Doctor Who_ So Vile A Sin Part 11

Iaomnet: 'Me too.'

Zatopek: 'Yes.'

Chris told them, 'Everyone's coming through nice and clearly.

I've got your vital signs on my board... now. Take it easy out there, don't try to see everything at once.'

They moved through the airlock, then out in front of the Hopper. Chris saw Iaomnet was carrying a double-barrelled plasma thrower, the least subtle weapon in the s.h.i.+p's small armoury. The Doctor gave Chris a cheery wave, and the four suited figures headed in the direction of the gash, bouncing slowly in the moon's gravity.

Ten minutes pa.s.sed. Chris watched the vital-signs monitors, making sure that all of the suits were functioning properly. He could monitor their oxygen levels, their heart rates, the lot, and he'd made sure each of them knew it. Not to make them feel safer. So that they knew that he'd know if anyone did anything they shouldn't.

'Who can hear me?' said the Doctor.

'I can,' said Zatopek. There was a pause. Chris held his peace.

'You've isolated our communications, Doctor?' said the geologist.

'Yes. Now would be a good time to tell me what you know, don't you think?'

Zatopek didn't answer right away. Eventually he said, 'Can you imagine what life is like as an unregistered psychokinetic?'

'I'm sure you can,' said the Doctor.

'All that suspicion suspicion. Always suspecting and being suspected. Is this new friend I have made really an agent of the Inst.i.tute for the Gifted? Is that telepath wearing the inst.i.tute's symbol probing my mind even as I walk past? Remember to let the coffee cup fall 93 when you drop it, remember to use your hands to smooth your hair. So difficult to live with the secret.'

'So dangerous,' said the Doctor. 'Especially here, where our lives depend on one another. Even if you're not a telepath per se, you're vulnerable to the psychic leakage. I saved you once, Emil, but what if I can't do it again? Tell me why you're really here.'

'Are you threatening me?'

'Don't be ridiculous. I'm asking you to show some common sense. The others don't need to know.'

'You already know too much about me,' said Zatopek. 'I can trust Martinique, and Iaomnet's grade depends on our good report. But how can I ensure you don't inform the authorities of my wild talent?'

'Now it sounds like you're threatening me.'

'You're right, Doctor. We do have to trust one another.'

Silence. Chris saw the telltales s.h.i.+ft as the Doctor opened his comm channels up again. ' extraordinary!' Martinique was saying. 'And it's the age of the find that's the most significant thing. The crater was built to hide those structures, I'm sure of it.

What civilization visited this dead moon, ten million years ago?

What did they build here, and why?'

'Are we going inside it?' asked Iaomnet, sounding as though she'd rather snort a gecko.

'Of course we're going inside it,' said Martinique. Chris imagined the man's eyes s.h.i.+ning inside his helmet. 'Just a small sortie at first. No more than a few hours.'

Chris said, 'I won't be able to track your vital signs and communications once you're s.h.i.+elded by the rock.'

'Then we'll have to be careful,' said Martinique.

'Very careful,' said Zatopek.

'Very very careful,' said Iaomnet.

'Very careful indeed,' said the Doctor.

Chris watched their progress on his monitors for another hour, peeking through the Doctor's binocs from time to time. The party was heading for a big blue rectangle that stood out from the other shapes. It looked a lot like a door.

94.Chris switched to the Doctor's suit camera when the group got close enough. 'It's an airlock,' said the Time Lord. 'The shape and size suggests a humanoid species.'

Martinique said, 'How do you know it's an airlock?'

Iaomnet lifted her plasma thrower. 'Knock knock,' she said.

'Hang on a moment,' said the Doctor. The airlock loomed on Chris's screen. Suddenly the picture was filled with steam.

'Doctor!' said Chris. 'Are you all right?'

'Of course,' said the Doctor. 'Just dust and some very, very old air escaping. The airlock is easy to open from the outside. You'd hardly want to design one that was hard to get into...'

'Unless you were a military installation,' said Martinique, 'and you didn't want visitors.'

'On the other hand,' said the Doctor, 'this particular door was hidden by tons of rock.'

'So we still don't know what we're going to find,' said Iaomnet.

The Doctor's point of view s.h.i.+fted, taking in Zatopek's helmet for a moment. 'There is,' he said, 'as the saying goes, only one way to find out.'

The Doctor and company had been out of contact for two hours.

Chris was sick of playing video games. He decided to go and see what Son of My Father and Sister Son were up to.

The Ogrons were jogging in circles around the cargo bay. Part of the small s.p.a.ce was taken up with sensor equipment, but the rest was neatly stacked packaging, collapsed into flat squares.

Chris sat down on an unopened crate, watching the Ogrons for a while. Son of My Father saw him and raised a hairy hand, but they kept jogging, relentlessly, the metal plates of the floor rattling under their feet.

Chris shrugged, took off his jacket, and joined them.

The pointless movement took the edge off his nerves. He wiped sweat from his face as he followed the Ogrons around. No one told them what was going on around them. Did they run because they were nervous? Or were they just burning off excess energy?

95.At last all of them stopped, leaning against the wall and the crates as they got their breath back. Even Ogrons get out of breath, Chris realized. It made them seem more human. Well, it did did it was something familiar. it was something familiar.

Son of My Father clapped a meaty hand on Chris's shoulder.

'You a regular guy,' he said. 'You got to watch out for the people on this s.h.i.+p, Chris. Sometimes bad rocks fool you: look like good rocks on the outside.'

Chris nodded. 'Thanks. I've already worked out that Iaomnet's not a student. Or not just a student, anyway. She's probably a double-eye.'

Son of My Father shook his head. 'Not what I mean.'

