The Deviant Strain

by Justin Richards

  ALEX MININ WAS looking bewildered. ‘I never knew that door was there,’ he said.

  ‘Hidden,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Someone deliberately stacked all these boxes in front of it.’

  ‘And what’s this about a spaceship?’ Minin laughed nervously, as if to show he knew they were joking really.

  ‘Yeah. Spaceship,’ the Doctor told him. ‘You know.’ He demonstrated by flattening his hand into a spaceship shape and flying it through the air between them. He made spaceship noises.

  ‘I don’t think I do actually,’ Minin said weakly.

  ‘Sure you do. You must get some version of Star Trek, even out here.’

  ‘The one with Mr Spocksky,’ Rose added helpfully.

  ‘A spaceship?’ Minin said.

  ‘A spaceship,’ Jack confirmed. ‘And a homicidal mad policewoman killer-zombie as well. No extra charge.’

  ‘Make that knife-wielding homicidal mad policewoman killer-zombie,’ Rose reminded him.

  ‘Barinska?’ Minin was looking at each of them in turn, evidently convinced they were all mad.

  ‘That’d explain a lot,’ the Doctor said. ‘Right, let’s get going.’

  ‘Good move,’ Jack agreed. ‘I suggest a three-pronged initiative. The objectives, not in any order of priority, are the ship, the deadly glowing blobby creatures and the stone circle.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Minin said. He took a deep breath. ‘What deadly glowing blobby creatures?’

  ‘They’ll be the remotes,’ the Doctor said, as if this was obvious.

  ‘Remotes?’ Rose echoed.

  The Doctor nodded. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘They’re killing people,’ she pointed out.

  ‘So, shouldn’t be a problem, but they are.’ The Doctor sucked in his cheeks and folded his arms. ‘Someone’s been messing about.’ He turned to look at Minin. ‘Monkey business,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s something else,’ Rose put in. ‘You see, there’s these bodies.’

  The Doctor stopped her, pressing his finger to her lips. ‘First things first. Alex – go and find the colonel. Tell him his missing men have probably been blobbed by now and he’s to forget them. Then bring him down to the ship.’

  ‘He’ll never believe there’s a spaceship down there,’ Minin said. ‘I don’t believe there’s a spaceship down there.’

  ‘He will when he sees it,’ Jack told him.

  ‘It crashed here centuries ago. Maybe millennia,’ the Doctor said. ‘Crew’s probably dead.’

  ‘Yep,’ Jack said.

  ‘And it landed at the base of the cliff. Maybe even in the sea. Then over time the land has moved, and now it’s buried under the cliff, close to this institute. Through that door.’

  ‘But hang on . . .’ Minin pointed to the open door. ‘Why would anyone build a secret door leading down to a buried spaceship no one knows is there?’

  ‘That’s a really good question,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘You get Colonel Levin and we’ll try to get some answers.’

  On the way down to the ship, Jack and Rose told the Doctor their stories. He asked few questions and made few comments. But when Jack described the creatures that had cornered him and the soldiers in the submarine he exclaimed, ‘Blue? Don’t they know that’s such a cliché?’

  ‘Maybe where you’re from. They’re usually green here,’ Rose said. ‘I don’t care what colour danger is. It’s still . . . well, dangerous.’

  ‘Yeah, but I mean – dangerous and boring?’ the Doctor sneered. ‘Do me a favour. If you’re going to have your life threatened, it might as well be fun.’

  ‘Trip of a lifetime,’ Rose muttered.

  The hatch was still closed. Jack put his hand on the Doctor’s shoulder as the Doctor turned the locking wheel.

  ‘You sure you want to go in there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Mrs Knife-Attack might be waiting. I shot her a few times, but she didn’t seem as impressed as she should have been.’

  ‘Probably not. She’s been dosed up on mutagenic revivification enhancement energy for a while.’

  Rose looked at Jack. ‘What’s he on about?’

  ‘MRE,’ Jack said. ‘Like, life force.’

  ‘Then why not say “life force”?’ Rose said.

  ‘Look, I didn’t write the manual,’ the Doctor protested. The hatch swung open. ‘Anyway, she’s probably legged it back to her house to recharge by now.’

