The Deviant Strain

by Justin Richards

  ‘Hey, look, sorry I bawled you out. I’ve had a bad day. I know you have too. But it’s all sorted now, right?’

  Sergeyev nodded without looking at him.

  ‘Good man.’ Jack grinned. ‘Let’s get this show on the road, then, eh?’

  But as they drove off to join the rest of the squad, Jack couldn’t help but remember the face of the man who’d opened the door to them. The man who had led the silent, expressionless, aged girl inside. The man who was himself aged long past his real years, but by the climate and the life he was scratching out for them both. The face of a man whose whole purpose in life had just been taken from him and replaced by a very different commitment.

  A man with no hope left. And no daughter.

  THREE

  THE WHOLE SUBMARINE smelled of rust and oil and salt and diesel fuel. Nikolai Stresnev adjusted the regulator and listened to the tone of the old generator change slightly. None of the gauges worked any more, so he had to do it all from the sound the thing made.

  Long ago, he used to play the violin. But the last of his strings had broken many years before and there was no chance of getting replacements. Sitting on the cold, wet metal floor beside the generator, he often thought he could hear the music echoing through the damp corridors of the old sub. But not today. Today all he could hear was the faint cry of the wind from outside. When it was from the east, it caught the conning tower, funnelled down through the open hatchway and into the structure. When there was a fierce storm, the whole sub shook and rolled, and Nikolai could feel the wind in his hair even in the generator room.

  But he couldn’t close the hatch behind him. For one thing, it was rusted open – the hinges welded solid by the action of salt water over time. For another, the main cables had been run from the control systems back through the hatch and linked up to the village power supply. Since the docks had closed and the troops left, the original generating equipment had failed and decayed. It wouldn’t be long before this last diesel generator failed too. What then, Nikolai wondered? Some of the villagers had suggested they could fire up a generator on one of the other subs. But this was the last diesel boat – the others were all nuclear. It might work, it might even work safely. But Nikolai had made it very clear that they could find someone else to do it.

  There were only two places in the village that were truly warm. This was one of them – snuggled down next to the running generator. The other was the inn on the quayside. It used to be the harbourmaster’s office back in the old days. Now it was inn, community centre and town hall all rolled into one.

  So when he picked up his flask and found that the last scalding drops of vodka were gone, it wasn’t much of a decision where to go for the rest of the afternoon. He scratched at his ear – a rapid, jerky movement like a dog angered by fleas. The generator was running smoothly; it had a full tank and wouldn’t need attention until the evening. He pulled himself to his feet and made his way along the narrow corridor, careful to duck under the exposed pipework. Rust was flaking from the walls and water dripped constantly from the ceiling. It was touch and go which gave out first – the generator or the whole infrastructure of the submarine.

  The breeze bit at Nikolai’s face as he reached the top of the ladder and emerged from the hatch. There were flakes of snow in the air, twisting and turning lazily on their way to the ground. He could hear the faint whistle of the breeze round the other submarines. Like mermaids singing, he used to think. Now he barely noticed it.

  Except now it was different. There was something else. He paused, listening, trying to make out what the difference was – a slithering, scraping sound. Like something heavy but wet being dragged across the ice on the other side of the sub. But when he crossed the tower and leaned out to take a look, there was nothing. Just the thin, broken ice and the near-frozen water lapping gently at the rusty hulk of dark metal. Large chunks of broken ice clunked against the sides of the sub, as if the inlet was a huge glass of iced vodka.

  With that thought in the front of his mind, Nikolai climbed down to the deck, jumped across to the quay and made his way past the abandoned submarines and forgotten derricks and cranes towards the inn.

  It was a pleasant walk back from the stone circle to the scientific base. The institute was squat and ugly and concrete – just the sort of place you’d expect people in starched white coats to be cultivating extremely nasty biological weapons or irradiating poor guinea pigs in the name of science, the Doctor thought.

