by Doctor Who
Rose skidded to a halt at the end of the corridor, looked back. The warder was just standing there. Then her hand moved to her forehead and tugged on the zipper. Blue and yellow light started to crackle and flicker from the split in her head. Her smooth complexion slid away like a rubber mask as something big and glistening and alien started to hoick itself free from its human disguise. Its head was long and broad, with wet black eyes the size of bowling balls. Its hide was knobbled and greeny-grey. The long arms ended in three enormous, 72
twitching claws. Its chest and belly sagged and quivered as it stepped from foot to oversized foot. A gleaming, tubular device was strapped tight to its thick, crusty neck.
It was the phantom that had haunted her since her experience in the Governor’s office, finally made flesh: sticky, horrible, alien flesh, and metres of it.
There was no mistaking it. It was a Slitheen.
Swearing under her breath, Rose turned and ran as the creature gave a cackle of pleasure and triumph. ‘Naked, I. . . am. . . magnificent!’ it preened, swinging its massive head from side to side. Then it started thumping down the corridor after her.
Rose’s heart was racing, but her mind raced faster. Didn’t take a genius to work out where the missing warders and inmates had got to. Not with a psychotic Slitheen on the loose, hunting and killing to pass the long nights inside. But what was it even doing here? How could taking over some lousy prison in the back of beyond help their plans? It had to be something to do with money – Rose knew that Slitheen pursued profits as relentlessly as their prey.
Right now, she knew that better than anyone.
She skidded to a stop as she rounded the next corner. There was a barred door ahead of her. She was trapped.
‘Oh, little human girl,’ called the Slitheen from somewhere behind her, like a mother putting on a spooky voice to amuse her child. ‘I can smell how scared you are. . . such a pretty stink. So much adrenalin pulsing round your juicy body. . . ’
In desperation, Rose yanked on the door. It opened without a sound.
For a few moments she was elated. Then she realised – Blanc must have left it unlocked deliberately. Slitheen loved to hunt, to prolong the agony of their victims.
She heaved the door shut behind her and ran on. This wing was dilapidated, deserted. Maybe solitary wasn’t used much any more.
Maybe Blanc had insisted she be placed here, a nice, quiet place to get rid of her. One more missing person.
After what she had seen, Rose knew Blanc could not allow her to 73
live. Another greedy cackle echoed around the dull corridors. The monster was gaining on her.
And finally, she ran up against a door that wouldn’t open. She hammered on it, skinning her knuckles, shouting till she was hoarse for someone to open it up, to let her out.
‘Pretty, pretty,’ said the Slitheen as it padded around the corner.
‘You’re bleeding. . . ’
‘Stay away from me,’ Rose warned it, panting for breath.
Again, it giggled, and clicked its monstrous claws together. ‘Let me kiss those sore little knuckles better. . . ’
Nostrils twitching, sticky drool stringing from its grisly, puckered mouth, the monster crept closer.
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Rose turned away, banged harder on the door. There was still a chance someone might hear.
She could hear the heavy slap-slap-slap of alien feet pounding down on the tiles towards her.
Tears squeezing themselves out from behind her eyes, she slammed her raw, ringing fists into the metal still harder; it sang like some sick dinner gong.
‘Little huuuuuumaaaaaaaaan. . . ’
The door banged back at her. Repeated thuds from the other side.
And a gruff male voice, ‘Who’s there?’
‘Rose Tyler!’ she yelled. ‘There’s something here, it’s after me, please –’
The door clicked loudly as a key turned. The door started to open and she turned back to face the Slitheen, arm raised in an obscene and hugely satisfying gesture.
But the creature had cut and run. The corridor was empty.
Suddenly Rose was seized from behind, slammed up against the wall.
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‘How’d you escape from your cell?’ A woman was holding her, twisting her arm up behind her back.
‘Warder Blanc. . . Not her, a monster. . . it came for me,’ she gasped.
‘It killed Warder Norris.’
