The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who

by Simon Guerrier

  ‘The Time Destructor,’ he murmured, the words lost in the alarms. So the Daleks had finally got it working, finally deployed it in this seemingly endless war against his own people, the Time Lords. Even here at the edge of the blast sphere it was impossible to predict the effects of such a device. But one very obvious effect was that the TARDIS was out of control. Crashing.

  Desperately, the Doctor scanned the immediate area. He was in real space at least. It would take a while for the Vortex to settle down again, Until it did, he was safer here. Wherever ‘here’ was. The instruments tried to match the alignment of stars to known constellations. Finally it settled on a probable location. But there were gaps. The Nestene Homeworld was gone, wiped away in the blink of an eye. Temporal shockwaves rippled out through systems from Grantaginus to Mellandrova, from the Farflung Rift to the Wolf’s Heart Nebula.

  Finally, he saw it. A tiny planet on the edge of the nearest system. It was impossible to know if it had been affected, but it seemed stable. For the moment. It would only take the merest hint of the ripple to turn the planet’s sun into a supernova or a black hole, or an empty space where no star had yet formed. But he needed to wait out the worst of it, and give the TARDIS time to recover.

  Only as the materialisation circuits cut in, wheezing and complaining, did the Doctor realise that he needed something else. ‘K7,’ he read on the fault locator screen. The fluid links had ruptured. Wherever he was landing, he hoped he could find some mercury to replenish them. Another screen gave the name of the planet: Rontan 9. For the first time since the floor disappeared from beneath him, the Doctor smiled. It seemed he’d landed on his feet – figuratively if not literally. He patted the console and reached for the door control.

  It had taken Professor Targus Kornick years to develop the technology behind the Nihilism Chamber. It had taken him almost as long to book space at the Rontan 9 facility and persuade the university to give him the time off. But now, at last, his dreams were coming to fruition.

  ‘Is the field holding?’ he asked.

  Lizbet Harkening, Kornick’s deputy nodded. ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘We have total isolation,’ Dalla Fronstat, one of the students, confirmed.

  The other student, Archan Noon, was drumming his fingers in an annoying rhythm on the workbench.

  Kornick adjusted his spectacles, an anachronistic affectation which he believed imbued him with authority. He cleared his throat. ‘Then for the next three months,’ he announced proudly, ‘we are completely shielded from any external interference or influence. Our experiments will be the first – the very first ever, anywhere – to be conducted in an environment devoid of cosmic ray activity, electromagnetic radiation, stellar neutrinos, gravitational waves, or any other transmissions or incursions. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can get inside this Nihilism Chamber.’

  If he said anything else, his words were drowned out by the ear-rending scrape of noise that announced the arrival of a large, blue box in front of him.

  If the Doctor was disappointed by the reception he received, he contrived not to show it. He grinned and waved, he buttoned and then unbuttoned his velvet jacket and ran a hand through his hair as if it was still as long and curly as it had once been.

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’ an elderly man with grey hair and spectacles demanded.

  ‘I came out of that box,’ the Doctor told him. ‘You saw me, just now, remember? Now then, I wonder if you have any mercury I could beg off you?’

  ‘Mercury?’ The man’s voice rose an octave.

  ‘This is Rontan 9, right?’ the Doctor said. ‘The facility where scientists from all over the system can rent laboratory space to conduct their experiments away from the prying eyes and ears and wallets of large corporations, the press, and disappointed husbands and wives waiting at lonely dinner tables, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ the middle-aged woman standing beside the man agreed. ‘But we don’t have any mercury, Not in here.’

  ‘Out there, then?’ the Doctor suggested, gesturing towards a heavy airlock-style door at the back of the room.

  ‘We’re not allowed out there.’ It was one of the youngsters who spoke. Well, the Doctor thought, she was probably in her early twenties. A student, he guessed – as was the young man sitting on a metal stool beside her.

