by Doctor Who
‘It is,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘Any other thoughts?’
‘It’s very utilitarian,’ said Martha.
The Doctor nodded. ‘We know this is a research vessel and not a hotel, but even so. . . It’s not at all what I was expecting.’ He pointed to the identical doors, evenly spaced along this and all the other walkways. Each had a tiny observation window at head height. ‘Remind you of anything?’ he asked.
‘A prison,’ said Martha suddenly. ‘It’s like a huge prison.’
‘I was worried you were going to say that,’ said the Doctor, walking past Martha to the first door. He waved his sonic screwdriver over the control panel at the side of the cell. ‘Shall we take a look?’
8
The door hummed open, a momentary interruption to the thick silence that gripped the vast chamber.
Martha paused, not sure what to expect. If you’ve encountered rhino-headed storm troopers and witches on broomsticks, she reasoned, you’ve got to keep your options open.
Nothing happened – nothing beyond a slight tingling sensation on her skin, as if the air in the cell, maintained for so long at a certain temperature and pressure, was now being released.
The Doctor stepped into the small room. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ he announced, though there was an ambiguity in his voice that did not inspire confidence.
When Martha followed him inside she understood the Doctor’s uncertain tone.
The small area was no bigger than the box room at the front of the house where Martha had spent so much of her childhood. In the cell were a bed, a folding desk and a single cupboard high up in the corner of one of the walls. There was a screen at the far end of the room: whatever its original function, it resembled a dark, oversized tile as no power went to it now.
9
A few indeterminate items of clothing were scattered on the floor. A thick layer of dust had fallen on the desk and the pens and other items that cluttered its surface. ‘No air filtration in here,’ Martha observed in a whisper, remembering the pristine corridor they had landed in.
‘No,’ said the Doctor, his own voice a funereal whisper. ‘Not a high enough priority, I suppose.’
Martha reached out to run her finger across the desk, then remembered that household dust was largely composed of shed human skin.
She shivered, staring intently at the object of the Doctor’s curiosity, for lying in the bunk, curled as if sleeping, was the long-dead body of a man, tatters of bleached-grey overall still clinging to his limbs.
‘How long has he been dead?’ she asked, appalled but unable to avert her gaze from the cracked, shrivelled skin.
The Doctor popped his glasses back on his nose, dropping his head to look more closely at the dead man than even Martha, with all her medical training to back her up, would have been comfortable with.
‘What with the somewhat garbled information I was able to glean from the central computer, and given the obvious age of his body. . . ’
He paused. ‘Whatever happened on this craft, it all took place at least a hundred years ago.’
‘A hundred years?’
‘Yeah, give or take. The artificial atmosphere means the corpse has become. . . sort of mummified. The outer few layers of the epidermis have gone’ – Martha glanced at the dust again and a shiver went down her spine – ‘but the rest of the body has just. . . dried out.’
The Doctor turned to look at Martha, his body language reassuring despite his words and the environment they found themselves in.
‘So sad,’ he added, quietly.
‘Any idea what killed him?’ Martha asked, opening up the cupboard but finding only two small porcelain figures and a thick paperback book.
‘Dunno,’ said the Doctor, slipping his glasses into a pocket. ‘How do you fancy putting your training in pathology to the test?’
‘Not absolutely number one on my list of things to do in the next five minutes,’ said Martha.
10
‘So perhaps we’d better find another way. Less. . . invasive.’ He turned for the door. ‘What was the book in the cupboard, by the way?’
‘Freud’s Interpretations of Dreams,’ said Martha, pleased to be following him out of the room.
The Doctor nodded, then pointed to the control panel set into the doorway. ‘You can only open the cell doors from outside,’ he said.
‘This part of the ship. . . It’s definitely a prison.’
‘What would a prison be doing on a research vessel?’ asked Martha.
‘Depends what it’s researching.’ His voice became deadly serious.
‘But I think we just found our first guinea pig.’
They stood for a moment on the circular gantry, Martha marvelling at the sheer size of the place. On the TARDIS scanners it was hard to get a sense of scale just by looking at something against the backdrop of space. As a result she’d been expecting something grim and claustrophobic, like the Russian-American space station she had mentioned to the Doctor. The reality, however, was a vast expanse of endless alloy and open space.
Mind you, the cell had been grim and claustrophobic – the prisoners here, if that’s what they were, certainly hadn’t been living the life of Riley.
She turned to the Doctor, still thinking of the few items she’d found in the cupboard. ‘I’m surprised that people in the future still have books,’ she said. ‘The way technology advances, I thought you’d. . .
Plug yourself into a computer and download stuff straight into your brain.’
‘Even when something new and flashy comes along,’ observed the Doctor, ‘the old forms persist. You should see my record collection!
Can’t beat a good bit of vinyl.’ He started to make his way to the next cell along. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘what could be more practical than a real, old book made from real, old bits of paper? You can read it in bed, on a bus, in the bath even. You try doing that with a PDA when the batteries are flat!’ He held the sonic screwdriver over the door, glancing at Martha. ‘Ready?’
