by Doctor Who
He swung them into a narrow tunnel she recognised, one that ended in a huge pile of rocks. Basel could see a golden haze beneath it, like fireflies swarming.
He turned to Adiel. ‘This is what you were gonna show me and Rose before you dumped us in the other tunnel?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘The thing I saw Solomon bury.’
‘The deactivation plaque,’ said Faltato haughtily, withdrawing his tongue. ‘Study the rock-fall. Assess what tools you’ll need to clear it.’
Basel walked in silence along the tunnel to see.
‘So, this deactivation plaque can turn off the golems and the guardians?’ said Adiel behind him.
‘If fed the right security codes, it will deactivate the warren’s defences,’ agreed Faltato, before adding heavily, ‘Hence the name.’
‘Then why isn’t it better protected?’ she argued. ‘The magma should have thanked Solomon, not killed him. Why isn’t this place crawling with golems?’
‘That Wurm thing said this place wasn’t working right,’ Basel reminded her. ‘But. . . there were even scorpions and spiders and things in that crummy chamber where Solomon got killed. So why not here?’
But even as he approached the rubble-strewn plaque, the rocks began to rumble and stir. One toppled off the pile and skittered down to land at his feet.
Basel frowned, tried to lift it. The thing should have weighed a ton, but this was rough and light like pumice. He pushed at some more of the debris, which either tumbled from the pile or crumbled to dust.
‘This ain’t right,’ he called back. ‘The rock’s gone funny.’
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Faltato galloped towards him, dragging Adiel along behind. ‘The rock has been exposed to some kind of intense energy field,’ he muttered. ‘Just hours ago the rock was solid enough. . . It is as if the binding force has been extracted.’ He shook his pointed head as he swept more of the dusty debris clear, exposing the plaque. Then all five eyes narrowed in what might have been a frown.
‘What is it?’ Adiel asked warily.
‘This isn’t a deactivation plaque,’ he murmured. ‘It’s designed to look like one, but the data-feed is a fake.’ He gestured with a pair of pincers to a hole in the plaque, where lights like magma glowed inside, linked by glassy tubes. ‘I don’t know what this technology does, but it shouldn’t be here.’
‘Well, if this thing doesn’t deactivate anything, what does it do?’
breathed Adiel.
‘What did it do?’ Faltato corrected her. ‘It has been damaged, hence the energy leak. But its purpose. . . ’ His legs rattled together, a sinister, unsettling sound. ‘Why am I discussing this with bipeds?’
Adiel shrugged. ‘Perhaps you should tell the Wurms.’
‘The Valnaxi block their signals, they won’t be able to hear me.’
Faltato looked troubled. ‘Later, perhaps.’
He turned and shuffled back up the side tunnel.
‘Why was he discussing it with us?’ Basel murmured.
Adiel regarded the monster bobbing about on his endless legs. ‘I think because he’s scared,’ she said.
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Fynn pulled the latest sample from the centrifuge, prepared a slide and slotted it under the intron microscope.
Maybe this one
would. . . ‘No. No good,’ he reported. ‘The fungus cell “photocopies”
are forming a barrier round your own cells, but they break down in seconds.’
‘That’s a bit rubbish. . . ’ The Doctor was on the opposite side of the lab, bent over beakers and jars of foul-smelling chemicals. ‘Mix in a little of samples A and E.’ Suddenly he jerked his head up, hair waving about wildly. ‘Oh, hang on, A and E – Accident and Emergency, that doesn’t sound hopeful, does it? Tell you what, make it A and H. AH!
Ahhhhhh.’ He smiled and nodded to himself. ‘Yeah, that sounds more like it. Should make the cell walls less reactive so they’ll last longer.’
‘But even if this works, how are you going to administer the cure?’
asked Fynn. ‘You remember Kanjuchi. . . The skin hardens like metal, so no syringe will –’
‘It’s all right, I’ve thought of that,’ the Doctor told him, holding up a data-get. ‘I’ve adapted this thing. Now it’s a data- give as well. When the serum’s perfected we can scan it – then broadcast it as an electro-chemical irradiation.’
