glass man had got them.
Dela screamed.
PART TWO
UNLESS
How do you define intelligence? It’s a word that means different things to different people. The scientists who built the Fortress weren’t worried so much about an abstract debate. They needed a practical answer.
The Fortress could have been given an artificial mind so brilliant, so adaptable, that it would be able to solve any problem instantly by thinking it through. Imagine a student who was brilliant at mathematics, and so was smart enough to pass any maths exam or test. But the idea of creating so powerful a mind worried the builders of the Fortress. They knew plenty of examples of creations rising up and destroying their creators, and they couldn’t take the risk. This Fortress would have access to the ultimate weapon, and making it intelligent and resourceful was just asking for trouble. Luckily, there was another way of doing it. Imagine a second student, one who had been given a list of all the answers. He would also get a perfect score. Most people would say that it was only the first student who was really demonstrating ‘intelligence’, but the results would be identical.
The Fortress had been given a giant list of every possible problem and the best solutions. Its builders had set it up so that the Fortress would automatically perform the required action.
The Fortress ‘thought’. It received information from millions of sensors dotted inside and outside the building, but it didn’t have a ‘brain’ as such. There wasn’t even one place where it did its thinking – that would have been far too vulnerable to attack – so there were hundreds of tiny computers, all linked up in dozens of different ways. It didn’t know right from wrong, any more than a dishwasher knows what a dish is.
The sensors could see, hear, taste, touch and smell things far more efficiently than a human being could. It knew that some forms of attack would be based on deception – that it couldn’t always believe its own eyes and ears. So it didn’t just check what it was seeing once, it asked itself thousands of times a second.
What it sensed now were a couple of humanoids that had got inside. They posed no immediate threat, and there was an extremely high probability that they would trigger one of the automatic defences.
The best model that matched said that there was no need to intervene and the intruders would soon be dead.
The Doctor hadn’t heard the voice.
Alsa was two steps behind him. They were in a narrow corridor which was made – floors, walls and ceiling – of the same black metal as the outside of the Fortress. It soaked up the light, just giving them enough to see their feet and the route ahead.
‘It said something about a list. I think,’ Alsa told him.
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ the Doctor said. He continued striding on, moving quickly but controlling every single movement, careful where he planted every footstep, every glance.
‘“We are a list”,’ said Alsa.
‘“We are a list”?’ the Doctor repeated, scoffing.
‘The voice was dead faint. Like it was back outside.’
The corridor twisted downhill, and was lit by dull green electric lamps. Alsa was impressed by the clean, even quality of the light. The most impressive thing was that the lights were just… there. Light usually meant keeping an eye out to make sure the poppy oil wasn’t running low or the flame wasn’t too high, that there was enough ventilation. She had never taken light for granted. There weren’t all that many things she’d ever taken for granted.
It was the first place she’d been that felt normal. Not ruined or bound up in a load of stupid rules. The place smelled clean. This wasn’t a warm place, but it had solid walls and a dry floor. For all the black metal and darkness, Alsa felt more at home here than she ever had before.
The Doctor wasn’t saying very much. There hadn’t been any of his grinning or fooling around. He’d turned to look back a couple of times, and the expression on his face was grim.
Alsa wasn’t sure what her plan was at this stage. She knew where she wanted to get to; the weapon plugged into the city power grid. She knew not even Professor Jeffip would be able to do that; it would have to be the Doctor.
She hadn’t worked out, yet, how to force the Doctor to do it. For now, she’d just stick close to him.
He had some idea of the layout of the place. They’d only been walking for a few minutes, but it felt like they were making good progress. The Doctor had already defused a device that he said had been poised to electrocute them. ‘Kill us with electricity,’ he’d explained cheerfully, as he handed Alsa a piece of mechanism he’d barbecued with the sonic screwdriver.
The corridor broadened out into a small circular room.
‘It’s safe,’ the Doctor said, hesitating just long enough to give away that he was guessing. There were two open doorways leading out of the room. The Doctor was rubbing his lips thoughtfully.
