Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive (7 page)

'Gallifrey.'

'I've never heard of the place.'

'I'm not surprised,' agreed the Doctor. 'It's a small, remote planet. Why should you have heard of it?'

'And we're overdue there,' explained Romana. 'We ought to be on our way now, oughtn't we, Doctor?'

The Doctor took the hint. 'Yes, indeed,' he said. 'Time we were off.'

But the Security guides blocked their path.

'Goodbye,' said the Doctor hopefully.

Mena ignored their attempts to leave. 'Tell me about Gallifrey?' she asked. 'Do they experiment with Time there?'

'Time?' queried the Doctor, as if he had never heard of such a thing.

Mena did not reply.

'We,' he said, 'that is to say, certain-ah -academics on Gallifrey have been known to engage in certain-ah-academic experiments regarding temporal matters. Time and space. Things like that. Nothing important.'

'Just experiments,' interjected Romana. Of no interest to anybody.'

'None,' agreed the Doctor. 'Why, Gallifrey abandoned tachyonics ages ago.'

'When we developed warp matrix engineering, added Romana-and then wished she had bitten ot her tongue. If the Argolin knew anything about temporal mechanics, then they must realize the significance of her remark.

But fortunately Mena had other things on her mind. She turned to Hardin. 'Mr Hardin, since these two persons have come from a planet where sucn matters are obviously not unknown,' she suggested, 'perhaps they could be of assistance to you.

Aware that he had no alternative but to comply with her plan, Hardin nodded. He did not, however, look happy at the prospect. Neither did the Doctor. 'It will demonstrate your good faith, Doctor, said Mena.

I wasn't aware I was required to demonstrate anything,' he replied. 'Still, if you insist—'

'I do.'

The Doctor bowed.

'You saw the recording of Mr Hardin's time experiments?' she enquired.

'Hardly.'

'A glimpse only,' agreed Romana.

Then perhaps you ought to take another look,' proposed Mena. 'Mr Hardin will take you to the laboratory and show you his work in detail.'

'Love to,' said the Doctor. 'Unfortunately we must be going.'

'We have a schedule to keep,' explained Romana.

'You have time,' declared Mena. 'If need be, all the time in the world.' The threat in her voice was unmistakable.

Hardin's heart sank. The last thing he wanted was an expert-or even a knowledgeable amateur -checking on the results of his experiments.

But the Doctor wasn't prepared to give up without a fight. 'One thing I don't understand,' he observed, 'is why Mr Hardin's work should be so important to the Argolin.'

'I would have thought that was obvious,' replied Mena. 'As the first Leisure Planet to offer a course of painless physical regeneration to its customers, we'll make a fortune. We'll be the most popular place in the Galaxy. We'll be turning down bookings.'

 

'Why is it I don't believe you?' said the Doctor.

In the maze of narrow maintenance tunnels underneath the Leisure Hive some thing moved A creature with green scales and clawed hands eased its way along a passage until it found what it was looking for-a wall panel. The creature swiftly unscrewed the panel. Inside was a web of wires and fibres: the fibre-optic system. Other panels gave access to the various communication and life-support systems of the Hive. They were the arteries of Argolis. The creature deposited a small hexagonal box amongst the wires, and then replaced the panel.

Mena threw back her head and roared with laughter. 'You're very shrewd, Doctor,' she said. 'And very forth-right. So be it. Perhaps you deserve to learn our secret.'

She pressed a button on the desk console. Part of the wall slid back to reveal the Argolin landscape as it had been before the Foamasi War. The sheer beauty of the scene made Romana and the Doctor gasp in wonder.

'It will take three centuries before the Argolin can safely walk out onto the surface of our planet,' she continued. 'Three centuries before we can claim our inheritance.'

'And what are you going to do meanwhile?' demanded the Doctor. 'Stay in the Leisure Hive for three hundred years? Bring up generations of Argolin here? Incidentally,' he added, 'where are they? I haven't seen any children here.'

Mena smiled sadly. 'There are none,' she said. 'Every war extracts its price, and the Foamasi War exacted the most terrible price of all. We Argolin are sterile. We cannot produce children. There are no future generations. The only hope for us is to find some way of regenerating ourselves.'

