Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Stephen Cole

  ‘We’re alone out here,’ Frog promised him.

  Joiks nodded, nervously. ‘I guess we’d hear them anyway. They got wings… Make a sound like no bird you ever seen…’

  ‘Weren’t no birds where I grew up.’

  ‘Weren’t nothing where you grew up.’ Joiks swept his torch beam around again, wanting to be sure.

  ‘Listen,’ Frog said, and lightly took his arm. ‘Stay cool. Ain’t no angels here.’ She paused, took a step closer. ‘And I can prove that if you want.’ The words buzzed quickly out of her, as if before she could change her mind.

  Joiks turned to face her, lowered the torch until it lit them both from beneath. ‘What you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Don’t make a joke out of this, Joiks. ‘Nothing much.’ Just for once. ‘It’s…’ Frog stopped. She hated her voice. There was some stuff she could never ever say out loud, even to herself, because of how it would sound. She turned off her torch, took the deepest of deep breaths, and concentrated on modulating the words. ‘Been a long time, is all. Since anyone…’

  Joiks looked at her, realisation slowly dawning. She waited for him to smirk, to burst out laughing that she could even think that kind of thing, let alone have the nerve to act on it, looking the way she did.

  He didn’t smirk. Just stared at her with a funny expression.

  ‘You wanna get with me, Frog?’

  No, she thought. She didn’t really. Joiks was an idiot, a bully, she didn’t even like him. But people said he really wouldn’t say no to anyone, and right now…

  She tuned her voice down to a husky whisper, one she could hardly hear herself. ‘We could turn the torches off if you didn’t want to look.’

  He dropped the torch, which fell with a clatter and rolled against the wall. He became a silhouette to her. Too scared to move, she let him come to her. His fingers moved to the zip at the top of her suit, hesitated, then yanked it down. She felt herself start to shake as he slipped his hand under the cold fabric. His palm was rough as it brushed over her skin. That was all she could feel, the roughness. She wanted to open up to him, but it was like her body was dead.

  Joiks suddenly pulled his hand away. ‘Jeez, Frog.’

  ‘What is it?’ Her voice rapped out in fear, a high buzzing gurgle. There was something in his tone, something that went beyond simple disappointment. She pushed her own hand inside her jumpsuit, but still couldn’t feel a thing.

  Joiks had grabbed his torch. He shone it at her torso.

  Frog looked down automatically and saw her pale hand was white against shiny pink flesh beneath. There was a huge patch of it on her right side. Sticky, coarsened skin, like some graft which wasn’t taking.

  Or which was taking over the rest of her.

  She stared up at Joiks, her eyes wide with shock.

  He pulled out his gun, grabbed hold of her arm and forced her ahead of him back down the passageway, moaning in terror.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE ROAD OF DREAMS

  I

  POLLY HEARD THE sobs ahead of the stumbling footsteps. Creben and Roba both stood up, drew their guns, barely sheltered behind the flimsy barricade they had erected.

  She gasped as Frog was marched into view by Joiks. One hand was twisted behind her, tight in the big man’s grip, and the other clutched at her gaping suit.

  Joiks shouted over the alarmed babble that started up at their entrance. ‘She’s changing!’

  Everyone fell quiet. Polly turned to the Doctor. He was watching closely, his beady eyes narrowed. Ben rose to his feet, glanced uncertainly at Polly.

  ‘Changing?’ Creben questioned.

  ‘Her skin. Big patch of it ain’t even human.’ Joiks looked wildly into Creben’s eyes, into Roba’s. ‘Looks like Schirr skin.’

  ‘Schirr?’ Roba’s eyes widened.

  Frog shook her head mutely, fiercely. Then she hung it.

  Joiks tried to force Frog through a gap in the barricade ahead of them. Her thigh caught against a sheet of metal from the back of a console. The clanging it made as it fell woke Haunt from her feverish sleep. She stared round, bewildered. Tovel rested a hand on her shoulder to try to calm her.

  ‘What’s your game, Joiks?’ Ben shouted. ‘You’re hurting her!’

  ‘Am I?’ Joiks sneered. ‘She’s changing. How long before she tries to hurt us?’

  ‘Get off me,’ Frog shrieked as she struggled, teeth gritted, eyes screwed up. She looked like she wanted to hurt Joiks right enough, and Polly couldn’t blame her.

  ‘Show us what you mean, Joiks,’ said Creben.