11
She nodded, and he waved his hand over the keypad like a ma-gician with a wand. A glow of light, a briefly oscillating noise as the screwdriver doubtless tried every possible combination under the sun, and then the door hissed open.
The room beyond was almost identical to the first. The final pose of the body it contained couldn’t have been more different, however.
If the first prisoner they had stumbled across had perhaps died in his sleep, this one had pushed himself into the corner of the room and pulled his knees up to his chest. Though slumped now, Martha could imagine the arms being coiled tightly over his ears and eyes, trying to block out. . . What?
She shivered. ‘Any signs of trauma?’ she asked.
The Doctor leant forward. ‘No. . . Nothing obvious.’
‘The life support must have failed.’
‘But the computer says life support’s been ticking over with barely a problem since it first came into service.’
They tried the next cell, and the next, and the next. Each contained a body, shrivelled by the unique atmospherics of the craft. It was not obvious why any of them had died. The Doctor and Martha checked a few more, finding yet more corpses, some apparently sleeping, some apparently frozen as if in flight from an unseen terror. None, of course, could escape, for each cell had remained resolutely locked. As the Doctor observed, the entire place seemed ruthlessly efficient – it was a testament to human ingenuity that it was all still working after so long.
‘I don’t think we’re going to find anything more here,’ said the Doctor.
Martha was relieved – she didn’t much fancy spending the rest of the day checking the other cells. There were hundreds of them, and there was no reason to expect that any of them would be any different from those they had already examined.
‘We need to find the technical area,’ said the Doctor. ‘There’s a limit to what the computer systems I can hack into from here can tell me.’
Martha risked a glance over her shoulder as she walked. ‘All these prisoners. . . Were they criminals or political activists or captured sol-12
diers or. . . ?’
‘Yeah, that’s one of the questions I’m keen to answer,’ said the Doctor. ‘If we can –’
He stopped suddenly, Martha almost running into the back of him.
‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered, his head darting from side to side.
‘What?’ Martha hissed, suddenly more on edge. The only thing worse than exploring a mausoleum full of bodies was the idea that someone or something in there wasn’t quite dead yet.
‘I thought I heard something,’ said the Doctor. He paused for a moment, then carried on walking, head held high, as if nothing was the matter. ‘Oh, well, not to worry,’ he said loudly.
‘Not to worry?’
‘This place has been shut up for a hundred years,’ he continued. ‘No movements, no disturbances – and then we come along, breathing in the air, opening doors, generally making a nuisance of ourselves. . . ’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Martha.
‘Plenty of creaks and groans, but absolutely nothing to worry about!’
He grinned brightly, and just for a moment Martha was taken in by his broad smile – the sort of innocent grin that, on Earth, usually went with scraped knees and Sorry, miss, my mate’s just hoofed our football over your garden wall, you don’t mind if we go and get it, do you. . . ?
Then she noticed that she couldn’t see one of the Doctor’s hands.
‘You’ve got your fingers crossed behind your back, haven’t you?’
The Doctor was immediately on the defensive. ‘Who, me? Fingers crossed? Nah, never!’
Only moments later did his left hand emerge to start inputting the correct settings on the sonic screwdriver.
Beyond the second irised door the Doctor and Martha found a much more high-tech series of corridors and rooms. The night-time lighting illuminated myriad machines and a bewildering array of desks, workstations and control panels.
‘This is more like it!’ exclaimed the Doctor.
13
They found yet more corpses, just as hideous as those they’d pre-viously encountered, but some wore security uniforms, while others were in long white coats. ‘Scientists?’ speculated Martha. ‘You said they were researching something here.’
‘And hired muscle,’ said the Doctor, bending over the body of one particular guard, frozen in position over a bank of computer screens.
A quick glance and you could almost imagine he was still doing his job, still watching the security camera images for the slightest signs of trouble. The monitors, though, had long since powered off.
The Doctor waved his hands over what appeared to be some sort of keyboard made of thick fibre optic strands. ‘One thing you can say about the people of your future, Martha. . . Is that they’ve long since abandoned screensavers. . . This monitor will go into complete hiber-nation if it doesn’t detect any movement – and I’m talking blinking eyes, scratching your head, that sort of thing. Very green, and it stops the guards from falling asleep on the job.’
‘But that’s exactly what seems to have happened, isn’t it?’ said Martha. ‘It’s like everyone just fell asleep.’
‘Hmm. . . ’ The Doctor didn’t sound convinced.
The screen, as if it resented the intrusion after all these years of slumber, finally sprang into life. Martha noticed that others stretched along the long panel in front of them were also beginning to glow.
Everyone showed a section of the multi-level prison area they had just been in; the view cycled from one hidden camera to another, and it was only the subtleties of light and shade that made each snapshot different from the last. Being a guard on this ship, reflected Martha, must have been dull in the extreme.
Before the Doctor could say anything, the lights in the room – mere glowing pinpricks against the flat, dull ceiling – became gradually brighter. The room moved from a subtle sense of autumnal night to the artificial cold-blue harshness of a working day. A quick glance at the images on the monitors, and into the corridor behind them, revealed the truth. It was as if the Doctor and Martha had intruded into some magical, slumbering kingdom, which all around them was beginning to wake.
