Dr. Who - BBC New Series 25

by Ghosts of India # Mark Morris

  ‘Hnn,’ he grunted, clearly unimpressed. He made some minor adjustments to a row of rotating wheels of numbers that looked as if they had been cannibalised from an old adding machine, then held the device up again.

  This time the detector began to ping in a steady, high-pitched rhythm. A grin spread across the Doctor’s face.

  ‘Captain Kangaroo, we have lift-off!’ he shouted to no one in particular, and ran off up the street.

  Wilkins tried to remain calm. He forced his attention away from the barrel of the revolver and up to the flushed face of his commanding officer. Major Daker’s peaked cap plunged the top half of his face into shadow, so Wilkins concentrated on his mouth – his lips stretched tight over clenched teeth gleaming with spittle.

  ‘You’re not going to shoot me, are you, sir?’ Wilkins asked, amazed at the steadiness of his voice.

  He saw the Major’s lips writhe. ‘Why not? At El Alamein we executed traitors and cowards.’

  ‘But I’m neither, sir,’ said Wilkins. ‘I was only offering an opinion.’

  ‘Insubordination!’ Daker screeched. ‘You were questioning my orders.’

  ‘You didn’t actually give any orders, sir,’ said a voice from behind Daker.

  He whirled round. ‘What?’

  The speaker was a blond, fresh-faced private called Joe Shaw. He looked terrified, but he cleared his throat and said, ‘You didn’t actually give any orders. Like Wilkins said, sir, he was just offering an opinion.’ He hesitated a moment, then swallowed. ‘And to be fair, sir, I agree with him… Wilkins, that is. I don’t think the family know anything either.’

  There were mumbles of agreement from the rest of the men, all of whom had now gathered in the street.

  Daker looked furious. He swung from one to the other, waving his revolver about, pointing it at each of them in turn.

  ‘This is outrageous!’ he screamed. ‘I’ll shoot the damn lot of you!’

  ‘What for, sir?’ asked Barnes.

  ‘For questioning my authority!’ Daker screamed, froth flying from his mouth.

  ‘But you can’t shoot us for that, sir,’ Wilkins said from his sitting position. Oddly, as his superior officer lost control, the more in control he felt. ‘You could put us on a charge, sir. Even court martial us. But you can’t shoot us,

  sir. That would be…’

  ‘Murder,’ said Joe Shaw.

  The rest of the men nodded.

  Daker looked like a cornered animal, his eyes bulging in the crescent of shadow beneath his cap. He was still clutching his revolver, and suddenly Wilkins saw his knuckles whiten as his fingers tightened on the trigger.

  ‘Look out!’ he shouted, and the four standing men dived for cover, two to the left, two to the right. Just as his finger pulled the trigger, Daker jerked the gun up and the bullet went high, hitting the upper storey of a building across the road, sending stone splinters flying in all directions.

  Wilkins wondered whether he should try jumping the Major, wrestling the gun out of his grasp, but there was no need. As though pulling the trigger had released all his pent-up fury, Daker suddenly allowed the revolver to slip from his nerveless fingers. A moment later he crumpled, dropping forward on to his knees and then slumping back on to his haunches. His men looked at each other, shocked, as he began to wail like a baby.

  Wilkins stood up, not sure what to do or say. ‘Sir,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I…’

  But then Daker’s hands rose and began scrabbling at his head, dislodging his cap.

  Immediately the men jumped back, their shocked expressions changing to horrified gasps.

  As Daker’s cap dropped into the dust, they all stared at the bulging black growths sprouting from his skull like gnarled and poisonous toadstools.

  The readings on the timey-wimey detector kept changing. Like someone having to constantly retune a car radio whilst passing through an area of bad reception, the Doctor had to stop and twiddle dials every couple of minutes to keep the pinging noise constant.

  He knew what this meant. The sonic was on the move.

  Clearly it was in somebody’s possession and they were carrying it about with them. He had configured the detector to home in on the residual artron energy from the Time Vortex that would be clinging to the sonic. Genius that he was, he had instructed the machine to phase out the larger concentrations of energy that he and Donna would be carrying about with them and to focus on the smaller stuff. Of course, the detector might ping excitedly away, only for the Doctor to discover it had tracked down his

  lost sun visor or Donna’s sandals. But sooner or later it would find the sonic. It was just a matter of … well, time.

