'Photograph these controls. Record every label. Don't miss anything.'
Lyset began clicking away, while the others continued to stare around them in bafflement.
'But this is crazy,' Manders exclaimed.'Who did this?'
'I don't know,' Rexton said, 'but I'm not going to pass up the opportunity.'
'It's got to be a joke,' Delray suggested.
'It's possible, sir,' Bendix agreed. "The Nimosians may be trying to mislead us -'
'The Nimosians haven't had the time to create anything so elaborate,'
Rexton said. 'And if they had taken possession of this control room, then they'd be here to welcome us. No, somehow this feels right. Whether we capture this ship or not, we will master its secrets.' He graced the Doctor and Sam with a look of triumph. 'I think the Federation will be very ready to admit us when they learn the power we command, eh, Doctor?'
'I'll be sure to mention it to them,' the Doctor said absently, his own eyes flickering intently round the room.Then, suddenly, he said,'Keep away from the far wall!'
Lyset, who had been working her way methodically around the control panels, flinched backward.The Doctor stepped quickly up to her side.
'You were about to touch that; he told her.
Sam looked past Lyset at the half of the control room furthest from the entranceway. Now she looked closely she realised it was slightly blurred, as though seen through a distorting lens. The labels on the panels, which had been clearly legible on this side, suddenly became I/legible only a couple of metres within the boundary.
Dessel cautiously reached out a gloved hand. Sam saw his fingertips blur as though they had passed into water. He pulled his hand back quickly.
'It went right into me,' he exclaimed in mild surprise.'A sort of cold tingle.
Nasty.'
'What is it?' Delray exclaimed breathlessly. Sam thought she heard a slight and unexpected catch in his voice.
"This room extends along the axis of the ship towards the end that appears indistinct and translucent from outside,' the Doctor said, as he ran his hands along the line of the boundary. 'It must be out of phase with the rest of the structure. Until we understand its exact nature I would strongly advise keeping well clear of it;
'But we must get through to the other side,' Rexton said. 'Half the controls are in there.' He glared at the immaterial barrier for a moment, then tried bodily to step through it, as though he would defy it by sheer force of will.
But after a few seconds he staggered backward, trembling, his face contorted by pain and anger.
'There's a distinction between courage and foolhardiness, Councillor,' the Doctor said sharply.'You must have patience. We will determine its limits by subtler methods than brute force.'
As Rexton glared back at him with barely contained rage, Jenez's voice sounded over the subdued crackling of their headphones.The pilot was speaking very quickly and urgently.
'... hear me? Come in, please!'
Bendix answered,'We can hear youjenez.'
'I'm in the cross corridor opposite the airlocks. There was a message from the Cirrandaria . The Nimosian party has been attacked... and there's something coming towards me right now!'
The Doctor cut in. 'Jenez, keep well clear of it but try to give us a description.'
Rexton took one last frustrated look around the control room, then led the way back into the corridor. They followed him as fast as the bulk of their restrictive suits would allow.
'Can't see it properly,'Jenez said. "The lights keep going out around it as it moves. It's like a grey cloud of mist, twisting and writhing.'
'Can you see any details?' the Doctor asked.
They reached the central core and started back down the ramps,' Jenez's voice growing stronger as they descended.
'No... but I think it's getting thicker... It was moving slowly at first, but now it's speeding up... Wait a minute.There's a shape inside.... Oh God-'
'Run, man, run!' Bendix shouted.
They heard the searing crack of energy weapon discharges from the corridor on the level below, even as Jenez's scream of terror shrilled in their earphones. They reached the gallery they had first emerged upon with the Doctor in the lead and Rexton, Bendix and Dessel at his heels, weapons drawn.
They rounded the corner into the transverse corridor. A handgun, presumably Jenez's, was lying about ten metres along it. Sam could smell scorching and saw a dark blaze on the ceiling. A cry of pain and fear came faintly to them from somewhere beyond the rise of the corridor. They raced along it.
