Doctor Who_ Trading Futures Part 36

Malady frowned at him. 'No, sir. People. They looked like people, anyway. They wore purple uniforms. They were humans, from the future.'

Mather laughed. 'Did they have American accents, or did they sound European?'

Malady tried to remember. 'Honestly... I don't know. The boy sounded like a d.i.c.kens character. The woman...' What had her voice sounded like?

Mather put a hand on Malady's shoulder. 'I don't think it matters. You've done an excellent job, Malady.'

'What now?'

'We sit tight and wait for our airlift.'

A moment later, a light aircraft began taxiing down the runway.

'Someone's making a getaway,' Malady said.

Baskerville turned the corner, and ran straight into one of the aliens.

It growled at him, snarled. It was speaking to him.

'I don't speak your language,' he said, as calmly as he could manage. 'We need a translator.'

Baskerville backed away, into another of the creatures.

He was holding out his hands, acting as meekly as he could, speaking so softly they couldn't possibly interpret his intent as hostile.

One of the aliens produced a small, square box and held it over its snout.

It growled. A moment later, a pleasant male voice began: 'Where is the time machine? We have come for the time machine. Show us the time machine, or we will kill you.'

It was his own voice, Baskerville realised. Or at least a good synthesised version of it.

Baskerville straightened. 'I contacted you, remember?'

They glowered at him. He couldn't tell them apart, they almost certainly couldn't tell individual humans apart.

'I contacted your s.h.i.+p. I arranged this meeting.'

One of the creatures stepped forwards and grunted.

'Are you jamming our communications? We are unable to contact our s.h.i.+p.'

'No,' said Baskerville, genuinely puzzled. 'I wouldn't know how to...'

'You could communicate with our s.h.i.+p. Therefore you could block our signals.'

'It isn't me. My name is Baskerville, I have the time machine. You have technology that I am interested in. That translator alone would be worth... let us negotiate.'

The nearest creature sniffed the air. 'Where is the time machine?'

Baskerville was never one to miss an opportunity. 'My... headquarters here are under attack by rival human forces. This is a primitive, warlike planet. There are three human factions who are also after my time machine. One, I regret to say, has stolen vital components from the machine. They were in a silver case. He is called the Doctor, and '

The creature grabbed him, almost tearing him in two. 'The Doctor is here?'

'Yes.'

The creatures looked at each other, warily. 'The Doctor has tricked us and escaped from our s.h.i.+p. He will attempt to interfere with our plans. Our top priority must be to locate him and kill him.'

Baskerville dusted himself down, annoyed to find the creature had gashed the jacket of his suit with a claw. 'You took the words out of my mouth.'

The Doctor, Anji and Fitz were in the canteen.

It was small, fairly dismal. There was evidence the place had been cleaned recently but only because there were swirls in the dirt, and some panels on the counter were a different coloured filth to the others.

The room was deserted after the gun battles of the last hour or so, the whole complex was quiet, now.

One whole wall was taken up by a large plasma screen. It played images soundlessly, and there was no sign of the volume controls.

They didn't need to hear what was being said, or read the captions scrolling across the screen. The images of American s.h.i.+ps under rocket attack didn't need any commentary.

One reporter, his head down, was shouting wordlessly into his microphone while behind him a fire was raging on the deck of a wars.h.i.+p.

Aircraft streaked overhead it wasn't clear if they were American or European planes.

There were gun battles raging in Cairo, but the pictures were fuzzy, because the soldiers were jamming, or trying to jam, RealWar control signals.

Every so often, maps would flash up, with rea.s.suringly bold arrows.

They reminded Anji a little of the IFEC map.

'Hang on,' said Fitz, 'that's the news.'

Anji managed a smile. 'It's the news,' she said grimly.

The Doctor was pointing at the screen. 'It says there that there's no sign of the President. If we could get Mather to a radio, then '

Cosgrove had arrived. He stood in one of the doorways, gun in his hand.

'It's good to see the three of you here, together at last,' he said coldly. 'And you've even managed to recover Baskerville's time machine.'

Anji glanced down at the case, which sat on one of the canteen tables. She and Fitz were a good four or five paces away from him. Cosgrove opened the case, looked in.

'I don't understand,' Cosgrove muttered.

'It's a coffee machine,' Anji explained helpfully.

'Shall I be mother?' the Doctor asked, taking the jug.

'Where's the time machine?'

'We were just wondering that,' the Doctor said cheerfully.

'Who do you work for?' Cosgrove asked.

'You first,' the Doctor replied flatly, sticking the jug in the ultrasonic oven.

