Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [35]
'Sam,' she said, a little hollowly. 'No. I'm sure you fight for what you believe in. Just as whoever you're fighting against is oppressing you in the name of whatever they believe in.' She looked down at her feet. 'Even a bloody Dalek fights for whatever it believes in.'
'A Dalek?' Tanhith made a show of being affronted.'Now you are surely doing me a disservice.' He held out both arms in front of him, pointing at her, and moved the eyelashes of both eyes into one black circular tangle above his long, thin nose.'EX-TER-MIN-ATE!'
Sam smiled again and shook her head at how bizarre things could get.
Wherever you were in the galaxy you could bet your life you'd find someone willing to share scary Dalek anecdotes. The evil little sods had probably broken the ice at more parties across the universe than anything else. 'I'm sorry. That was probably a bit a much,' Sam said at length,'but spare me the details. I don't want to get into the rights and wrongs right now. I'm tired. Is that OK?'
"That's - OK.' Tanhith pronounced the letters falteringly, but seemed to understand their meaning. He smiled at her again.
'What are you doing here, anyway?' Sam was suddenly suspicious. Ts it time for part two of the interrogation?'
'I just wanted to warn you. I think those men out there think you're responsible for this odd little mystery with the sun, and I've a feeling they might want to ask you some questions about it.'
'What?' Sam looked scared as well as exasperated. 'How could I be affecting it?'
Tanhith shrugged. They've been here twenty years. It's inevitable that reason must give way to superstition.'
'Well,' said Sam a little bitterly,'thanks for something new to worry about as I lie here by myself. I'm beginning to wish you'd left me out in the desert.'
Tanhith looked pointedly at her one last time before closing the door. She tried to puzzle out the expression on his face for some minutes after the chains had been put back in place.
***
Felbaac kicked at the ground, sending a cloud of hot red dust into the air.
"This distraction is just what we didn't need. It'll be harder than ever to get them interested in the battle training now.'
Yast looked at him nervously across the table, his voice timid and joining Felbaac's in echoes around the low stone walls of the council chamber.
'What do you think it means? Could it be that blonde thing?'
'Oh, don't be ridiculous. It's just some localised time distortion. Some freak effect.' He banged his metal cup down hard on the table. 'Deity knows, this whole planet is a freak effect! What are they getting worked up about?'
'It's never happened before in twenty years.'
'Well, maybe that's because it only happens once every twenty years.'
Yast's voice was barely more than a whimper. 'Or maybe they've run out of their allotted time here. Maybe that's all the government paid for. Twenty years. Maybe now the sun's going to just sit there for ever and ever and ever and -'
'Shut up, Yast!' yelled Felbaac, throwing his mug at the weaselly little man.
He calmed himself down. 'That can't be. The government wouldn't just let them die like that - there's far more capital in stringing out these people's lives, rehabilitating them and parading them around the Inner Worlds as tame little pets.'
'You don't really believe that, Felbaac; muttered Yast.
'I do. And this bunch will let them do it, too.' He paused. 'If we let them.'
'They know you're stalling them.' Panic tinged Yast's words. 'They know you'd take them off-world and train them somewhere with proper facilities if you could.'
'While they stay here, the government's long-range surveillance won't register anything's wrong. There's nowhere safer for them than here, they know that.'
'No, Felbaac, no. They've guessed you're stuck here now, just like them.
They've seen us to-ing and fro-ing to the rocket. They've guessed and they're right. We're all of us stuck, even the damned sun, so what are we going to do?'
'You just don't understand, do you, Yast?' Felbaac sneered at the little