DOCTOR WHO - FURY FROM THE DEEP

by Victor Pemberton

  'Statistics! Always statistics!'

  Harris persisted. 'At least look at my calculations.'

  'All right! All right!' Robson's patience was running out fast. 'Go and get your stupid bits of paper, and I'll show you where you've gone wrong!'

  Harris rushed across to his desk to collect the file he was referring to. His briefcase was lying on top of the desk. He quickly opened it, and felt inside. His shock was immediate. 'It's gone!' He turned, calling back to Robson who was watching him from the observation platform. 'The file - it's gone!'

  There was a knowing look on Robson's face. 'Well, well, well, has it now?'

  Harris was desperately tipping out the contents of his briefcase onto the desk. Some pencils, a newspaper, and a portable sonic calculator. But no file. 'I'm sure I put it in here this morning. I must have left the file in my desk at home.' He started to move off. 'I'll go and get it...

  'You stay right where you are, Harris!' Robson's bronchial voice echoed across the Control Hall. 'I'm not doing your job here as well as my own!'

  Harris glared back defiantly. 'What's the matter, sir? Are you afraid I might prove you wrong?'

  Robson couldn't believe his ears. This was the first time anyone in the Refinery had dared to challenge him about anything. And this, coming from a young upstart straight out of a red-brick University. He was about to yell back at Harris when he suddenly realised the entire Control Hall crew were watching him. He strolled back casually to Harris, stared him straight in the eyes and said quietly, 'All right, boy. Go and get your little pieces of paper. But you'd better have something more than a high-flown theory to show me. Because if you haven't, I'm going to kick you right back into that University - where you belong!'

  In the crew cabin, Jamie was perched perilously on the Doctor's shoulders, peering out through a small metal grille above the door.

  'See anything?' The Doctor called in a hushed voice.

  Jamie looked along the corridor outside, then whispered back down to the Doctor, 'All clear.' He started to pull out the metal grille.

  'Don't bother, Jamie,' called Victoria. 'I can do it with this.' She took a hairpin from her hair, and held it up for Jamie to see.

  'Och! Don't be so stupid! Ye canna pick a door lock with a hairpin.'

  The Doctor squirmed as he took the weight of Jamie on his shoulders. Suddenly, there was a loud bang as Jamie pulled out the metal grille, and accidentally dropped it to the floor.

  'Clumsy!' Victoria had her fingers in her ears.

  Jamie glared at her, then struggled to pull himself through the very narrow opening left by the grille. Victoria ignored him, and started to tackle the door lock with her hairpin.

  In the corridor outside, Jamie was half-way through the opening above the crew cabin door. Although agile, he did, in fact, look very clumsy as he tried to pull himself through the narrow opening. Suddenly, he froze. Someone was coming along the corridor. He quickly closed his eyes, hoping he wouldn't be noticed.

  Maggie Harris approached, just in time to see her husband coming down the corridor in the opposite direction. To Jamie's horror, they stopped to talk just below him.

  'Maggie! Where've you been? I've been trying to contact you.' Harris was on edge after his exchange with Robson.

  'I was going into the village, but Robson's clamped down on security.' Maggie's hair was windblown from the rough weather outside. 'I was on my way to see you to get a pass.'

  'Yes. There's been a bit of a flap on!'

  'Well, can you get me a pass?'

  'At the moment - not a hope. Now, listen carefully, Maggie. I want you to do something for me!'

  Jamie strained to hear what Harris was saying.

  'There's a file - it's probably in the top drawer of my desk in the study. Could you go and get it, and bring it to me here?'

  Maggie agreed, but looked puzzled. 'What's the panic?' she said.

  'I'll explain later. Fast as you can!'

  Harris was gone before Maggie had a chance to answer. She paused, just long enough to watch him disappear along the corridor, then hurried off back the same way she came.

  Jamie breathed a sigh of relief, then indicated for the Doctor to push him through.

  Inside the crew cabin, the Doctor and Victoria were looking up at Jamie's dangling feet.

  'He's stuck!' Victoria giggled, and went back to work on the door lock with her hairpin.

  'Hold on, Jamie!' called the Doctor, finding a stool to stand on. 'Here we go!' He grabbed hold of Jamie's feet, and gave them one final push.

