by Dan Abnett
‘Doctor, is it what you thought it was? This… influence you referred to?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s the thing. This is odd. It doesn’t fit. My hunch was clearly wrong. I mis-hunched. I’ve got to go back and start again.’
‘So you’re attempting a re-hunch?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Maybe it is just a glitch, after all?’
‘No, Pond. A glitch, no matter how big, doesn’t rip something apart and shower blood everywhere.’
‘At least there isn’t a body,’ said Amy, encouragingly.
‘There doesn’t have to be,’ said the Doctor. ‘Whatever bled here, it bled enough to be dead. A body could be lying close by and we’d never see it.’
He stood up quickly, snowflakes in his hair and eyelashes.
‘Don’t let Arabel look around,’ he whispered to Amy. ‘Keep her calm and keep her here. I don’t want her… finding her sister.’
Amy nodded. Arabel was close by, a phantom in the falling snow, standing under one of the trees, lost in thought.
‘Try to keep her occupied. Don’t let her imagine the worst,’ said the Doctor.
‘I’ll see if she knows anywhere in the area we could shelter,’ said Amy.
‘Good idea.’
Amy went over to Arabel. The Doctor continued to pace around the clearing, scrutinising signs and traces, as though he was in a laboratory where it just happened to be snowing.
Samewell came up to him. ‘I found these over there,’ he said quietly. He had some grisly objects in his hand, and he furtively showed them to the Doctor. They were almost black, like chunks of coal. They weren’t chunks of coal. They were pieces of bone, caked in blood.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Doctor.
‘It’s all right,’ said Samewell. ‘It’s not Vesta. These are bits of backbone from a sheep.’
The Doctor took one of the sticky lumps out of Samewell’s hand and examined it closely.
‘I think you’re right, Samewell. Vertebrae. Ovine.’
‘I know sheep. It’s my labour to watch the flocks and rear them.’
‘It was a sheep,’ murmured the Doctor, relieved.
‘It was a sheep what was killed here,’ agreed Samewell. ‘Like the other livestock this winter. We think it’s a dog run wild, Guide help us.’
‘It’s been eaten,’ said the Doctor. ‘Devoured. Reduced to a few bones.’
‘A dog would do that,’ said Samewell. ‘A hungry dog.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘But in just a few hours? This is fresh. It’s happened since last night, because the stains are still in the snow. Can even a big, hungry dog eat an entire sheep in that time?’
Samewell regarded the question with some alarm. He was also beginning to look blue around the edges.
‘We need to shelter somewhere,’ said the Doctor. ‘This weather’s getting worse by the minute.’
‘There’s a vent,’ Samewell told him. ‘It’s about a mile from here on the skirt of Would Be.’
‘A vent?’
‘A herder’s hut. For when we take the flocks up past the woods onto Moreland in summer. Guide knows it’s closer to us than Beside.’
‘OK, good. We’d better get moving,’ said the Doctor.
They started walking, heads down into the blow. The snow was in their faces, hard and prickling. Samewell knew the way.
As they trudged along, the Doctor thought about the word Samewell had used. Vent. Another Morphan neologism, presumably derived from the word for wind, as in a place where a herdsman could shelter from that elemental force. In Australia, they called them watch boxes, and in Norway they called them seters. On Umonalis Quadok where, admittedly, they herded ungulate ruminant thwentilopes rather than sheep, they called them Bimbemberabemhamshighans, which the Doctor had always thought was a rather ostentatious label for a one-room shack. In the highlands of Scotland, they called them bothies.
Snow always reminded the Doctor of Scotland. It was a place he was very fond of. Many years away – not necessarily ago, because ‘ago’ was a clumsy concept to an inveterate time traveller – many years away, in a sideways direction that led to another part of his curiously structured life, the Doctor had visited Scotland and made a good friend there, a highlander called Jamie McCrimmon. Jamie had travelled with the Doctor for a while. They’d been to some places, and done some things, and on several occasions they had ended up in deep snow and deeper trouble. The thought of snow, and Jamie, took the Doctor back to his original, uneasy hunch. It was hard to shake, even though the evidence was no longer adding up.