  ‘Let’s hope,’ Rose said. ‘So you know all about it, then? Recognise the ship?’

  ‘General type,’ the Doctor admitted. ‘Can’t say for certain, but the technology’s pretty standard for the Arcane Collegiate.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ Jack admitted.

  ‘It’s pretty . . . esoteric.’ The Doctor was examining one of the mutated, fused bodies. He drew the sheet back over it sadly. ‘Like I said. Monkey business. Someone’s been mucking about with the receptors.’

  Rose was getting impatient. ‘Look, will you just tell us what is going on here? Those of us who don’t speak Spaceman would like an explanation.’

  ‘And those of us who do wouldn’t object,’ Jack added.

  ‘OK.’ The Doctor wandered across to what seemed to be the main control area. He tipped the remains of the pilot out of its seat and flopped down in its place.

  Rose gaped. ‘Oh, gross.’

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  The Doctor waved at them to make themselves comfortable. Rose sat on the floor, while Jack leaned against an instrument panel.

  ‘He was probably killed in the crash, or at least his body was,’ the Doctor said. ‘Not much sign of damage, so the auto-repair fixed the ship up. But no pilot, so it’s stuck. Thinks it’s missed something, probably – some component that still needs attention. Or it needs new parts. So the ship sends out a signal. Come and help, please. Run out of fuel or need a new carburettor or whatever.’

  ‘And who does it send this message to?’

  ‘No one. Everyone. Just beams it out into space. Probably quite a strong signal to begin with. We caught the tail end – as the power runs down, it weakens.’

  ‘Then what?’ Rose asked.

  ‘It gets more power,’ Jack said.

  He was nodding as if things were becoming clear to him. They were clear as mud to Rose.

  ‘That’s right. It doesn’t need much, not till it gets ready for flight. Just enough to keep the systems up and running, ticking over, and to keep the message going. Now it can absorb energy from the environment. Heat, light, power of the wind, anything.’

  ‘Life force,’ Rose said quietly.

  The Doctor nodded. ‘That too. But not just that. Not in theory. Anyway, it sticks up its antennae and starts to draw the power.’

  ‘Antennae?’

  ‘The stones,’ Jack told her. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Doctor? We’re right under the stones here.’

  ‘This ship is made of stone?’ Rose asked. She looked round at the instrument panels – what she had assumed was brittle plastic could be stone, she realised. Thin, sculpted, shaped . . .

  ‘Sort of, yeah. Like I said, the stones are antennae, prodded up through the ground till they reach daylight,’ the Doctor said. ‘Absorbing power. Same substance as the remotes, the blobs. Only solidified to withstand the elements and the test of time. It’s all based on some pseudo-silicate material.’

  ‘And then anyone who touches the stones,’ Rose said, ‘they’d be, like, drained of life force.’

  ‘I doubt that was the original intention. It just needs a steady stream, a trickle of energy. But someone’s tampered with the systems. It’s designed to accept any type, any strain, of energy. Maybe it has a safety feature that excludes the life force from intelligent beings – even humans,’ he added with a grin.

  ‘Oh, ta,’ Rose told him.

  ‘But now someone’s changed things round. They’ve adapted them so they deviate from the original plans and just take one defined strain of e
nergy – life force. And probably just the life force of human beings. Certainly it didn’t like mine when I activated a bit of stone, though it took Catherine’s no problem. So it’s no longer working to design. Now it’s only interested in the deviant strain.’

  ‘You mean us.’

  ‘I mean you.’

  ‘Hang on, what do you mean by “activated”?’ Rose asked.

  ‘They don’t do it all the time. Just when the ship needs some power. It’s automatic unless there’s some other need for the power. Then someone, the pilot usually, switches it on.’

  ‘Except someone else has changed things, so now they can activate the probes and draw life force whenever they need it,’ Jack said.

  ‘No prizes for guessing who,’ Rose realised.

  ‘But it’s going crazy now,’ Jack said. ‘There’s attack of the blob monsters out there, and the stones are probably getting thirstier all the time. Is that all down to Mrs Knife-Killer Barinska going bananas?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ the Doctor said. ‘That’s all someone else’s fault.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Wait till I get my hands on them. Have you ever crawled through a torpedo tube in the dark with water pouring in?’ He hesitated. ‘OK, you probably have. So whose fault is it?’

