Doctor Who_ Happiness Patrol Part 15

'Yes, I know, Priscilla,' said Daisy, trying to be patient.

'I was your squad leader. I am not a killjoy.'

Priscilla P enjoyed talking about her years at the sharp end. 'You pick up a lot on the streets,' she said. 'You can see it in their eyes feel their fear. They know you're watching them.'

The monitor on the one-armed bandit flickered into life and the familiar face of Helen A appeared.

Ignore it,' ordered Priscilla P. 'It's just a recording.'

But on the monitor Helen A took exception to this. 'It is not just a recording, Priscilla P,' she said sternly. 'I am transmitting live.' Priscilla P looked at the screen suspiciously, wondering if it was some kind of trick. 'Put down your gun and release Daisy K,' said the image of Helen A.

'But she's a killjoy,' protested Priscilla. 'I arrested her myself.'

'I'm losing my patience,' said Helen A testily. 'Release Daisy K. I need her at the palace.'

Priscilla P finally capitulated. 'What shall I do, ma'am?'

she asked the one-armed bandit.

'You're in the waiting zone,' said Helen A slowly and deliberately, as if explaining something to a child, 'so wait.'

And with that the screen went blank.

Priscilla P stared long and hard at Daisy K before she eventually lowered her gun. She snapped it open and began to take it apart. She didn't like being told to stay in the waiting zone, not when there were killjoys on the loose, but at least her gun needed an overhaul.

Daisy K took longer than necessary to get back to the palace. She knew that Helen A would want her version of events in Forum Square and needed time to work out her story.

She was further unnerved by Helen A's small-talk as they waited for tea to arrive. The weather, the economy, even the state of Alphan stumpball a combination of cricket and baseball whose rules Daisy K had never mastered. Only when the tea was before them, and Helen A was pouring it into two cups, did she raise the question of the night's events. But things had moved on. Helen A had received alarming reports from the outlying areas of Terra Alpha. So when she finally turned her attention to the crisis, her first question took Daisy K completely by surprise.

'Tell me, Daisy K,' she said pleasantly. 'when the Happiness Patrol got together with the drones and decided to form a wrecking gang to dismantle the sugar factories, what were you doing at the time? Just interested,' she smiled.

This development was news to Daisy K, but she thought better of betraying any surprise to Helen A. 'I was under armed guard,' she said.

'Priscilla P?'

'Yes.'

'Ah.' Helen A offered Daisy K a biscuit. 'It's just that I thought you were equipped with a high-velocity fun gun, that's all.'

Daisy K knew she would have to tell Helen the truth. 'It was knocked out of my hands by one of the prisoners in Forum Square.'

'One of the prisoners?' asked Helen A. She wanted to hear the girl's name.

'Ace Sigma,' said Daisy K.

'Ace Sigma. I wondered when she would turn up to haunt me again.' She glanced up at Daisy. 'Not that I mind, you understand.'

'Of course not,' said Daisy K, hastily.

'A charming girl in so many ways,' said Helen A wistfully. She poured Daisy K another cup of tea. She put the teapot down and was lost in thought for several moments. Daisy remained silent. After a while Helen A jumped up and paced briskly round the room, suddenly more businesslike than before.

'So,' said Helen A as she walked, 'what are we left with after this little local difficulty in Forum Square? Remind me.'

Daisy K quickly a.s.similated the new information she had just learnt. 'A posse heading out to the sugar factories, and the Doctor and his gang roaming the city.'

'Well,' said Helen brightly, 'nothing insoluble there.

The factories are heavily defended and we'll soon track down the Doctor.'

'He may have gone down into the pipes,' warned Daisy K.

But this news seemed to cheer Helen. 'Excellent,' she said. 'Then we'll leave Fifi to deal with him.'

The Doctor was striding along the pipes at the head of his party, attempting to lead them away from Fifi, but they could still hear her eerie moans. The pipes, however, distorted the sound and there was no way of telling how near she was. At one moment the cry would seem so distant they could hardly make it out; at the next it would sound as if she were waiting round the next twist in the pipe. The only thing of which they could be certain was that she hadn't lost the trail.

They were now making their way through a low-hanging canopy of sugar stalact.i.tes. The Pipe People, suffering from tiredness and hunger, paused every few moments to eat to restore their strength. As the Doctor ducked under a particularly large stalact.i.te his umbrella accidentally caught the end of it, and gave out a long, ringing note.

'What was that?' asked Ace.

