The Slitheen Excursion

by Simon Guerrier

  ‘But those are just cakes,’ said June.

  ‘Rock cakes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Heaviest thing I could think of. Come on. We’ve got to stop everyone else.’

  Bodies blocked their way up the steps, so the Doctor got Cecrops and June to put their arms round him and pointed the bracelet at the sand at their feet. They rocketed up on a spire of rock cakes and pink steam, taking some of the fighters by surprise. June felt a mile high as she, Cecrops and the Doctor leapt from the spire down onto the balcony. The balcony felt sticky under her bare feet. Aliens and humans stopped to stare.

  The Doctor took the opportunity to step neatly between Mamps and Aglauros, grabbing Aglauros’ sword out of her hand. He held the sword in one hand and raised the bracelet in the other. Mamps took a swipe at him but he dodged easily out of the way.

  ‘Now, now,’ he chided. ‘This bracelet does funny things to sand. I wonder what it could do to a calcium-based life form.’

  Mamps stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘You wouldn’t,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t force me,’ he said. ‘I thought we could have a natter. Oi,’ he shouted at the rest of the fighters. ‘Time out, if you please!’

  Around them, June saw the fighting stop as humans and tourists turned to watch the stand-off between the two leaders. A lion-faced man with wings like an eagle’s even let the human women he’d been fighting step round him for a better view.

  ‘Right,’ said the Doctor. ‘Aglauros. Hello, that’s a pretty outfit. Tell Mamps here that you’re sorry.’

  ‘What?’ said Aglauros in horror. ‘I would rather die.’

  ‘I’d be happy to oblige,’ gurgled Mamps.

  ‘Oh,’ said the Doctor, surprised. ‘Really? They’re not masters any more. I thought that’s what you wanted.’

  ‘We want all the masters dead,’ said Aglauros. And she drew a dagger from a scabbard at her waist and lunged at the Doctor.

  He parried with the sword he’d taken from her, but Aglauros twisted round and slashed at him again. The Doctor dodged, bumping into Mamps. ‘Sorry,’ he said as he blocked another attack from Aglauros.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ grinned Mamps. ‘Let me know if I can be of any assistance.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ said the Doctor as he and Aglauros slashed and parried their way through the aliens and soldiers. ‘But this is stupid!’ said the Doctor as they went.

  Aglauros snarled at him. ‘Death to the masters!’ she shouted. ‘Death to those who help the masters!’

  To June’s horror, Aglauros’ army took up the shout, turning again on the alien tourists. Battle resumed, more bitterly than before. A lumbering alien crashed into June as it dodged round a man with a spear. She recovered herself in time to see Cecrops, backed up against the wall by Pandrosos.

  ‘Death to the masters,’ Pandrosos told him.

  ‘But I’m really into human beings,’ Cecrops tried to tell her.

  June cried out as Pandrosos lunged her sword at Cecrops. There was a metallic clang.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Deukalion, holding Pandrosos’ sword back with his own. ‘He’s with me. Got a problem with that?’

  Pandrosos stepped back, twisted round and slashed at him. Deukalion blocked her without even trying. He held his sword in one hand, Pandrosos gripped hers in two. Their swords slashed and clacked and clanged as Deukalion kept her from Cecrops.

  ‘You’re on the wrong side!’ Pandrosos seethed.

  ‘You’re attacking people who don’t even have weapons,’ said Deukalion. ‘That just isn’t fair.’

  Cecrops escaped from behind Deukalion and slithered quickly over to June. ‘Look,’ he said. She turned to see Herse and Polos protecting the lion-faced man from two human soldiers. The lion-faced man seemed even more appalled to be rescued by humans than attacked by them.

  Across the balcony, the Doctor and Aglauros continued to duel. The Doctor leapt for the tall spire of rock cakes, skidding down the side to land in the arena. Aglauros was hot on his heels. They danced over the sand, cutting and thrusting, neither finding an advantage.

  Humans and alien tourists still clashed swords and talons up on the balcony. But Deukalion’s friends were slowly getting between them.

  Two of them even guarded Mamps. June saw her shake her huge head in exasperation.

  ‘I was enjoying that,’ Mamps opined to Cosmo. ‘Why do we all have to be so rational?’

