Khnu em Llodis had been a genius. Well, that’s what she told everyone. And from what the Doctor gathered, it sounded like pretty much everyone believed her.
‘One of our greatest roboticists,’ Li’ian said as the Doctor scanned the scrolling display in front of him.
She’d taken him to the ship’s ‘library’ (little more than a storeroom with some rickety shelves and a desk) and shown him dozens of documents and transcripts relating to Khnu, stretching over more than a decade, when the scientist had been at her height.
‘So what went wrong?’
He spun in his seat to face Li’ian. She shrugged.
‘Some say she just went mad.’
‘Happens a lot,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Scientists. Always going mad. Especially the top-class ones.’ He paused and looked up at Li’ian. ‘You never hear of the second-rate ones going mad, though, do you? Always the geniuses. Funny, that.’
‘Some say she discovered a truth that threatened the entire galaxy.’
‘That’ll be what she meant by this bit, then,’ he said, turning back to the display and reading aloud. ‘“But there is a dark heart to our shining empire, a dark heart that, until now, we have chosen to ignore. A dark heart that, if not addressed, will rise up and destroy all that we have built.”’ He spun back to face Li’ian. ‘What d’you reckon she meant by that?’
Li’ian nodded thoughtfully and folded her hands on her lap. ‘Everyone assumed that she was talking about machine intelligences,’ she said simply. ‘That speech was the last one she ever gave. En route back to her own planet, after the conference, her ship was destroyed.’
‘Mysteriously destroyed,’ corrected the Doctor, pointing to the screen.
‘Mysteriously destroyed,’ agreed Li’ian. ‘There were rumours that she was killed because she was speaking the truth.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s a very flexible thing, the truth, isn’t it?’
‘Not for her,’ Li’ian said. ‘For Khnu, it was always very clear. Very black and white.’
The Doctor took a deep breath.
‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Enough of the official documents. What do you think?’
‘Me?’ Li’ian seemed surprised.
‘You’re aboard a ship, tracking people who – I assume – think like Khnu did. This Cult of Shining Darkness. They’ve stolen a whopping great lump of technology from an art gallery, and now they’ve stopped off at a planet that doesn’t seem to have much more going for it than Lanzarote. And you’re still following them. You must have some idea of what they’re doing.’
Li’ian took a breath and glanced around the empty library room as if she thought she might be being overheard.
‘Boonie will probably have me raked over the coals for this,’ she said eventually, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘But we think they’re collecting the parts of something. Some sort of device or maybe some sort of map.’
‘Really?’ The Doctor was all ears.
‘When Khnu was killed – when she died, whatever – her little band of followers went quiet for two years. Most of them just disappeared. Possibly killed by whoever killed Khnu. But then rumours began to circulate that she’d been working on something before her death – something connected with her research field.’
‘Robotics?’
‘Robotics. Despite being a genius in artificial intelligence, Khnu refused to believe that machine intelligences, mechanicals, whatever you want to call them, were truly intelligent. Her speech, thinly veiled as it was, was aimed at those who considered machines intelligences to be on a par with organic ones. She believed that they simply mimicked intelligence, and that the organic races of the galaxy had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. It’s reported that she foresaw a time when the galaxy’s machine races would rise up against the organics and slaughter us all.’
‘That’s what she meant by “the darkness”?’
‘That’s what they say. And the rumours are that these things they’re collecting have something to do with it.’
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Interesting.’ He paused and stared thoughtfully into the distance. ‘So these artefacts – part of a device, or a locator or something maybe? Like one of those partwork magazines: “Builds week by week into the ultimate robot defence”? How many instalments are we talking? A little one like Delia’s How To Boil Water or a whopper like The Star Trek Files?’
‘Sorry?’
The Doctor grinned.
‘D’you reckon the cultists have got all the bits already, or are they going to be searching for ever?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, Doctor. All we know – all we believe,’ Li’ian corrected herself, ‘is that when Khnu died, the Cult went into a panic and scattered the pieces of the thing around the galaxy, scared that robot sympathisers would find them and destroy them.’
‘Ahhh…’ The Doctor smiled. ‘That’s why you didn’t want to go barging in, isn’t it? You lot want them to find all the bits, put it together, and then you can go barging in and collect the whole set, ringbinders and all!’
