Heart of Stone / Death Riders

by BBC

  ‘I’m not available at your father’s beck and call, girl. Frankly I find it astonishing that Conway should leave the farm under the management of a young girl like you and her boyfriend.’

  Jess glanced at Rory. ‘Rory isn’t my boyfriend.’

  ‘I’m not her boyfriend,’ Rory confirmed, just so there was no possibility of confusion.

  Hoggett peered at him closely, lip curling. ‘Oh, no. You’re not. I’m thinking of that other oaf from town. Whatshisname. Jenkins. Always hanging around like a bad smell.’

  ‘There’s no call for that,’ said Rory. He was beginning to get very fed up with this horrible man.

  ‘Does he know you’re seeing this fellow as well?’ Hoggett asked Jess, jerking a thumb at Rory.

  ‘I keep telling you, I’m not her boyfriend,’ protested Rory. ‘I’m not anyone’s boyfriend. I’m married. To Amy Pond.’

  ‘What are you blathering on about, boy? Sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about half the time.’

  ‘Perhaps you should just go.’

  Hoggett seethed for a moment. ‘Well, I can see it’s pointless staying here unless I can speak to Conway.’ He turned to Jess. ‘Tell your father this is his final chance. He won’t get a better offer. And tell him that statue he’s had erected in the yard is damned ridiculous.’

  ‘Statue?’

  ‘Yes – the one with him chained to a Land Rover. Never seen anything like it! Damned ridiculous waste of money. The man’s got far too high an opinion of himself.’ Hoggett let out a loud harrumph. ‘I never had a statue made of me.’

  And with that, Hoggett turned and left without another word, stomping over the last bits of brick and dust left in the broken doorway. He stalked away across the yard, shot a dark look at Ralph Conway’s “statue”, and climbed into his Range Rover.

  Jess watched him go and wiped a tear from her tired eyes.

  ‘Don’t get upset,’ Rory said. ‘He’s just a … horrible man. Ignore him.’

  ‘I can’t ignore him, Rory. He’s right. We can’t afford to run this farm on our own. There’s too much work to do for two people and we’d struggle to pay anyone to work here, even if they’d come out from the town.’

  ‘I can see things were already difficult before … all this.’

  ‘Dad knows he’s going to have to sell the farm. He’s not getting any younger. But he refuses to sell it to Hoggett. He practically owns the whole valley now.’

  ‘I’m sure your dad will think of something.’

  Jess smiled weakly. ‘Thanks. I know you’re trying to help, and you’re very sweet.’ She squeezed Rory’s hand. ‘Amy is a very lucky girl.’

  CHAPTER 18

  MINUS SEVEN

  ‘The research centre extends far below ground level,’ Chris explained. ‘In fact, two-thirds of it is underground. The really top secret stuff – high level, fringe science research and development – takes place down on level Minus Seven.’

  ‘That sounds brilliant,’ said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. He looked like a child about to walk into a sweet shop. ‘Fringe science – my favourite kind!’

  ‘What’s fringe science?’ asked Amy.

  ‘All the sort of research that’s on the very edge of known science,’ Chris answered. They were walking along one of the corridors at the rear of the research centre, heading for the lifts that would take them down to level Minus Seven.

  ‘All the stuff that’s on the fringe of twenty-first century human science,’ the Doctor corrected. He winked at Amy. ‘They’ll get there eventually.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing! Lead on.’

  Chris stopped at the lifts, his shoulders slumping. ‘There’s really not much point. There’s a problem I haven’t told you about. The main lab on Minus Seven is locked and sealed.’

  ‘Oh, that sounds even more interesting,’ smiled the Doctor.

  Chris, pale and sweating, met the Doctor’s gaze. ‘Doctor – you really, really don’t want to go down there.’

  But the Doctor’s eyes were shining with curiosity now. ‘Yes, I really, really do.’

  They went down in the lift to level Minus Seven. There was a short, bare corridor leading to a set of heavy double doors. Each had a circular window made from frosted glass with the research company’s logo etched into it.