  Then she gestured for Cosmo to come closer, whispering something in his ear. June nudged Cecrops and they both ducked round the various soldiers to follow Cosmo as he hurried away.

  They left the quieting battle as Cosmo charged down one of the corridors and into the strange labyrinth of guest rooms. He ducked round a corner ahead of them and they hurried to keep up.

  ‘We can’t lose him,’ June said. ‘He can’t be up to anything good.’

  The passageways jutted off at sharp angles and split off in all directions. They sometimes lost sight of Cosmo for a moment as he took a sudden turning. He and Cecrops could both outrun a human and June soon had a stitch.

  They lost sight of Cosmo just before a junction of three possible paths. Cecrops listened carefully, but they couldn’t tell which way Cosmo might have taken.

  ‘Split up?’ said June.

  ‘You can’t face him on your own,’ said Cecrops.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’ll scream if I need you.’

  Before he could argue, she ran off down the right passage. She glanced back to see him taking the left.

  She hurried up the gloomy passage, listening for any movement ahead. Round a corner, she found a long corridor of doors. Curtains shrouded each of the openings. The corridor ended in a wall, so she didn’t have much choice. She ran to the first of the doorways and poked her head round the curtain.

  A large, square bed filled most of the room. At least, she assumed it was a bed. It might also have been some kind of bath, filled with idly wriggling spaghetti. There was no sign of the Slitheen.

  June checked the next room and found an identical bed. Clothes lay scattered all round the floor, with a heap of dirty whites in the corner.

  She had checked four rooms when she heard Cecrops cry out. ‘June!’

  She fled back up the passageway in time to see Cosmo emerge from the one on the left. He had something bundled up in his claws, and when he saw her, his eyes opened wide. With a high, mewling cry he sprinted away from her, back up the way they had come.

  June didn’t follow him at first. ‘Cecrops?’ she called up the left passageway. ‘Cecrops, are you OK?’

  She didn’t get an answer.

  With a thrill of horror she started forward. ‘Cecrops, it’s OK. I’m coming!’

  She followed the passageway round to an identical corridor of doorways. One curtain had been slashed through, the long stripes of material flapping sadly down. Terrified of what she would find, she ran into the room.

  Cecrops lay sprawled in the bed of slowly wriggling worms. Three lines of red streaked down his shoulder and chest where Cosmo must have slashed him. He winced as the wriggling worm in his hand nosed around the first of the wounds. And when he opened his eyes he saw June.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he said to her. ‘Get after him, quick!’

  ‘Right,’ she said, too stunned to argue, and turned tail back out into the passageway. She ran, struggling to remember the route they had come in by, unable to stop to work it out. She felt stupid for not having paid more attention, and for the rage coursing through her at Cecrops. How dare he snap at her when she’d been making sure he was all right.

  Then, for a moment, she thought she’d got herself lost. The passageway didn’t mean anything to her. But again there came that strange, high-pitched wail, up ahead of her. She redoubled her pace.

  The passageway twisted once more and then she recognised the corridor that led into the arena. Cosmo skulked up ahead, cuddling whatever he’d stolen, just by the entrance to the arena. June tiptoed up behind him, but
he glanced back to look at her.

  ‘You can’t jump out on me,’ he giggled at her. ‘I could smell you from more than a mile away!’

  June stopped, instinctively sniffing to see what stink she gave off. Cosmo giggled and turned away from her. He bent, letting go of the bundle he’d been holding so carefully. Something lumpy fell out onto the ground, letting out a high-pitched wail as it fell. June ran forward to see as the thing landed with a bump on the floor. It sat for a moment, looking up at Cosmo in shock, and then let out a terrible cry.

  ‘Mummy!’ it wailed as June ran towards it. A little, lion-like face turned away from her, and it hurried away on four stumpy legs. The stumps of its nascent eagle wings waggled as it ran.

  ‘Aw,’ drooled Cosmo as it scurried away, ‘you scared the poor little thing.’

  He and June watched the little creature run out into the arena, past the pile of cakes and biscuits under which Leeb still lay. The Doctor and Aglauros still fought in the arena, their dance a little slower, more exhausted, but their skill still evident in every move.