‘Norris ain’t even on duty.’
‘She killed him – quick, go to my cell, you’ll see –’
‘She must be raving,’ said another voice, a bloke this time.
Rose gritted her teeth against the pain, tried to calm down. ‘Well, how would you explain what I’m doing here? I didn’t let myself out, did I?’
A pause. Then she was hauled away, back the way she’d taken. The corridors seemed to stretch on for ever. How did she manage to run so far?
‘Come on, faster!’ she urged her guards. ‘Blanc’s gone back there ahead of us. She’ll be disposing of the body. Quick, she mustn’t get away with it.’
But when they arrived, the cell was empty save for the spattered remains of her untouched meal on the floor.
‘She got away with it,’ said Rose numbly.
She saw one of her warders for the first time as he crossed to the door and removed a large ring of keys. He was tall and slim with short ginger hair. ‘I’ll check the ident on these,’ he said. His accent was funny, somewhere between New York and Scouse. ‘We’ll soon know who let her go.’
‘I can tell you for nothing right now, those are Warder Norris’s keys,’
said Rose hoarsely. ‘He came to me because. . . Well, let’s not go into that right now, but Blanc wants you to think he came to let me go free, and now he’s run away or whatever, which is kind of a lame story but since Norris is dead you’re never going to hear the truth from him, or even see him –’
‘Will you listen to yourself?’ said the woman.
‘You’ve got to find Blanc, now, before she can. . . Oh, what’s the use.’ Rose let her body sag in the female warder’s grip. ‘Can’t you see? If I was going to lie to you why would I make up such a crazy, stupid story?’
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‘Beats me,’ said the warder, still holding her arm behind her back.
‘But then it beats me what all the fuss is about you. Beats me why the Governor wants to see you in his office this time of night.’
‘Go easy on her, Jamini,’ the man said. ‘You can see she’s scared.’
‘What are you like?’ sighed Jamini. But she relaxed her grip just the same. ‘John Robsen, the prisoners’ sweetheart.’
So this was Riz’s star warder. From the frown lines on his forehead and the smooth skin round his eyes, he worried a lot and smiled just a little. But Rose sensed there was a kindness about him.
‘We’d better take her to the Governor right now.’
Then again. . . she thought.
Jamini marched Rose from the room, and Robsen slouched after her. No one noticed the figure watching them go, half hidden by the pooling shadows at the turn in the corridor.
‘Get up,’ whispered a voice in the Doctor’s head. He blinked, suddenly awake in the darkness – it was the implant, he supposed. ‘Proceed to the meeting room you attended earlier. Flowers will be waiting for you.’
‘Why?’ he whispered. But no one answered.
The Doctor got up cautiously. The cell door opened.
And a massive claw closed around his leg, holding him still.
‘Going somewhere, Doctor?’ hissed Ecktosca Fel Fotch.
‘Implant just told me. I’ve been summoned.’
‘Oh yes? By whom?’
‘Flowers, I think.’
‘He’s going to see Issabel,’ came Dram’s angry snarl. ‘He’ll betray us!’
‘Course I won’t,’ said the Doctor crossly. ‘I don’t know what this is about. The door opened by itself. I didn’t do it, did
I?’
‘The globs took you last time,’ said Ecktosca.
‘Yeah, so now I can find the way myself.’
‘He’s going to make a deal for himself by selling us out,’ Dram fumed. ‘I would in his shoes.’
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‘Well, you’re not in my shoes, are you?’ said the Doctor. The claw was like slimy stone, tight around his ankle. ‘Trust me. I won’t grass you up.’
The claw tightened around his calf, and he gasped with pain. In the darkness, he heard the thuds of descending globules as they fell from their high, invisible holding place to immobilise Ecktosca. The claw snapped back open and the Doctor hopped away, rubbing his bruised shin.
‘A tiny taste, Doctor,’ the Slitheen whispered, ‘of what informants can expect.’
