by Gary Russell
Amaranth and Aureolin gave the vast lead coffin a shove and it ended up by the drapes at the back that separated the main Chamber from their private, hidden area.
Azure then drew the drapes aside, revealing the Doctor’s TARDIS.
Colonel Karim walked into the Chamber and smiled. ‘I always love seeing that in my possession.’
Azure gave her a look. ‘It is a possession of the Claw Shansheeth.’
Karim was about to give a reply, then decided not to. After all, once the plan was in motion, getting the TARDIS away from the Shansheeth was going to be easy. Stupid vultures – they had no idea what she could do.
‘Behold,’ Amaranth announced, ‘the Memory Weave is ready.’
He had moved an upright medical stretcher next to the Cradle. There were retractable straps and arm and leg clamps on it. And close to the top was a small dome that could fit over a human head, with a spaghetti of different coloured wires running from that into a small portable computer console about the size of a chest of drawers. This contained a screen and a series of switches and dials.
Aureolin had an identical set-up on the other side of the room.
Karim opened a small square cut into the floor, which revealed a power supply with flexible cabling and linked first Amaranth’s and then Aureolin’s to the main UNIT power grid. That done, she glanced at her watch.
‘We have about an hour before the base fills up with personnel again,’ she snapped. ‘You said we’d be finished by now.’
Azure flexed his wings angrily. ‘And you said we’d have the memories by now.’
Karim closed her eyes and imagined a huge oven, like her one at home but massive, and inside it, three large birds slowly roasting. She forced a smile on to her face. ‘Hopefully the Doctor will bring them back soon, we can get the key to the TARDIS and be done.’
Azure stared at her – was that contempt she could see in his eyes? ‘Soon the Memory Weave will be active. Deliver the women to our wings, and not even the Doctor will be able to stop the crusade of the Shansheeth.’
Karim had heard it all before and it was starting to get repetitive. The same promises and pronouncements over the last few months.
She turned back to the door but before leaving, pointed to the connected-up Memory Weaves. ‘Don’t overheat those things with power. When UNIT first got their hands on them, we left one of them plugged in for too long. That’s why we only have two now.’
And she marched out, slamming the Chamber doors behind her.
Stupid Shansheeth. If she’d known when she was first contacted by them just how frustrating they could be, she’d never have agreed to all this.
Actually, that was a lie, she reminded herself. Because she wanted the TARDIS as much as they did – if not for the same reasons. The Shansheeth wanted its secrets, its time-travelling capabilities for their own, frankly insipid reasons. Noble in some respects, perhaps, but wasteful. So that didn’t interest her. In return for her help in getting it, the Shansheeth had promised to take her out there, into space and time. All these years working her way up through UNIT, doing demeaning jobs, being posted to stupid backward countries, protecting idiot dignitaries when all the stuff UNIT had gathered over the years was theirs to use! But no, stupid rules and regulations forbade the use of alien artefacts and stuff.
How ridiculous was that? She had known when she was ten that Tia Karim was destined for a better life and UNIT had promised it. But it had let her down with its placid, reactive rather than proactive, attitudes. How was the human race supposed to grow in strength and power if it didn’t use the gifts and trophies it found? Stupid politicians with their small-minded perspectives. But out there, out in space amongst those aliens, she could show them how powerful one person could be. And with the TARDIS at her command, once the Shansheeth were out of the picture…the universe was hers for the taking.
The Colonel took a small device from her pocket. On it glowed an illuminated map of the whole base. A red dot showed where she was standing, and a small cluster of dots nearby were the Shansheeth. Which meant that other small cluster, working their way through the ventilation ducts, must be those stupid kids.
She tapped a button on the device and a line went across one of the ducts.
Tap. Another line.
‘Time to box you lot in,’ she muttered.
Clyde, Rani, Santiago and the Groske were staring in horror at the metal panel that had just slammed across the ducting in front of them, cutting off the route ahead.
‘That’s not good,’ Clyde said.
‘Trapped,’ the Groske said.
‘Great,’ said Clyde. ‘Back the way we came?’
At which point another panel crashed down, cutting off that way too. Clyde looked at the Groske. ‘So what exactly was your plan?’
