by Doctor Who
Don’t you think they would rather know they helped others to live?’
‘You had no right!’ Adiel shouted. ‘What about my parents? Were they among the dead you used?’
‘I never knew the subjects’ identities,’ Fynn protested. ‘Isako had already taken their belongings, ID, everything.’
Adiel stared, incredulous. ‘Then. . . then for all this, I’ll never know.’
‘I wasn’t proud of what I did, but I had no choice,’ he went on. The soul flees the body after death – I performed my experiments on the empty shell, discarded.’
‘It’s horrible,’ said Rose simply.
‘Don’t you see?’ Fynn stared imploringly at her. ‘Only radical thinking can break the cycle of poverty, famine disease and death and bring new hope, new life –’
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‘And a new form of bio-piracy,’ came a familiar voice from just outside.
‘Doctor!’ With a surge of hope, Rose leaned over Adiel and pressed her hands up against the side of the prison. ‘Doctor? Get us out of here!’
‘Um, slight problem there –’
‘Shut it!’ came a loud, rattling snarl.
Rose jumped even as her heart sank, as with a creaking, sucking noise a hatch sprang open in front of her. ‘All bipeds are to leave the cells!’ rasped the Wurm waiting just outside. It wasn’t wearing a helmet like the other one, but had more electronic gadgets around its broad, soily neck. The Doctor and Basel stood helpless in the grip of freaky Faltato just behind. Rose looked at Adiel to see how she’d react to this latest arrival – but she didn’t. Perhaps she’d seen so much horror that another monster meant nothing to her. Or perhaps after finding a monster like Fynn, others just couldn’t measure up.
‘Rose!’ The Doctor peered in at her and the others with a worried expression. ‘You all right?’
‘About as un-all right as it’s possible to be,’ said Rose.
Korr moved forwards to face Fynn. ‘You are the leader of these bipeds?’
Rose jumped in. ‘No one’s gonna listen to a word he says –’
‘– unless you let him speak to them in person,’ said the Doctor quickly.
‘Very well. Prisoners Doctor and Leader, you will accompany me to the complex. If you try to escape, you will be killed, ingested and excreted in casts.’ He nodded his fat, tapering head. ‘For extra protection, I shall also take the pale creature.’
‘Mum’s fake tan was a big success, then,’ said Rose sourly as she was directed to join the Doctor and Fynn.
‘Why not let everyone come with us?’ the Doctor suggested brightly.
‘Extra protection for you.’
Korr shook his big, blank, belligerent head. ‘If bipeds may ambulate without fear of attack, we can use them to start emptying the warren of its art treasures.’
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‘Since you’ve already cracked open the treasure chambers without first deactivating the plaque, Doctor,’ Faltato said, ‘the least we can do is take advantage of your generosity and help ourselves.’
‘We shall proceed,’ Korr stated. ‘Once bipeds in hiding have been located, they will join with these two to form a workforce and start transporting the treasures to the ship.’
‘I shall be supervising,’ said Faltato primly. ‘I am needed in person to ensure that no pieces are overlooked or mishandled during the clearance.’
‘And to ensure that no Wurms die because you’re taking the risks for them,’ said the Doctor brightly. ‘Isn’t that thoughtful of you? That’s so thoughtful!’
‘Wurms are the biggest threat to the Valnaxi defences, which makes them the prime targets,’ Faltato assured him. ‘But should it prove necessary, believe you me, Doctor, your friends will form an effective shield for me too.’
‘Don’t bet on it,’ muttered Basel.
‘We leave at once,’ rasped Korr. ‘King Ottak wishes the campaign concluded with all speed.’
‘So do I,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘Let’s go.’
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Backoutonthestinking,ash-shroudedbattleground,Rose,theDoc-tor and Fynn were having to hold hands around the Wurm soldier.
It was as if they were playing ring-a-ring-o-roses, surrounding and shielding it, trying to match its obscene, wriggling movements as it squelched through the mud and bones.
Fynn was keeping quiet, but his fingers were clutching at Rose’s.
