Doctor Who_ Night Of The Humans Part 13

Slipstream shrugged. 'Wish it was up to me, old chap,' he said. 'I only arranged for you to be spared today. Didn't quite have the clout to get you off all charges, I'm afraid. What say you, Tuco? When we're finished, can the Doctor leave?'

'No! Tuco snapped. 'He is a heretic and a prisoner of Django. He will be thrown into Lake Mono.'

'Ah, see?' said Slipstream. 'Sorry, Doctor. Them's the breaks, as they say. d.a.m.ned nuisance. Can't say I envy you.'

The Doctor turned to Tuco. 'Tuco... Listen to me. In another hour or two, there won't be a Lake Mono. You hear those noises outside?'

Tuco shrugged; a gesture almost of denial.

'But you can hear them. Can't you?'

'Maybe.'

157.

"That noise is the sound of little bits of comet slamming into this place, tearing it apart. I'm talking little bits of comet.

About this big?' He held his finger and thumb no more than three inches apart. 'The comet... I mean the actual comet... Is hundreds of metres across. Bigger than this room. When it hits us, this world will be destroyed. Everyone will die. Do you understand that?'

Tuco looked at him coldly, narrowing his eyes. "Then it is the way of Gobo,' he growled with a sinister smile.

As they climbed further up towards the high corner of the cargo hold, Manco walked beside the Doctor.

'It's no use,' he said. 'They won't listen. They never listen.'

They were halfway up the mountain of upturned crates when they heard something fluttering around their heads. It sounded to the Doctor like moths on a summer's night, hovering towards the nearest source of light. They halted abruptly, none of them daring to move. Tuco's face was frozen with alarm, the hand in which he carried the torch shaking.

Something small pa.s.sed between the Doctor and the flickering light; something tiny and dark and silhouetted against the flame.

Tuco jumped, losing his footing and falling onto his back.

The torch landed beside him, but the 158.

NIGHT OF THE HUNANS.

flame carried on burning.

Now the Doctor could see more of the flying creatures, none of them any bigger than his thumb. He crouched down beside where Tuco had fallen, squinting at them in the dim light. Lifting it from the ground the Doctor moved the flame through the stygian gloom, and saw dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tiny airborne forms.

One of them came right up to his face, hovering before him with its wings flapping into a blur. The creature was limbless, but for its wings; its scaly body was a golden shade of orange, its eyes like tiny silver pennies. Its mouth tapered away into what looked like a beak.

'h.e.l.lo!' said the Doctor, holding up his hand and offering it a gentle wave.

'What the devil is that?' Slipstream gasped, looking at the creature with an expression of disgust.

'I think it's a fish,' said the Doctor. 'A flying fish. Literally.'

From his side he heard the sound of Slipstream's blaster powering up - a thin whining sound that rose in pitch.

Slipstream lifted the gun, and aimed it straight for the tiny flying fish.

'Blasted pests!' he barked. 'Planet's infested with 'em. If it's not the savages it's eight-legged slugs, and if it's not them it's a flying piranha!'

Before Slipstream could fire, the Doctor reached 159 out, grabbed the gun by its barrel, and gently steered his aim away from the fish.

'Does it look like a piranha to you?' he asked. 'Look around you. Do you spot much in the way of meat? And look at Tuco. He's never seen one of these things before. They must only live in here, inside the s.h.i.+p.'

Tuco was on his feet again, brus.h.i.+ng the dust and flakes of brown rust from his clothes. All at once the flying fish swarmed around him, nibbling at the air like goldfish taking their food from the surface of a fish tank.

'What are they doing?' Tuco growled, squirming with displeasure.

'The rust! said the Doctor. "They're eating the rust.'

'I still say we should kill 'em,' Slipstream snapped. 'Just in case.'

'Yes, well you would. But not everything here is as mean-spirited as you.'

Slipstream scowled at him and, for the first time since they had become reacquainted, the Doctor could sense the simmering resentment beneath Slipstream's cool, suave exterior. However cordial he might be playing this, Slipstream clearly wasn't here to let 'bygones be bygones', as he had put it. When all this was over, when they had found the Mymon Key, Slipstream would no doubt look for his revenge.

160.

They heard another crash from outside the s.h.i.+p. This one sounded closer than any they had heard before.

'Come on! said the Doctor, holding up the torch and leading the way. 'Let's find your key.'

As the light around them grew dimmer, Slipstream, Manco and Tuco followed him. Up and up they climbed, the incline of spilt containers getting steeper, until at last they reached the upper corner of the room.

'Here it is,' announced Slipstream. 'Row F. Level 3.'

He seized the torch from the Doctor's hand, and began to navigate his way around the buckled shelves and fallen crates.

'It must be here somewhere...'

The others could only stand there and watch him.

Somewhere beyond the cargo hold and the s.h.i.+p there was another thunderous boom. The Doctor looked at Manco and then at Tuco, who was still watching him with simmering malevolence. With Slipstream distracted by his search for the casket, maybe this was his opportunity. Maybe he and Manco could make a run for it. With Sancho gone, they could get past Tuco easily enough. They could leave the cargo hold and the s.h.i.+p, and escape from the human city. Maybe they could find their way to the Sittuun, and Amy, before it was all too late.

161.