  ‘Not for months,’ the young man added. ‘Because this whole laboratory is a Nihilism Chamber so nothing at all can get in or out.’ He glanced at the elderly scientist and stifled a smile. ‘Except mercury hunters in big blue boxes, apparently.’

  ‘Ah.’ Well, that explained why he wasn’t being welcomed effusively. ‘Sorry about that. But the good news is that you’re probably shielded from the temporal effects in here, even if you’re not immune to the incursion of a relative continuum stabiliser in materialisation mode.’

  The older scientist’s anger seemed to have become a grudging acceptance. His eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his spectacles. ‘What temporal effects?’

  ‘Oh sorry, getting ahead of myself. The Daleks have deployed a Time Destructor.’ He regarded their blank expressions. ‘Great Time War, no? Passed you by? OK then, maybe I’ve dropped back a few centuries in the blast wave, no problem. But I still need mercury.’

  ‘And we still don’t have any,’ the woman told him. ‘Not in here.’

  ‘We’ll have to start again,’ the scientist said with a frustrated sigh. ‘We can’t conduct non-interference experiments with dirty great boxes and grinning maniacs just appearing out of thin air all the time. Who are you, anyway?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m the Doctor,’ the Doctor told him. ‘And I don’t want to alarm you, but we really should check that the world outside this laboratory still exists.’

  The scientists introduced themselves to the Doctor while they shut down the various isolation field generators and withdrew the energy shutters. Finally, Professor Kornick unlocked and opened the main doors.

  The world outside the chamber did still exist. But it had changed.

  They picked their way through the debris, the two older scientists confused and the younger students pale with shock. The door from the chamber opened into a corridor, which led to a reception area. The receptionist was sprawled across her desk, uniform and flesh ripped open. The chairs were overturned, deep gouges scratched down the walls.

  There were more bodies in the adjoining areas. The lights that were still working flickered erratically.

  ‘What could have done this?’ Kornick asked.

  ‘Some savage animal?’ Lizbet Harkening suggested, her voice hoarse with nerves. ‘Loose within the facility?’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ the Doctor murmured. The alternatives were even more frightening.

  ‘What’s that?’ Dalla was staring at an open doorway. ‘Can you hear that?’

  ‘I can,’ Archan said. He put an arm round Dalla, pulling her gently back.

  The Doctor could hear it too. A low rumbling sound like an approaching storm. Or an animal. He took a step towards the doorway, watching as the shadows beyond coalesced into a shape – huge, hairy, savage.

  The rumble became a roar as the creature appeared in the doorway, like an upright wolf. The face was a snarling mass of hair and teeth punctuated by deep-set eyes and a dark snout. Claws ripped through the air as the beast bounded towards them.

  Kornick backed away, white-faced. Lizbet grabbed him, and pulled him clear as the creature leaped. The students, Dalla and Archan ducked behind an overturned table. Only the Doctor stood his ground, staring in horrified recognition at the matted fur bursting through the remains of a white lab coat. The deep red eyes fixed on him, and the beast charged forward.

  He grabbed a chair, its metal legs twisted and rusty. He swung it in front of him, like a lion tamer. The creature ignored it, kept coming – leaped towards the Doctor, who tried to parry it swinging like a cricketer. Chair and fur collided and both hurtled off at a tangent, crashed into the wall, and slid down in a crumpled heap. The b
east’s claws scrabbled for a moment on the floor, then were still.

  ‘I think it’s out cold,’ Kornick said, pushing his glasses up his nose so as to see better.

  The Doctor caught his arm. ‘I know you’re curious, but it might wake up again.’

  ‘I just want to know what it is. How could it have got in here? There are no animals like that on Rontan.’

  ‘There are now,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Come on.’

  A glassed-in walkway led to the next building. The glass was warped and discoloured. The Doctor paused to examine the metal struts that held the structure together. It was corroded, dull with age.

  ‘How old is this facility?’ he asked.

  ‘They had their tenth anniversary last year,’ Lizbet told him. ‘But this looks… ancient.’

