Doctor Who_ The Turing Test Part 6

My face must have shown that this was the truth, because Greene laughed.

'Well, I don't, and I don't think you should. I enjoy this this is the truth. Deception. Muckery. It's life, Alan.'

Which was what the Doctor had said 'welcome to the real world' but it hadn't been the same. Coming from him it had sounded like a genuine welcome: from Greene it sounded like a warning, posted at the gates of h.e.l.l itself. I began to feel less angry at his insults, and more sorry for him.

'But ' He glanced at the girl, who had just been joined by a chunky blond Marine. He shrugged, looked back at me, his face suddenly savage with anger. 'There aren't any limits to it, Alan,' he said. 'I thought there'd be some limits that just out of sheer self-interest the killing would stop somewhere but you only have to look at history.'

His pain was real, but the melodrama he was putting on top of it irritated me. It wasn't necessary 'What are you talking about?' I asked him.

'Jews,' he said. He lowered his voice. 'The Germans are systematically killing millions of Jews. Not thousands: millions. They're s.h.i.+pping them to camps on trains and ga.s.sing them. They want to kill all the Jews in Europe before the war is over.'

It was stomach-turning news, though not a total surprise there had been rumours.

Before I could recover enough to comment, Greene went on: 'The people we're trying to catch are on the run from these death camps. We think they're guards trying to get away before the Russians get to them, or we do. They will know where the camps are, where the Jews are being taken. We need to get to them, interrogate them if we can find out where these death camps are we can bomb them. Or bomb the supply lines, perhaps.' He looked at the ground. 'Not that it will do any good. The stain on the soul of man is there, and it will never go away.'

I tried to relate this information to the content of the message the Doctor and I had decoded, and failed.

Greene was drifting away: 'Conrad was right. "The horror, the horror..." You know, I never thought it was that bad.'

I decided it was time to bring him back from the field of literary horror to the oft-mentioned real world. 'Where are they going?'

Greene looked at me with ill-concealed distaste. 'They're trying to get away to South America, we think. The middlemen might be Arabs or Italians.'

I stared at him, trying to take it all in. 'And the message? Where does that come in?'

'We're not sure. There's quite a lot more of it we need that decoded too. But Elgar doesn't want to use the Doctor. Can you do it on your own?'

'No,' I said simply.

'You're not saying that just to keep him in a job?'

'Hardly,' I said. 'And why is Elgar suddenly so suspicious? What about the business with the woman in the cafe can we trust him at all? I'd rather trust the Doctor, if I had the choice.'

Greene gave me an odd look. 'You would,' he said, with an emphasis on the 'you'. 'I don't trust either of them, but not for the reasons you think.' He looked around the bar, and I was reminded of the Doctor looking around his room on the night we had arrived in Paris. But the curiosity was fiercer, the gaze that of a trapped animal. 'Fallen angels,' he muttered.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Oh, you don't understand anything,' he said impatiently.

I was a bit tired of being told this by people who were unwilling to explain anything to me. 'Try telling me more about it, then,' I suggested.

But Greene just sat there sulkily and ordered another drink one for me as well, though I hadn't finished the first.

'We have to be logical about this,' I said. 'The enormity of the crime being committed by the n.a.z.is doesn't mean that the senders of the message are necessarily guards at these camps. Why would they choose such a complicated means of communicating with their rescuers? And there's nothing in the message which suggests they're n.a.z.is. In fact '

I had to stop then: Greene was staring at me, his face screwed up with such terrible anger that I couldn't go on speaking.

'You really don't grasp the truth, do you? I've just told you that tens of thousands of Jews are being ga.s.sed every week and you're presenting me with a problem in logic. You don't b.l.o.o.d.y care, do you? You're just not a proper human being, Alan. You don't have the right responses.'

I was startled and rather frightened by this attack. I have heard psychologists talk of 'redirecting anger' and I think this must have been what Greene was doing, since I had done nothing to offend him, except disagree on a point of logic. I decided not to argue: it was pointless in this situation. I wanted to walk out, but I still needed some answers from Greene about the message the Doctor was sending.

'What proof do we have that they are these killers?'

'Elgar's sources,' said Greene. 'German underground. There is is one, you know. I can't say more don't know more, actually.' one, you know. I can't say more don't know more, actually.'

'And the woman who wanted to kill the Doctor?'

'They thought he was a German agent. We've straightened them out on that.'

I thought about it. Logically, it fitted. But I was unhappy about it. The strangeness of that interview in the cafe surely it wasn't all explained so simply.

I needed to talk to the Doctor. To get rid of Greene, I said, 'Yes, I suppose that makes sense.'

