by Doctor Who
‘I’m not made of glass,’ Orlo said. ‘And if I were, is that really any more fragile than human life? Than flesh and blood and bone and sinew?’
‘That depends, doesn’t it? Glass people may not bleed, but they can certainly break.’ He drew circles in the glittering debris with the toe of his shoe. ‘Ashes to ashes or sand to sand.
Same difference in the end. And make no mistake, this is the end. Stop now. Surrender while you can.’
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Orlo leaned forward, so close the Doctor could feel the cold breath on his face. ‘Never.’
The Doctor wiped flecks of saliva from his face. ‘I was afraid you’d say that. I’m sorry.’ He raised his voice and called to the back of the Great Hall: ‘Now, Martha!’
Janna ran past the soldiers at the makeshift barricade, holding out the sonic screwdriver.
‘What’s he want me to do with this?’ Martha asked, taking it from the girl.
‘It breaks glass. But it’s too focused,’ Janna said.
‘Er-so?!’
Janna shook her head. ‘He said you’d know what to do. You and Bill and Bott.’
Hearing his name, Bill turned from adjusting controls on the sound desk. ‘That the sonic?’ he asked.
‘Looks like it could be a sonic to me,’ Bott said.
‘Good. Been waiting for that,’ Bill said.
Martha handed the sonic screwdriver to Bill. His spindly metal fingers snapped closed on it and he passed it across to Bott.
‘Reckon this’ll do the trick, Bott?’
‘I reckon it will, Bill.’
‘In your own time,’ the Doctor’s voice called from the other side of the barricade.
‘You are wasting my time and your life,’ Orlo’s snarling tones replied.
Bott took the sonic screwdriver and set about attaching it to a mass of wires and components erupting from the centre of the sound desk.
‘Just link up the audio feed,’ Bott said.
‘And then we can start,’ Bill added.
‘Start what?’ Martha asked.
Bill looked at Bott.
Bott looked at Bill.
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‘This!’ they both said together.
‘Don’t lecture me about time,’ the Doctor was saying. His words faded under the building hum of noise that emerged from the speakers along the side of the hall.
‘Your time is over!’ Even Orlo’s vicious snarls were lost as the sound continued to build. It rose in volume and in pitch.
Martha and Janna had their hands clamped over their ears.
There was a violent crash as part of the barricade collapsed.
Martha thought at first it had been shaken apart by the sound waves, but a Zerugian staggered through the gap, hurling chairs aside as he came.
But he was shaking, his features a shimmering blur. He raised his hands to his head, staggering back and forth. He lurched in front of one of the massive speakers. Martha could see the grille across the front of the speaker rippling. And still the sound grew and rose.
Until the Zerugian exploded in a shower of glittering fragments of glass.
More Zerugians were following the first. But they too were staggering and vibrating. One fell forward as its leg shattered.
Another crashed into the speaker and was blown back in a blizzard of fragments.
But still more were coming. The GA soldiers were painfully deafened. They weren’t exploding like the glass Zerugians, but they were unable to fight back. Another Zerugian shattered to pieces in front of the barricade. Then another.
Only one Zerugian staggered on. The glass reflection of General Orlo, face cracked – a deep line running along his scar, but splitting the eyepatch as well. One of his arms ended in a jagged stump at the elbow. His armour – his body – was chipped and scratched and cracked.
But he lumbered towards the sound desk.
Martha staggered out to stop him, shoulder barging into the Zerugian, unable to take her hands from her ears. She could barely see now, her eyes were watering so much. But Orlo’s 170
reflection thrust her aside. He lunged over the sound desk.
‘Stop him!’ Martha yelled. ‘He’s going for the sonic!’ But her cry was lost in the cacophony.
A glass claw clamped down on the mass of cables and the sonic screwdriver. Cracks rippled up the fingers and forearm.
The whole of Orlo’s body crazed with a spider’s web of fractures.
Bott grabbed for Orlo’s hand, trying to pull it away.
He was too late. Orlo wrenched the sonic clear, and hurled it away. The sound cut out. There was a snapping sound as the sonic hammered into the wall by the door. It fell to the floor in pieces.
