The Deviant Strain

by Justin Richards

  ‘They’re just getting at Alex for his pedantry. He’s always after them for filling in forms and getting reports submitted on time and in the right format. Well, that’s fine by me – he’s right. If we give those clowns in Moscow any excuse they’ll ignore us. But Klebanov and Boris and the villagers who remember how things used to be, they resent Alex even being here. There was even a death apparently. A suicide. So they take the mickey whenever they can, right?’

  ‘Right.’ The Doctor watched as she adjusted the controls and an image spluttered into view on a monitor screen – a picture of the fragment of rock sample. It looked pitted and cratered like a lunar landscape. ‘And the monkeys?’

  ‘Before my time. And Boris’s. Apparently Alex found some paperwork for a few live specimens. He went ape, if you’ll forgive the expression.’ She smiled at her own choice of words.

  ‘An ethical man.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he cared what happened to the monkeys. He was just annoyed because the paperwork was all done and the money was taken out of the budget, but there were never any monkeys. No delivery. No one even seemed to know who’d sent the order in the first place or why.’

  ‘Biological weapons research,’ the Doctor said. ‘You’re a biologist, you can guess why they wanted them.’

  ‘I’m not that sort of biologist,’ she snapped. ‘I’m researching vaccines and counter-biological agents.’

  ‘Course you are. That’s why it’s all so secret.’

  ‘That’s why it’s all so makeshift and amateur,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, Alex kicked up a fuss about nonexistent monkeys and they’ve never let him forget it. I think it was the same week that Chedakin died. Maybe that’s why.’

  The Doctor had turned his attention to the screen and was magnifying the image. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ There was something odd here, he thought. The impurities in the stone that everyone assumed were quartz . . . They didn’t look like random strata, more as if they had been deliberately laid into the base stone. ‘That remind you of anything?’

  Catherine shrugged. ‘Not really. I suppose it looks a bit like a printed circuit.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Standing stones that are really silicon chips?’ He clicked his tongue and changed the magnification again. ‘So, who was Chedakin?’

  Rose stayed in the car, cold despite being out of the wind. Sofia had the heater on full, but it didn’t seem to take the chill out of the air. They had parked behind a digger – a big JCB-type job. It was the first vehicle apart from Sofia’s that Rose had seen and, like everything else, it was rusty and old.

  She watched the policewoman at the door of the little square house, talking to the man and woman – Pavel’s parents. It was difficult to watch, but even more difficult to look away. The woman was crying, the man with his arm round her and his own face ashen-grey.

  Then Sofia returned, and she drove in silence for a while. ‘I’m going to the inn,’ she said at last.

  ‘You’re right, we need a drink. You need a drink.’ Rose struggled for something to say. ‘What’s the inn called?’

  ‘Doesn’t have a name. It’s just the inn.’

  ‘Right. It can’t be easy, your line of work.’

  ‘Easy? Usually it’s boringly easy. But some days . . .’

  ‘How did they take it?’

  ‘Badly. But we’re used to death and hardship out here.’ Sofia’s eyes were focused on the cracked road stretching ahead. The derelict cranes and gantries at the docks were looming closer, dark against the steel-grey of the sky. ‘Vahlen – Pavel’s father – his best friend was Chedakin. So for him it’s another loss.’

  ‘What happened to Chedakin?’

  ‘He died,’ she said.

  The inn was just ahead of them now as they drove along the old quay. It was a square, concrete building distinguished from its neighbours only by the fact that there was light rather than wooden boards in the windows.

  Sofia stopped in the middle of the roadway outside the door. Since hers was the only car, she could presumably park wherever she liked. In this case, next to a rusting submarine, its conning tower thrust up from the icy waters beside the quay.

  ‘He shot himself.’ The evening was drawing in now. ‘He used to say what he really thought, not what he was supposed to think. We found it refreshing. But we kept warning him, everyone did.’

  The sudden sound of laughter from the inn as they approached seemed out of place in the dreary, grey desolation.

  ‘What happened?’