‘You’d have to be quick to beat the globs.’
‘I would let nothing stop me, Doctor. Nothing.’
The fetid atmosphere in the cell felt suddenly stifling. The Doctor turned and walked away, glad for the corridor’s clean air.
Flowers was waiting for him in the forum room. She looked tired and crumpled, but jubilant.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I know it’s kind of late, but when Consul Issabel reaches a decision, she hops to it,’ said Flowers. ‘She’s okayed a discussion with your expert.’
He stared at her in disbelief, then whooped and clapped his hands.
‘When does she get here?’
‘She doesn’t. You’ll be talking over videolink.’
‘That’s not fair,’ he complained.
‘Take it or leave it.’
He grinned. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘Now, you said Rose Tyler is an astrophysicist and expert in gravity wave mechanics. . . ’
‘Did I?’ he said. ‘Well, yeah, she is – among other things.’
‘Well, I have a teeny tiny grasp of them myself,’ said Flowers, looking up at him over the top of her pink glasses. ‘And I can see how it would apply to what you were saying.’
‘What was I saying?’
‘All those marvellous ideas you had on how to provide us with the required volume of gravity.’
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‘Oh yeah. Them.’
She gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Come on. Issabel’s meeting us in the lecture theatre in one hour. You may not be bothered about how impressive she finds you. But unless your friend can convince us that she’s a genius,’ Flowers went on, ‘you may never see her again.’
Robsen hated the night shift. Hated the sobbing in the cells, the long trudge through the dark corridors, the time to think of what he was missing back home. His kids growing up. His mum growing old. He felt as much a prisoner as the poor swines he watched over.
Usually he wandered round half asleep, longing for the morning bell to chime so he could get some sleep or grab breakfast at the officers’ mall. But tonight he was wide awake and worried. Very worried.
The keys in the cell did belong to Norris, just as the girl had said. If he had been trying to get to her – or at her – for whatever dodgy reason, why would he leave his keys behind? Why incriminate himself?
The sound of quiet crying carried to him as he turned down another corridor. After a year here he could tell you precisely who was weeping from a single sob. But not this time.
He frowned. These tears were coming from Kazta’s cell. And the only way Kazta showed emotion was with her knuckles. Could she have someone in there?
Robsen unlocked her door and looked inside.
Kazta was lying
hunched up on her bed, staring at him through mistrustful, red-rimmed eyes. Her face was streaked with tears.
‘What’s up?’ he enquired, not expecting much of an answer.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m all right. Warder Blanc just looked in on me to check.’
Robsen frowned. He’d never known Kazta volunteer information.
‘She did?’
‘Yeah.’ She looked down. ‘She’s been in a couple of times the last two hours.’
‘So she was patrolling this block?’
Her tearful eyes flashed. ‘Told you, didn’t I?’
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‘Well, if you’re OK – keep the noise down.’ Robsen left her to it, locking the door behind him. He should be getting back to Jamini in the Governor’s office, tell them about Norris’s keys.
But first he would pay a visit to Blanc.
God, he hated the night shift.
The lecture theatre was vast and echoing, its ochre walls stretching up to the tall and shadowy ceilings. Tiers of padded chairs filled the front half of the sizeable auditorium, while at the back the seating was a bit more fluid to accommodate those more unusual life forms who might attend. A vast rectangular screen formed the focus for the hall, shimmering with light.
Flowers took off her specs and rubbed her eyes. She was exhausted, but still buoyed up on a wave of euphoria, not only by the new and unexpected direction her accelerated gravity project had taken, but by the seeming success of the solar flare containment programme. She’d imagined such a breakthrough was miles off, but the Slitheen had got results at incredible speed.
Her mind kept niggling excitedly at what would come next, like a child fiddling with the wrappings of a big, bright parcel. Tomorrow morning there was the meeting of the Senate – and suddenly there was so much to show off about. During the next few weeks she could fully test and refine the containment process and then hand it over to the Executive on Justice Delta for more rigorous testing. . .
