Match of the Day Read online

  Soundlessly he drew the ancient handgun he favoured for multiple contests. His nose told him these were men.

  Androids didn’t sweat or touch the air with the taste of fear.

  As the afterimage faded from the lids he opened his eyes again. In a shallow depression about twenty metres from where he lay were two men. They were scanning the wood with their night-scopes, anxiously searching for signs of movement. Keefer snaked towards them.

  From a range of five metres he carefully shot one of them in the base of the skull. The roar of the gun and the impact of the bullet, which tore off most of his companion’s head, froze the other man into blank-eyed terror.

  Keefer crawled closer. ‘Run you scuffler!’ he hissed and fired another round, which kicked up a gout of earth by the man’s face.

  Sobbing incoherently the man staggered to his feet and began to run towards the wood. Keefer rolled into the depression and snatched up a discarded gun. Closing his eyes against the light he fired a burst of tracers in the general direction of the fleeing figure.

  Following the cue three other guns opened up, two to Keefer’s left and one to his right. As the deadly lines converged on the running man Keefer moved on the sound to his left. With a bubbling scream the runner went down but the marksmen continued to fire, pouring bullets into the twitching body, cutting and smashing it into bloody, smouldering pieces.

  When the firing stopped Keefer was in position. In front of him two men stood up. They were excited by the kill, breathing hard and giggling.

  ‘Missed,’ said Keefer quietly and fired the handgun as they turned.

  The heavy bullet punched into one of them. He was dead before he hit the ground. The second man spread his hands in supplication. ‘Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.’

  Keefer gestured with his gun. ‘That way,’ he said softly.

  ‘Walk in that direction. Walk slowly with your hands down and your mouth shut.’ Keefer stepped behind him and prodded him forward with the gun. ‘Move!’

  Stumbling slightly the man did as he was told and when they had walked a short distance Keefer prodded him again.

  ‘Now run,’ he whispered.

  ‘Run?’

  ‘Run!’ Keefer hissed and shoved him hard in the back. The man stumbled forward and broke into a shambling run.

  Keefer angled away from him then stood quite motionless, his gun half raised. He counted five slowly then he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘Look out, he’s coming your way!’

  A burst of tracer fire chopped into the man. In the split second before his night-lenses blanked with the overload Keefer aimed and fired just above the muzzle-flash.

  Chapter Three

  Of all the cell blocks in all the worlds the Doctor had ever been thrown into, the Court of Attack lock-up was certainly among the more unusual, he thought. Apart from the one threatening detail it could almost be described as pleasant.

  The communal areas were well appointed with comfortable furniture, reference books and computer workstations. There were very few prisoners, and those there were each had a small self-contained suite of rooms to which only they had unrestricted access. There were no locks on any of the doors and no guards anywhere in evidence. If it wasn’t for that one threatening detail, the wrist and ankle bands he and Leela had been fitted with when they arrived, he could almost have convinced himself that this was a voluntary programme of some sort. ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ he said, sitting down on one of the padded benches in the library area. ‘For a law-abiding Time Lord I seem to have ended up in jail rather a lot recently.’

  Unexpectedly, and not a little unsettlingly, the Doctor thought, Leela’s knife had not been taken away from her. She was using it to pick at one of her ankle bands. ‘I thought you stole the TARDIS,’ she said. ‘Is that law-abiding where you came from?’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ the Doctor warned. He had a bad feeling about the narrow, seamless metallic strips that fitted so snugly and comfortably that you could easily forget they were there. At least you could if you were not Leela.

  ‘I will not accept marks of defeat from these cowards,’ she said, trying to push the point of the knife behind the band.

  ‘I’ve seen similar-looking devices before,’ the Doctor said.

  He had given the bands some small consideration. They were obviously not for simple identification: why would they need four? And the same objection applied to simple locators. So why put one on each wrist and one on each ankle? The conclusion was fairly obvious. I think they might be the only thing keeping people under control here.’