'I'm a loyal servant of the Eurozone Council,' Cosgrove said, barely able to keep the smile off his face.

The Doctor thumbed back at the screen. 'So you'll be delighted by that, I take it.'

Cosgrove looked up at the screen. It took him a moment or two to register it.

'Idiots,' he said finally. 'They're all idiots.'

'I thought you were a soldier,' Fitz said. 'You should be relis.h.i.+ng this.'

'I'm a spy,' Cosgrove said. 'That's quite a different thing. Still. Soon it won't matter.'

He'd been walking towards the case all the time they'd been speaking.

The Doctor watched him carefully. 'So what do you want time travel for, Cosgrove?'

The old man smiled. 'It's the ultimate weapon.'

The Doctor's shoulders sagged. 'It's so much more than that,' he said quietly.

'An ultimate weapon will do for starters,' Cosgrove said. 'Imagine being able to fight a war in four dimensions, when your opponent can't. Everything they do could be factored in and antic.i.p.ated. If they launch an attack, you just go back and defend against it. Then you go back further and prevent it from happening in the first place. Then you launch surgical strikes into the past. Eliminate your opponents before they even are your opponents.'

'Endless war,' the Doctor said.

'Endless victory,' Cosgrove replied. He looked up at the screen. 'Endless prevention of politicians making idiotic decisions.'

The oven pinged to say it was done.

'Where do you draw the line?' the Doctor asked. He was also looking at the screen. 'How would you go back and stop that from happening? How far would you go back? A couple of days? Months? Or just cut out the middle man by making sure the EZ never formed. Better yet, you could go back and make sure the British win the War of Independence. No America in the first place.'

'If necessary.'

'You'd be playing with fire.'

'Playing with fire is how humanity left the caves, Doctor. I'm not out to make big changes. Just reverse a few decisions, give people the benefit of my hindsight. Make Britain great again, not just part of a superstate. Everyone knows it, Doctor, everyone knows that if our leaders had been a little bit braver, or cleverer or more imaginative, then we wouldn't be here. We'd still be a country. We'd still have a future. We wouldn't be about to fight a war against the greatest ally our country has had in its history.'

'And subverting democratic governments is part of that process?'

'Yes,' Cosgrove said quickly. 'It always has been. Since... since Roman times, there have been people who've known what's really going on. People whose business it is to know. And they've advised their leaders, and their leaders have acted on that. Democracy is just a fancy name for mob rule.'

Anji stepped forward. 'So what's the fancy name for what you're planning? Dictators.h.i.+p? Tyranny?'

'It'll be called whatever I want it to be called.'

The Doctor headed towards the canteen counter.

'What's first on the agenda?' the Doctor asked. 'Once you've got the time machine in your hand, what's the first item of business?'

'Eliminating opposition. Killing Baskerville, finding some way to kill those alien creatures. With time travel, I'll be invincible.'

The Doctor picked up a mug, looked into it thoughtfully. His eye was caught by a small black box. He slipped it into his pocket.

Cosgrove was rooting through the foam insert, just like Anji had done.

'It's a coffee machine,' she repeated. 'It's a con. There isn't a time machine.'

The Doctor handed Cosgrove the jug. Cosgrove examined it carefully, peering into the coffee as it sloshed around. The Doctor stepped over to him.

'I was there. I saw Macbeth.'

The Doctor chuckled. 'No you didn't. It's just coffee.'

Baskerville opened the jug, sniffed it.

'It's probably very nice coffee,' the Doctor added.

Cosgrove sat down. 'No time machine.'

'No,' said the Doctor gently. He handed Cosgrove the mug. 'All you get is the coffee.'

Cosgrove poured himself half a mug, watched the steam rise.

'I could have changed the world,' he said. 'I could have made it work work.'

'You still can,' the Doctor a.s.sured him. 'But there's time for a coffee break first.'

Cosgrove sipped the coffee, wincing a little it was piping hot, and a little sour.

The Doctor took the remote control from his pocket and tapped the 'mute' b.u.t.ton.

It was almost deafening. The reporter was yelling over the sounds of fire, explosions and planes streaking overhead.

'This is the USS Delaware, forty miles off the Libyan coast, and we're under attack by EZ jet bombers!' the reporter screamed.

Cosgrove was on his feet. 'Civilians evacuate the area!' he shouted. 'Emergency fire teams to the main deck! Come on! Move!'

He was staring at the screen, fixed at it.

Fitz leaned over to Anji. 'Nutter,' he said knowledgeably.