The Slitheen Excursion

by Simon Guerrier

  ‘Cecrops,’ she said as he reached her. ‘Where do they lock up the rest of the competitors?’

  Cosmo stood in the map room, surrounded by torn-open machines. He gurgled with frustration as he tried to fuse wires together, then slapped the large box he had taken apart. The Doctor skidded in behind him.

  Cosmo threw him an angry glance. ‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ he said. ‘I don’t need any help.’

  ‘And you’re doing very well,’ said the Doctor coming to join him, squatting down amid the tangled mess of wires and components. ‘Can’t be easy without the temporal drive. What are you using for the power supply?’

  Cosmo shrugged. ‘The distress signal has its own reserve,’ he said.

  ‘I’m going to have to commandeer it,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Sorry, I need the power. Otherwise we’re all going to get wet. There’s this huge tidal wave on the way.’

  Cosmo blinked at him but the Doctor had already started work, feverishly lashing the wires together, his sonic screwdriver buzzing. His natural authority made Cosmo hesitate before interrupting.

  ‘But we have to send the distress signal,’ said Cosmo. ‘Or we’ll be stuck here for ever.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ the Doctor told him. ‘I’ll make sure you get home.’

  Cosmo nodded. ‘But Mamps will be cross if I don’t do what she tells me.’

  A thought struck the Doctor. He smiled at Cosmo and started patching two wires together that would short out the whole system. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘If there’s any power left from the force field, you can have it back.’

  Cosmo considered. ‘But will a distress signal get through a force field?’ he asked.

  ‘If I rig it up right,’ the Doctor told him, his fingers working quickly as he fused another component to his machine. ‘We’ll make it one way, so anything can get out but nothing can get in.’

  ‘Ooh,’ said Cosmo. ‘That’s clever.’ He leaned in to examine the Doctor’s handiwork and noticed the error he’d worked in. ‘But you’re doing it the wrong way round.’

  ‘Am I?’ said the Doctor, innocently. He let Cosmo take over. ‘Tell you what,’ he went on. ‘You make that work and I’ll get the distress signal working.’

  June followed Cecrops into the dark corridor of the humans’ quarters. They were more like stables than bedrooms, berths of wood stacked up together, lined with straw and rags. It stank of too many people squeezed into too small a place, with little concern for hygiene. But the place was empty, the cell doors hanging open, the locks broken on each one. June and Cecrops hurried on.

  They emerged from the dark into a flat, open space, encircled by high walls. It looked like the exercise yard of a prison in a movie. For a moment, June felt as if she was in a film, as she watched a large group of people in their various historical costumes clustered at the centre, busy practising dance moves. She saw Herse, Polos and Vik, and several of the people who’d taken part in the re-enactment of the Platonic War. They waved at her, delighted she’d chosen to join them.

  As June and Cecrops hurried over to them, June saw Deukalion directing. He had a kylix of wine in his hand.

  ‘Hi,’ he said grandly as he saw them coming.

  June didn’t know where to start. ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to sing a story,’ said Deukalion proudly. ‘This lot are going to make it look good.’

  ‘But,’ said June, perplexed, ‘why?’

  ‘Well,’ said Deukalion. ‘The masters are stuck here now. So we need to show them a good time. Instead of the games, we can have a party, feed them, sing them our stories.’

  June gawped.

  Ash drifted down onto the dancers, nestling in their hair. ‘And who’s daft idea was that?’

  ‘Mine,’ Deukalion beamed. ‘It’s much better than trying to drive the masters into the sea. That’s what Aglauros and Pandrosos wanted to do. Not their fault; I think Actaeus ordered it. He didn’t know about us all working together.’

  Cecrops smiled. ‘But you convinced them otherwise,’ he said.

  ‘We don’t have any kings with us,’ said Deukalion, ‘so we had to make the decision ourselves. Everyone made their own decision, and we counted up the results.’

  ‘You voted?’ said June, amazed.

  ‘Is that what it’s called? It was pretty close, to be honest, but the majority said we should look after the masters rather than trying to kill them. Hence the dance routine. It’s us working together.’

