Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [93]
The Doctor was soon immersed in his research.
‘I must say,’ he said, ‘these ER reports are remarkable.
I’m there, really there. Or rather, that’s how it seems.’
For a moment, Sarah’s last experience of ER was as immediately present to her as it had been when she held Waldo’s back in the sights of her gun. She shuddered and pushed the image away.
‘Are they any help, though?’ said Onya.
‘Yes, they are. Undoubtedly.’ The Doctor went on to explain that the Federation planets – the colonies, or whatever one wanted to call them – formed a chain, a string of worlds exporting rapine and importing goods, flourishing just as Freeth had promised; everybody prosperous, everybody happy, at least on the surface.
So what was worrying him? Sarah wanted to know.
The planets where the supply of rapine was dwindling, he said. The economies were starting to break down; poverty growing; and discontent. The fertility of their soil had been all but eaten up and had to be replaced by massive doses of fertilizer.
Onya said, ‘I could have told you all that.’
The Doctor said, ‘Of course. It’s what I expected. But what is the end term of the progression? And where does the fertilizer come from? Let’s find out.’ He selected a disc from the rack in front of him and asked Onya to patch three ER channels together.
‘Right,’ he said, when they were all wearing the headsets, ‘let’s go to Blestinu, where the TARDIS first landed. This is the latest recording.’ Sarah took a deep breath. What horrors was she in for this time?
At once she was in the middle of a nightmare landscape of mud. A few stumps of shattered trees showed that this had once been a normal piece of countryside, but now the terrain was as covered with craters as the surface of the moon. To the sound of shooting and distant explosions was added the whistling shriek of a shell which heralded an explosion nearby which created a hole the size of half a tennis lawn. Sarah felt herself being covered with flying mud and debris. She uttered an exclamation of dismay.
‘Yes,’ she heard the Doctor’s faint voice, ‘we’re in the middle of a war; a conventional shooting war.
She pulled off her helmet. Back in the Data Store, she saw Onya lean forward and adjust one of the controls.
‘I suspect this is only the tip of the iceberg,’ the Doctor was saying. ‘A body that’s been blown to bits isn’t much use to anybody.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Onya.
‘Let’s have a look round,’ said the Doctor in reply. Sarah replaced her headset. The Doctor’s voice came through much more strongly now that Onya had altered the volume and the sounds of war were gratefully distant.
For Sarah found herself present at a series of the most horrendous scenes of death and devastation she had ever seen. Dead bodies were everywhere, lying where they had fallen or stacked in neat piles. The smell of decaying flesh pervaded the air. A few survivors wandered aimlessly through the ruins of their world; elsewhere ragged soldiers ran for cover and let off sporadic bursts of automatic fire at their unseen brothers.
But none of this was what the Doctor was looking for.
‘Ah. Now this is what I was afraid of,’ she heard him say at last. She was wearing what could only be a gas-mask.
Through the eyepieces she could see that they had arrived at a country road thick with the fallen, mostly women and children, still clutching pathetic bundles of belongings, or lying beside handcarts overloaded with inappropriate household goods.
‘Refugees,’ said Onya.
‘Look over there to the left,’ said the Doctor. ‘A mechanical lifter, loading them into a truck. Can you see the driver? He’s wearing a gas-mask, too.’
‘And the truck has the badge of the Parakon Corporation,’ said Onya. ‘I’m beginning to understand.’
Sarah was still in the dark. ‘What are you getting at, Doctor?’ she said.
‘Can you take any more?’
‘I must.’
Once more she was thrown into a bewildering, dizzying series of quick snatches of a planet at war with itself, stopping inside a cavernous building, some sort of factory,