'Sounded like an A-flat,' said Earl, who had nearly perfect pitch.

The Doctor turned to them and pressed his finger to his lips. 'Quiet!' he whispered. He stopped and studied the ma.s.s of stalact.i.ties hanging over their heads.

'Why are we whispering?' whispered Susan Q.

'I'll tell her,' said Earl, who remembered the Doctor's explanation when he had asked the same question.

'Crystallized syrup,' he told Susan Q. 'It becomes unstable as it ages.'

Ace thought about this. 'So a loud noise could set off a cave-in,' she said with relish.

'Not quite, Ace,' said the Doctor. 'It has to be the right noise.' But Ace had given him an idea.

A hundred yards behind them, crouching in the shadows, Fifi was watching their deliberations with interest. Her eyes glowed as she crawled towards them.

The Doctor, however, knew that Fifi would be watching them, and was setting a trap using himself and the others as bait. They waited in silence, as Fifi edged towards them, all of her senses working to the full. As she moved, one of the horns on her head clipped off the end of one of the stalact.i.tes, which rattled as it landed on the floor of the pipe. It was the signal the Doctor had been waiting for. He held up his umbrella and tapped the sugar crystal, which once again produced the ringing sound.

'Crucial,' said Ace.

'Yes,' said the Doctor grimly. 'It is crucial. Now get back, Ace wait at the end of the pipe.' He directed her away from the ma.s.s of stalact.i.tes.

'Oh, come on Doctor,' complained Ace.

But the Doctor was firm. 'And take Susan Q and the Pipe People with you.' Ace didn't move. 'Now!' said the Doctor, forgetting to whisper.

Ace grudgingly moved off down the pipe, shepherding the others. The Doctor turned to Earl. 'Give me an A-flat,'

he said.

Earl didn't understand. 'Eh?'

No,' said the Doctor. 'A-flat.'

'Why?'

The Doctor raised his eyes heavenwards. Why, at moments of crisis, did people always want explanations.

Very well, he thought, if that's what Earl wanted, that's what he would get.

'Resonance, Earl,' he said. 'Sympathetic vibration.' Earl looked blank. 'Aren't you familiar with Doctor John Wallace's paper to the Royal Society in 1677?' Earl nodded less than convincingly. The Doctor had had enough of this. 'Play, Earl!' he commanded.

The Doctor struck the crystal again and Earl produced the harmonica and played an A-flat. The discordant sound told them that Earl's note was a semi-tone too low. 'Wrong note,' said the Doctor. As he spoke a third note joined the chord that of Fifi's howl. The Doctor peered down the pipe. He could just make out the sleek outline of Fifi as she stealthily approached them, preparing to pounce.

'Give me an A!' he ordered Earl, and he struck the crystal again. Earl changed the position of his hands and the note on the harmonica crept up until it blended with the noise coming from the crystal. But now, out of the corner of his eye, Earl had seen Fifi. He stopped playing.

'Isn't this dangerous?' he said.

'Of course it is,' said the Doctor. 'Keep playing.'

Earl put the harmonica back to his mouth and started playing again. The Doctor tapped the crystal once more.

Fifi threw back her head and howled. But then, far above them, they heard a soft rumble, getting louder and louder, as the vibrations of the two notes started to work. The walls started shaking as the rumbling sound intensified.

The Doctor grabbed Earl and they both fled towards Ace and the Pipe People and safety.

Fifi chose this as the moment for her kill. She hurled herself towards them, baring her fangs and snarling. But she was too late. She was under the ma.s.s of stalact.i.tes just as the first one fell into the pipe. Within seconds she was buried, as one stalact.i.te after another pounded down on top of her.

The Doctor, now reunited with the others, s.h.i.+elded his eyes from the dust blown up by the cave-in. They listened to Fifi's piteous cries getting softer and softer, until they finally stopped altogether.

Far away, someone else heard the cave-in. Joseph C was still walking round the execution yard, carrying Fifi's leash and waiting for her return. He was humming one of Helen A's favourite tunes to himself. When he heard the strange subterranean rumbling he stopped for a moment and listened. After a while, when things were quiet again, he continued his stroll and picked up his humming from where he had left off.

When the Doctor was satisfied that the avalanche was well and truly over, he a.s.sembled his bedraggled party and told them his plans. He now knew that his task was to dismantle the machinery of Helen A's regime, to remove the teeth from the monster. He gave Earl and Susan Q clear instructions on how to find the waiting zone and Priscilla P, and told them what to do when they arrived. In the meantime, he would take Ace back to the Kandy Kitchen. He was relying on the expertise of the Pipe People to guide him there.

