by Doctor Who
‘We’ve gone past it,’ said Fynn. ‘Too many golems. Not just the guards but dogs and hyenas too – all the wildlife round the volcano’s fair game for this force. We’d never make it through.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘We need troops. We need help here or we’re going to lose everything. Everything.’
‘I didn’t think I had much left to lose,’ Adiel said, looking down at her clenched fists. Her knuckles were showing pale through her dark 92
skin, like little eyes staring back at her. ‘Not since I lost my parents in Moundou, to scum like those men back there.’ She paused. ‘Men you were seen consorting with around that time,’ she added quietly.
He didn’t answer, and some sudden instinct made her look up – just in time to see two massive, hunched-up golems come shambling out from behind the main complex to block their path. In a second she recognised one of them from the security patrol. He’d always smiled at her when she left each evening – she’d never even bothered to learn his name. That friendly smile was twisted now into an insane grimace.
Beside him was someone she didn’t know. Had to be a rebel. She’d been planning to get Smiley to help capture the likes of him – now here they were working together to ambush her.
‘No!’ she screamed, as Fynn kept driving straight for them. They didn’t attempt to move clear. It was like hitting two trees in quick succession. The impact knocked the golems metres into the air and sent the jeep careening out of control.
Time seemed to slow. Fynn screamed as the jeep spun round in a large circle. Adiel saw the huge pile of metal canisters stacked up beside a storehouse – what the hell are they doing there? – and realised with a crushing sense of inevitability that they would hit –
The collision sounded like metal thunder, a ringing and clanging as if hell’s bells were tolling. The canisters tumbled down over the jeep.
One struck her on the back of her head, blotting out everything except thick, searing pain. Though the jeep had finally shuddered to a stop, her vision was spinning faster than ever.
‘Adiel?’ Fynn gasped. ‘We have to get out of here.’ He was turning the ignition key but the engine wasn’t biting. ‘Right now.’
She squinted ahead into the pool of fierce light cast by the head-lamps. It was as if a golden stream had opened up in the ground ahead of them, writhing with movement. ‘What’s that?’ she asked sluggishly, tasting blood at the back of her throat.
‘I think they’re ants,’ Fynn hissed. He was yanking at her seat belt, trying to release it. ‘Driver ants, a whole colony.’ He strained with the belt but it was jammed. ‘We’re right in their way. Even if they weren’t golems, they could tear us to pieces!’
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∗ ∗ ∗
Faltato hauled himself back through the cave of human bones, along the narrow passage, towards the little hole he’d made in the rock-fall and finally out into the main tunnel. He was glad his brothers in the Hadropilatic Fellowship could not see him now. Many of them would have killed to see him on his knees in old excrement – and committed wholesale slaughter if it had been fresh.
Simple jealousy, he told himself. They don’t have your drive. They don’t have your skills.
They certainly didn’t have his debts, the swines.
He produced a meso-sensor from the moneybelt around his midriff and clacked away down the tunnel. The appearance of this presump-tuous Doctor bothered him. Clearly, he was some sort of expert agent, and surely his agenda must be similar – but for whom was he working?
Well, no matter. He could be dealt with in due course. Bipeds were notoriously fragile creatures. They broke so easily.
If only the same were not true of these rock formations – the tunnel network must be close to tumbling down around their ears. It had pained him to use heavy-duty construction tools under such circum-stances. If he found the Lona Venus, only to crush it beneath tons of rock. . .
He’d never hear the end of it at home. Assuming he survived long enough to make it back. . .
Now he had assessed the guardians’ circuit degradation and estimated their activation date, and was certain this was the last remaining Valnaxi art warren, he simply needed to locate the security plaque and his work here was done. But something was niggling at him. The behaviour of the guardians was absolutely consistent with those he had encountered before while breaking warrens, except. . .
He frowned. It was almost too consistent. As if these guardians were putting on an act for him. As if there was more to them than met the eyes. . .
Picking his way over a particularly large mound of fallen rock, Faltato became aware of a dim, golden glow. There was a hole in the 94
roof, through which he could see the unfamiliar stars in their scatter-gun patterns, and the distant diamond of the ship hovering in orbit.