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Fynn stared, speechless. ‘You subverted the D–G’s entire function in just a few minutes?’
The Doctor looked puzzled. ‘Course I did. Rose’s life is at stake.
Now worry about your own work!’
Fynn did as he was told, in a baffled daze. Everything the Doctor instructed him to do seemed to fly in the face of all established genetic theory. And yet it was working – after a fashion. ‘How long do you think you can make the cells endure?’
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Long enough, I hope.’
There was a crash from not far down the corridor. Fynn shuddered.
‘That Wurm will be here to catch us and kill us any minute.’
‘On the case,’ the Doctor informed him, holding up a couple of stop-pered phials. ‘Whipped up an explosive mixture in my spare time.
Don’t stop working – I’ll take the other door, cut through the common room and double back round to draw Korr away.’ He slapped down one of the phials on Fynn’s workbench. ‘If the Wurm gets past me, use this. But hide under the bench first – it’s a big bang and it’ll probably bring the roof down on you.’
Fynn stared at the phial, then turned his attention to mixing the samples. ‘Be careful, Doctor.’
‘Yeah. One day.’ He ran to the far door, threw it open and ran out into the corridor.
The barricade jumped as the Wurm slammed itself against the main doors. ‘I can smell you, bipeds,’ Korr hissed. ‘Return to me or die.’
Fynn stared at the door the Doctor had taken; it was still standing ajar. He could run too. Hide. Wait for all this to be over. With a tremor of fear, he realised that the Doctor could have done exactly that. What if he’d run out, leaving Fynn behind as a distraction, with nothing more to protect him than a phial full of bad smells?
Then he remembered the pain in the man’s eyes at what had happened to Rose and went back to work with renewed determination.
‘Life from death,’ he murmured, mixing his samples together. ‘Life from death.’
∗ ∗ ∗
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The Doctor pelted through the darkened corridors, working his way round back to the lab block in a wide circle, ready to confront Korr.
He couldn’t afford to waste much time on the Wurm; if Rose was to stand the tiniest chance, he had to be ready to move the moment Fynn finished the concoction.
If it didn’t work, with the TARDIS buried under tons of alien earth, there was no chance left for any of them.
He reached the lab block, ran on and on until at last he kicked open the final set of double doors and saw the Wurm slinging its fat, tumescent body against the main lab. The barricade looked set to collapse any moment.
‘Korr!’ the Doctor bellowed.
‘So.’ The Wurm writhed, stretched out its blind head towards him.
‘The little biped with the big mouth.’
‘This is your last chance. I’m warning you – leave this place now or you’ll never leave it.’
‘Threats, little biped?’ Korr hissed. ‘If you had the means and will to destroy me, you would have launched a surprise attack from within the laboratory you have defended. Therefore, this is a distraction tactic. You wish to stop me from entering the laboratory.’
‘I don’t have time for this!’ The Doctor held the phial above his head. ‘This can destroy you. Don’t make me use it.’
Korr raised the stump at his shoulder and, with a hydraulic hiss, a slim metal tube rotated into position. ‘This weapon can destroy your laboratory. I can fire it before your projectile can touch me. Unless you surrender n
ow, I shall do so.’
‘Do that and you’ll destroy the memory wafers you need to power the visual device I gave to your king,’ the Doctor countered. ‘We’ll both come out losers.’
‘You are creating a weapon in this laboratory,’ Korr rumbled, ‘a powerful weapon that will stop us from using your see-through device.’
‘No! It’s not a weapon –’
‘You think I am stupid?’ roared the Wurm.
‘Yes! Because which bit don’t you understand? Lower – that – gun! ’
‘You were warned, biped.’
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With an electric whine, Korr powered up his weapon.
The Doctor took a deep breath and drew back his arm, ready to hurl the phial.
And then the doors of the lab blew open with the force of a massive explosion – an explosion that had gone off inside.
Korr gave a retching, gurgling screech as glass and brick and metal spat out from the heart of the explosion, tearing great chunks from his body. Black smoke belched out a moment later, hiding the gore from view.