  Before the Doctor could reply, Archan called back from further along the walkway. ‘Come and look at this. It’s…’ His voice tailed off, as he failed to find the words to describe it.

  The young student was peering through the discoloured glass. The landscape beyond appeared and vanished with the flickering light above them – their own reflected faces staring back at them intermittently.

  ‘It ought to be daylight out there,’ Dalla said. ‘We should be able to see the accommodation block.’

  ‘So where is it?’ Kornick said.

  ‘I think that is the accommodation block,’ the Doctor told them. They stared out at the flickering view of the crumpled steel supports and the rubble strewn across the landscape.

  The walkway gradually became darker as more lights failed. The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver cast a pale blue glow ahead of them, enough to see that the structure ended as if it had been bitten off. Their feet crunched on old, brittle glass as they walked slowly onwards.

  ‘Time distortion,’ the Doctor told them.

  ‘You mean, this area has grown old and decayed?’ Kornick said. He stared into the gloom, his expression a mixture of scientific curiosity and horror.

  ‘We should head back,’ Archan said. ‘There’s nothing out there, except maybe more of the creatures that killed those people.’

  ‘Certainly no mercury,’ the Doctor murmured.

  They retraced their steps to the reception area. The wolf-like creature was still unconscious, drawing rasping ragged breaths. They picked their way warily around it.

  ‘We should try B Block,’ Kornick decided. ‘That’s where Malatan Benervan and her team are working. If they don’t already know about these animals, we need to warn them.’

  He led the way through the wreckage to another door. The electronics had failed completely, so they had to prise the door open with their hands. The lights in the corridor beyond were on. It would have seemed perfectly normal were it not for the viscous grey-green liquid that stained one wall. It dripped from the ceiling, pooling in the middle of the corridor.

  ‘It’s leaking through,’ the Doctor realised. ‘What’s above here? Some sort of storage tank?’

  ‘Just another lab,’ Lizbet told him. ‘Where Malatan and her team are working.’

  ‘Maybe something they were working on has spilled,’ Archan suggested.

  ‘We should check they’re all right.’ Kornick didn’t sound optimistic.

  ‘What’s that?’ Dalla said, pointing down the corridor ahead of them.

  It was like smoke, drifting slowly towards them. Thin and pale, almost ethereal, coiling and extending.

  ‘Escaping gas of some sort?’ Archan wondered.

  ‘Don’t breathe it in,’ the Doctor warned. ‘Just in case.’

  They held their breath, and hurried through. From somewhere nearby a voice called out, the words indistinct as if lost on the breeze.

  ‘What was that?’ Lizbet said, turning.

  ‘Must have come from the lab above us,’ Kornick said. ‘We should get up there.’

  The lifts weren’t working, and they had to force open the door to the emergency stairs. The Doctor held the doors open while the others squeezed through the gap. He eased himself after them, and the doors clanged shut again behind him. Kornick was looking pale, leaning forward with his hands on his knees and breathing heavily.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the Doctor asked.

  Kornick straightened up, his face drawn. ‘Of course I’m all right. We need to find Malatan.’ His eyes were ringed with red, as if he’d been rubbing them. Maybe they’d been irritated by the smoke, or whatever it was.

  The lighting fizzed and flickered as they made their way up the stairs. Sections of the handrail were rusted almost through, yet next to them were sections of untarnished steel. The stairs too were a juxtaposition of polished elegance and fractured, crumbling stone.

  The doors were gone, along with a large part of the lab. No rubble or debris, just nothing. Like those sections had never been built. Wind scattered papers and raked through broken glass as the Doctor and the others picked their way through the mess. Double doors at the other end of the room stood in the middle of an incongruous section of wall.

  There were pools of the grey-green sludge on the floor. One metal stool was covered with it. The Doctor dipped the end of a rusty stylus into the slime, sniffed at it, and grimaced as he realised what it must be. He dropped the stylus into the viscous liquid and straightened up.