‘No plan. Shansheeth scary. Groske hide. Humans hide, too.’
Clyde sighed. ‘No plan. Oh, great.’
Rani shrugged. ‘Hiding made sense actually,’ she said. ‘We need to keep you safe because whatever the Doctor’s doing, he needs you safe for that body switcheroo thing.’
Clyde waved around. ‘Yeah, but in here, if he arrives, splat – there’s not a great deal of space now.’
Santiago laughed quietly. ‘I can’t believe you do this all the time. Aliens and chases and stuff.’
‘You can talk, mate,’ said Clyde. ‘Going off to Paraguay and Mount Everest.’
‘You just went to another planet!’
Clyde laughed too. ‘Yeah, there is that.’
‘We’ve been to parallel worlds. Nightmare dimensions. Limbo. And if we’re lucky, home for tea. We see all this stuff and then Mum’s like, “What did you do today?” and I’m like, “Not much. Went to the library.” ’
‘ “Played footie with Steve, Finney and the guys.” ’ Clyde smiled.
‘ “Stayed behind at drama club.” They always like that one!’ said Rani.
‘And of course what we can’t say is, “Oh, and Mum, I fought off a platoon of Judoon from the moon in my spare time,” cos our parents’d freak.’
Santiago nodded slowly, then said, without a smile, ‘Haven’t seen my mum for six months.’
Rani frowned. ’How come?’
‘She’s in Japan, organising a rally. I mean, that’s brilliant, it’s really important.’
‘Course it is, yeah,’ encouraged Clyde.
‘But before that, she was in Africa finding shell-flower plants. And Dad’s with the Gay Fathers Organisation, hiking across Antarctica, so we haven’t been together since about…April.’
‘When are you going to see them next?’
Santiago shrugged. ‘I know they’re going to be at some anti-nuclear rally in Norway in a few weeks but Gran needs to get back to Granddad soon, and I’ve got a cousin on the way in Dubai. Still, at least that’ll be warm.’
‘Talking of warm…’ Clyde rested his hands on the ventilation ducting floor. ‘Is it me, or…?’
The Groske jumped and immediately banged his head on the low ceiling. ‘Hot too,’ he pointed up. ‘Hot, hot, hot!’
Rani grabbed Clyde. ‘They’re trying to boil us!’
Chapter Eleven
Activate the memory weave
Colonel Karim strode back into the Funeral Chamber, holding her device up. ‘Excellent. I’ve got the Brady Bunch exactly where we need them, getting a bit hot under the collar.’
Azure looked up from one of the Memory Weave consoles. ‘The children are irrelevant.’
Karim sighed at their lack of imagination. ‘Not to the Doctor, they’re not,’ she said, slowly, hoping that spelled it out to the Shansheeth. ‘Wherever he is, he’ll be planning something. So we need to divert his attention.’
And she ran her finger up the device, increasing the heating in the ducting walls…and then smiled as three new dots appeared suddenly on the screen. ‘Gotcha,’ she said.
In the bedroom allocated to Sarah Jane, where they had been standing before being zapped off to th
at alien planet, the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Jo Jones had popped back into existence in a blue flash.
‘They’re not here,’ said Sarah Jane, meaning the teens.
‘Help!’ came a voice.
‘That’s Rani!’
The Doctor whirled around the room, taking it all in properly for the first time and then his eyes settled on the ventilation grille lying on the floor where the Groske had, unknown to the Doctor, shoved it earlier.
‘Ventilation shafts,’ he said delightedly. ‘That takes me back. Or forwards.’ And he kneeled down and crawled in. ‘Hold on!’ he yelled. ‘We’re coming!’
‘Doctor!’ That was Clyde. ‘We’re getting roasted!’
The Doctor touched the walls. Warm. ‘Must be hotter further on,’ he said to Sarah Jane and Jo behind him, without turning around. Because he couldn’t.
But there was no reply.
‘Sarah Jane?’
Nothing.
‘Jo?’
Nothing.
Which meant they were in trouble – probably that UNIT Colonel and her Shansheeth friends.
But who to help? His old friends or the teenagers trapped in a rapidly heating-up shaft?
It was getting hotter where he was too. But why weren’t Clyde and the others coming towards him?