‘Hmmmm,’ he said. ‘Hand your comm over, I’ve had an idea.’
Alsa scowled at him.
‘Please?’
She passed the bag over. The Doctor quickly found the comm. He was thumbing at the controls the moment he had it in his hand and, within seconds, a hologram of the Fortress was flickering above the comm display.
‘How did you get it to do that?’
‘I hacked into the Fortress battle computer.’
The hologram showed a green and blue wire-frame representation of the outside of the Fortress. The native
buildings of Arcopolis were marked out in white lines.
Alsa tried to take in as much of it as she could. More and more details started to fill in on the hologram, apparently as a result of the Doctor’s playing around. Now it was showing the internal structure, thick layers of walls opening into a large vault. In the centre of the building was a column with its roots in the base and whose trunk reached up to the very apex of the roof.
None of those things were occupying Alsa’s attention.
‘Do you recognise those?’ she asked, indicating three vast objects shown floating outside the Fortress. They were hovering over the far shore of the lake.
‘They look a bit like the Blue Peter ship,’ the Doctor said, distracted. ‘They’re probably not though,’ he added.
Alsa was shaking her head.
‘Hang on,’ said the Doctor.
One word flashed up on the tiny screen.
EYELESS
‘Eyeless?’ the Doctor said, puzzled.
‘It’s the people who built this place,’ Alsa said. ‘They know we’re in here, and they’re angry.’
‘Definitely not, probably not, and very possibly,’ the Doctor said. ‘In that order.’
‘That voice didn’t say “a list”, it said “eyeless”. What’s it mean?’
‘That they don’t need mascara, monocles or an optician?’ The Doctor sniffed, clearly more interested in what the comm was telling him. ‘That they’re fearless and earless and peerless and tearless?’
‘They’re aliens,’ Alsa said impatiently. ‘If they’re not
the people who built the Fortress, are these the aliens that the Fortress was built to fight?’
‘No.’
‘So they’re a fourth lot?’
‘Third, surely…’
‘The ones who built the Fortress. The ones they were fighting. You.’
‘Ah. Well, yes, then they’re a fourth lot.’
‘You met this type before? Know what they look like?’
Alsa asked.
‘Eyeless?’ the Doctor said. ‘Not from just the name.
Eyeless? Eyeless! No. I’ve only been to Galaxy Seven a handful of times, mind. I’m in a state of Eyelesslessness.’
Alsa looked around for a rock to hit him with, but there wasn’t one.
‘Do not move,’ a voice said. ‘Stop what you are doing, Doctor.’
‘Doctor,’ Alsa warned.
The Doctor sighed. ‘Oh, what is it now?’
‘You didn’t hear that?’
‘The same voice,’ Alsa insisted.
‘What did it say?’ he asked, not sounding interested.
‘“Do not move”,’ Alsa said.
‘A rather stupid thing to say. Unless it was in here with —’
They had been followed in. The Doctor and Alsa turned to see three glass men walking down into the alcove, taking up position to block all the exits.
A few minutes earlier, when she’d first seen the bright green eyes, Dela had been sick, helpless as the glass man stood over her. The eyeballs were just fixed in its head, watching her. How could they even be functional? Was it wearing them as decoration, like she used to wear jewellery?
She had remembered the Doctor’s promise to find and punish whoever had done that to Jall.
Jall?
Jall. An image of her: those bright green eyes where they belonged, the two of them laughing. A month before, when Jall had come back and they’d talked all night, and Dela discovered that yet another cliché of motherhood –that your daughter grew to be a friend – could be true.
Dela had looked up to see Jall’s dead eyes peering down at her.
The Eyeless had been reading her mind, taking her memories. Dela had tried to resist, but realised she didn’t know how to begin fighting it off. It stole another memory, the last one she had of the Doctor, of him running off into the night. Then another, of her arriving on this floor of the Car Factory, seeing the opening in the Fortress wall.
