by Doctor Who
‘Wanted our brains,’ grumbled Dram. ‘We were both given thirty years, here on Prime.’
‘Well, your people are brilliant inventors,’ said the Doctor. ‘Good hustlers too. You must have family working on getting you out of here?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dram.
‘You’re laughing then.’
As if on command, the pair of Slitheen started giggling.
Ecktosca cleared his throat, recovering. ‘We’ll get there in the end, undoubtedly. But it’s taking so long. Legal loopholes, evidence going missing. . . And in the meantime we’re stuck working on Flowers’s dreary solar power project.’
‘We have to get out soon,’ Dram blurted. ‘There’s urgent business we need to get sorted.’
‘Oh yes?’ said the Doctor.
There was a squelch as an alien elbow dug into alien ribs. ‘Family business.’
‘But not the family business, right?’
‘It does not concern aliens.’
Ecktosca Fel Fotch turned over in
his nest with a heavy slolloping noise. ‘Doctor, you smell positively provocative. I wish we had the room to run about in. I miss the hunt so badly. . . ’
‘So have you never thought of escape?’
‘Next to impossible,’ Ecktosca informed him. ‘Even with help from the outside.’
‘I’m often stood next to impossible.’
‘Do you have help from the outside?’ asked Dram, his voice striking a mournful note in the darkness.
‘The only person who can help me now is stuck like me. Well. . . ’ He took in the fetid, stinking darkness all about him and sighed. ‘Hope-fully not exactly like me.’
∗ ∗ ∗
42
‘You’ve got to listen to me,’ said Rose, still trying to wriggle clear of Norris’s grip. ‘No way is that your Governor!’
‘What are you babbling about?’ said Blanc. She knocked on the door. The unearthly blue light had died away. ‘Sir?’
‘Come.’
The voice sounded human enough. Rose was marched in by Norris, afraid of what she might see.
But it was just a man, broad and overweight and sat behind his desk in a scruffy, ill-fitting suit. Rose looked for the telltale mark of a zip in his forehead – the Slitheen’s fleshy costumes opened at the head so that the thing inside could struggle free – but a convenient grey fringe had been combed down over the Governor’s forehead and she could see nothing.
The man looked at them expectantly.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Blanc began. ‘Only we saw a strange light in here and thought we should investigate. . . ’
‘Just my desk lamp,’ said the Governor. He flicked it on and it cast a radiant blue light. ‘My wife had it sent to me, it’s supposed to be relaxing.’
Blanc passed Rose a withering look. But Rose still didn’t trust this an inch.
‘The stupid thing keeps flickering, I’ve been trying to fix it.’ The Governor fiddled with the flex and the blue light flickered alarmingly.
He sighed. ‘Not relaxing at all.’
‘Yes, well, excuse me, sir,’ Blanc began, ‘but –’
Abruptly, the Governor burped. Another giveaway, thought Rose.
The Slitheen she’d met had all burped and flirted like there was no tomorrow when in their human forms; they used something called a ‘gas exchange’ to help shoehorn their bloated alien bodies into a human form. And since Slitheen were made of living calcium, the gas stank of toothrot, and it certainly whiffed of something unpleasant in here.
‘Excuse me,’ said the Governor quite casually. ‘Something I ate dis-agreed with me. Now, what’s this disturbance?’
43
Blanc seemed to recover herself. ‘You were scheduled to meet this girl at twelve-hundred. I’ve had to bring her to you sooner for disciplining. She’s a disruptive influence, sir.’
The Governor looked Rose up and down. ‘Is she, now?’
‘In the kitchens, she nearly caused –’
‘Thank you, Blanc, I think you’d better let me deal with her,’ said the Governor. ‘You and Norris may wait outside.’
Blanc and Norris thanked him and withdrew. The door closed quietly behind them.
The Governor looked at Rose steadily. She glanced back at the door, gauging the distance, wondering if she could make it. . .
‘She can be a little irksome, that woman,’ he said.
Rose stared. ‘Pardon?’
‘Warder Blanc. Always stirring things up and looking for scapegoats.
