Doctor Who_ The Tomb Of Valdemar Part 22

'Mr Redfearn, your task will be to oversee this man...' he indicates a bemused-looking Doctor, 'and Pelham.'

'Why, that is not a task, that is a signal pleasure. Ma'am.'

'Never leave their sides. Not even for a moment.' Hopkins loads his shotgun and snaps its breech closed. 'Nothing must get between Neville and myself, and I don't want those two running around causing trouble.'

The Doctor snorts. 'And what do you do, Mr Redfearn, that makes you so special?'

White teeth gleaming in an ever-so-friendly smile, Mr Redfearn stretches. His jacket opens to reveal the two bandoliers draped around his shoulders, and the two holstered pearl-grip pistols strapped to them. 'Ah win,' he replies.

Hopkins looks the Doctor up and down. 'Mr Redfearn is a phenomenally accurate pistol marksman. His reactions have been genetically augmented. An "amus.e.m.e.nt" for the now defunct Elite. He has never missed a shot. Much to their eventual regret.'

The waistcoat closed, Mr Redfearn looks small and insignificant again. 'That's not quite true, suh. There was that time when ah was two yeahs old...'

The Doctor nods impatiently. 'Yes, yes. Can we get on with this?'

Mr Redfearn raises an eyebrow. Pelham presumes that if you're an expert marksman, you don't like being interrupted.

'Ah look forward to furthering our acquaintance, Doctor,' he says politely, and stares.

'Enough,' Hopkins barks. He looks around at the a.s.sembled company. Apart from himself, Mr Redfearn, the Doctor and herself, there are eight men including the tall figure of Lieutenant Carlin. To Pelham, this does not seem nearly enough.

Hopkins tightens the straps on his helmet. 'Keep your eyes open, men. Anyone we meet is to be considered an enemy and executed on the spot. The only exception is Neville himself. He is mine. Any man taking any action against him will be shot. Do I make myself clear?'

The company nods. Hopkins slams a gauntleted fist on to the shoulder of one of the welders. The poor man winces.

'Nearly done,' he manages through the pain.

The artisan team step away. Outside, Pelham hears the storm redouble its attack on the s.h.i.+p. Sledgehammers are produced and the already sweating drones start to bash and pound at the smooth metal roof of the palace. It's tougher than this, Pelham prays, no way could these people hammer and weld through its skin. Just as the first hole appears.

Well done, Miranda, good to see the old luck holding out.

The airlock is a h.e.l.l of echoes and metallic clamouring. The artisans kick and smash their way through to widen the hole.

At last a huge plate is worked loose and it drops down, into total blackness beneath. Seconds later, too many seconds, Pelham hears it hit the floor inside.

'Ladders,' Hopkins orders. Seconds later, the ropes drop.

'After me.' Hopkins slings his shotgun over his shoulder and commences his descent.

'Let battle commence,' says Mr Redfearn as Pelham realises it's her turn.

Hopkins can feel adrenaline pumping him up. As he hits the floor, the lights come on. Immediately, he unsheaths his shotgun and swings round. This must be done efficiently. For a second, he is on his own. He can hear the others clambering down above him but there is something, something that seems to slow the moment down.

The room, or chamber or whatever, is circular. A quiet circle that seems to be waiting for something. Perhaps it was once an observatory; there is a large, inexplicable machine staring up at the ceiling from the centre. A hatch points the way down into the depths. He senses that this is where it lurks. It? What does that mean?

The source of the decadence that is the cult; that's what it means. Not surprising really, because if all that rubbish has a source, it stands to reason it's here. He can feel Neville's influence. All these arcane colours and symbols daubed over the walls, all this burnt-orange metal.

It's breathing down there, waiting for him. Well, don't worry my friend, you don't scare me. I'm coming for you. I'm coming. Time speeds up again and Carlin hits the floor behind him, helmeted and formidable. His cousin is a fine man. The others follow, readying weapons.

'Standard formation,' Carlin orders. 'Interesting.'

'What is?'

'These markings. Cult runes.'

'Are they really? Well, don't bother with them. We need to keep moving. Surprise is everything.'

The Doctor has swung down, performing his usual theatrical antics as he tries to disentangle his foot from the rope ladder. How Hopkins would love to work on him. First Neville, then him. Remember that.

'He's gone,' the Doctor says, sniffing the air.

'How can you tell?' asks Carlin.

'He can't!' Hopkins snarls. 'He's as much a charlatan as Neville.'