He noticed slits in the walls. ‘Shutters. In case of fire. Gaaah!’
Decision made – he had to get to the youngsters who were almost certainly trapped behind a shutter.
Clever Colonel Wotsername, she knew how to press his buttons!
He scurried forwards as quickly as he could, hands and knees, feeling the increasing heat as he got closer to the calling voices.
‘Clyde? Rani? Jo’s grandson whose name I never got?’ he yelled.
‘Doctor!’
He turned a sharp left and ahead was a closed hatchway.
No sonic screwdriver, and Sarah Jane still had her lipstick with her.
‘Brute force it is then,’ he muttered, and pushed his palms against the heated panel. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focusing on the panel, and with one mighty shove, it lifted a fraction.
Clyde’s fingers immediately appeared underneath, followed by a series of complaints about how hot it was.
Adding both their strengths, the panel didn’t stand a chance and it lifted and returned to its slot in the wall.
The Doctor found himself face to face with Clyde.
‘Blimey,’ Clyde said. ‘You really have changed your face. Couldn’t see before, what with all the body-swapping and stuff.’
‘Good to see you,’ the Doctor grinned.
‘Oi!’ yelled Rani. ‘Still cooking back here!’
‘And where’s my Gran?’ came another voice.
‘Right, yes, sorry,’ the Doctor stammered. ‘She’s in danger.’ Actually, that probably wasn’t a wise thing to say, he chastised himself silently. ‘So, we’d better…oh, can’t turn round.’
‘You have to sort of shuffle backwards,’ Clyde pointed behind the Doctor.
So the Doctor did, as fast as he could.
Clyde moved forward, face to face with the Doctor. ‘Even your eyes are different,’ he said as they scurried. ‘Weird. I thought the eyes would stay the same. Can you change colour? Or are you always white?’
‘I can be anything,’ the Doctor said, slightly breathlessly. Going backwards at speed wasn’t that easy.
‘And is there a limit?’
‘Limit?’
‘Yeah; how many times can you change?’
‘Five hundred and seven,’ the Doctor said, feeling his feet in the larger space of the bedroom now. He popped out and quickly all but dragged Clyde, then Rani, then Jo’s grandson, Santiago (the Doctor shook his hand as he introduced himself), then – ‘Oh, hullo,’ he said. ‘A Groske. How nice!’
The Groske jumped out. ‘No smell anymore,’ he said to Clyde.
‘That’s comforting,’ Clyde muttered.
‘Listen,’ snapped Santiago.
There was a hum, steadily rising, coming from some way away.
Rani touched the bedroom door. ‘Vibrating.’
‘That’s a lot of power building up,’ the Doctor said, yanking the door open and pelting off in the direction of the noise. Towards the Funeral Chamber!
Inside the Chamber, Colonel Karim was operating the computer console for one of the Memory Weaves, into which Sarah Jane was strapped.
On the opposite side of the room, Jo was strapped into the other one, and Aureolin was placing the wired-up helmet on her head, while Azure operated the controls.
Amaranth fitted Sarah Jane’s helmet.
‘I never trusted you, Colonel,’ Sarah Jane said.
Karim raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Like I care. Frankly, I’ve never met anyone so staggeringly pious in all my life.’
‘The Doctor will stop you,’ Sarah Jane said.
Karim sighed. ‘Oh, give it a rest. The doors are sealed. This room was originally designed as a bunker in case Mount Snowdon, and this base specifically, was attacked. He’d need so much dynamite to blow those doors apart, he’d bring the mountain down on his head first.’
Jo, however, was staring at the TARDIS, the lead coffin lying discarded to one side of it.
‘I never thought I’d ever see the TARDIS again,’ she breathed.
‘That’s what this is all about,’ the Colonel said to her from across the room. ‘The TARDIS and you two.’ She looked at Azure. ‘Activate the Memory Weave.’
Azure flicked a switch with his great talons, and Colonel Karim did the same on her console.
And simultaneously, they turned similar dials. The hum got louder.
‘So, come on then,’ Sarah Jane said bravely. ‘What does a Memory Weave do?’
‘Cos I warn you, sweetheart,’ Jo said, just as bravely, ‘at my age, the memory’s going.’