  Joiks twisted harder on Frog’s arm. She threw her head back and hissed like a cat. He slipped his other arm under her shoulder and brought his hand back round behind her neck, until he held her quite helpless. Frog’s suit was flapping open to the waist. Beneath it she wore a cropped grey top, and below the hem Polly glimpsed something sticky and sore-looking.

  ‘What are you all playing at?’ Ben shouted. ‘Frog’s your mate!’ The men ignored him. ‘She’s not well! You can’t treat her like that!’

  ‘Hold her still, Joiks,’ Creben snapped.

  Frog kicked at him as he came closer, so Roba seized hold of her ankles. If his bandaged arm was hurting him he gave no sign. He just stared at Frog, who went on struggling as Creben advanced.

  ‘I must insist you let me examine this woman in a proper manner,’ the Doctor thundered, tapping Creben repeatedly on the shoulder.

  ‘Show him,’ said Tovel. ‘Maybe he can help her.’

  Roba looked angry. ‘Whose side you on, man?’

  Tovel shrugged. ‘Frog’s, maybe.’ Now he looked at her. ‘Frog, sweetheart, give it up, OK?’

  Polly realised guiltily that Tovel was the only one of them who’d actually talked to Frog like she was still a person, and not some wild dog that needed putting down. ‘We want to help you.’

  ‘Help her?’ Joiks echoed. His face was pearled with sweat as he clung grimly on to her. ‘Look at her! Look!’

  Creben stepped aside, and now Polly caught a vivid glimpse of Frog’s bare midriff. There was an enormous sticky patch of raw, shiny flesh, a deep pink like new skin growing back round a wound. It was puckered with the ridges of strange, powerful muscles, and pulsating like a new heart beat beneath it.

  She turned away, feeling revulsed. Joiks was right. The patch of skin was identical to that of the Schirr on bloody display on the platform.

  ‘What do you make of it, Doctor?’ she heard Ben ask quietly.

  ‘Well, my boy, well…’ The Doctor cleared his throat. ‘I would say massive cellular disruption resulting in spontaneous tissue generation. Her genome is being aggressively altered by some alien influence.’

  ‘Come again?’

  Creben acted as interpreter. ‘She’s becoming a monster.’

  Polly spun round at this. ‘No!’ she said helplessly.

  ‘What did I tell you,’ Joiks spat. Frog finally let herself go limp in his grip. She looked exhausted. Now she was just fighting against the tears that still forced their way out of her.

  Ben turned to Tovel. ‘Ain’t there something in your box of tricks you can give to her?’

  ‘Yeah, Tovel?’ Roba joined in. He seemed to have changed his tune. ‘We can stop this thing, right?’

  ‘It is a sickness,’ the Doctor said, nodding. ‘Whereas your leader and Shade have had impurities driven from their bodies, Frog is becoming contaminated in some way.’ His voice wavered: ‘I am sure we can reverse the process.’

  ‘You don’t sound so sure to me,’ Roba said, letting go of Frog’s ankles.

  Joiks sagged under Frog’s full weight, almost lost his balance. He shook his bead. ‘Reckon the only cure for her’s right there in Creben’s hand.’

  For a long, long second, Creben looked down at his gun.

  Before he could do another thing, Tovel swiped it from his grip. It skittered across the floor.

  ‘You can forget about using that,’ he said fl
atly.

  ‘What gives, Tovel?’ Joiks hissed. ‘You marshal now, stretcherbearer?’

  Tovel gave a cheerless smile. ‘Well, I don’t know, Joiks, are you?’

  Roba nodded back at Haunt’s prone form on the force mattress. ‘Someone better be.’

  ‘I should take command,’ said Creben stepping forward.

  ‘How’d you figure that, brain boy?’ snapped Joiks.

  ‘I graduated to Elite training faster than any of you,’ Creben said simply.

  ‘So you got less field experience than any of us,’ Roba pointed out. ‘What else you got?’

  ‘Gentlemen, please,’ the Doctor said heavily. ‘Listen to yourselves. Divisive forces are at work here. They seek to spread terror… will you fight amongst yourselves, or will you pit your wits against these forces and defeat them?’

  ‘Do I have to kill you, old man?’ Joiks asked like it was a serious question. ‘Is that what it’s gonna take to keep your mouth shut?’