'Well,' said Chris, 'Zatopek has kind of given himself away as well.'

'Not what I mean either. Watch out.'

Chris stood up. 'Is the Doctor in danger?'

Son of My Father just shrugged.

Four hours. Chris couldn't settle. The Ogrons had gone back into their quarters, but he kept wandering around the s.h.i.+p. He tried jogging for a while, but it just made him feel lightheaded.

He ran a dozen diagnostics on the Hopper's systems, checking for sabotage, then irregularities, then anything out of the ordinary. He found a few modifications in the drive system, and remembered with a surprisingly guilty start that they'd pinched the s.h.i.+p.

Four and a half hours. He cooked some chicken soup in the galley, but didn't want it. He tried to grab a nap, but couldn't, lying in his quarters waiting for the bridge computer to tell him the Doctor was back in radio range.

Eventually he tried so hard to go to sleep that he dropped off from exhaustion.

He felt the dream come down like a terrible weight on his chest, like a tornado blowing through the tiny cabin. He tried to open his eyes, grabbing at the lids with his fingers, and somehow opened them, but the dream didn't stop, slithering out from under the bed.

Slithering. Green eyes, watching.

96.Chris stumbled across the cabin and smacked into the opposite wall. 'Go away!' he yelled. 'I'm awake awake!'

A voice came hissing out of the dream's scaly face. 'Can't you feel it?' it insisted. 'It's all changing. Changing all around you.'

There wasn't much stuff in the cabin, but it was blowing around as though the hull had been punctured. 's.h.i.+t!' shouted Chris. 'What's happening?'

'Don't you feel it?' said the dream.

'Yeah,' said Chris. 'The Doctor.'

He stumbled across the room, the wind trying to knock him over, the dream trying to curl itself around his legs.

There was no sign of the Ogrons. Chris thought of hammering on their door, but the wind pushed him away, down the narrow corridor, down to the airlock.

Somewhere out there, he knew, the Doctor was at the green eye of the storm. Oh G.o.d, this wasn't a dream: something real was happening. Somewhere out there, deep in Artemis's belly.

They'd gone under her skin, seen what they shouldn't have seen, and now they were being chased across the mountain by ravening dreams like dogs let off the leash.

Chris bent over, hands pressed against his knees, gasping for breath. The images were just blowing through him, on their way to nowhere.

He pulled on the s.p.a.cesuit, his pale hands appearing like insects from the ends of the fat sleeves. He shook as he tugged on and locked the gloves. He had to get out there, push into the storm, find the Doctor and pull him free.

Did he need to? He watched his hand disappear into the glove.

Wouldn't the Doctor just shed his skin again? Wouldn't he just let the storm burn him, burn his skin away, and crawl out of the mountain laughing?

All those skins, torn loose and blown away in the wind, all those different faces, sailing past him, glimpses of faces smiling or serious, but all of them the Doctor. Shedding his skin, his skins, shattered like a dropped cup.

One of the skins blew right up to Chris, flapping against him like an escaped newspaper. He beat it away before it could wrap itself around him, and it went blowing away, one of hundreds.

97.Chris pulled on the helmet, snapped it in place and turned on the internal environment. Instantly he was gasping, sparkles exploding in front of his eyes. The terrible weight pushed against his chest as he struggled with the helmet.

The dream crawled out of its resting place in the suit, looming in his helmet, its lethal eyes an inch from his. He shrieked, his own voice shrilling in his ears.

The sound changed, suddenly, and he realized the helmet was off and he could breathe again. Son of My Father was looking at him.

'Bad air,' said the Ogron. 'You must be careful and check the air.'

'Yes,' Chris wheezed. He was sitting on the floor of the airlock, leaning against the wall at an awkward angle, the oxygen pack propping him up. He rolled, face down on the floor.

Son of My Father looked at the indicators. 'No air,' he said.

'Not even bad air. Someone forgot to get this suit ready.'

Chris shook his head. His hair was plastered to his face. He pushed at it, clumsy in his gloves. 'Someone must have disabled the safeties. I'll bet you anything the other suits are the same.'

Son of My Father crouched beside him. 'Good Ogron,' he said, 'good Chris. You stay here in the s.h.i.+p.'

'Jeez,' said Chris. 'If they wanted me to stay, they only had to ask ask.'

An hour later the control board lit up with vital signs. Two sets of signs, one of them rapid with panic, the other wildly erratic.

Chris took a deep breath and said, 'Can you hear me? What's your condition?' Nothing. 'Do you require a.s.sistance?' Nothing.

Not like he could give any. He'd tried repairing one of the sabotaged suits, working from the manual, but it was going to take hours.

' G.o.d's sake say something! Can't you hear me?' yelled Martinique.

'Relax, Professor, I can hear you fine.' He'd probably only just remembered which b.u.t.ton to press. 'What's your status?'

'Dead!' gasped Martinique. 'Zatopek's dead. Send the Ogrons.

I'm carrying the Doctor. I'm exhausted.'

98.Chris glanced at the second set of wavering vital signs. 'Slow down, Professor. What happened to the Doctor? Where's Iaomnet?'

'I don't know. I don't know what the h.e.l.l happened to us. It all just blew up in our faces. We have to get out of here. Send the Ogrons.'

'I can't, Professor. All of the spare HE suits have been sabotaged.'

'You're lying.' The academic was breathing hard as he dragged the Doctor along. 'You just don't want to help us, and your friend friend is is dying dying!'

Chris made himself speak slowly and clearly. 'What happened to him?'

'The same thing that happened to Zatopek on the s.h.i.+p,' said Martinique. 'But a thousand times worse. A million times worse.'

'Ca.s.sandra,' breathed the Doctor.