Doctor Who: Ultimate Treasure (34 page)

'That's not quite how it runs, Doctor,' said Loxley, wagging his finger, 'but perhaps I do, at last.'

And he followed the others as they walked away along the path towards the glade where the
Newton
was waiting.

Ignored by all, Dynes had risen to his feet. Now he looked uncertainly at Peri and the Doctor.

'I don't punch,' Peri warned him, 'but unless you want a knee where it'll make your eyes water, you won't even think about it!'

Glowering and still dabbing his tender nose, Dynes disappeared along the path through the trees.

Peri realised Shalvis was standing beside them.

'Now they have departed,' she said solemnly, 'I can show you what Rovan left for those who followed in his footsteps.'

'In his footsteps?' Peri said. 'You mean when we went through the red door? And why did we end up here anyway?'

'Oh, Peri,' said the Doctor in mild despair.

An image was forming before them. It was of a handsome man dressed in plain nondescript clothes. Peri recognised the face instantly from the pictures she had seen in the library on Astroville.

'My friends,' said the five-thousand-year-old recording of Rovan Cartovall. 'Perhaps my actions have been selfish, but at least I am prepared to take the consequences. I do not know what future ages will make of me, and in all honesty I care little. But I do predict that the single question most will ask is: Why? Why did he who had everything give it all up? What strange purpose had he in mind for his treasure? Well here is the truth plain and simple, take it how you will.'

'I was bored. I owned everything but myself. I felt trapped within the court and empire, in which I could already see signs of decay. I wanted to live, to experience the true riches of diversity and uncertainty. To find out who I really was, and not simply the figurehead an accident of birth had made me. I hope my sudden departure will give those I left behind cause to pause and reflect on their own motives and intentions, but I have my doubts.'

'As to the treasure, it not only bought the cooperation of the Gelsandorans in covering my trail, but it also enabled those who would inevitably follow after me to learn a lesson in relative values. Any who have the means to find their way here are wealthy and capable enough already. If their greed overtakes them then they will reap an appropriate prize. If they want more, then they must come by it through their own labours. This is not hypocrisy, for I must also fend for myself now, as I am leaving all my treasure here. It is a responsibility which I have never had before, but I am rather looking forward to the challenge. I am setting out upon the path that you have also chosen. The trail is uncertain but the rewards, though they may not be material, are compensation enough.'

'For of course, if you have not yet realised, the ultimate treasure lies in the infinite possibilities of the universe itself!'

And he lifted his eyes and arms upward to the sky and the stars beyond, and Peri automatically followed his gaze.

As it happened she was just in time to see the
Newton
and the
Stop Press
lifting off from beyond the trees and soar into the air.

She watched until they winked out of sight. When she lowered her head again Rovan's image was gone, and so was Shalvis.

They walked thoughtfully back to the TARDIS.

'Are you disappointed?' the Doctor asked.

'I'm not sure. Real life isn't always as satisfying as the storybooks, is it? I thought I might have come away with something more to show for it all. No gold or jewels, not even a bumper sticker: "I've been on the Ultimate Treasure hunt". Only a collection of bruises, about five years knocked off my life through fright, and a story nobody will believe back home.' She shrugged, then frowned as another thought struck her. 'Say, Doctor, what'll happen to this place when Dynes gets through telling the whole world - I mean galaxy - about it? Won't it get overrun with treasure hunters?'

'Do you really think Dynes is the first person who intended something like that? How is it the location of Rovan's treasure has been discovered by so relatively few people, even after all this time? I think the Gelsandorans know how to protect their world and Rovan's trust.'

'I hope so, even though I don't think I like them very much.'

The Doctor looked at her quizzically. 'Nevertheless you think there's something here worth preserving, despite your feelings about them personally?' he suggested.

Peri frowned. 'Well, I guess being here has been an -'

'Experience?'

'Yeah, you could say that.'

He smiled. 'So you are taking something away with you, Peri.

Knowledge, an expanded appreciation of relative values, a raised level of consciousness. Perhaps that's the quest's true purpose.'

'That sounds pretty mystical to me; just like Rovan, the old dropout. Maybe you're a hippy at heart, too, Doctor - yeah, the ultimate hippy! I should have known by the hair.'

'A hippy?'

'You know: the sixties, mind-expanding, flower power.'

'Oh, then. I was otherwise engaged in the sixties. It was a busy decade for me.'

They reached the TARDIS. The Doctor unlocked the door, then paused. 'But talking of flower power, I did once visit a world ruled by sentient flowers.'

'Really?'

'Yes. It happened like this...'

They passed inside. A minute later the incongruous police box dematerialised, and the scented glade was empty once more.

Dynes spent some time after leaving Gelsandor's orbit having the
Stop Press's
autodoc unit tend his nose. Then he set a course and went to sleep for ten hours, making up for what he had lost over the last few days. The
Stop Press
was in hyperspace by the time he sat down to play back his DAVE recordings and begin editing them.

Except that every single file contained the same message, repeated over and over again, and nothing else whatsoever.

'Dexel Dynes,' said Shalvis, her face staring out at him from every monitor. 'You may recall the promise I made to you at our first meeting. I said you would be allowed to witness everything you wished on Gelsandor during the period of the seekers' quest, and leave Gelsandor freely afterwards. However, I did not promise you could take away any material you gathered for the purposes of further dissemination. The rights you claimed for yourself and used against others under the interstellar convention give you no protection here, since we are not signatories to any such agreement. If you were a better reporter and genuinely interested in things of true value, such as respect and consideration for others, you would have realised long before now -'

Dynes hit the stop button so hard he broke a fingernail.

So, she thought Dexel Dynes would abandon the story of a lifetime as easily as that, did she? Well he'd show her! He'd head back to Gelsandor and get some detailed reconnaissance shots from a safe distance, then make for Astroville and find some innocents he could feed with the location of Rovan's treasure.

He'd wire them and their ship up with microcameras so neither they nor the Gelsandorans would ever know it, and get his ultimate treasure hunt story that way.

Still boiling with anger, he ordered his autopilot to reverse course.

The pilot promptly set course for Astroville.

Dynes cancelled the command and ordered it to produce a complete course printout. According to that the last place he had visited was Astroville. There was no set of coordinates for Gelsandor anywhere in the autopilot's memory bank, even though he knew he'd seen the figures flash up on the display board just after he'd made orbit.

But for the life of him he couldn't remember any part of them now.

And he never would.

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