  The Doctor was examining his fingernails. ‘Actually,’ he said, looking up at Jack, ‘it’s yours.’

  ‘What?!’

  The Doctor shrugged and went back to looking at his nails. ‘You answered the message. You told the ship we were coming to get it. So now it’s preparing to be rescued, getting ready to leave.’

  ‘And it needs more power,’ Rose said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yep. The stones are no longer drawing enough for it, especially as up till now they’ve only got power when they’re switched on here and someone touches them.’

  ‘Switched on?’

  ‘Yeah, there’s a manual switch wired in rather crudely on that panel.’ He nodded at where Jack was leaning. ‘Don’t shuffle your bum too much or you might turn them on again.’

  ‘And these blob creatures?’

  ‘Remote probes. Energy sources don’t come to it, so it goes looking for them. They drain the energy and beam it back. The radio interference is a side effect as the ether fills with life-force transmissions.’

  Rose thought about all this. ‘Thanks, Jack,’ she said at last. ‘Good one.’

  Jack sighed. ‘So, at the risk of sounding as if I’m changing the subject, why did Barinska adapt the systems and what’s she need the energy for?’

  Rose was wondering that too. She thought about Barinska’s face – lined and aged almost beyond recognition . . . ‘She’s old, isn’t she? She needs the life force to stay young.’

  ‘Seems likely. That’s why only human energy would do. I doubt she’s the only one either. There’s been a lot of mucking about with these systems. Lots of trial and error to get to this point. Though a lot of it is informed guesswork. I think they’ve had help, even though they may not realise it.’

  ‘I wonder how old she really is,’ Jack said.

  ‘She looked ancient,’ Rose told him. ‘So, come on then. What happens now?’

  ‘The ship keeps searching for energy. It’ll store all it can until take-off.’

  ‘Except it isn’t gonna take off,’ Jack pointed out. ‘The pilot’s dead, no help is coming. Unless, we . . .’ He pushed himself away from the panel and turned to examine it.

  ‘No good,’ the Doctor told him. ‘No way this thing can fly now. Too much damage and adaptation.’

  ‘So, what – it just keeps looking for energy?’ Rose asked. ‘For people to kill?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Till it leaves.’

  Rose stared at him. ‘But . . . that’s for ever.’

  ‘Yep. Unless we can find a way to drain it right down, even the emergency reserves. Then the systems will stop.’

  ‘How do we do that?’ Jack was ready at the control panel.

  ‘Dunno. Dunno if it can even be done until I take a proper look.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a real help in a crisis,’ Rose told him.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Jack asked.

  The Doctor opened his mouth to reply. But it was not him who answered.

  ‘Now, you die,’ a voice said.

  It came from behind the panel where Jack was. He swung round in surprise. Just as Sofia Barinska’s bloodstained figure rose up from behind it.

  ‘We shall get all the energy we need,’ she said. ‘For ever.’

  The knife flashed as it caught the light, stabbing down towards Jack.

  TEN

  THE DOCTOR DID not seem at all fazed by the fact the woman was forcing a knife down at Jack’s throat.

  ‘How old are you?’ He sounded as if he was telling off a schoolkid. ‘I mean, really – how old?’

  He was watching with interest as, to Jack’s relief, Rose ran to help. The two of them were holding the woman’s hands now – forcing the blade upwards. But Barinska was incredibly strong, and she had her full weight behind the knife, trying to force it back down.

  ‘Levin said he thought he recognised you and you told him that was your mother. But it wasn’t, was it?’

  The Doctor stood up as he spoke and wandered casually over to watch the struggle. ‘I think you were here before that, weren’t you? Maybe before the navy came. Before the scientists. One of the original whaling community, maybe.’

  ‘Some help here would be nice,’ Jack gasped.

  ‘You didn’t work it out all by yourself, did you?’ the Doctor was saying. Then he seemed to realise what Jack had said. ‘Oh yeah.’

  But to Jack’s annoyance, the Doctor did not try to help them deflect the knife. It inched closer to him again. Rose was losing her grip – her feet sliding across the floor as she struggled to hold Barinska’s wrists. The Doctor seemed to have disappeared completely.

