Doctor Who_ Ten Little Aliens Part 37

Ben

Tovel really puts us through our paces, fixing up the light-wires for the life support. We're grabbing this, tracing that back...

'Whoever done this knew what they were doing,' we mutter to Creben.

He nods. 'They did. They certainly did.' Then he takes my latest bundle of laser spaghetti and buries them somewhere lower down in the grid. The red links flare brighter and then the lines merge.

'This should be the last of the links,' he says.

'Good news, my friends.' The Doctor's whisper starts up from somewhere deep in our head. 'Polly and Shade have the crystals. We can reset the coordinates and steer ourselves far from Morphiea's noisome influence.'

We want to yell and cheer. But the Doctor's shus.h.i.+ng us, frantically.

'We should not make this known to all in our network,' he says, his voice low and urgent.

'As we saw the Schirr through Roba's eyes,' Creben says, 'you think they can see through his?'

'And Tovel, and Frog, too, are no longer dependable,'

mutters the Doctor.

We want to protest. But we remember the change in them, their bloated, twisted bodies, and we just nod. One sensible thing our old man used to say: careless talk costs lives.

'I think we were allowed to complete these repairs,' Creben says. 'Denni could have sent a hundred angels to take us here. She's been waiting for something... Just keeping us busy...'

'Perhaps so. But Denni won't have expected us to find those crystals. Hidden most ingeniously, most ingeniously, yes.' He chuckles. 'Those little gems may yet give us the advantage in this struggle. Once you've finished here, head for the control room. Be on your guard. I shall join you.' With that, the Doctor breaks radio contact.

Creben stands back from the glowing red maze, pleased with himself.

'All done and dusted?' We can't believe it. Life support's fixed up, and we've got back the crystals. Maybe, just maybe, we stand a chance of getting out of this.

Creben nods.

'Let's get back to the control room, meet the others.'

'Yes, I think we -'

Before he can say anything else, the other voice comes booming out at us all. Sounds like a woman... but with some edge to it we can't place...

To switch to Polly's viewpoint, select section 19 on page 229 To switch to Shade's viewpoint, select section 26 on page 241 To switch to Tovel's viewpoint, select section 23 on page 235

To witness these events from Creben's viewpoint, select section 15 on page 223

Or you may withdraw from the neural net - but only after experiencing Frog's perspective. Select section 27 on page 241 experiencing Frog's perspective. Select section 27 on page 241

11.

Haunt

'You can discard those tools,' the Doctor tells us. 'They won't be needed.'

We shrug. He knows what he's talking about, we've worked that much out about him. We drop the tool kit to the cold ground.

Goal one will be achieved - to get life support back on line.

Provided Tovel and the Doctor can make sense of the Schirr systems, that is. The Doctor says he can. We see he's resolved to win out here, just like us.

At the point we're standing in, the tunnels cross. We catch movement up ahead. Something swift and stealthy, dodging past.

'Did you see that?' the Doctor's asking. He's sharp, pointing ahead into the gloom.

'I saw it,' we say. We start in pursuit, run off along the tunnel. The fleas flick off our bare face and hands as we go.

'I will wait for you here,' the Doctor calls.

We're sprinting away. We reach the intersection and take the left.

It's there. The figure. Not running anymore. Shrouded in murky shadows from the ember-glow of the ceiling, facing us.

Denni. Can you glimpse her there in the dark?

A hand slaps down on our shoulder. Heavy as stone. We turn, catch a glimpse of one of the cherubim, standing behind us.

We shrink back but it's got hold of us. Digging in its fingers.

Another one forms from nowhere in front of us.

'Do all you can; we bellow, so loud that everyone in the web can hear, however far away they are. 'Work together. Keep the neural network open. That's an order.'

The stone hand clamps down on our face, its wide palm sc.r.a.pes our skin, rough and cold. Its fingers pull

Marshal Haunt has been severed from the network

To switch to Polly's viewpoint, select section 7 on page 206 To switch to Shade's viewpoint, select section 8 on page 207 To switch to Ben's viewpoint, select section 14 on page 221 To switch to Creben's viewpoint, select section 18 on page 227

Or if you were instructed to return to the section you came from, go there now go there now

12.

Polly

We didn't stay hugging Shade for long. We were both too jumpy. So we moved on, out through these endless, endless tunnels. Denni's out here somewhere. And angels. And Lord knows what else. Once we found gla.s.s on the ceiling, half-hidden by weed. It made us dizzy. Brought us through to a new tunnel, one of those concealed entrances Ben mentioned. So what do the Schirr hide here?

'Look,' we breathe. Our feet crunch into the scree as we stop suddenly. 'There's light up ahead.'

Shade pulls the heavy grenade launcher from the harness on his back, and checks it over. He tries not to let us see his hands are shaking, and he goes ahead first, slow and cautious. We wonder, if it came to it, if he would run off and leave us here, alone, to whatever Denni's sending after us now.

He stops. Turns back to us and smiles. 'Come on.'

The light, white and harsh but beautiful all the same in this world of darkness, is nothing to be scared of after all. It's only starlight, from that window in the rock we looked out through an age ago.

'It's beautiful, isn't it,' we say, as the two of us stare out at the star-speckled night. We hear his breathing, slow and steady behind us.

'"Our destiny is in the stars", my ancestors used to say,'

Shade murmurs.

'On Earth?' we ask softly.

'Where everything began.'

Our soldier's becoming a priest. 'I thought you were running from the Earth?'

He pauses for a second. Sighs. 'I guess it'll always be my home.'

Ours too. A sigh escapes us as we think of all we know and love back in London, in our own time. Black cabs. c.o.c.ktails.

Parties on roof gardens. 'I'd give anything to see the Earth right now.'

'I'd give anything to take you there.'

He places both hands on our shoulders. Thinks his s.h.i.+p's come in.

The thought of Ben comes to us, loud and clear.

Ben missed his s.h.i.+p that first night we met. He looked at me across the bar, miserable as sin. Not calculating. Not weighing up his chances.

We've tensed up just a fraction.

'I always wanted to reach out and touch the stars,' we say, and the subject is changed, Shade is waved off alone into the cold window of night before us.

We reach out our hand to the gla.s.s, as if to caress and capture the brightest stars in this sky. brightest stars in this sky.

Our hand tingles and pa.s.ses through the window. We're touching something hard-edged and cold. Pulling out a handful of stars from that amazing vista.

We're staring dumbly down at three crystals in our palm.

'The navigational crystals,' Shade breathes. 'They have to be. Hidden where a bunch of soldiers would never think of looking.' His hands tighten on my shoulders. He flips us around like we were a rag doll and grins stupidly into our face. 'Polly, you've done it! You've done done it!' it!'

We burst into giggles, stare at the crystals in wonder, as if they're made of ice and might melt away.

'Doctor,' we say, closing our eyes. 'Doctor, can you hear me?'