any emergency we have to face, OK? Have you seen Amy?'
'Down that way and to the left when I last saw her.'
'Ah, yes. That would be right.' The Doctor disappeared in
search of Amy.
Although Hari had no clear idea what the pirates were
like or how they could be fought, he was typically game
for anything, while being perfectly aware of what the
consequences could be. He had watched the optional
infoscreens when he had first come aboard. They were
graphic, put together at a time when the prevailing idea
was that passengers had to be encouraged to fight off any
attack by raiders. Nowadays the company let people watch
who wanted to. Hari didn't like the look of the slimy beggars
represented on the screen. He almost hoped they would be
boarded so he could get a whack at them.
A few moments later, Bingo rounded the comer at a rate
of knots, his eyes bright with what his ancestors might have
called battle lust. 'Seen my bow-case, old boy?'
'I think you left it in that bit of the inspection gangway,
old man.'
'Thanks, old boy.'
'Don't mention it, old man.'
It was impossible not to bond under these circumstances.
*
The Doctor had found Amy and they were on their way back
to the bridge when they passed Hari and Bingo again.
Bingo's heart did some Olympic-standard aerobatics in his
chest. He was determined to defend Amy, come what may.
The fact that she was probably better equipped to defend
Bingo never once occurred to him.
When they reached the bridge, Amy helped the Doctor
close the door behind them. The big centaur was sitting in his
long bucket-seat, humming a tune to himself and stroking his
holographs gently, carefully. As the pirates outside formed a
cage around his ship, his instruments and screens gathered
to their captain like obedient pets.
He seemed unconcerned by the pirates' tactics. But Amy
felt a new kind of tension in him in spite of his apparently
relaxed attitude. He began to murmur rapidly into his main
board, leaning forward, his tail perked high. 'OK.'
The attacking ships were glittering with zigzagging bolts
of pure gold and green energy. In another instant they would
start firing, set at a factor designed to kill or stun passengers
but leave the ship and cargo intact.
The captain was snorting and tossing his long locks back
from his eyes. Then he spoke in his own language, a series
of high-pitched ululations, long snorts and grunts, rising
to a loud and rather raucous whinny which had a note of
challenge in it.
At the same moment, the skipping lines of light along the
hulls of the pirate vessels began to straighten and become
still.
Amy felt the Doctor tense. She guessed he knew what was
coming.
'Chronii!' he murmured to himself. 'I thought...'
All at once the pirate ships swung in closer. Rapidly the
energy along their hulls rearranged itself, uniting into one
large beam which moved gradually away from each ship like
a kind of searchlight until all were pointed in at the water
tanker, threatening her and broadcasting a flashing blue and
dark yellow signal to heave to, over and over: Heave to, Heave
to.
The centaur's hands began to drum out a series of rapid
beats, those movements bringing him views of his own ship's
exterior which had become spotted with coppery splotches,
like a form of rust. But the rust, or whatever it was, had started
to move, each patch crawling independently, seemingly of its
own volition, slowly turning into bright, roughly spheroid,
red and white shapes.
Suddenly the rays moved out from the pirate ships,
pencilling tighter, brilliant against the flat blackness of the
universe until they all threatened the tanker.
No message had come from the pirate fleet because none
was needed. Everyone involved was aware of what passed
between the predator and its prey. The thieves were giving
the ship a chance to let them come aboard and pump out their
water. But clearly Captain N'hn was not prepared to let them
That they were unimpressed was obvious, too. They hadn't
recognised the odd, globular energy creatures carried by the
tanker which the Doctor had earlier identified as Chronii.
'Why's water so valuable to them?' Amy asked, finding
the tension hard to bear. 'You'd hardly think it was worth
fighting for. All they need is a decent recycling system.'
'Modem ships have near-perfect recycling systems.' The
Doctor spoke distantly, his eyes intent on the screens. 'But
even they need to top up. These old ships use almost as much
water as people do where you come from. Their recycling
units are shot. So whenever a pirate gets a water alert, this
is what happens. They must have some pretty sophisticated
detection gear. But there's something else going on here.
'Yeah. They're going to kill us.'
'They don't care. They think their force beams will stun us
long enough for them to come aboard, pinch the water and
leave. Usually they're not bothered whether the occupants
live or die. Generally, they die.'
'What can we do?'
'Not a thing. Watch for an opportunity. But there's nothing
we can do right now.'