  As he did, he spotted a store cupboard, standing alone against a wall that was no longer there. The doors opened easily, but the contents were a mess of smashed jars and broken test tubes. Sand that used to be glass was scattered across one shelf. A viscous silver stream ran fluid along another. Mercury. He didn’t need a lot – and there was just about enough. The Doctor pulled an old, battered toffee tin from his pocket and coaxed the mercury to flow and drip into it.

  ‘What happened here?’ Dalla asked, her voice barely more than a whisper and almost lost in the sound of the wind.

  ‘Time distortion on a massive scale,’ the Doctor began as he pressed the lid tightly back on the tin full of mercury. But he got no further.

  The doors opposite them burst open. The wail of the wind became the roar of the creatures charging towards them. This time, no one hesitated. For once the Doctor didn’t need to shout ‘Run!’ because they were already running.

  They clattered down the stairs, growls and roars echoing down after them. Back to the corridor below, desperately wrenching open the doors again, and squeezing through the narrow gap.

  ‘Give me a hand,’ the Doctor gasped.

  Lizbet and Kornick were already off down the corridor. But the two students stopped to help the Doctor force the doors shut again. A hairy arm rammed through the gap, claws scratching for them as the creature tried to force its way through. Dalla took her shoe off and hammered at the arm with the heel until the creature drew back. Then the Doctor and Archan slid the door fully closed. The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver fused the lock. But there were already dents appearing in the metal as they hurried after Kornick and Lizbet.

  Lizbet was standing just inside the reception area, hand to her mouth, staring ahead wide-eyed.

  ‘What is it?’ the Doctor demanded. ‘Has the creature woken?’

  She shook her head, unable to speak, just pointing. Her hand seemed insubstantial, strangely translucent. A trick of the flickering light, perhaps.

  But what she pointed at was no trick. Kornick was in the middle of the room, tearing at his lab coat with clawed hands. His face was a mass of matted hair, eyes receding and features blurring.

  ‘Help…’ he pleaded, ‘Help me.’ But the words became a guttural roar of sound.

  ‘What’s happening to him?’ Dalla gasped.

  ‘Regression,’ the Doctor replied quickly. ‘Let’s get past him before the process is complete,’

  ‘But – we have to help him,’ Archan said.

  ‘Too late,’ the Doctor told him. ‘He’s been caught in a residual time distortion. It’ll happen to us all if we hang around. I thought the effects had dissipated, but I was wrong.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry.’ Th
en he led them at a run across the room, keeping clear of Kornick. The scientist watched them through rheumy eyes. A trail of saliva trickled down his inhuman chin.

  ‘We’re going back to the Nihilism Chamber?’ Dalla asked as the Doctor led them down the corridor.

  ‘The only place that’s safe.’

  From behind them came a roar of anguish and rage.

  ‘And probably not for long,’ the Doctor added.

  They quickened their pace. The door behind them crashed open, and they broke into a run. None of them turned. They could all hear the growling anger, the claws scratching on the floor as the creature that had been Kornick bounded towards them

  ‘Hang on,’ Archan said, breathless. He risked a look over his shoulder. ‘Where’s Lizbet?’

  The Doctor looked back too. A thin mist, like smoke drifted down the corridor after them, blurring their view of the slavering creature as it approached. ‘So, not a trick of the light after all,’ he murmured.

  The smoky cloud caught up with them, keeping pace. The voice was faint, as if it came from another room. ‘What’s happening to me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor said. He passed his hand slowly through the misty air as he ran. ‘I am so very sorry.’

  ‘You can’t help me?’ The voice was fainter.

  ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘Then help the students. Get them to safety.’ The last words were all but drowned out by the roar of the approaching creature.

  The smoke thickened, coalescing as if gathering itself in a misty curtain across the corridor. Through it, the Doctor could see the dark shape of the Kornick-creature bounding towards them. He stood transfixed, the two students either side of him.

  ‘We’ll never outrun that thing,’ Dalla said, her voice trembling.

  ‘I’m hoping we won’t have to.’