She didn’t look at him. Whatever the Doctor might say, the stuff Fynn had done was wrong and she couldn’t find it in herself to feel any understanding. He could have done things differently – but he knew how people would have reacted, so he’d gone his own way. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d used bits of the bodies or everything in one go, how long each one had lasted, how he’d stored them away in his caves, out of sight and the sun, his grisly little secret –
‘Lovely stroll,’ said the Doctor brightly. ‘How about a bit of conversation?’
‘Shut it,’ said Korr.
‘Or you’ll do what?’ the Doctor challenged. ‘Out here, we’re your protection, remember?’ A handful of bats came swooping down and then changed course, as if to reinforce the point. ‘And without us you 129
won’t get memory wafers or slave labour. So if it’s all the same to you, I think we’ll talk. I think we’ll have a right old gas.’
The Wurm made a hissing, straining noise, like an elephant on the loo.
The Doctor ignored him. ‘So, Fynn, tell me more about your experiments. What went wrong? I remember you saying that fungus could grow on just about anything – it feeds on the decay of organic matter, doesn’t it?’
Rose glared at him. ‘Adiel’s parents might have been used for mushroom compost and you want to chat about it?’
‘Could be important. Go on, Fynn.’
‘The genetic structures of human and fungus are incompatible,’
Fynn said quietly, trying not to slip in a patch of wet mud. ‘Animal cells have semi-porous membranes controlling what passes in and out, maintaining function and integrity of the cellular processes. Fungi have cell walls, protecting the insides from physical movement which could prove harmful.’
‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s got to be it. Could be our only chance.’
Rose stared. ‘So you’re glad he did experiments on dead people, then?’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’
‘I’ve seen enough of hell lately, thanks –’ Rose broke off as weird birds squawked and flapped somewhere overhead; scouting out the battlefield maybe, or trying to find a way of reaching the Wurms.
Tell me, Korr,’ said the Doctor. ‘Have you seen any of the magma-form guardians out on the front line?’
‘They cower in fear of us,’ the Wurm hissed. ‘As do all our enemies.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Funny, though, isn’t it? Hanging back and picking on the likes of Solomon when they’re actually the best fighters.’
‘Maybe the guardians wanted to get back at Solomon for bringing the roof down on their golden plaque thing,’ Rose suggested.
The Doctor frowned. ‘You what?’
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‘Adiel saw him do it. He must have found it a while back and decided to bury it.’
‘Golden plaque, eh? That must be the deactivation panel Faltato mentioned. . . ’ He frowned. ‘I’d like to take a look at that myself.’
‘Perhaps you will,’ said Korr, ‘when you join your fellows in slavery, clearing the caverns.’
‘I think I mentioned,’ said the Doctor sharply, ‘you should treat us with a bit more respect. While we’re here, nothing’s gonna attack –’
‘Look out!’ Rose screamed as a glowing ball of fiery energy came rolling out of the ashen mist.
It was one of the guardians, tired of the tunnels perhaps. Ready to rumble.
Making straight for her.
She pulled her hands away and staggered back, breaking the circle.
The Wurm spat dar
k juices at the creature, which crackled and hissed over its gleaming skin. But it ignored him, grew larger, surged out and slopped against her feet.
Rose shouted out, though it didn’t actually hurt – not for the first couple of seconds anyway. The Doctor grabbed hold of her hand to try and pull her clear, but she could already feel a searing heat rising up through her legs, blistering her from the inside. For a moment her eyes met the Doctor’s – wide, horrified and helpless – then she screwed them up as the pain tore through her, as the guardian flowed up her body, drawing her into the furnace of its form.
Her vision burned blood red for a moment, as weird shadows started to solidify in her sight. Then she was dissolved and gone and knew nothing.
Fynn stared in terror, shock rooting him to the spot as the magma form flowed over the flailing form of the Doctor’s friend. One moment she was struggling, the next she was frozen, limbs splayed out, a golden statue. But she didn’t remain still like the others and she didn’t attack.
She turned and ran away.
