Doctor Who_ Hope - Mark Clapham [88]
This is only the beginning.
While much has already been done, there is still some way to go to improve the lives of the people of Endpoint. We must resolve the problems of crime and disorder on our world to that end I am expanding the militia on Hope, spreading their word of law across the entire planet. We must unite the long geographically separate communities and to this end I am making contacts with other communities, on diplomatic visits like this one. Finally, we must then be able to make contact with the outside universe, to rejoin a wider galactic community.
All these things are possible. All these things can be done, and in the immediate future. I can do these things. I can bring you a lawful, clean, safe world. I can take what was once a polluted hell and make of it a heaven. I ask only one thing in return. Your absolute, total obedience to my will.
Silvers red eye looked out, unflinching, across the gathered leaders, his steady gaze daring them to challenge his authority. But no challenge ever came.
For some unfathomable reason, when the knock on her door came, Anji thought it was Silver. The knocking woke her from a deep sleep she had arrived back at the Silver Palace quite late, causing her to sleep through until midmorning and her semiconscious mind presumed that it was Silver at the door. She pushed herself up in bed, head bumping lightly on the wall behind her. She still hadnt become used to the cramped accommodation. She rubbed her head, calling for whoever was outside to come in. She was expecting Silver.
Instead, it was the Doctors head that appeared around the door. His blue eyes danced around the room, as if searching for clues to Anjis life in a generic room she had barely inhabited. His expression was fixed in a permanent halfsmile, a sure sign of serious thoughts in progress. Breakfast? he suggested, as if the concept of a morning meal had only just occurred to him.
Anji had been expecting Silver, and the Doctor had arrived instead. His appearance caused her feelings of disappointment, feelings of guilt, feelings of distress at her own confusion.
She forced a grin. Breakfast would be great, she enthused.
So, within twenty minutes she was sitting on the roof of the Palace, eating breakfast in the morning sun. It had the civilised air of a country veranda, although the burntout satellite dish stopped things from seeming too Merchant Ivory.
Beautiful, isnt it? said the Doctor, blinking in the sunlight.
Hard to imagine that its the same Hope where we first arrived, said Anji, between mouthfuls of the thick, pittalike bread that was one of the Endpointers staple foods. It almost lives up to its name, now.
I know, said the Doctor. When we arrived here, this world seemed without redeeming features, without any possible future. Now the Endpointers are at a crossroads. On one hand, they have the chance to build something wonderful here, where the freedoms and liberties of a frontier existence are preserved, where the scientific discoveries of the humans are shared for the good of all. Theres plenty of everything to go around, therefore no one should go without.
Anji was about to argue that this theory was unworkable, that inequalities and hierarchies would develop as value judgements were made. But she kept quiet, fearful of giving any sign of her betrayal. Instead, she simply asked what the other option was.
Power becomes consolidated, said the Doctor. Knowledge and technology coalesce around a privileged few, who use their possession of resources