Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [14]
‘You’ve been reprogrammed by one of those little horrors, haven’t you?’ she said. ‘Trying to ruin my sectors with babbling idiots. They just do it to get on my nerves. Jealousy, I suppose.’ She took a large – very, very large, and very 28
EarthWorld
very pointy – screwdriver from a pocket of her jumpsuit. ‘Just hold still, and let me get to your brain.’
Fitz made an eep sound. And ran.
Behind him – fading fast – he heard the woman give an exasperated sigh.
Then there were some beeps. Then a bloody great gold-coloured metallic monster – about twenty foot high (oh, all right, six and three quarters, which was still a fair bit taller than Fitz) – stepped out in front of him and grabbed Fitz’s shoulder in a glittering fist as he tried to alter his course at the last second to avoid the horrific thing.
Fitz struggled, alarmed, trying to break its grip without breaking any of his own bones. The woman was approaching, heels click-click-clicking on the stony street. And she was pointing that ruddy huge screwdriver at him, scary end first.
‘So why are they executing you?’ Anji asked. ‘You look rather. . . young to be terrorists.’ Not true of course, but it seemed too rude to use the first word that had come into her head, which was ‘ineffectual’. Or the second, which was
‘soft’.
‘We have a just cause!’ said Beezee, angrily. ‘Anyway, we’re not that much younger than you.’
‘But as I’m not a terrorist,’ Anji pointed out, ‘that’s not really relevant.’
‘We’re not really terrorists,’ said Xernic, looking a bit sheepish about it. ‘We’ve not actually done anything. But one of our supporters sent us this stuff, and it seemed a shame not to use it, Jonathan said –’
‘Zequathon!’ hissed the blond guy.
‘Zequathon said (Sorry), and so we broke into the centre, and –’
‘What stuff?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Sorry?’
‘What “stuff” did this supporter send you?’
Xernic beamed. ‘Oh, brilliant things. Really, really brilliant! Devices that let you get through the energy barriers – and this fantastic zappy thing that can disable the androids. Top technology!’
‘Fascinating,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’d have liked to have seen them.’
Xernic reached into a pocket. ‘There you go.’ He passed a couple of small silvery boxes to the Doctor, earning himself a hard stare from his comrades, who obviously hadn’t completely fallen for the Doctor’s ‘trust me!’ act yet.
‘The guards didn’t confiscate these? That’s surprising.’ The Doctor began closely examining the boxes.
History’s What You Make It
29
‘They didn’t even search us,’ said Xernic, shrugging. ‘Us just being there was enough for them.’
The Doctor looked up. ‘Why? Trespassers will be prosecuted, that’s something you hear all the time, but executed? That’s fairly unusual on civilised worlds.’
Xernic shrugged again, and didn’t meet the Doctor’s gaze.
The Doctor turned round and looked inquisitively at the other two. Beezee sneered silently, but Zequathon was no match for the Doctor’s stare. ‘Well. . . ’
he said, defiantly. ‘It was ’cos of all the murders, weren’t it?’
Fitz was babbling at the top of his voice.
‘I’m human! Really I am! Please don’t take my brain apart! Ow, that hurts!
No, I didn’t get here by myself, a girl brought me. I don’t know, just some kid!
No, that doesn’t prove anything, I don’t know who these “little horrors” are, but I’m nothing to do with them! I’m human, I tell you! What authorised guest list? What penalty for trespass? No! For Christ’s sake! I am a real live human being from the real live twentieth century and I’m here by accident and I can prove it! Ask me anything about the twentieth century. Anything at all! Well, as long as it’s pre-1963. Actually, things after, ooh, say, 1955 would be best, too.’
‘Very well,’ the woman said, which took Fitz aback a bit. He took a deep breath, psyching himself up, as she continued. ‘We’ll see how good your programming is. In which year did Earth astronauts first land on Mars?’
Fitz raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Far too easy,’ he smirked. ‘Trick question.
Never