Match of the Day

by Chris Boucher

  ‘I know,’ the Doctor said.

  Sita was not really listening. Are you lying to me?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  She had closed her eyes. She was breathing faster. ‘Has it already happened?’ Her voice was rising. There was a scream coiled in it, waiting. ‘It’s already happened hasn’t it? You are lying to me. I can’t feel my foot. I can’t feel my foot.’ And then she opened her eyes and said more quietly, ‘I’m sorry. That was thoroughly feeble of me. It’s just that I was so close to getting away with it...’

  ‘You still are,’ the Doctor said. The discarded band on the seat beside him had stopped contracting. There was a design limit. The band on her ankle had stopped contracting too. It had also stopped expanding under the influence of the sonic screwdriver. He switched off the screwdriver and waited for a moment to make sure the expanded section did not go into reverse once the power was withdrawn. But nothing changed.

  It seemed that the bands stopped functioning altogether once they had performed fully and finally. I’ll need the cutter,’ he said.

  There was thirty seconds of air left in the breather by the time Keefer worked his way to the top of the lecea hopper and scrambled out onto the darkened provisions deck of the Ultraviolet Explorer. Lights came on almost immediately. He ducked for the cover of a gap between two of the storage bins, pulling the pistol as he moved. It took him several seconds to realise that motion detectors had responded to him and triggered the working lights automatically. He waited several more seconds and when he was sure no one was coming he stepped out of concealment and walked quickly towards the continuous elevators. These open-fronted tubes in which rising and descending platforms constantly moved had no access doors or indicators. This was the reason the hakai-warrior, on his way down to investigate the security warning, saw Keefer fractionally before Keefer saw him. Either that or the Fat Boys were faster in every respect than Finbar had suggested.

  The huge figure, naked except for a sword belt and a scarlet battle thong, launched himself at Keefer drawing a razor-sharp short sabre as he came. With pseudo-grav about forty per cent of standard, the man’s body-fat mattered a lot less than the reflexes and balance that were the basics of his hakai fighting discipline. This was a killing advantage and the Fat Boy knew it. Easy confidence took the edge off his immediate technique. His initial blade work was casual. It was all Keefer needed. With furiously icy precision he leaned just outside the first slashing arc of the sword and shot the hakai-warrior squarely between the eyes. The huge corpse flopped and slid across the deck. By the time it came to rest against a storage hopper Keefer was already on an elevator platform rising towards the accommodation level.

  The Ultraviolet Explorer had been constructed from the inside out. Apart from the standard requirements for radiation shields, micro-meteorite protection systems and the heavy-duty pseudo-grav spin generators the design engineers had not been concerned about outer shell shape or build-strength. The space-yacht was an inter-orbital cruiser with no capacity for the structural strains or the power drains of planet-fall. It was a sprawling construct whose basic purpose, as it drifted on its way, was to satisfy one woman’s desire for comfort, pleasure and absolute privacy.

  Somewhere at its heart the cabin and staterooms of the Lady Hakai lay behind security barriers so subtle that most of the crew had no idea where they began, let alone how to penetrate them. When the whim took their mistress, favoured individuals, including the most talented of the Fat Boys, were summoned to the inner sanctum. But access was a blind double-reverse routine, and once she had tired of their company there was no possibility that anyone could return uninvited.

  Neither structural logic nor personal experience therefore offered a clue to the precise location of the fabled inheritress of the greatest dynastic fortune yet generated by Western-zone industry. Had Keefer known this when he stepped off the elevator platform he would probably have tackled the problem differently. As it was, he decided to search the ship methodically. No one had any idea yet that he was on board and when they found the body they would still know less about what was happening than he did. He reasoned that they had the advantage of home ground but all the other edges were his.

  He moved down the companionway in front of him towards what looked like a recreational or maybe an eating area.