‘We should keep looking,’ said Arabel.
‘I can’t even see my hands in front of my face in this,’ said Samewell.
‘She’ll freeze,’ said Arabel.
Samewell had his arm around her, leading her along and shielding her with his coat. ‘Guide knows we won’t be no use to her if we freeze first,’ he said.
The Doctor stopped.
‘What is it?’ asked Amy. She was keeping her jaw clenched so her teeth wouldn’t chatter.
‘Something,’ said the Doctor. He looked around. ‘There’s something nearby.’
It was hard to see for any distance. It was still snowing hard, and flurrying too, and Amy had a feeling evening had set in and taken over the responsibility for making things dark from the snowstorm. Constellations of snowflakes moving against the black trunks of nearby trees was about all she could make out.
‘I don’t see anything,’ she said, wiping snow off her nose.
‘Neither do I, but I feel it,’ said the Doctor.
‘What, like a sixth sense?’
‘Much vaguer. Much, much vaguer. A ninth or tenth sense at best.’
He rotated on the spot again, flipped out his sonic screwdriver, scanned and then switched it off. He tapped the end of the screwdriver against his pursed lips as he thought.
‘We should keep moving,’ said Amy.
‘We should keep moving,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘Samewell?’
‘It’s up this way, a bit further yet,’ Samewell replied. ‘We’re close to the edge of Moreland now.’
There was a break in the trees, a thinning out where the snow was deeper on the ground. The snow was beginning to drift.
The Doctor stopped again and took another look around. He divined with his warbling screwdriver again. ‘Let’s liven things up by walking a little faster,’ he said, smiling.
The smile did nothing to take Amy’s chill away.
‘Hang on!’ Rory said, sitting up.
Of course, it’s far too late to say ‘hang on!’ once you’ve already been struck around the head with a blunt object and knocked unconscious. He said it nevertheless, and then groaned as the intense throbbing in his head introduced itself and let him know it would be staying for a few days.
‘Ow,’ he said, resting his forehead in his hand. ‘Ow. Also, owww-www.’
‘Don’t move,’ a voice warned him.
‘Fine. I really haven’t got much planned except sitting here and experiencing pain for the moment,’ he replied. He shook his head in an effort to dispel the pain, and it worked in exactly the same way that shaking a snow globe makes it easier to see the scene inside.
‘Owwwwww,’ he breathed.
‘Don’t you move, or I’ll hit you again,’ said the voice.
‘Please don’t do that,’ said Rory.
‘I didn’t want to the first time,’ said the voice. There was a waver of concern. ‘I thought you were… it.’
‘Really? Well, I’m not.’
‘I see that now.’
‘I’m glad we’ve cleared that up,’ said Rory, ‘but my head still really hurts. What did you hit me with?’
‘This,’ said the voice.
The mill shed was still dark, and the turbines were humming under the boarded floor, but the gloom was softened by a small metal lamp that had been turned down very low. By its little, amber glow, Rory could see the shapes of dusty machi
nery around him, and a figure crouching opposite. The figure was holding a wooden mallet.
‘Great,’ said Rory. Even talking hurt. ‘That looks like a really solid thing to hit someone on the head with. I’ve probably got concussion.’
‘I’ll hit you with it once more if you don’t hush.’
‘Don’t do that! Why would you do that?’
‘Because I think it may still be outside.’
‘It, you mean?’
‘Yes. You must’ve seen it too.’
Rory nodded, and then added nodding to his list of Things To Avoid Doing.
‘I did,’ he said.
‘Those red eyes…’
‘Exactly,’ said Rory. He felt his scalp gingerly, and found a lump the size of a quail’s egg over his left ear that was so badly bruised just touching it made him want to say things that were not good out-loud words. ‘It chased me,’ he said instead.
‘And me,’ said the figure.
Rory shifted a little to prop himself up against the wooden base of some machine.
‘Don’t move or I will hit you!’ the voice ordered.
‘I thought we’d established I wasn’t it,’ said Rory.