For a moment there was complete and utter silence. More than half of Orlo’s army lay in shattered ruins across the floor of the Great Hall. Many, though, were still standing, their bodies glazed and cracked. But intact.
Then the glass Orlo turned and reached for Janna, his broken claws raking down towards her face. Janna screamed from point-blank range.
The claws shattered. The hand exploded. Orlo’s legs folded under him, collapsing under his own weight.
‘That’s it!’ Martha gasped. ‘Keep screaming – Janna keep screaming. And you two,’ she yelled at Bill and Bott, ‘put it through the speakers.’
With a final snarl of anger and pain, the glass Orlo lashed out. The remains of his shattered arm swept Janna off her feet. She fell sideways, head cracking into the side of the sound desk, as Orlo himself fell back in fragments to the floor.
Martha was at Janna’s side in a moment. There was a cut on the girl’s head, and her eyelids flickered.
‘No, no, no,’ Martha told her, cradling the girl in her arms.
But Janna’s head sagged and she was unconscious. Martha laid her down carefully on the floor. She would be all right, and there would be time to take care of her later – she hoped. But 171
first it was up to her to stop the rest of the Zerugians.
‘Microphone?’ Bill offered. Martha took it. And screamed.
She shouted and yelled and shrieked till she was hoarse.
But the Zerugians were forcing their way through the barricade, unaffected. The GA soldiers were falling back, helpless as they ran out of ammunition.
‘It’s the wrong pitch,’ Bott said. He was working frantically at the controls. ‘I can only amplify and boost the wave form.’
‘Can’t change the pitch,’ Bill agreed. ‘We need Janna. We need her screams.’
But the girl lay unconscious on the floor beside them as General Orlo’s Zerugian army advanced through the Great Hall of Castle Extremis.
When Janna’s scream cut out, the Doctor knew he had problems. He’d made good use of the distraction as the sonic sound wave cut down so many of Orlo’s soldiers. He had run to the Mortal Mirror and adjusted the controls so that it was just a mirror again. Luckily whoever had set it up – Thorodin probably – had not had time or been bothered to reset the deadlock seals. No more reflected Zerugians would be coming through.
But, even deprived of reinforcements, Orlo still had enough troops who had survived the carnage wrought by the sonic screwdriver to take Castle Extremis. Then he could let in reinforcements from Zerugma – real warriors who wouldn’t shatter and break under a sonic assault.
General Orlo knew that. His lips were curling from his jagged teeth in a satisfied smile as he advanced on the Doctor.
‘We could talk about this,’ the Doctor said. ‘I mean, if you want. That is, I’m up for it. What about you?’
Orlo’s arm struck out and claws closed on the Doctor’s neck.
‘Or not,’ the Doctor managed to gasp. ‘I’m easy about it, actually. Tell you what – you decide.’
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Then he was tumbling through the air and rolling across the dais and landing heavily on the stone floor. Strong hands –human hands – helped the Doctor to his feet and he dusted himself down.
‘Thank y
ou, Mr Stellman. But don’t feel you have to hang on here for me.’
‘I’m not,’ Stellman said.
The Doctor could see Lady Casaubon sitting pale and weak on a chair at the side of the dais, out of the way of the ongoing battle. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yes; duty and loyalty and friendship often decide our choices.’
‘I’ve made my choice, Doctor,’ Stellman said.
As Orlo’s hands grabbed the Doctor’s shoulders from behind, Stellman opened his jacket – just enough for the Doctor to see the sparkle of glass, the flash of reflected light from the gun tucked into Stellman’s inside pocket.
‘You’re finished, Doctor,’ Orlo snarled. ‘You can do nothing.’
‘Maybe,’ the Doctor said.
‘But I’ve got something you
haven’t. Something that can still win the day and sort you out.
Something I bet you’ve not even thought of.’
Orlo gave a derisive laugh. ‘And what is that?’
‘Friends. I’ve got Martha. She’s brilliant, she is. She’ll think of something.’
Some of the Zerugians were damaged – chipped and broken.
