Chapter 2

For the first time, Ace saw the full breadth of the Spherion camp. As Glinix and Ace moved by, Ace saw a pair of children. One watched while the other cleaned a weapon. People looked over at Ace and exchanged looks with Glinix, who nodded confidently as if to say he had this under control.

He led her to a section of the cave that had been set aside as an infirmary. Five patients rested on cots. A couple were bandaged but didn't seem to be in much distress. The other three were thrashing, delirious with pain. One of them was the man who kidnapped Ace. He motioned to her to show her his problem. She looked at them with concern, got down on her knees, examined them carefully an shook her head. "I need instruments from my ship to diagnose something like this."

"You think if I allowed you to call your ship, they would send your instruments?"

"When I inform the Doctor how serious the situation is, I'm sure he'll agree. I've told you, Glinix, the Time Lords are not allied with the Calaxis. We came on an errand of mercy."

"And since the Time Lords do not wish to take sides, he will send you the medical supplies we need."

"Absolutely."

He grinned and signalled a Spherion boy about twelve who came over, carrying a box. "I anticipated your needs."

The boy opened the box to reveal an impressive array of medical instruments.

"These are Gallifreyan supplies. We just delivered them to the medical dispensary this morning."

Glinix shrugged. "I heard."

She reached in for an instrument.

Lumin and the Doctor were studying files on the wall monitors. A seemingly never-ending inventory of names, addresses and police records.

"You're telling me all these people are Spherion?"

"Not really. We suspect only some two hundred of them are pure Spherion. There are over five thousand names on this list. Citizens we know to have been hit by crystaline weapons and are being turned into Spherion. They pass along weaponry and information. March in pro-Spherion demonstrations. Participate in general strikes or the occasional riot."

The Doctor shook his head in disbelief. "How did all of this ever get started?"

"They followed us here from Malleon. They continued to use us as incubators for their seeding crystals. We denied them independence. That gave them a noble cause, seventy years ago. And now it's just an excuse for more violence."

"You hate them as much as they hate you."

"Believe it or not I always considered myself moderate."

"What changed your mind?"

Lumin shrugged. "Take your pick. Being stationed here the last six months. Watching the body count grow. The three assassination attempts on my life."

"I can see where that could affect your point of view."

"But I guess the event that really opened my eyes took place only a few days after my arrival. A Spherion bomb destroyed a shuttlebus…sixty school children. There were no survivors."

The Doctor absorbed this information.

"The Spherion claimed it was a mistake. That their intended target was a police transport. As if that made everything all right. That day I vowed to put an end to terrorism in this city. And I will."

The Doctor smiled grimly. It was not a smile of approval, rather it was one of respect. This was clearly not a woman to be taken lightly. She turned back to study the computer screen.

Ace was finishing her examinations, as the Spherion boy assisted her. "Thank you. You're very helpful. You could learn to do this when you grow up. If you grow up."

The boy just looked at her curiously.

Glinix was chatting off to the side with some of his friends. He saw that she was finished, broke off and moved toward her. She moved away from the patients. "They're dying."

He was stunned.

"I'm seeing a complicated set of conditions. Their DNA is warped somehow; it's disrupting their entire cellular chemistry."

"You can't do anything?"

"I can make them more comfortable. That's all. The damage is too extensive."

Glinix's eyes grew dark. He looked sadly at his comrades and moved a step or two away from Ace as he whispered something she didn't hear, perhaps a prayer. Ace studied him. He looked at her and began to walk.

"If I could detect the condition earlier…"

"…you would be able to reverse the damage?"

"Perhaps. I don't know. What happened to them…"

"It's the inverter."

They moved to the equipment – the shoulder harnesses, generator and other tech equipment. "It has given our cause a new life," Glinix said with Irony. "But asks for our lives in return."

"What does it do?"

"We transport through a dimensional shift that the Calaxi sensors can't trace."

"Dimensional shifting? You can't do that with humanoid tissue."

"Pure Spherion aren't really humanoid. We are crystalline. But those that we have transmogrified from Calaxi to Spherion retain some of their Calaxi DNA. There are risks. The designer warned us. But it works."

She looked at him, finding this incredible. She used an instrument to examine him. "You're showing the same distorted readings. Not as severe as the others but…"

"One of my parents was originally Calaxi. Doesn't matter."

"It does if it kills you."

"Don't you know? A dead martyr's worth ten posturing leaders."

