Doctor Who BBCN05 - Only Human

by Doctor Who

  Quilley!’

  ‘I can tell you’re very worked up about it,’ said Quilley, ‘and yeah, I respect you for feeling that way, but does it matter?’

  ‘They’ll kill you!’ shouted the Doctor, staring right into his eyes.

  ‘Reach inside yourself. Come on, T. P. Quilley, the Refuser! The man who turned to this brave new world and said no! I need you!’

  ‘You’re trying to make me feel wrong,’ said Quilley, brushing him off. ‘And do you mind not spitting on my collar?’

  ‘I’m irritating you. Something’s stirring. Great!’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Right, another way to irritate you. . . ’ He prodded Quilley in the chest, poked him in the side, turned him round and goosed him for good measure.

  ‘Would you please stop doing that?’ Quilley’s voice went up a notch, the first hint of his usual barking loudness.

  ‘Stop me! Come on, what’cha gonna do?’ The Doctor goaded him like a playground bully, wedging him and giving him a slap.

  ‘Get off!’ stormed Quilley, slapping him back.

  Their hands met and grasped. There was a silence, punctuated by cries of bewilderment and consternation from outside, still some distance away at the other end of the town.

  Then the Doctor slapped Quilley once more. ‘I’m back,’ fumed Quilley. ‘You can stop!’

  ‘You’re just saying that!’ said the Doctor, prepared to slap again.

  119

  ‘No, you really can stop!’ Quilley listened to the sounds drifting over the town. ‘Chantal – what’s she done? Why?’

  ‘We can work that out later!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Right now we’ve gotta save these people!’

  There was a rat-a-tat-tat on the door and a voice called out politely,

  ‘Are you humans?’

  ‘Right after we’ve saved ourselves,’ said the Doctor, backing away.

  ‘Why not try what you did before?’ hissed Quilley.

  ‘Won’t work now. They’re out in the open. They’ve seen what humans are,’ said the Doctor. He picked up the fallen storage cabinet and swung it in front of the door, then set about piling desks and chairs on top of it. ‘Help me!’ he ordered Quilley.

  Quilley swung up a chair as the knocking came again. ‘You in there,’

  said the rasping voice. ‘Humans or what?’

  ‘But what is it?’ gasped Quilley.

  The Doctor ran from the makeshift barricade to the back of the storage room and started to kick at the wooden slats with his boots, trying to knock through a back way out. ‘It’s a predator,’ he gasped. ‘There are thirteen and a half million species on this planet at any given moment in its history. Life seeps from the pores of this world. And up until now, you were the ones at the top. You kicked the Neanderthals

  – this lot are gonna kick you!’

  The barricade shifted. ‘I’m coming in to check,’ said the voice.

  Quilley shuddered uncontrollably. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘What prey always does,’ said the Doctor, kicking the last few slats away.

  ‘Run?’ asked Quilley.

  ‘Works for me,’ said the Doctor, ducking through the hole just as the barricade behind them toppled over and a Hy-Bractor lurched through. Quilley shot out after him.

  They stopped running a few minutes later, when the Doctor felt confident they had evaded their pursuer. He had chosen a deliberately illogical, circuitous escape route in the hope that the Hy-Bractor, which 120

  after all was new to the world, would get confused in the higgledy-piggledy streets of the town, and now they were at the foot of the steps leading out.

  They stood and watched the Osterbergers. A few of them had come out onto the streets, looking confusedly about, listening to the screams

  – which had stopped for a minute – and muttering laconically to each other about Chantal doing something to sort whatever it was out.

  The Doctor turned to Quilley and looked meaningfully at him.

  ‘You’ve got to try and do some more bravery.’

  Quilley paled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We can’t stop them,’ said the Doctor, ‘we can only run away. At least until my mind gets back to normal and I can think of a way to do it. But someone has gotta warn the people up on the surface too, tell them to run. The Neanderthals, the humans. They’re my responsibility. These people are yours.’

  ‘And you’ve got to warn Rose,’ said Quilley. ‘Because you care for her.’

