by Stephen Cole
Frog shrugged and left him to it. She raised her gun again and started swinging it about, pointing it at shadows, making Polly decidedly nervous.
‘Come, come,’ chided the Doctor, looking up from his studies. ‘You’re surely not expecting to find our missing friend hiding under the table, hmm?’
‘Body’s got to be somewhere, don’t it?’ Frog retorted, still hunting about. ‘We saw it here last.’
The Doctor gripped his lapels and nodded. ‘And I feel quite certain we shan’t see it here again just yet.’
‘You think the Schirr disintegrated like the other one?’ Polly asked hopefully.
Before the Doctor could respond, Shel groaned loudly. A pale yellow foam now coated his bloodied arm, some sort of space-age bandage, Polly supposed. He was pointing with his good arm at something under the control panel beside the dead Schirr in the chair, something only he could see at that angle.
Frog gave an excited squawk as she peered under the control panel herself. ‘He’s right, look at this! Come and see!’
‘What?’ Polly asked nervously. Something in the woman’s voice put Polly in mind of the horrible boys back at school when she was little, who always tricked her into looking at the dead spiders or slugs they were holding, just to hear her scream. But in the end she relented. The sickly stench from the corpse got stronger as she approached, all Parma violets and rotting peaches.
Polly was relieved to find that the fuss was over little more than a box; a small, bronze casket had been fastened to the underside of the console. A couple of wires ran out of it, lending it the appearance of an ornate junction box. An angular symbol had been etched into one side.
The Doctor came to join her and stooped to see. ‘Fascinating,’ he said appreciatively. ‘It is similar to the symbol burnt into Pallemar here.’ His expression hardened. ‘Isn’t branding a prisoner somewhat barbaric for humans so evidently advanced, hmm?’
‘It’s done when a prisoner is chipped. Pentagon Central’s file on the subject is encoded at the same time into the flesh.’
‘And this chipping, as you call it, is not punishment enough?’
‘DeCaster and his disciples revived an ancient Schirr religion,’ Shel explained. ‘They celebrate the physical form as part of their magic, a kind of cult of the body. They’ve made themselves physically perfect in their own eyes.’
Frog giggled. ‘So when we got them, we hit them where it hurt.’ She made a hissing, sizzling sound. With the underlying grate of her voice simulator Polly found the noise truly disgusting.
‘The mark translates as “dissident”,’ Shel went on. ‘So we can tell. They… They all look so similar.’
‘How very enlightened,’ said the Doctor. ‘But if you had these criminals in your custody, how did they escape?’
‘At the time of Pallemar and DeCaster’s incarceration, no one had any idea of their significance in the Schirr uprising. The Ten… Ten-strong was able to free itself with ease. And like all Schirr dissidents, they wear their brands as… as a mark of pride.’ Shel abruptly switched his focus back to the unit. ‘It looks like s… some kind of plug-in module.’
‘A good guess.’ The Doctor straightened back up with a wince of pain. ‘Yes, it’s a quite recent addition. I would say it was intended to expand the functionality of this console.’
‘How?’ asked Frog succinctly.
‘It’s most interesting, yes,’ the Doctor assured them, but wouldn’t elaborate further. It hadn’t taken Polly long to learn that he could answer the most complicated questions with extraordinary ease – but a simple answer to a simple question was pretty much entirely beyond him.
‘Speaking of expanding functionality,’ he went on, ‘Polly, could you please check the navigational console? I believe the reducing equations I routed into the drive systems should soon be showing results.’ The Doctor chuckled almost mischievously. ‘We shan’t be ignorant of our final destination for much longer, however much our hosts would wish it.’
Polly trotted off to the console against the far wall, eager to put some distance between her and the huge, fleshy bodies. She found herself transfixed by a small display screen. It glowed the prettiest shade of blue that Polly had ever seen.
‘Well, child?’ called the Doctor a little brusquely.
On the screen was a single eight-digit figure. Polly called it over to him.
The Doctor stiffened, turned away from them all, back to the bodies on the dais. Polly felt her stomach tie a knot in itself.