  ‘Not much of a barrier,’ sniffed the Doctor, waving his sonic screwdriver casually at the doors. They clicked open immediately.

  Amy screwed her eyes up as a gust of cold, dead air escaped with a quiet hiss. Beyond was a darkened concrete passage.

  They stepped into the passage. Amy shivered. ‘It’s so cold down here – with all this concrete.’

  The Doctor touched the wall. ‘Not concrete, Amy – moon rock. The whole corridor is made from moon rock.’

  ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ said Chris nervously.

  ‘This is exactly where we should be,’ the Doctor insisted.

  He used the sonic screwdriver to light the way. It was very gloomy and at one point Amy stubbed her toe on something lying near the wall. ‘Ouch!’

  The Doctor shone the light on the floor, revealing a huddled grey shape. At first it looked just like a large rock or a stone, but then they saw that it was actually in the shape of a man – crawling along the floor. His face was frozen in a mask of fear.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Amy whispered.

  The Doctor examined the stone body. ‘Someone trying to escape,’ he said quietly. ‘Caught in the same transformation wave that turned this whole corridor to moon stone.’

  ‘I told you it was a bad idea to come down here,’ Chris said. ‘We should go back now.’

  ‘No,’ said Amy. She tried to hide the shake in her voice. ‘We’ve come this far. We have to find out what’s going on.’

  The Doctor smiled at her in the darkness and squeezed her hand. ‘Come on, Pond,’ he said.

  Chris followed the Doctor and Amy to the far end of the passageway. Here there was a pair of heavy steel doors – or at least, they had once been steel. Now, they were rock. Grey stone rivets ran along the edges and the circular windows were useless.

  ‘It’s locked solid,’ said Chris. ‘There is no way through.’

  The Doctor scanned it with the sonic screwdriver. ‘All the internal electronics and locks have been turned to moon stone …’ He fiddled with the screwdriver and pointed it at the centre of the doors. The tip glowed a fierce green. ‘However – if I can break down the machinery …’

  The sonic pitch rose to a scream and suddenly there was a series of heavy clunks and cracks from within the doors.

  And a dark, black split appeared between them.

  ‘Come on – brute force now.’ The Doctor dug his fingers into the split and started to heave.

  Amy joined him, while Chris pulled at the other door.

  The stone doors ground slowly aside, releasing a cascade of fine grey dust over the Doctor’s head and shoulders. When they had forced the doors open just wide enough to step through, Amy giggled. ‘That’s quite a dandruff problem you’ve got there, Doctor.’

  The Doctor brushed the dust from his hair and stared into the cold darkness beyond the doors. ‘It’s like opening a grave,’ he said quietly.

  Chris was shaking like a leaf. The Doctor aimed his torchlight through the gap – and Amy let out a sharp cry of despair.

  CHAPTER 19

  STONE SCIENCE

  The huge, underground laboratory was impressive enough, but not exactly unexpected.

  What took Amy by surprise was that everything – every computer, workstation, cable, monitor and control panel, right down to the last button and rivet – was made out of solid rock.

  She had never seen anything like this. It looked like the world’s most incredible, most complicated sculpture.

  At the centre of the chamber was some kind of apparatus shaped like a giant, upturned spider. There was a round, central machine covered with technological components, with
a number of thick support girders radiating out and up towards the ceiling.

  The whole thing was surrounded by a number of heavy cables and power lines that trailed across the floor, plugged into various sockets and machines.

  The Doctor stepped straight into the stone laboratory, his boots echoing around the cathedral-like space. His torchlight roved around the pale rock, picking out controls, computer banks – and then a man’s face.

  Amy gasped again – and then realised that, of course, the man was made out of rock. As still and lifeless as everything else down here.

  ‘I’ll never look at the moon in the same way again,’ she said.

  The Doctor examined the stone man. ‘Caught in the transformation wave. Just like the others upstairs.’

  ‘Did any of the scientists survive?’ Amy asked Chris.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m the only one.’