  Leela carried on working with the knife. ‘All the more reason to remove them,’ she said reasonably.

  ‘My guess is if you damage that thing something quite unpleasant will happen. I think it might tighten up. Probably the other three will too.’

  Stubbornly Leela carried on probing with the knife. ‘I am not afraid of them.’

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid of them,’ the Doctor said, struggling not to lose all patience with the irritatingly primitive girl. ‘You just have to be rational. This appears to be an extremely violent society, so I doubt whether these things will just twinkle and buzz and play jolly jingles if you set them off. So until we know what it is they do instead...’

  Leela stopped what she was doing and sheathed the knife.

  ‘If the threat from them is supposed to keep us here why do they not tell us what it is? A threat is not a threat unless you know what it is.’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘They assume we know already or else it doesn’t matter to them.’

  Leela held up her wrists. ‘Are these what they would use on you for stealing the TARDIS? If they caught you?’

  The Doctor did his best to sound mildly affronted. ‘What gives you the idea I stole the TARDIS?’

  ‘It is what you said.’

  He didn’t remember saying that. The trouble with Leela was that she listened to everything and remembered most of it.

  He must try to remember that. He smiled at her and said,

  ‘You misunderstood me.’ What happens now, he wondered?

  Presumably this Court of Attack thing was some sort of legal process, but what sort, and when and where did it happen?

  He got up and wandered across to one of the bookcases. It was probably too much to hope that they might have a beginner’s guide to breaches of the rulebook. A Child’s Garden of Murder and Mayhem, perhaps. The Care and Maintenance of Sacred Death Marks?

  ‘You did not steal the TARDIS?’ Leela persisted.

  That was another problem, the Doctor thought. She was persistent. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘It was more of a technical infringement.’ Disappointingly, the books all appeared to be heavyweight legal tomes, the sort that required years of study before you could understand the chapter headings never mind the main body of the text. He pulled one of the books from a shelf at random and opened it. It seemed to be a book of case law but all the cases were fights. The declarations, the moves and the kills were described in detail and then a summary outlined the effect each element had on the duelling laws. The fights were in chronological order, he realised, and were all of a particular type: in this case, or rather in these cases, the fights involved the use of one particular sort of handgun. He took down another volume. It was laid out in the same way but now the fights involved the combatants each using a different one of two particular sorts of handgun.

  ‘What is a technical infringement?’ Leela asked.

  The Doctor said, ‘It’s a rule nobody knows about until they break it.’ There were probably books for every sort of combat and kill, he realised, and there were hundreds of them.

  Perverse, is that what he’d said? Perverse didn’t begin to cover it.

  ‘Isn’t that the truth,’ a plump man at one of the corner workstations said. The Doctor hadn’t noticed him slouched down behind his computer screen. ‘Technical infringements,’

  the man went on. ‘I tell you the rules a
re getting impossible to interpret.’ He shook his head and tutted. ‘Sooner or later there’s going to have to be a full Kill-council to rework the rulebook. Sooner rather than later actually or we’re all doomed.’

  ‘You’re not a lawyer by any chance?’ the Doctor asked him hopefully.

  ‘Agent,’ the man said. ‘Jerro Fanson’s my name. And you are?’

  ‘I’m the Doctor,’ the Doctor said, smiling in what he hoped was an encouragingly intimate way, ‘and this is Leela.’

  ‘She’s your fighter I take it,’ Fanson offered.

  ‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose you could say that, yes,’ the Doctor said. His response sounded lame even to him, but knowledge was power and if he was going to learn more without appearing too ignorantly helpless he needed to keep it vague.

  ‘Oh gods,’ Fanson groaned, ‘you’re not another scuffling freelance operator are you?’

  ‘You’re not a freelance operator I take it,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘Scuffling right I’m not.’

  The Doctor nodded knowingly. ‘I thought not,’ he said and was waiting to hear what the alternative was when Leela put in, ‘What is a freelance operator? Is it a warrior code?’