But she keeps discipline. And I need discipline here.’ He rose from his desk. Rose braced herself for the telltale rip of a massive fart or a burp, but there was nothing. ‘I’ve been sent your file from local processing.
Justice Alpha, wasn’t it? ‘
She shrugged.
‘Unexplained trespass, yes. . . I’m afraid that Justicia’s Executive recommends you serve a sentence of at least twenty-five years.’
‘You’re joking me.’ She felt sick to her stomach. ‘Twenty-five? That’s my whole life over, and then some!’
‘You had an accomplice.’
‘You know about the Doctor?’ Slitheen or not. Rose needed to find out all she could. ‘Please, can you tell me where he is? I really need to know he’s –’
‘What were you doing on Justicia, the two of you?’ barked the Governor. ‘You were able to bypass Justicia’s force screen and all her security measures, and yet you allowed yourselves to be captured quite casually on Alpha. Almost as if you wanted to he caught.’
‘Of course we didn’t! We didn’t even know we were doing anything wrong!’
‘Equally bafflingly, neither of you seem to have any official existence-despite the fact that you, at least, are a human.’
44
Rose raised an eyebrow. ‘Like you, you mean?’
‘Yes,’ said the Governor, frowning. ‘Like me.’ He cleared his throat.
‘All a little incongruous, wouldn’t you say? So perhaps you would like to explain to me where you’ve come from and what you hope to achieve now you’re here.’
‘What, you think I want to be here?’
‘I think you were sent here. What I don’t understand is why. . . ’
‘Look, we don’t even belong in your time –’
‘Rumours and gossip. I’ll wager that’s it, eh? Well? What have you heard about my little prison here, hmm?’ He was starting to get flustered, picking up some papers and waving them under her nose. ‘I mean, if we had problems, the Executive would hardly be offloading extra prisoners on to us, would they?’ His voice was rising. ‘But they are, God knows they are. And why? Because we have no problems.
And even if we did, we could cope!’
Rose stared at him. ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.’
The Governor calmed himself with visible effort. ‘Look, if I knew what you were doing here, Tyler, I might be able to help you. Reduce your sentence, perhaps. Or, we could play things a little harder.’
‘That’s a threat, right?’
He released a quiet but audible fart in the menacing silence.
Rose nodded to herself. ‘Pardon you.’
‘I don’t excuse myself to prisoners,’ said the Governor. ‘Dismissed.
Blanc and Norris will return you to your cell.’ He paused. ‘I’ll be watching you, Tyler.’
Rose turned and crossed to the door. ‘Yeah,’ she breathed. ‘I bet you will.’
45
Rose lay on her hard, narrow bunk, as Riz’s shallow breaths punctuated the darkness. She was bone-weary from her day working the kitchens, and her night spent on edge in the block common room.
She’d made awkward conversation and played bad poker, her cheeks burning under so many curious looks from all around – and from Kazta’s spiteful stares.
The clocks here were set to Earth time, and it actually came as a relief that lights-out was 10 p.m. Not that she stood a chance of sleeping, of course. Her thoughts were chasing
their ragged tails, trampling through her head, leaving bruises.
One day down, twenty-five more years to go. The idea of it seemed impossible, terrifying. But it was her encounter with the Governor that was really staving off sleep. He had to be a Slitheen. . . didn’t he? And if he was, was he planning on nuking this world, turning it into rocket fuel? He couldn’t seriously imagine she was some kind of undercover agent placed here to stop him. . .
Of course, he could be just an ordinary Governor with a dodgy light and dodgy digestion, paranoid that his prison was up for a secret inspection. . .
47
Over Riz’s soft snores and the frantic workings of her own mind, Rose heard another sound. Footsteps.
Governor’s sending someone to get you, she thought, her heart starting to pound. Kazta? Blanc? No, it was the man himself – the thing himself – and any moment now he would strip off his human form and hunt her down, sniffing his way to her cell door, ready to kill her. . .
‘Rose?’ came a voice through the door. ‘Are you awake?’
Thank God. It was just Dennel.
‘I’m here,’ she hissed, creeping out of bed and crossing to the door.