  Given the size of the hakai-warrior he had faced it seemed likely that food and recreation would be closely linked. Fat Boys didn’t get to be that size without seriously dedicated feeding and you didn’t do that unless you enjoyed it. So the chances were that some of them would be at it whatever the hour. He paused and looked for a way round but there didn’t seem to be one. He checked and cocked the gun and ghosted forward. When he was close enough for the sight lines to be unobstructed he saw there were indeed two of the elite bodyguards squatting on narrow stools, their powerful legs crossed and their shaved heads bent over bowls of steaming food. On straw mats in front of them there were piles of pale vegetables and large bowls of freshly cooked lecea seed and hot pancakes. The cost of just getting what they were eating to where they were eating it would have kept a family of six for ten years back home, Keefer reckoned, and he couldn’t even guess at the basic price of the lecea and the flour and all the rest of the raw materials. The woman was rich enough certainly. She could have had that android modified and sent to kill him. Gods in a gun-ship, she could afford to have sent more than one. Her mistake was not to. She had underestimated him. It was a mistake he intended to make her regret.

  Keeping his movements casual and relaxed and taking care not to look directly at the two huge men, Keefer strolled across the mess to the companionway on the other side. The gun was still cocked and ready but neither of the Fat Boys paid any attention to him. When he operated the access door and ducked through the dilating iris his ears and nose told him without the need to glance back that the hakai-warriors were still concerned only with their food.

  As the seal whispered closed behind him Reefer’s focus was already on the corridor ahead and the second set of continuous elevators at the far end. He lowered the hammer on the pistol and then re-cocked it. The platforms appeared to be moving faster than the last lot and there was no way of telling who or what might come plunging out in response to his unauthorised presence.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ the pilot said, the proximity speaker making it sound as though he was right beside Leela in the sleep harness. ‘Takes most people much longer to adapt to pseudo-grav. I can’t sleep the way you do. I’ve got to be honest it makes me feel distinctly queasy as soon as I close my eyes. I get the full whirling pits. Not a pleasant sensation. Especially when you haven’t been drinking. So what’s your secret then?

  Clean living and a clear conscience?’ He chortled. ‘If it is, it’s too high a price to pay.’

  Her secret, Leela thought, was that she knew he was watching her; not all the time but she did not know when exactly so she had to assume it was all the time; and she was determined not to let him see that this pseudo-grav was making her feel more giddy and sick than weightlessness had done. She wanted him to think that she was strong and healthy and had no problem coping. If he believed that completely then it would be easier for him to accept it when she faked her accident and injury, or her illness, she had not yet decided which it should be. If she did it properly though he might be confident enough to come from wherever he was hiding and open the prison cell he was keeping her in.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘it is my warrior training.’

  ‘You mean killing people makes you fitter and healthier?’

  he said. ‘You’ve got to stay fitter and healthier than them I suppose.’ He chortled again. ‘As a matter of interest: how did a nice girl like you get into the killing trade?’

  Leela said, ‘How did you get into the kidnapping trade?’

  She unstrapped the harness and drifted down to that surface of the cell that the pseudo-grav had made the floor.

  ‘I asked first,�
� the pilot said.

  ‘My tribe are called the Sevateem,’ Leela said. ‘We have always been warriors.’ She kicked off from the floor and flew in a shallow arc to the end of the cell.

  ‘All of you? Do you fight among yourselves then or do you only fight other people?’

  ‘We fought the Tesh and each other.’

  ‘How come I’ve never heard of you or them?’

  Leela said, ‘None of my people are here in this world.’

  ‘You mean you’re the last one standing?’ He sounded genuinely impressed. ‘You killed everyone else. No wonder they want you.’

  Leela did not bother to ask who they were because she knew he would not tell her: at least not until she got her hands on him. ‘Now it is your turn to answer,’ she said. ‘The Sevateem are known to be warriors. What is your tribe called and are they known to be skulking, cowardly kidnappers?’

  ‘We are called the scumbags,’ he said, ‘and yes we are known to be skulking, cowardly kidnappers. But it’s a living.’