  In the corridor outside, Jamie fell with a thud to the floor.

  'I told you not to bother!' Jamie looked up to find Victoria standing over him, smugly putting the hairpin back into her hair.

  The Doctor came out of the crew cabin. 'Sorry about that, Jamie.' He and Victoria had broad grins on their faces as they hurried off down the corridor. Jamie glared at them, then followed.

  Harris's apartment was one of many scattered around the Refinery Compound and was some distance from most of the other married quarters. There was nothing luxurious about the apartment. It was functional, with most of the furniture made out of the same transparent perspex material used in the Refinery. There were four main rooms: a lounge/diner, kitchen, bedroom, and study. Maggie's one personal touch was the various tropical plants creeping up the walls, some of them looking like prehistoric creatures attempting to take over the place. But the harsh East Anglian winds were not hospitable to the tropical immigrants, and their survival during the winter months depended wholly on the constant flow of gas central heating.

  Maggie's hair was glistening with snowflakes as she hurried in, and used all her strength to close the front door against the biting gale-force wind outside. Then she turned, and quickly made her way to the study.

  Maggie went straight to Harris's desk. It was, as usual, cluttered with papers and books. 'Top drawer,' she said to herself, opening the drawer and searching it: Nothing there except stationery and technical photographs. Then she searched the other two drawers. The same.

  Just as she was about to give up the search, Maggie caught a glimpse of the file Harris had asked her for. It was partly submerged beneath the papers on top of the desk. She started clearing the papers, but suddenly stopped with a shocked start. Something was spread out on top of the file.

  It was a small clump of seaweed.

  Maggie couldn't believe her eyes. What was such a thing doing inside the apartment? Wet and slimy, pitted with bubbles and streaked with veins, the intruder was the last thing Maggie expected to find sitting on top of a file on her husband's desk. She took a closer look. 'Where the hell did you come from?' she said, as if expecting a reply. The seaweed clump was glistening beneath the glare of the desk lamp. Maggie sighed. 'Ah well. Out you go... ' She put her hand out to remove the clump. In one swift, terrifying movement, the seaweed clump suddenly sprang to life, wrapped itself around Maggie's hand, then dropped to the floor. Maggie screamed out in agony, as though stung by a bee or wasp.

  For a moment, Maggie just stood there, shaking with fright, clutching her injured hand, staring in disbelief at the now lifeless seaweed clump on the floor. Then, in one angry impetuous movement, she quickly picked up the seaweed, rushed into the kitchen with it, and frantically threw it out the back door.

  The Harris's verandah outside the kitchen was protected from the snow by a slanting perspex roof and wind-breakers. Pots of winter-flowering shrubs were surviving the extreme cold, but not so the concrete floor which had been cracked by the endless hard frosts. The seaweed clump was on that floor now, where Maggie had thrown it. It seemed out of place there: wet, slimy, and ominously still.

  Then there came a thumping, heartbeat sound. The bubbles on the surface of the seaweed clump started to pop, followed by a hissing sound: the sound of escaping gas...

  3

  A Pair of White Gloves

  Pieter van Lutyens had never liked Controller Robson, not from the first day he set
eyes on him. The Dutchman had always found Robson to be arrogant, opinionated, and thoroughly ruthless to his crewmen. Two years ago, van Lutyens had been appointed by his government to serve as a technical adviser to the Refinery, at the request of the British Euro-Gas Corporation. He was a likeable little man, dumpy, balding, quick-witted, the very personification of someone who has learnt how to get on well with people. With most people that is - except Robson.

  'Van Lutyens, are you trying to tell me how to do my job?' Robson was glaring again. He was on the observation platform in the Control Hall, checking out computer flow levels.

  'Mr Robson,' van Lutyens spoke English with no trace of an accent, 'the morale of the men out on those rigs is extremely low. We've got to do something about it!'

  'I make the decisions around here, my friend - not you!' Robson turned his back on the Dutchman and continued what he was doing.

  Van Lutyens refused to be ignored. He gripped the platform hand rail, and called up to Robson. 'You don't understand! I've just come back from the Control Rig. The men are behaving strangely. They are being affected by something out there in the sea.'