Amy opened her mouth to ask another question and then
closed it. The rays were darting across the darkness as the
clusters of light on the tanker's hull broke clear, apparently
deliberately moving towards the rays, forming a kind of
link-mail armour around the ship. The rays met the clusters,
spread and then somehow seemed to writhe and bend,
unable to pass the balls of light. The captain was yelling
now, what appeared to be challenges in his own resonant
language. The rays suddenly began to turn outwards, away
from the tanker. Very quickly they were cut off on the ships.
The pirate vessels began to fan out urgently, as if they had
only now realised what was happening.
But the tanker's weird globes had swiftly turned the same
colour as the rays. The globes actually raced upwards, like
bowling pins up an alley, using the attackers' own force
beams to climb towards the ships!
'What are they, Doctor?' She was fascinated, still not sure
how safe they were from the pirates.
The attacking ships were now taking evasive action. They
twirled and bucked through space at a rate which threatened
to break them apart. They tried to angle themselves so that
they would be virtually invisible but still they could not escape
the strangely bending verdigris and mustard rays which
their own beams had become. Nor could they get away from
the globes which used the beams as roads, rolling up them,
blending their own colours with those of the attackers.
The Doctor bent forward, his eyes on the main screen,
leani
ng over the captain's shoulder as the handsome centaur
chuckled and neighed and continued to caress his keys.
'So you really do carry Chronii,' said the Doctor.
The captain shrugged.
'Why are they illegal, Doctor?' Amy wanted to know.
'I think the authorities are scared of a public outcry.
They're hard to understand, the Chronii.'
'Are they - what? - sentient? Can they think?' she asked
'Oh, yes. They're sentient all right. Pretty intelligent. Their
own planet's out near the Rosette Nebula. It's off-limits to
any member of the Galactic Union, which is almost every
inhabited world in this era. They turn a blind eye to what
they call Crucial Services using them. Not many do, because
you have to make deals with the Chronii. They don't work
for nothing and they're all volunteers.'
'Why would they volunteer?'
'There's a trade-off. I suppose you could call them
gourmets.'
Now the rays were arcing around so that they were
spearing straight towards the pirates who were putting their
craft through all kinds of complicated manoeuvres in an
effort to get out of their way.
The globes began to drift back towards their own ship.
They no longer twinkled with verdigris and mustard but had
a greyish tinge.
'They're exhausted,' said the Doctor. 'They've done their
best. Now we have to wait and see if that best was good
enough.'
Even as he spoke the nearest pirate ship was struck by its
own armaments, bent back on themselves. The ship flickered
with scarlet and emerald flames and then began to drift away,
clearly out of control.
'What's happened to it, Doctor? Have the Chronii killed
them?'
'Probably not. What's happened to them is what they
expected to happen to us. At least until they spotted the
Chronii. Then it was too late for them to get away.'
'I still don't understand.'
'Well, they have, so to speak, been hoist by their own
petards.'
'What's a petard?'
'Look it up on the internet when you get the chance.'
'You don't know, do you?'
'I used to know. I've forgotten. Some sort of bomb or
booby trap, I think. Anyway, it means that what the pirates
planned for us is now happening to them instead, because
the Chronii, who are wonderful little beings, can turn almost
any form of aggression away from themselves and direct it
back at the aggressor, usually in a more powerful form.'
The pirates were now all spinning helplessly out of
control, their formation completely broken. The only reason
they remained nearby was because the tanker's gravity held
them.
From somewhere in the distant bowels of the Kl-32 came
the sound of wild, raucous cheering.
Captain N'hn turned, grinning at Amy. 'There you are,
girlie. That's what a ship without guns can do. If she has
friends. And the Chronii are the best friends any spacer could
come by, eh, Doctor?'
'While you're alive. Where did you find them?' The Doctor
continued to keep his eye on the helpless pirates. 'Not the
Rosette.'
'Right. They found us. They wanted a trade and I was
willing to give them one. They save our lives and they get
whatever spoils there are. Look, they're heading out for that
ship.' It was true. The globes of silver and copper had regained
a little of their lustre and were disappearing through the hull
of the nearest predator.
Amy was still puzzled. 'I don't get it. What do they want?
How are they paid?'
'They eat our waste,' murmured the Doctor, a little
disgustedly.
Captain N'hn began to laugh at what he obviously
regarded as the Doctor's delicacy of expression.
'They love the taste of humans,' said the captain. 'They
get to eat the fresh corpses of the dead - either side - after a
battle. That's where they're going now.'
'But what if they're not dead?' Amy wanted to know.
'Oh, they will be soon enough,' the captain reassured
her. He laughed loudly again when he saw her horrified
expression.
'Hang on,' said the Doctor staring hard at a screen. 'What's
happening there?'