  Leela slid back the stiff plastic curtain that partitioned off the washing and waste-elimination cubicle. ‘I would like privacy now,’ she said.

  ‘Like I told you before, there’s no surveillance in the ablutions unit,’ the pilot said. ‘We scumbags may be skulking, cowardly kidnappers but we do have our standards. We’re not perverts you know. We’re not even killers come to think.’

  ‘I do not know what you are,’ Leela said and half stepped, half drifted into the cramped space and pulled the screening curtain across.

  ‘Do you want me to turn off the microphones?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll turn off the microphones if you want me to.’ Leela had.

  noticed that the proximity speaker kept the sound of the voice on the other side of the curtain but she knew that proved nothing. A device that could make the voice sound close to you could as easily make it sound further away. It certainly did not prove he could not see her and that was what she needed to know. It would help any plan to work if she was sure there was a place in the cell where he could not see her without physically coming in. She deliberately did not answer him.

  ‘I know some people are embarrassed,’ he went on, ‘by the noise their bodies make... the noise of their bodily functions.

  It seems a bit stupid to me to be ashamed of what’s natural but there you go.’ She still did not answer him. ‘If you’re a hairy-arsed pilot-type privacy’s not something you worry too much about because in space you haven’t got the space if you see what I mean. You get used to it or you get another profession. But I can understand that it matters to some people. People who aren’t used to it and... you don’t want to talk about this do you? Right...’ His voice trailed off. After a moment he said, ‘I’ll turn off the microphones. And I’ll stop talking and get on with some routine system checks and leave you to get on with...’ He sighed wryly. ‘I talk too much, don’t I?’

  Yes, Leela thought, you talk too much. It is a weakness of people who spend long periods alone. Sometimes it is just a weakness of mind. Whichever it was with this man it gave her an advantage. People who talk too much never listen enough.

  Her trainer had said that once after lecturing her and the other warrior trainees for a long time...

  Silently she stood waiting behind the curtain. Would he know that she was simply standing there? It would not be definite proof but she felt she should be able to tell from his reactions: how long he took to check on her and his tone of voice when he did; whether or not he could see what was happening. She waited. Of course it was possible that he was cleverer than he sounded and cleverer than her. She waited.

  It would make her angry to think that he was using her to amuse himself but apart from that it would cost her nothing.

  She waited. It only now occurred to her that she no longer felt sick. She waited. Would he ever speak?

  ‘Leela?’ The voice from outside the curtain was concerned and slightly irritated. ‘Are you all right? You haven’t fallen asleep in there have you?’

  ‘I asked for privacy,’ Leela said.

  ‘And you got it.’

  ‘You have turned the microphones back on.’ She was not entirely sure what they were but the Doctor said a thing was what it did. And she knew what microphones did: they listened.

  ‘I was worried,’ the pilot said, sounding worried.

  Why?’ Leela asked. She pulled back the curtain and half stepped and half drifted out of the cubicle.

  ‘Space is an unforgiving place.’ The pilot’s voice was earnest now. ‘I’ve known people who’ve been fine one minute and the next: kershplatto.’

  Leela asked, ‘What is kershplatto?’ She hopped and glided to the other end of the cell.

  ‘Sudden decompression and you’re looking at Fatpatty gutburgers. Extra large and undercooked. Trust me, mushy meat never looked less appetising.’

  Leela thought she had already spotted three of the glass eye devices by which he watched her but she was sure there must be others. She deliberately did not look at any of the ones she knew about. ‘But that could not happen without you knowing it?’ she said as she took food tablets from the feeding station dispenser. It was only the suggestion of a question but as she expected it was all the prompting the pilot needed.

  ‘There are plenty of other things that could have happened while you were in that unit. Heart attack, aneurysm, you could have knocked yourself out, you could have had a pseudo-grav breathing spasm, you could have been sick and choked on your vomit. All that stuff has happened without warning to perfectly fit and healthy people.’