  The Doctor had moved to one of the main workstations. He scanned the computer with his sonic screwdriver, the green light playing eerily over the rocky surface. ‘Everything is stored in here, all the research data, experiments, everything. But it’s all turned to rock. The hard drives and flash memory – everything is rock.’

  ‘Going to be hard to access any of the data, then,’ Amy realised.

  ‘Hard – but not impossible. There are some civilisations, mainly in the Pron-Kalunka Galaxy, that use granite as the base matter for all their technology.’

  ‘And it works?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s very slow and a bit on the heavy side.’ The Doctor knelt down, examining the edge of one of the computers very closely. ‘But it does work. If I can just remove one of these memory sticks, I’m sure I could find a way to get the data out …’

  ‘I don’t like it down here,’ Chris said. ‘It all happened so quickly. The transformation was so fast … I was lucky not to be here when it happened.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Amy asked.

  Chris gave a humourless laugh. ‘I’d gone to start up the UV generators. They’re located in a side-room in the basement. It’s not far from here – but far enough.’

  The Doctor looked up, frowning. ‘Start up the UV generators? That was lucky.’

  ‘Not really.’ Chris shuddered as he remembered. ‘I heard it happen. Heard the shouts – the terrible grinding, cracking noise as anything and everything down here turned to stone. When I came back, I couldn’t believe my eyes.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Ran around the research centre in a panic. No one else here was left alive.’

  ‘What about the other scientists or their families and friends?’ asked Amy. ‘Didn’t anyone enquire?’

  ‘You have to understand that this is a top secret research project, Amy. Very few people know what we were doing or who was here. And the scientists are used to working down here without any contact with the outside world for days on end if they have to.’

  ‘But even so …’

  ‘Got it!’ The Doctor waved a sliver of moon rock in the air. ‘Flash drive from one of the main computers – now we can find out what happened!’

  Chris swallowed. ‘But I just told you what happened.’

  ‘I mean what really happened,’ said the Doctor.

  Amy looked curiously at the stone flash drive. It looked like an ordinary memory stick – only grey. ‘How are you going to use that? It won’t work if it’s turned to stone.’

  ‘Oh, I know a few tricks – and I’ve always got this.’ He produced his sonic screwdriver in the other hand. ‘And your mobile phone, please.’

  Amy sighed and handed over her phone. The Doctor sat cross-legged on the floor and got to work, opening up Amy’s phone first of all and then using the sonic screwdriver on the memory stick. ‘It’s just a case of finding the right data transference code between the flash drive and the phone …’

  ‘But how can the flash drive still work if it’s been turned to stone?’ wondered Chris.

  ‘All memory sticks use silicon microchip technology,’ explained the Doctor. ‘Silicon is a kind of rock. Now if I can create an interface between the chip and the display on the mobile …’

  The sonic screwdriver hummed busily and the green light reflected from the Doctor’s face in the darkness.

  Amy wandered around the gloomy lab. There was just enough light coming from the corridor outside to see her way around. She stepped over rocky cables and around stone computer banks, exploring the strange machinery at the centre of the chamber. ‘Is it safe to touch this, Doctor?’

  ‘Oh yes, perfectly,’ the Doctor replied without looking up from his work. ‘The moon stone in here is all utterly inactive. It only appears to be the mobile Rock Men that have the ability to transform. Huh. There’s a thought.’

  ‘What?’

  The Doctor concentrated on his task. ‘What? Oh, nothing. Like I said – just a thought. Let me carry on thinking it for a second …’

  Amy let her hand touch the stone machine, her fingers gliding over the smooth, cool surface as she walked around it. It was very dark on the other side, opposite the entrance. She held out her hand in front of her, unsure what was ahead. Then she touched a lumpy, rough shape that definitely wasn’t a machine.

  A startled gasp escaped from her lips as she realised what was in front of her.

  Towering over her in the darkness was a dark, humanoid silhouette – carved from solid moon rock.

  The Rock Man.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE HEART OF STONE

  The Rock Man glowered at her with sightless eyes. It was utterly still.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the Doctor, joining her quickly. He had been alerted by her sharp cry of shock. ‘Ah. The Rock Man.’ The Doctor scanned it quickly. ‘Dormant – luckily for us.’

