Then there was nothing.

Chapter Eleven.

Puppet Show Morning rush hour came and went. Gelvert, Tressel and Semanov did not see another living soul on the station plaza.

The tube capsules pa.s.sed through more frequently, but when they stopped n.o.body got on or off.

'What's going on?' Gelvert demanded of Tressel. 'Where are all the people?'

Tressel could only shake his head in bewilderment. 'I don't know. This is all wrong.'

'You don't think the evacuation has started already?'

Semanov asked.

'No. The alert would be broadcast over every public screen. We couldn't have missed that.'

'Anyway there are people still riding the capsules,'

Gelvert pointed out. 'They don't seem to be in any hurry.'

They looked down to the street below. A steady stream of vehicles was pa.s.sing under the tubeway tower, but there were no pedestrians.

'Why didn't Lesitor warn us things were like this?'

Gelvert began, then cursed loudly. 'He set us up! That's how they found us last night. We even paid him for the privilege...'

He regained his self-control and glared into his companions' confused faces. 'This area must be abandoned.

Maybe it's still contaminated by weapon residue. We'll stand out like sore thumbs if we try to move around. Let's get out of here.'

'Do we risk taking a capsule?' Semanov asked.

'Yeah. At least there'll be a few people to give us cover.'

The station gateway credit-slot was not working, but it still let them on to the platform.

'n.o.body's troubling to maintain the place any more,'

Gelvert said. 'Still, at least it means we can travel free and save some credits.'

The next capsule came to a halt and the doors opened.

They stepped inside and dropped into the nearest seats, carefully avoiding eye contact with the other pa.s.sengers. They did not want to draw more attention to themselves than absolutely necessary.

After half a minute the capsule pulled away again. Gelvert let out his breath. The dozen or so people in the capsule were either gazing out through the windows or had their heads buried in newspads. None of them seemed to have noticed them boarding at a deserted station. In fact none of them had so much as glanced round...

Gelvert felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

Their fellow pa.s.sengers were absolutely still and completely silent. Not a twitch or a sigh. Not even a breath.

Only now did Gelvert notice the thin film of dust over their clothes. He saw Semanov's and Tressel's eyes widening in alarm Slowly he leant forward and prodded the shoulder of the pa.s.senger sitting in front of him. The man rocked slightly in his seat then settled back into perfect immobility.

'It's a dummy,' Gelvert said. 'The whole capsule's full of dummies!'

They were just that: mannequins, with realistic features and correctly articulated bodies but utterly lifeless.

Semanov turned to Tressel looking frightened and angry..

'What is this? What's happening here?'

Tressel could only clasp his head. 'I don't know, I tell you!' As though in desperation, his eyes fastened on the illuminated destination board mounted at the end of the capsule. 'Look, Penko district is a couple of stops along.

That's famous for its street markets and eateries. There'll be people there.'

'There'd better be,' said Gelvert.

They pa.s.sed through the next station almost as still and silent as their dummy companions.

As the capsule pulled into Penko they looked down at a long tree-lined street flanked by broad promenades and laid out with market stalls and tables. A crowd of people was bustling about them. The escapees left the capsule and hurried down the ramps. Even Gelvert felt eager to be among people again. After months in the camp he had become used to company.

Their steps faltered as they reached ground level.

People sat drinking coffee at cafe tables while others bargained with stallholders. Children tugged excitedly at the arms of their parents. Dozens of mouths were moving but no words came forth. The only sound in the street was the patter of heels on the pavement. A man and woman approached them walking arm in arm, staring into the middle distance with fixed smiles on their faces. Even as Gelvert flinched away some proximity circuit must have cut in for the couple turned smoothly to avoid them. Their movements had that repet.i.tious precision and regularity that separated the mechanical from the living. They were simply amus.e.m.e.nt park animates. As they pa.s.sed, Gelvert saw that their clothing was stained and sun bleached. How long had the two automatons promenaded up and down this road wearing those meaningless smiles?

He glanced at his companions. Tressel could only shake his head. Semanov simply shrugged. They walked slowly through the crowd like interlopers on a mute stage.

Then they began to notice the scars.

Tressel stumbled over a paving slab and they saw that large sections of the pavement had been poorly re-laid and were now settling unevenly. Several slabs were cracked. The ghost of a jagged smoke-blackened line across a nearby facade showed where half the building had been replaced. Gelvert tapped the new section and found it was moulded and textured plasterboard, not stone. Semanov reached up to an overhanging branch of a shade tree and crumpled the leaves in her hand. When she released them they sprang back into perfect shape.

'Artificial,' she said with disgust. 'Just like everything else around here.

The sky, which had been steadily darkening, suddenly dissolved into a torrential downpour. In seconds the pavements were awash. As though a switch had been thrown, the automatons ceased their play-acting and headed for the nearest doorways. Shivering, Gelvert led his companions after them and they crowded into a restaurant. Neither diners nor staff took the slightest notice of this sudden influx of dripping figures. The other animates lined up mutely against one wall.

He could smell damp mould on their clothes.

Gelvert found a free table and slumped into a chair.

Tressel and Semanov wearily copied him. Semanov drew her fingers pointedly through the thick layer of dust on the table-top. Tressel looked dazed. About them simulacrums of diners were going through the motions of eating, handling their cutlery with mechanical precision. But there was no food on the plates. A waiter solemnly filled empty gla.s.ses from an empty bottle of wine.