  Above them, the alien tourists and humans let out a shared gasp of surprise. They seemed to have finished fighting each other and crowded round the railing to watch the Doctor and the princess. Aglauros turned to see the little creature hurrying towards her.

  ‘My baby!’ cried a woman’s voice from up on the balcony. And Aglauros dropped her dagger, running forward to snatch up the creature. June ran forward, out into the arena. The Doctor looked horrified and threw down his sword.

  ‘All right,’ he said, his arms out in submission. ‘I surrender. Please, let it go.’

  ‘My baby!’ wailed the woman on the balcony – the lion-faced woman June had spotted before. Her lion-faced partner hammered the railing.

  ‘Let him go!’ he yelled at Aglauros. ‘Wretched human! Let my son go.’

  Aglauros twirled round in the sand, a wicked smile on her face. The watching aliens and humans gazed on in wonder, terrified of what she might do. June hurried towards the woman and child, but the Doctor raised a hand to make her keep her distance.

  ‘Please,’ he said gently to Aglauros. ‘Look at him, he’s just a child.’

  Aglauros sneered at him without looking down. Then she yelled up at those watching above her.

  ‘I had a child!’ she told them. ‘And my child had a father. But the Slitheen killed them.’

  The watching audience gasped in horror. The lion-faced woman let out a cry.

  ‘They’ve taken everything,’ Aglauros went on, her voice wavering with grief. ‘The city I lived in, the king I obeyed, his people scattered in the wind. I have heard what you do in this citadel. We fight and die for your pleasure.’

  The aliens looked shame-faced, but June saw Mamps grinning with pleasure. She realised anything Aglauros did now gave the Slitheen free licence to wipe out all the humans. They’d argue they had no other choice – like putting down violent dogs.

  ‘Please,’ said the Doctor to Aglauros. ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘No,’ said June. ‘Do.’

  Aglauros snapped round to stare at her. She had a hand round the small creature’s throat. The Doctor didn’t dare get any nearer to her. But June took another step forward.

  ‘You’re right,’ she told the princess. ‘They’ve enslaved us for years. They’ve ground us down to almost nothing. They want to wipe us out.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aglauros. But June could see the doubt in her eyes. The moment June had agreed with her, not given her something to fight, Aglauros was on the back foot.

  ‘You want to hurt them back,’ said June. ‘It’s not enough to stop them. They have to understand what they’ve done to you.’

  ‘They need to know,’ Aglauros agreed.

  ‘And you know how much it hurts,’ June went on.

  ‘Yes,’ said Aglauros.

  ‘You can make them feel like that,’ said June. ‘You can put that on them.’

  The lion-faced man cried out in rage and frustration, a terrible, animal yell.

  ‘But you’re not going to,’ said June. ‘Are you?’

  Aglauros looked down at the lion-faced creature for the first time. The alien creature wriggled in her grasp, then looked back up at her with wide, lion-like eyes. Aglauros gazed back, then looked slowly up at June. ‘We could use him,’ she said quietly. ‘We could bargain with them.’

  ‘You could,’ said June. ‘Are you going to?’

  The lion-faced woman jumped over the railing, her wings unfolding to slow her fall. She landed lightly on the sand and walked slowly over. Tears cut tracks down her hairy face and her eyes were terrible to see.

  ‘Please,’ she said pitifully.

  Aglauros reached out the child towards her without a word.

  The lion-faced baby threw his arms round his mum’s neck. The mother held him tight, gazing at Aglauros. Aglauros gazed back. June saw the desolation on her face.

  ‘Thank you,’ choked the lion-faced woman.

  And above them, as one, the humans and alien tourists applauded.

  TWENTY

  ‘YOU’RE CLEARLY MORE civilised than us,’ the lion-faced woman told June.

  ‘They have their moments,’ the Doctor agreed, with a massive grin. He clapped June on the shoulder. ‘That was brilliant,’ he told her.

  ‘It was awful,’ she said. ‘The poor woman.’

  They watched Aglauros hanging from Pandrosos, sobbing together. Humans and aliens had come down from the balcony to join them in the arena. But they kept their distance from the two princesses, glancing awkwardly round at one another.

  Cecrops eventually approached them. Pandrosos nudged Aglauros who looked up at the merman. He smiled sadly at her. ‘If there’s anything we can do,’ he said.