The junction came into view. Sam saw a flicker of movement as something disappeared down the left-hand corridor - the same impression of something half-seen that she had experienced on the surface.They reached the junction and turned after it.Twenty metres down the corridor the ceiling lights were flickering and going dim in rapid sequence. Within this travelling shadow a grey wraithlike form was speeding away from them.
It was bigger than a man, but whether it moved on legs or even touched the ground at all Sam could not tell. For a second they saw a spacesuited arm reach out of the amorphous thing and heard another agonised cry. The thing was carrying Jenez.
Bendix cursed loudly.
'Save your breath; Rexton commanded.
They pounded after the apparition. However the thing was moving, they began to overhaul it.
Then the corridor opened into a broad chamber from which a dozen more corridors led off in different directions. Across the middle was the blurred haze of the interface that they had seen in the control room several decks above them. It must extend right through the ship, Sam thought. The grey thing was heading directly towards it, haloed by flickering lights in the ceiling above. Now Sam could see the more solid form of Jenez twisting and kicking within, as though held by invisible limbs.
Dessel dropped to one knee, sighted his rifle and fired.
The beam of energy hit the thing low down. It glowed as though lit up from within by lightning, and streamers of sparks flashed about its nebulous form. For a second it seemed to waver and grow more substantial. What might have been a head turned round. Sam had the impression of bared fangs and glowing coal-red eyes.A bestial howl of pain or rage reverberated about the chamber.
Then it plunged through the interface and vanished with its struggling burden through one of the farther doorways. The lights in the chamber returned to their normal intensity.
'I hit it with the strongest blast I dared with it holding Mr Jenez,' Dessel said.'No good.'
Bendix gritted his teeth and thrust an arm into the interface, but was forced to draw it back, clenching his fist as though trying to restore circulation.
Dessel looked at Rexton expectantly, but for the moment it was evident he was at a loss.
'I have some equipment in my luggage that may help us get through this,'
the Doctor said. 'We must get back to the Cirrandaria . There's nothing else we can do here.'
'That sounds sensible,' Delray said quickly. 'Come on.'
Bendix hesitated, looking at Rexton. The councillor nodded reluctantly. But as they turned to retrace their steps, lyset Wynter said, 'Wait a moment -
listen.'
In the silence Sam heard a low groaning. They looked about, automatically raising their guns.
'Where's it coming from?' Manders hissed.
'There,' said the Doctor, pointing to an open archway.
They advanced cautiously. There came another groan, which dissolved into a choking sob.
'Somebody's hurt,' said the Doctor, and stepped forward briskly.
The corridor beyond made a right-angled turn a few metres in.The Doctor rounded this and quickly bent down. 'Give me a hand, Sam.'
Lying there slumped with his back to the wall was a man in a Nimosian-pattern space suit. On the chest was a name tag with LT.M. TANE
stencilled on it. His visor was open. Sam saw two wild eyes staring up at them. Spittle bubbled from his lips and he made vague scrabbling movements
as though he was trying to crawl away from them.
'The rest of you stay back,' the Doctor said. 'Sam, take his hand. Let him know you're real. It's all right; he continued, addressing the wretched figure in the same calming tones Sam had heard him use on her earlier. 'We aren't here to hurt you...' She took the man's twitching hand and squeezed gently, smiling at him as warmly as she could.
Tane's eyes darted madly from one to another of them. His rapid breathing began to slow and Sam felt the tension flow out of him. His head dropped forward and he began to sob uncontrollably.
'What the hell can do that to a man?' she heard Dessel mutter behind her.
Sam thought she could guess.
The Doctor tilted Tane's head back until their eyes met. 'I know you've been through a terrible experience,' he said gently but firmly. 'But you are going to put that aside for now. All you can hear is my voice, and I tell you the fear is going. In a moment you will be able to stand up .'There was a hypnotic rhythm to his words. Tane's face had relaxed, looking almost childlike in repose. 'Give him an arm, Sam.'
They lifted the Nimosian soldier to his feet, the Doctor not taking his eyes from him for a second.
'Now we are going to walk out of here. We'll take you somewhere safe where your friends will come to collect you.'