14
‘What have you done?’ Martha blurted out, surprised at her own reaction. She would have expected to have welcomed the light and brightness, but, surrounded as she was by hundred-year-old corpses, everything seemed even more grotesque now. It just seemed wrong somehow, like stumbling into a funeral with hats and party poppers.
‘The daylight cycle’s kicked in,’ said the Doctor. ‘Nothing to do with me. Honest.’
Even so, Martha found herself glancing over her shoulder to make sure that they were still alone.
‘Now we’re cooking with gas!’
exclaimed the Doctor, settling
down at an unoccupied console, his hands blurring over the controls.
Martha watched him for a moment, but he seemed now only to be conversing with himself, muttering occasionally and sighing.
Martha turned away, feeling both lost and useless in this futuristic environment. ‘This is the point,’ the Doctor suddenly whispered, without looking up, ‘where curiosity usually gets the better of people. It has been known for my friends to go for a wander, get lost, or stumble upon something quite unexpected. . . ’
‘Go for a walk around here?’ scoffed Martha. ‘Are you serious?’
She strolled over to another console – at least this room seemed safe enough. ‘You know, I think I’ll take you to Kensal Green cemetery if we ever get back to London,’ she said, warming to her theme. ‘Consider it. . . repayment in kind.’
‘Oh, I love cemeteries!’ exclaimed the Doctor happily.
‘You would,’ muttered Martha, just quietly enough for the Doctor not to hear.
‘Isn’t Brunel buried there? And Thackeray – I told him to paint those pillar boxes red, you know. He really wanted them in yellow!
And Oscar Wilde’s dear old mum.’
‘Doctor. . . ’
‘Oh, and Charles Blondin, of course! Do you know, when he took me across the Niagara Falls in that wheelbarrow, well, for once, I feared for my life. . . ’
‘Doctor!’
‘Hmm?’ the Doctor looked up from his screen.
15
‘There’s something you should see,’ said Martha, wondering if he could detect the fear in her voice.
Within a moment he was at her side. ‘What is it?’
Martha pointed at the display in front of her. Something had caught her eye – and it made her blood run cold. ‘I thought you said there were no life signs on this ship.’
‘No, there weren’t – though, if you remember, I did add certain caveats, a few qualifications. . . ’
‘Well,’ said Martha, tapping the screen for emphasis, ‘we’re certainly not on our own any more.’
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor slowly. He stared at the monitor, turned his head away, and then looked back at the information – as if checking he wasn’t mistaken. The readings were still there.
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor again.
‘Ah?’
‘Definitely,’ he said. He glanced at Martha. ‘Doesn’t make sense, does it?’
‘Phew,’ said Martha. ‘I thought it was just me.’
The monitor showed a map of the Castor, each level, room and wing picked out in fine detail. Coloured dots marked the presence of life on the ship. ‘There’s us,’ said the Doctor, indicating two strands of information scrolling across the screen. ‘One human, one unknown –how rude! It says we’re both standing in Security Room B, that we’re both physically fit, and. . . Oh, bad luck, Martha!’
‘What?’
‘Says you’re developing an ear infection. Something to watch out for. Or listen out for maybe.’
‘Honestly, I feel fine,’ said Martha.
‘Computer says No,’ said
the Doctor. ‘And we can’t argue with this fine piece of hardware, can we? Not when it has just detected these other signs of life. . . ’
He stabbed at two other dots with strips of information scrolling off them. One strand seemed awash with information, and one barely seemed to register at all. Indeed, as she peered still more closely, the fourth data stream blinked out completely.
16
‘Look!’ she said. ‘It’s gone.’
‘And then there were three,’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘Well, I say three, but this other life sign. . . It’s like trying to isolate a footballer’s broken leg by taking an X-ray of the entire team. Just too much data, all in one go! The system is struggling to isolate any meaningful information.’
‘And the one that’s just disappeared?’
‘The exact opposite – no real data worth gathering. No heat, no energy, no movement. . . Oh, look, it’s come back again!’
The fourth dot appeared again, flickering like a torch running on old batteries.
‘You reckon you can work out where on the ship these. . . life forms are?’ asked Martha.
‘Absolutely! That big splurge of info shouldn’t be too hard to keep an eye on. Not so sure about the other fella, though – more like a shadow than a real creature at all.’ His voice became a whisper.
‘Between the idea and the reality. . . Falls the shadow.’
‘Then let’s find out where the big one’s coming from,’ said Martha.
The Doctor pressed a few buttons, whistling under his breath. ‘Just look at the energy that creature’s pumping out!’ he exclaimed moments later. ‘Hook him, her or it up to the national grid and you could power Milton Keynes for a week!’
‘Why Milton Keynes?’
‘Why not Milton Keynes?’ said the Doctor. ‘You know, whenever a chunk of the Amazon rainforest disappears, it’s always a piece of land the size of Wales. Or Belgium. What have they ever done to anyone?’
He found a pen in an inside pocket and scribbled some coordinates on the back of his hand. ‘Bad news,’ he said as he did so.
