by Doctor Who
'I'm sorry,' he said in a smal voice.
Melissa thrust Freddie at the knight by the door. It grabbed him by the wrist and held him tight.
'What now?' Aske said, stepping out from behind Rose.
Repple stepped out with him. 'You would use children to fight men? So much for honour.'
'Honour died long ago in this war,' Melissa said. Her black mask was smiling, but her voice was shaking with anger. 'Now, Doctor, put down that cable before someone gets hurt. I don't need to offer you a multiple choice of victims, do I?'
As Melissa spoke, the knight pul ed Freddie closer, stil holding his wrist. Its other metal hand closed stiffly on the boy's neck.
ELEVEN
Freddie's eyes were wide as he stared beseechingly at Rose. She could feel her own eyes watering as the metal hand clamped tighter round the boy's throat.
'Let him go,' she said.
'Doctor?' Melissa Heart prompted.
'Keep hold of the cable,' Aske hissed. 'We have the advantage.'
Rose couldn't believe he would gamble with the boy's life. 'What if she means it?' she demanded.
Aske gave a snort of derision. 'She can't kil him twice. Once he's dead she's got nothing to bargain with.'
'I can't risk it,' the Doctor said, his voice quiet but determined.
Repple pushed in front of Aske, gesturing for the man to step back. 'What sort of woman uses children as hostages?' he demanded. He turned to Aske. 'The Doctor is right. We cannot risk a single innocent life. Lay down the cable, Doctor. We shal take the consequences.'
'But, sire – what if she stil kil s the boy? And us?'
Repple shrugged, his face as expressionless as Melissa's mask. 'That wil be on her conscience, not mine. If she can live with her actions, then let her. But I could not live with mine if we don't surrender.'
'Quite right,' the Doctor said. Rose heaved a sigh of relief as he dropped the cable to the floor, kicking it aside so it was out of reach. 'Now, let the boy go before I have to make you.'
For a moment, Rose thought Melissa was going to have him kil ed anyway. But then she gave a shake of her head, and the knight released Freddie. The boy stumbled forward, gasping, rubbing his throat. Rose ran to help him.
'I'm touched,' Melissa said, watching.
'That has two meanings,' Rose snapped. 'One of them's true enough.'
'Insult me al you like, girl,' Melissa said in her honeyed voice. 'Now that I have found this butcher, nothing can dampen my pleasure.'
'You don't sound that pleased,' the Doctor retorted. 'Sure it's real y me you want?'
Melissa took a step towards him. The knights now flanked her, standing immobile and silent save for the staccato ticking of their internal mechanisms. 'Oh, I am sure now. I did think you were sheltering with Sir George when I heard of this desire to reinstate a deposed ruler. Wel , you can imagine what I thought.'
'Nope, wrong,' the Doctor told her.
She ignored him. 'I soon found that Sir George's scheme is the mad hope of a dreamer. He is after al merely human, and his prince is rather more commonplace and earthly than the one I was seeking. A boy,' she said with audible contempt. Rose pul ed Freddie into a hug, holding him close and safe.
'Not the murderer I wanted.' Melissa pointed at the Doctor. 'You.'
'Wrong again. Last chance.'
'Then on the way to the dinner, I finally detected the power emissions, as you know. From your quaint sonic device, and from your strange blue box. Then I was almost sure. But there was stil a chance that you were not the one I was after. I had to be absolutely sure, you see.'
'Oh yeah. Can't have you kil ing innocent people by mistake.' The Doctor's face was dark with anger.
'Like that poor maid.'
'Unfortunate.' The mask turned away slightly, and she sounded suddenly sad. 'My friends here don't know their own strength. We didn't mean to kil her, or the other one. Unlike you,' she went on, suddenly angry again. 'Think of the thousands you have kil ed with your executions, your genocidal cleansing, your disappearances and so-cal ed justice.'
The Doctor shook his head again. 'Ding,' he pronounced. 'Wrong again. If that's al ...'
'Al ?' she screamed at him. 'You murder tens of thousands, and you ask if that is al ?'
The Doctor's reply was level and quiet, but edged with anger. 'You've got the wrong man.'