  ‘Is the unit that dangerous?’ Leela asked innocently.

  ‘Weightlessness and pseudo-grav are that dangerous.

  Space is that dangerous. At least in something as basic as this yacht it is. We didn’t evolve out here, we’re not adapted to cope. We survive by being constantly on our guard.’

  It sounded to Leela as though he was quoting his own training. She was fairly sure now that the pilot was only what he seemed to be. She was fairly sure that she could outwit him.

  By the time the runner was approaching the Doctor’s New Way training compound Ronick had bound Sita’s injuries and they had all done their best to identify and hide any evidence of what had happened. Although the other two were quite confident that there would be no alarm raised and no direct pursuit as a result of the jailbreak, the Doctor was not entirely reassured. It hardly counted as a jailbreak, he thought, if nobody was going to take any notice of it. Surely, he had suggested, somebody would at least be detailed to look for the body.

  ‘Why bother?’ Ronick had said. ‘Why waste the manpower?

  She’s going to bleed out and her body will turn up eventually.

  Someone will find it and report it.’

  ‘But it won’t turn up,’ the Doctor said. ‘And they won’t find it and report it. Are you sure that isn’t going to register on some computer somewhere?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Ronick said. ‘Nobody gives a scuff about runaways from police lockups. As far as the system is concerned Sita Benovides is dead.’

  Sita looked at the new ID Ronick had furnished her with.

  ‘Long live Sula Baronne,’ she said and grimaced slightly.

  ‘Pretty downmarket sort of name.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ he said. ‘You can keep your monogrammed luggage and jewellery.’

  ‘Nobody called Sula Baronne would have monogrammed luggage and jewellery,’ she said with mock disdain.

  He shrugged. ‘So we’ll get you some tattoos and a nose piercing.’

  The runner slowed as it reached the perimeter of the compound but, unexpectedly, it was not required to stop. The Doctor was puzzled by the empty gatehouse and the upraised barrier. ‘My security staff obviously aren’t paid enough,’ he mused as the runner completed its navigation programme and slowly drew to a halt in front of the weapons and therapy annexe. The three of them got out and looked around. There was no one to be seen on the prac
tice ground and there were no spectators in the viewing stand. The whole place was deserted and silent. ‘Isn’t this the point where one of us says it’s quiet, and one of the others says too quiet,’ the Doctor remarked.

  ‘Do the training sessions normally finish this early?’ Sita asked.

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ the Doctor said and smiled one of his randomly vivid smiles. ‘I have tended to delegate the day to day running of the...’ he gestured round, ‘...circus I suppose you’d call it.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’d call it,’ she said. ‘I’d call it crude, I’d call it exploitative, I’d call it a corruption of the spirit of the noble contest.’

  ‘The end of the world as you know it?’ the Doctor offered.

  ‘Hardly,’ she snorted.

  ‘The noble contest will rise above such crude exploitation,’

  the Doctor said. ‘It has always been greater than any particular fight or any particular school of fighting.’

  ‘Sounds like a quote,’ she said.

  ‘Your friend and mine, the State Security Minister.’

  Sita scowled darkly. ‘It’s going to be a real pleasure breaking that bastard.’

  At that moment she reminded the Doctor a lot of Leela.

  ‘You think you can do that?’ he asked.

  ‘I think I can die trying,’ she said.

  ‘Shall we go inside and see if we can find out what’s been happening to my entertainment empire?’ the Doctor said.

  ‘Where it’s gone perhaps? And we can see whether my wandering star has returned, or at least called home and left a message.’

  From the other side of the runner Ronick said, ‘I don’t think that would be such a good idea.’ Elaborately casual he wandered to the driver’s door. ‘It’s time to leave,’ he murmured. ‘Keep smiling both of you and then without hurrying get back into the runner. I’ll drive this time. Try not to look as though you’re about to make a break for it.’