Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [64]
The temperature was always that of a mild spring day and the food was reasonable, although most of it was apt to end up in the dustbin.
‘You’ll waste away,’ said Tragan, looking at Waldo’s untouched breakfast. ‘That’ll never do.’
‘Fattening me up for the kill, are you?’ said Waldo, who was sitting on the bed.
‘Crude but accurate. Funny how these old expressions linger, isn’t it?’ Tragan’s face was a delicate mauve; the warts and boils moved gently up and down like scum on the surface of a polluted sea.
‘I demand to see the President,’ said Waldo. ‘I have that right, at least.’
‘No, no,’ replied the Vice-Chairman. ‘You have no rights. You forfeited all rights when you chose to incite your fellow guests to treason.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. We were just having a discussion.’
‘You seem to forget that we have a full ER recording of your offence,’ said Tragan patiently, as if explaining to a slow but willing child. ‘Everything will be conducted according to the due process of law. That recording will be played immediately before the transmission of the carrying out of your sentence, so that justice may be seen to be done.’
Waldo laughed bitterly. ‘You mean, to frighten everybody into behaving themselves.’
‘You’re uncommonly bright for a military man. Captain Rudley.’
‘And what is my sentence?’
This question launched the Vice-Chairman into quite a lengthy disquisition on the various possibilities. His own preference, it seemed, would be to see the Captain slowly dismembered by a curious kranjal ape, or chewed to death by a swarm of soldier chais, either of which could eventuate while he was being hunted; more certain destinies, such as the old-fashioned mincing machine, could be easily arranged should he refuse the hunt; and of course – and here the Vice-Chairman displayed a certain reluctance – the law granted him the privilege of choosing to volunteer as a combatant in the Games.
‘Kill or be killed,’ said Waldo.
‘You are being offered a strong chance of survival,’ said Tragan disapprovingly. ‘Some last for years. The present favourite for the final, this Jenhegger, for example.’
‘So he won last night, did he? That makes seventy-three he’s finished off.’ He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the high blue sky.
‘Murder as a way of life somehow doesn’t appeal,’ he went on. ‘I may be a fool but I’m not a hypocrite.’
Tragan gazed at the hated back. ‘Death before dishonour,’ he said. ‘How very noble.’
‘Jeremy. Jeremy! Wake up!’
Jeremy opened his eyes. He sat up and stretched.
‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said to Sarah, who was standing in the doorway. ‘I just shut my eyes for a moment. Helps me to think, you see.’
‘Oh, Jeremy,’ she said. ‘It’s morning. You’ve been asleep for hours.’
‘Oh.’ He got off the bed and walked over to her. ‘Do you think they’ll bring us some breakfast?’
He caught sight of her expression as she turned back into the main room of the suite. Huh! Elder sister stuff again! All very well, but he didn’t get anything at the party
– except that blip-juice, of course. He winced, and then found it was unnecessary. The pain had gone, thank goodness. But he certainly was rattling inside.
‘We’ve got more to worry about than cornflakes,’ Sarah said. She lowered her voice and glanced across the other side of the room, where the Doctor was standing, looking out at the lake that wasn’t there. ‘I don’t think he’s been asleep all night,’ she said. ‘He’s just been walking up and down, up and down like a... a...’
‘Like a caged lion,’ supplied Jeremy.
‘Spoken like a true journalist,’ she said, to his surprise.
She wasn’t usually so complimentary.
‘Still,’ she went on, ‘they say a cliché is a cliché because it works. Yes. Just like a caged lion. A very unhappy caged lion.’
The Doctor swung round and moved over towards the door as though listening. The Brigadier rose from his easy chair and cocked his head. Yes,