  At the moment the detector was pinging away like billy-o. The Doctor ran down street after street in pursuit of the signal. He was only peripherally aware of his surroundings, hardly conscious of the curious stares he was receiving from locals braving the riot-torn but currently quiet streets, and British soldiers on foot patrol, alert for signs of trouble.

  As far as the Doctor was concerned, they could stare all they liked just as long as they left him alone. He had entered the Intergalactic Staring Championships once on Acerlago Prime and was used to being gawped at. He had come away with bronze, but only because the Rallion Gestalt had cheated. He was remembering what a fuss he had kicked up at the time, and how such things had seemed important to him back then, when he rounded a corner and ran slap-bang into someone.

  He bounced off, rubbing his nose. The man he had collided with was at least two metres tall and seemed almost as wide. Like many of the local men, he was wearing a white cotton kurta over a pair of salwar pants.

  He had a bushy black beard and a tangled mass of black hair.

  ‘Oof, sorry,’ said the Doctor, and then he got his first proper look at the man. He saw how the man’s body had ballooned and twisted with zytron energy, how his face had swollen and blackened, how the pigment had seeped out of his eyes, so that they now looked as yellow as a cat’s.

  He saw too that the man was wielding a club which was thicker and longer than his own leg. A club which he was now raising into the air with the clear intention of smashing it down on the Doctor’s head.

  The man roared and brought the club down in a savage arc. If the Doctor hadn’t leaped backwards, the blow would have shattered his skull. He saved himself, but was unable to save the timey-wimey detector. It was smashed out of his hand, bits of it flying in all directions. However, it didn’t actually stop pinging until it hit the ground and broke in two.

  ‘Oh,’ said the Doctor, looking down at the machine.

  ‘That was a bit—’ Then he threw himself backwards as the man swung the club again. The end swished past the Doctor’s face, so close that he felt the breeze of it ruffle his hair.

  ‘Whoa there, big feller,’ he said, raising his hands. He wondered whether a Venusian lullaby might help. He had quite a repertoire of those.

  The man snarled, drool spilling from his lips, and came for him again. Once more the Doctor ducked, and once more the club narrowly missed his head.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ the Doctor said urgently, backing away. ‘You’re ill, but you can fight it – and I can help you. Because you’re not a violent man, are you? I bet you go all gooey at the sight of babies and small fluffy animals. I’m right, aren’t I? Cos underneath all that hair, I can see you’ve got a really kind—’

  The man roared and charged. As he raised the club for another almighty swing, the Doctor’s heel came down on

  a loose bit of debris – a rock or a chunk of wood – which flew out from under him. His left leg jerked into the air, and suddenly he found himself sprawling on his back in the dust. He was looking into his assailant’s yellow eyes as the man raised the club to deliver the killing blow, when a shot rang out.

  Instantly the man’s hands opened, releasing the club. It fell to the ground, landing on its end before toppling over like a felled tree. A second later, the man collapsed too, legs crumplin
g as he fell forward. He would have fallen right on top of the Doctor if the Doctor hadn’t rolled aside.

  Springing to his feet, the Doctor saw a young British soldier running towards him, carrying a rifle. The soldier looked down at the bearded man as though appalled at what he had done. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ he asked.

  The Doctor slapped dust from his blue suit. Furiously he said, ‘What did you shoot him for?’

  The young soldier quailed. ‘He… he was attacking you, sir. He might have killed you. I shouted for him to stop, but he ignored me.’

  ‘He’s sick,’ retorted the Doctor. ‘Can’t you see he’s sick? Isn’t it obvious?’

  Stricken and pale, the young soldier shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I… I didn’t know.’

  The Doctor glared at the soldier for a few more seconds, then his expression softened. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose you did.’ He squatted beside the bearded man, felt for a pulse in his neck, and listened to his chest before straightening up. ‘What’s your name, soldier?’ he

  asked quietly.

  ‘Wilkins, sir. Private Wilkins.’