  Tovel stepped in quickly. ‘If he opened it to yawn he’d be speaking more sense than you, Joiks. You’re not in the Incendiaries now, you got witnesses, OK? So let Frog go.’

  Ben stood beside Tovel. ‘You heard him.’

  ‘Hey, good for you, Tovel.’ Joiks laughed mockingly. ‘You got shorty’s vote. I bet the little girl will be in your gang too!’

  ‘That’s enough.’

  It was a long way from Haunt’s usual bellow, but it arrested everyone like a gunshot. She was facing them on her knees. She looked like death, pale and clammy, both hands were clamped against her side. She swayed slightly, but her gaze was defiantly steadfast. The looks on the soldiers’ faces were all identical – like rowdy children caught red-faced and red-handed up to no good.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘No one is killing anybody. We are a team. One unit.’

  ‘One unit?’ Joiks spluttered. ‘Denni and Lindey, dead. Shel off his head, Shade with his face cracked open, Frog not even human no more… We’re in pieces! Don’t you see that?’

  ‘I know what I see.’ Haunt’s eyes locked on to his own. ‘Someone so scared he can’t even think. Can’t even start to think this all out. You know, you’re funny, Joiks. You want to quit, is that it? Go back to the ship and go home? Well, guess what…’ She gasped suddenly, doubled up in pain. Everyone waited for the pain to subside, watched expectantly, in an uncomfortable, funereal silence. It was like waiting for the last words of someone about to die.

  ‘You’re all each other’s got,’ Haunt ground out at last. ‘Tovel, you’re a good pilot. Turn this thing around. Before… Before…’

  Haunt’s eyes closed and she slumped forwards across the mattress. When no one else moved, Polly scrambled over to help her back into a lying position. Haunt’s forehead was scorching hot. She seemed short of breath, panting like she was going to be sick. The lump below her rib cage was distended so far the skin was white now under the pressure, seeping a clear fluid.

  Polly felt all eyes on her. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I think she’s going to die.’

  Frog picked her moment well. When she stamped down hard on Joiks’s foot she caught him completely by surprise. His shriek of pain died when she jabbed an elbow back into his stomach, turned, and punched him so hard he almost flew backwards, crashing into one of the consoles. He lay still at its base, his eyes closed. Roba lunged for her but Frog ducked past him, sprinting for the doorway.

  She never made it. Tovel raised his gun and fired. With a high-pitched electronic squawk, Frog went down hard on the floor.

  ‘You killed her!’ Polly yelled. Haunt started and stirred, her bloodshot eyes flickered open for a second. Then she sank back.

  ‘I only stunned her,’ Tovel retorted. ‘Now if everyone will just calm down so we can think… Roba, bring Frog over here. Creben, see to Joiks.’

  Polly watched a murderous expression flit across Creben’s face at the instruction before he turned to obey.

  Roba scooped up Frog from the floor, but he held her away from his body, like he didn’t want to catch whatever it was she had. Tovel pulled out one of the magic sweets from his pocket and threw it down beside Polly. She jumped as it instantly snapped into another full-size mattress.

  Roba dumped Frog down on it. ‘Getting like a regular sick bay in here,’ he grumbled.

  Tovel eyed the unconscious Joiks as Creben dragged him past by his feet. ‘More like a crèche,’ he muttered.

  ‘Doctor,’ Polly gasped. ‘Come quickly.’

  Ben came too. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Cor, dear, what’s all that!’

  A brown milky fluid was oozing from the lump in Haunt’s side.

  ‘Is…’ Polly tried not to be squeamish. ‘Is that the tumour?’

  ‘Yes,’ breathed the Doctor, as he arrived beside them and looked down at Haunt. ‘The malignancy has been broken down, rejected through the pores in the skin…’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘It’s quite ironic of course, but this process may well have saved her life in the long term.’

  ‘How long is long,’ Ben reflected moodily.

  ‘That countdown I saw,’ Polly recalled. ‘It ticked down to us taking off… I wonder if it’s ticking down now to wherever we’re due to arrive?’

  Tovel had rejoined them. ‘That blue light, yes… That and machinery of some kind, you said.’

  The Doctor considered. ‘It sounds like some kind of engine room, wouldn’t you say?’

  Tovel nodded and looked at Polly. ‘And you saw someone there?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said self-consciously, hoping people weren’t about to depend on the information.

  ‘We need to check it out,’ Tovel decided. ‘Short of searching this entire asteroid for some sign of Shel, it’s about the only positive thing we can do.’

