Doctor Who: Apollo 23

by Richards, Justin

  They walked on in silence for several minutes.

  ‘I don’t think Major Carlisle likes me very much,’ the Doctor said eventually.

  Devenish’s bark of laughter echoed inside his helmet. ‘I don’t think Major Carlisle likes anyone very much. Her daddy was a general,’ he went on. ‘She’s got a lot to live up to.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to live up to anything.’

  ‘True, but she thinks she does. Then again, my daddy had a gas station in Colorado and died of boredom before he was 60, so what do I know?’

  ‘Maybe you have even more to live up to,’ the Doctor told him.

  The receptors were like metal mushrooms poking up through the dry dusty grey of the landscape. There were two lines, stretching to the foreshortened horizon.

  ‘We only need to recalibrate one each side,’ the Doctor explained. ‘I can set them to pass the new settings on down the line.’

  ‘You know where you’re setting it for?’

  ‘Not a clue. But there should be a hardware reset that keys it back to the original location. Base Hibiscus, you called it?’

  ‘Deep in the heart of Texas,’ Devenish said. The Doctor could hear the smile in his voice.

  Amy passed several soldiers as she made her way through the base, but no one questioned who she was or what she was doing. And Nurse Phillips seemed to have no idea that she was being followed.

  Maybe she’d got it wrong, thought Amy, keeping her distance and hoping the young nurse wouldn’t turn round and see her. Maybe Nurse Phillips was as honest as they come. But she’d given the prisoner the injection that killed him. She’d overheard the nonsense – and maybe not so non-sense – that Liz Didbrook had spoken to Amy. She’d been present at every processing and assured Amy she’d never before witnessed any problems at all… Come on – no problems at all, ever, in a series of experiments to wipe people’s minds and replace their thoughts and memories?

  But maybe, just maybe, Amy was wasting her time and Nurse Phillips was as naive and straightforward and innocent as she seemed.

  Or maybe not, Amy decided as she ducked into a doorway close to Jackson’s office. Nurse Phillips glanced furtively over her shoulder before she knocked and went in.

  The door was closed, so Amy had to press her ear hard against it to hear anything. She hoped no one came and caught her doing it. Might be kind of hard to explain.

  ‘Carlisle,’ Jackson’s muffled voice said from the other side of the door.

  ‘So soon?’ Nurse Phillips replied.

  ‘This Doctor worries me. Perhaps he really can repair the systems. Carlisle will know, she was with him. I’ve asked her to join us in the Process Chamber in a few minutes.’

  Realising this must mean they were about to emerge from the office, Amy ran quickly back down the corridor. If she could get to the Process Chamber ahead of them she could find somewhere to hide and hear what Major Carlisle thought of the Doctor. Amy smiled to herself as she ran. Actually, she could probably guess that one right now.

  Amy had forgotten how spartan the Process Chamber was. There was nowhere she had any chance of hiding. The Observation Room was just as unhelpful. So Amy’s best option was to wait in one of the nearby storerooms, and listen at the door again.

  She didn’t have long to wait. Jackson and Nurse Phillips were only a couple of minutes behind her, and Major Carlisle joined them in the corridor mere moments later.

  ‘This Doctor,’ Jackson said without preamble. ‘Can he really fix the quantum displacement systems?’

  With the storeroom door open just a crack, Amy clearly heard Carlisle’s response.

  ‘I think he can. He seems young and flippant, but there’s an underlying astuteness to him. It’s hard to describe.’

  ‘And the girl?’ Nurse Phillips said. Amy stiffened.

  ‘Not sure, to be honest. But again, I wouldn’t underestimate her. Someone at Hibiscus obviously rates them both. Maybe even Walinski himself.’

  ‘More likely that jumped-up technician Hecker,’ Jackson said.

  ‘Yes,’ Carlisle said. ‘Well, if that’s all you wanted…?’

  ‘There was one other thing,’ Jackson said. ‘In the Process Chamber. Something I’d like you to take a look at.’

  ‘Is it important?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Jackson’s voice was suddenly low and slightly sinister. ‘It’s certainly important.’