  The Doctor nodded, his face grim. ‘Well, Wilkins, how does it feel to have killed someone?’

  Wilkins looked down at the dead man. All the colour had drained from his face. ‘Not good, sir,’ he said in a small voice. ‘Pretty terrible, in fact.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said the Doctor. He walked over to Wilkins and patted him on the shoulder.

  Wilkins seemed unable to stop looking down at the man he had killed. In a small voice, he asked, ‘What was wrong with him?’

  ‘His cells are mutating,’ the Doctor said, then corrected himself. ‘ Were mutating.’

  ‘Is it a disease?’

  ‘No, there’s a sort of… invisible poison in the air.’

  Wilkins looked around fearfully, as if he might catch a glimpse of it, swirling like fog. ‘Is that going to happen to all of us?’ he asked.

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ said the Doctor. ‘At the moment the leakage is minimal. Those affected must either have been close to the source or are particularly susceptible to zytron waves.’

  ‘I think this is what’s happening to Major Daker,’ said Wilkins bleakly.

  ‘Major Daker?’ Donna had mentioned a Major Daker when she’d been filling him in on what had happened to her yesterday.

  ‘He’s my commanding officer. He’s not himself. And he’s got these lumps on his head.’

  ‘He needs to be isolated and restrained,’ the Doctor said. ‘Zytron waves affect the mind, turn people violent.’

  Suddenly he was up on his toes, eager to be off. ‘I’ll leave you to sort that, shall I?’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Wilkins asked, out of his depth.

  ‘Packed day ahead. Aliens to track down, disasters to avert. Busy, busy, busy. See ya.’ And with that he was gone.

  Donna was taking Tiffin in the garden with Mary, Adelaide and Cameron. It was all very genteel: wicker chairs, a white linen tablecloth, a proper china tea service like her gran used to have. There was even a lace doily over the sugar bowl to keep the flies off, and a three-tiered silver thingy with cakes on it like you got in posh tea shops.

  Adelaide and her mother were sipping tea out of dainty cups, but Donna and Cameron had gone for the home-made lemonade, a big jug of which was sitting in the centre of the table, filled with rapidly melting ice cubes and chunks of real lemon. If it hadn’t been for the exotic blooms in the flowerbeds edging the immaculately clipped lawn, Donna could almost have believed she was sitting in an English country garden on a baking summer’s day.

  Before coming out, she had asked Adelaide if she’d got any factor 40, but Adelaide hadn’t known what she was talking about. Donna had therefore been careful to position herself in the expansive shadow of the large, tasselled parasol above their table.

  For the last few minutes, Adelaide had been telling

  Donna about her work at the camp. Suddenly she yawned.

  ‘Now that the excitement has died down, I really ought to get some sleep,’ she said, ‘otherwise I shall be all fingers and thumbs tonight.’

  Mary Campbell pursed her lips. ‘I wish you wouldn’t go to that awful place,’ she said. ‘You’ll end up with some ghastly disease.’

  Donna could tell from the look on Adelaide’s face that this was an old argument.

  ‘The people there need our help, Mother,’ she said. ‘We can’t simply abandon them.’

  Mary Campbell sniffed. ‘I don’t see why not. They managed perfectly well before we arrived. I mean, it’s not even as if they’re grateful.’

  Donna felt her hackles rising. ‘How do you know?’ she said.

  Mary blinked at her. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘How do you know they’re not grateful when you’ve never even been there?’

  Mary reddened. Both Adelaide and Cameron looked at their mother to see how she would respond. When she placed her teacup back in its saucer, it chinked and rattled.

  ‘I’ve lived in India for twenty years,’ she said haughtily. ‘I know perfectly well what the people are like.

  And I know that when you try to offer them help, they simply throw it back in your face.’

  ‘And you offer them help… how?’ asked Donna.

  ‘By attempting to instil them with the correct values, of course. By bringing civilisation and stability to the country.’

  Donna shook her head. ‘Yeah, well, maybe they don’t want your values. Maybe they’ve got their own values and their own way of doing things.’