‘I don’t know what you are,’ said the figure with the mallet.
‘Do I look like it?’ asked Rory.
‘No, but it is an unguidely thing, most terribly unguidely, so it may alter its looks with conjury. It may take on a disguise of deceit.’
‘Does this look like a disguise someone would choose?’ asked Rory, gesturing to himself. He squinted into the gloom. The lamp was turned down so far, all he could make out was a hooded and robed shape. And the mallet.
‘It doesn’t seem likely,’ the figure admitted.
‘So could you put the mallet down?’ he suggested. ‘Or at least go to Defcon five with it?’
‘You talk funny. What is your name?’
‘Rory. I’m Rory.’
‘Raw-ree? That’s… that’s an unguidely name, that is.’
‘I’m sure it’s not, but OK.’
‘You’re not from Beside, for I would know you. What plantnation are you from?’
‘Leadworth. I’m from Leadworth.’
‘There is no plantnation called that!’ the figure declared.
‘Do you know what? I think it’s quite likely that there are some plant-nation-things that you haven’t heard the names of.’
‘That’s not possible!’
‘Well, you can hit me on the head with a mallet as many times as you like, but it won’t change the fact that it is.’
There was a pause of indecision.
‘So, wh-where is this plantnation on Hereafter?’
Rory looked at the hooded figure. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve answered your question, I’ve told you my name, and I think I’ve been pretty good about you hitting me on the head with a mallet, all things considered. Quite apart from anything else, I haven’t had a particularly brilliant day. So I think you can answer a question for me next. Who are you?’
The figure hesitated, and then pulled down the hood. The lamplight picked out a face that was small and pale, and streaked with the tracks of tears that Rory was sure were the product of frustrated anger rather than weakness.
‘I’m Vesta Flurrish,’ she said.
‘Ah,’ Rory replied, recalling the words of the men who had accosted him. ‘People are looking for you.’
The snowfall eased back enough to reveal that a winter’s night was setting in. Thick banks of grey snow cloud, as coarse and dense as wire wool, slumped low across the sky, interspersed with clear, cold bands of evening. The occasional early star twinkled in the clear stretches, like fairy lights behind glass.
In the twilight of the late afternoon, the snowscape had turned violet and the trees mauve. The snow was like white noise, as though reality wasn’t quite tuned in. The Doctor, Amy, Arabel and Samewell trudged through the edges of Would Be, hearing only the crunch of their footsteps on the fresh snow and the puff of their breaths. Vapour trailed behind them with each exhalation. The Doctor knew they’d been out too long and had pushed too hard. They needed heat and shelter quickly. It was all very well for his Gallifreyan constitution, but human metabolisms were going to shut down very soon, with catastrophic consequences.
‘You keep looking behind you,’ said Amy.
‘I do, don’t I?’ replied the Doctor.
‘Why?’
‘Just checking to see if it’s snowing as badly there as it is in front of us.’
‘Why really?’
‘No reason.’
‘What are you doing with the sonic?’ she asked.
‘Just re-setting it,’ he replied.
‘To what?’
‘A different setting.’
‘Why?’
‘Just in case,’ he said.
‘In case of what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, I’m going to stupid well thump you if—’
‘Look!’ Bel cried.
They looked. She was pointing up at the sky, at a patch of clear night between cliffs of snow-bruised cloud. The stars were gleaming.
One of them was moving.
It made no sound. It was just a white light, no bigger than the other stars, but it was moving across the sky from east to west.
‘I told you,’ said Bel. ‘Just like I saw before.’
‘It’s an aircraft,’ Amy whispered to the Doctor.
‘Too high up,’ the Doctor replied. ‘And besides, the good people of Beside do not possess aircraft.’
‘What then?’
‘Something in orbit,’ said the Doctor.
‘Like a spaceship?’ asked Amy.
‘Certainly something spaceship-esque,’ he agreed.
She frowned at him.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘something so much like a spaceship you may as well use the word “spaceship”. My guess is, that’s an interstellar craft in a distant parking orbit, but it could be some kind of lander or shuttle making a slow, shallow descent.’
