Dancing the Code Part 34

The Brigadier thought about it for a while, then, very slowly, lowered the gun. 'Very well, Doctor,' he said. 'But what exactly is it you're trying to do?'

The Doctor had crouched down again, and was collecting more honey from the insect's jaws, this time into a lab beaker. 'It's a little difficult to explain. Basically I'm trying to persuade the Xarax queen here to help me reverse the primary command sequence in the Xarax extracellular macroproteination pheromonal control system.' He broke off, found a pipette amidst the rubbish on the floor, opened a wall cupboard and took out a gla.s.s bottle filled with blue liquid. He filled the pipette and began mixing the liquid with the honey in the flask, one drop at a time. He stroked his chin in abstraction, muttered, 'There are only twenty million codon sequences involved. You'd think I could remember them.'

There was a huge thud from outside the lab, and the sound of a part.i.tion wall being torn apart, followed by a burst of gunfire. The Brigadier ran back to the door, saw a grey creature about the size of a hippopotamus with a pair of mandibles about three feet long attached to its face struggling out of the ruins of one of the offices and across the corridor. The men were firing at it; slowly it sank to the ground, leaking honey.

Then there was another thud, another tearing sound, and a second pair of jaws ripped through the wall in front of the Brigadier. He jumped back, fired at it.

Then a third pair of jaws ripped through the wall beyond him.

He backed into the lab, saw the Doctor standing in the one relatively untouched corner beyond the Xarax queen's jaws, stirring the honey mixture in the beaker.

'Doctor, I don't think we're going to have that twenty minutes,' he said. 'You'd better get a move on.'

Someone was screaming.

Catriona thought that it sounded familiar; but it was nearer than it ought to have been. Jo was on the plane, wasn't she?

But Jo was also lying there, staring at her. An ugly little man was pus.h.i.+ng her back, back against the wall. 'Catriona! Help!'

He was going to rape her. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

- honey honey sweet sweet to be honey to be good good stay don't honey honey sweet sweet to be honey to be good good stay don't move the nest needs honey sweet sweet move the nest needs honey sweet sweet - - Shut up, thought Catriona. I'll see to the honey later. I'm not going to stand by and watch another woman being raped.

Her body didn't seem to want to move, though. It was only with a t.i.tanic effort that she managed to s.h.i.+ft her legs. They seemed to be tied together. She tried to look down to see what was the matter, but her head wouldn't move either. Her eyes only showed a blurry view of an amber surface, rather like the Probe 9 Probe 9 pictures of Mars. Above it, a dim, mud-walled chamber, and honey-globes - pictures of Mars. Above it, a dim, mud-walled chamber, and honey-globes - - honey honey sweet to be honey honey honey sweet to be honey - - Jo screamed again.

Catriona moved her legs a little more, half-stepped, half-fell sideways. She caught a brief glimpse of the little man, startled, falling under the amber surface, which seemed to have moved with her body for some reason. She heard a sickening crunch of bone. Hers?

No, she wasn't feeling any pain. Well, not any more than usual.

Usual? She wasn't in pain, was she? - to be sweet to be good to be to be sweet to be good to be honey dancing honey dancing - - Then she realized what the amber surface was, and at the same time she felt the pain, the utter unbearable agony in every limb every utter unbearable agony in every limb every organ Jesus Christ this is what happened to Deveraux and now it's organ Jesus Christ this is what happened to Deveraux and now it's happening to me I'm going to die I'm going to die die die happening to me I'm going to die I'm going to die die die - - And it was all Jo's fault.

With a mountainous effort, she half-turned, half-rolled her body to face the girl, reached out with her unbelievably swollen, agonized arms. She couldn't quite make her hands touch Jo's throat.

'You left me to them!' she tried to say, though she wasn't sure what sounds were coming out. 'You went on that plane and you left me and I'm dying you b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h b.i.t.c.h!' Her throat filled with something that tasted sweet and deadly: suddenly she couldn't breathe any more.

Her lungs heaved, sending more waves of agony through her.

'It wasn't me!' Jo was shouting. Her voice sounded far away, as if there was a mountain of cotton wool in Catriona's ears. 'I don't even know what you're talking about!'

