaulted monument to the architect’s skill with structural gravitic manipulation.
But the two soldiers saw none of the splendour or the glory as they made their way through. They had seen it all too many times now. Satisfied that everything was quiet and as it should be, they continued their patrol.
One whole wall of the room was covered with screens, their images constantly in motion. Cameras tracked back and forth across their appointed domains. The screens flickered and changed from camera to camera, from viewpoint to viewpoint, from room to corridor to stairway.
On one of the screens, Darkling held open a door for Haden. Haden paused on the threshold, said something which was not amplified by the speakers in the side of the screen, though it was captured perfectly together with Darkling’s laughter on the digital recording. On another screen, Haden entered a sparsely furnished room. The door slammed closed behind her.
Outside, Darkling locked the door. Then the image changed to show a view of the Banqueting Hall. The still figures stood like sentries round the edge of the room. The dying light of the fire burned on the instrument panels set into the chest of the nearest figure.
A shadow moved darkly across one of the screens, the camera seeming to shy away from it, panning across to the opposite side of the corridor. The shadow continued on its way, the hint of a cloak swirling behind it as it walked. Deep in an anteroom on one of the lower levels of the fortress, another cloaked figure stepped from the shadows. Its face was hidden beneath the cowl. The concealed camera in the room tracked the movement carefully, adjusted for the dim light. The image became slightly more focused, the edges of the shapes slightly sharper.
Then the shadowy figure from the corridor entered the room. In a blur of darkness, the figure stepped in front of the camera and raised a gloved hand. The device in the hand gleamed as a facet caught the light from a distant lamp. Then the image snowed over with a blizzard of static and white noise.
The screens continued their endless vigil, throwing images across the wall, picking out every nuance of life within the monitored part of the fortress, recording every whispered monitored conversation both within the Secure Area and beyond. Except one.
The Doctor seemed bent almost double as he scurried round the console. His coat tails hung improbably close to the TARDIS floor as he adjusted controls and tapped meters. Eventually he stopped, and looked up as Victoria returned with a plate of sandwiches.
‘Ah. Thank you, Victoria. You’re very kind.’ The Doctor helped himself to a sandwich with each hand, and returned to the console. He reached out for a small lever, seemed to realise he was holding a sandwich in the same hand, and tried to take it with the other hand. That one was also full of sandwich, so he jammed it into his mouth.
Jamie helped himself to a sandwich, and thanked Victoria. She put the plate down on the heavy wooden chair beside the inner TARDIS door.
‘Are you not eating, Victoria?’ the Doctor asked. As he started speaking, his mouth opened enough for the sandwich to fall out. He caught it with his free hand, looked at it in apparent surprise, then smiled and took a large bite.
‘I’m not hungry, actually.’
The Doctor frowned as he considered this statement. He finished one sandwich and took a bite from the other. ‘Nor am I,’ he admitted after a while, and put down the remains of the sandwich on the console. He clapped his hands together, rubbing them so hard it seemed that fire might spontaneously erupt from the palms. ‘Now what was it we were talking about?’
‘Common sense,’ Jamie mumbled through a shower of crumbs.
‘Oh yes. That was it. Well –’ the Doctor’s face took on a heavy frown – ‘the thing is to cultivate a good balance of both common sense and physical acumen.’
‘Acu-what?’
‘He means,’ Victoria said, ‘that you need both. Common sense and physical strength. Intelligence and good intentions.’
‘Oh. Aye.’ Jamie nodded in knowing agreement. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Take me, for example,’ the Doctor continued. ‘As your role model in our adventures, I make a point of displaying a perfect combination of all these attributes and talents.’
Neither Jamie nor Victoria spoke.
The Doctor looked from one to the other. Then he coughed, and returned his attention to the console. His frown seemed to have deepened, but perhaps it was merely a trick of the light. He reached out for a dial, and gave it a twist. The dial did not move, and he let go of it and inspected his fingers. ‘Yes,’ he said as he whipped out his hanky again, ‘a perfect combination of tremendous strength and superior intelligence fuelled by keen observational and deductive skills…’ He gripped the dial through the handkerchief, ignoring the half-eaten sandwich that fell out of it. His face tensed with the effort.
Jamie and Victoria exchanged glances. Still neither of them commented.
The Doctor gave up the unequal fight with the control after a few more moments. He stuffed the remains of the curled-up sandwich into a jacket pocket, and dabbed at his brow with the hanky. Then he returned it to his top pocket. ‘I wonder, Jamie, if you could perhaps give me a hand with this?’
Jamie took up position next to the Doctor and gripped the dial.
‘Good. Now twist it a quarter turn anticlockwise, would you?’
Jamie
turned the dial easily.
‘Thank you, Jamie.’
‘That’s all right.’
The Doctor continued to stare at the dial. ‘Anticlockwise would have been nice, but I’m sure that will do.’
‘Physical strength,’ Jamie muttered to Victoria as he joined her on the other side of the console.
‘Phew, I’m really quite worn out by all this excitement,’ the Doctor announced. He shook his head, beamed, and backed away from the console, feeling behind him for the arm of the chair by the door.
‘Keen observational skills,’ Victoria said to Jamie.
He nodded. ‘Aye.’
‘What are you two worrying about now?’ the Doctor asked from the chair. ‘We shall be arriving soon, and I don’t want any arguments while we’re exploring.’
‘No, Doctor.’
‘Best behaviour.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
The Doctor shifted position slightly on the chair. ‘That’s better. Good.’ He exhaled loudly. ‘I don’t remember this chair having a cushion on it,’ he remarked at last.
‘It doesn’t, Doctor,’ Jamie told him.
‘Oh?’
‘No, Doctor,’ Victoria said. ‘You’re sitting on the sandwiches.’
The game was already won, the man in the mask knew as he made another move. But Cruger seemed determined to fight to the end. Typical of the general. He had displayed an uncharacteristic lack of long-term thinking in the early stages of the game, and now he was expertly drawing the match out as long as possible. But the end was inevitable. It was just a matter of time, patience, and concentration.
The Lord leaned forward, watching closely as Cruger’s bishop sliced across the board. ‘Excellent, Cruger, excellent,’ the Lord breathed. His metallic voice scraped on the stone walls, but elicited no reply from his unseen opponent. The Lord could imagine Cruger hunched over the same virtual board in his own quarters, desperately looking for a way to turn the game to his advantage. Cruger hated to lose, which was why he so resented the long boredom of his current life. It was also why the man in the mask let him win. Occasionally.
Doctor Who: Dreams of Empire: 50th Anniversary Edition Page 3