  She saw the scars on his chest from where Cosmo had slashed at him. ‘You fought on our side.’

  Cecrops smiled. ‘There aren’t any sides now.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ screamed Mamps hurrying over. She and Cosmo had used their bracelets to turn the cairn of cakes and biscuits back into ordinary sand. Cosmo now slapped Leeb around the face, trying to revive him. ‘You kidnapped that baby!’ Mamps went on. ‘You were going to kill it!’

  The Doctor made to protest. But the lion-faced woman stepped out in front of him.

  ‘How dare you!’ she said. ‘This has all been your fault! You told us the humans were all willing volunteers! You said your tours were fair trade!’

  ‘Yeah!’ jeered some of the other aliens.

  ‘Now, madam,’ began Mamps as the tourists circled around her. Mamps stepped back and they surged forward. She turned to Cosmo, who’d got a dazed Leeb on his feet.

  ‘Run!’ she shouted, throwing her claws up above her head. But there were humans and tourists all round them.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ said Herse.

  ‘Get out of my way, little ape,’ Mamps crowed. ‘I can still tear you in half.’

  ‘You’re not going to kill all of us,’ said Herse.

  A tentacled alien prodded Mamps in the arm. ‘You’re going to give us our money back.’

  Mamps hissed at the terrible words. She turned to Cosmo and Leeb. ‘Busted,’ she said to them. And clacked a talon against the bracelet on her wrist.

  Before anyone could stop them, Leeb had thrown his arms around Cosmo as he too worked his bracelet. Sand whirled up around the three Slitheen, sparkling with pink light. The aliens and humans fell back as the two pink clouds suddenly exploded with energy. And then there was no sign of the Slitheen.

  ‘They blew themselves up,’ said Cecrops.

  ‘Not likely,’ said the Doctor. ‘They just repurposed themselves. Slitheen are made of calcium, like most of the sand. I expect they’ll just revaporate somewhere else nearby.’ He paused. ‘Is “revaporate” even a word?’

  ‘We’ve got to find them!’ said June.

  ‘Nearby as in anywhere in fifty miles. They’ll keep their distance from the tourists, I think. Lie low for a
while until their siblings turn up in the time bus.’

  ‘Cosmo sent that distress signal,’ said June. ‘Why haven’t they arrived?’

  ‘Um,’ said the Doctor. ‘I sort of got in the way of the signal.’

  ‘You stopped it?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I just sent it to someone else. Called in the alien hunters.’

  ‘The who?’

  The Doctor grinned. ‘You and me. It’s the signal we picked up in the first place.’

  She gaped at him. ‘And that time storm we crashed into, that was their temporal drive exploding,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Very good. You’re getting the hang of this stuff.’

  ‘So what will happen to the Slitheen if they’re not rescued?’

  ‘Oh, they will be,’ said the Doctor. ‘The family in the future will realise something’s up. So they’ll send the time bus back anyway.’

  ‘You seem very sure of it,’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘Well, if they don’t I’ll give them a nudge. But first things first. Let’s sort out how we’re going to get these people home.’

  The Doctor and Deukalion led everyone down the dark tunnel that led back to the tiny strip of beach. Humans helped alien tourists with their luggage and souvenirs, singing and chatting and teasing each other as they went. A couple of competitors from the kingdom of Mycenae were going to stay to look over the citadel. Everyone else couldn’t wait to get clear of the place.

  The huge Cutty Sark sat quietly in the cave where June and the others had first seen it. Some of the alien tourists admitted they’d been out on it before, but no one seemed sure how to pilot the thing, or how to get it out of the cave.

  ‘It can’t be that hard,’ said the Doctor, buzzing his sonic screwdriver at a hatch in the wooden side. A gangplank slapped down in front of the Doctor’s feet, leading into the ship’s dark stomach. ‘I mean, the Slitheen managed, didn’t they? And I’m a lot smarter than them. Right, everyone aboard.’

  The aliens and tourists trooped onto the ship, the gangplank wide enough for them to go in pairs.

  ‘You can leave your swords behind,’ he told Aglauros sternly. She snorted at him, looked ready to argue, then glanced round at her fellow passengers.