The Doctor grimaces. 'If you say so. I say there's no one here.'

'All right, clever man,' says Hopkins, 'which way?'

With a smile, as if to a child, the Doctor nods at the hatch in the floor. 'Well, I'm no expert but at a guess...'

'Don't push me,' Hopkins barks.

Mr Redfearn is helping Pelham from the ladder. 'Careful, my dear,' he says politely. 'Lest you entangle yourself further.' Pelham falls into his arms and immediately pushes herself away. 'It's too late for that,' she says sardonically.

'Keep together, move quickly and quietly. I want two men at point looking for b.o.o.by traps.' Hopkins moves theatrically, on the alert for danger. 'Remember,' he whispers chillingly, 'this is the Magus's lair.'

The pause makes him start. They are all looking at him.

'What?' he asks, 'What is it?'

Carlin looks at the Doctor. He doesn't like the way those two are getting thick together. 'Did... Did you say "the Magus's lair", Citizen Hopkins?'

Did he? Why would he... ? 'Of course not. It's just Neville's bolthole, that's what I said.'

'Ah.' Carlin does not seem convinced.

'I should be very careful,' warns the Doctor. 'All of you. This structure will affect your minds. You won't even know it's happening.'

'But I presume only you and Pelham are immune to these "effects", Doctor,' Hopkins sneers.

'As it happens, yes. You see, we found this vaccine...'

'Shut up. As you know it all, you can be one of our point men. Open that hatch.'

As Hopkins indicates, the Doctor looks mournfully at that which he has been asked to unlock. 'Well,' he shrugs, 'if that's what you want. I think it would be better if we all went back to your s.h.i.+p and '

'Open it! Or I'll kill you where you stand.'

Even now, even with that threat, the madman keeps playing the fool. He looks at each of his hands, as if weighing up the possibilities.

'Do it,' Hopkins warns.

'I'll open the hatch,' says the Doctor, nodding.

The palace opens up for them, a cross-section for searching, and it appears that the Doctor is correct. The iron clads bob and weave, and poke their guns into many a deceptive corner, but find no creature, living or dead.

Once the Doctor has shown them how, they descend the levels via the anti-grav shafts. He is intrigued by the sense of awe and wonderment that Hopkins and the others display at the alien construction. They seem overwhelmed by its colonnades, its vast halls of decorated stone, its baroque, over-embellished decor.

The Doctor feels a stab of pity, as he wonders how much further down the road of new perception Romana will have travelled by now. Why did he have to have been saddled with a companion so incapable... ? No, it is his fault, there's no getting away from it.

With the vaccine de-clouding his mind, he can see the palace for that which it is an overblown, fairground haunted house, complete with cartoon ghosts and ghoulies.

As the soldiers marvel at the way the geography seems to s.h.i.+ft and s.h.i.+mmer according to their desires, he sees the clunky floor moving, the rusty clanging of gears, the flora in crumbling pots hiding the cracks. It is a carnival ride at night, the machinery working to sustain a superficial illusion.

Only one of Hopkins's men is seemingly immune to the effects of the higher dimensions, and that's because he has his eyes firmly on the Doctor's back. 'Five paces ahead if you don't mind, suh,' says Mr Redfearn evenly. 'No more, no less.'

The Doctor is impatient. He is in the wrong place. He must find a way to get to the tomb before critical ma.s.s is achieved.

These men will start to become affected very soon, undoubtedly enabling him to slip out of their grasp. The question is, can he wait that long?

Wait, he thinks to himself. He has to confirm that which he thinks he already knows. He indicates that they should descend to the piazza level. Hopkins nods; even the madman is susceptible to logic at times.

Neville and Hopkins make a fitting pair, the Doctor thinks.

Both zealots, both utterly consumed by their own self-righteousness. Both so utterly, completely convinced that they are right. He remembers a long-ago philosophy course, Romana would know more, and an aphorism that seems apposite 'Strive not to know thyself too well.'

There must always be more to learn, for the mind solidifies, the cerebral arteries harden if they are not busy, always striving.

The search widens and his worry increases. He leads the small unit down on to levels he remembers. He tries to walk at a relaxed pace, as if strolling through Hyde Park. However, slowly, imperceptibly, he increases that pace. He has to find his companion.

'Not too fast now, Doctor,' says Mr Redfearn, right behind him.

At last, he finds the double doors leading to the main piazza. Not quite so empty here. Something has happened.

