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By Root 712 0

that accompanied them along the corridor, past the infinity of numbered metal doors, were glossy with sweat, probably because they were forced by regulations to wear their full uniforms at all times. And, of course, they were all human. Typical Imperial thinking, the Doctor mused. He knew that there were ten or eleven alien races subsumed within the Empire to whom this sort of environment was like a cold spring morning, but would it even occur to the Empire to use them as guards?

Certainly not: aliens couldn’t be trusted, so humans had to wreck their health doing the job.

‘What sort of people are held here?’ the Doctor asked as they walked past yet another heavy metal door.

‘Two groups,’ Beltempest said. The Doctor could hear the strain in his voice.

With his bulk, it was amazing that he had made it this far without collapsing.

Military training, no doubt. It left you perfectly equipped to carry out all sorts of tasks you wouldn’t dream of doing if you were in your right mind.

‘Firstly there are the criminals who can’t be brainwiped and recharactered.

Some races just don’t respond to wipes, for instance, and genetic criminals will reoffend no matter how many times you erase their personalities. Then there’s the beings who have gone through a couple of wipes already, but still commit crimes due to circumstance. There’s a limit to how many times personalities can be erased, and if another one would leave them mindless, they get sent here instead. And then there’s Professor Pryce, who has managed to tie the legal system up for years in semantic and philosophical discussions.’

‘There’s no such thing as a genetic criminal,’ the Doctor growled, but Beltempest had fallen silent, brooding. ‘And what about the second group?’ he asked, trying to break through Beltempest’s depression.

‘Sorry? Oh, well there’s those criminals who would be figureheads and foci for discontent if we let them back out into their own societies. Terrorists, primarily, although there’s a fair number of discontented despots of one sort 131

of another in here.’ He mopped at his brow with his trunk. ‘As you can appreciate, if the Empire takes over a planet against the wishes of the populace and after resistance from the rulers, we can’t leave those rulers as a focus for bad feeling against us. Even if we wipe their minds and set them to work as street cleaners on Earth, they’ll still be symbols of rebellion. No, the best thing to do is to incarcerate them here for the rest of their lives.’

The Doctor was speechless for a moment at the sheer inhumanity of the solution. ‘Why not just kill them and get it over with?’ he said eventually.

‘We can’t do that,’ Beltempest said, missing the irony entirely. ‘We’re not barbarians, you know.’

The Doctor was still searching around for a reply when the guards stopped beside a metal door, no different from the rest apart from the number. One of them tapped out a security code on a keypad while another placed his forearm in the cavity of a biochip reader.

Beltempest took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘There have been fifty-eight deaths here since Pryce arrived,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘Even though he’s locked in a high security cell. They’re listed as suicides in the official records, but nobody can explain how suicides could eat their own hearts.’

‘Don’t worry,’ the Doctor said. ‘We’ll be safe.’

Beltempest nodded. ‘And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ he quoted softly, ‘I shall fear no evil.’

‘That’s all very well, but I doubt that Rhodd and his staff will do much comforting,’ the Doctor said doubtfully, as the door slid slowly up into the ceiling.

The guards indicated that Beltempest and the Doctor should enter the shadowed doorway. They did so, and the door dropped behind them so fast that the floor shook with the impact.

A cold, harsh light burst into life, illuminating a small room lined with the omnipresent damp white ceramic tiles and containing a bunk without a mattress and a rudimentary toilet.

And a naked man.

He stood a few feet from them, his eyes closed against