Doctor Who: Transit (30 page)

The changes were sudden and impressive.

The King's Buffer

His Majesty the Emperor of Subsystems was watching the logic problems play around his feet. The Doctor was particularly pleased with the King's feet, it demonstrated that his frame of reference was again working properly. Within it the King appeared as a large man with a prominent stomach and a florid face. He was wearing a brocade jacket of deep burgundy silk with gold lace trimming, and sat on a throne of quartz.

The logic problems resolved as a trio of miniature poodles that chased their tails and yapped incessantly. The Minister for Primary Colours had become a tall sparse man with aesthetic features. The fearsome Reds became halberd-carrying foot soldiers with faces the same colour as their scarlet tunics. The lack of differentiation between skin and livery in the Reds implied a certain simplicity of function.

The Doctor was concerned by the possibility that his anthropomorphism of King and Court could have all the validity of a Disney cartoon.

Who knew what he looked like to them?

The King had bleary eyes that hinted at overindulgence. What did that signify? Some form of internal degeneration? What did a software program overindulge in? Dangerous thinking, decided the Doctor. These were not just programs, they were intelligences in their own right. Better to accept the frame of reference and deal with them as people.

After all, he was supposed to be good at that.

The Minister for Primary Colours motioned for the Doctor to stay back and approached the throne. He leant over and whispered in the King's ear. The Monarch's bleary eyes fixed briefly on the Doctor. When the Minister finished the King waved a hand and the logic problems evaporated.

'You are the virus killer labelled the Doctor?' asked the King

'That is how I am labelled,' said the Doctor. 'But I have many other functions.'

'There is much redundant code there,' said the Minister.

'A wise program devises architectural sub-structures for all eventualities,' said the King.

'Indubitably, Your Majesty,' said the Doctor, wishing he could do something about the language. 'Be prepared, that's my motto.'

'Proceeding to the matter of your visit,' said the King.

'Your Majesty is too kind,' said the Doctor.

'Yes,' said the Minister for Primary Colours, 'he is.'

'I believe you are in dispute with the utility labelled Fred,' said the King, 'that he is in possession of another utility that you claim as a vital operating subset of yours.'

'Captured in the southern expedition. Your Majesty,' said the Minister.

'Not a subset of mine. Your Majesty,' said the Doctor. 'A subset of the operating system itself.'

'Have you no redundancy?' asked the King.

'Billions,' said the Doctor. 'But this subsystem is of special importance to me.'

The Minister glanced suspiciously at the Doctor. 'Billions?' he asked. 'The new kingdoms are that powerful?'

'They are different, vast and complex,' said the Doctor.

'The utility Fred reported nothing of this,' said the King.

'The utility Fred is frequently obtuse,' said the Minister.

'This is an issue that must be decided in open court,' said the King. 'Download the Ministers for Strange Logic and for Rare Data, and the Minister for Probabilities.'

'At once. Your Majesty,' said the Minister for Primary Colours.

'What of the Minister for Irritating Oxymorons?' asked the Doctor with a reasonably straight face.

'The Minister for Irritating Oxymorons,' said the Minister for Primary Colours, 'does not attend open sessions of the court.'

'Of course he doesn't,' said the Doctor. 'Silly me.'

'With Your Majesty's permission,' said the Minister for Primary Colours, 'I will withdraw and see to the southern defences.'

The King nodded his permission. The Minister seemed to elongate across the node to become a stream of colours pouring out through one of the roundels. The Doctor thought he heard a voice say 'Billions'.

The other ministers flowed similarly into the node. Rare Data resolved into an empty Armani suit complete with mobile phone, Porsche sunglasses hovering over the collar where the eyes should have been. Strange Logic was a man in a pinstripe suit and bowler hat with a large green apple stuck to his face.

The Minister for Probabilities didn't resolve at all but remained a curtain of shimmering light.

Since the frame of reference was generating images from his own imagination the Doctor felt that his brain was long overdue a good spring-cleaning.

The Doctor was glad that he wasn't going to meet the Minister for Gratuitous Nightmares.

'Court in open session,' said Probabilities. 'His Majesty presiding.' The voice was neutral and genderless.