There is the same echoing s.p.a.ce, the same trickling fountains and steamy air, the same steps and nooks and crannies. But there is also more.

'Check them,' says Hopkins grimly. 'Check if one of them is Neville.'

Pelham gasps. She has been silent on this trek but now her voice is released, revealing some kind of pent-up trauma that she has been long brooding upon. Her face turns a ghastly sheen of white, and the Doctor skips neatly to her side to catch her if she faints.

'My G.o.d,' she whispers. 'What did they do to each other?'

Awkwardly, the Doctor finds himself holding her up. Well, no choice really, better than her smas.h.i.+ng her head on the marble steps. The soldiers prod and poke the bodies.

The children twisted, deformed and full of bullets. And others in amongst them. Neville's guards, their wounds and the effects of the higher dimensions reshaping their faces and bodies into new, unrecognisable forms. But no Neville or Romana.

Pelham clutches the Doctor, unreasonably tightly. 'I keep dreaming. I'm awake but I can't shake it off. I keep seeing something, a scene,' she starts to babble out of nowhere. The Doctor feels her fear shaking him. 'A hilltop. It's night. A single tree that stands over a block of stone. Somehow, I know that this block is my tomb. I'm dead. Cold and dead inside but I'm looking in on it and I can see myself looking up... I'm dead but I know I can still see. I can still see...'

The Doctor keeps a grip on her. Is this some incipient madness or are the vaccine's effects limited? He realises that the higher dimensions affect individuals in different ways and are impossible to predict.

'Put the image out of your mind,' he soothes her. 'It is nothing but a dream, your own mind rationalising new potentials. Think only of these numbers; repeat this formula I am giving you...' He then proceeds to reel off a string of equations and numbers, Time Lord exercises for clearing the mind. He forces her to obey. Her shaking subsides.

The iron clads are silent as they proceed with their checks.

The Doctor watches them, his own face set in stone.

'What happened to them?' demands Hopkins. He lifts the helmet's visor. Already, his hairless face trickles with feverish sweat. He blinks, lacking the eyebrows with which to divert that sweat.

'I tried to tell them,' the Doctor replies, 'and I've been trying to tell you. The higher dimensions have been released and the palace was evolving their physical forms to embrace the new perceptions. Unless we get done with this, you will all be similarly affected.'

'Is Neville among the dead?' asks Hopkins, ignoring the Doctor.

'No, Citizen,' Carlin replies, double-checking the last of the corpses.

'Spread out. Keep looking.'

'You know what I think?' asks the Doctor, quietly.

Hopkins lowers his visor once more. 'I'm not interested in your opinion.'

'Oh, I think you are. I really think you are.'

'All right then. What?'

The Doctor, under the unerring gaze of Mr Redfearn, seats Pelham on the steps. 'I think Neville did leave a little trap for you. The guards were placed to ambush you. We're right next to the docking bay. Only the others got to them first.'

Hopkins sneers. 'These are the cloaks of the cult high guard. How could these... children have done this? The guards could have cut them to pieces.'

'I don't think they were children any more.'

Hopkins stares at him and, for a moment, the Doctor feels pity for the deranged little man. He has encountered countless closed minds in his time, met people and creatures for whom black just had to be white, and the result is always the same. They seal themselves into traps of their own devising, and wither away. Not accepting the palace, refusing to understand the truth, will be the death of Hopkins.

'Check the docking bay,' orders the Doctor. 'See if the bathyscape is still there.'

Carlin moves instinctively to obey. Hopkins raises an arm and stops him dead. 'How dare you... ?'

'Check it!' bellows the Doctor, feeling his patience finally exhaust itself.

'I am sick and tired of you,' says Hopkins slowly. 'Just who do you think you are? You've just been wasting my time.' He turns away, past the worried-looking Carlin to the calm and antic.i.p.atory Mr Redfearn, who is leaning idly against a column, picking his teeth. 'Mr Redfearn, the time has come to terminate this little alliance.'

Mr Redfearn shrugs and straightens himself up. His eyes never leave the Doctor as he adjusts his clothing. 'My pleasure, Mr Hopkins.' The gloved hands flick back the jacket, revealing the pistols within. His fingers twiddle. 'Any last words, Doctor?' he asks.

The Doctor considers. 'One word,' he replies after some careful thought.

'Hmm?' Mr Redfearn is smiling, almost interested. His eyes glitter, like those of a cobra.

'Dark,' says the Doctor, and the palace obeys, sending the piazza into utter and complete blackness.