Doctor Who_ Ten Little Aliens Part 47

Then he became aware of something else.

Someone else, hidden there in the dark. else, hidden there in the dark.

'It's you, is it not?' the Doctor heard himself whisper. 'Shel?

Can you hear me?'

There was a sluggish s.h.i.+fting of sensation. The Doctor gritted his teeth. 'Shel, a trace of you remains. Reach out to me.'

He could feel Shel's presence hovering close by, a still point in the storm as skin and spirit began to pare away.

'Join me here. Stand with me.' The Doctor steeled himself for one last, despairing try. 'Stand with me against them'. them'.

Shel let himself be found.

DeCaster felt it at the same moment. He choked on the hisses and clicks of his incantation, and started to scream.

IV.

The Schirr's face filled Polly's vision. Its big hands cradled the back of her head as it opened its mouth, ready to devour her.

But something was wrong. It froze in front of her. Polly got the distinct impression it was trying to close its mouth again but couldn't. Now it was the one paralysed, and she, she she could move again. Her body was stiff and slow, but she could move. could move again. Her body was stiff and slow, but she could move.

The Schirr that had been crouched over Creben was frozen too. Creben had toppled back against the console. Though his neat features had started to warp into those of a Schirr, his eyes were still brown and human. Slowly, painfully slowly, he struggled to grip on to the console and pull himself to his feet.

'Tovel,' Polly gasped, turning to face him. 'Quickly, we must finish what we started. What else do we need to...'

He wasn't listening to her. There was little of Tovel left now.

His eyes had grown pink and large, fleshy white jelly dripping off them like thick tears. The expression on his broad face slowly s.h.i.+fted into anger, and his hands gripped Polly's throat.

V.

The stone angel had upped and gone, and Ben could move again. His arms and legs had cramped up like he'd just swum the Channel, but still he crawled painfully down the pa.s.sageway, into the light towards the Doctor. The Schirr behind him made no effort to follow him. It still crouched there, s.h.i.+vering so violently Ben thought it might shake itself apart.

He hunted through the rolling indigo swell for any sign of the Doctor. There was DeCaster, spreadeagled against the gla.s.s cylinder like it was sucking him in. He writhed in agony, screamed out as glittering blue lightning crackled out from the gla.s.s to shake his colossal bulk. The stone angel was peering at him, as if trying to understand what was wrong, as the room began to darken to a stormy grey.

Ben cowered back instinctively as a dark shape detached itself from the pitching shadows. But it was friend, not foe.

'Doctor!' he yelled. 'Doctor, what's happening?'

'Something our friend DeCaster did not allow for,' the Doctor shouted back triumphantly. 'A tenth soul in his black little ritual.'

'Tenth?' Ben didn't understand.

'Shel, my boy!' the Doctor yelled, his words nearly lost over a deafening blast of what sounded like thunder. 'As an artificial intelligence his interface with the webset was far more comprehensive. His outward form was a carrying case only - the real flesh of him is the scripting in his circuitry.

His presence in the network is as real as yours or mine.'

'Course it is,' Ben yelled, still puzzled, but enjoying the barmy smile on the old boy's face.

There were footsteps behind him. Ben spun round, ready to fight, but it was only Shade. He looked completely lost.

As he opened his mouth to speak, Ben shushed him and pointed at the Doctor. 'He's your bloke. Maybe you can get some sense out of him.'

'Don't you see?' The Doctor staggered over to join them. He looked a little bruised but was apparently untouched in any other way by the Schirr infection. 'The mere presence of Shel's personality in the neural network DeCaster had a.s.sembled was enough to create an imbalance. The ritual could not be completed. It's coming undone, I only hope it's not too late.'

'And what about the Schirr?' asked Shade. He pointed at DeCaster who was bellowing back against the gla.s.s. He shook like current was running through him.

'The energy they've expended in beginning the joining has to go somewhere,' wheezed the Doctor. 'If our friend over there is any example, it will travel back into the Schirr themselves.' He gave a brief, malicious chuckle. 'With unpleasant results.'

Ben wanted to cheer, but didn't dare even smile in case the Doctor was wrong.

The head of the stone angel swivelled round to face them.

'What about them things?' Ben cried.

Give me your wrist. Quickly.' The Doctor grabbed Shade's sleeve and held it to his lips. 'Creben, Polly, are you there?'

There was only static.

'It's no good,' the Doctor fussed, 'there's too much interference here.'

The construct took a step towards them.

'Let's run for it before that stone thing gets us,' Ben urged him. 'It's not gonna be happy, is it?'

'I would never make it,' the Doctor puffed miserably. 'No, there must be another way. Before the network breaks down completely...'