  ‘It’s very well organised,’ agreed Cecrops. June thought he’d be wowed by a human eating a boiled egg.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Deukalion.

  ‘Not all of you,’ said June. ‘Where are Aglauros and Pandrosos?’

  Deukalion looked all round. ‘Um,’ he said. ‘Sulking, I guess. Along with all the other people who wanted to go to war. I don’t think they’re really into the performing arts.’

  June felt her heart turn over. She couldn’t believe the two warrior princesses would ever surrender so easily. She turned to Cecrops. ‘We’ve got to get back to the courtyard,’ she told him. ‘They’re going to do something stupid.’

  Around them, beyond the high walls looming over the yard, they heard a horrendous growl of noise.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE DOCTOR AND Cosmo walked out onto the balcony to a chorus of applause. Behind the alien tourists, far beyond the citadel walls, an enormous tidal wave surged over the coastline. White spray exploded high over the landscape, the trees and grassland lost under dark, fast-moving water.

  The aliens hurried round the citadel walls to watch the flood seethe and gnash towards them. Cosmo cheered as a small clump of stone dwellings was entirely consumed. But then he saw the Doctor’s dark expression and his grin faded from his face.

  ‘We’re going to be safe, aren’t we?’ he said.

  ‘I think so,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘We’ll see. But there could have been tens of thousands of people in the path of that wave.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cosmo nervously. ‘But we’re going to be safe.’

  They made their way to join the alien tourists at the wall. Dark water filled the landscape, still surging quickly their way. It picked over trees and shrubs, pooling in the valleys, filling them flat and then coming on. They saw sheep and goats hurrying from the deluge, trying to find high ground. But there was no high ground. The water surged around the hill of the citadel itself, rising up and up, licking the stone walls.

  Cosmo giggled in terror as they joined Mamps and Leeb. But the Doctor looked confident as he watched the water reach up over the top of the wall. The Slitheen squealed together, then broke into a laugh. The water continued to rise past the top level of the wall. It didn’t spill over the wall, it just kept rising high into the air, pressing against the invisible barrier. They soon looked out, as if through glass, into the murky swirl. Bits of rock and tree bumped up against the barrier and were then lost again in the gloom.

  The alien tourists applauded and took pictures. Some brave souls reached hands or tentacles over the citadel walls. They could press through the barrier, touch the water, feel it warm and wet. But when they withdrew again, their hands and tentacles were dry.

  The Doctor beamed. ‘Yeah,’ he told Cosmo. ‘We’re going to be safe.’

  ‘You mean you weren’t sure?’ said Cosmo, appalled.

  The Doctor grinned. ‘Well, not a hundred per cent. But congratulations. You did that.’

  Cosmo glanced back at the wall of water, already falling away, then at Mamps and Leeb. ‘Yes,’ he said proudly. ‘So I did.’

  ‘When the water dies away,’ the Doctor told them sternly, ‘we start getting the tourists out. You pack up and go home.’

  ‘Do we now?’ said Mamps.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ said the Doctor. ‘Enough is enough. Too many people have died.’

  ‘No one that matters,’ said Mamps.

  But before the Doctor could respond there was a cry from behind t
hem.

  The alien tourists gazed in horror over the citadel walls as the water fell back. Mamps ran forward to see what had appalled them. The flood had churned up the landscape, ripped out all the trees. Bodies of sheep and cows lay broken in the mud. What had been just a moment before a beautiful landscape now looked like a vision of hell.

  One of the alien tourists began to take pictures, the bulb of the flash vivid in the night. A few others reached for their cameras, too, but they were all utterly silent as they took in the awful sight.

  ‘The party’s over,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’ll tell their friends what you did.’

  ‘But we didn’t do anything!’ said Mamps. She addressed the tourists. ‘You know this wasn’t us! It was that group of humans!’

  The tourists shifted uncomfortably. One of the Balumin came forward, a pale blue creature with long tentacles painted in lurid tattoos. ‘Yes,’ it said, ‘but only because of the way you’d been treating them.’

  ‘You’re just as bad as they are,’ chipped in another alien.

  ‘You’re worse,’ said a third. ‘Imagine that! Worse than a human!’