  ‘And you’ve gotta care for the people here,’ said the Doctor, ‘save as many as you can, get them to run. With any luck, the drugs are weakening in their systems. You could stir them up. I know they’ve never given you anything back, and you’ve got every reason for hating them and the world you come from, but you’ve got to try!’

  Quilley struck one of his poses. ‘Yes, I read about that. Nobility. To dislike a person but to care for their right to live!’

  ‘That’s the one,’ said the Doctor. ‘Do your best, but don’t do anything too heroic. There’s only a few of them, and they’re pretty dumb and slow, but they’re just warming up. Simply get as many of your people out of here as you can and then leg it yourself!’ He was already bounding up the steps.

  Quilley watched him go, then took a deep breath and ran back into the town, calling out desperately, banging on the walls of the huts as he went.

  ‘Listen! Listen to me, you putrid, prostrate idiots! We’re getting out of here!’

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  121

  After slipping away from the cave people, Rose had run up and down the small hills, trying to work out her way to the Neanderthal camp.

  From there she reckoned she could probably get back to Osterberg, or failing that strike out for the TARDIS. She soon realised her optimism was misplaced. She had no idea where she was heading. There were traces of forest in every direction and nothing to indicate a way back.

  She liked to think she’d never panicked in her life. Panic was pointless. But there was a rising sense of fear in the pit of her stomach at the prospect of being out here alone in the wild when darkness fell.

  She remembered the unseen creature that had menaced her and the Doctor earlier and shuddered. And then there’d be the embarrassment of being mauled to death on the coldest night imaginable while dressed in a fur bikini.

  And then she wasn’t alone any longer.

  A figure emerged from a clump of bushes. Rose tensed – and she realised it was Tillun. He looked downcast.

  ‘I didn’t fall for that. We’re not stupid down here.’

  ‘Well, at least you’re obviously not,’ said Rose, suddenly very glad of his company.

  ‘What exactly is wrong with me?’ he demanded, coming to stand in front of her.

  ‘Not much,’ she had to admit, ‘but look, I don’t know you.’

  ‘But you’d rather walk out into the forest alone than marry me,’ he said sadly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I met you about two hours ago,’ Rose replied.

  ‘But I’m the king,’ said Tillun uncomprehendingly. ‘The grandson of the wise woman. It’s my right.’

  In spite of her bizarre surroundings, Rose felt sorry for him. She tried desperately to think of a way to tell him the truth and wondered how to start. ‘Where I come from, everyone has the rights of a king,’

  she said.

  Tillun frowned. ‘How on earth does that work?’

  ‘Pretty well. We can all do what we like. Nobody tells us what to do.’

  122

  ‘But then how can your tribe survive?’ asked Tillun. ‘We must all do what’s good for the tribe. What we might want for ourselves doesn’t matter.’

  Rose had met people and aliens with different values on her travels with the Doctor. She remembered talking with Gwyneth in the nine-teenth century and how strange that had seemed. Compared to this, it had been easy. It was as if Tillun’s brain was wired up differently from hers. Concepts she had lived her life accepting as
totally natural were just not there in his language or understanding.

  Before she could continue, the sound of galloping hoofs echoed around the plain.

  ‘Down!’ hissed Tillun, grabbing her and heaving her into the concealing bushes.

  The hoofbeats came closer and then, only feet away from them, stopped. Rose clung onto Tillun, her face pressed close against his beating heart. Something seemed to be moving just a few inches away from them. . .

  The bushes parted. Rose opened her eyes, prepared to face anything.

  The Doctor was staring down at her and Tillun, huddled together in the bush. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Fast worker,’ he said at last.

  Rose got up and brushed herself down. ‘I’m so glad to see you I’m filing away my reply.’

  The Doctor looked her up and down. ‘Just the thing for a night out in the Ice Age.’

  ‘This is like Julien McDonald round here,’ said Rose.

  ‘You’ll get fleas,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘I’ve already got fleas,’ said Rose with feeling.

  The Doctor nodded across at Tillun, who was just getting up. ‘Who’s the new boyf, then?’ He shook Tillun’s hand. ‘Not bad. Like the woad, Aladdin Sane.’