  Fanson looked at the Doctor and raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Your fighter taken the odd blow to the head?’

  ‘She comes from a warrior tribe,’ the Doctor said. ‘She can be a bit obsessive. And aggressive. Obsessively aggressive on occasions.’

  ‘All the best ones are,’ Fanson said. ‘But they’re not usually that simple-minded.’

  Leela prowled towards Fanson. ‘I dislike being talked about as if I was not here,’ she said.

  ‘She moves well though,’ Fanson commented.

  ‘If it is a fighting discipline,’ Leela remarked to the Doctor,

  ‘he is clearly not in any shape to be a freelance operator. The question would not have been asked. Therefore it is not a fighting discipline.’

  ‘It isn’t a fighting discipline, Leela,’ the Doctor assured her, trying to get her to shut up. The trouble was, he knew, if she realised you were trying to shut her up it usually made her that much more determined to be heard.

  Fanson snorted. ‘It undermines any sort of discipline if you ask me. How in gods’ names are we supposed to get standard contracts, proper league structures, an insurance fund that isn’t a joke, while freelance agents are running around the place making whatever deals they feel like.’

  ‘How indeed?’ the Doctor agreed.

  Fanson looked at Leela. ‘Is she quick?’ he asked the Doctor.

  ‘I’ve got a fighter who is quick. I mean this kid is really quick over the ground. And gaudy.’ He grinned to himself, for a moment lost in recollection. ‘Some of his coups have been spec-scuffling-tacular. I’m talking Prime. Prime in everything but coverage and cash of course. But that was coming. I had seriously high hopes for the both of us until it all started to go TTU.’

  ‘TTU?’

  ‘Terminally tits up.’ For a moment Fanson looked uncertain. Watching his face the Doctor had the feeling that uncertainty was not something the man was familiar with.

  Fanson sighed abruptly and smiled. ‘Like the fighters say: in this game you only get to lose once and you’re the only one who doesn’t know you came second.’ The uncertainty was gone as if it had never been. ‘So what are you, Guild or freelance?’

  The alternative was some sort of guild then, the Doctor thought - some sort of agents’ organisation presumably. And if he wanted this man’s good opinion and help then ‘Guild’

  was the correct answer. But supposing there was a badge, or a password, or some sort of secret handshake - you never knew what sort of nonsense was involved in membership of such groups - and anyway it wasn’t the truth, it wasn’t even true, so how would it help... ‘I haven’t been accepted yet,’ he heard himself saying. ‘It’s my ambition to join as soon as the details can be sorted out.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be lying to me now would you,’ Fanson said wryly.

  ‘I’m new to all this,’ the Doctor said, ‘but when I know what the right thing to do is I will try to do it.’

  Fanson looked amused. ‘You didn’t answer the question did you.’

  The Doctor said, ‘I’m sorry I thought it was rhetorical. No I’m not lying to you.’ Not technically anyway, he thought.

  Technically what I’ve said is true.

  ‘Not even a technical infringement of the truth?’ Fanson asked, as if he had read the Doctor’s mind and was deliberately echoing his thought.

  He hadn’t, of course, the Doctor could see that much from his face. It was just probability in action again, another coincidence waiting for the gullible. ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

  Fanson grinned. ‘I heard you talking to your fighter.

  Something about theft as a technical infringement?’

  ‘You misunderstood.’

  ‘That’s what you told her.’

  ‘It was true,’ the Doctor said, and thought: as opposed to truth, which is technically more rigorous.

  ‘Technically,’ Fanson suggested.

  He did it again, the Doctor thought. ‘Technically,’ he agreed. Not so much a coincidence then more an instinctive understanding of what the other person might be thinking, he realised. Unless the other person was Leela of course.

  ‘I misunderstood,’ she said, glaring at Fanson. Deliberately she rested her hand on the hilt of her knife. ‘It is not your concern.’