The Eyeless had stayed in her mind but, as it had turned to face the black metal wall, it was as if it had loosened its grip a little, and there was enough slack for Dela to have new thoughts. She had got up, legs shaking, wanting to leave.
Six more Eyeless had marched in, keeping perfect formation. Three at the front, two in the middle, one at the
end.
People were allowed secrets. There were things no one else knew about her. All of them had spilled out, the Eyeless lapping them all up, not appreciating their value.
Dela had felt the same sense of violation and frustration she’d had when she was fifteen, when she’d seen the settings had changed on her diary and realised her mother had been reading it, and so she knew about Gyll.
Had she just remembered that, or had the Eyeless remembered it for her?
Dela had wanted to slap it. No – break it. It was glass.
Surely a blow from a blunt, heavy object could crack it open?
The dead eyes had stared down at her, and Dela had understood that it didn’t mean to hurt her. Instead she was a resource, a well of knowledge about the Doctor, so she had value.
‘The Doctor is a threat,’ it had said, and a wave of agreement had broken inside Dela’s head. The Eyeless had turned on its heel, and marched over to the gap in the Fortress wall opened up by the Doctor. Two others had joined it.
‘We have an opportunity to study the Doctor. We must enter now.’
And, knowing she couldn’t just abandon the Doctor and Alsa, but too scared to go into the Fortress after them, all Dela had found she could do, as she stood there and the minutes had ticked by, was feel sick again.
The Doctor had allowed himself to get distracted. If he’d
stuck to his plan, not been knocked out by that girl, then he would have been and gone before the Eyeless showed up. But then, if that had happened, he’d never have met an Eyeless. And now he’d met three.
‘Hello there,’ he said cheerfully, picking one to talk to.
‘I’m the Doctor, by the way. I met you earlier. You ran off.’
The Eyeless were shorter than the Doctor, but towered over Alsa. This one regarded the Doctor silently for a good half a minute.
‘You really can’t hear it speak, can you?’ Alsa asked the Doctor, delighted.
‘It doesn’t have a mouth,’ the Doctor pointed out.
He went over to it. So, this was an Eyeless. This was the first time he’d got the chance for a proper look, so he put on his spectacles.
It looked like glass, but was perhaps clear resin or plastic. It looked hard, but might have been soft, like gel.
Or sticky. It was all the Doctor could do to stop himself from poking it.
Whatever it was made of was almost flawless, but there were a few small bubbles in there. Other items, too –things that he didn’t understand. In this nearest one, there was what looked like a red cog, about a centimetre in diameter embedded in its leg; a small V-shaped tube of plastic in its neck; a gold disc in its hand; what looked like a seventeen-centimetre strip of stir-fried beef in its chest.
None of these objects seemed to be connected to anything, and he couldn’t see for the life of him what function they served. Were they decorative? Did they have some ritual purpose? Oh, come on, Doctor – ‘some ritual purpose’ is what people say when they don’t want to admit they haven’t a clue what an artefact is.
‘Well, look at you,’ the Doctor beamed, genuinely thrilled. ‘I have to admit, I think you’ve caught me out.
No joints, no muscles, no seams, no capillary tubes. I thought you might be using nanotechnology, but you’re not, are you? You’re not a robot. A silicon-based life form.
Or… oh, wait. Carbon-based, like me and Alsa, but the carbon takes the form of diamonds? Is that it? Are you a diamond geezer? You look completely solid, but you can move. Animated glass. That really is remarkable. Are you going to tell me how it’s done, or is it a secret?’
Ten seconds of absolute silence.
‘I don’t think he can,’ Alsa said, then, more petulant, ‘I don’t know why not. I’m just telling you.’
‘Is it talking to you? In your head?’
Alsa nodded.
‘Telepaths. A race of glass telepaths called the Eyeless.
I mean, cor, how brilliant is that? I can’t hear it. Can it hear me?’
