The Taking of Chelsea 426

by Doctor Who

  The Doctor stepped forward, raising his finger in anger, but still managing to hold himself back.

  'If you harm just one of them...'

  'You'll do what, exactly, Doctor? As warlike as your people may have been, I don't believe you have the nerve to do anything truly radical. You could have struck me then, but you didn't. If I were you, Doctor, I would leave while you still have the chance.'

  The Doctor nodded, still shaking with anger. He turned his back on General Kade and walked towards the door.

  As he left the Mayor's office, Kade called out, 'How does it feel, Doctor? How does it feel to have been outwitted by the Sontarans?'

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  They sat and waited in the darkness. Beyond the heavily bolted cupboard door they heard the sounds of the shop being torn apart: shelves ripped down, boxes overturned, the cash register being smashed into pieces and its contents jangling out onto the wooden floor.

  They had sat and waited, silently, as the Sontarans came in and arrested Mrs Pemberton, dragging her out of the shop, screaming her husband's name to no avail.

  Typical Sontarans, thought Mr Pemberton. They turned every stone but never thought to break down a cupboard door. If they had, they would have discovered him and Wallace, hiding in the shadows.

  Only when there had been silence for several minutes did they step out of the cupboard and into the ruins of

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  the shop, ensuring that they were out of view from the windows.

  'We're receiving word from Mrs Carstairs,' said Mr Pemberton gravely. 'She and Mr Carstairs have been captured, but the children have not.'

  'Really?' said Wallace. That's interesting.'

  'Quite,' said Mr Pemberton. 'It appears the children have been rescued by the Doctor, and taken to his TARDIS.'

  The TARDIS? It's here? In the colony?'

  'Well, of course. There's a chance they're still there.

  In the hotel.'

  Wallace nodded thoughtfully.

  'We understand our thinking?' said Mr Pemberton.

  'We certainly do,' said Wallace. The Carstairs girl?'

  'Exactly,' said Mr Pemberton. 'She's taken quite a fancy to young Wallace, hasn't she?'

  'She has.'

  'We could use that to our advantage, could we not?'

  'Certainly.'

  'A TARDIS. In our possession. It would enable us to leave this wretched colony and travel anywhere in the universe. Anywhere in time.'

  That would be agreeable.'

  There was a long silence between the two of them.

  Somewhere out in Miramont Gardens they could hear the sound of Sontarans, marching, and so they both ducked down and hid behind the counter.

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  'Use the ducts,' said Mr Pemberton. They won't catch us in the ducts.'

  'Where do you think they are?' said Vienna, pacing back and forth in the console room of the TARDIS.

  'I dunno,' said Jake with a shrug. He was sat in one corner, idly going through the contents of an old crate he had found. All it contained, as far as he could make out, was old junk: a paperback novel, a glowing green ball and what looked like a frisbee.

  'You sound like you don't care,' said Vienna.

  Jake turned to his sister and scowled.

  'I do care,' he said, 'but what can we do about it?'

  'We should be out there,' his sister replied. 'We shouldn't be stuck in here waiting for the Doctor to come back. How do we even know he's coming back?'

  'I trust him,' said Jake.

  'Yeah? We don't even know him, not really. I mean...

  Who is he exactly? Look at this place! On the outside it's, like, this big.' She held her finger and thumb a fraction apart. 'But on the inside it's huge. That's just not normal. Where did he come from?'

  'I don't know,' said Jake. 'But he said he'd look after us, and that he'd help Mum and Dad, and I trust him.'

  'Yeah, well you would, wouldn't you? You're too busy daydreaming...'

  'Now, now,' said the Major, stirring from a pensive silence. 'What use is a lot of brouhaha going to be?'

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  The twins looked at him in unison with exactly the same resentful frown.

  'Listen,' said the Major, getting to his feet with a grunt. 'You can argue till you're both blue in the face, but it won't solve anything. Not now. This reminds me of the time we were stranded on one of the moons of Mercutio 14—'

  'Yeah,' interrupted Jake. 'We've heard this one. You were clinging to the raft like limpets..."