But that didn’t explain why his hooves were gleaming orange.
He slapped the meso-sensor with one pincer and it pinged importantly. Faltato looked down as the glow rose dimly to warm the dark cracks. He was standing on top of the security plaque.
And it was buried beneath tons of rock.
‘Oh, well. I’ve done all I can,’ he consoled himself, flicking his tongue out through the hole in the roof. Once he’d secured it around a stone projectile, he started to winch himself up, clicking all four pincers together in anticipation.
It was time to guide down his sponsors.
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Rosewonderedifshewouldeverseedaylightagain,orifshe’dhave crimson vision for evermore. She was exhausted, jumpy through lack of sleep. The passage was snaking on and on endlessly, uncomfortably cramped and narrow. She, Basel and Solomon trooped along in silence, the Doctor leading the way.
‘Hello,’ he said, stopping abruptly. A hole about the size of a chubby Labrador had been made in the side of the wall. ‘What d’you think made that, then?’
‘Fat mutant mouse?’ Rose suggested.
‘Very helpful mouse.’ The Doctor checked his gadget. ‘Because this hole is exactly where we need one to be.’
‘Coincidence,’ said Rose uneasily,
The Doctor got down on all fours and shuffled through the gap.
Basel helped Solomon, who was still in a total daze since his ordeal with the bats.
‘Oh yes.’ The Doctor looked all round. ‘Remember this, Solomon?
Seems like only yesterday. It was only yesterday.’
Solomon glanced around, eyes haunted, but said nothing.
‘Growth chamber,’ the Doctor remarked. ‘The one where Adiel saw Kanjuchi change.’
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‘God, are these things mushrooms?’ Rose wondered, staring in alarm at a large patch of spindly fungus.
‘Don’t eat them,’ the Doctor warned her. ‘You’d break your teeth on the gold plate for a start. . . ’
‘What gold plate?’ said Basel.
The Doctor whirled round. Rose helpfully pointed her torch at the
’shrooms. ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘When I came here with Fynn, these were golem-mushrooms. Now they’re back to normal again.’ He snapped one off at the stalk. ‘The DNA of the original has reverted.’
Solomon seemed to stir a little at this. ‘How come fungus can do that but people can’t?’
‘Dunno. Simpler life form maybe? Or maybe the magma realised that mushrooms aren’t exactly the scariest soldiers in the world and wrote them off as a bad idea.’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘Speaking of bad ideas, I want to check out the back of this cave.’
He set off cautiously – just as the growth chamber lit up like a Catherine wheel.
‘Doctor!’ Rose yelled, her insides twisting.
A guardian had surged through the mutant mousehole, huge and undulating, glowing as if white-hot. Basel backed away alongside Rose – but Solomon just stood there.
The blob rolled forwards towards him.
‘Everyone keep back!’ the Doctor yelled, ignoring his own advice as he ran to drag Solomon clear.
Too late.
&nbs
p; With a sudden spurt of speed, the blob elongated and squelched itself around Solomon’s hand. Solomon shrieked with pain as in a matter of seconds he was sucked into its swelling, pulsing mass. Then just as quickly the blob retreated back through its hole.
‘What do we do?’ Basel shouted, wild-eyed and anguished.
‘We get after them,’ said the Doctor, already running for the hole.
But as he neared it, a gleaming creature the size of a cat scuttled out on warped, knotted legs. Rose was almost sick. Once, this thing had been a scorpion. Now it was a nightmare monster, waving its crusty gold claws in warning, flexing its hideous golden sting high over its 98
head. Another one was jostling to get out just behind it, scratching its sting against the rock.
The Doctor looked back at Rose and the others. ‘No sudden moves,’
he warned them.
‘You gotta be kidding me!’ Basel whispered as a huge gleaming spider came clacking out of the adjoining cave, its heavy legs quivering as it dragged its bloated body across the floor towards them, its many eyes a dark molten gold.
‘Change of plan!’ the Doctor cried airily. ‘Sudden moves, anyone?’