'You suppose? The Great Logical Mind, and you just suppose? It makes sense, Alan. It's what you're here to do.'

I stood up. 'I'll get on with it, then.'

'You do that.' Greene turned to his drink. I began to walk away. 'Oh, and Alan '

I looked back.

'I hope you learn to be a human being some time.'

I walked away, quite angry with him. He seemed to think that, because I could think logically about what I had told him, I had no heart. Even if it had been true, it wouldn't have made me worthy of his contempt and it wasn't true: the story of the deaths of the Jews had shaken me up. As I left the bar, I found myself looking at the young woman Greene had been looking at earlier. She had straight black hair and a blue dress, and was quite beautiful almost as beautiful as her companion, the chunky blond Marine. I remember them sitting on their stools, G.o.dlike in their youth, their faces turned to each other with that radiance of young l.u.s.t.

Yet I could see the skeletons beneath their clothes.

When I got back to the room, the Doctor handed me a sheaf of papers covered with scribbled numbers.

'All done,' he said. 'Tell them to send it tonight.'

'I ought to check it over first,' I said, 'merely as a formality.'

I meant exactly that, but the Doctor gave me a sharp glance and I knew immediately that he had done something altered the message in some way, added a warning, perhaps.

I said nothing, merely repeated what Greene had told me about the death camps and the escaping guards.

The Doctor looked solemn. 'I agree, what's happening is appalling beyond human measure. But your first instinct was right these people are nothing to do with it. I don't know why Greene thinks they are. Is it Elgar?'

I didn't say anything, unsure as to whether I should reveal intelligence information.

'It is Elgar, then,' said the Doctor, sparing me the need for any prevarication. 'Why doesn't that surprise me?' He looked up at me. 'It's nonsense, Man. Plausible and emotive nonsense the best sort. But it's not true. There's something else going on, and I know it, and Elgar knows it too. It's nothing to do with the Jews.'

I looked down at my shoes, rather scuffed and dirty brown as usual against the handsome plush of the hotel carpet. I was thinking. For all that I didn't like Greene, he was an official of the British government; so was Elgar. The Doctor had told me he wasn't even a British national. We were fighting a war, and terrible things were happening. Could I allow my irrational emotional trust for the Doctor to override my loyalty and duty to my country?

I'm not saying I thought he was a German agent. I would never have thought that. I just wasn't sure that it was so simple any more the Doctor, eccentric memory-less genius code-breaker, against the rest of the world, slower and less imaginative. Maybe he was simply wrong. As I have learned to my cost, being clever about some things doesn't make you right about everything all the time.

'Let me check this code,' I muttered.

And he knew, of course. He knew that I didn't trust him any more.

The message was far longer than the one that Elgar had asked the Doctor to send. I had no way of telling what the additional material meant the words were untranslatable using the table we had but it had a structure that was familiar from other indecipherable material in the original message. I couldn't believe it was just an identifying code word it was too long, too complex.

Now I faced a real dilemma. I paced the room, muttering to myself, and quickly worked out that I had three choices.

First, I could report the Doctor to Greene and Elgar. It was certainly what I should do it was clear that he was behaving in an underhand way, using his unique skills to subvert Elgar's intentions. But Elgar's confederate had threatened to kill the Doctor, and, for all Greene's pooh-poohing of that idea, I couldn't entirely forget the possibility.

My second choice was to go to the Doctor, and ask him straight out what he was doing. But I wasn't sure I trusted him him either, not any more. either, not any more.

My third choice was to try to decode the Doctor's additional message. This was likely to be difficult I didn't know how he'd encoded it, since he could have no direct knowledge of the 'language' being used by the code makers but it was a reasonable a.s.sumption that he was guessing at meanings from the gaps in the codes, working on some syllabic pattern from the translation table. If he'd encoded it, I had a chance of breaking that code. I at least knew something of his methods.

This seemed the easiest option, the least th.o.r.n.y, the least likely to end in a misery of conflict and betrayal. It depended only on myself and my own intellect. So I went ahead with it.

Whilst I thus avoided any human conflict, someone died.

It was already light when it happened I had been working all night at the decoding, without much success.

I felt the floor shudder, and heard the screams at once incredibly high-pitched, more like a stuck pig than a human being. I heard a Frenchman shouting. An alarm bell began to ring.

I have to say I panicked for a moment. My first concern was not my own safety, but that of the precious code sheets. If there was a fire, they would be destroyed. I gathered them up from the desk where I was working, and the various piles on the floor, and all the while the screams went on, louder and louder. Then something crashed against the wall with enough force to make the room shake.

Outside I could hear the Doctor shouting, 'Help me with the door! For pity's sake, someone help me!'