  Amy backed carefully away from the massive figure. ‘It’s not like the others. You can tell the others were once people – scientists. But this is just all lumpy and …’

  ‘Not quite alien,’ finished the Doctor. ‘It’s something else entirely. Not human, not alien and not ordinary moon rock. And I think I know why.’

  He held up Amy’s mobile. The screen was scrolling through a huge amount of information.

  ‘I hope you’re not online,’ Amy joked. ‘That’ll cost me a fortune.’

  ‘No, this is information I’ve downloaded from the flash drive. Chris said they were researching into the effect of UV light on the electrostatic fields surrounding moon rock. That in itself wouldn’t trigger all this …’ The Doctor gestured around the stone lab, ‘… and it wouldn’t account for our rocky friend here. There had to be something else – something the scientists hadn’t bargained for.’

  ‘And you’ve found it?’

  ‘Yes – alien bacteria.’

  ‘Ew.’

  The Doctor’s fingers wiggled around in the air, full of enthusiasm for his subject. ‘Bacteria! Brought back from the moon in the rock samples. Not in every piece – maybe just one. But it’s very unusual bacteria – it’s 3.9 billion year-old bacteria, the remains of an ancient, extinct civilisation. It probably arrived on the moon in its infancy, on a meteorite –’ the Doctor pounded a fist into his other hand to demonstrate the impact, ‘boom! And it’s been dormant ever since – trapped in the freezing dark on the airless surface of the moon. Some bacteria can live for decades – centuries even – and space-travelling bacteria even longer. Has to, if there’s to be any chance of survival. And that’s what this is all about – survival.’

  ‘But now it’s been brought to Earth from the moon,’ Amy said, trying to follow the Doctor’s train of thought.

  ‘Yes, the Apollo astronauts must have picked up a piece of rock infected with this dormant space bacteria. It’s been on Earth for years now – until suddenly the scientists here got hold of the rock and started bombarding it with ultraviolet light.’ The Doctor’s eyes lit up with excitement. ‘And bingo!’

  ‘The bacteria wakes up?’

  ‘The bacteria wakes up!’ The Doctor’s e
xpression hardened in the gloom. ‘And it gets to work – controlling the electrostatic field contained in the moon rock, absorbing the UV rays and building itself a new body based on the first animal organism it’s come into contact with in nearly four billion years.’

  Amy’s eyes widened. ‘Human beings.’

  ‘And so we have our lumpy Rock Man friend here.’ The Doctor tapped the figure on the chest.

  ‘But why change everything else into moon rock?’

  ‘The bacteria is wild, uncontrollable. It’s triggering molecular change at a fantastic, uncontrollable rate – trying to recreate an environment in which it feels at home.’

  ‘So where’s home?’

  ‘Well, where’s it been living for the past few billion years?’

  ‘The moon.’

  ‘Exactly. Good enough to call home now, I’d say.’ The Doctor’s deep-set eyes disappeared beneath a frown. ‘But there’s one question that remains.’

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘What on Earth does it want with Ralph Conway’s farm?’

  ‘I think I know the answer to that,’ said Chris. It was the first time he’d spoken for some time. He was leaning against the doorway, partly silhouetted by the light outside.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘I should think you do.’

  ‘The creature was after this,’ Chris said. His voice sounded dull, as if he’d given up.

  In his hand was a strangely shaped lump of grey rock.

  ‘A piece of moon stone?’ Amy queried.

  Chris threw it to Amy. She caught it and then turned the rock around in her hands, angling it towards the light. ‘It’s shaped like a heart,’ she said.

  ‘Is this the original rock?’ wondered the Doctor. He stepped closer and scanned the stone with his sonic screwdriver. The green light glinted off the grainy surface.

  ‘Sample 247,’ Chris said quietly. ‘The Heart of Stone.’

  ‘Figures,’ said Amy.

  ‘That’s what we nicknamed it anyway. It must have contained the space bacteria you mentioned, Doctor.’

  Amy gulped. ‘Is it OK to handle it, then?’