But something was keeping him there. A feeling he didn't want to acknowledge. It was curiosity. The Doctor wanted to see the casket and its contents. He needed to see it. Mercutio 14 was now no more than a burnt and barren rock, devoid of life. The Hexion Geldmongers had been extinct for millennia. The Mymon Key, their greatest and most terrible creation, was the stuff of legends. He had to see it. That was what was keeping him there.

'I've found it! Slipstream gasped, his voice trembling with emotion. 'I've found it.'

The Doctor ran to his side and looked over his shoulder.

Then he saw it: the gleaming cobalt box, its l.u.s.tre only slightly tarnished by the thin film of dust on its surface.

Slipstream swept over it with his hand, and now the Doctor saw the markings on its surface -an ancient language that hadn't been written down or spoken in hundreds of thousands of years.

'Give it to me,' said the Doctor.

Slipstream lifted the casket, which was no bigger than a s...o...b..x, free of the cluttered mound of fallen crates, and looked back at the Doctor, smiling awkwardly.

'What did you say?'

'I said give it to me.'

Slipstream frowned quizzically, as if taken aback by the Doctor's tone, and then the Doctor reached forward and seized the box from his grasp.

162.

The Doctor ran his hands around the casket, his fingers tracing their way through the intricate markings. He held the casket up to his ear as if listening out for something the others simply couldn't hear. He shook the box, and listened to it once more.

'It's broken,' he said.

'Well, I'm not surprised, old bean,' snapped Slipstream.

'What with you shaking it about like that.'

'No... It's always been broken. The whole time it's been here.'

'What do you mean, broken? The key?'

'No... Not the key. The casket. The anti-gravitational field isn't working. The key... the key has been working the whole time.'

Slipstream stood at his side and pointed at the markings.

'And this?' he said. 'Can you read this?'

The Doctor nodded reluctantly. 'You know I can.'

'And what does it say?'

'They're instructions,' the Doctor replied. 'But you knew that already.'

'Perhaps I did. Then I'd suggest you follow them, Doctor.

Follow the instructions and open the casket.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'I can't,' he whispered. 'I can't let you have the Mymon Key. It's too powerful.'

163.

Slipstream lifted his blaster and placed its barrel squarely against the Doctor's head.

'Open the d.a.m.ned casket! he snarled. 'I won't ask you a second time.'

He could see them now, blazing towards them in a s.h.i.+mmering cloud of dust; the dark ma.s.s of humans tearing their way across the desert of gla.s.s.

The engines of the Golden Bough roared into life with a terrific whoosh and the whole s.h.i.+p shuddered.

'Dr Heeva! said Captain Jamal, speaking into the intercom. 'What is your location?'

'I'm on Deck 3.'

'Then hurry. They're almost here. We have to get out of here!'

He looked back across the glistening desert, and saw the black haze separating out, the individual forms of the humans and their ancient, makes.h.i.+ft vehicles becoming visible.

Somewhere in amongst the mob he saw a single figure riding on an arachnoid, eight-legged vehicle - a figure dressed in flowing white robes - and he knew instantly it must be their leader.

'Please, Dr Heeva... Hurry!'

Heeva came running from the loading bay door, but stopped at its control panel and began hitting the keys.

'What are you doing?' the Captain hissed into 164 the intercom.

'I'm closing the doors! said Dr Heeva. 'If we leave them open, the humans will get to the bomb. They might be able to deactivate it. We have to close the doors.'

There isn't time.'

'Then go.'

'I can't. I won't leave without you.'

Dr Heeva turned from the control panel and looked up at him. There were tears streaming from her small black eyes and rolling down her pallid, grey cheeks.

'Please! she said. 'Just go.'

Captain Jamal closed his eyes. From beyond the hull of the Golden Bough, he could hear the sound of Schuler-Khan's fragments slamming into the Gyre. And he could hear the humans, their machines clanking and hissing, and their heavy feet stomping as they ran. They bellowed and they hollered, their animal cries echoing out into the perpetual night.

Heeva continued hitting keys on the control panel, turning her head every so often to watch the humans' progress. The hatch began to rise up, like a metal jaw, but then the control panel exploded in a shower of sparks, and Heeva jumped back, startled, to see the shaft of an arrow jutting from its smouldering remains.

Captain Jamal rose from his seat, pounding his fists against the window.

165.

'Get out of there!' he roared. 'Get out of there now!'

Heeva turned, looking up at him, and she smiled. A sad smile of resignation. The second arrow hit her in the chest, sending her reeling back against the hull of the Beagle XXI, and she slumped forward, falling to her knees. Seconds later, the humans were upon her.

Captain Jamal could do nothing but fall back into his seat and hit the thrusters once more. With a monstrous roar, the Golden Bough rose up from the surface of the Gyre, spinning round on its axis. Below it the seething black ma.s.s of humans swarmed towards the Beagle XXI and, for just a few seconds, the Captain saw their leader staring up at him, his face caked in gaudy, clown-like make-up.

He was laughing.

The casket's exterior was a puzzle in itself; a puzzle crafted millennia ago by a race who were now extinct.

With Slipstream's gun still trained on his head, the Doctor slid the last piece of the puzzle into place, the tiny cobalt tile moving smoothly along a groove and stopping with a click.