  The aliens twittered with horror at this revelation. Mamps and Leeb tried to placate them, but couldn’t make themselves heard. The aliens demanded their money back and said they’d write to the news networks.

  Mamps turned on the Doctor. ‘You ruined everything!’ she seethed.

  ‘Whoops,’ he told her, grinning.

  ‘The humans are barbarians. They burned whole worlds in the Platonic Wars.’

  ‘There were terrible things done on both sides,’ said the Doctor sadly. ‘And it doesn’t mean you can wipe them from history.’

  ‘But if we don’t,’ said Mamps, ‘the humans wipe out the Slitheen.’

  The Doctor blinked at her. ‘Do they?’ he said. ‘Since when?’

  ‘We’ve travelled in time,’ Mamps pleaded. ‘We’ve seen what gets done.’

  ‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘I’m sure I can have a word. Humans are very amenable, if only you talk to them nicely.’

  ‘Doctor!’ yelled June. He turned and saw her and Cecrops heading towards him across the balcony.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘This is my friend June. She’s nice.’ Alien tourists crowded round, keen to meet her.

  ‘Doctor,’ said June, pressing her way through the crowd. ‘Aglauros and Pandrosos. They’re raising an army.’

  ‘What?’ said the Doctor.

  The alien tourists muttered with fear at the idea of a human army.

  ‘See?’ crowed Mamps. ‘And they took no prisoners in the Platonic War. A baaraddelskelliumfatrexius can’t change its pustules.’

  ‘But I told them not to fight!’ the Doctor insisted. Then he stopped. ‘A what?’

  ‘A baaraddelskelliumfatrexius,’ said Mamps. ‘It’s a beast on our home planet. Sort of like a giant squirrel. Extinct now, but they used to have pustules.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that,’ said the Doctor. ‘Look, be fair, the humans do have a lot to be cross about. But I’ll talk to them. Make this right.’ He turned to June. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ June admitted.

  ‘Over there,’ said Cecrops.

  They turned.

  An army of humans had assembled in silence on the far side of the balcony, blocking their escape. The humans were dressed in the same daft historical clothes as before, but they’d added bits of armour, metal shin pads and boars’ tusk helmets, where they’d been able to scrounge them. Those at the front carried tall, oblong shields, on which were painted the same crude logo – a human stick man back-flipping over a bull. The alien tourists huddled together in fear.

  ‘Hey,’ said the Doctor indignantly. ‘That’s me on those shields. You can’t use me as your emblem if you’re going to fight.’

  One of the warriors stepped forward. Aglauros looked terrifying in her hotchpotch armour, a boars’ tusk helmet wedged on her head. ‘You showed us we could resist the masters,’ she declared.

  ‘But you weren’t here for that bit,’ he replied. ‘I showed you not to fight.’

  Aglauros shook her head sadly. ‘The masters are masters no more,’ she said. ‘I promised my dead father.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about Actaeus,’ said the Doctor. ‘But this really isn’t the way . . .’

  ‘If you’re not with us,’ said Aglauros, ‘you’re with them. And we have vowed to show them no mercy.’

  ‘Now hang on just a moment—’ began the Doctor.

  ‘Oh, let them come,’ gurgled Leeb. He and Mamps and Cosmo stepped forward to face the human army. ‘I’ve not killed anything since this morning!’

  ‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’ve got this all wrong!’

  But the humans were already charging.

  NINETEEN

  LEEB RAISED ONE claw at the humans racing towards him. He clicked the controls on the bracelet at his wrist, but the Doctor launched himself at the huge Slitheen, knocking his arm so that the death beam fired high over Aglauros’ head.

  Leeb struggled with the Doctor, trying to grab him. The Doctor couldn’t escape, so he leapt right at Leeb. They both toppled over the balcony to crash down in the sand of the arena below.

  The wave of humans broke on the alien tourists. Some of the aliens stood their ground, sweeping claws and tentacles at their attackers. Mamps and Cosmo were laughing as they waded through the human shield, warriors screaming as they were trampled and cut down.