I dropped the papers and ran outside. There was a smell of burning in the pa.s.sage. The screams were louder, more hideous, quite inhuman. They were coming from the gold-andwhite-painted door of the honeymoon suite.

'Elgar!' I shouted.

The Doctor was tugging at the door, but it wouldn't budge. I joined him, but it was no use.

'It's locked from the inside,' I said.

An American voice spoke from behind us. 'Stand back, sir.'

It was the young Marine who had been with the girl in the bar earlier. He had a pistol in his hand.

The Doctor and I shuffled aside. The Marine put the pistol near the lock and fired once. Splinters flew. He pulled at the door, but it still wouldn't open.

He flung himself against the recalcitrant wood, shouting, 'd.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n!' It bowed and shuddered, but didn't give way.

'The window!' shouted the Doctor. 'We can get in through the window!'

He made his way to my door, presumably to get to my window and thus to that of Elgar's office, but he couldn't get in there because I had locked it, because of the code sheets. The Marine was taking another pot shot at the lock. I started to fumble in my pockets for my keys, but in my panic couldn't find them. If it hadn't been for the terrible screams, the scene would have been funny.

Then, quite suddenly, the screaming stopped. There was an enormous sighing sound, like a gust of wind in a very big tree, and the door fell open inwards.

'Look out!' the Doctor shouted, rather unnecessarily, since we all flung ourselves to the floor. Air rushed past us, into the room, not out of it.

I looked up as soon as I dared, and saw the Doctor advancing into the room.

'Be careful, sir,' called the Marine. 'It's gonna be hot in there.'

The Doctor took no notice. The inside of the room was a curious sight: it was whited out, as if it had been snowing inside. I could hear the Doctor's shoes crunching, as if on snow. There was a smell of smoke, but no thick clouds of it. The walls were bare brick, with only charred remnants of the decorations, but only a slight warmth emanated from the doorway.

Cautiously, I followed the Doctor.

'Excuse me, sir.' The Marine. 'I feel we should seal off this room right now, and it might be safer if we evacuate the hotel. If you could both leave now '

I was ready to object, and was certainly expecting the Doctor to do so, but he turned round and said, 'Sorry, yes, I've seen all I need to see.'

There was a peculiar aspect to his face. His expression was very strange, almost hunted, as if he had just come face to face with a fearsome guilt. I don't think the Marine noticed, preoccupied as he was with organising the evacuation.

After a moment I realised that it wasn't just the Doctor's expression that was strange: there was a white ring of ash around his lips, like the face paint of a clown. It looked as if he had been kissing the fire.

It was then that I put together three facts. One, the Doctor had been the first on the scene, though he was three doors away and I was next door. Two, he was fully dressed, though it was very early and he had no reason to have been up all night. Three, he had gone into the room first, and he had done something that had got the ash on to his face.

Something that could have involved concealing the evidence.

The woman had told Elgar he may have to kill the Doctor. It occurred to me now that the Doctor may have decided to do the killing first. The thought made me feel sick, but logic compelled me to accept that it was possible.

Chapter Eight.

It was my fault. I lost the Doctor.

It was because I insisted on going back into my room for the precious code sheets, over the objections of the officious Marine. The code seemed even more important now, with my increasing doubts regarding the Doctor. And the evacuation was silly, really: there was obviously no fire any more, and no real danger. We all stood around outside for about half an hour some of us wrapped in dressing gowns or even blankets until the Americans decided to let us back in. I looked around for the Doctor outside, but couldn't see him. Carrying the code doc.u.ments as I was, I didn't want to risk wandering around.

When they let us back in, I discovered that I had been moved: the entire floor where the fire had occurred was closed off. Someone had transferred my clothes and typewriter to an attic room, with a long view of Paris streets and rooftops. The room was cold and small but adequate for me I've never been that fussy about creature comforts. Not knowing what else to do, I resumed my work on the Doctor's message, trying to make sense of his additions.

At about eleven o'clock there was a knock on my door. To my astonishment, it was Colonel Elgar.

'I thought you were dead!'

'So did a lot of people,' said Elgar briskly. 'Fortunately, I was out. But one of my colleagues is a casualty and a woman, too. I believe we both know who is likely to be responsible.'

Despite my own doubts, I felt compelled to defend the Doctor. 'I don't think so. The Doctor is a man of peace.'

'Oh, come on, now. No one's a "man of peace" in the middle of a war. Anyway your personal feelings are neither here nor there. I've come to give you your orders if you see the Doctor, I want you to turn him in. And don't try to do it yourself he's dangerous. Report his location. We'll do the rest.'