‘Didn’t see you around tonight.’
‘I only walk this block. I don’t live here.’ He paused. ‘You OK? Kazta hasn’t tried anything, has she?’
‘Just the evil eye.’
‘She’ll get over it, but try your best to avoid her. You’ll have work tomorrow morning, and the Governor’s lunching in this block tomorrow so you won’t get trouble from –’
‘The Governor?’ Rose frowned. ‘What, he’s eating with the plebs?
Why?’
‘Good for morale, I guess. You know, him being seen to eat the same slop as the rest of us. Or maybe he just likes two dinners. Whatever, he eats in all the blocks in turn.’
‘You haven’t noticed him acting strange at all lately?’ asked Rose urgently. ‘Maybe smelling a bit different? Can’t stop blowing off?’
Rose, have you flipped or something?’ Dennel frowned. ‘Though I guess I have heard him let off a few lately. . . Stressed out, probably.
Sounds like Justice Gamma are shipping out a load of their drugged-up prisoners, trying to resettle them into the prisons here on Beta.
Must mean a lot of extra paperwork for –’
‘Look, never mind that. Dennel, you’ll never believe this, but I reckon your Governor’s been got at by aliens,’ hissed Rose. ‘If someone’s a bit on the large side, these creatures can squeeze into their skin and no one would know the difference. Not unless they’re looking for the telltale signs. . . ’
There was a long, long silence the other side of the door.
‘Trust me, Dennel. This is what I do – fight monsters and stuff?’
48
‘When you’re not kicking off riots in the kitchens,’ said Dennel pointedly. ‘Oh yeah, word about you is spreading.’
‘Look, just keep an eye on the Governor for me, yeah? Tell me if he’s acting funny, or if he skulks off to see other fatties. Or if he tries to get his hands on any nuclear missiles.’
‘You’re, like, totally insane. And so am I to be listening to this.’
‘ Please.’.
‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll keep an eye and let you know. Gotta go now. Bye.’
Rose shivered, realising how cold it was in the cell in just her night clothes. She crawled back to bed under the covers.
‘You’re seriously disturbed,’ muttered Riz. ‘You know that, right?’
‘God, yeah,’ she murmured. But if she could expose the creature. . .
Make everyone see what was skulking in their midst. . . That had to be worth a free pardon from the Executive, right? Or at the very least, they might believe her when she said that she and the Doctor had fought these things before. If there were monsters lurking all over Justicia, up to God knew what. . . well. If they put her back with the Doctor, the two of them could give these people the heads-up, show them what they were up against.
If.
She pulled the musty, scratchy blankets up over herself, and for a few moments dreamed she could be back home in her bed at Mum’s, head lost in comfy pillows and gorgeous soft warm duvet piled up about her. But after lingering there a while, she pushed the dream away.
Because she was here, and while things were bad, she knew she could deal with it. She had to.
This was who she was. And tomorrow she might just get to prove it.
The wake-up call sounded to the Doctor’s ears like an insane electric chicken laying a square egg, a gibbering hoo-hah that had him up on his feet in seconds. The lights snapped on, and the Slitheen stirred.
49
‘Wakey, wakey,’ said the Doctor, slipping on his jacket – the only thing he’d taken off before sleep. ‘What happens now? Breakfast?’
The Slitheen squirmed in their nests. Ecktosca Fel Fotch rolled on to his back, his pert little spike of a tail pointing at the Doctor like a rude gesture. ‘Slitheen do not break their fast for many weeks at a time.’
‘Religious reasons?’ wondered the Doctor. ‘Or just lazy?’
‘Our digestive systems are superior to yours. We process food efficiently and produce little in the way of waste.’
‘As your cellmate, I’m glad to hear it.’ Suddenly, like a host of lead balloons, grey globs plummeted from the shadows high above and affixed themselves to the Doctor’s body. ‘What did I do? I wasn’t being aggressive!’
The cell door ground open and the globs around him jostled him out of the room.
The Doctor soon found he wasn’t the first person up and about in the wide, rocky corridors. An enormous three-legged person ambled past him in the other direction, appraising him with a lazy orange eye.