  Sofia was ahead of Rose and didn’t look back. ‘He was ordered to Moscow, due to leave the next day. They were sending a helicopter for him. He killed himself rather than face that.’

  ‘But how did they know?’ It seemed such a different world – where you could be taken away and locked up, or worse, simply for speaking your mind. Rose couldn’t imagine herself or the Doctor surviving long in such an environment. And God help her mum.

  ‘Same way they always knew.’ The bitterness and anger were palpable in her voice. ‘Alex Minin told them.’

  On the other side of the docks, away from the noise of the inn, the water lapped gently and icily against the crumbling quay. The dry dock where the submarines were refitted and their hulls examined for weak spots and corrosion was flooded and useless. One of the subs was lying on its side in the water, having rusted through and toppled over several years before. It was held up only by the dark hulk of the next submarine.

  Beyond this, there was a narrow beach of shingle, then the jutting cliff at the edge of the bay. The sea pounded against the base of the cliff, gradually wearing it away. Eventually it would carve out so much rock that the land would crash down into the sea, pushing the cliff back towards the stone circle.

  Sergeyev had taken Jack to where the rest of his squad were waiting, at the edge of the docks. They were split into teams of three men, each team having a Geiger counter.

  ‘The colonel and the Doctor don’t think that it’s a radiation leak, so there should be no danger,’ Jack said before Sergeyev could speak. Time to assert his authority. ‘But we have to check to eliminate the possibility.’

  ‘There’s a lot of background radiation, sir,’ one of the soldiers said. He turned on the Geiger counter and it immediately started clicking. ‘Not enough to worry about at the moment, but if it gets any higher . . .’

  ‘How far have you got?’ Sergeyev asked him, while glaring at Jack.

  ‘We checked the warehouses on this side of the quay. Also the dry dock, though it is not dry any more.’

  ‘Inside the subs?’ Jack asked.

  The soldiers shook their heads. There was little enthusiasm at the thought.

  ‘We probably don’t need to go inside,’ Sergeyev pointed out. ‘We can take readings from outside the hull.’

  Jack thought about this. ‘OK. But anything above the expected background, we check. Right?’

  Grudging nods. So Jack repeated, ‘Right?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘It’ll be dark soon, so let’s get started.’

  The evening was drawing in fast. So if anyone had seen the dark shape that dragged itself out of the water and across the shingle they might have dismissed it as creeping shadow. If anyone had heard the sound of the creature hauling itself up onto the crumbling quayside, they might have dismissed that as the waves breaking on the rocks below the cliff.

  But the soldiers had moved away. So there was no one there to make such a mistake. No one to see the tentacles probing and stretching and exploring. No one to hear the creature’s hiss of satisfaction as it slithered along the quay.

  FOUR

  THE ROOM WAS noisy and filled with smoke, like the local pub on football nights. The sound dipped a little as Rose and Sofia entered, but news of the arrivals had already travelled round the community so it was only a pause, not a full-blown silence of surprise. Rose had half expected to be told, ‘We don’t want strangers here,’ so she was relieved that everyone settled back to their drinks a
nd conversations.

  Sofia led Rose through to an empty table near the back of the room. She waved at the burly man behind the bar as she went, and moments later two glasses and a bottle were slammed down on the table.

  ‘Is it true?’ the barman demanded. His voice was gruff and hoarse.

  ‘I can’t say,’ Sofia told him, pouring the drinks.

  ‘Thought so.’

  The man heaved a sigh and made his way back to the bar, collecting empty glasses and bottles as he went.

  ‘News travels fast,’ Rose said.

  ‘There’s nothing much to do apart from gossip. Not once the boats are back in for the evening.’

  ‘Boats?’

  ‘Fishing boats. We can get to the open sea from the far end of the harbour, even when it’s iced up.’

  That explained the smell, then. Rose looked round. Not surprisingly, she found that a lot of people were looking back at her. Most of them were men, but there were a few women too. Everyone looked tired and worn. What a life, she thought – get up, go out on a fishing boat or dig in the fields, then get hammered and flop into bed.