Jolting herself back to the present, she called up a schematic of the Justicia system. It showed the six planets orbiting their three suns and their various masses.
The Doctor was slumped in the front row, staring up at the screen.
‘Needs something,’ he informed her.
‘I can adjust the clarity, or the focusing?’
‘Nah. Something else.’ He grinned. ‘Got any popcorn?’
‘Pay attention. We don’t have long.’ Flowers had no idea what he was talking about and she couldn’t afford to be beguiled by that smile of his right now. ‘Obviously, if we’re playing with gravity on such a 80
massive scale, we need to make sure we’re not affecting any of the other system planets. So I thought as an exercise, your friend could –’
‘Is that map to scale?’ wondered the Doctor.
‘The positioning of these planets means something to you, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘Did Nesshalop bring them up on screen this morning?’
He nodded. ‘Are those orbits true?’
‘This system chart,’ said Flowers proudly, ‘was created from my own observations, just two years ago. It’s all my own work. Not everything you see here is leeched from our illustrious inmates.’
‘Go on, though, you’ve kiddified it, haven’t you? Except for ours, the orbits are drawn as perfect circles.’
‘That’s because they are, near enough.’
‘Yeah?’ The Doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘And the distances between the planets – they look to be exactly the same.’
‘More or less. Justice Alpha is the closest, orbits at approximately 100 million miles from the suns, Justice Beta orbits at 148 million, Justice Gamma at 201 million. . . ’
He laughed. ‘You’re joking!’
‘If you won’t take it from me. . . ’ She called up the exact figures for him on the schematic.
‘Well, well,’ he was forced to concede. ‘Nature’s not often so neat and tidy. What are the chances of that?’
‘Billions to one!’ She smiled. ‘It’s actually one of the reasons Justicia set up here – that amazing balance, good for publicity. You know, with the scales of justice thing, blab blah. . . ’
The Doctor pulled a face. ‘Cheesy.’
‘Justice Prime is the only rebel of the group, with an elliptical orbit that takes it way, way out from the others. Probably the result of some great collision in the early days of the system.’
‘So anyway,’ said Flowers. ‘Do you think your genius friend could work out how far we can safely accelerate local gravity without influencing the other planets in the system?’
‘Without computers, right?’
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Flowers stared in surprise. ‘Well, if you don’t think she’ll need them.’
‘Shouldn’t do,’ he said, smiling again. ‘The answers might be a bit ballpark, but it’ll give Issabel a bit more wow, won’t it? A bit more X-factor.’
‘Well, we’ll need to use the computer to predict the figures, anyway,’
said Flowers. She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Or how do we know your friend isn’t simply making up anything she likes?’
‘Thanks for giving her this chance,’ he said.
Flowers blushed a little. ‘I’m not being kind,’ she said stiffly. ‘I want you well motivated for this project, and since this girl clearly means a lot to you. . . ’
‘Right, let your computer do its stuff,’ said the Doctor, smiling back at her agreeably. Under his breath he added, ‘And let’s see if I can do mine.’
A quick check on the duty roster told Robsen that Blanc was supposed to be on patrol in Kazta’s block, and that Norris had put in for a night off. But since there was no sign of Blanc anywhere, he decided to try to find Norris instead. May as well hear his side of the story – could someone have taken his keys?
He traipsed across to the officers’ dorm, a fair-quality hotel staffed by robots on the fringes of the borstal grounds, decorated in pale pastel colours.
Norris’s quarters were unlocked and empty. After a brief look inside, Robsen was satisfied that the man’s bed hadn’t been slept in.
Another one right for Rose Tyler.
But Warder Blanc had been on duty. She’d called in on Kazta twice.
Robsen had never seen Blanc as the caring type. And he couldn’t imagine Kazta crying on a screw’s shoulder.
Since he couldn’t find Blanc on duty, he decided to try her rooms.