They trudged down the pipe away from the sugary rubble. At the next manhole cover Earl and Susan Q were hoisted up into the street above and disappeared into the darkness. The Doctor's group, led by Wulfric, continued along the pipe. If their arrival in the Kandy Kitchen was to contain any element of surprise, they had to travel there underground.

Earl was impressed by the clarity of the Doctor's mental map of the city of Terra Alpha. His instructions had taken them along a series of deserted side-streets, well away from the main thoroughfares permanently monitored by the Happiness Patrol, and soon they had spotted Priscilla P, pacing back and forth in the waiting zone.

They watched her from the cover of a shop doorway.

Priscilla P took ten paces towards them, then turned her back on them and took ten paces away. They watched her approach... eight, nine, ten. 'Now!' whispered Earl.

As soon as Priscilla turned her back on them again Susan Q sprinted out. Earl counted to thirty inside his head. When he knew that Susan Q would be in position, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out his harmonica.

One of the few comforts provided for the waiting zone guard was an archaic wireless, permanently tuned in to Helen A's light music channel. Now that Priscilla P had overhauled and cleaned her gun twice the only thing left for her to do, until Helen A summoned her for duty, was to listen to the music, which she enjoyed. But suddenly even that pleasure turned sour. The pleasant, uplifting music which the station always played had changed to the baleful, mournful sound of a single harmonica, bending the sad notes as she listened. She was seduced for a moment, but then came to her senses and ran over to the wireless to switch it off.

The sad music played on.

The hairs on the back of Priscilla P's neck stood on end as she smelt danger. She realized that the music was not coming from the wireless but from a real instrument. She listened carefully, and tried to work out where the killjoy musician was hidden. The music seemed to be coming from nearby, specifically from the shop doorway just outside the waiting zone. Her finger curled round the trigger of her gun as she moved quietly towards the doorway. But Susan Q was already behind her. In one movement, she slipped a knotted scarf over Priscilla P's head and pulled hard.

13.

Helen A and Daisy K had finished their tea party and moved through into the control room of the Happiness Patrol's headquarters, from which they could more easily follow the development of events on the planet. They had already heard several reports of rioting and destruction in the outlying areas of the planet, as thousands of killjoys came out of hiding to join the army of drones and rebellious Happiness Patrol guards.

The soft muzak was doing nothing to calm the nerves of Daisy, who was pacing round the room, pounding her fist into her open hand. Helen A, however, sitting in a comfortable chair away from the control desk, seemed to be completely unruffled by what was happening. She contemplated Daisy pacing back and forth. 'You seem agitated, Daisy K.'

Helen A's coolness only added to Daisy K's nerves. 'It's crumbling around us, isn't it?' she snapped. Why couldn't Helen A realize the seriousness of the situation, she thought angrily to herself.

'Not unhappy about something, I hope?' asked Helen A solicitously.

Daisy K quickly reminded her self that on no account must she seem depressed. 'No,' she said, forcing a smile.

'Good,' said Helen A, relaxing again. 'Because when the Doctor is picked up and brought in I don't want there to be anything for him to smile about.'

The muzak gave way to yet another newscast.

'Happiness will prevail,' said the newscaster.

'Get on with it,' said Daisy K, but not loudly enough for Helen A to hear.

The newscaster continued. 'We have just heard that the Happiness Patrol Section guarding the Nirvana sugar beet works in sector six has joined the growing band of vigilantes in the destruction of the factory. No news yet of the whereabouts of the Doctor.' He signed off and the muzak began again. Daisy K sat at the controls and drummed her fingers on the desk.

'It's just one factory, Daisy K,' said Helen calmly. 'I have built over a thousand.'

'And what about reports of riots and public unhappiness,' asked Daisy K, trying to sound as reasonable as possible.

'Simple,' smiled Helen. 'We need someone who knows the streets like the back of her hand, someone who is a good fighter, and above all, someone who is fiercely loyal.'

She paused before saying, 'Priscilla P, perhaps.'

Daisy K hadn't forgotten her treatment at the hands of Priscilla P. 'She's a fanatic,' she said.

But Helen A would not be overruled. 'That's how I like them' she said. 'Get me the waiting zone.'

Daisy K pressed a b.u.t.ton on the console, and a picture of the waiting zone flickered on to the monitor before them.