‘Ringbinders?’
He waved his hand.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He leaped out of his seat suddenly, making Li’ian flinch. ‘Right! Let’s get this party started!’
And before Li’ian could stop him he was halfway to the door.
* * *
‘Thanks for not telling me to bring a cardy,’ Donna muttered as the rock above them swung back into place, cutting out not only the drizzling sand and the gusting wind but the searing heat of the red sun. It suddenly felt cold and clammy. Mesanth produced a torch from his shoulder belt and flicked it on, illuminating broad, sand-silted steps leading down into the Stygian darkness.
‘You humans are remarkably susceptible to changes in environmental temperature, aren’t you?’ he said over his shoulder as he began the descent.
‘Some humans,’ grunted Ogmunee from behind Donna.
‘At least some of us have the decency not to go around half-naked,’ muttered Donna. ‘Anyway, what’s this segment thing look like?’
‘You’ve already seen the second one – the artefact from the gallery.’
‘Oh, that! Right. So we’re looking for another one of those, are we? Shouldn’t be hard to spot. And why’s it here?’
‘Safekeeping,’ said Mesanth cryptically, and then fell into silence as, out of the darkness beneath them, came a hideous roar that echoed on and on and on.
Donna took a deep breath. ‘That sounds very safe.’
‘You said this place smells of home,’ Donna whispered as they descended. ‘Where’s that, then?’
‘It’s called Lota. Lovely planet – dry, dusty.’ Mesanth gave a little sigh.
‘So how come you got mixed up with Garaman?’
‘I worked with one of his associates a few years ago. She … introduced me to Garaman and Ogmunee here and the others. She offered me a job.’
‘Headhunted, eh? Better than temping, I bet. What kind of work?’
‘Are you always this full of questions?’ grunted Ogmunee from behind her.
‘Only when no one’s bothering to give me answers, yes. Why? Got a problem with that? Something to hide, maybe?’
‘Stop it!’ warbled Mesanth.
‘You don’t like conflict, do you?’ asked Donna as the stairs began to curve around to the right.
‘The Lotapareen have evolved from highly communal herbivorous ancestors: violence and conflict are alien to us.’
‘Must make all this adventuring a bit of a nightmare.’
‘Mesanth knows what has to be done,’ came Ogmunee’s voice again.
‘And what is that, exactly?’
No one answered her. Abruptly, the steps ended and Mesanth’s torch beam revealed that they were in some sort of antechamber, blank stone surrounding them. As the ellipse of light from the torch flitted about the walls, Donna caught sight of something.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, taking the torch from him.
Most of the wall was taken up with a primitive, scribbled drawing of a huge, tentacled mass with a single, monstrous eye and a slavering mouth. And, to give some sense of scale, four of its tentacles held what looked like squat little stick figures. One of them was being thrust into the toothy mouth.
‘Tell me that this isn’t one of those “Beware of the dog” signs,’ she said.
‘The Jaftee probably worship this creature as a god,’ said Mesanth with a vague air of fascination.
‘The Jaftee?’
‘The inhabitants of Karris. Primitive ape-like creatures. No offence,’ he added with a sidelong glance at Donna.
‘None taken – I think.’
‘We don’t anticipate any problems with the Jaftee,’ Ogmunee said. ‘We seeded their culture years ago. They should see us as even greater gods than this thing.’
‘So,’ said Donna, handing Mesanth his torch. ‘Not too bright, then, these Jaftee.’
‘Simple creatures,’ agreed Mesanth, scanning the wall in front of them and running his two spare hands over its surface. ‘Ah!’
At this exclamation, there was a dull clunk and the three-legged creature stepped back. A deep, teeth-aching grinding noise started up and the chamber around them began to vibrate. Little whorls of sand drifted down in the torch’s path as a segment of the wall swung back and away.
‘So why the robot?’ she asked Mesanth as they set off deeper into the bowels of the planet. ‘You said you had these Jaftee people trained to think you’re gods.’
‘Insurance,’ said Mesanth simply, and Donna saw his huge eyes dart briefly to the wall painting of the tentacled thing. If the little stick figures being crammed into its dribbling mouth were even vaguely human-sized, she wasn’t sure that a robot – even one as strong and silent as the one they’d brought along – would be enough to fight it off.