'Have I?' she shot back. She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a long, slim tube. The cigarette holder that Rose had seen her use in the gal ery downstairs. Only now there was no cigarette burning in it, and she was pointing it straight at the Doctor. But when she fired, she was aiming at a different target.
The tip of the tube glowed a sudden red. Then a bolt of fire shot out, blasting into the front of the control console. Screens exploded. Rose and Freddie dived to the floor as glass showered across the room. Freddie shrieked with fright, clutching at Rose. 'Glass!' he wailed in fear. 'Don't let it cut me!'
Aske and Repple both flung themselves sideways. only the Doctor did not move. The debris flew past him as the main part of the console exploded, but he seemed not to notice. A piece of glass whipped across his jacket sleeve, ripping a hole. He ignored it.
'Missed,' the Doctor said.
'It might be your jailer,' Melissa replied as the noise of the explosion died away. 'It might be programmed to prevent your ever leaving this backward planet, but I know that it is also programmed to defend you.
To make sure the order of that jumped-up court is obeyed and your safe exile is not violated.'
'So you destroy a sentient being? Oh, machine intel igence, I know. Not real y the same thing.' The Doctor turned and patted the scarred side of the console. 'Even so, I bet that hurt. And al for nothing. I'm not the man you take me for. Though I'l be interested to find out who is. To smoke them out.'
Melissa laughed, though there was no humour or joy in the sound. 'You stand here in front of an Al terminal adorned with the emblem of Katuria and you dare to tel me that you are not Shade Vassily?'
'He isn't.' The voice was quiet, but firm. Repple stepped in front of Rose and Freddie and looked straight at Melissa Heart. 'I am Shade Vassily,' he said.
The Doctor blinked. 'Are you?'
'Of course he isn't.' It was Aske who spoke. He shouldered Repple aside. 'This man is my patient.
He has delusions. He believes himself to be a deposed ruler, and now you've given him a name and a cause.'
'What are you talking about?' Repple demanded angrily. 'You know who I am.'
Melissa looked from one to the other, her face inscrutable behind the mask. But the deadly tube she was holding stil pointed unerringly at the Doctor.
'They're both mad,' Rose assured her. 'But not as mad as you are if you think the Doctor's some sort of deposed dictator.'
'It was the last action of the imperial Court,' Melissa said. 'They exiled Vassily before the revolutionaries took control. They should have executed him.' There was bitterness in her voice. 'But instead they sent him to live a carefree life on a primitive planet, with another Katurian as both jailer and bodyguard.'
'To protect him and to ensure he didn't escape from exile?' the Doctor said.
'As you know ful wel . The records were destroyed, so we didn't know what planet. We didn't know the jailer was actual y an AI'
'I am Shade Vassily,' Repple said again. 'Can't you see that? How can you not see that?' He was standing erect, one hand on his chest 'Shade Vassily, Imperial Prater of Katuria. Master of the Seven Heavens. Protector of the Fleet Victorious. High General of Yelkan and Speaker of the Masses.'
Slowly, Melissa swung towards Repple. Slowly she moved her weapon to cover him.
Aske stepped forward, in front of Repple. He held out one hand, a gesture of supplication. The other hand was thrust into his jacket pocket. 'You see how insane he is? I don't know where he has picked that up from, but he's a harmless...' He got no further. With a blur of movement, Aske pul ed his hand from his jacket pocket. Rose could see th
at it was holding a tube, similar to the one Melissa had. The end was already glowing red, and Aske's face had hardened to granite.
Melissa froze. Rose was sure she could see fear in the eyes behind the mask. Just for a second. Al the time it took for the nearer of the two knights to turn slightly and raise its arm.
A flash of light. Not a ray, Rose realised, but the light reflecting off polished metal. A blade, spinning at lightning speed across the room. It slammed into Aske's throat, knocking him sideways and backwards. The tube in his hand spat fire across the room, but the shot went wide, merely scarring the dark, metal wall. Aske crashed to the floor, the blade jutting from his neck, blood wel ing up from the wound.