Chapter 11
Antimatters
THE SCREEN SHOWED A length of the tanker's hull and, some distance
away, the leading pirate ship. From out of that ship another
beam connected with the shadowy rays left behind by the
Chronii. This brightened suddenly into white and red rays,
intertwined. The beam had reached the Kl-32 and spread
around one of the rear airlocks.
The captain cursed and looked about under his desk,
grabbing a big old-fashioned NE-gun from the floor and
running out of the control cabin hastily followed by the
Doctor.
'What is it?' Amy wanted to know, following as fast as she
could. 'Captain? Doctor? What's going on?'
The captain was too distracted to answer, talking into a
microphone, issuing rapid orders to his crew. The Doctor
did his best to respond while looking wildly around him
for anything that might help. Seeing a discarded bow and a
quiver of arrows, he snatched it up.
'Defend yourself!' he told Amy. 'Any way you can.'
'And why? What should I be worrying about?' she wanted
to know.
'Boarders!' Was all he had time to tell her.
'We've been boarded? Who by? I thought the Chronii had
dealt with them.'
'They dealt with the pirates. What none of us knew was
that the pirates were carrying passengers.'
'You know who they are?'
'That candy-striped ray could only come from one source.
I'm hoping I'm wrong...'
'And here we are, Doctor dear.' A strange, growling voice,
full of mockery, with a slight, metallic lisp. 'Here we are
again, darling. Ready to straighten you all out.'
The voice came from around the comer of a corridor.
Captain N'hn, who had been galloping ahead of them, his
big rifle ready, came to a sudden swerving halt, throwing
up his hand to stop them following. He shouted to a group
of his men who had appeared ahead of them. 'Stop. It's
too late. They're in.' Lowering the gun he turned to glance
at the Doctor, shrugging. He carried an air of hopelessness
completely at odds with his earlier manner. He drew a great
breath and let it out slowly. 'They're in.'
The Doctor shrugged. 'We did our best. We didn't know.'
He raised his voice: 'Good afternoon, General Force. How's
life on the other side?'
'Safe, warm and beautifully predictable, thanks for asking,
Doctor. No need for me to enquire how life is for you. Chaotic
as usual, I'm sure. Well, we're here to help.' He seemed to
speak with two synchronised voices.
They reached a part of the ship used as a kind of makeshift
gym. Several crew members and a few of the Tournament
team looked helplessly on at the weird group who stood there.
They were uni
formed and carried wide-nozzled weapons
a bit like old blunderbusses, and they seemed unnaturally
pale; even the men with darker skins had an oddly grey
appearance. At first glance they resembled a theatrical
troupe. Their uniforms were garish reds, golds, blues and
green. They wore peaked high-crowned dark blue military
caps with sweeping plumes. The gold braid on their sleeves,
jacket fronts, collars and shoulders was almost blinding. Yet
the men were each surrounded by a strange, pinkish aura,
covering them from head to foot.
Amy looked at the Doctor. 'How did they escape the
Chronii?'
'The Chronii didn't recognise them. Without those
skinsuits they're wearing - not the comic opera uniforms but
the pink aura - they would disintegrate. They'd implode and
take us with them. Sometimes two or more have to share the
same body but they must be related. Something to do with
their DNA. Or is that anti-DNA? That's why Frank/Freddie
sound as if they are talking in an echo chamber. They are
literally brothers under the skin. They carry a subcutaneous
energy pack to create that aura, which in turn gives them
the means, quite literally, of hanging together. It's a pseudo-
skin. Switches on and off. It allows them to enter our space. If
we managed to break down an aura with some sort of energy
weapon or even the sonic screwdriver we'd destroy them
very quickly, but we'd also destroy ourselves. There's only
one safe way...'
One of the men spoke. 'Succinctly put, Doctor.' Amy
guessed he was the leader, because his voice had that same
echo and he wore a vast amount of gold frogging across his
chest and a multitude of twirls on his mustachios. He put
a short-fingered hand to his soup-strainer and laughed into
Amy's face. 'Who's your new gal?'
The Doctor ignored this but inserted himself between
Amy and the newcomer. 'None of that, General Force. What
do you want here?'
So this was the infamous Frank/Freddie Force, thought
Amy, and those comic opera soldiers behind him had to be
his Antimatter Men.
'Those suits are their defence and a potential suicide
weapon,' the Doctor continued, his eyes cold as he glared at
General Force. 'It's like a personal protective field. The Chronii
didn't realise Force and his boys were aboard. They couldn't
have done much against them if they had known. Unless you