‘Fynn!’ the Doctor shouted. He shoved the phial in his pocket, picking his way through the debris and the thick, oily smog into the ruined laboratory.
Most of the ceiling had fallen in and the only light was from a single flickering fluorescent. He looked about frantically – then discerned Director Fynn’s head and upper body protruding from beneath a broken bench half-buried under rubble.
‘Doctor?’ Fynn said very calmly. ‘Would you come here?’
A moment later the Doctor was crouched beside him. ‘You threw the phial.’ He saw the blood trickling from the man’s mouth, saw his eyes slowly glazing. ‘That was brave of you.’
‘If that thing had fired, the serum. . . ’ Fynn murmured. ‘For death to have meaning, life must have it too.’ He pointed feebly to something.
The lead box was open and on its side. A twisted, misshapen figure lay within, frosted with concrete dust, wings tightly furled.
‘Hello, Tolstoy,’ whispered the Doctor.
‘The serum works. Changed the bat back to normal. But, like you said, the damage to the system caused by the mutation was too severe. . . ’ Fynn coughed, and fresh blood poured down his chin. The Doctor tried to take his hand, but Fynn was already clutching something.
‘Find her before she changes too.’ He pressed it into the Doctor’s hand. The data-give. ‘Serum’s scanned and ready to administer. Three or four doses, I think.’ He gripped the Doctor’s fingers. ‘It had better work. It had better be worth this.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘It’ll work.’
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‘Only, I’ve got to save the world,’ Fynn whispered, closing his eyes.
‘You know what?’ the Doctor murmured. ‘You might have done just that.’
Fynn smiled and nodded, shifted in the rubble like a child in bed settling down to peaceful sleep. Then he was gone.
The Doctor gently patted Fynn’s hand, and heard a quiet scuffling noise beside him. A glowing point of light was shifting through the cement dust. Adiel’s necklace had been crushed by the rubble and the magma traces, freed from the shattered crystals, were moving towards him.
The Doctor stared down at the data-give. It was time to test the solution on himself. ‘Turning my blood into mushroom soup. Should make me a fun guy to be with. . . ’
He pressed the device to his arm and hit the transmit switch. A sharp coldness tangled through his veins, spreading up his arm. Then he reached out and touched the glowing speck.
At once he gasped as a burning heat bit into his fingertips. More specks of gold appeared, streaking across the dusty floor, pricking the skin of his other hand.
The Doctor closed his eyes, as a wave of dizziness and nausea passed through him, as sweat started streaming from his pores. The chemical reaction was kicking in, sweeping through his bloodstream, encasing every cell. It was as if his whole body was suffocating from the inside. And at the same time, the magma stuff was singeing its way through his skin, confused after so long in isolation, a few pathetic specks still trying to take control.
He placed his fingers to his temples, focused on the mad rhythm being beaten out by his racing hearts, willed himself to cling on to consciousness.
Then suddenly his eyes were burning. He cried out in pain, scuttled away from Fynn’s body, blind, crawling over rock and glass.
When his eyes opened, he saw his dusty reflection, and the gleaming gold around his dark, watering eyes, snaking away through the veins in his face. He closed his eyes and saw crimson shadows, shifting like smoke, felt other thoughts behind his own.
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The cloned cell walls had built themselves up around his own, strengthening them – in time he should be able to shrug off the magma effect, just as the fungus had. There was no way of knowing how long before his body chemistry reasserted itself and the cell walls came toppling down. Could he even keep the controlling intelligence at bay for that long?
‘Let’s find out,’ he gasped.
The Doctor shoved the data-give in his pocket, staggered over the debris and ran off down the corridor.
He didn’t see the huge, maggoty shape drag itself from its blanket of concrete and dust and come trailing into the ruined lab, sniffing the air, searching. . .
Outside in the muddy morning light, the Doctor made for the vulture hole. That cave had been under heavy guard and Solomon had been absorbed there – something marked it out for special attention, and he wanted a bit of that himself.