She reactivated the holographic crystal which contained the recording of Hardin's experiment with the old woman. As they watched, the woman changed from age to youth. Mena stared at the scene as if hypnotized by it.

'Hardin's work offers my race its only hope of survival,' she said at last. 'Perhaps in time we will be able to rebuild Argolis and fill the Hive with our children.'

Inside a wall panel in the maze of narrow maintenance tunnels underneath the Leisure Hive there was an explosion. One of the arteries of Argol had been severed.

Suddenly the holographic crystal went black. The picture vanished.

Frowning, Mena ran a diagnostic check through the computer. ' Inter-fibral malfunction,' she diagnosed at last. The line has gone down.'

'Another accident?' queried the Doctor. 'Like the one this morning that killed that poor chap in the generator?'

Mena did not reply.

'I think someone is trying to sabotage the Hive,' said the Doctor.

A strange expression crossed Mena's face. Her eyes glazed. She staggered and would have fallen had not Hardin caught her. She clutched the table. A crystal dropped from her hair.

'Mena,' he cried.

The Doctor took charge. 'Sit her back in the chair,' he ordered. He took her pulse and began to examine her, paying particular attention to the skin round her eyes and the flesh on the backs of her hands.

'What's the matter with her?' asked Hardinj anxiously. 'She looks so ill.'

'Old,' said Brock.

'Old?'

'She's just aged about twenty years in a few seconds. Like Morix. I saw what happened to him,'

The Doctor confirmed Brock's diagnosis; 'Most remarkable,' he agreed. 'There's been a sudden cellular degeneration.'

'I don't understand,' said Hardin.

Mena took his hand in hers and grinned crookedly at him. 'Instant old age,' she said, 'it happens to us all. Sooner or later.' She seemed to revive a little. Her voice grew stronger. 'Now you know why your experiments are so important. To me, most of all. They could save my life.'

Stimson was setting up the experiment at one end of the laboratory. He kept looking over his shoulder at Hardin explaining the intricacies of the equipment to Brock and his silent lawyer who, after being missing for a while, had suddenly reappeared. The presence of the two Terrans worried Stimson. He could see that Hardin was on the verge of a breakdown.

Brock was full of enthusiasm for the project. He clapped Hardin on the shoulder. 'Sounds absolutely fascinating,' he declared. 'A real breakthrough. There is a great commercial future for a reliable rejuvenation technique. Even an unreliable one, come to that. People will clutch at any straw.'

'It's too soon to know how efficient my technique is,' objected Hardin. 'My research is only in its early stages: there's a long way to go yet.'

You don't know how far, he thought.

Brock dismissed the scientist's objections with a wave of his hand. 'Doesn't matter,' he observed. 'No one in 'heir right mind hopes to stay young for ever. Or even wants to. What they'd like is to be able to turn back the clock a bit when they get to middle age. They'll pay through the nose for some machine that will peel off a few years.'

'The Argolin need more than that.'

Brock lowered his voice. 'We all know what the Argolin need,' he murmured in Hardin's ear. 'But it doesn't mean they'll get it. Could be their metabolism's been speeded up so much that your technique won't work on them.'

'It's not been properly tested yet,' objected Hardin. 'Nobody knows what will happen.'

'Exactly what I'm saying,' declared Brock. 'Isn't that right, Klout?'

Klout did not reply.

Hardin realized that he had never heard him speak.

'If your technique doesn't work on the Argolin, which Heaven forbid,' Brock added piously, 'then we must make sure that your great discovery isn't lost to science for ever. That would be a tragedy.'

Brock's breath was on his cheek. It smelt sweet and faintly chemical.

'All I'm saying,' he continued, 'is that you ought to consider taking on a business partner. Someone who would look after your interests while you concentrated on your work. Someone who would see to it that all mankind reaped the benefit of your genius. Or any kind of kind, come to that. After all there are probably a hundred different intelligent life forms in the galaxy, many of them with access to galactic credits on a large scale. You follow me?'

I'm way ahead of you, thought Hardin.

'Think about it,' said Brock 'that's all I ask.'

He clapped the scientist on the shoulder, then he and his ever-silent lawyer departed.

Hardin turned to Stimson, his face a picture of despair. 'What are we going to do?' he cried.