A parade of odd-looking creatures who seemed to be half-dormouse, half-armadillo overtook him, herded by a single glob cruising above them like a lumpy zeppelin. Fellow inmates, off to slave away on their various high-tech projects.
Soon he came to a wide doorway in the corridor. The globs floated off, and he strolled inside a cavernous, circular chamber. A table in the shape of a large, hollow oval filled the room. A variety of chairs, stools and puddles of slime were placed around it, with several spots already taken by fellow prisoners.
The Doctor looked about in fascination. It was more like being in a zoo than a prison. A creature that looked like an orange woolly mammoth with four trunks sat beside a green, skinny reptile-thing with a domed forehead and big webbed feet. Black glistening nodules covered the reptile’s body, as if it had bathed in caviar. Someone else pushed past the Doctor, a large blob whose skin was the consistency of sticky toffee pudding. She settled herself under the table in a custard-like splat of fluid, her three stunning blue eyes swaying at the end of 50
frangible marzipan stalks.
‘Hey, Doctor,’ said Flowers, giving him a little wave. She was sat in a black swivel chair at one end. ‘Everyone, this is the Doctor.’ A few lethargic hoots and murmurs were made in his direction as Flowers introduced them. The mammoth was Yahoomer. The reptile was Blista. The caramelised creature on the custard cushion had the pretty name of Nesshalop.
‘Did you sleep OK, Doctor?’ Flowers asked. ‘Your room will be prepared in the next couple of days.’
‘That casual, fun-camp vibe you’re going for doesn’t really work when I have to be frogmarched here by a bunch of globs.’
‘Only till you know your way around.’
‘And to remind me I’m your prisoner.’ For all the local colour in the room, the Doctor felt sick at the thought of reporting to the same room day after day, year after year. ‘Where’s Rose?’
‘She’s in a detention centre simulation.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s doing her time.’ Flowers looked away. ‘I told you how it works, Doctor. Help us out, help yourself get out.’ She gestured around. ‘This is the accelerated gravity group. We meet here to go through stuff, sha
re findings, pool our thoughts. Literally.’
Now the Doctor noticed nifty little headsets in front of each place around the table, linked into a gleaming chrome keg-shaped console in the table’s centre. He pulled up a seat and stretched the flexible headset. ‘Can you pick up XFM on these?’
‘The mindmitters interface with your implant to overcome the language barrier. They translate your thoughts and project them on to the screen there.’ Flowers pointed to a large glowing rectangle that had appeared in the rocky wall between two steel pillars.
‘Yeah?’ The Doctor eagerly put on a headset and the chrome console glowed a burnished blue. An image of Flowers dancing the Macarena appeared on the screen, until with a squawk she was buried beneath a massive pile of globs and carried off out of sight.
The other prisoners shook and hooted with mirth, while Flowers gave him a look that suggested she was less than impressed. ‘Yes, 51
Doctor, even a simpleton can use them with ease. Shall we get on?
Yahoomer, will you present the results of your cyclical gravity experiments on the boosters, please.’
Blista helped slip the mindmitter in place around the mammoth’s head. The console glowed fiery red this time and some intricate equations appeared on-screen.
The Doctor skimmed over them. ‘Yeah, that’s one way of coming at the problem. Normal gravity with go-faster stripes.’ He struck a flashy red line through the equations. ‘But these boosters will never have enough oomph in them to create a warp-hole in space.’
Flowers blinked and erased his strike-through. ‘Doctor, we welcome serious offerings –’
‘I’m serious,’ he assured her. ‘That approach won’t work. Wave it goodbye.’ He raised a friendly hand at Yahoomer. Then he looked round the curious crowd pointedly, jiggling the hand from side to side and waited. . .
Flowers jumped as Blista gave a raucous cry. ‘Wave!’ it said, holding up its webbed reptilian hand as neon green equations danced over the screen. ‘ Gravitational wave.’
Flowers bit her lip as the possibilities slowly dawned on her. ‘Wave theory, yes. . . So if the thrusters could generate a gravitational wave –