The fighting round there had been and gone by the look of the charred, smoking bones littered all around. Now it raged close to the main entrance to the western caves. He saw golems moving sluggishly, being driven back. The stench was getting worse as the pitiless sun grew stronger.
The gold around his eyes burned with the determination of the animating force, pulsed with its frustration at the inadequacies of the bodies it had taken. The Doctor knew it sensed his difference. It was desperate to control him, not to relinquish this indigestible blood pulsing in his veins. It would send more of itself, he knew that – and he might find himself lost to it.
The Doctor started to climb up the steep crags and foothills.
He peered in through the hole in the lava tube’s roof. A golden glow was stirring in the thick shadows, pulsing like a heart. Waiting.
‘Coming, Rose,’ he said softly.
The Doctor dropped through the hole. He didn’t fear the impact of bone on stone, or attack from spiders and scorpions. He knew the true Valnaxi guardian would be waiting to break his fall.
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Sure enough it surged out, enveloped him, pushed inside his nose and scorched down his throat. He didn’t even have time to shout out.
The burning power was engulfing him. Plating his flesh.
Claiming him.
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AdielhelpedBaselplaceanotheroftheweird,webbedcanvasesinto the back of the Wurm’s transporter. They had loaded up one already – when there was no more room, Faltato had pressed a pincer against a discoloured patch on the shell to send it floating away back down the lava tubes.
‘Work slower,’ said Basel quietly. ‘We need to save some strength for escaping.’
‘Escaping where?’ she mouthed back. Apparently this cavern was the first he and Rose had found, so he knew a little of the lie of the land.
‘That thing took the Doctor’s magic screwdriver,’ Basel hissed. ‘It does loads of things – like it opens up holes in the walls. We might find another way out, another tunnel. If I could get hold of it. . . ’
‘Stop plotting,’ said Faltato. ‘There is nowhere you can go. Nowhere any of us can go.’
There was a note of self-pity in Faltato’s voice that put Adiel more in mind of men than monsters. His pincers had drooped and he looked quite dejected. She took an uncertain step towards him. ‘ You can go wherever you want. Can’t you?’
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‘My ship is moored to an asteroid eig
hty-seven light years from here,’ said Faltato gloomily. ‘The Wurms dislike independence in those they sponsor.’
Basel was unmoved. ‘Think you’re mistaking us for people who give a –’
Adiel held up a hand to shush him. ‘What’s bothering you?’ It was weird how quickly you got used to dealing with alien monsters. But then, when they were real-life and real close in your face, it wasn’t like you had much choice other than to deal with them. ‘You think something’s wrong, don’t you?’
‘These artworks. . . I didn’t pay them enough heed before.’ Faltato shook his head. ‘They should be some of the oldest and most famous of all Valnaxi treasures. But they’re not. They are quite ordinary. They all hail from one era. From the middle period of the war.’ He shook his pointed head. ‘I don’t trust this. Any of it.’
And as the next transporter bobbed into view, and as Basel wearily picked up the next painting, Adiel saw Faltato retreat a little way away, a furtive look in his many eyes.
King Ottak watched the loaded transporter hover silently into the cargo hold.
‘Treasure,’ he sneered. To him it was filthy, worthless stuff, abstract and angular, proof of the absolute weakness and vanity of the Valnaxi.
The fools had devoted their lives to their art. Well, he had devoted his to destroying that art, in all its forms.
As usual, he would scatter the pieces to the Five Ends of Empire for the ritual burning and breaking. Only this time the crowds would gather from light years around on the host planet to watch him personally destroy the greatest of all Valnaxi treasures, one after another.
The Lana Venus. . . that oh-so-celebrated holy statue in the shape of the Mother Valnaxi. . . The Flight of the Valwing, said to be one of the finest paintings in the cosmos. He would spend days slowly desecrating them, the endless cheers of his people sweet in his sensors.
‘Treasure,’ he sneered again, louder this time.
More and more these days, in his more reflective moments, Ottak 148
had the niggling feeling that there was something he was missing, something that was going over his head. He peered through his elec-tronically heightened senses at the stuff spilling out from the nearest transporter. He coiled his tail around the figure of a bird and raised it up.