The guardian retreated after her like an obedient dog as the Wurm fired its stubby cannon. Mud and insects splattered over the ground 131
just beside it, but the guardian kept moving, soon swallowed by the ghostly swirl of sand and ashes just as Rose was. The Wurm fired after them wildly, blast after blast.
Then something grabbed Fynn by both shoulders, spun him around.
He started to shout out, but a bony hand clamped down on his mouth.
It was the Doctor, face pressed up close, eyes dark and wild. Fynn could see the pain there, the anger, the refusal to face up to a truth so hard. It was like seeing into his own eyes, the day he’d found out about his father.
The Doctor threw him towards the nearby complex. ‘Run!’
Fear took over where momentum left off and Fynn started to work his legs harder, faster. Even so, the Doctor overtook him effortlessly.
‘Stop!’ the Wurm roared after them. ‘Bipeds will cease ambulation!’
‘Not right now they won’t,’ the Doctor called back.
Fynn heard the squelch of the cannon, flinched as a huge clod of mud splattered against the wall of the complex, brushed frantically at his clothes in case one of the insect things had landed there. Saw the Doctor holding open the door to the lab unit and threw himself inside, shivering so hard he could barely draw breath.
‘Get up,’ the Doctor snapped, slamming the door shut behind them and locking it.
‘Don’t understand. . . ’ Fynn rolled over on to his back. ‘What made the magma form attack us now?’
‘It didn’t attack us, it attacked Rose.’ The Doctor hauled him back up by the shoulders, pale and trembling. ‘First, Solomon – then Rose.’
‘Who next?’ Fynn whispered.
‘I need you alert,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘Be alert. Your planet needs lerts.’
Fynn stared at him blankly. ‘That Wurm will be after us.’
‘Of course he will. So we’ve got to work fast.’ He reached in his pocket, then scowled. ‘And without the sonic screwdriver. Come on. . .
the lab. We’ll have to lock ourselves in.’
‘What are you planning?’
‘Those lovely experiments of yours,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m guessing 132
you tried to create an interface between human flesh and fungus at a cellular level, right?’
Fynn nodded, tried to focus his thoughts. ‘I tried to create hybrid cells. I had some limited success, but –’
‘Well, luckily I’m not limited, not by anything.’ The Doctor bundled him away down the deserted corridor. ‘I’m a genius. So I’m gonna succeed where you failed, right?’ He closed a set of fire doors and bolted them shut. ‘And I’m gonna do it in about five minutes flat.
Easy.’ He set off again, practically carrying Fynn by the scruff of his neck. ‘Easy-peasy.’
Fynn pulled free of the Doctor’s grip, tried to hold still a moment.
‘But why, what are you –’
The Doctor dragged him along by the arm instead. ‘The guardian converted the fungus into a sentry entity, but your ’shrooms threw off their chains – alien protein chains – and re-established their original form.’ He strode along to the lab and kicked open the door. ‘That’s got to be down to the basic cellular mismatch. If we can come up with a way to harden the cell membranes into cell walls just long enough to drive out the magma infection –’
‘– without killing the subject –’
‘– then, hey presto! We’ll have an anti-golem serum.
And that could be Rose’s one chance. If we can only reach her. . . ’
He slammed his hand down on the bench. ‘We will reach her. Fungus samples! Where where where?’
Fynn hurried to the hidden safe in the wall, keyed in the access code. ‘I return to the theoretical work whenever I can, but still I’m no nearer a breakthrough.’
‘That’s why you had to shift towards guano and growth chambers?’
‘When the crop is hardy enough, I can continue with the real work
– and with official sanction, proper resources. . . ’ He started selecting the likeliest of his aborted preparations. ‘Edet Fynn, the man who saved the world. That is my dream. Time will tell.’
‘Won’t it just.’ The Doctor looked at him sadly, as if he knew something Fynn didn’t. ‘Well, my dream’s jumping the queue right now, so let’s shift.’
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‘Doctor, you had this idea in mind before your friend was infected, didn’t you? Why?’