'Friends?' Tane said dully, his eyes focused on some distant place, speaking half to himself. "The... the ghosts took my friends. I tried to fight them but it was no use. Pulled us right through the hull. So cold. Then they started fighting each other. Dropped me. I crawled away. Heard my men screaming... had to get away from the screaming...'
'Shh,' the Doctor told him gently. 'That's enough. Don't think of it any more.'
The Nimosian nodded obediently.
Gently they walked Tane back into the large chamber and turned for the corridor that would take them back to the shuttle. Just then came a clatter of boots from a side passage.
Half a dozen men in dark-grey combat suits emerged into the chamber.
Dessel, Rexton and Bendix automatically raised their guns.
'Don't be stupid,' the Doctor snapped. "They aren't your real enemies.' He called out to the Nimosians,'We have found one of your men. He needs medical attention.'
The marines fanned out around them. Sam saw suspicious faces behind their helmet visors and fingers tight on the triggers of their guns. Just what we need, she thought dismally. One of them, wearing corporal's stripes, stepped forward.
'What happened to him? Where are the others?' he demanded.
'We don't know. We only found him a minute ago,' Sam said.
'I don't think he's suffered much physical harm, but he's in shock,' the Doctor explained. 'He must have medical treatment as soon as possible.'
The corporal looked at Tane's blank face, then waved a couple of his men forward.They took Tane gently by the arms and led him aside.
'Who did this?' the corporal asked.
'What did this, you mean.The same thing that's just taken our pilot, probably,' Bendix said bluntly.
The corporal's face darkened.'Describe it.'
'A misty grey fuzzball - but it had teeth and eyes,' Sam said. 'I know what it sounds like but it was real. It took him through there.'
As she pointed across the chamber at the interface, all the lights on the far side began to flicker and dim.
"They're coming...' she heard Tane say softly.
And then the gates of hell seemed to open upon them.
Chapter 13
Dead Man's Hands
The things poured out of the doorways in a nightmarish tide. For a moment they were mere phantoms lurking in the veil of shadow they wrapped around themselves, their forms torturing the eye and imagination with improbable silhouettes and grotesque half-seen skeletons trapped within them. But as they flowed across the floor towards them they grew and became more tangible. Twists of mist condensed into many-jointed arms, tentacles and claws. Virulent colour suddenly erupted out of shadowy grey obscurity and seared itself into the mind: hot blood red, bile yellow, decay green. And the hues flowed into the things and took on their shapes like water soaking through a sponge, illuminating them in all their terrible magnificence. Sam wanted to turn her eyes away, but she could not because no two were alike in size or shape, or held the form they had for more than a few seconds at a time. And their faces and eyes...
'Run!' she heard the Doctor shout, breaking the spell of disbelieving horror that had held them in its thrall. But before they could react the things burst through the interface and fell upon them.
Only then came the sound: a cacophony of howls, shrieks, roars, rasping hisses and hooting wails that should not have issued from any living creature.
Both parties opened fire. Bolts and beams of fire from Nimosian and Emindian weapons tore into the horde, lighting them up from within as though they were made of melting wax. If the sounds the things had made before were terrible, the chorus of rage and fury that issued forth now was ghastly beyond description.
But not one creature fell.
The edges of a hole blasted through a scaled body flowed together and knitted seamlessly; a limb severed by an incandescent cutting beam reformed.
A Nimosian marine was snatched up into the air by a huge clawed hand belonging to a hulking thing with a bear's body supported by a cluster of spider's legs. As he struggled another claw slashed across him, tearing his suit to ribbons and ripping open his flesh. Simmons was skewered by a tentacle tipped with a metre-long spike, extending from a pulsating mass of bloated flesh that flopped and wriggled across the floor. A black-winged creature with a slobbering needle-fanged frog mouth dived at Bendix, Dessel and Rexton even though their fire was burning holes through its leathery integument, and knocked them to the ground.
Lieutenant Tane had fallen to his knees as his two attendants joined in the fight. Sam caught him under the arms and hauled him to his feet.