  ‘Actually, I’m her fiancée,’ said Tillun, a little aggressively. ‘Who are you?’

  The Doctor’s face was a picture. Then he nodded. ‘OK. Lots to talk about. . . but lots more to do! Get on my horse!’ He pointed to where 123

  a horse stood placidly a few feet away.

  Chantal stood in the observation room, the four Hy-Bractors gathered round her in an attentive circle. The room was littered with the picked-clean skeletons of the staff. After gorging themselves on the meat, the Hy-Bractors had considerately sat them back up in their work chairs.

  ‘OK, not bad,’ said Chantal. ‘Considering I didn’t have time to run the final tests. But we can work round it – it’s just a teensy setback.

  We’re going to deliver on this. Got it?’ She spoke softly and slowly.

  ‘Kill all humans.’

  The leading male put his hand up. ‘Chantal?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How do we know if they’re humans?’

  Chantal grabbed a piece of paper, took a pen from her breast pocket and drew a quick sketch. ‘They are all humans,’ she said. ‘All the talking ones. Except for him in the leather jacket.’ She held up the paper, where she had drawn the Doctor with incredible accuracy. ‘Do you understand it now? Kill everybody, except each other, and except him, and except me. Don’t bother to ask if someone’s human or not, you can just work it out for yourselves. I’m not always going to be there for you, am I? And so you’ve got to learn. OK, your brains are still forming, but you can understand this, can’t you?’ She sighed. ‘So.

  What are you going to do?’

  ‘Kill all humans?’ said the female.

  ‘That’s it, there you go,’ said Chantal encouragingly.

  ‘We have all got to get out of here!’ thundered Quilley. He was standing in front of a bemused crowd of about thirty Osterbergers who had gathered in the main street in response to his calls. He could tell they were beginning to lose the effects of the popper drugs, but they still retained their sheep-like faith in Chantal thanks to the implanted interest patches in their brains.

  ‘This is just mad Refuser talk,’ said Jacob, at the front of the crowd.

  His arm was around his wife.

  124

  ‘But my wrong-feeling’s not going away,’ said Lene. ‘The packs must be running out. We’ll ask Chantal to get us new ones and then we’ll be fine.’

  ‘Chantal is insane!’ raged Quilley, throwing his arms about. He pointed to her popper pack. ‘And that can’t help you any longer –there are no popper drugs left! Think about it – you had supplies for forty days, this is day forty-nine! Just do the numbers!’

  A wondering silence fell over the crowd. Then Lene swooned. Jacob held her close to him and kissed her forehead. At the same moment a long-drawn-out scream echoed over the rooftops.

  ‘Listen to that! They’re coming to kill us all!’ Quilley screamed.

  ‘So what does that mean?’ asked Jacob.

  ‘It means that unless you do as I say, you’re going to die! Die!

  Death! Death, get used to the word!’ All the bitter years of Quilley’s emotional exile poured out of him.

  ‘Well, we all terminate sooner or later,’ said someone in the crowd to nods of approval. ‘Why get all wrong-feeling about it?’

  Quilley was beginning to think he should heed the Doctor’s words and abandon them, but a surge of what must have been nobility kept him in place for one last try. ‘And do you want to die sooner or later?’

  he spat.

  He caught Lene’s eyes as they produced tears for the very first time.

  ‘I’m going to die,’ she said in a terrified voice.

  ‘So come with me. Now!’ barked Quilley.

  He grabbed Lene’s hand and dragged her up in the direction of the steps. Jacob followed, though Quilley supposed he didn’t quite know why.

  The rest of the crowd remained in the street, huddling together uneasily.

  The female Hy-Bractor lurched around a corner, teeth wide and glinting redly. ‘Hello,’ she rasped. ‘You must be humans.’

  The crowd flinched as one, but nobody ran.

  The Hy-Bractor held up a piece of paper and checked the crowd against it. ‘And none of you are him with the leather jacket, or Chantal, or one of my friends either, so. . . ’

  125

  She shot out an enormously muscled black-suited arm and picked up the nearest human. The others stood and watched as her massive jaw clicked back on a hinge mechanism, gaping even wider. . .

