Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [18]
‘No, I’m not really in the market for any more enemies,’ the Doctor said. ‘They take up too much time and attention, I find. And they can get a bit boring. But if you have a particular need for enemies I can recommend one or two unpleasant life forms lurking around the universe that I would be more than happy to see the back of. I have a soft spot for the Daleks myself. It’s a swamp on Rigella Five but I’ve never been able to get them into it. Very boring creatures, Daleks.’ I’m babbling inanely, he thought. Why do I babble inanely when I’m having trouble persuading someone to do what I want them to do? Is it panic? I end up not making much sense. It’s probably panic.
‘You are not making much sense, Doctor,’ Leela said.
‘That’s a relief,’ Fanson said. ‘I thought it was me.’
‘You weren’t making sense either,’ the Doctor said. ‘I was panicking, what was your excuse?’
‘You’re entirely insane aren’t you?’ Fanson said, and then he snorted and chortled. ‘It’s no defence you know. The Court of Attack doesn’t recognise insanity.’
The Doctor smiled his vivid smile. ‘It could swing from the light fittings and gibber,’ he said, ‘and nobody I’ve met so for would recognise it.’
‘Everybody’s mad except you,’ Fanson said.
‘I do hope not,’ the Doctor said. ‘I was counting on your good sense to help get us out of here.’ He was almost sure that Fanson was the sort of natural con man who naturally couldn’t resist being conned.
‘You could have been a great agent,’ Fanson said. ‘You’re a natural.’
Keefer had collected the five bodies and carried them, together with their guns and equipment, into the shelter of the trees. He was intending to cover them with brushwood, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t be found until he was away and running, but the full realisation of how quickly his enemy had reacted brought him to a standstill. The assassin, the gun-ship, the ambush; each attack cued by the failure of the previous one. What was the point of running? If they knew he was alive before, then they knew it now.
If they knew he was alive before...
He looked at the men he had killed. They carried no communications equipment. Their IDs said they weren’t government and their performance said they weren’t professionals. Private citizens then, borderline psychos who’d just scraped through the computer screening in all probability. Gun club freaks maybe, looking for one illegal chance to try the kick of murder. That would explain the tracers: thrill before skill. One thing was certain, they weren’t a fast assault group thrown in to meet a sudden emergency.
In which case they were probably there all the time. They were there all the time.
It was the same with the gun-ship. It would have come whether the assassin had succeeded or not. Once he’d got it, the answer was obvious. Redundant systems. It was a complete fail-safe pattern designed to operate automatically, built in just as it would be for any mechanical system. His moves had been computed in advance, like the failure of a major system component would be projected for the drive unit of an orbital shuttle. And just as backup systems waited to meet such a failure so each death had waited for him to come to it. They didn’t know he was alive. His enemy had simply computed what he’d do if he wasn’t dead.
The only question that remained was whether they’d stuck to the three-level redundancy back-up, which was the computed optimum for automatic systems. Or had they anticipated his next move, and his next, and his next? Oddly he found that thought didn’t worry him. Now he knew how it was done he could cope with it. He half hoped they did realise what would happen next. It might make them sweat a little. After all, counterattack was known to be his speciality.
He looked again at the bodies. Five private citizens of average anonymity whose ID and cash plates he now had.
Since they were in no position to report the loss, the key plates would remain valid at least for a while. If he was lucky he might just be able to disappear in the most effective way known to a computer-regulated