‘There are two sides in any war,’ said the Doctor, locking the door and dragging a workbench over to place against it. ‘Tried persuading the Wurms to pick a fight somewhere else – didn’t work out. But the Valnaxi fought the Wurms for ages and ages. They might just know of some weakness we can use to end this carnage, before the Earth cops it.’
‘But they were all wiped out.’
‘ Something’s playing god to those golems. A battle computer or a defence entity. Something that might be able to help us.’ Straining, he heaved the lead box with the bat inside it on top of the workbench.
‘So, I thought I could whiz up some golem-repellent to use on myself.’
He grabbed a data-get, powered up and trained it on the first of the phials Fynn produced from the safe. ‘The magma should infect me like it did the fungus, but with any luck it won’t be able to take full control. Then I’ll be able to commune with the magma forms without becoming one of them.’
‘Experimenting on yourself?’ Fynn powered up the gene-translator, stared at him. ‘You’d take that risk?’
‘Things we do to save the world, eh, Fynn?’ The Doctor grinned as he rolled up his sleeve, as if he was actually enjoying this in some twisted way. ‘Now, we’ll use some of my blood as a base. It’s as clever as the rest of me – highly adaptive, with regenerative properties. Have to remove the extra-cellular matrix so it’s compatible with all other Earth animal life, of course. . . ’
‘ Earth animal life?’
The Doctor pointed to the lead box. ‘Then we can test it on Tolstoy the bat in there, see if he can throw off the golem effect. Of course, it won’t put right the genetic mutation, but. . . ’ He studied the data-get’s readout – then slapped it down on a bench. ‘Right! We’ll start from scratch, I think. Instead of trying to merge a cell wall with a cell membrane, how about we build one around the other? A wall that will decay before permanent damage can occur, leaving the orig-134
inal cell intact.’ He nodded to himself. ‘We can adapt the Kilbracken technique.’
Fynn frowned. ‘The what?’
‘Chemical parlour trick. Instead of cloning the cells, you conjure a sort of 3D photocopy.’
Fynn’s head was spinning. ‘But how can you know if it will stop the magma force from taking you over?’
‘I can’t for sure. But we can run a quick trial using this.’ Suddenly Adiel’s necklace was dangling from the Doctor’s fingers, the tiny sp
ecks of gold glowing in the crystals. ‘Hopefully not enough of the substance to be really harmful but enough to test our solution. Now maybe you could shut up, think positive and get working.’ He looked up from the data-get, his eyes burning into Fynn’s. ‘Remember what we saw happen to Kanjuchi, the way he swelled up, mutated? Same as the vulture and poor old Tolstoy here, as all the golems.’ He prepared to take his blood sample. ‘That’s the point where body chemistry is too far gone to reverse the damage caused by the Valnaxi pathogen.
Rose will not reach that point – OK?’
Fynn nodded grimly and started preparing a laser syringe. ‘But how long before that Wurm reaches us?’
The battering of locked doors carried from outside.
‘Start a stopwatch and we can do a little experiment,’ the Doctor suggested, holding out his arm. ‘Maybe they’ll publish our findings.’
Fynn activated the syringe. ‘Posthumously,’ he murmured.
Basel huddled close to Adiel as Faltato dragged them through the narrow, red-lit passages. There had been no sign of golems or blobs or rebels or anything else – it was just them and the alien monster from hell, two of its slavering tongues wrapped around their waists.
They had used a weird, bubble-like container to cross from the Wurm ship to the eastern lava tubes, floating high over the battlefield. The golems were fighting with frightening fury to keep the Wurms away from the double doors that gave entrance to the caverns, but had left Adiel, Basel and even Faltato alone. Basel figured 135
that the Wurms were a bigger threat than three random aliens, and Adiel guessed he was right. What other explanation could there be?
Now two more of the crusty, translucent containers bobbed slowly after them, ready to be filled with Valnaxi treasures and sent back to the Wurm ship.
‘A brief diversion,’ Faltato announced suddenly. ‘I want to check on something. There’s something fishy going on.’
You could say that, thought Adiel wearily; as understatements went, it was up there with war is hell.