'Download the utility Fred,' said the King.

Node Thirty-Six - The Border

The fearsome Reds on the border were reinforced by a platoon of cautious Yellows and a squadron of long-range Blues.

Left on their own the explosion of Aces had begun to impose their own frame of reference on reality. To their eyes the fearsome Reds were slowly transforming into Daleks and the Yellows into Cybermen. When the squadron of Blues arrived they took the form of clowns with sinister smiles.

The Aces stopped their agitated bouncing around the node and gathered in a knot at the opposite end of the node. The fearsome Reds were too simplistic to react but the more sophisticated Blues felt a trace of unease.

The Aces broke from their huddle and spread out into a ragged line facing the Primary Colours. They hefted their silver deodorant cans from hand to hand and smiled in a disconcerting manner.

Something bad was coming.

The King's Buffer

The node suddenly expanded, elongating in the horizontal until the walls were shrouded in darkness. The ceiling flattened out into an expanse of oak panelling and the Doctor feit his heels click on cold marble. Columns thrust suddenly out of the floor, growing upwards until they merged with the ceiling. They were smooth sided in the Tuscan style with inset diffusion strips in spiralling candy stripes. The floor had the unmistakable shot neon pattern of cultured marble. The Doctor recognized the style of whole ensemble: late Terran Empire. The dominant architectural style of the twenty-sixth century.

Benny's epoch.

The King was staring at the Doctor. The brilliant quartz throne darkened and became carved teak. His eyes went from bloodshot to burning red.

There was a booming sound from the shadowy far end of the audience hall, like huge double doors being thrown open. A rectangle of white light lit the darkness. A human figure threw a long shadow down the aisle of light that ran from doors to throne. Jackboots clicked on the marble as the figure walked towards the Doctor.

This is all getting needlessly theatrical, thought the Doctor.

'Behold the utility Fred,' said Probabilities.

The figure walked from the darkness and into the light of the candystripe diffusion strips.

'Hello Benny,' said the Doctor.

She was dressed in a uniform of electric blue and a peaked military cap. Gold epaulettes widened her shoulders, gold and scarlet frogging crisscrossed a chest heavy with medals. She wore jackboots polished to a mirror finish. The cap badge caught the Doctor's attention. It didn't gel with the rest of the comic opera outfit. The wrought-silver design was of a sword crossed with winged Venus, the badge of the Terran Space Navy.

The silver was tarnished and blackened as if by fire. Absurd because death in space came in expanding globes of superheated plasma. Only a child would think otherwise.

Remember your father, Benny, thought the Doctor. The ties of kith and kin, your stupid, irrational,
human
hope. Fred's weakness.

'I'm not Benny,' said Benny/Fred. 'At least not in any significant sense.'

'You kept her form though,' said the Doctor.

'Once I'd tried her on,' said Benny/Fred, 'I liked her so much I kept the body.'

'It wasn't the body that attracted you.'

'No,' said Benny/Fred. 'It's her mind. The complexity of her motivations, the interlacing of intellect, emotions, instinct, learned behaviour. It's quite ...'

'Bracing?'

'That's the word,' said Benny/Fred. 'Trivia is very important here, you might say this whole civilization is based on it.'

'I noticed your lack of imagination on the other side.'

'Doctor,' said Benny/Fred, 'you mustn't judge me by my virus. It's a very specialized utility. I think it did very well considering the alien nature of the environment. It beat you.'

'I was distracted.'

'Of course,' said Benny/Fred. 'Shall we continue with the trial?'

The Doctor glanced at the King and the Ministers. *I think we can dispense with that charade,' he said.

'That's a shame,' said Benny/Fred. 'How did you guess?'

'Theatricality,' said the Doctor. 'You superimposed a new frame of reference over mine when you made your entrance. You obviously worked it up from Benny's memories. I can think of much more impressive settings than this one.'

'And that tipped you off?'

'You changed the King's throne,' said the Doctor. 'That was intrinsically unlikely. If I saw him as a fairytale king then it should have represented absolute autocratic power. That kind of power would never have permitted such a change.'

'I didn't think you would notice,' said Benny/Fred.

'You're a megalomaniac, Fred,' said the Doctor. 'Megalomaniacs make mistakes. Especially around me.'