  ‘Doesn’t it ever get warm here?’ she asked.

  Sofia pointed to the drink – a small glass of pale liquid. ‘Drink that, it’ll make you warm. Or as close as you can get.’

  Rose drank it. The sound of her rasping, breathless cough made Sofia laugh. Pretty soon the people at the closest tables were laughing too, and then the next ones, and everyone. Finally, when she could, Rose laughed. Her eyes were brimming over with the tears the burning liquid had brought out.

  ‘Next time I’ll have a coffee,’ she gasped.

  The Doctor had been staring at the screen for what seemed like hours. Catherine went back to her laptop and finished her report. He was still staring at the screen, though he had changed the magnification again.

  ‘Fascinating, this,’ he announced.

  ‘Still at it, then?’ She shut down the computer and wandered back over to the microscope.

  ‘Can I see a different sample, make sure they’re the same?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  Catherine removed the glass specimen case from the microscope. She opened it up and carefully took out the thin sliver of stone with a pair of tweezers. But the stone slipped from between the prongs and fell onto the workbench. She picked it up with her fingers.

  And the world swam.

  For a moment she was giddy, vision blurred, swaying on her feet. Then she dropped the tiny piece of stone. She felt the Doctor taking her arm, sitting her on a lab stool.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘I think so.’ Her vision was clearing now. ‘Just . . . tired, I suppose.’ Her thumb and fingers felt numb, where she had held the stone. She stared down at them, rubbing them together, trying to focus. ‘Oh, my God – my fingers!’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ The Doctor took her hand in his and examined it. ‘I see what you mean.’

  The tips of her fingers and her thumb were wrinkled, the skin creased as if she’d been in the bath too long. The fingers of an old woman.

  The Doctor was reaching for the tiny fragment of stone. Instinctively she knew that it was the fragment that had somehow done this to her.

  ‘Don’t!’

  But he already had it. He turned it over in his palm, flipped it in the air and caught it in his other hand before replacing it in the test tube with the larger piece. Then he showed her his hand. The palm was withered, the skin on the fingers slack and dry and ancient.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Klebanov had come in without them noticing and was looking accusingly at the Doctor. ‘I hope you’re not wasting my staff’s time.’

  ‘Don’t think so. We’re fine, ta. Thanks for asking. Answering questions, and asking lots more.’

  ‘I wish you would take things seriously and speak with due respect,’ Klebanov huffed.

  Catherine was surprised he was so annoyed – it wasn’t as if there was any urgency to their work, or the Doctor was stopping her getting on. And now . . .

  The Doctor was still holding up his hand. It seemed to be healing, the skin tightening again. But Catherine’s own fingers remained wrinkled and parched. She held out her hand to show him, wondering what had happened, surprised at her dispassionate scientific curiosity about the change to her own body.

  Klebanov came over to the workbench. He leaned forwards, his weight on his hands on the bench, eyes closed.

  The Doctor took hold of Catherine’s hand and examined it. ‘You feel all right?’ he asked.

  Before Catherine could answer, Klebanov opened his eyes and straightened up. ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Ta. Thanks for asking.’

  There was quite a crowd round the table now. Rose had managed to fend off questions about life in the rest of Russia and the political situation in Moscow. The villagers were more than happy to unburden themselves and tell her how awful their own lives were.

  Actually, though, she sensed that most of the problem was resentment at having been abandoned when the docks were decommissioned. They were surviving, they got essential supplies from the research institute and the fishermen and farmers provided enough food.

  Except for the recent death, and what had happened to Valeria. No one said so specifically, but Rose had the clear impression that this wasn’t the first time unexpected and unexplained death had come to Novrosk. If she’d to make a bet she would guess that having more than a dozen rotting nuclear submarines in the middle of the community didn’t do a whole lot for health and safety, but then again it seemed that the subs were also the saviour of the community.