  'Quite right,' said the Major, regardless. 'Clinging to the raft like limpets. Ten of us.'

  He stood between the twins now, at the edge of the hexagonal console in the centre of the room.

  There were arguments at first,' he said with a sad smile. 'Lots of bickering and whatnot. And the same thing occurred to all of us. It went unsaid, mind you.

  No need for us to get all girly and weepy in a situation like that, even the girls. We realised that there was no point. We had to stay focused on the task at hand, which was to get out of that dreadful swamp. When you're stuck in a situation like that, it's working together that will get you out, not shouting at one another like a load of hooligans.

  'For what it's worth, I'm with young Jake, here. That Doctor seems to know a thing or two, and I trust him.

  Now if we just sit tight I'm sure it'll all be over in time for afternoon tea. Just you wait and see.'

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  The ventilation grill shuddered and shook and, with a final nudge from inside the air duct, came tumbling down into the hotel lobby.

  * With the grace and agility of a gymnast, Wallace lowered himself from the duct and dropped down behind the reception desk.

  The coast was clear - no Sontarans anywhere to be seen - and so he was able to quite calmly go about the business of finding the spare key card for the Doctor's hotel room in a cupboard behind the desk, before making his way to the elevators.

  He took the elevator up as far as the floor where Mrs Carstairs had told him telepathically the Doctor was staying. With every passing second, their power to communicate with one another by thought alone grew stronger.

  Stepping out into the corridor he saw, halfway down it, a Sontaran soldier lying on its back, quite unconscious. Wallace made his way gingerly along the corridor and stepped over the body before approaching the door to the Doctor's hotel room.

  He swiped the key card in the reader next to the door. A tiny light changed from red to green, and he entered the room.

  It was empty.

  There were the usual furnishings - the bed, a dressing table and chair, a smaller table with a lamp -

  but there was no TARDIS. In a state of increasing panic, Wallace

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  sent his thoughts out across the colony to Mrs Carstairs, who could only reiterate that he was in the room where the TARDIS was being kept.

  Wallace thought for a moment, and then, from the pocket of his apron, he produced a small plastic handset. He dialled a code and waited.

  Inside the TARDIS there was a sudden, inexplicable ringing sound.

  'What's that?' said the Major. 'Sounds like a blimmin'

  telephone. On a spaceship? Has the world gone mad?'

  Jake looked at Vienna. The sound was coming from her, and his sister was blushing. With an embarrassed shrug, she reached into her pocket and produced a chatcom.

  'You've got a chatcom?' said Jake. 'Do Mum and Dad know you've got one of those?'

  Vienna shook her head.

  They don't?' Jake continued, and then, with a degree of pleasure, 'Oh, you are so dead when they find out.

  You are going to be grounded for, like, a year or something.'

  Vienna scowled at him and answered the call.

  'Wallace?' she said, half-excited and half-cautiou
s.

  'But where are you? They haven't? But...'

  She paused, her expression gradually turning to one of concern.

  The Doctor, that man who was with us, he said you're one of them. You said those words... The same 154

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  words as Mr Pemberton. The Doctor said that all these alien... things... He said they all say the same words.

  And you said them, Wallace. You did.'

  There was a long pause. Jake could just about hear the muffled sound of Wallace at the other end of the line.

  'Really?' said Vienna, smiling awkwardly. 'You mean that? You promise me you aren't?'

  What was his sister talking about? What was Wallace saying to her? Jake was becoming increasingly frustrated that he couldn't hear both sides of the conversation.

  'OK,' said Vienna. 'OK... We're in room 237. The Doctor moved his ship to keep us safe.'

  'What are you doing?' Jake hissed, getting to his feet and lunging for the chatcom in his sister's hand.

  'It's all right!' said Vienna, pulling it away, out of his reach. 'Wallace is OK. He's not one of them.'