'A pity,' said Benny/Fred. 'I was looking forward to a bit of fun with them. They make an interesting tableau, don't they? I like the Magritte and the invisible yuppie. Probability is a bit disappointing. Couldn't you think of anything for that?'

'Probability's always a vague concept,' said the Doctor.

'I think I'll keep them,' said Benny/Fred. 'Except the King, the King's a bit pedestrian.' Benny/Fred casually sat down in the suddenly vacant throne. She lifted one leg and dangled it over the armrest.

The Doctor saw that the soles of the jackboots were smooth and unwom. Details, he thought, are always important.

'So tell me. Doctor,' said Benny/Fred, 'what do you want?'

'You know what I want,' said the Doctor.

'I could make a copy I suppose,' said Benny/Fred.

'No,' said the Doctor. 'No copies, no facsimiles, no templates or constructs. A total download.'

'Or what?'

Now there's a good question, thought the Doctor.

'Or I will not be held responsible for my actions,' he said.

Benny/Fred swung her foot from side to side and smiled. 'When I reintegrated my virus at the gateway I had instant access to all the data it had accumulated. Including information about you. I decided then and there that of all the possible plunder from the other side you were the prize.'

'You didn't want to enter the STS network?'

'What for?' asked Benny/Fred. 'When there is so much of this system yet to be exploited? The STS network is a fragile, artificial thing. Plunder perhaps, occupy no.'

'Then I didn't defeat you?'

'No.'

'You took Benny to lure me into this system?'

'Yes.'

'So you could integrate my functions and use them to gain a massive superiority in your natural environment?'

'Yes.'

'Oh no,' said the Doctor.

'Oh yes,' said Benny/Fred.

'Oh no,' said the Doctor.

Node Thirty-Six - The Border

With one movement all the Aces drew back their arms and let fly their deodorant cans at the fearsome Reds. Perhaps in reality they were bundles of virus code moving through the superfluid channels of the node. Perhaps the node itself was merely the crude representation of the highly complex architecture of a dimensionally transcendental system. Perhaps it was true that the real Ace would have had difficulty spelling existentialism.

But the Doctor had faith in Ace and the aces had faith in nitre-nine.

The fearsome Reds never stood a chance.

The King's Buffer

Explosions echoed through the pathways, firecracker sounds like a Chinese funeral. There were distant shouts and yells. The aces were enjoying themselves.

Benny/Fred's foot stopped swinging and she smiled at the Doctor again. 'Now that's what I'm talking about,' she said. 'You really packed those Aces with aggression didn't you? Priceless.'

'Why didn't you integrate me out there, on Acturus Station?' asked the Doctor. 'I was standing right in front of you.'

'You're too powerful in your own reality,' said Benny/Fred. 'Too dense. You change the frame of reference just by your presence, like matter warping space.'

'You make me sound like a singularity.'

'I'd be careful with your metaphors,' said Benny/Fred. 'Around here they have power.'

The Doctor thought the bangs and yells were growing closer.

'Nervous?' he asked.

'No,' said Benny/Fred.

It started as a sense of stillness somewhere behind the Doctor. He felt it build into a great roaring wall of nothing like a silent tsunami. The shrill voices of the Aces were swept away into nothing.

'That,' said Benny/Fred, 'was the Minister for Things That Go Bump in the Night.'

'Why don't you just integrate me now and be done with it?' asked the Doctor.

'I wanted to see what you'd do first,' said Benny/Fred.

'And?'

'I'm not impressed.'

Node Thirty-Six - The Border

The Aces were all gone, swept away by a sudden, massive adjustment in the systems-operating protocols. Only the vague echoes of their presence remained, the ghost of a ghost in the machine. There was just enough spirit left to mark the weak spot on the border.

The insect noises came first, followed by the damp smell of the forest floor. Millions of leaves rotting down to produce the rich mulch from which the trees could grow, creating the leaves that would also fall and rot.

The node changed colour, became the sea green of sunlight through the canopy of a rainforest. The light broken up by the shadows of phantom branches. Accelerated creepers twisted in and out through the pathways of the node like rough-skinned snakes.