  Creben rejoined them, having laid Joiks down beside Shade. ‘I agree. Having an achievable goal is better than just searching aimlessly.’

  Roba didn’t look convinced. ‘And what if we run into more of them stone things out there.’

  The Doctor looked thoughtful. ‘We must attempt to communicate with them.’

  ‘You ain’t seen them, Doctor,’ Ben said quietly. ‘Don’t reckon talking’s on their mind.’

  ‘If they meant to harm us now, why have they not followed us here? To attack us in our quite considerable disarray, hmm?’

  ‘Well, even if they don’t,’ said Polly, ‘what about Shel? He’s still out there, and he nearly killed you.’

  ‘We will take all the precautions we can, I promise you, Polly,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Ben. He didn’t sound too happy. ‘We? You mean you’re coming with us?’

  ‘Of course I am, my boy.’

  ‘Hey, wait,’ Roba scowled. ‘Thought you were gonna fix up Frog?’

  ‘By instigating this plan, I hope to,’ the Doctor said tetchily. ‘And I suggest we attempt to wake Mr Joiks, also. The area is blocked off by a rockfall, and we shall need his strength.’

  There was a groan from the other side of the room, right on cue.

  ‘Let’s hope Frog knocked some sense into him,’ said Ben.

  ‘Indeed, yes. In any case, the rockfall… Once manual labour has cleared that, and the propulsion systems, as we hope them to be, revealed…’ The Doctor tapped his head and chortled to himself. ‘Then the mind must be put to good use in sabotaging them, hmm?’

  Tovel saw what he was getting at. ‘We can’t steer without the crystals, but we can stop ourselves before we arrive!’

  ‘Precisely,’ said the Doctor.

  Creben shrugged. ‘We might buy some time.’

  ‘And halt the malign influence affecting your friend here,’ the Doctor said to Roba, patting Frog on the arm. ‘Before it strikes any more of us. Driving out impurities… and yet…’ He trailed away, lost in his thoughts.

  ‘What about Pol?’ Ben demanded.

  Polly had been asking herself the selfsame question. ‘I suppose I should stay here,’ she volunteered, with a sick
feeling in her stomach. ‘Look after the wounded.’

  ‘I believe that will be safest,’ the Doctor said, smiling at her.

  Polly looked down at Frog’s unconscious body, and didn’t answer.

  ‘What if one of them bodies goes walkabout again?’ asked Ben.

  The Doctor considered. ‘Well, we came to no harm the last time the phenomenon occurred.’

  ‘That was then!’ Ben retorted. ‘And in case you’d forgotten, there’s still a secret doorway into this place that we don’t know about!’

  ‘We searched everywhere,’ Creben told him. ‘Found nothing.’

  ‘Well, how come Polly vanished then, eh? Went flying through the wall, I suppose, did she?’

  ‘Look, I can’t come with you,’ Polly said flatly. ‘I can’t just leave Shade and Haunt here alone, can I? Or Frog.’

  ‘Maybe I should stay,’ said Ben.

  Yes please, Polly thought to herself, but kept her face carefully neutral.

  ‘The sooner we clear a path, the sooner we can return,’ said Creben.

  There were nods of assent from the others. Polly forced a smile. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Shade’s injuries are healing fast,’ Creben added. Polly frowned; she found that hard to imagine.

  ‘When he wakes up, he’ll be protection for you. Plus you’ll be barricaded in, Polly,’ Tovel assured her.

  Ben didn’t look happy. ‘You couldn’t stop a determined ferret with that!’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she told him again, more firmly. ‘Go. Go, and hurry back.’

  Ben sighed, then forced a smile himself. ‘Have the kettle on for us when we get back, eh?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘And the best china, right?’

  ‘Then it is settled.’ The Doctor looked benignly around. ‘Shall I lead the way?’

  ‘Don’t push it, Doctor,’ Tovel told him. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  II

  Haunt forced her eyes open. She stared straight up at the mirrors pressed into the ceiling, high, high above. No. She didn’t want to see herself, to see what was happening to her. She heard the swift clatter of troops marching out of the room. Right now she couldn’t imagine what it would be like, to feel so healthy, so strong again. The mirrors reflected gleams of light from the high golden trellises into her watery eyes. She looked to her side instead, but she couldn’t focus. Maybe she was falling to fever, maybe to drugs, but everything was starting to distort.