Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [52]
Good grief! So etiquette was to be utterly thrown overboard, was it? What else could he say but ‘Yes, it was delicious’? But then, it was delicious, wasn’t it?
‘It was delicious,’ he said.
‘Was the meat to your liking? And the vegetables? And the wines?’
‘Excellent. Couldn’t be bettered. Only one word, er, delicious. Yes, delicious.’
The Doctor, seemingly more amused than anything at the Brigadier’s discomfiture, was looking out of the window at the floodlit grounds of the palace and the myriad lights of the city beyond. Dominated by two immense lollipop-shaped towers at the hub, the lower buildings spread radially to the skyline, where an irregular rim of high-rise blocks completed the wheel.
‘Are the factories the large buildings in the distance?’ he asked.
Factories? Who said anything about factories? The Brigadier looked back at the President in some bewilderment. The President smiled. ‘That’s right, Doctor,’ he replied. ‘The largest you can see – the one to the right – that’s where the meat you were eating tonight was manufactured.’
‘Manufactured?’ said the Brigadier.
‘Yes. Manufactured; from rapine. And the building with the green sign to the right of it is where they made the vegetables, and the fruit for your tart. Also from the rapine plant. The wine comes from another town, in a warmer country, where they once grew the fruit from which we used to ferment our drinks – we like to keep these old associations alive – but it was made from rapine as well.’
He laughed. ‘I have to admit one failure. The walnuts are imported from Earth. Apart from that, everything you have had came from rapine.’
‘That’s incredible,’ said the Brigadier.
‘The generosity of the plant is incredible,’ replied the President, wheeling himself back to the table.
The Brigadier sipped his port with a new awareness. But it still tasted like the old crusted vintage his grandfather had been so proud of. Made from some sort of field crop?
Never.
But the President had not finished. He went on to state categorically that there was nothing that a normal civilized society might use that could not be manufactured or synthesized from rapine.
‘Nothing, President?’
‘Nothing, Doctor.’
The sugars and proteins in the fruit, the foliage and the roots (together with the oil from the seed, which could also be used for fuel) fed them; and the various parts of the plant were the raw material for a range of products which covered every need – from a woman’s clothes to a jet engine.
‘You mean you’ve even replaced metal?’ said the Brigadier, even more incredulously. ‘I’d like to see that.’
‘You have,’ answered the President, evidently enjoying himself.
‘Eh?’
‘The knives and forks? So carefully made to match your Earth pattern?’
The Doctor laughed. ‘Don’t let it worry you, Lethbridge-Stewart,’ he said. ‘I would hazard a guess that everything in this room is ultimately derived from rapine: the chairs we’re sitting on; the rugs; the curtains; the lighting fitments; everything. Am I right, President?’
‘Very nearly. And all this from a plant that will grow in any climate, on any type of fertile soil, and produce harvest after abundant harvest.’
The Doctor tilted his head and rubbed the back of his forefinger along the side of his chin. ‘Forgive me,’ he said,
‘but you sound like a salesman trying to persuade a doubtful customer!’
The President laughed his wheezy laugh once more.
‘Very perspicacious of you, Doctor. That’s exactly what I was for thirty years and more. An interplanetary salesman.’
He leaned forward in his wheelchair. ‘But I wasn’t selling rapine. I was selling dreams. I was selling riches.’ He was no longer laughing. His expression was utterly serious and his voice urgent and intense.
‘I was selling paradise,’ he said.
By the time they were settling into Waldo’s flycar, Sarah was feeling quite a lot better. He had been so concerned for her, seeming to understand exactly how she felt even before she told him, that somehow she felt the burden of guilt was being shared. He’d been through it himself.