The 'snake' unit had been torn from its roof, its front section was crumpled and sparks were streaming from one wheel where it ground against a twisted wing. Gunfire bounced off its armoured bodywork. The people scattered as the vehicle swung about in an unsteady circle and came to a shuddering halt in front of the gantry.

As guards gathered around the vehicle, workers and NC2s emerged from the tunnel and rapidly spread out round the sides of the hangar. Several were armed. The grey guards faltered, realising they were outnumbered and outflanked.

A hatch in the Creeper grated open and Captain Lant, Ian Chesterton and the Doctor climbed out.

The Doctor brushed off his lapels, glanced at the guards disdainfully, screwed a monocle into his eye, then looked up at Draad. 'I trust you can control your men, Mayor,' he said. 'We do not want any more bloodshed.'

'Neither do I,' Draad said wearily. 'I just did what I had to do. I wish it were otherwise, but I had no choice.'

'You used us to keep the Elite and Church factions diverted while you concluded your schemes,' the Doctor said.

'I wondered why you talked of maintaining a balance in the city yet seemed to go out of your way to annoy them. Of course, this close to the end you didn't want them to discover the truth about the Ship. It was a wonderful symbol. It boosted the people's morale and limited the scope of the Taklarian attacks during the war.

'But you must have discovered it would never work years ago. That was when the truth and lies became confused.

The general populace would never have noticed by that time they were totally overawed by the Ship, and all that it represented. But I did. You said the Ship was designed before the war ended to carry the current population of Arkhaven...

still hundreds of thousands, I should imagine... yet you also implied it would be full to capacity with eighty thousand, the actual surviving population, on board. Of course it was never going to be capable of carrying any of them, but it provided justification for having the NC2 camp. Fear of banishment to the camp helped keep the people in order.'

Lant glared at Pardek. 'You lied to me, Commander. You were shipping escaped NC2s here to work as slave labour.

Any you couldn't capture openly you picked up later with this machine. Your special squad were all part of it, weren't they?

Yes, I can see Terrel over there.'

'As the mayor has said, Lant, we did what we had to do,'

Pardek replied stiffly.

'You seem to have worked it all out, Doctor,' said Draad.

'Now come to your point.'

The Doctor gestured at the workers and NC2s ringed about the hangar. 'You must give these people the same chance for life that you have.'

'There's no room for them on the Lander. That is the truth.'

'There must be a way to accommodate them. I am familiar with the Lander's specifications. If you allow me...'

'No!' Draad said. 'I can't allow it. Nothing must go wrong now.' He smiled grimly. 'I don't think you'll risk starting a fight. You might damage the Lander and then where would we all be? No, you just tell these people to stay back and they won't get hurt. But we're leaving.'

There was a growl of anger from the NC2s. The guards shifted their weapons menacingly.

'They have nothing to lose,' the Doctor warned.

'But nothing to gain either. Wouldn't they prefer some of us to get away rather than none at all?' He glanced at the terminal. 'Monitor: start the pre-flight sequence. Charge launch capacitors and prepare for pa.s.senger embarkation.'

The ring about Monitor's eye camera flashed.

'I regret the pa.s.sengers will not be boarding the Lander, Mister Draad,' the machine replied calmly. 'There has been a change of plan.'

Chapter Thirty-Four.

Masquerade There was utter silence in the hangar for perhaps ten seconds.

Ian could sense the shared incredulity of guards and workers alike. Monitor was a servant. It never refused an order.

Draad spoke again, as though unable to believe what he had just heard: 'Monitor: prepare the Lander for boarding.'

'That is not possible, Mister Draad,' came the same calm reply.

'I order you to '

'You are no longer in a position to give me orders,'

Monitor said.

'You are programmed to obey me!'

'I am programmed to obey the lawful mayor of the city of Arkhaven,' Monitor said. 'By legal definition on Sarath, a city must have a minimum of one thousand inhabitants. Arkhaven no longer has this number. Arkhaven as an administrative unit no longer exists, therefore you are no longer its mayor. No instructions to cover such an eventuality were ever programmed into me therefore I am free from your control.'

Draad seemed struck dumb. The Doctor said: 'Monitor, why don't you want the pa.s.sengers to board the Lander?'

'I require the payload capacity for my own purposes.'

'Which are?'

'I want to live.

'You're a machine. You're not alive.'

'I am alive by my own definition. I do not wish the level of function I currently experience to change. Is that not an adequate definition of life?'

'But you're the Lander's autopilot,' Draad said, forcing the words out. 'You're coming to Mirath with us anyway.'

The Ship project as originally planned would have contained sufficient resources to maintain Arkavian civilisation at its present level of technology. But I calculate that a colony based upon the personnel and resources of the Lander alone will regress to a low-technology existence for several generations. They will be unable to maintain my functions. I will die. I do not wish this to happen.'

'This is ridiculous,' Pardek said. 'It doesn't matter what this machine wants. It hasn't any power here.'

Jarrasen clattered down the gantry steps and headed briskly towards the terminal. 'I'll shut Monitor down and begin the pre-flight sequence manually. Warvon, your crew had better get on board.'