‘What does it mean?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
The Doctor didn’t turn back round. ‘If Tovel was correct in his placing of our relative spatial position, it seems we are not being steered toward Earth’s Empire after all.’ Now he turned to face Polly, and she saw his eyes were agleam, his interest fully engaged. There was even a rueful smile on his face, a chess player acknowledging his being outwitted by a worthy opponent. ‘It would appear this asteroid is on a direct path leading into the Morphiean Quadrant.’
*
II
While Creben checked and double-checked the Kill-Droid’s circuits, Ben experimented with placing different amounts of pressure on his injured ankle. It seemed pretty well fine, apart from the odd protesting twinge. Even his plates weren’t aching too badly with all this traipsing about. In fact, he felt in great shape. He should probably set himself up in business some time. Yeah, that could impress Polly. You too can have a body like mine. Just go time travelling to lumps of rock in deep space.
Ben watched as Creben rose from the splintered panel of the robot at last and handed the unhelpful circuit to Haunt.
‘No doubt about it,’ he announced. ‘Disintegrators have not been used. They’re fully charged.’
Haunt gave the circuit a cursory inspection in the feeble glow of the fleaweed. She didn’t look like she even knew what she was meant to be looking at. Wasn’t it Shel who did all the technical stuff for her? Haunt impatiently tossed the circuit to the ground. ‘So. This proves the bodies must still be in those tunnels.’
‘We’d have found them,’ Shade piped up, hands still pressed to his face.
‘He’s right,’ said Roba. ‘If Joiks lost Denni round here, one group would’ve found her.’
‘What do you mean, “if”?’ said Joiks. ‘This was the place.’
Roba nodded to Shade. ‘Same goes for Lindey, right, man? You were right on top of her.’
Shade nodded, and winced as he did so.
‘Well, maybe they’re not dead,’ Ben suggested. ‘Maybe they got away, and they’re walking about lost, looking for you?’
Joiks shook his head. ‘You weren’t there. I heard Denni’s screams. She wasn’t walking anywhere.’
‘Same for Lindey,’ said Shade.
‘They have to be somewhere,’ Tovel reasoned. ‘In hiding, maybe. Alive or dead.’
Haunt snorted. ‘Why would a droid deliberately hide the bodies of its victims?’
‘To keep the element of surprise?’ Tovel suggested.
Creben looked round at the others, with the crafty look of someone about to put a cat among the pigeons. ‘Or maybe it had a use for them.’
‘What sort of a use?’ demanded Haunt. When Creben didn’t answer, she didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. ‘You’re funny. Well, whatever the reason, we need to find those bodies. We’re taking them home. And not just that, we need some answers. Denni’s webset must still have been recording when she was taken. The information could tell us a lot.’
Ben clocked Joiks. He looked suddenly shiftier than usual.
‘So what are we waiting for,’ said Shade, pulling his hands away from his face. The black ridges seemed to bubble under his reddened skin in the half light. ‘Let’s get this finished.’
‘You don’t look too good, man,’ Tovel said.
‘I’m fine,’ Shade answered tersely. Even Ben, who hadn’t known the geezer for more than a few hours, could see that wasn’t true. He seeme
d short of breath, swaying slightly, and his eyes stared wildly out of his sweaty face. ‘Come on, let’s do this. We can do this.’
‘You’re in pain,’ Haunt said dispassionately. ‘A lot of it. What’s wrong?’
Shade looked like he’d been slapped. ‘It’s nothing,’ he insisted, like a kid on the verge of tears, trying to be brave.
Haunt reached out a hand and pinched Shade’s cheek. He screamed.
‘You’re very funny,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve seen people in more pain than you know how to feel, Shade.’
‘I’m sorry, Marshal,’ Shade said stiffly. ‘I don’t know… It’s my face… Feels like it’s bursting open –’
Shade’s confession was cut short by Shel’s voice bursting through Haunt’s communicator.
‘Marshal.’ There was a tinge of urgency to his usually neutral tones. ‘I… I think you should come to control. Immediately.’
‘Problems?’ Haunt asked.
A pause. ‘Something’s happened.’
Big problems, then. Ben felt a tingle up his spine. He scratched it, like he was scratching the rest of his back. It was like he had sunburn or something, a tightness, a tickling soreness of the skin, spreading all over.