  ‘Doctor!’ yelled June, running to the railing. The Doctor lay in the sand, unmoving. Leeb got unsteadily to his feet and raised his claws above the Doctor’s head. June could do nothing – and then something moved suddenly beside her. Cecrops threw himself over the railing of the balcony to slap hard onto Leeb’s back. They tumbled over in the sand and were up again quickly to face off against each other.

  ‘You’re dead, fish boy,’ Leeb taunted.

  Cecrops didn’t say anything. Leeb charged, Cecrops rolled back on his tail and let Leeb smash into the wall of the arena.

  June laughed, and ducked her head as a tentacle whipped towards her. A blobby creature fought a man with two swords, blocking and parrying as they danced back and forth. June struggled to get out of their way.

  Half the alien tourists had joined the fight, the other half cowering behind them. June caught sight of Pandrosos duelling with Cosmo, her sword clattering against his claws.

  ‘You’ve got to stop!’ she shouted. ‘We won’t get anywhere like this!’

  ‘Who’s side are you on, girl?’ growled a soldier in front of her.

  ‘I’m not on anyone’s side,’ she insisted. ‘There shouldn’t even be any sides.’

  No one listened. She ducked and weaved through the fighting, trying to get to the steps that led down to the arena. Her only hope, she felt sure, was to get to the Doctor. A human man cried out as Mamps slashed her claws through him. Then the great Slitheen turned on Aglauros, who dodged nimbly from the talons as they swept her way. To June’s horror, Aglauros and Mamps were both grinning, enjoying every moment of this.

  She reached the stairs, clambering past a human soldier lying face down on the steps. June grabbed the banister and jumped over him, landing so hard in the sand that she lost her footing. Rolling forward, she missed a spear that thwacked into the ground where she’d stood. She looked up, around, but couldn’t tell which of the tangled combatants had thrown it. Her bare feet ached but she had to keep moving.

  Leeb and Cecrops circled round one another in the middle of the arena. The Doctor lay on the floor to one side and June hurried towards him. Leeb slashed at Cecrops, who hopped back, lifting himself on his hands and slapping the Slitheen hard in the face with his tail. Leeb fell backwards, flipped nimbly over and was back on his feet again.

  June reached the Doctor, grabbing his shoulder to turn him over on his back. His face was covered in sand, which she tried to scrape away. Suddenly his eyes snapped open.

  ‘Ow,’ he said indignantly
.

  ‘You fell off the balcony,’ she told him.

  He sat up, waving her off. ‘No, ow, you’re rubbing sand in my face.’

  ‘I was rubbing it off.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh, well, that’s all right then. Good on you. What have I missed?’

  ‘Everyone’s gone mad,’ she said as he looked all round. The Doctor got quickly to his feet, trying to work out where to start. Leeb slashed at Cecrops and just caught him on the arm. Cecrops yelled out in pain and toppled backwards.

  Leeb leered, taking a step towards his fallen adversary. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist, the one that fired the death ray. And the bracelet wasn’t there.

  ‘Looking for this?’ asked the Doctor. He held the bracelet in his hands.

  ‘That’s mine,’ seethed Leeb. ‘Give it here.’

  ‘It’s for molecular repurposing, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor, fiddling with the controls. ‘You use it to turn sand into drinks and nibbles.’

  ‘Give it here,’ Leeb insisted, swiping at the Doctor, who ducked quickly out of the way.

  ‘I just want a go,’ said the Doctor. He grinned. ‘All this physical exercise,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it make you hungry?’ Before Leeb could respond, he aimed the bracelet at the sand and pressed the little button.

  The sand exploded with pink light just in front of Leeb. He cried out as objects smashed into his legs and belly. Cakes and biscuits slapped against him, knocking him backwards a step at a time. The more he retreated, the more the cakes and biscuits came.

  ‘Waaah!’ he wailed, protecting his face with his claws. Biscuits smacked his shoulders. He hit the back wall of the arena and still the biscuits came. Leeb fell on his knees, sobbing, and was quickly buried under a cairn of cakes.

  ‘You killed him,’ said Cecrops in amazement, getting up off the ground.

  ‘Nah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Just pinned him down for a bit. Taken him out of the game.’