An octopoid arm coiled itself about Lyset Wynter's waist and dragged her into the clutches of a ball of writhing black tendrils. Delray was on the ground, weaponless and clutching his arm, shouting Lyset's name. But the thing carrying her vanished in the dreadful kaleidoscope of slashing limbs and stabbing fire.
Then the shrill of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver rose above the bedlam.Arm outstretched, he swung it back and forth.The image from an old horror film of a priest holding back the devil's creatures with a cross flitted through Sam's mind. The creatures' plastic forms shivered like rippling water and Sam saw waves of light and darkness radiating through them. For the briefest moment the things edged backwards, not harmed but perhaps uncertain what the strange sound was. In that momentary respite she saw Rexton snatch something up from the floor. 'To the shuttle - now!'
the Doctor yelled.
They ran for their lives through the mouth of the long straight corridor that led back to the shuttle bay. And at their heels came the gibbering, baying nightmare host.
Tane was rolling his head and shouting wildly. The Doctor grabbed his other arm and helped Sam run him along. She couldn't see any Nimosian soldiers. Were they all dead or had they escaped along another corridor?
Dessel took up the rear point behind a limping Delray, firing snatched shots behind him in an attempt to slow their pursuers and buy them precious seconds.
Sam ran as desperately as she ever had in her life. She knew she should look only to the front and that nothing could make her move any faster.
Nevertheless she could not resist the compulsion to snatch a glance behind them.
What she sawdid make her run faster.
Behind them the things actually filled the corridor from floor to ceiling and wall to wall.A boiling mass of translucent putrid flesh, hair and scales, rolling over and squeezing their way between their fellows in a blind frenzy of pursuit. Some were growing extra arms to haul themselves along the ladder-like handrails with hooks and talons, while others ran upside down along the ceiling, clinging on with platelike suckers. Bony many-jointed arms spo
rting uncannily human hands, spined tentacles and chitinous insectile limbs lashed out from the seething mass - limbs that stretched impossibly like rubber in an attempt to catch them in their embrace.
And then they were at the junction.The inner airlock door, sensing their presence, began to open. Before the aperture was a metre wide they were forcing their way desperately through, driven by fear of what was at their heels.
They only just made it. As Dessel plunged through last he was jerked flat on his face and began to slither backwards, struggling and kicking. A thick glistening tentacle was coiled round his leg. Sam and Manders grabbed his outstretched arms and heaved, while Rexton and Bendix fired point-blank into the wall of mottled, slightly translucent flesh that filled the aperture. A beak set in the underside of the thing snapped back at them. But the beast would not release its grip. Slowly Dessel was being pulled back towards it.
The Doctor had the control panel beside the door open and was working frantically on the circuitry within. Suddenly the door began to close, the irising segments contracting about the thigh-thick tentacle.A motor whined in protest as it met resistance.Then, with a spray of blood and yellow slime, the tentacle fell to the floor as the door closed completely. Dessel fell forward, trembling as though from cold and shock. Sam and Manders tore the limb free from around his leg, the suckers coining loose with loud pops, and kicked it aside in disgust and horror. The cleanly severed end flopped and twitched grotesquely for a moment, then lay still.
Dull thuds reverberated against the other side of the door, and Sam could hear the muffled cries of the things rise in a chorus of frustrated rage.The Doctor adjusted his sonic screwdriver and played it over the control panel, which sparked and puffed smoke. "They won't get that open in a hurry,' he said. 'Gods!' exclaimed Dessel softly, pointing a trembling finger. The severed tentacle that had almost dragged him to his death was fading into translucency. Before their eyes it became a coil of mist that vanished as though it had never been.
Even as they looked at each other with numbed amazement, a ghostly grey tendril reached through the tightly closed airlock door. Another followed it and another, as though the material of the door itself had sprouted some weird growth from within. They flinched away from the frightening but hypnotic sight. Tane's incoherent whimpers became manic, fitful laughter.
Vanderdeken's Children Page 11