  Amy heard the door to the Process Chamber close behind them. When she stepped out of the storeroom, the corridor was empty.

  If she had looked out just a few moments before, as Nurse Phillips followed Jackson and Carlisle into the Process Chamber, she would have been surprised to see the young nurse taking a syringe from her jacket pocket.

  ‘Not as easy as I thought,’ the Doctor confessed. ‘Looks like we’ll have to reset them all individually.’

  He closed up the cover on the side of the stumpy receptor and moved on to the next one.

  ‘I’ll do the other side,’ Colonel Devenish said.

  ‘Sure you can manage?’

  ‘I just watched you. Looked easy enough. I’m not a complete dork, you know.’

  The Doctor grinned inside his helmet. ‘Never thought you were.’

  ‘I did wonder about you though,’ Devenish said. ‘But Jackson was willing to give you the time of day.’

  ‘And you respect his judgement.’

  ‘I used to. Now…’ Devenish unclipped the inspection hatch on the side of the receptor. ‘I’m not sure I trust him any more.’

  ‘Dubious ethics,’ the Doctor guessed, moving on to another of the receptors.

  ‘Oh he’s always had those. But recently… I don’t know. It’s nothing you can put your finger on. But he’s changed.’

  The Doctor closed up the cover and moved on down the line. ‘Why are you telling me?’

  ‘Because you’re from off base. I don’t know who you are, but I reckon I can trust you.’

  ‘Suggesting you can’t trust your own team,’ the Doctor realised.

  ‘Suggesting I don’t know if I can trust them or not. There’s something going on here on my base. Something I don’t understand. Something I don’t like.’

  ‘Something to do with the people?’

  ‘Or perhaps I’m just getting paranoid. But then this sabotage…’

  ‘If it was sabotage.’

  ‘You said you’d be able to tell, once you checked the receptors,’ Devenish reminded him. ‘So you tell me.’

  The Doctor closed the cover of the receptor he’d just reset and stood up. He turned to find Devenish facing him, his face distorted through the thick visor of the helmet.

  ‘Look.’ The Doctor pointed along the path made by the two parallel lines of receptors. Instead of disappearing over the lunar horizon, the path now shimmered in the heat. The grey dust either side of the path was pale sand. A line of blue sky cut downwards from the black heavens.

  ‘It worked!’ Devenish said. ‘Doctor – you’re a genius.’

  ‘Thanks. We’d better reset the rest of them. And, yes I am a genius,’ the Doctor went on. ‘Because you’re not paranoid at all. It would take a genius to spot it, but what happened here was definitely sabotage.’

  Amy hadn’t even reached the door to the Process Chamber when she heard the noise. Something slammed back into the other side of the door. Shouting, grunts, something metal clattered to the floor.

  ‘Hold her!’ Jackson’s voice shouted.

  Amy didn’t know if she should go in and help or stay where she was. But who needed help – what was going on?

  In just a few moments, the noise died down. Amy pressed her ear to the door. This was becoming a habit.

  ‘She’s tougher than she looks,’ Jackson said. ‘Which could be useful.’

  Amy couldn’t hear the reply – did he mean Major Carlisle or Nurse Phillips?

  ‘I’ve programmed a Blank. One of the soldiers,’ Jackson was saying now. ‘If the Doctor manages to repair the systems, the Blank
can simply disable them again. But in light of what Major Carlisle said, you had better send him in anyway.’

  ‘I’m on it. The Doctor and Devenish went outside, to reset the receptors.’ Nurse Phillips’ voice was faint but audible now. She must be moving back towards the door.

  ‘In the worst case, they’ll be stuck back on Earth,’ Jackson said. ‘Worst for us, that is. It could be a lot worse for them.’

  Amy backed slowly away. She didn’t know what they meant by a ‘Blank’ but one thing was clear – the Doctor was in danger and she was the only one who could help him. But how?

  Chapter

  8

  The desert stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. The Doctor and Colonel Devenish had reached the last of the receptors.