When he spoke, his voice was a painful gasp. His last words were: 'He's lying. I am Shade Vassily.'
There was silence for almost a minute. Repple knelt beside his friend, checking for a pulse. He shook his head. The Doctor stared at Melissa Heart. Rose hugged Freddie to her, hoping he had not seen what had happened, but knowing ful wel that he had.
'Wel ,' the Doctor said eventual y. 'Guess that's settled then. If you'l return my blue box we'l be on our way.'
Melissa stil held her weapon, stil had it pointing at the Doctor. 'I took the precaution of arming the Mechanicals after your escape,' she said. 'Please do not expect me to make any more mistakes.'
'Oh, look, he just told you it was him,' Rose blurted. 'Deathbed confession. Literal y. Sorry,' she added as Repple looked over at her.
'Silly question,' the Doctor said, 'but don't you know what this Shade person looks like?'
'I can answer your question, Doctor,' Repple said wearily. He lowered Aske's head gently to the floor and stood up. He stared level y at Melissa and the two Mechanicals, then turned to the Doctor. 'We Katurians are humanoid, but not human. A Katurian here on Earth would be obvious, and the sentence of the court was that I should be exiled and forgotten. Made insignificant. Dishonoured. My appearance was changed, so that I would fit in.'
'Know the feeling,' the Doctor said quietly. 'Go on.'
'Aske too was altered. He was to be my jailer and bodyguard, as the woman says. He became...' He looked down at the figure on the floor. 'He became a friend, though he rarely let me out of his sight. Oh, I could have my freedom while in exile, provided I never tried to escape. Any explicit attempt and he would kil me. That was his task. His duty.'
'So why admit to being an exiled ruler?' Rose wanted to know. 'If she was after you?'
'How else should I behave?' Repple demanded. 'I am rightly proud of my heritage and my achievements. Aske persuaded me to change the name of the empire I ruled, to scale it back so as not to draw attention, either from the humans or from Katurian revolutionaries.'
'And you did?' Rose said.
'With his hand always on his blaster, how could I refuse? But I wil never hide what I truly am.'
'He didn't know we were looking for him,' Melissa said, staring through the mask at Repple.
'Sure it's him then?' the Doctor said. 'Not me?'
She ignored him. 'I could not be certain what planet you had been exiled to or what you looked like.'
'So,' Rose interrupted, 'lucky guess or what?'
'I have friends, people in the hierarchy who have suffered as I have and who stil long to see Vassily brought to proper justice.'
'Justice?' the Doctor echoed. 'Oh – you mean, executed. Exile too good for him, is it?'
'Far too good.' The hatred and contempt al but dripped from her words. 'I was quite prepared to search this world and a dozen others until I found this butcher.'
'I brought honour to Katuria,' Repple snarled. 'I built us an empire, and you fritter it away. Yes, there was a cost. But it is as nothing to the suffering and death your so-called revolution wil bring with it.'
Melissa pointed the tubular weapon at Repple. Her hand was shaking, and so was her voice. 'I fashioned my team so they would fit in with the civilisation we searched. And I underwent genetic modification myself, just as you did, so as to fit in.'
'You don't,' the Doctor said. 'Do you? Oh, clockwork knights, OK – nothing too out of the ordinary there. Until they start wandering about kil ing people of course. But a Painted Lady? Bound to attract attention.'
'It was not deliberate,' she replied sadly. 'There was... a problem.'
'Your operation went wrong?' Repple wondered. 'We destroyed al records of the exile destination and the operations we needed to fit in.'
'The operation went perfectly. The scientists of the revolution are every bit as talented as your hackers and cutters, and I had help from the best of them,' Melissa insisted. 'Don't flatter yourself that because you are safe from the weak-wil ed leaders who have replaced you that you can escape those of us who know what you are capable of.'
'Then why hide your face?' Rose asked. 'If it is so perfect.' She remembered the rumour that Melissa was too beautiful to look at. Could it be right?
She got her answer. Melissa reached up with her free hand and took hold of the black and silver mask. 'It was a failure of intel igence, of data. Not of technology or talent. I took information from whatever sources I could beg or buy. I had to assume it was accurate, to take everything on trust.'
