Part 21 (1/2)

Shanstra settled herself into what had been the vice-governor's padded chair.

She swivelled in it experimentally, nodded, smiled. It was suitable for her.

The oak-panelled office was covered with portraits of past presidents of Earth. Shanstra found this conceited, so she directed a hard gaze at the painting directly above the gilded double doors until it crumbled into dust. She then went round each of them, replacing one with a colony of moths, the next with a sheet of melting ice, and so on until they were all gone.

Shanstra sighed with contentment and leaned back, placing her hands to her temples. She summoned the mental waves of her loyal Phractons, positioned on guard at strategic points around the house.

This moment was important.

She had sensed something in the Time Lord's mind, and guessed that he now expected her to make another a.s.sault on Kelzen. For which he would no doubt be prepared. So it was time to do the unexpected, instead.

Shanstra began to harness her power.

The Pridka drone, clicking and twitching its metal limbs, surveyed the new arrival on Grove Walkway. The object, a blue box slightly larger than a humanoid, was an unregistered vehicle, and had to be dealt with.

An extendable feeler emerged from the drone and stuck a small, round pad on the door of the box. A light began to flash bright orange on the pad.

Satisfied that its work had been done, the supervision drone bobbed on and upwards through the foliage of the grove. It had other important matters to attend to.

The Doctor was the first to come out of the TARDIS. His gaze took in the enormous, vaulted roof, the gus.h.i.+ng foliage festooning the bright helices that spiralled up towards the top of the dome. Walkways spread out in all directions from the TARDIS, like the spokes of an enormous, white wheel.

Along the walkways, the blue-skinned, orange-robed Pridka moved about their tasks, seemingly oblivious to the unofficial arrival. Two of them strolled past, deep in conversation, consulting the black square of a portable information projector. The Doctor smiled and raised his hat, but the Pridka, a 165 single-minded race, pa.s.sed by without seeming to register his presence. The Doctor shrugged.

Cheynor, on emerging from the TARDIS a few seconds later, found the Doctor with his head tilted back, admiring the architecture.

'Typical of the Pridka's refinement and aesthetic judgement,' the Doctor said to Cheynor. 'I'd never seen their engineering in real life before, but I knew they valued the contours of light and s.p.a.ce.' He smiled briefly at the Earth captain.

'Oh, and don't worry if they seem rude. They do have about thirty-six senses, and they often don't acknowledge you in ways you can see or hear.'

Cheynor was gazing up in wonderment. The beauty of the place lay, as the Doctor had said, in the way the walkways, conveyor helices and vaults seemed to have been sculpted out of shades of pure light and darkness. The ornamental plants, pastel green and rose-pink, looked like Impressionist paintings come to life, and there was something crisp but soothing in the air, invigorating like coastal breezes, yet with all the comfort and hygiene of advanced civilization. The overall effect was one of paradoxical beauty: stylized but organic, pure but stimulating.

'Doctor, I'm amazed. And I'm not even going to ask how that that con-traption of yours brought us here.'

'You'd never understand, anyway, Brigadier,' the Doctor muttered absently, as he looked around, seemingly trying to decide on the best direction.

Cheynor frowned, but the Doctor, before he could be corrected, went on. 'You see, the Pridka like to keep the physical world restrained, and they like it to approximate as closely as it can to the beauty of the mind. They're a race of the most peaceful telepathy, and their physical existence is really of secondary importance to them.'

Cheynor nodded grimly. 'So we have to find Jirenal as quickly as possible.

If he's here '

'Then his influence could spread with remarkable rapidity, leaving the flood-gates open for Shanstra. Correct. But we have Kelzen. Don't forget that.' The Doctor spun round suddenly and looked up at Cheynor, his expression stern and serious. 'I want you and your new friend the Commandant to stay in the TARDIS. It'll see to your needs. Suzi Palsson and I have other things to attend to.'

Cheynor looked slightly taken aback. 'Ah, I see. The Commandant and I are the backup?'

The Doctor sighed and waved his hands in agitation. 'This is not a military operation, Trau Cheynor, please have that clear in your mind! If I get anything right at all, it'll cause barely a ripple. The last thing I want is for anyone to come in with guns blazing.' He tutted to himself, leaned on his umbrella and looked s.h.i.+ftily away for a moment, down at the receding, concentric levels of 166 the dream centre and the dots of its scuttling occupants far below. Then he looked back up at Cheynor. 'But be ready for my call,' he said, scowling as if he did not want to countenance the thought. 'Just in case.'

'Call?' Cheynor frowned.

'Through Kelzen. Don't worry, you'll hear. Are you familiar with the Venu-sian lullaby ”Klokleda partha menin klatch”?'

Cheynor looked blank.

'No, I thought not. All right, I'll try and find something a little more modern.'

Behind them, Suzi emerged, and caught her breath.

The Doctor was impatient. 'Come on, then, Suzi,' he said, looking towards the nearest helix. 'Can't hang around, I've got a job for you.'

As they were about to leave, the Doctor noticed the circular pad with its orange flas.h.i.+ng light which was affixed to the TARDIS door. He detached it, looked at it disparagingly.

'What is it?' Suzi asked.

'Parking ticket,' the Doctor muttered, turning it over in his hand. His eyebrows shot up. 'I can't afford that much!' he exclaimed, and slipped the object into a pocket. 'Time for that later, I think. Come on.'

The Director of the Pridka Dream Centre was worried. He had been unable to contact many of his key personnel for several hours, and important monitoring of some dream-active races had been left incomplete.

He would think about the problem over his rest-break. Maybe there was a simple explanation.

In his office, the drone bobbed in with a sparkling drink on a tray. The Director's crest of fins shook in antic.i.p.ation. He noticed that the drone had mellowed the room specially for him, calling up restful plants, fountains, and a well-known symphony on the audio emitters. This was the kind of thing he appreciated during his relaxation period.

Attention lights on his desk, however, were not at all what he appreciated.

And there was one, very bright and very irksome.

'What's that?' he asked the drone crossly, leaning forward and peering at it with big, round eyes. 'Get me someone in that hall, now.'

A call-image of an orange-robed minion appeared, a young Pridka with a mere triangle of tiny fins on his forehead. 'Yes, Director?' he said in a rather awed voice.

'What's going on? What's happened to the Yzashoks?'

The young Pridka smiled. Ah, I see, you are concerned, Director. Well, you need not worry. Everything is under control.'

'What?' The Director slammed his gla.s.s down on to his desk with force enough to break it. 'Are you mad? Investigate the problem!'

167.

There was a s.h.i.+fting of pixels in the image, indicating that the focus was changing. The Director blinked as a familiar figure stepped into his line of vision, smiling benignly. Black-suited. Black-gloved. Long, rich black hair cascading over his shoulders, framing an elongated face that was somehow handsome and grotesque at the same time. The Director, appalled, recognized his earlier visitor.

'Jirenal,' he spluttered, 'what is the meaning of this?'

The alien appeared amused. 'Meaning, Director? Do your brief and puny lives have meaning, now?'

'What is going on?'

'Show him,' commanded Jirenal, to someone out of the line of vision.

The viewer panned up and down the tank that had contained living, breathing, dreaming Yzashoks, communicating unknown, sublime reflections on art and literature through their amniotic fluid. The fluid that now formed a giant iceberg, trapping the creatures. Trapping their mind-bodies and their elevated thoughts.