In the TARDIS, Nita was examining one of the Spherion armbands that she has opened. She was mumbling to herself. "A subspace field coil with an isolated power source – curious. How could something this small manage to get them anywhere?"

Suddenly she noticed something on the monitor. "The Calaxi team picked up a faint nuclear vibration during the terrorist movements. Hmm…nuclear vibration. That could possibly indicate subspace transition rebound during transport. Wait a minute…TARDIS, call up files on…what was it called? I read about it in the library…folded space transport…alternate dimensions. Almost like how the TARDIS uses the time vortex, but only moving in space. TARDIS, files on folded space transport theory. What if they're moving inter-dimensionally? But human folded space theories proved to be entirely inaccurate. All research was abandoned by the mid-twenty-third century."

Nita looked at the monitors as the files came up. "The faint nuclear vibration is consistent. And researchers used an isolated field coil just like this one. It would be untraceable by any standard sensing device. But it was proven to be fatal. To use this technology would be an irrational act."

The Doctor, who had returned to the TARDIS, entered the console room and overheard Nita's words. "We may well be dealing with irrational people, Nita. Is there a way to trace this?"

"With an adaptive subspace echogram, maybe? If anyone is willing to transport in this manner, Doctor, they would suffer significant internal damage which could be detected."

"And it sounds as though they might require the services of … someone with medical training."

Down in the plaza it was a round-up. Uniformed police officers had people stopped. The twenty-fourth century version of papers (a transparent triangle shaped card which was read by a light pen) were being checked.

The Doctor had returned to the planet and was with Lumin, in the company of her security guards, watching the proceedings. As the waiter they saw earlier was taken into custody, he glared at the Doctor and Lumin.

"This is no way to live."

"For us or them?"

"For both of you."

"I know it's not pretty, Doctor. But this is what terrorism has done to this city."

"There must be a better way than this to deal with it."

"I know my methods seem harsh but believe me, they're gentle compared to my predecessors. Suspects would be brought into police headquarters and… mysteriously vanish. I put a stop to that."

"And what happened to this predecessor of yours?"

"He was murdered."

The Doctor watched as a woman and her son, a boy about fifteen, were fettered and led away. For some reason, this arrest affected the Doctor more than the others, and his tone was sharp.

"Are you going to tell me that boy's a threat?"

"It's possible," Lumin replied. "That shuttlebus I told you about, the bomb was set by a teenager."

The Doctor could only shake his head. He was getting fed up with the whole situation.

"And in a world where children blow up children, everyone's a threat."

In the cavern infirmary, Ace was trying to ease the three patients who were suffering from the dimensional effect. She was suffering with them and for them, because there was nothing she could do except make them comfortable. She administered a hypospray to the young woman, then sat next to her on the bed, and clasped the girl's hand. The terrorist boy was eager to assist.

Glinix was seated on a low rock wall which surrounded the infirmary. Ace was unaware of him for she was intent on her patients. He was sketching, but periodically he looked up and studied Ace. She looked up, noticing Glinix and was annoyed at the scrutiny. He was the source of all her troubles, and so she frowned, but then became puzzled at his actions. Ace stood, and circled around the cots and the walls to come up behind him. She saw a very fine sketch of her hands clasping the girl's.

"You should be drawing, not killing people."

"I can do both."

His attitude infuriated her. "How can you have such a casual attitude toward killing?"

"I take my killing very seriously, Ace," Glinix replied without humour.

She shook her head, unable to understand this man.

Glinix shrugged. "You are an idealist…"

"I live in an ideal culture…there's no need for your kind of violence."

He looked at her and grunted. "Your origins on Earth are from the European continent, are they not?"

"England."

"I have read your history books. This is a war for independence. I am no different than your own William the Conquerer…"

"William was a military general. He was not a terrorist."

"Ace, the difference between a general and terrorist is only the difference between winners and losers. You win, you're called a general. You lose…"

"You are killing innocent people! Can't you see the immorality of what you're doing, or have you killed so often, you've become blind to it?"

Glinix looked at her and shook his head at her naivete. "How much innocent blood has been spilled for the cause of freedom in the history of your people, Ace? How many good and noble societies have bombed civilians in war? Wiped out whole cities. And now that you enjoy the comfort that has come from their battles, their killing, you frown on my immorality? Ace, I am willing to die for my freedom. And, in the finest tradition of your own great civilization, I'm willing to kill for it too."

He left her to think about that.