  ‘True,’ Fanson said. ‘I wouldn’t wave that gut-sticker about, by the way. Not without getting a very clear line to the nearest scanner.’ He pointed to a wall-mounted plate on the other side of the room. It was mirror-shiny and about the size of a man’s hand. ‘You might get to it in time but I wouldn’t bet my blood on it, kid. You’d be amazed how fast these new restraints work. They’ll cut your hands and feet off in a heartbeat.’

  Leela scowled at him and wrapped her hand round the hilt as if to pull the knife. ‘Why should I believe you?’ she demanded.

  Fanson shrugged and yawned. ‘Because I have your best interests at heart,’ he suggested. ‘Or because I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about you. Either way I have no reason to lie.’

  ‘People can lie whether they have reason to or not,’ Leela said.

  Fanson shook his head dismissively. ‘There’s always a reason. You can’t always spot what it is, but there’s always a reason.’

  The Doctor was making a cursory search for something that might give him an idea of the contents of the law library.

  ‘Nothing is without reason,’ he murmured. ‘It is the only thing that is.’ He glanced across at Fanson. ‘Are these all the law books that are available? Is there an index do you know?’

  ‘What are you looking for exactly?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ the Doctor said. ‘Technical infringements I suppose.’

  ‘There’s a surprise. What sort of technical infringements do you suppose?’

  ‘I’m having trouble understanding the details,’ the Doctor admitted.

  ‘And the surprises keep on coming,’ Fanson smirked.

  Leela was still hostile, bristling with it, the Doctor could see. Perhaps it was because Fanson was the only stranger around and she needed someone to blame, he thought. ‘And you?’ she demanded of the man. ‘What are you here for?’ Or perhaps it was because he seemed unfazed by her aggression: more than that it was as though it was what he expected and judged her by.

  ‘Listen kid; Fanson said, not unkindly, ‘you don’t ask people that in places like this. It’s bad manners.’

  ‘She’s young,’ the Doctor said. ‘She doesn’t understand the etiquette of these things. So what are you here for?’

  ‘Murder as it happens.’

  ‘That’s a crime?’ The Doctor could not keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘It would be if I’d done it,’ Fanson said, apparently taking the Doctor’s tone as ironic.

  ‘There yo
u are you see,’ the Doctor said, this time making the tone more definitely satirical, ‘just when you think you’ve started to work it all out, nothing makes sense all over again.

  We’re here on exactly the opposite charge.’

  Fanson looked puzzled. ‘Which is?’

  ‘Non-murder presumably.’

  ‘There’s no such crime as non-murder.’

  ‘Leela’s charged with refusing to kill somebody. That’s non-murder in my book.’ He gestured around. ‘Though not in most of these I imagine.’

  It was Fanson’s turn to be shocked. ‘Wait a minute, wait a scuffling minute here.’ He turned off his computer terminal and gave the Doctor his full attention. ‘Was this in a fight?

  We’re not talking about a terminated challenge are we?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor said. ‘Are we?’

  Fanson looked at Leela. You left a challenger alive?’ he asked and when Leela nodded went on, ‘How feeble-minded are you? What happened, weren’t you paying attention, you got bored, you got distracted scratching your arse, what?’

  ‘He wanted to fight, I fought him, he lost,’ Leela said matter-of-factly. It was becoming a mantra the Doctor thought. ‘He was beaten. I did not need to kill him,’ she continued in the same bored voice. ‘I am a warrior. A warrior does not enjoy killing. A warrior does not kill unnecessarily.’

  She made a point of not looking at the Doctor. ‘Despite what some people think.’

  ‘You did it deliberately.’ He looked at the Doctor. ‘She did it deliberately. I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless. I’m lost for words. Where were you?’

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘You were there. You let her do it. What were you thinking?

  That’s not a technical infringement, that’s not a terminated challenge that’s an unconsummated kill.’

  ‘Is that a technical term?’ the Doctor asked.

  ‘That’s a scuffling disaster,’ Fanson declared.