‘I don’t know what you did to the sensors, Doctor, but we’ve actually managed to pick up a signal from beneath Karris’s surface.’
Kellique smiled appreciatively as the Doctor and Li’ian entered the control room. Boonie was nowhere to be seen.
‘Marvellous! Picked up what?’
Kellique gestured for him to come and look.
‘Hmmm…’ said the Doctor thoughtfully. ‘If I didn’t know any better – and obviously I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be saying this – I’d swear that that’s a similar energy profile to the segment that they stole from the art gallery. And this other signal – here – looks like the same transmat energy signature that whisked Donna and the segment up to the Cult’s ship.’
Kellique nodded – and did a double-take, before throwing a sharp look at Li’ian. The Doctor noticed and gave a gentle shrug.
‘Li’ian here told me all about Khnu and her little band of followers.’
‘Oh…’ said Kellique, looking a little worried. ‘Boonie’s going to be pleased about that.’
‘Pleased about what?’
They all turned at the sound of Boonie’s voice: he stood in the doorway, his face hard and angry.
‘I told him about Khnu and about what we think the Cult are up to.’
‘You did what?!’ exploded Boonie.
‘Oh, don’t blame Li’ian—’ began the Doctor, but Boonie cut him off with a wave of the hand.
‘Boonie!’ snapped Kellique. ‘We were the ones that brought him on board, remember? And his modifications to our sensors are amazing: come here and look. We’ve picked up similar readings to those from the second segment from the gallery.’
Boonie was speechless; and, although he glared at the Doctor, he said nothing and went to check the readings.
‘So this is the third part?’ the Doctor said. ‘Still no idea how many of them there are? I mean, I know I’ve got a fairly long lifespan, but I wouldn’t want to think I’ll be chasing around the universe for the next forty years, looking for the other bits.’
‘Yes,’ said Kellique, keeping an eye on Boonie for his reaction, ‘we think this is the third one. The second one was in the gallery and the first was hidden in a forest on Chao.’
Boonie just glared.
‘Hmmm,’ the Doctor mused. ‘Shame I didn’t get a chance to have a proper look at the second one. I might have been able to work out exactly what the finished thing’s supposed to do.’ He paused. ‘But now that my little modifications have let you find the third one, why don’t we use your matter transmitter to pop down and take a look before they beam it away?’
He stared at them all, eyebrows raised expectantly.
‘I mean,’ he added, shoving his hands into his pockets, ‘I know you’re waiting for them to collect the whole set before you swoop in, but if we were to just take a teensy little peek at it… Not take it; just a little look-see…’
It was clear from Kellique’s expression that she didn’t think the idea was a bad one at all, but Li’ian shook her head.
‘The Cultists have been in orbit almost an hour already. They won’t waste time. That transmat trace means they’ve already sent a recovery team down – there’s too much electrostatic interference in Karris’s atmosphere for them to beam it out directly without using a signal booster like they did from the art gallery. They can just about make it to the planet’s surface, but from there they’ll be on foot.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, studying the floor thoughtfully and casually. ‘If you let me have a go at your transmat, you never know: I might be able to boost it like I did with your sensors. And then we could beam in, check it out, and then be gone before they even know we’ve been…’
All eyes were on Boonie: as the head of this rag-tag mission, they clearly all deferred to him. Most of the time, anyway.
The Doctor grinned wolfishly.
‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to know what they’re up to. And who knows? If we can work out what this thing does, before they’ve assembled it, you’ll have even more chance of stopping them from using it.’ He held Boonie’s gaze. ‘Go on! Live a little!’
* * *
Donna flinched – and, to her shame, grabbed hold of Mesanth – as another howling roar echoed out of the darkness ahead of them.
‘This thing,’ she said slowly. ‘This creature. What exactly do you know about it? I mean, you said you’d been here before and ponced about dressed up as gods or something, right? So, you actually saw it, right?’
Mesanth’s eyes glinted in the torchlight.
‘Not… as such.’
Donna rolled her eyes.
‘So for all you know, it could be waiting around the next corner to stuff us into its mouth – y’know, like on that mural back there.’
‘The robot will protect us,’ said Ogmunee. Donna peered over his shoulder to where the slender, blonde thing stood silently, its face cold and impassive.