  The only way they got any power, Sofia told Rose, was by keeping the generator on one of the submarines going. ‘Don’t worry, it’s diesel not nuclear,’ she added, seeing Rose’s look of horror. She then introduced Rose to Nikolai Stresnev, who proudly told her he serviced and worked the generator and kept it going.

  Stresnev was typical of so many of the men in the community – prematurely aged, tired, borderline drunk. He lived for the moment and had a habit of scratching furiously at his ear like an irritated dog. Rose tried not to think about why he might do that and what sort of provision he made for personal hygiene. So far as she could tell, he practically lived on the submarine. Except when he was at the inn.

  She tried to steer the conversation back to the deaths, hoping to find out if there really had been other similar events and if so how recently. ‘Doesn’t it scare you?’ she asked when no one seemed especially bothered.

  ‘People die,’ Sofia explained. ‘It’s a hard life. We lose a few fishermen every year. Flu takes others – we’ve no medical facilities . . . And we live with the subs and what might happen to them.’

  ‘But that’s frightening.’

  ‘Only if you stop to think about it. We live with it all the time. You get used to it. Like anything.’

  ‘If you want to be really frightened,’ Nikolai said, pointing vaguely in Rose’s direction, ‘you should go and visit old Georgi. He’s seen some things.’

  ‘Really? What’s he seen, then?’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Sofia said. ‘Georgi’s old and blind. Lost his sight way back. An accident servicing one of the boats back in the navy days.’

  ‘He still sees things,’ Nikolai insisted. ‘Things that haven’t happened yet, and all.’ He drained his glass and slammed it back down on the table. ‘That’s why they call it second sight.’

  ‘He’s a poor, blind old man,’ Sofia insisted.

  Rose nodded. ‘So, where’s he live?’ she asked.

  When the Doctor refused to be intimidated by Klebanov and countered his criticisms with the vague suggestion that he’d talk to his mates in Moscow and see what they reckoned, Klebanov left them to it.

  ‘He’s not usually so huffy,’ Catherine assured the Doctor.

  ‘He’s usually in charge,’ the Doctor told her. ‘Look at that.’ He showed her his hand. It seemed to be back to normal. Catherine’s was still wrinkled and aged. �
��You’ll have to moisturise,’ the Doctor said sympathetically. ‘But the tissue round it is in good shape. I think it’ll recover in a few days. Your body’ll sort it out.’

  ‘But what happened? And why, when it affected you, did your skin recover straight away?’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘Makes no sense,’ he muttered. ‘I mean, energy absorption – OK, lots of reasons you’d want to do that. But you’d never be daft enough to tune it just to one strain of DNA and life force. Why just humans, eh? I mean, I’m close, so if it won’t take me it won’t take anything else. Accept no substitutes – what’s that about?’

  Catherine laughed nervously, staring at her wrinkled fingers. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  He laughed with her. ‘Nor me. But think about it. You need energy, so you absorb it – through these stones. And the quartz-like substance also resonates like quartz. That’s what sends the signal. But they don’t do it all the time. You don’t, like, lean on a stone and – pow – you’re 107 years old and spineless. So they must be activated somehow. Radiation from the microscope might have set it off.’

  ‘We’re not short of radiation round here,’ Catherine replied slowly. ‘It’s a worry, but you get used to living with it. Despite what the surveys and the official reports say. Some of those subs are leaking like . . . like . . .’ She struggled to think of a simile.

  ‘Like rusty old submarines?’ the Doctor suggested. ‘But you wouldn’t just want energy from humans, would you? You’d take whatever you can get.’

  ‘Depends what you need it for, maybe.’

  He frowned as if she’d just told him two plus two made five. ‘I know what they need it for,’ he said.

  Georgi Zinoviev was sitting alone in the dark when Sofia Barinska brought the English girl to see him. No one else knew she was English and her accent was perfect. It wasn’t from the way she spoke that Georgi knew. He just did. And he knew that she didn’t want anyone else to know, so he sent Sofia away, back to the inn while they spoke.

  ‘I never put the lights on,’ he confessed. ‘Why would I bother? So you’ll have to find the switch. If there is one.’