She pul ed away the mask and turned directly to Rose.
Freddie screamed, his head snapping round as he looked away, eyes tight shut. Rose heard the Doctor's sharp intake of breath. Repple took a step backwards. Rose stared back at Melissa Heart, unable to take her eyes off the wreckage of a face. Unable to look away from the grotesque features, the parody of humanity. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, keeping time with the clicking of the Mechanicals; the blood rushing in her ears as Melissa Heart stared back at her through eyes that now seemed too human.
'This is how we thought you would look,' she said.
TWELVE
He could hear nothing. Crowther had sent Benjamin away, and told Tom to look after him. The poor lad was almost fainting with fear. No good to anyone. The chief steward had been crouching in the darkened kitchen alone since then, straining to make out what was happening.
There had been the initial sounds of the break-in. He thought he could hear heavy metal feet on the stairs, the measured tread of an inhuman march. But it might have been his own heart thumping in his chest. Or the kitchen clock ticking away the seconds that seemed like minutes and the minutes that seemed like hours.
The longer he waited in the near-darkness, the more he was aware that this wasn't right. He was in charge of the Imperial Club. Whatever was happening here was his responsibility. He was grateful that the Doctor had taken control, and he hoped and prayed that Wyse would soon return. He appreciated Wyse's calm yet authoritative manner, the way the man was wil ing to help and saw nothing as beneath him. He even spared the time to chat to Crowther about the weather or the latest cricket results.
Despite his obsession with chess, he was a real gentleman, was Wyse. And Crowther imagined that the Doctor would be very similar if he got to know him.
He could not – would not – abandon the man to his fate.
In the Bastil e Room, Wensleydale stood in front of a pile of furniture. Most of it he had moved himself, with the two elderly men – Ranskil and Coleridge – offering advice and encouragement but little physical help. Wensleydale had sat the old men in large armchairs facing away from the door at the back of the room. If anyone, or anything, did get through the barricade then there was a chance they wouldn't notice the armchairs turned to the wal and Ranskil and Coleridge might be safe. It was a faint hope, but a hope nonetheless.
Wensleydale had no il usions about his own ability to hide. He had no intention of trying to escape whatever fate came his way. He stood facing the barricade, holding his service revolver, remembering several similar moments in his army career. He had survived them al , but he was realistic about his chances. He had seen many good men, good friends, die. Perhaps fate had been saving him for now. If that was the case, then he felt no fear, no anxiety, no tr
epidation. Just the hope that he would acquit himself with as much honour and courage as his fal en comrades had shown. So, if the creatures, which the Doctor had described as like man-shaped tanks, broke into the room, then Wensleydale's hope was to do them as much damage as he could and protect the old men hiding in their chairs. They were in his care.
But the longer he stood by the barricade, listening for any sign of incursion, the more he resented the passive approach to the problem. There must be some way to take the fight to the enemy without endangering his charges. As he pondered this, as he considered the options, he heard something.
It sounded like a deferential cough from the other side of the barricade. A faceless mechanical kil er with a cough? It seemed unlikely. 'Who goes there?' Wensleydale barked.
'Crowther, sir,' came the reply. 'I wonder if you could spare me a minute. I have an idea which I would like to discuss with you. If now is convenient.'
Wensleydale pushed the revolver into the waistband of his trousers, wincing as the metal dug into his stomach. He inspected the barricade for a moment, then heaved at a large chair. It came free, and another chair, several cushions and an occasional table tumbled after it and clattered to the floor.
Wensleydale peered through the resulting hole, to find Crowther looking back at him. The head steward looked pale and drawn, a mirror, Wensleydale thought, of his own expression.
'Convenient?' Wensleydale said. 'Wel , I don't have anything else on at the moment. What's your idea?'
Freddie had been trying to follow what the grown-ups were talking about. But the metal men scared him, and the sight of the Painted Lady's face was something he knew would haunt his already crowded nightmares. He clung to Rose, and was grateful for the warmth as she hugged him back. He tried not to look at the body of the man at the side of the room. At the blood...