He trampled mushrooms in his dash to reach the far side of the growth chamber, made a stirrup with his hands. ‘Vulture hole in the wall up there. Don’t stop till you’re safely through it.’
Basel wiped sweat from his eyes, or maybe tears. ‘What about Solomon?’
The spider’s mandibles twitched disgustingly as it skittered forwards. The two scorpions crept out to reveal a third just behind them.
‘Move,’ the Doctor insisted.
Basel pushed up on the Doctor’s stirrup and started to scale the wall.
‘Is there nothing we can do for Solomon?’ Rose said quietly, plonking her own dirty trainer into his palms.
‘Stay alive,’ he said, ‘and hope things can change.’
The scorpions kept stalking towards them, claws scissoring open and shut. The Doctor and Rose climbed quickly after Basel.
Adiel watched Fynn as he struggled to free her from the seat belt, as the mass of giant driver ants marched ever nearer.
‘Why don’t you just get out of here!, she shouted.
He only shook his head.
‘But they’re almost on us!’
Her skin crawled. She knew what they did. If you were in their way they would climb under your clothing and attack you en masse, biting into your flesh with their heavy jaws and pulling backwards until chunks came away. She had seen doctors in the village stitch wounds with the ants when sutures were in short supply. Once those 99
jaws dug into your flesh, nothing could prise them loose – even if you squeezed off the ant’s head, they would stay locked tight there.
‘It’s no good,’ he gasped.
The ants had reached the jeep now. Adiel struggled, her head throbbing, panting for breath.
But they didn’t attack. They just swarmed past. Finally, with a ratcheting sound like harsh laughter, the seat belt came free. Adiel twisted round and watched the hideous procession bustle past.
‘Thanks,’ she said distantly.
‘Looks like they’ve got somewhere to go,’ Fynn muttered.
Then Adiel jumped as a rushing, screeching, chattering sound exploded into the air. Bats were swarming out from the foothills of Mount Tarsus. Thousands of them. The air thickened with tiny gleaming bodies as they gathered to blot out the moon and the stars.
‘Them too,’ she murmured. ‘What’s happening?’
She craned her neck to follow their flight – till her eyes came to rest on a dark, unshaven face. Her body jolted with surprise. The man wore a turban over a soldier’s helmet, carried a gun, clamped a dirty hand over her mouth to stop her screaming.
‘So you stopped for us in the end, Fynn, huh?’ He smiled to reveal a mouth struck with golden teeth. His friend stood behind him, trying to support the gleaming statue of their comrade. ‘I don’t know what the hell is happening here, but you know science. You’re going to help Mula here.’
Fynn shook his head. ‘No one can help this man.’
Adiel pulled her face free, stared up at Fynn defiantly. ‘Won’t you introduce me, Director?’
‘ Director Fynn may not remember me. My name is Guwe.’ The man with the golden teeth smiled again. ‘But perhaps you’ll remember Isako, huh? He asked me to send you his finest regards.’
Roba Isako. Chad’s Most Wanted.
‘So, Roba put you up to this,’ Fynn sneered. ‘Is he your president today, your king perhaps? What’s your little band called this week – the Free Chad Alliance? Enclave of Liberty, Brothers of Chad Militia. . . ’
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Guwe raised his gun – when with a harsh, splintering, snapping sound Mula’s skinny golden body suddenly writhed and fattened as if it was filling with water. One grotesquely swollen arm lashed out and struck the man who was supporting him in the throat. The rebel’s head snapped back and stayed there, as if he was watching the stars, till his legs gave way and he crashed lifeless to the floor.
‘Mula, no!’ Guwe shouted, but the golem was already pounding away into the night, as if trying to catch up with the ants and the bats. All three of them watched him go, united in shock. ‘What the hell’s happening here?’ Guwe checked his friend’s prone body, then rose and rounded angrily on Fynn. ‘What’s happened to Mula? What did you do?’
‘I’m not responsible for any of this –’
‘Listen,’ said Adiel, looking about. ‘So quiet.’