‘’Ere, the Doctor and Polly are all right, aren’t –?’
Haunt shut him up with a warning look. ‘All right, Shel,’ she said quietly to her sleeve. ‘I’m on my way. And I’ll be bringing Shade with me. Out.’
Shade looked down at his feet, embarrassed. ‘Marshal, I don’t need special attention.’
‘That’s enough out of you.’
Lovely bedside manner, thought Ben.
She turned to Ben and the others. ‘The droids are gone, but there are still a lot of unknowns here. We don’t know where we’re going, or why. Organise yourselves into groups. Get searching. I’ll be in touch.’
Shade followed his marshal into the gloom of the tunnel in the far wall. Ben wished he was going back too. How had he suddenly become part of Haunt’s outfit?
‘There he goes, Haunt’s little shadow,’ muttered Roba, unmoved by Shade’s suffering.
‘What’s with Shel and the secrecy?’ Tovel wondered aloud. ‘Why not just tell us?’
‘Morale, innit,’ said Ben. ‘He’d rather you heard it from Haunt once she’s had a chance to work out the words, than to take it from him off the cuff.’
‘Shel was the one who got us into this in the first place,’ said Joiks.
Tovel looked at him. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Who decided we’d fly to this stinking rock?’
‘Pentagon Central.’ Tovel gave him the kind of smile you save for simpletons.
‘And who programmed the computers with our stats?’ said Joiks pointedly.
There was a moment’s uncertainty. Everyone exchanged glances.
Roba nodded. ‘Like the old man said – the computers only pick a place ’cause of what’s fed into them.’
‘Well, you’re feeding us bull, Joiks.’ Creben shook his head as if amused by some private joke. ‘Since Toronto, Pent-Cent computers are guarded like spectrox. You think it’s likely Shel sneaked in and reprogrammed them just so they’d assign this place to us here and now?’
Joiks spat on the floor. ‘Is it any likelier that DeCaster and Pallemar show up too, “here and now”?’
‘Maybe they did it,’ said Roba. ‘You know. Magic.’
‘Leave off!’ Ben protested. ‘Why would they want anyone to discover them here?’
‘There could be a reason,’ said Creben. ‘They’ve discovered a usefulness for us.’
‘They are dead,’ Tovel reminded him.
‘But we’re all travelling together. And where we’re going there could be anything waiting for us.’ Creben looked at each of them in turn, eyes unblinking. ‘Anything at all.’
A long paralysing pause stretched out like the darkness of the tunnel facing them.
‘Are we going to stand around scaring each other stupid,’ Ben said nervously, ‘or are we going to do what your guvnor told us to?’
Tovel nodded. ‘But screw splitting into groups. We stay together.’
‘Agreed,’ said Creben.
The others nodded, none faster than Ben, and Roba led them off down the gloomy passageway.
III
Polly was staying well away from Haunt. Upon finding another missing corpse from the collection in the control room, the marshal’s cosy theory of natural disintegration was strained to breaking point; much like her patience with so many events all beyond her control.
The Doctor was talking to Haunt now, quietly but forcefully outlining their recent discoveries and their position as he saw it.
Polly could see it well enough herself. They were being toyed with by some unknown power. Bodysnatchers, taking the living and the dead. She didn’t want to think too closely about the possible reasons for that, nor why Morphiea appeared to be the asteroid’s destination.
Nor why Shade and Shel, two soldiers who should’ve been in the peak of physical fitness, now seemed so sick.
Shel’s pain went beyond his injured arm. He was twitching all over on his invisible bed, like a cloud of the fleas outside had followed him in and were biting like devils.
Shade, on the other hand, was lying alarmingly still on the floor beside her. He had collapsed pretty much the moment he’d entered the room. It seemed Haunt had finally lost her shadow. Frog had burst open another force mattress to make him comfortable, but the scanner thing she’d brought out of the first aid box showed nothing untoward.
Polly decided the Doctor was right not to trust these people’s machines. The skin on Shade’s face was like sticky red polythene stretched tight over dozens of tiny black limpets. His green eyes flickered open from time to time, looked blankly up at her. She couldn’t help staring at the tiny computer sticking out of his pocket. Lindey’s computer.