‘No offence, Mr Muscles, but you’re out of your tree if you think that she – it – can fight off something the size of that creature.’
‘And I have this,’ said Ogmunee, holding up a slender, silver tube. ‘A thermal projector.’
Donna relaxed a little. ‘That a fancy term for a space gun?’
Mesanth said nothing, but Donna could tell from the way he glanced at Ogmunee’s gun that he wasn’t impressed.
‘Wouldn’t it be an idea if blondie went first?’ Donna added after a moment’s thought, indicating the robot.
Mesanth considered Donna’s suggestion and agreed, waving the silent robot forwards.
‘Your type, then, is she?’ Donna whispered to Ogmunee as the robot took up position at the front. ‘Strong and silent.’
Ogmunee opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by another roar – a roar that sounded distinctly closer than the last one had done.
Mesanth took a couple of steps back, allowing Ogmunee forwards, just behind the robot.
What happened in the next few seconds, Donna wasn’t quite sure. A horrendous howl shattered the clammy silence of the tunnel and something huge and dark surged out of the side of the passage, striking the bimbot and slamming it up against the opposite wall with a screech of metal and a crash that echoed away into the blackness.
Ogmunee jumped back, his torch skittering away across the floor like some mad, terrified firefly. He bumped into Donna who fell back against Mesanth.
As her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, Donna saw faint sparkles of light come from the robot as part of its face fell away, clattering to the ground.
‘Back! Back!’ cried Mesanth, whirling on his three feet and pushing Donna away, leaving Ogmunee at the front.
‘Use your gun!’ shouted Donna as, dimly, she saw thrashing tentacles oozing out into the passage.
Suddenly, the roaring subsided, and, glancing past Ogmunee, Donna saw that the creature’s tentacles had vanished back into the opening in the tunnel. Sprawled on the floor, its spine snapped and folded back on itself, was the robot. A few more crackles of light danced within the circuitry of its head as it turned towards them. Despite the fact that it was a robot, Donna felt vaguely sick. It was the movement of the head that made her act.
‘Help it!’ she cried.
She looked at Mesanth, to see that he was staring at her in disbelief.
‘Help it!’ she said again, her voice lower and more angry, now that the lizard man seemed to be ignoring her.
‘It’s a robot,’ grunted Ogmunee swinging the beam from his torch over it.
‘It’s injured,’ Donna said, unable to believe their lack of concern.
‘It’s damaged,’ corrected Ogmunee.
Donna just glared at him.
‘Keep your eye out for that thing,’ she said. ‘And your gun for that matter.’
And before anyone could stop her, she crept forwards, keeping her back to the wall against which the broken robot lay. Something inside it whirred pitifully.
‘It’s OK,’ Donna said quietly, risking a quick glance down at it. ‘You’ll be OK.’
‘What is she doing?’ she heard Ogmunee whisper, disbelievingly, to Mesanth.
‘I’m trying to help it,’ she answered, trying to keep the fear out of her own voice. At any second, the creature could be back. She checked that Ogmunee was keeping her back covered.
‘How are you?’ Donna whispered to the robot, realising that this could well be the bimbot that Garaman had instructed to break her finger. Strangely, it didn’t seem to matter. ‘You’re going soft,’ she whispered to herself as it clicked and sparked pathetically and raised a shuddering arm towards her.
For a moment, everything was silent – and then, unmistakeably, Donna heard the sound of the creature in the darkness, a deep, stomach-churning roar. She leaped to her feet and backed away, pushing Ogmunee and Mesanth behind her. Something dark and sinuous flicked out of the tunnel towards them, smacking against the wall and sending little puffs of dust into the air.
‘Move!’ she cried, wishing that Ogmunee would use his gun. She felt the breeze from one of the creature’s tentacles as it thrashed about, briefly catching the light from Mesanth’s torch.
‘Shoot it!’ Donna called as Ogmunee pushed alongside her and raised his arm. Glancing down, she saw the tip of his weapon glow a deep cherry red and there was a ferocious howl from up ahead.
‘You’ve hurt it!’ cried Mesanth.
‘Well, d’uh!’ shouted Donna. ‘That is rather the point!’
Ogmunee fired again, and they heard the creature roar in pain.