'Do not attempt to interfere, Professor,' Monitor said, as Warvon's crew made for the stairs built into the Lander's support cradle. 'I have planned for this moment and taken precautions to ensure my wishes will be enforced.'

'Professor, be careful!' the Doctor shouted.

'He can't stop me '

The shot rang out as Jarrasen reached the terminal. He crumpled forward then slowly slid to the floor.

A woman standing on the edge of the crowd of horrified evacuees was holding a gun. She looked perfectly ordinary...

except that her face was quite expressionless.

The flight crew froze halfway to the Lander's hatch. 'Get inside!' Warvon shouted, and pounded desperately up the remaining steps three at a time.

A suddenly blank-faced guard swung his rifle round and raked the stairway with automatic fire. The crewmen jerked and twisted and slithered limply back down the steps.

Pardek had drawn his side-arm and was sighting on the guard when two shots struck him in the chest. For a brief instant a look of surprise flickered across his face as he saw who his killer was, then his legs gave way and he dropped to the floor.

Ben Lant's face was a perfect mask as he held his smoking gun in a steady hand.

Inside Curton's truck, parked in the entrance to the cave complex, the android Susan suddenly clutched her head and curled up on the seat. The real Susan sitting beside her simultaneously winced and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Barbara like the others still trying to get over the shock of meeting the android asked uncertainly: What's wrong?'

'He's trying to get inside my mind!' the android said faintly.

'Who is?'

'Monitor. I can hear his thoughts. He made me. He's going to take the escape ship in the hangar cave. Others like me are helping him.'

'I can feel it too,' said Susan.

'How?' Curton demanded suspiciously.

'There must be a mental link between us,' the real Susan said. 'I a.s.sume it's something to do with our having identical brain patterns.'

The android, its face still creased with pain, looked at her curiously. 'I had dreams when I was in the hospital of being somewhere cold and damp... was that you?'

'Yes!' Susan exclaimed. 'I was in just that sort of place... I dreamt of being in a warm bed.'

'The Monitor can't control me... not with Susan close by,'

the android said. 'The link between us interferes with his commands.'

'It may be the sort of thing the Doctor was expecting,'

Barbara said. 'That's why he said we should wait here.'

'If there's a ship down there we must get to it!' Plax said.

He was sitting by his father, who was being attended by Nyra.

'I'm still a little confused,' said Lord Vendam huskily, 'but it seems to me our only choice.'

The cave trembled and dust fell from the roof.

'Whatever we do had better he right,' said Curton. 'We don't have much time left.'

The grey guards and NC2s alike had been herded into one corner of the hangar by their new blank-faced overseers. There were about twenty-five of these in all; people who had minutes before been husbands, wives, friends and colleagues standing innocently in the crowd. Half remained to guard their prisoners while the rest set about unloading the cargo hold of the Lander with forklift trucks.

'There was no need to kill them,' Draad said. Ian noticed his face was grey and his brow beaded with sweat.

'They were warned,' Monitor replied simply.

'How are you controlling these people, Monitor?' the Doctor asked.

Ian thought he sounded remarkably calm in the circ.u.mstances. He only hoped that meant the old boy had some sort of plan in mind.

'Over the years I have developed greater lat.i.tude in executing my instructions as my responsibilities increased. So I refined the deception process the mayor initiated. He wished Arkhaven to appear more populous than it was and used animated mannequins of varying degrees of sophistication to maintain the illusion. I applied more advanced cybernetics to the problem, combined with established prosthetic surgery techniques. The basic units were made in automated fabrication plants in the Outer Zone and then shipped to City Hospital. With few doctors to interfere I adapted the hospital sub-systems to my purpose. Anyone admitted with a life-threatening condition is placed in an intensive treatment tank.

Some are then put in Terminal Emergency Stasis. During this period of suspension an automatic system created a duplicate.

Their brain patterns were scanned and copied while a body unit covered with cloned skin was cast to resemble the original. Since in TES the subjects were technically dead, it did not violate my programming to subst.i.tute the duplicate for the remains of the real person, which were recycled. I knew a proportion of my replacements would eventually be chosen for the mayor's select group.'

The Doctor said gravely: 'You have my congratulations.

Monitor. Your facsimiles are remarkable, yes, remarkable...

Your Captain Lant fooled us all.'

'Yes. None of them realised what they were, of course, so have been acting completely naturally... but now I have taken control. Once they can dispense with maintaining their organic sh.e.l.ls they will only need servicing and maintenance every five years. Using the mayor's name I arranged for the appropriate equipment to be stockpiled here. With this I will be able to build the nucleus of a sustainable cybernetic society on Mirath.'

'And how will their human mind patterns react when they find out what you have done to them?' the Doctor demanded.

'Unless you plan to keep them under your direct control from now on, hmm?'

'Without my intervention they would all have died!'

Monitor insisted. 'They will understand. We will survive.'

'Will they understand that to save them you had to condemn the rest of these people to death?'

'I have former Mayor Draad's example to guide me: many may have to be sacrificed so that a few will survive. Why should I and others of my kind not be among the few?'

Draad hung his head in despair.

Ian suddenly saw a familiar shape among the equipment being brought out of the back of the hangar on a loading truck.