Guwe nodded slowly. ‘None of the sounds of night.’
‘Every animal has been taken,’ Fynn murmured. ‘And now they’re answering a call we can’t hear.’
Adiel was barely listening. A vivid blue light was slowly pulsing where foothills ended and night sky began. ‘What’s that?’
‘The thing that scared the golems away?’ Fynn wondered.
‘We’re not staying to find out,’ Guwe insisted, covering them both with the gun. ‘We need shelter – so move.’
‘Look at them,’ breathed Rose.
She and the Doctor had made it out through the hole and joined Basel, grateful that the monster spiders and scorpions seemed to be staying down there to guard the place.
But they were about the only ones.
Rose, Basel and the Doctor stood close together in silence, staring out over the grounds of the agri-unit. From here, high up in the foothills, Rose could see that all golems great and small had gathered together. The bats smothered the crags and slopes of the foothills. Insects in their millions formed a shimmering, molten pond in the main concourse. Men and birds and rangy dogs, all gleaming gold in a sin-101
ister phalanx, waited in silence. A sense of dread anticipation carried through the night.
‘They’re in formation,’ the Doctor realised. ‘Privates on parade.
That’s why the golem-bats and their animal mates didn’t follow us through the caves, why they only left a skeleton guard for us. They can sense it.’
‘Sense what?’ Rose asked him.
‘Something’s coming. Something they stand a chance of beating only if they all work together.’ He looked at her, eyes dark and soulful.
‘I think war’s going to break out tonight.’
‘Hey. What the hell is that?’ Basel was pointing to a glowing blue light, higher up in the crags, a few hundred metres away. The glow became green as they watched.
The Doctor stared. ‘Sub-orbital landing beacon, by the look of it.’
‘Thought so,’ said Rose, deadpan. ‘What does it do?’
‘It guides down spaceships.’ The Doctor was already setting off towards it. That’s what the golems are waiting for. Trouble is coming down from the sky. Big trouble.’
‘Trouble, Doctor?’ Faltato came clattering over the lip of the crag, rubbing his pincers together, his five eyes glinting silver in the moonlight. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word.’
‘Not him again,’ sa
id Basel, shrinking back. Rose took his hand and squeezed it.
‘So what are you doing?’ the Doctor enquired. ‘Bringing down your getaway vehicle, ready to stash the loot?’
‘As if you’re not after the treasures yourself!’ Faltato retorted.
‘He’s not!’ said Rose.
‘Why else would you be right here, right now, unless you’d been following our progress from warren to warren?’ Faltato sneered. ‘Each Valnaxi art warren contains coded directions to find the next – and I have decrypted those pointing the way to the final warren correctly!’
He clapped his pincers together. ‘All those great works – the Lona Venus, The Flight of the Valwing, The Shriek. . . Lost for thousands of years – and located by me.’
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‘How many Valnaxi strongholds have you raided?’ the Doctor demanded.
‘Does it matter?’ Faltato said airily.
‘They lost the war, their planet, their spirit. Their eternal muse, the key to their artistry – shattered by their enemies and turned into a rancid squat.’
‘They lost everything,’ agreed Faltato. ‘Their holdings and acquisitions are forfeit – along with their existence.’
‘But you’ve opened a proper little Pandora’s box, haven’t you?’ The Doctor stabbed a finger down at the gathered golems. ‘The Valnaxi defences have been triggered. People have died, animals have –’
‘Oh, don’t be foolish.’ The creature’s legs brushed and bristled together as he gave a theatrical shrug. ‘I hardly designed the defence mechanism, did I? Anyway, there’ll be a lot more dead by the time my sponsors are finished here.’
‘Sponsors?’
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and wielded it like a weapon. ‘Who’s in that spaceship? Who’s coming?’
‘You’ll see.’ Faltato slapped out his tongue and lashed the sonic from the Doctor’s hand. ‘They’ll want to meet you, I’m sure.’
‘Give that back!’
‘They take a dim view of tomb robbers trying to steal their treasures.’
‘Theirs?’ The Doctor gaped. ‘Theirs by what right?’