‘You only need to remember one thing,’ said Amaranth, now strumming the Cradle again. ‘The TARDIS key.’
Karim explained. ‘The Weave takes the memory out of your head and makes it real. It weaves matter – a physical key from your thoughts.’
‘And then,’ Azure said, extending his massive wings in victory, ‘we will have access to the TARDIS! The most miraculous machine in creation. And it shall be ours!’
‘But you mustn’t,’ Jo said.
Azure ignored her. ‘We have seen so much death. The Claw Shansheeth have presided over infinite funerals. We see the pain, and the suffering, again and again and again. But with the TARDIS we can stop this, we can intervene to prevent such loss of life on a universal scale. A noble quest to stop the endless, endless weeping.’
‘You’re going to stop death?’ Sarah Jane was appalled. ‘That’ll change the whole of history. That’s why creatures like you can’t have time machines, you’d wreck the entire universe.’
Colonel Karim threw Sarah Jane a look. ‘What did I say? Pious.’
But Sarah Jane was furious. ‘I’d rather be pious than vile. Talking of which, what do you get out of this, Colonel?’
‘A bigger horizon. Cos there’s nothing for me on Earth anymore. So the Shansheeth are going to take me to the stars.’ And with a cruel smile, she turned the dial up more.
At which point a furious hammering began on the door, from outside. Then a voice – the Doctor’s, calling their names anxiously.
‘They want the TARDIS key,’ Sarah Jane bravely called out to him. ‘They’ve got your TARDIS and a Memory Weave!’
‘You’re too late out there,’ Karim yelled, her voice cracking slightly, a tone of mild hysteria in it. She was getting stressed as her plan neared completion. ‘You can’t stop us…me!’
And she turned her dials up further.
Azure did the same, as Amaranth strummed the Cradle and the Memory Weave power throbbed and throbbed, louder and louder.
‘Concentrate,’ Azure demanded. ‘Think of the key!’
‘I’ve got the original key in my pocket.’ The Doctor’s voi
ce came from outside in the corridor. ‘You can have it if you let them go.’
The Shansheeth looked at one another.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Karim spat at them. ‘Let him inside this room and he’ll destroy us! Keep going!’
She ramped the dial up more and Sarah Jane finally cried out in pain.
‘Think of the TARDIS,’ said Azure.
‘Think of the key,’ said Aureolin.
‘Remember,’ said Amaranth, strumming faster and louder.
And Sarah Jane flinched, trying not to remember.
But images formed in the air, created by the power of the Cradle’s music, showing her memories: being inside the Tenth Doctor’s coral TARDIS, with Rose and Mickey. And Martha. And Donna. And of course, Captain Jack Harkness. The Fourth Doctor’s TARDIS, as she said her goodbye, walking out on to the cold streets of Aberdeen, watching that door close behind her.
Other times outside the TARDIS – the South Pole, the realm of Mandragora, Zeta Minor, Nerva Beacon, Peladon, Exxilon…
So many memories…
And Jo was doing the same, another hologram in the air, showing her memories of the key in use. Inter Minor, the realm of Kronos, Skybase One, Peladon, Uxaerius…
‘The memories coalesce!’ said Amaranth gleefully.
‘The key…it takes shape,’ Aureolin announced.
‘Can’t…stop…’ Sarah Jane cried, watching as her memories, her beautiful, amazing, treasured, precious memories were used against her will, creating a duplicate TARDIS key in the air before her. ‘How…dare…you?’ she cried at Karim, who just laughed cruelly, and her eyes blazed in triumph as the key started to solidify!
Out in the corridor, the Doctor was concentrating.
‘There’s no other way in?’ he asked the Groske. ‘No ventilation duct?’
‘Not big enough,’ the Groske said. ‘Just air vents.’
Clyde grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and slammed it against the door with all his might, but it didn’t even scratch it.
Santiago then kicked angrily at the sealed door. ‘Need a bulldozer,’ he said.
Rani was looking around. ‘Maybe there’s a fire axe or something?’
‘There isn’t,’ the Doctor said sadly. ‘And it wouldn’t do any good – that door’s built to withstand a lot.’