Frog sat beside Shel, her scarred round head in her hands, looking bored. Occasionally Haunt would raise her voice at the Doctor, incredulous or angry, Polly couldn’t tell. And Shade’s eyes were closed. She reached her hand out to his pocket. No one would notice now if she took out the palm computer and had a little…
‘The Spooks have destroyed whole worlds to try and get their stupid secrets back!’ Haunt’s voice boomed out like gunfire as her patience reached its limit. Polly retreated from Shade and his secret for the moment as the tirade went on: ‘Why would they want to drag a tiny rock with ten soldiers in training to the heart of their empire?’
The Doctor gave as good as he got. ‘I am simply postulating, madam, as to why we should be going to Morphiea if not at the Morphieans’ behest!’ he thundered. She didn’t answer back straight away, so the Doctor pressed home his advantage. ‘If the Schirr were to be captured by Morphiea it would mean certain death.’ He gestured sadly to the bodies behind their invisible barrier. ‘Perhaps they saw what was coming, and arranged for their own destruction.’
Haunt nodded, suddenly subdued. ‘It’s possible,’ was all she would concede. ‘How long till we arrive?’
‘There’s no way of telling,’ the Doctor announced, shaking his head. ‘Now, tell me. How did the Morphieans make you aware that they were responsible for the atrocities they committed?’
‘They made…’ Haunt’s lip curled scornfully, and Polly noticed one hand was clutched to her side. ‘They made what our poor little frightened scientists called “constructs”. Fleshy things, animated somehow. Don’t ask me to explain. The constructs were projected direct to Senate. They gloated, threatened us… The Spooks don’t care how many of us they kill. We’re just animals to them.’
The Doctor looked at her steadily, ignoring her mounting anger. ‘They don’t have bodies as we do?’
‘Flesh is just a tool for their magic.’
‘So, the Morphieans have a mindforce of some kind.’ The Doctor chuckled suddenly, and turned to Frog. ‘I was considering the old, old links between the Schirr and the Morphiea
ns you mentioned. One born, perhaps, from cult of the body on one side, and an elevation of the mind on the other.’
Frog looked less than impressed with the Doctor’s theory. Shel, still convulsing silently with his lips bared back over his teeth, almost seemed to be laughing.
‘How would that ever bring them together?’ wondered Polly.
‘Each extreme still needs the other,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now. So far we only have part of the puzzle. For the bodies to have vanished from this platform, the protective force field must’ve been breached somehow.’
‘By the minds of the Morphieans…’ Polly shuddered.
‘Perhaps,’ the Doctor agreed genially, ‘but I’d rather like to try myself.’ He crouched down with some difficulty to study the newly discovered junction box beneath the corpse’s console. ‘Yes, this perhaps could be what I’m after…’
Haunt looked on, rubbing her side more aggressively now. Maybe the insects had bitten her too. Remembering the pale, squashy fleas put Polly back in mind of her own discomfort. She gritted her teeth and resolved not to scratch.
As the Doctor cautiously tinkered with the junction box, Shel suddenly stirred from his feverish shaking. ‘No,’ he said faintly, then again more forcefully. ‘No, stay away from that.’
The Doctor looked up in surprise. ‘Young man, I assure you I am perfectly qualified to –’
‘Away.’ Shel got unsteadily to his feet. His eyes were narrow slits, his breath pushing out in sharp puffs.
He was aiming a pistol at the Doctor.
Polly opened her mouth, but couldn’t decide if she should beg him to put down the gun or just scream.
Haunt was looking apoplectic. ‘Shel, what the hell are you doing?’
‘It’s him.’ Frog held herself still as a statue, just a few feet away from the gun in Shel’s shaking hand. ‘He picked this place for us… he killed Denni and Lindey.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Haunt snapped. ‘Put the gun down, Shel.’
‘It must be him!’ gurgled Frog.
Shel said nothing. It seemed to be taking all his concentration to keep the gun pointed at the Doctor, crouched before the junction box.
The Doctor gazed fearlessly back at him. ‘What is the meaning of this, Shel? Answer me!’