  ‘It always amazes me,’ Devenish said, watching the Doctor make the final adjustments, ‘the way you can just walk off the moon into the desert. The whole notion that you can be in two places at once.’

  ‘That’s what quantum mechanics is all about,’ the Doctor told him.

  ‘I know that. At least, I know it intellectually. The reality of it, that’s rather different.’

  ‘I know what you mean. It’s all well and good at the atomic level. But when its actually people and places… You know this is surprisingly sophisticated. I didn’t think there was a direct link from Earth to the moon until T-Mat got going and that won’t be for a while yet.’ The Doctor stood up. ‘There we are. All done. There’s no charge.’

  Devenish reached up and unclipped his helmet. He twisted it, and lifted it off his head, taking a deep breath of the warm, dry desert air.

  ‘That is just so liberating,’ he said.

  The Doctor removed his own helmet. ‘Gets hot in these things, doesn’t it.’

  ‘Here in the desert, but not on the moon.’ Devenish bounced experimentally on his feet. ‘Feel that Earth gravity. Every time I come back I decide I need to go on a diet.’

  From her hiding place behind the storeroom door, Amy watched Nurse Phillips and Professor Jackson emerge from the Process Chamber. There was no sign of Major Carlisle. Jackson made his way to the observation room. Nurse Phillips hurried away down the corridor.

  Amy waited until they were both out of sight. Decision time – should she try to see what Jackson was up to? Maybe find out what had happened to Major Carlisle?

  Or should she follow Nurse Phillips? She must be going to check on the ‘Blank’, whatever that was. Something to do with disabling the quantum systems again. The systems the Doctor was trying to mend.

  Stepping out from the storeroom, careful to make as little noise as possible, Amy ran down the corridor after Nurse Phillips.

  The world was muzzy and unfocused. Andrea Carlisle blinked rapidly in an effort to clear her vision. Her head was full of buzzing. She tried to move her arm, and nothing happened.

  Gradually she became aware that she was strapped down. Her wrists and ankles were restrained. There was a strap across her waist. Her head was held in position by a brace. She was half lying, half sitting on a padded chair, facing a bare wall.

  Except it wasn’t completely bare. There was something, if she could just focus on it. Something projecting from the wall, pointing right at her…

  And suddenly she was completely awake, straining at the straps. She was in the Process Chamber. The buzzing wasn’t inside her head, it was the hum of the equipment powering up. She remembered coming into the room with Jackson and Phillips – the sudden pain in her neck. A glimpse of the syringe being removed. Lashing out, shoving Nurse Phillips back against the door, knocking things over… Then darkness.

  And now this.

  The end of the probe was glowing. The hum rose in pitch and volume.

  Jackson’s voice was calm but clear through the speakers: ‘I’m so glad you’re awake, Major. Take a last look at your world before you surrender yourself to us.’

  Her vision blurred again. All she could see was the glow of the probe. All she could hear was the rising hum of the machine.

  And the brittle scuttling like the claws of a rat as something crept into her mind and began to eat her memories…

  A figure stood in the shadows close to the bottom of the metal stairway down to the basement levels. Stock-still, the soldier might have been on guard duty – except that his eyes were closed. His face was relaxed and slack. His arms hung limply by his side, his shoulders slumped forwards.

  Nurse Phillips watched him for a few moments, her mouth twisting into the trace of a smile.

  ‘It is time,’ she said softly.

  The soldier’s eyes snapped open. He straightened up, alert and ready.

  ‘You know what to do,’ Nurse Phillips told him.

  She watched the soldier march stiffly away before returning to the stairs.

  The metal treads echoed under her feet, masking the sound of lighter footsteps below. Amy glanced up at the disappearing figure before hurrying after the soldier.

  Keeping well back, she followed the dark figure through the maze of pipework and cables, past control consoles and computer terminals. He seemed to know exactly where he was headed. Finally, the soldier stopped in front of a control panel mounted on the wall. He stared at it for several seconds, and Amy was tempted just to ask him what he was doing.

  Then the soldier turned and picked up a length of metal pipe that was lying nearby. He weighed it in his hand, then smashed it down on the controls.