Catriona made a desperate effort to get her breath, failed. Her arms collapsed against the ma.s.s of disintegrating flesh that was her body.

Hands touched her skin, Jo's head moved somewhere beneath the range of her eyes. Something blocked her mouth - - Jesus Christ she's trying to kill me and I saved her from that Jesus Christ she's trying to kill me and I saved her from that b.l.o.o.d.y rapist b.l.o.o.d.y rapist - - - but air was rus.h.i.+ng in, Jo was breathing into her, using the pressure from her own strong lungs to clear the blockage and Catriona could breathe again Jesus she could breathe - As the cool, sweet air of the room rushed into her lungs, Catriona had a sudden pin-sharp image of herself, hideous and broken, as good as dead, stinking of honey and rot and G.o.d knows what else, and Jo breathing life into her anyway.

'Thank you,' she managed to gasp. 'I owe you one.' She paused.

'But you'd better collect quickly, or you might not get the chance.'

She found Jo's face, some way below her own, looking up with an expression of confusion that slowly gave way to a smile.

'I'll get you out,' said Jo. 'The Doctor will help you.'

I'm going to need more than a doctor, thought Catriona. I'm going to need a certifiable twenty-four carat gold five star miracle to get me out of this one.

But the thought made her feel better all the same.

She heard a sound behind her. Jo's face moved and her eyes widened with fear. Catriona tried to turn her head, couldn't.

'What is it, Jo?' But Jo just kept staring.

The sound grew louder: a scratchy, chitinous, alien noise. Wincing with the effort, Catriona turned her clumsy body around.

She saw three huge, dull grey creatures with pillar-like legs and scissor-like jaws. The jaws were open, and the creatures were advancing slowly towards them.

'We've got to do something,' said Jo. 'Quickly.'

If her face muscles could still have made the movements, Catriona would have smiled. She remembered the last time that Jo had insisted on doing something. The prison. The bucket. The - Then she remembered what had happened when they'd escaped.

The gun bucking in her hand, the guard dying, the thud as her body hit the ground.

Well, this time there was only one thing that could be done. And only she could do it.

It was time to pay.

'Fall back!' yelled the Brigadier, but it was too late for Corporal Marks. The long mandibles caught his arm, wrenched it off in a single movement.

Marks screamed.

The Brigadier put his one remaining bullet through the creature's head. It jolted sideways, but the grey body didn't pause in its advance.

The part.i.tion wall between the corridor and one of the offices gave way with a crash. The legs trampled Marks's body; the Brigadier heard bones crush, and winced.

There was a shout from behind him. 'They're in the lab, sir!'

'Out of the way!' The Doctor's voice.

The Brigadier retreated from the advancing Xarax, looked into the lab. A huge Xarax head had broken through the corner wall where the Doctor was standing; the brickwork below it was bulging inwards where the body was trying to follow.

The Doctor was standing, staring at the thing, with the beaker of honey in his hands. Sergeant Osgood was retreating slowly along the narrow gap between the queen and the wall, his gun trained on the monster's head.

'Don't kill it,' said the Doctor. 'We just need to give it some alternative instructions, that's all.'

There was gunfire behind the Brigadier, a shout, more firing. He glanced over his shoulder, saw that the Xarax in the corridor was down, but another was behind it, trying to climb over it. The ceiling bowed, creaked, then gave way. The creature slithered to the floor.

There was an explosion of gunfire as the men opened fire on it.

Inside the lab, the Doctor was slowly advancing towards the head of the Xarax defender. 'Come and get it!' he said.

The wall gave way. The Xarax catapulted forward in a heap of bricks. The Doctor dodged nimbly, pushed the beaker underneath its jaws. There was a sound of breaking gla.s.s, and the Xarax stopped dead.

'Don't kill it,' repeated the Doctor to Osgood, who was standing transfixed, his gun almost touching the creature's head.

Slowly, the Xarax began to move again. It shuffled past the Doctor and Osgood, squeezed through the gap between its queen and the wall until it reached the Brigadier. Then it stopped.