All of them were weakened and cracked. But they were coming through the gaps in the barricade quicker than Colonel Blench and his depleted force could hold them off. With little or no ammunition, the fighting was hand to hand. Soldiers were hurling chairs, swinging their guns like swords, kicking and punching.
Bott had taken up guard position in front of the sound equipment. One of his heavy arms flailed and thumped. The other was fitted with a blowtorch attachment – the jet of in-tense blue flame melting into a Zerugian that hurled itself at 173
him. His other arm punched the blackened, twisted remains to pieces.
Martha was kneeling beside Janna, gently patting the girl’s cheeks. But there was no sign of her coming round.
‘Let me,’ a voice said. A figure crouched down and lifted the girl. It was Gonfer. ‘Let me get her away from here.’
Martha bit her lip – without Janna, they were lost. But she couldn’t keep the child here. She nodded.
Gonfer lifted Janna in his arms. His face was streaked with tears. ‘I told her not to – I said there must be another way. But she wouldn’t listen. It’s my fault, and she’s going to die again –because of me.’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Martha insisted above the shouts and the shots and the crash of breaking glass. ‘Get Janna away from here, take her to one of her hiding places. You’ll both be all right.’
‘Not Janna,’ Gonfer said, his voice catching in his throat.
‘Tylda.’
Then the screaming started.
The sound was deafening. The girl’s screams echoed round the hall, accompanied by the percussion of exploding glass.
Only the Mortal Mirror seemed immune as Orlo’s troops –already cracked and weakened by the sound wave generated by the sonic screwdriver – shattered to fragments around him.
Orlo held the Doctor by the shoulders and watched in horrified amazement.
‘I did tell you,’ the Doctor said. ‘Didn’t I?’ he said to Stellman.
‘Tell him I told him.’
With a furious roar, Orlo hurled the Doctor aside. ‘You’re nobody,’ he hissed. ‘You are not even fit to be a hostage.’
‘Well, excuse me, I’m the guy who sorted out your crack troops.’ The Doctor’s hand flew to his mouth. ‘Sorry, a bit tactless there. Maybe “crack” wasn’t the best word.’ He ducked to allow a shower of glass to fly past.
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But Orlo wasn’t listening. He leaped forward and dragged Lady Casaubon up from her chair.
‘I’m getting out of here, Doctor,’ he said. ‘Or she dies.’
The girl’s mouth was wide open as she screamed. A network of cracks spread across her face, along her arms, over her whole body. Martha could only watch, horrified.
Bill and Bott were frantically rewiring the damaged part of the sound desk where Orlo had ripped the wires out.
‘We can’t record her till it’s mended,’ Bill was saying.
‘Can’t play back the recording we can’t make either.’ Bott agreed.
‘Stop!’ another voice shouted.
The cloaked figure of a monk staggered through the doors.
‘Enough!’ Manfred Grieg croaked through cracked glass lips.
Tylda stopped screaming. Her body creaked as she turned to face Grieg. She shivered, but remained intact. ‘Is it over?’
she asked.
Grieg’s face was also cracked and crazed. ‘It’s over,’ he said.
‘You did it,’ Martha said, struggling to hold back her emotions. ‘You saved us all.’
The girl was holding up her hand, staring at the lines and fissures where the glass had fractured inside. ‘I did it,’ she said quietly. ‘Will Tylda be all right?’
The claws were pressed into the wrinkled skin of Lady Casaubon’s neck.
‘If you try to stop me, I will kill her,’ Orlo hissed. ‘A moment is all it takes.’
His feet crunched on broken glass as he dragged the woman across the hall.
The Doctor stood impassive. ‘Where do you think you can go? What can you do?’
‘I can assemble another army, and this time we will take Castle Extremis.’
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Lady Casaubon struggled to shake her head. ‘No, Orlo –haven’t you learned anything? Haven’t you lost anyone?’
‘Silence, hag!’ Orlo roared.
With a whimper, Lady Casaubon sagged. Orlo bent with her as she became a dead weight. Her arms trailed along the floor for a moment before Orlo hauled her upright again.