  Sparks erupted from the console. The constant hum of the machinery changed in pitch, becoming laboured and uncertain.

  Amy ran forward. ‘Stop that – stop that now!’

  The soldier seemed not to hear. Again and again he smashed the pipe down on the console. A whole section exploded. Smoke billowed out from a panel.

  The soldier raised the pipe yet again. Amy grabbed his wrist, pulling hard to try to unbalance the man. He barely noticed, tearing his wrist free and slamming the pipe down once more.

  Apparently satisfied, the soldier moved along. He dropped the pipe, which clattered to the floor and rolled away – bent and dented from its work. The soldier reached out, lacing his fingers through a mass of wires. And ripped them away. Sparks crackled round the broken ends. The lights dimmed for a moment, then came back up again. A klaxon began to sound. The surviving parts of the control console were lit up with red warning lights – flashing erratically.

  ‘Right, that’s enough.’ Amy ran at the man. She lowered her shoulder, hammering into him from behind.

  The soldier was slammed forwards into the wall. His body jolted and shimmered as he hit the broken ends of the live wires. The lights flickered again, then went out completely.

  The last thing Amy saw before the darkness descended was the soldier turning towards her – his face blackened, eyes staring and unblinking. No expression. Blank.

  The helmet was only inches away from him across the ground. But the Doctor was never going to reach it.

  Colonel Devenish collapsed to his knees, his hands scrabbling at his throat as he tried to breathe. The desert sand shimmered in the heat, blurring into the cold grey landscape of the moon.

  The Doctor’s own breaths were painful gasps now. His throat burned for lack of air. The cold was freezing his skin, drying his eyes, tightening across his whole body.

  He tried to crawl towards Devenish. But the Colonel was as far away as the helmet – inches. Inches out of reach as the cold airless night closed in.

  The scrabbling and scratching in Major Carlisle’s head was unbearable. Everything else dissolved – senses, memories, thought itself. Boiled away as something clawed and tore its way through her mind.

  She tried to focus on the voice – urgent, shouting, but filtered like it was through a loudspeaker somewhere.

  ‘Nurse Phillips – the power’s off. I’m at a critical stage. We need the power back. What’s that Blank done? I need power now…’

  Somehow she sensed that this was good. She could feel the claws falter, the s
cratching diminish. The world swam into focus – the Process Chamber, lit red by emergency battery lights. The probe, its light flickering and dying.

  For the briefest moment, Carlisle’s mind was free again. For a few precious seconds she was aware of the memories and thoughts that had been scratching their way into her mind. Then the probe flared back into life, dazzlingly bright, burning into her eyes.

  Amy blinked as after a few unsettling moments the lights came back on abruptly. The noise of the equipment seemed to stabilise, and she guessed a secondary generator or emergency system of some sort had cut in to take over from the damaged systems.

  The soldier was still staring blankly at Amy, just as before the lights failed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, bracing herself for the attack.

  But the man didn’t move. He just stood, staring. Unmoving. Then, slowly, his eyes closed. His shoulders slumped slightly – like he had fallen asleep while still on his feet.

  As if he’d been switched off, Amy thought. Like a computer program that had reached the end, completed its task, and simply stopped.

  On the lunar surface, a sudden, impossible breeze stirred the dust between the line of receptors. Two space helmets – one white, one red – lay half-buried. A gloved hand was stretched out towards one of the helmets in a final desperate dying attempt to reach it.

  Then the breeze was gone, taking with it the last of the air. Leaving only the dust and the dead …

  Chapter

  9

  A rasping breath wracked the Doctor’s whole body. He wheezed and choked, coughing until his throat was raw. The ground beneath him was warm and sharp – like tiny knives cutting into his palms as he pressed down in an effort steady his body.

  He was lying on his back, staring up at an azure sky. The faintest wisp of cloud skittered across his vision. The sun was a burning disc that hurt his eyes.

  Slowly, as the coughing and gasping died away and he caught his breath, the Doctor pushed himself upwards. He sat staring round at the undulating landscape. Not the grey, barren moon, but the warm sandy desert. He climbed to his feet.