‘Keep firing,’ Donna said.
‘Maybe we’ve hurt it enough,’ whimpered Mesanth.
‘Not as long as we can still hear it, we haven’t.’
‘I don’t like this,’ Mesanth said, and Donna could hear the distress in his voice.
The tentacled thing seemed to have gone quiet, though whether it was dead or just licking its wounds, Donna wasn’t certain.
‘Isn’t there another way through?’ Donna asked Mesanth, who started fiddling with his scanner. The cold light lit up his face from below, and she could see his lips trembling.
‘This is the only way through,’ he said. ‘That creature is obviously a guard dog.’
‘So we either go on and try again, or we go up and back to the ship?’
‘We aren’t leaving here without the segment,’ Ogmunee said, catching Mesanth’s eye. He hefted the thermal gun in his hand, pointedly. ‘So put away your scruples, Mesanth. The projector hurt it, so we know it’s not invulnerable.’
‘Yeah,’ said Donna. ‘But neither are we.’
Cautiously, the trio moved back towards where the damaged bimbot lay, Mesanth bringing up the rear, Ogmunee at the front. As they made their way, Donna’s foot caught on something and she waved her torch around until she found what it was: a scorched, crisped piece of tentacle.
‘Maybe it’ll have learned its lesson,’ Ogmunee said when he saw it.
‘Yeah,’ added Donna, ‘or maybe it’ll just be ten times as angry.’
But as they approached the broken robot again, the cavity of its head still sparking and flickering, there was neither sight nor sound of the beast.
‘Help me!’ called Donna, slipping an arm under the broken robot. She glanced back to check that Ogmunee was keeping an eye on the side tunnel where the creature had come from before. But neither of them moved to assist her.
‘Can you speak?’ she asked the robot, its arm still shuddering. It turned its head – the face still creepily half-missing – towards her.
‘Pri-pri-primary functioning imp-imp-impaired,’ it stuttered.
Its voice was dull and raspy and so at odds with how Donna had expected such a glamorous creation to speak.
‘Can you stand?’ she asked, realising that the robot was too heavy for her to lift, despite its size-zero measurements.
‘Mo-mo-motor functions failed,’ it said, and Donna wasn’t sure whether she imagined the hint of sadness in its voice. It was a robot, after all, and robots didn’t feel sadness.
‘We have to keep moving,’ Mesanth said.
‘Can’t we transmat it back up to the ship?’ asked Donna, extricating her arm from underneath it. ‘Get it repaired?’
‘Too deep,’ Mesanth said. ‘And we only have one augmenter.’
‘One what?’
Mesanth patted his pouch.
‘Transmat augmenter. We need it for Garaman to get a lock on the segment when we find it. Otherwise we’d have to drag it up to the surface.’
‘Well use it on… on her, and get Garaman to beam down another.’
Ogmunee pushed forward and before Donna could stop him he aimed his thermal gun at the bimbot. With barely a pause, he pressed the button, and the robot’s head fizzed brightly – like an ember caught in a breeze – and then went dark. Its head lolled and its whole body sagged against the wall and lay silent and dead.
‘You killed it!’ said Donna darkly.
‘It was a tool, it was broken, and it was holding us up,’ Ogmunee corrected her. ‘It was holding you up.’
Donna got to her feet, barely able to contain the anger she felt.
‘It could have been repaired,’ she said slowly, spacing the words out for effect, right into Ogmunee’s face, not caring about the fact that he weighed at least twice as much as she did and had a gun in his hand.
‘We have others,’ he retorted. ‘Now move!’
‘Or what? You’ll shoot me too?’ She stood her ground, squaring up to him. ‘Come on then, what’s stopping you big man?’
‘He will not shoot you,’ Mesanth intervened. ‘You’re organic. We do not kill organics.’
‘No,’ said Donna determinedly, facing the lizard man and his gleaming eyes. ‘You just threaten to break their fingers off, don’t you?’
Mesanth said nothing, but turned away, as if too ashamed to admit the truth of Donna’s accusation. Ogmunee gave an annoyed sigh and, brandishing the torch, strode off down the passage. Donna stared at him for a few moments before catching Mesanth’s eye.
‘Nice company you keep,’ she said.
And with a final glance at the dead robot, she headed on into the tunnels.