Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [72]
He shrugged and smiled, then took another step back as the man pulled himself over the ledge, ignoring the Doctor's outstretched hand. Anstaar gasped as the rest of his body came into view, but the Doctor grinned widely.
'Nashaad, I presume.' He reached out a hand and this time the man took it and shook it.
'Nashaad!' beamed the strange man, proudly waving an arm below his waist.'I've got metal legs!'
***
The Kusk Leader walked through the ancient corridors of the section of ship sealed off from the humanoids. He felt more at ease among the smell and texture of this place. He hated the alien atmosphere in the control chamber, felt almost sick with the indignity of it.
He had been puzzled at first by how the humanoids had managed to subvert the Kusk ship to a different function, how they had conquered the technology that was so different from their own. But now he had sifted through the captured mind of the one called Vost, he realised that a third party had capitalised on the sleeping Kusks, and on the strange new abilities the artificial intelligence in the ship's computer had developed.
He wandered into a darkened recess of the ship. In certain parts, life-support had been shut down to maintain power to the control chamber.
These areas were cold and icy, airless. They disturbed the Leader but did not deter him from his inspection.
A door slid away to reveal a warmly glowing area, the crew briefing room.
The communications screen sat on a crusty plinth. Since the maenus chip was discovered among the jetsam of the stellar war that had deYastated Kuskas, all technology could be linked to varying degrees. It enabled the long-unused comms screen here, for example, to patch into his ship computer as it sifted through endless subspace transmissions for fragments of newscasts and information from far-distant home. But why then was the control chamber's computer system so totally unresponsive, so unreachable? It reinforced the Leader's belief in the dangers of trusting too much in technology. And his instinctive fear of the technician.
Gradually he'd compiled a picture of how life on his home was developing.
The news of the success of the time-travel experiments had filtered through only months ago, and the impact of that discovery had fuelled the technician's ego still further.
The screen idled into life under the commands of his delicate fingers: THE TECHNOCRACY HAVE STATED THAT THE RECENTLY GRANTED
ENTERTAINMENT RESOURCES ARE TO BE COMMANDEERED FOR
FURTHER RESEARCH INTO THE CLONING AND TIME-TRAVEL
EXPERIMENTATION SERIES. FURTHER LOSSES TO THE ARMED
DIVISIONS ARE LIKELY. ENFORCED BREEDING PROGRAMME is SHOWING ONLY 1% INCREASE IN GROWTH.
The Leader turned away from the screen, remembering the years he'd lived through as a child before the outer universe was discovered. Then, there had been only Kuskas and its sun. One large planet alone in space. They must have stood out like a beacon for the warring aliens.
The whole planet had been used as a tactical front. Caught in the crossfire of layers upon layers of lethal weaponry, the Rusks' own missiles had had no effect on the mighty fleets as they battled. They were ignored, microbes at the feet of giants. Before long the giants had moved on, and Kuskas was nearly dead.
Then the wreckage. Then the new technology. The quest to rebuild. The armed divisions had been most important then, their discipline and knowledge vital in saving the survivors, restoring order. He himself had played no small part in the restructuring of Kusk society during those long years that followed.
A society changed beyond measure. Scores of proud cities turned to rubble. Insufficient populace to resume industry. New ideals formed from despair. The need to survive, to protect Kuskas from similar attack. No strength of numbers, but the will to grow stronger seizing the survivors.
Influx into the armed divisions. New technology ravaged and haltingly understood. Military technological divisions becoming a technocracy, the will to