  Mary’s face was flushed. Her hands were trembling as they gripped the arms of her chair. ‘I refuse to be harangued like this in my own home!’ she exclaimed.

  Adelaide said softly, ‘Mother has had rather a trying morning, Donna. Perhaps it might be best to drop the subject.’

  Donna was silent a moment longer, then she said, ‘Yeah, sorry.’

  Mary gave a stiff nod, and for a moment no one said anything. The awkward atmosphere was broken by an excitable voice from the direction of the house.

  ‘Miss Adelaide! Miss Donna!’

  They turned to see Ranjit running across the lawn towards them, waving something in the air. Behind Ranjit, on the porch, Gopal appeared to be attempting to placate a clearly agitated Becharji. He raised his hands, as if to indicate that he would deal with the situation, and then he hurried across the lawn in Ranjit’s wake.

  Donna grinned at the little Indian boy, taking a secret delight in Mary Campbell’s outraged expression as he ran barefoot towards them. ‘Hello, Ranjit,’ she said, and then she noticed what he was holding in his hand. ‘Blimey, where did you get that from?’

  Ranjit thumped to a stop and stood there, panting. All at once he seemed to realise that he had broken any number of unwritten social rules by bursting in on them like this. He looked at Mary Campbell’s imperious

  expression and hunched his shoulders, as if he expected to be punished for his insolence.

  ‘It … it is Mr Doctor’s,’ he mumbled, fixing his gaze on the sonic screwdriver in his hand.

  ‘Yeah, I know that,’ said Donna. ‘I just wondered what you were doing with it?’

  ‘I didn’t steal it, Miss Donna,’ Ranjit said in alarm.

  ‘Never thought you did, sweetheart,’ she said soothingly. ‘Look, why don’t you sit down and have some lemonade?’

  Ranjit looked at her in astonishment.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, reaching for the jug. ‘Tell us all about it. Hutch up, Cameron. There’s room for both of you on there.’

  With a dazed look on his face, Ranjit came forward to share Cameron’s chair. Cameron grinned at his friend, and Adelaide too looked amused by Ranjit’s reaction. Only Mary Campbell’s expression remained frosty.

  ‘Begging your pardon, ladies,’ said Gopal, who had now reached the table and was wringing his hands in embarrassment. ‘I am so terribly sorry to burst in on you like this.’

>   ‘No problem, Gopal,’ Donna said, as if it was her house. ‘Come and have a cup of tea and a bit of cake.’

  She poured him a cup of tea. He looked bemused, but accepted it gratefully.

  ‘Right then, Ranjit,’ she said, nodding at the sonic, ‘tell me what you’re doing with that.’

  In the study, the discussion between Gandhi and Sir Edgar

  was nearing its end. In truth, very little had been achieved.

  Sir Edgar was standing in front of the fireplace, his meaty hands clasped behind his back. Gandhi was perched on a fat leather armchair, looking out of place among the plush furnishings and the wall-mounted glass cases filled with stuffed birds.

  ‘I sympathise with your position, of course, Mr Gandhi,’ Sir Edgar said blithely, ‘but I’m afraid there is very little that I can do. Frankly, within a month my colleagues and I will be leaving India for good. How you and your fellow countrymen run things after we’ve gone is your own concern.’

  Gandhi remained as serene as ever. He nodded sagely and said, ‘In that case, Mr Campbell, I see only one course of action open to me. I must undertake another fast, a fast unto death, in the hope that it will bring my countrymen to their senses.’

  Sir Edgar raised his bristling eyebrows. ‘Is that a threat, Mr Gandhi?’

  ‘Only to myself,’ Gandhi said with a smile.

  Sir Edgar scowled, as though the little man was employing some underhand tactic that he couldn’t quite work out. ‘But look here, Mr Gandhi, what on Earth do you hope to achieve by starving yourself?’

  Gandhi was silent for a moment, as though wondering how best to explain his actions. Finally he said, ‘What you must understand, Mr Campbell, is that my relationship with the people of my country is not a political one, but spiritual and emotional. Although I consider myself unworthy of the honour, I know that to them I am

  “Mahatma” – the Great Soul. When I fast, therefore, politics becomes unimportant and disputes become trivial.