'Tell us...' Gelvert said to Tressel, anger and contempt in his words, 'tell us how you come not to know half your city's dead!'

Chapter Twelve.

The Deception Captain Lant returned to the NC2 camp before noon in an aircar. He brought doc.u.ments with him releasing the Doctor and Ian into his charge. From his manner it was evident their status had changed. Lant looked as though he wanted to ask a lot of questions, but was constrained by protocol.

'I have been instructed to escort you to the mayor's office,' he said, formally.

'And about time, young man,' the Doctor said mildly. 'I see you have followed my advice.'

'Yes. We've found your, uh, machine. It was undamaged, as you said.'

'And Susan? You visited her?'

'She's out of danger and recovering well,' Lant a.s.sured him, a very curious expression flitting across his face.

'Any news of Barbara?' Ian asked anxiously.

'Not yet, I'm afraid. But they haven't found the lift cage, so there is still a chance.'

Ian could only nod sombrely.

The Doctor accepted their evident advancement with slightly overbearing self-satisfaction. He beamed condescendingly as he boarded the aircar, like some monarch triumphantly returning from exile.

The Ship grew ever larger as they approached the heart of the city. It was even more ma.s.sive than they had originally thought.

'Extraordinary,' the Doctor said, gazing at it intensely through the aircar window. Ian could think of no better description of its overwhelming presence.

A fierce rainstorm blew up out of the lowering sky as their car set them down on the roof pad of a large munic.i.p.al building. As they landed they noticed the TARDIS resting on the flat roof beside the pad, with a soldier standing guard over it.

'You see, Chesterton,' the Doctor said as they scrambled out of the car. 'I told you the ship would come through unharmed.'

'This way, gentlemen,' said Lain, ushering them out of the rain into a roof lift. 'The mayor would like to ask you a few questions.'

It was a very different meeting from their first encounter.

They were shown into the mayor's office. Draad greeted them cordially, invited them to sit in comfortable chairs and offered drinks. Lant refused refreshment and sat to one side.

Draad returned to his seat behind his desk and regarded them intently for a moment before speaking.

'I have seen a blue box which you claim is some kind of transport,' he said. 'That in itself I find hard to believe.

However, this selfsame box apparently cannot be opened or even scratched by any force at our command.

'I have also read a medical report on your companion, Susan Foreman, which I find equally hard to believe, but which has been double-checked and fully corroborated. I am prepared to accept the explanation you gave for your presence here with, shall we say, a more open mind.'

'Then you must first accept,' the Doctor began, 'that there are millions of worlds beyond your own, populated not just by humanoid life forms, but beings of every imaginable form...'

As the Doctor spoke on, Ian saw Draad and Lant grow steadily more fascinated by the tale of their wanderings though time and s.p.a.ce. Lant's face shone with barely controlled wonder while the mayor's reserve gradually faded into deepening interest. Both men listened intently as the Doctor speculated that Sarath had been colonised thousands of years before by s.p.a.ce travellers who might have originally come from Earth. Finally the Doctor finished and beamed at his enraptured audience.

Draad slowly shook his head, as if to bring himself back to reality. 'That is quite incredible. There are such theories about our origins which many people said were just legends. But now your presence seems to prove the matter.'

'You do believe us then?' Ian asked anxiously, worried that they'd be sent back to the NC2 camp.

'I do, Mr Chesterton,' said Draad slowly. 'There seems no reason for you to lie now we have seen this "TARDIS" of yours.' He smiled. 'It really is larger inside than out?'

'Certainly,' the Doctor a.s.sured him. 'A simple application of the laws of fifth-dimensional physics.'

Draad smiled again, though more wryly, at the use of the word 'simple'. 'But you say both its door keys have gone missing.'

'Regrettably yes. Unless Susan still has her own key with her.'

Captain Lant spoke up. 'After I checked your granddaughter's condition, Doctor, I took the liberty of examining her clothes and possessions which the hospital had stored. There was no key of any kind amongst them.'

The Doctor frowned. 'Then the man named Gelvert has the only key. You must find him.'

'Can you not open your craft in some other way?' Draad asked.

The Doctor tapped his chin, lost in thought for a minute.

'It is just possible that, with the right tools, I might be able to duplicate a key. It is more than a simple piece of metal, you understand. There is a unique pattern embedded within its molecular structure that the lock mechanism reads. I would have to re-create that to atomic levels of tolerance.'

The mayor looked at them both very thoughtfully for a moment, then said: 'Would you please wait in the outer office with Captain Lant for a minute? I have a proposition I want to put to you, but I must confer with somebody first.'

While they waited the Doctor said earnestly to Lant: 'You will make every effort to find Gelvert? Even with the finest facilities at my disposal, I am by no means certain I can create a duplicate key successfully.'

Lant smiled. 'I'll do my best. I'd like to take a look inside that craft of yours myself. I'll check how the search is progressing now if you like.'

He stepped over to the window, drew what Ian took to be a small two-way radio from his pocket and held it to his ear.

As he was making his call, Ian said to the Doctor: 'This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened to us. Only having two keys is risky. It might be an idea to arrange some other means of getting inside the TARDIS in an emergency.'

'Perhaps you're right, Chesterton. I promise I'll give the problem my fullest attention, as soon as we have sorted our immediate problems.'

Lant rejoined them, still holding his radio phone.

'It seems some NC2s were recaptured late last night,' he said. 'but Gelvert wasn't amongst them. I've asked them to be checked over for the key just in case, but I don't think you're going to be lucky.'