  Then suddenly it was over. Barinska gave a cry of surprise and fell backwards. The knife clattered to the floor and Rose grabbed for it as Jack pushed himself away from the control panel.

  ‘What happened?’ Jack asked.

  The Doctor’s voice came from the other side of the panel. ‘I kicked her feet away.’ His delighted face appeared above the panel and he waved. ‘Come and see.’

  Barinska was lying face down on the ground. The Doctor had his foot on her back, as if she was a hunting trophy. The woman was lying completely still, but the Doctor kept his foot firmly planted in position.

  ‘You didn’t answer my questions,’ he told her. ‘But I bet you can feel it, can’t you? The lingering presence in your mind of the dead pilot’s own life force. His mental energy – guiding you, instinctively, to repair the systems. To survive long enough to get the ship working again.’

  Barinska did not move.

  ‘You mean he ain’t dead at all?’ Rose said.

  ‘Oh, he’s dead as a dodo. Just his mind, or part of it, lives on in the systems. Symbiosis. The pilot is one with the machine – his body may die but his mind lingers, like I said. Reaching out like the message. And what,’ he asked Barinska, ‘you found the ship and it talked to you, in your head, is that it?’

  ‘That’s how she was able to adapt the systems,’ Jack realised.

  ‘Yeah. Her and her mates, whoever they are. They think they want to live for ever. But actually it’s the ship and the pilot that want them to live for ever. Or until the repairs are finished. Irony is, keeping its little helpers alive means the ship’s crippled for good.’ He rolled Barinska with his foot. ‘I know you’re not unconscious,’ he told her. ‘So who else is in on this, eh? Who else still thinks their life is their own?’

  The reply was an angry, guttural snarl. Barinska rolled suddenly over and leaped to her feet. Jack made a grab at her, but she was too quick – darting past and heading quickly for the hatchway leading out into the cave.

  The door opened before she got there. Colonel Levin was fra
med in the doorway, his pistol drawn. He stared in surprise at the woman rushing towards him.

  ‘Stop her, Colonel,’ Jack shouted.

  Several of Levin’s men had entered behind him. They levelled their assault rifles as Levin ordered, ‘Halt!’

  But Barinska kept coming.

  Levin hesitated. ‘Halt, or I fire.’

  Barinska was almost on them now.

  ‘Fire!’ Jack shouted.

  Perhaps out of fright, perhaps realising the danger, perhaps instinctively obeying the order, the nearest soldier fired.

  The bullets slammed into Barinska, knocking her backwards. She fell on her back with a groan.

  Levin raised his hand to stop the firing. All the soldiers moved slowly towards the figure on the ground.

  ‘I’d be careful,’ the Doctor cautioned.

  Even as he said it, Barinska heaved herself off the floor and ran full pelt at the troops. The soldier who had shot her was standing gaping at the wounds he had inflicted. Then Levin fired. A moment later the others fired too.

  All except the soldier who had shot first. It was too late for him. Barinska’s arm swept round viciously, catching him in the neck. He stumbled and fell, and as he crashed to the floor Barinska’s boot caught him under the chin, snapping his head back with an audible crack. She grabbed his rifle as he fell, turned, levelled it.

  The woman was driven back by the volley of bullets from the soldiers, so most of her own shots went wide. But one of the soldiers caught a round in the shoulder. Another was knocked backwards as several bullets smacked into his chest.

  Barinska was staggering under the automatic fire. She still clutched the rifle but was unable to bring it to bear. She managed to turn, running back across the ship towards the Doctor, Jack and Rose.

  Jack and Rose dived to the floor. The Doctor, however, was still out in the open. Bullets thudded into the floor as Barinska managed to fire. Dust kicked up at the Doctor’s feet. He didn’t hesitate. He turned and ran.

  Jack twisted, enough to see the Doctor make it through the hatch on the opposite side of the control deck. He disappeared rapidly up the tunnel the other side.

  Then Barinska herself came into view – running after the Doctor, rifle at the ready. Her clothes were stained red and there were dark scorch-ringed holes across her chest. One bullet had all but taken off her jaw, leaving the skin ripped so that the lower half of her face was smiling like a skull. It did not seem to have slowed her down at all.