  'How do you know?'

  'Because he promised me. He just heard Mr Pemberton saying that line, so he started saying it too.

  He's not one of those aliens that the Doctor was talking about. He's coming here now.'

  'Oh, really?' said Jake. 'And who says so?'

  'I do,' said Vienna. 'We can't just leave him out there.

  Those things might get him.'

  Jake sneered and started walking around his sister with an exaggerated feminine wiggling of his hips.

  'Oh,' he said, his voice whining and snide, 'I'm Vienna Carstairs and I can do what I want because my boyfriend

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  wants to be in the spaceship with me so we can hug and kiss and cuddle. Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah Vienna lifted her hand to slap her brother's face, but they were interrupted by a knocking at the door.

  That'll be Wallace,' said Vienna. 'And if you say anything, I swear...'

  'If you swear, I'll tell Mum you swore,' said Jake.

  'I mean it,' said Vienna, crossing over to the main door. She opened it, and Wallace stepped in. He seemed to Jake more confident and more cheerful than he'd ever been inside Mr Pemberton's shop, especially considering what was going on in the colony outside.

  When Wallace saw the Major he paused and laughed nervously.

  'What's he doing here?'

  'He's coming with us,' said Vienna. The Doctor's going to take us somewhere where it's safe. We think.'

  'He is, actually,' said Jake. Looking over to the Major he saw that the old man was frowning.

  'Wallace, is it?' the Major asked, getting up from where he sat and making his way slowly across the TARDIS.

  'Yes...' Wallace replied, cagily.

  The Major looked over to Jake once more, and shook his head.

  'What is it?' asked Vienna. 'What's wrong? It's Wallace! You can see that it's him.'

  'It's not,' said Jake. 'Look at him, Vienna... Look at him.'

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  Wallace's eyes darted from side to side, from Jake to the Major. His lips curled back in a sneer, baring his teeth, and he lifted up his hands like talons, balls of blinding white light glowing at his fingertips. He aimed his fingers at Jake and let out a terrifying howl, but before he could do another thing the Major had charged forward and wrestled him to the ground.

  Together the old man and the boy rolled across the floor, cocooned in a shuddering ball of crackling energy, until Wallace broke free and got to his feet. The Major lay paralysed on the ground, his breath little more than a rattle.

  'Wallace?' said Vienna, horrified. 'What have you done?'

  'Oh, do hush,' snapped Wallace. 'With any luck we've killed him. Now where is the Doctor?'

  Vienna shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Jake looked down at where the Major lay, still struggling for breath, and launched himself at Wallace, his hands reaching out as if he might strangle him.

  Wallace flicked his hand toward Jake with the slightest of gestures, and a thin bolt of zigzagging energy sent the younger boy reeling.

  Wallace turned back to Vienna.

  'Now,' he said, more coldly than before. 'Where. Is.

  The. Doctor?'

  'I'm here,' said a voice from the doorway.

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  Wallace turned on his heels and saw the Doctor standing inside the TARDIS. He had closed the door silently behind him, and was now leaning against it.

  'So,' said the Doctor, 'this is what's become of the Rutan Host after more than fifty thousand years of endless war, is it? Attacking old men and using teenage boys to do their dirty work for them?'

  'What would you know of our kind?' said Wallace, leering at the Doctor.

  'Oh, enough,' said the Doctor. 'Enough to know that you're more intelligent than the Sontarans, however pretentious they get. Enough to know that even when you're winning this war you never really enjoy it like they do, do you? I mean... The Sontarans... They love it.

  They love war. But the Rutans? No... You're different.

  So why do you do it?

  'Do you know what I think? I think you do it out of boredom, and to make yourselves feel superior. There are billions - and I mean billions - of sentient life forms out there to pick a fight with, and you pick the Sontarans. It's kind of like playing chess with a lobster, really. OK... Not a brilliant analogy, but you get my drift.

  And yet you carry on doing it, because it makes you feel oh so important and clever.'