‘Let me go – please,’ Lady Casaubon said.
‘Never. You are weak and decrepit, just as your people are weak and decrepit. You will never win against Zerugian might.’
Lady Casaubon sighed. She looked at the Doctor, and at Stellman standing powerless next to him. ‘What can you do?’
she said, like a teacher talking about an unruly child. This is your fault, you fool,’ she added. She was speaking to Orlo, turning, bringing up her small, ancient hand. And stabbing the long icicle of glass she had scooped from the floor into the back of Orlo’s claw.
The General’s hand spasmed and he let go of Lady Casaubon as he cried out in surprise and pain. He wrenched out the glass and reached for her again, his eyes blazing with fury.
He never reached her. A glass bullet hammered into his skull, and General Orlo crashed to the floor, lying dead in the remains of his splintered army.
‘Thank you, Stellman,’ Lady Casaubon said calmly. ‘Perhaps now they will send us someone who can negotiate the Zerugian position sensibly.’ She turned to the Doctor. ‘And thank you,’ she said. ‘We owe you everything. We owe you our future.’
The Doctor nodded. He looked round the Great Hall, and saw Martha walking slowly towards him. ‘I won’t say it’s been a pleasure,’ he said quietly.
But his words were lost in the noise from the speakers all around as Bill’s electronic tones exclaimed: ‘And just who do you think they’ll expect to clear all this up, Bott?’
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Mostoftheglasshadbeensweptup–despitethecomplaints from Bill and Bott that this was above and beyond the call of duty and that, as accredited GA agents now out in the open, they ought to be exempt from any further cleaning duties.
As the two robots grumbled on in the background, the Doctor and Martha stood in front of the Mortal Mirror.
‘How come it didn’t break?’ Martha asked.
‘Because it is not made of real glass,’ Manfred Grieg told her. He was still wearing the monk’s outfit he had taken from Gonfer. With the hood pushed back, he looked like a cracked, chipped statue.
‘It isn’t a real mirror at all,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Otherwise we’d be on the lookout for a girl with a red balloon,’ he added quietly, before going on: ‘There’s a whole world in there. It gets darker the further into it you get. But you know we
’re going to have to shut it off permanently, close the doorway between the worlds.’
‘I know,’ Grieg said. ‘You can rely on us to keep it closed.
Just as I have these past long years.’
‘Us?’ Martha said.
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At that moment, Defron came hurrying across the Great Hall. ‘Oh, Doctor, and Martha, I’m so glad I caught you. Gonfer said you were preparing to leave.’
‘Our work here is done,’ the Doctor told him. ‘You know how it is – places to see, people to go, worlds to save, lives to change. Sort of thing.’
‘But the GA will want to thank you. The General Secretary herself is coming, along with the new Zerugian representative who apparently is very keen to get the treaty signed. It seems that General Orlo was something of a rogue element.’
‘Rogue, certainly,’ Martha said.
‘And since you know Madame Secretary . . . ’ Defron went on.
‘Do you?’ Martha said to the Doctor, surprised.
‘Oh yes, great friends. We’re like . . . ’ The Doctor struggled to cross his fingers, gave up and held them apart in a victory V
instead. ‘Like that. Tell you what,’ he went on quickly to Defron, ‘we’ll stay if we can, but no promises. We have so much to do. I have to mend my sonic screwdriver, for one thing.’
Defron nodded enthusiastically. ‘That is so good of you, Doctor.’
‘But whatever happens,’ the Doctor said, taking Defron by the arm and leading his aside, ‘don’t get too chummy with her.
If you want my advice, you’ll pal up with Teddy Enkit. Maybe put a small bet on him being GA General Secretary within the year.’
Defron was surprised. ‘You think so? But he’s so inexperienced.’
‘Rising star. Trust me.’ The Doctor winked and steered Defron towards the door.
‘What was that all about?’ Martha asked when he returned.
‘I really shouldn’t be giving clues,’ the Doctor said. ‘But Defron will be the main sponsor and proposer of Edward Enkit for the role of General Secretary when Canasta Ventron is taken ill next year. Good chap, Teddy.’