The Doctor shut his eyes, put his hands to his temples.

Ben and Shade swapped nervous glances as two more angels lurched out of the billowing brightness.

VI.

Pressure roared in Polly's head as Tovel's hands pressed harder and harder down on her throat. Distantly she heard the Doctor's voice, but she couldn't grasp the words. Her sight was dimming, blackness tunnelling in from the edges of her vision. She wouldn't be sorry when the hideous face snarling into her own faded for the last time. After all she'd lived through, this final blackness would almost be a relief.

Then something metallic caught the light, twinkled into the haze falling over her eyes. A knife slashed down and wedged into the back of Tovel's thick wrist. He roared and s.n.a.t.c.hed his hands away, pulling at the hilt of the dagger, trying to dislodge the blade.

She fell back gasping against Creben. He'd finally managed to pull himself upright.

But Tovel had yanked the blade free. Now he slowly advanced on them again, the knife in an outstretched hand, staring down at the blood that spilled from his wrist. His eyes were filled with the same hatred as the frozen Schirr around them.

Polly turned away in terror, just as she heard a heart-rending moan of pain from below her.

It was Roba. Curled up and still shaking all over, his hands covered his mouth. When he pulled them away, Polly saw there was something clamped between his teeth, a sweet or...

She struggled to work the alien tongue in her mouth. 'No, Roba'.'

He bit down.

Polly shut her eyes, but the ghastly splitting noise as the force mattress expanded would stay with her forever.

'That's really done it,' Creben muttered. 'Nothing can put that back together. The ritual can't can't be completed now. Look.' be completed now. Look.'

As Tovel shook and spasmed uncontrollably, the Schirr around him were shrivelling up like old balloons. Their eyes glazed over, they howled with frustration as they began to convulse. Then the old wounds, huge and gaping opened up and blossomed again over their bodies, caked with dried blood. Stomachs gaped open. Heads burst. They stood shakily as if in bad imitation of their gory poses on the platform, then collapsed to the floor, bloodless sacks of old flesh.

Polly's head swam dizzily, and then the Doctor's voice was back booming in her head, m.u.f.fled by static.

'Quickly child,' he ordered, 'look at the panel.' She hesitated. 'The control panel, look at it!'

She tottered forwards on legs she could no longer feel, her vision was blurred, but she tried to focus on the various levers, switches and displays.

'Creben, you must help her,' the Doctor instructed. 'Let me see, let me see...' She wondered which of them he was speaking to, or if he'd lapsed back into speaking to himself.

'Creben. The far switch, yes, that one. Depress it while Polly instigates the reverse thrusters.'

'While I what?' she gasped, panicking.

'I will direct you,' he snapped. 'Now, concentrate child! You must concentrate!'

VII.

'What's he doing?' Shade whispered.

'I don't know,' said Ben helplessly, as the stone angels drew nearer.

'But whatever it is, we've got to let him get on with it!'

'And what about them?' Shade and Ben fell into shadow as the angels' ma.s.sive bulk blotted out the blistering light in the gla.s.s cylinder. 'They might not be so understanding!'

Ben squared up to the three angels that towered over them.

If he could s.h.i.+eld the Doctor for just a few seconds longer, maybe that would be enough. 'Just leave us alone!' he yelled in frustration. 'Ain't you done enough to us? Leave us alone!'

The nearest angel reached out both stone-cold hands and gripped Ben either side of his head. He laughed at the monster. Through the accretions of thick Schirr flesh he could barely feel a thing.

The stone hands pressed hard together. Ben knew they could crack his skull like a monkey nut. His mouth sagged open as the pain bit in. All he could hear was DeCaster, screaming and screaming.

From the corner of his eye he saw Shade flung aside like a paper dolly. The Doctor crouched alone on the floor with his eyes closed, unaware and defenceless as the two stone giants bore down on him, hooked hands reaching down to rip him apart.

VIII.

'Now, Polly,' the Doctor said, a crackling ancient gramophone voice. 'As soon as you have input those three codes...'

His voice became scrambled with static, then cut out altogether.

'Say again, Doctor,' she implored him. But there was only silence.

'What do you think he said?' she asked Creben.

He shrugged helplessly. Then he pointed over her shoulder, eyes wide in alarm. Tovel had stopped shaking. He thundered over to the console, knife raised, trampling fallen Schirr bodies as he came. The low rumbling in his throat built to a roar.

At the last minute, Creben yanked Polly aside. Tovel was going too fast to stop, he smashed heavily against the console and stared down at the winking displays. He turned to Polly and Creben, then back to the controls. He raised the knife, ready to plunge it into the controls and wipe out their handiwork.

'Don't!' Polly screamed helplessly.