‘The entire surface of his body can register the smallest vibrations in the air. It’s far more sensitive to sound than a human ear.’
The Doctor turned back to his Eyeless, grinning. He opened and closed his mouth for a few seconds, made hand gestures, pretending to speak but with no words coming out.
‘No,’ said Alsa, a couple of beats after he’d finished. ‘I think he’s dead clever and just pretending.’
‘I am,’ the Doctor nodded solemnly. ‘But I’m not clever enough to work out why you call yourself “the Eyeless”.’
‘That’s obvious,’ Alsa scowled.
‘It’s obvious they don’t have eyes, but why didn’t they pick their noses?’
Alsa sniggered, and it was a moment before the Doctor worked out why.
‘You know what I mean,’ he insisted. ‘They don’t have noses, either. Why not the Noseless, eh? Or the Mouthless? Hairless? Earless? Heartless?’
‘Can’t they call themselves whatever they want?’ Alsa asked.
The Doctor thought about it for a few seconds more, tried to clarify his objection. ‘Groups are usually named after where they come from, or what they do, or what they believe in, or what they want to be. What sort of culture names themselves after something they aren’t? Something they don’t have? Something that’s not theirs?’
The question hung in the air.
‘What are they, Alsa?’
‘They’re trying to explain. I don’t understand.’
‘Say what you see,’ the Doctor suggested.
‘There are white things, like… structures, all gathered around a huge ball that looks like the sun, but it’s in the middle of the night sky. The structures, there are thousands of them. They’re buildings and vehicles, but also parts of a machine. There are loads of Eyelesses in them, all bathed in colourful light. They travel all across the galaxy. It’s incredible.’
The Doctor could have worked most of that out for himself.
‘Why?’ he asked.
The Eyeless didn’t say anything, but the question clearly confused them.
‘They forage f
or technology. Because they can read minds, they usually find it easy to come to an arrangement with the original owners. If not, they take what they want anyway,’ Alsa grinned. ‘They’re just like me.’
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Are they, now?’
Alsa laughed. ‘They’ve just promised to change things here.’
‘Have they, indeed?’
‘They don’t trust you,’ Alsa told him. ‘They say I shouldn’t trust you.’
‘They’re used to reading minds. They’ve never needed to earn trust, just taken it. Takers. That’s what they are.
Scavengers. Thieves. Thugs. On a cosmic scale.’
‘They want to know why they can’t read your mind.’
The Doctor jabbed his thumb at his chest. ‘Time Lord.
We come with top-of-the-line psychic defences as standard. I imagine a race as well travelled as the Eyeless know all about the Time Lords.’
‘No. They haven’t heard of you,’ Alsa told him.
That burst the Doctor’s balloon. ‘Oh… really?’
‘They just asked something stupid. They – all right, all right, I’ll ask – Doctor, they want to know if your TARDIS is a time machine.’
The Doctor felt his grin twitching. ‘Er… no. Ridiculous idea.’
‘The Eyeless would very much like a time machine,’
Alsa said.
‘I bet they would,’ the Doctor murmured through gritted teeth.
‘And you say you’re a Time Lord and told Dela that TARDIS stood for Time And—’
‘Oh. Right. Yes, I see why there’s all this confusion.
Simple mistake. It’s “Thyme”, with an H-Y. The herb. I’m a Thyme Lord. In the Middle Ages, you’d put some thyme under your pillow to ward off nightmares. Not that I’ve been to the Middle Ages, of course. Heaven forfend.
You’d need a time machine for that. As a, er, Thyme Lord, I know that it’s good with roast chicken. And in biscuits.
You wouldn’t think so, but try it. Couple of tablespoons. I could go on for ages about Thyme.’
‘Please don’t.’ The Doctor wasn’t sure if that was Alsa, or the Eyeless speaking through her. Either way, he sighed with relief. ‘The Eyeless fail to understand why this means your brain needs such an elaborate firewall.’
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