  The two soldiers at the gates into the compound snapped to attention as the Doctor sauntered past. He resisted the temptation to salute and grinned happily at them instead.

  Same story with the two guards at the door. It was an impressive door, riveted metal. ‘That’d keep a nuclear blast out, that would,’ the Doctor lied jovially. But it occurred to him that its purpose might be not to keep unpleasant things out but rather to keep them inside.

  Klebanov was in what seemed to be the main laboratory. He was working alone and made a point of standing in front of the array of test tubes and flasks organised across the workbench when the Doctor came in.

  ‘Thought you were a physicist,’ the Doctor said. ‘And shouldn’t you have a white coat?’

  ‘We are informal here,’ Klebanov told him warily. He obviously thought the Doctor was a threat. Probably a political one.

  ‘I’m not here to close you down, you know. You’ve nothing to worry about. And I’m not going to steal your research either, whatever it is.’

  ‘I am multi-disciplinary,’ Klebanov replied.

  ‘Typical scientist,’ the Doctor joked. ‘Always ready with his retort.’

  Klebanov didn’t laugh. Maybe it lost something in translation.

  The Doctor went on, ‘I’m after a microscope. Ideally scanning electron. Possibly pseudo-quantum-enabled.’ No response. ‘With flashing lights and stuff.’

  ‘Talk to Minin,’ Klebanov told him. ‘He handles the supplies.’

  ‘And the admin,’ the Doctor remarked.

  ‘And the monkeys.’

  ‘What?’ The Doctor turned to see who had spoken.

  It was Boris Brodsky, standing in the doorway behind them. He gave a short laugh. ‘Just joking. He’ll be in his office.’

  ‘Ta.’

  Brodsky gave the Doctor directions, while Klebanov went back to his flasks and test tubes.

  The Doctor had his own test tube. Inside was lodged a tiny sliver of material he’d managed, after considerable effort, to dislodge from one of the standing stones. It looked just like rock with veins of quartz through it. Maybe that’s all it was, but a microscope would tell him. He rattled the test tube to announce his presence to Minin as he walked into his office.

  Alex Minin was standing at his desk, looking intently at an open folder of papers. He turned a page, looked up and, after a moment’s hesitation, closed the folder. ‘Can I help you, Doctor?’

  ‘You ever heard of a pseudo-quantum microscope?’

  Minin shook his head. ‘I’m not a scientist. But, no, I haven’t.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ the Doctor confessed. ‘And I am a scientist. So if someone asked me for one I’d tell them they were talking rubbish, not send them to the stores.’

  After a pause, Minin said, ‘I’m sorry, was that it? Only I’m a bit . . .’

  ‘Busy?’ the Doctor nodded. He stepped up to the desk and examined some of the papers beside the closed folder – requisitions and purchase orders. ‘Must take a lot of time running a place like this. Three staff and you, no urgency for supplies, no one interested in sending any anyway. It’s the cleaning roster that takes the time, is it?’

  Minin’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s because no one cares that it takes the time. We have to eat, we need clothes and fuel and, yes, even brushes and mops. You’d be surprised how much we need to keep us going.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess the difficult thing is getting the balance. Ordering enough to help the villagers while not drawing attention. Does Klebanov know?�
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  Minin’s surprise turned into a snort of derision. ‘He knows nothing.’

  ‘You could be right about that. But tell me – why are you so unpopular?’

  Minin slipped off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair before sitting down behind the desk. The Doctor cleared a pile of books off the only other chair and sat down too. The books seemed to be logbooks and they were quite old, which was interesting.

  ‘I was the political officer here, in the old days. It was my job to make sure everyone toed the party line. It was my job to report anyone who spoke carelessly about their work, or was seen with someone they had no business to be with, or who sneezed during the national anthem. They all quietly resented it, of course. But they couldn’t complain because I reported them for that too.’

  ‘And now they openly resent it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  He opened a drawer and took out two small glasses and a half-empty bottle of vodka. As he reached in, his sleeve pulled back and the Doctor could see a dark mark on his arm – the edge of a tattoo.