  'Very insightful, Doctor,' said Wallace, lifting up his hand, the fingers splayed. 'And you may be right.

  Perhaps victory over the Sontarans will be too easy, in the end. Imagine how much greater our victory will be 158

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  when we have killed the last of the Time Lords...'

  He thrust his hand forward with a sudden jerk but nothing happened; no bolts of electricity, no flash of energy. Wallace looked down at his hand and frowned.

  'Oh, that's another thing,' said the Doctor. 'I also know that this spore version of yourselves that you've engineered... It had to survive in Saturn's atmosphere for almost five centuries. To do that, it had to breathe ammonia.'

  'But how...?' said Wallace. He was now looking weaker, his body hunching forward, his breaths getting shorter by the second.

  The smell,' said the Doctor. 'Noticed it when I first set foot on Chelsea 426. Not pleasant. The locals probably hadn't noticed it... You don't when you're around it all day. Like when somebody smokes. They can't smell the smoke, but everyone else can.

  The thing is, the TARDIS isn't a part of the colony, is it? The door's shut, and the air conditioning in this thing is second to none. Any whiff of something just a little bit nasty and it's straight out through the vents.

  You're running out of air.'

  'What?' said Wallace, now struggling to breathe. 'But you can't... you can't do this..."

  'Oh, I can,' said the Doctor, standing over Wallace as the young boy curled up on the floor, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish out of water. 'I asked you to leave these people alone when I was talking to Mrs

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  Carstairs. You can remember that, can't you? Shared memories and all the rest of it. I asked you to leave, and you didn't.'

  Vienna ran across the console room and knelt beside Wallace. She looked up at the Doctor, crying and red with anger.

  'What are you doing to him?' she demanded. 'You're killing him...'

  'I'm not,' said the Doctor. 'It's the Rutan spores.

  They're dying.'

  Wallace looked up at the Doctor, his eyes narrowing malignantly, and laughed with what little breath he had.

  'You'll regret this, Doctor,' he said. 'You will regret this.'


  His eyes closed, and his head fell back onto the grilled metal floor of the TARDIS with a dull clank.

  'What have you done?' Vienna cried. 'What have you done to him?'

  The Doctor remained expressionless, walking around the console to where the Major lay clutching at his chest.

  'I'm sorry,' said the Doctor. 'I'm so sorry.'

  'Ah,' wheezed the Major. 'Don't mention it. Got hit worse than this in a dogfight over the Corinthian Archipelago. Can't say I'll pull through this time, though. How about the twins... Are they OK?'

  'Yes,' said the Doctor, smiling weakly. They're fine.

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  Thanks to you.'

  The Major smiled.

  That's good,' he said.

  He closed his eyes and winced in pain.

  'Well, Doctor, at least it wasn't one of them Sontarans that did me in, what? Little tyrants that they are with their funny little heads and their funny little ears.'

  The Doctor laughed softly.

  That's the thing with little ears though,' said the Major. 'Only takes a little sound to deafen 'em.'

  The Major held the Doctor's hand, squeezing it gently, and then he winked.

  'What does that mean?' asked the Doctor. 'Major?'

  'You'll work it out,' said the Major. 'Clever chap like yourself. Think I'll have a little nap, now. Feeling a little bushed, truth be told. Night, night, Doctor.'

  The Major laughed and coughed one last time, and then his eyes closed and his arm fell limp at his side.

  The Doctor ran one hand through his hair and let out a shuddering sigh. If only he had stayed with them, or returned from the Mayor's office just a few minutes earlier...

  'I don't believe it!'

  Vienna's voice interrupted his thoughts. The Doctor stood and, looking over the edge of the console, saw Wallace sitting upright, shaking his head as if he had been woken suddenly from a deep sleep.

  'What happened?' he asked, coughing and spluttering.

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  'Where am I? Where's Mr Pemberton?'

  'You were right,' said Vienna, looking up at the Doctor.

  The Doctor nodded.