‘Doctor,’ said Amy carefully, ‘is this planet being invaded by something?’
‘It’s already been invaded,’ the Doctor replied, ‘twenty-seven generations ago, by the Morphans from Earth before. I think someone else has arrived to dispute that claim.’
Amy ignored the clever-clever nature of his answer. ‘Seriously, this planet,’ she said, choosing her words firmly so there could be no wiggle room in the answer, ‘is about to get invaded?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘The invasion started months ago. We’re only just noticing it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Bel, overhearing the last bit.
The Doctor stopped and held a finger to his lips. The others stopped too, looking at him. The crunching of their footsteps stopped. They caught their breath for a moment as they tried to pick up what he was hearing.
They could still hear crunching footsteps and they could still hear rasping breath. It just wasn’t them. Bel’s eyes widened. Samewell’s jaw dropped. Amy looked at the Doctor sharply, silently demanding an explanation. The Doctor looked around, checking every direction. He was the first one to see the figures emerging through the snow.
There were half a dozen of them at least, closing from behind, and from the left and right. Grey-green shadows, they looked as tall and robust as tree trunks, except they were walking. Shambling. Trudging. There had to be a word for what they were doing, Amy was sure, but none of the ones she could dredge up seemed threatening enough.
The figures were massive. Their torsos were hugely bulky, and their fists were like pincers. Their eyes flashed red in the uncanny gloom.
Their breathing sounded like punctured bellows: long, wet, fluttering sounds.
‘Turns out my hunch was right,’ said the Doctor, though he didn’t sound at all pleased to be vindicated.
‘What are they?’ asked Amy.
‘They’re unguidely!’ Samewell cried.
‘Get down!�
�� the Doctor ordered.
‘What are they?’ Amy asked again instead of getting down.
‘Oh, get down!’
‘What are they?’ Amy repeated.
‘They’re Ice Warriors,’ said the Doctor.
CHAPTER 8
CERTAIN POOR SHEPHERDS IN FIELDS AS THEY LAY
Amy looked at him blankly. ‘Should I know what that means?’ she asked.
‘No!’ exclaimed the Doctor. ‘But the basic principles of “Get down!” ought to be pretty clear, even to you!’
The four of them dropped down low in the snow. The towering green warriors had come to a halt about ten metres away, forming a semicircle. Stationary, they were entirely immobile, like statues. Snow actually settled on their sculpted shoulders and ridged craniums.
One of them slowly raised its right arm from beside its hip. There was some kind of pipe attached to the upper wrist. It pointed it at them.
The creature… the Ice Warrior… said something. Amy could see taut, reptilian lips move under the rim of the intimidating visor. She couldn’t distinguish any words. It sounded like air escaping under high pressure from an inner tube.
‘Keep down!’ said the Doctor. He was frantically fiddling with his sonic screwdriver.
The Ice Warrior fired its weapon. It made one of the most unpleasant sounds Amy had ever heard, and she’d heard quite a few that featured in the Universal Top Twenty. It was a throbbing sound that she could feel in her internal organs, a pulse that brutalised the air. The blast caused a vortex in the pattern of the falling snow, whizzing flakes in a sudden horizontal spiral. A stout tree directly behind the four of them shivered and shed collected snow as the energy struck its trunk. Bark cracked and shattered. Steam wafted from the traumatised wood.
‘Guide’s sake!’ Samewell yelped.
‘It was just a warning shot!’ the Doctor told them. ‘They want us alive.’
As if hoping to corroborate the Doctor’s statement, the Ice Warrior spoke again. This time, Amy could identify a stretched and mangled word in the fierce pneumatic hiss.
‘Sssssurrenderrr…’
The Doctor sprang up to face the towering aliens. ‘Not today, thank you!’ he cried.
‘Doctor!’ Amy cried.
The Ice Warrior aimed at the Doctor and fired, but the Doctor had already activated his screwdriver. The warbling sound of the device seemed to strangle and cut short the ugly noise of the weapon.