  ‘So why stay here?’

  ‘No one wanted me back in Moscow. Easier to leave me here and forget about me. I have no skills apart from betraying the trust of my fellows.’

  ‘Oh, don’t belittle yourself.’ The Doctor accepted the glass of clear liquid and examined it. ‘What about despondency, regret, depression?’

  ‘I can do those too,’ Minin admitted. He knocked back his vodka and grimaced at the taste and the burn in his throat. ‘I wanted to be a teacher,’ he said quietly.

  ‘We’re all teachers,’ the Doctor told him. ‘I’d like to learn about this.’ He held up the test tube. ‘So I need a microscope. The bigger and flashier the better.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’ Minin picked up the bottle. He hesitated a moment, then shoved it back into the drawer. ‘Why are you here, Doctor?’

  ‘Microscope.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And?’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘I dunno. Like you, I’m interested in history. I want to help.’

  ‘History? How did you . . .’ Minin’s face cleared. ‘Ah – the logbooks.’

  ‘And the maps and the notebooks and the file you don’t want me to see.’

  ‘It’s what I do to pass the time,’ Minin admitted. ‘I’ve researched the history of Novrosk ever since I came here. Needed something to hide in, an escape.’

  ‘Interesting?’

  ‘Yes, actually.’ Minin’s face seemed to come to life with enthusiasm as he leaned across the desk. ‘Before the navy came, this was an old whaling station, you know. Some of the villagers still here can trace their ancestry back to those original whalers. Or rather, they could if they bothered.’

  ‘Lots of colour, lots of local background,’ the Doctor suggested.

  Minin was nodding in agreement.

  ‘Lots of local legends?’

  Minin froze. ‘Ah. You know.’

  ‘I do now. Lucky guess. Something Barinska said. Tell me about the Vourdulak.’

  Minin stood up, his hand at his mouth as if ready to catch any unconsidered words. ‘It’s just a story,’ he said at last. ‘The sort of legend that springs up in any community like this – isolated and old. Probably there’s some truth, some event, at the root of it. An unfortunate accident, an unexplained death that they tried to rationalise.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The locals believe that somewhere on the peninsula is a Vourdulak, a sort of vampire. Actually more like a siren – a seemingly beautiful young girl who entraps the unwary and then drains their energy to keep herself young and beautiful, whereas in fact she is old and ugly . . .’

  ‘So what happened to Valeria is a bit of a shock. The legend comes home to roost.’

  ‘They know it’s just a story,’ Minin countered. ‘They’ve serviced and repaired the most advanced and dangerous weapons in the world down here. They’re living with the remains of them rotting away within sight. They don’t really believe in this thing, this monster. They know there’s a proper explanation for what’s happened. It’s just that no one has found it yet.’

  The Doctor waited, but Minin seemed to have said his piece and sat down again.

  ‘Is that what they think? Or what you think?’ the Doctor wondered. ‘And if it’s just a story and this is unexpected and unconnected, what’s in that file?’

  Minin did not reply. Instead he picked up the file, weighed it in his hand and then passed it across the desk to the Doctor.

  ‘It’s the post-mortem and military police report from when it happened while the base was fully open. A corpse drained of all binding energy and with the bones turned to slush.’

  The Doctor opened the file and leafed through the pages gathered inside.

  ‘And also copies of local police records for the twenty years before that,’ Minin said.

  There were photocopies of handwritten reports and pages from ledgers. A telegram, yellowed and brittle with age.

  ‘Accounts of the original legends. A letter from one of the whalers to his sister in St Petersburg describing a death in 1827. All manner of other reports and descriptions from local records, journals. Even a page of a log from one of the submarines, together with the order of transfer for the captain who was foolish enough to write it.’

  The Doctor held up a single page printed out from a computer file. The printer had been almost out of ink by the look of it. ‘And this.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘And that, yes. It was ignored, of course. Like the rest. Sofia Barinska’s report from two years ago. From last time it happened.’