  And then the crowd screamed, but they remained standing still.

  In the lift, Quilley frantically thumbed the button to go up. ‘There’s no need to keep pressing it. You only need to do it once,’ said Jacob, who was cradling the sobbing form of Lene in his arms.

  With a clunk, the lift started to ascend. Quilley slumped against the wall and stared at him with contempt.

  After catching up on each other’s news, Rose had got Tillun to lead the Doctor right back to the tribe, running ahead of her and the Doctor on the horse.

  ‘Was this a wild horse?’ Rose had asked.

  ‘It was livid,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘And you tamed it? Doesn’t that take weeks?’

  ‘Not when you’ve got this,’ said the Doctor, brandishing his slightly psychic paper. ‘It thinks I’m wonderful, god of the horses. Does pictures too, you know, psychic paper.’

  Back at the cave entrance she introduced the Doctor as an elder of the Tylers, but this didn’t seem to count for much.

  ‘I’m the wise woman of this tribe!’ Nan shouted in his face. ‘Who the blinking hell are you to order us about?’

  ‘Did she really say blinking?’ asked Rose.

  ‘That’s the TARDIS – got a swear filter,’ the Doctor told her. He turned back to face Nan, who viewed him with open suspicion. ‘And I’m the wise man of mine!’

  Nan scoffed and a ripple of laughter passed round the tribe. ‘Wise man! Man! Men in charge, we all know how that ends up!’

  ‘No, you don’t, and you never will, unless your people get deep down into the caves!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘You cannot win against this new tribe, but you could buy me a few hours to get rid of them for you!’

  126

  Nan laughed. ‘We’re the hardest tribe for miles around. No one’s gonna try tangling with us.’ There was a general nodding of heads.

  ‘And we don’t take the word of an outsider. Anyone outside the Family is a liar.

  ‘Typical blinking human parochialism,’ said the Doctor.

  Rose stepped forward. ‘Hold on. Nan, would you take my word?’

  ‘You turned your back on us, wandering off! You’re a nice girl, Rose, but you’re still an outsider,’ said Nan.

  �
��But I don’t have to be,’ said Rose. ‘You want me to join the Family.

  If I did, would you listen to me? If I told you something that was for the good of the tribe?’

  Nan wrinkled up her face. ‘I’d have to.’

  ‘Stone Age psychology,’ Rose whispered to the bemused Doctor.

  Then she grabbed Tillun by the hand. ‘OK, let’s do it. Quick. Get the Great Fish of Matrimony.’

  Nan beamed. ‘Now you’re being sensible. There’s still time. . . ’

  She turned to the gathered tribe and shouted, ‘The wedding’s going ahead!’

  ‘Sooner the better,’ urged Rose. She turned to the Doctor, daring him to pass a remark. ‘Breathe one word of this to my mother or Mickey. . . ’

  ‘Congratulations,’ was all the Doctor could say.

  127

  RoseexaminedthehugesmellytroutNanhadhandedher. ‘Notquite how I ever imagined it,’ she told the Doctor.

  ‘That’s a good fish,’ he said. ‘Living right next to a stream with fish like that pouring down it, this lot are affluent for the period. They won’t need to do much to keep themselves alive.’ He smiled. ‘The closest you’ll ever get to the Garden of Eden.’

  ‘This is paradise?’ Rose sighed, looking on as the tribe gathered in a rough semicircle to watch the ceremony. Tillun had returned to the cave, to be brought out when the sun hit the stone.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘And it also proves that Carry On Cleo was more historically accurate than anyone realised.’

  Rose shot him a sidelong glance. ‘You’re very relaxed for someone being chased by monsters.’

  ‘You get used to it,’ said the Doctor. He tapped his skull. ‘And the brain’s operational again. I think I can work out what to do. In a bit.’

  ‘You might say thanks,’ said Rose.

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘Just a bit of paper. And marrying for love, it’s overrated.’