'Get out of its way, Brigadier,' said the Doctor impatiently.

The Brigadier stepped back, and the creature stuck its head through the door. Then it stopped again, unable to turn its ma.s.sive bulk any further in the confined s.p.a.ce.

The Brigadier stared at the complex pattern of dark and light shading on the top of the creature's skull, only a couple of feet from him.

If the Doctor was wrong - If it wasn't really the Doctor at all but one of the Xarax - The Brigadier looked over his shoulder at the men, who were crouched in the corridor, guns at the ready. He waved them down, looked back at the creature. It had secreted a large blob of nearly clear honey, which dropped to the floor underneath it.

'Don't hang around,' said the Doctor. 'Give it to the other one.'

The Brigadier frowned, saw another Xarax defender outside trying to wriggle past the dead body of its comrade. Its mandibles were chopping at the air in a frantic effort to find something to grip. 'How the blazes am I meant to do that without getting my arms bitten off?'

he asked.

'Use your imagination, man! Throw it if you have to!'

The Brigadier scooped up the sticky substance in his hands, attempted to throw it. A gobbet detached itself and landed on the floor near the flailing mandibles.

For a moment, all movement stopped. Then the creature dipped an antenna, tasted the stuff. Immediately it began wriggling backwards and fell to the floor with a crash. The creature in the lab was also backing away, returning the way it had come.

'That ought to take care of it,' said the Doctor. He literally clambered over the body of the Xarax defender to get to the door; it took no notice of him, but remained head down, drooling honey. The Doctor collected a little of it in a test tube, sealed it with a cork. Then he stood up, offered the Brigadier his handkerchief. 'Right, now I need an aircraft. Preferably a very fast one. I need to get back to Kebiria straight away.'

'An aircraft? Kebiria?' The Brigadier was bewildered. 'But you've just said that the problem's been taken care of!'

The Doctor looked up at him seriously. 'There's still the other nest in Kebiria, Brigadier. And I have to shut it down before our American friend starts throwing nuclear warheads at it.'

The Brigadier glanced at his watch, made a rapid calculation, swallowed heavily.

'If Captain Oakley's estimate of how long he could hold Al Haraf base was right, Doctor, that's in about ten minutes.'

When Catriona toppled onto her side and rolled towards the nest defenders, Jo almost screamed again.

Instead it was Catriona who wheezed, 'Run, Jo! Run! It's your only chance!'

'But -' began Jo. She looked around in desperation for a weapon, anything she could use against the aliens to get them away from her friend.

Then the scissor-like mandibles descended on Catriona's body.

She screamed.

Jo stared for another moment, her face crumpling, then she ran.

She would get to the queen. She would get to the queen and take control and stop them. She had to be quick.

Down, her instincts told her. Down to queen to best honey dancing Down to queen to best honey dancing to help to queen to go down to honey honey to help to queen to go down to honey honey - - 'Stop that!' she shouted aloud.

She was running blind now, her feet jarring on solid rock. How long had the Xarax been building here? she wondered.

The air grew cool, musty. Then an overpoweringly sweet smell hit her.

- queen to be dancing to be honey human to be peace dancing queen to be dancing to be honey human to be peace dancing - -

Light grew ahead, and chitinous rustlings. Jo saw a large chamber, nest defenders bustling about, and the stiff, quasi-human figures of the Xarax copies.

In the middle, as huge as a blue whale, was the queen. As Jo ran up, the huge jaws opened, and the long black cable of the tongue emerged, a drop of honey suspended on its tip.

This is it, she thought. This is what Zalloua meant by linking with the queen. Well here goes - Jo knelt before the queen, felt the tongue touch the back of her neck.

Almost immediately she realized her mistake, but by then it was too late.

Captain James Oakley of the US Marines crouched in the shadow of the command bunker and watched the line of Xarax tanks rolling across the desert towards the Al Haraf base. Men were scattering in front of them, running towards the wire fence. Oakley could see that most of them weren't going to make it.

He picked up the handset of the field telephone and yelled into it.

'Kelly! Get me one of the first strike fighters!'

There was a crackle of static, then, 'None responding, sir. I think they're all - '