  Rose’s attempts to engage Sofia Barinska in conversation met with little response. The woman’s mind was obviously on other things, though whether it was the unexpected arrival of three dozen soldiers together with the Doctor, Jack and Rose or the unexplained attacks on two young people was not clear. Probably a bit of both, Rose decided.

  ‘So, you grew up here?’ she tried.

  ‘Here, you are born grown-up,’ Sofia replied.

  Well, it was a start.

  ‘I guess it’s tough.’

  This earned a sideways look as the car bumped over the join between two enormous slabs of concrete. The road seemed to have been dumped and left to fend for itself. Grass was poking through the crumbling surface. There were no visible lines or markings at all.

  ‘You could just leave,’ Rose said quietly. She could hear the frustration in her own voice and she didn’t even live here.

  ‘I’ll catch the next train,’ Sofia said, her voice devoid of emotion.

  ‘There’s a station?’

  ‘Not any more. The last train left over twenty years ago.’

  ‘Oh. Right . . . Where are we going?’

  Sofia did look at her now, and for longer than Rose thought was probably safe as they bumped across the decaying road surface. ‘First to the police station, which is also my house, to check for messages. Then I have to tell Pavel’s parents what has happened,’ she said. ‘After that, even if you don’t, I’ll need a drink.’

  The Doctor read through the autopsy report at a glance. He flicked through the other papers and then handed the file back to Minin.

  ‘Aren’t you going to read it all?’

  ‘I have read it all.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I think you’d need to exhume one of the bodies and examine it to be sure the cause of death is the same.’

  ‘It sounds the same. Anyway,’ Minin went on, putting the file away in a drawer of his desk, ‘you can’t go digging up old bodies, not without a permit. You’d need permission from Barinska and the next of kin at least. Otherwise it’s illegal.’

  ‘And sucking out people’s bones and life essence isn’t?’

  Minin sighed. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean. Now, where’s that microscope?’

  Minin sent the Doctor to
find Catherine Kornilova. She had her own lab on the other side of the building, with equipment including a powerful electron microscope, Minin assured him. To get there the Doctor had to take the corridor that ran just inside the outer wall of the large building. Strangely there didn’t seem to be any way to cut through the middle.

  She was sitting at a workbench tapping away at the keyboard of a laptop computer when the Doctor arrived. He watched her for a moment from the door before stepping into the room. Mid-twenties, dark hair tied back, white lab coat. She was wearing glasses that had a string attached so they would hang round her neck when she didn’t need them. A sensible, practical woman.

  ‘All mod cons,’ he observed.

  She didn’t look up. ‘Hardly the latest model, but it serves.’ She finished the sentence she was typing, then looked up and smiled. ‘What can I do for you, Doctor?’

  ‘Come to beg the use of a microscope.’

  ‘Help yourself.’ She nodded across at the equipment set up on a table at the side of the room. ‘Again, it’s hardly the latest model, but it should do. What do you want it for?’

  ‘Want to look at this.’ The Doctor held up the sliver of rock in its glass tube. ‘From one of the standing stones.’

  ‘Granite, with quartz embedded in it.’

  ‘You know that for a fact?’

  ‘Seems likely.’ She closed the lid of the laptop and came over to join him at the microscope. ‘You need a hand?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Mind you, I’m a biologist not a geologist.’

  ‘Really?’ The Doctor put down his rock sample. ‘So, tell me about the monkeys.’

  She hesitated only a second, but it was a hesitation nonetheless. ‘There are no monkeys.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Never have been.’

  ‘Really? Then why do Boris and the others keep mentioning them?’

  ‘They’re teasing Alex. I wish they’d leave him alone. Here, let me do that.’

  She took the rock sample and started to prepare a slide, reaching for a scalpel to scrape away a surface layer for examination.

  ‘So what’s the big joke?’