'Proceed as planned,' replied the other.

It had all seemed so easy when Stimson had approached him on Terra, thought Hardin. He had spent years working on tachyonics. He had even reached a point when he had believed he was on the verge of a great scientific breakthrough, in the laboratory he had several times been able to arrest the flow of time in an experimental organism. Once he had kept a Mayfly alive for three months. Once he had even succeeded in reversing the flow of Time, so that a chicken had been regressed into an egg. But on each and every occasion something had gone wrong. The Mayfly when released had disintegrated into a shower of dust; the egg when opened had disclosed a dead and deformed embryo.

He had been on the verge of giving up his research when Stimson had come to see him at his laboratory. At first he, had been flattering about his work and sympathetic that it was haunted by failure.

'All you need,' Stimson had said, 'is finance. A big grant to complete your experiments. Look at this laboratory. Second-hand equipment. No proper facilities. No wonder you haven't succeeded in making a breakthrough.'

The man's words had been balm to Hardin's pride. Nevertheless he had tried to be realistic. 'These days no one will back tachyon experiments,' he had pointed out. 'The tachyon is the Cinderella of subatomic particles. A scientific freak. You can prove its existence, but for well over a century no one has found any use for it.'

'Until you,' said Stimson. 'And the Argolin, of course.'

Stimson had arranged it all. He had contacted Morix, Heresiarch of Argolis, Chairman of Argolis Leisure Planet Inc., who had shown a flattering interest in the experiments. Hardin's confidence in his work began to blossom. Morix had even suggested sending his consort to Terra to act as observer.

'We have to keep them interested until you can sort out the bugs in your equipment,' Stimson had said.

'Just give them something to get their teeth into for now. Something to believe in. A successful rejuvenator.'

'I'm not ready for that yet!' Hardin had protested.

But Stimson had been persuasive. 'By the time they get round to putting up any money you'll have solved your technical problems.'

Perhaps it was the result of all those years of struggle and failure, but at the time Stimson's proposition had sounded unorthodox. But not actually criminal. In any case once Hardin had met the beautiful and elegant Mena he had been ready to agree to anything-even Stimson's suggestion that they fake an experiment - in order to keep her beside him for as long as possible.

And the plan had worked. Until now.

Now Mena was dying, and his work-which she still believed might save her-was a fraud and a fake. She would die because he was unable to save her.

Stimson understood Hardin only too well. A brilliant fool, he thought, emotionally unstable-and if he's not handled carefully, he'll destroy everything.

'Hardin,' he said, 'Mena still thinks you are the greatest scientist since Albert Einstein. Don't disappoint her, there's a good fellow. Leave her with some hope.'

But Hardin was adamant. 'No! There have been too many lies. I must tell Mena the truth.'

'Don't be a fool!'

'I will not be party to fraud.'

Stimson lost his temper. 'It's a bit late to think of that now!' he snapped. 'And it's no time to get an attack of the scruples. Remember where we are. On Argolis. Their planet. What do you think the Argolin would do if they discovered we had been leading them up the garden path? Do you really think they'd just slap our wrists and let us go?'

'Vlena would never hurt anyone.'

'She's an Argolin, isn't she? They're all a bunch of savages at heart. Always have been. I bet they only took up tachyonics because they thought it would make a better weapon than a radon missile.'

But at that point their argument was interrupted by the arrival of Romana.

'How is Mena?' demanded Hardm.

'The Doctor's with her. He is doing everything he can.

'I must go to her.'

'No ' said Stimson. 'You'd only be in the way. Best thing we can do is to get this experiment working. He turned to Romana for support. 'Right miss?

'Right. Whatever you do, get the experiment working.'

Stimson shot her a suspicious glance. He detected a satirical note in Romana's voice. What the devil did she know? And who was this self-assured young woman he wondered? He didn't like the professional way she was inspecting the equipment they had assembled.

'I see you feed the tachyon drive straight into the wafer wave inducer,' she remarked. Bit unusual, isn't it? How do you achieve inversion?

Ouch, thought Stimson, that's all we needed-an expert in tachyonics. Well, time to bale out. Cut your losses. No one would ever accuse him of not knowmg when to make a swift exit. He began to edge his way towards the door. 'Well?' asked Romana.