  'You're here to advise me on any technical problems, not to spread alarm amongst my crews,' retorted Robson.

  Van Lutyens was gripping the hand rail so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. 'Why won't you ever listen to the facts?'

  Robson swung around angrily. 'Now you listen to me, van Lutyens. It was Megan Jones and those fools on the Board who sent you here. I told them it would never work. And it hasn't!'

  'Only because you are too proud to accept advice.'

  'Let's get something straight, my friend.' Robson pointed his finger menacingly at van Lutyens. 'When I need your advice, I'll ask for it!'

  Van Lutyens managed a wry smile. 'By then it will be too late.'

  Just above where Robson and van Lutyens were having their tense exchange, three faces appeared at an upper corridor window overlooking the Control Hall. It was the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria. Slowly, quietly, they eased open the window. As they did so, there was a flurry of activity at the Communications Cone.

  'Mr Robson!' Price's voice boomed out above the deafening thumping sound of the giant impeller. 'I've got Chief Baxter at Control Rig, sir. He's on Video Three.'

  Robson immediately broke away from van Lutyens, and hurried across to the Cone. Chief Baxter's face was on the Video Three monitor. He looked tired and strained.

  'Yes, Baxter? What is it?'

  Baxter was one of the most experienced drilling engineers in the North Sea gas fields. Now a man in his late fifties, he was once tipped to take on the job that eventually went to Robson. But Baxter was too vital to the off-shore drilling exploration programme, so he was given command of the Control Rig.

  'Has Mr van Lutyens arrived yet, sir?'

  'Yes, he's here!' snapped Robson. 'Why?'

  Baxter coughed slightly. It was just a dry cough, more a clearing of the throat. But it was noticeable. 'He's told you then, sir? I mean - about how the men feel out here?'

  'Look, Baxter - I'm running this outfit, not Mr van Lutyens. You take your orders from me!'

  'Yes I know sir, but - ' he coughed again, 'there's something else.' As he spoke now, there were signs of breathlessness. 'Something... seems to have got inside the pipeline.'

  Everyone in the Control Hall stopped what they were doing. All eyes were turned towards the Video Three monitor.

  Robson squinted at the monitor screen, as though he was short-sighted. 'What the hell are you talking about, man?'

  There were beads of sweat on Baxter's forehead. He dabbed it with his handkerchief. 'I know it sounds ridiculous, sir. But whatever it is, it's in the tubes feeding in from the other rigs. We've all heard it.'

  Van Lutyens had now joined Robson, staring anxiously at the screen. 'Heard?' said Robson. 'Heard what?'

  'This sound...' Baxter's voice was becoming more and more breathless. 'At first... I thought it was something to do with the pumps. But... it isn't. It's a... peculiar sound... a sort of regular thumping... pulsating.' For a split second it seemed that he held his breath, then said, 'It's like listening to the sound of your own heartbeat.'

  'That's it!' said the Doctor in his hidden vantage point. He rubbed his hands together excitedly. 'That's exactly what I heard in the pipeline down on the beach.'

  Victoria bit her lip nervously. 'Yes, Doctor, but what is that sound?'

  The Doctor's exuberance quickly subsided. 'I don't know, Victoria. But we're going to find out. Come on, Jamie!' Jamie was perplexed. 'Where're we going?'

  'I want to take another look at that pipeline.'

  The Doctor and Jamie left the window, and started to move off down the corridor. As they did so, Victoria tagged on behind. But the Doctor stopped suddenly, and turned. 'Er - no, Victoria. Not you.'

  Victoria looked hurt. 'Oh - why not?'

  'Not the sort of job for a young girl,' said the Doctor. And when Victoria was about to object, he merely had to smile at her like a protective uncle and say, 'Better go back and wait in the crew cabin. We shan't be long. Please?'

  As usual, the Doctor won Victoria over, and she reluctantly made her way back to the cabin. As soon as the Doctor and Jamie were out of sight however, she sneaked off down another corridor to do a little snooping of her own.

  In the bedroom of the Harris's apartment, Maggie was not feeling at all well. Her hand was swelling up from the sting she had received from the seaweed clump, and she began to feel drowsy and disoriented. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she closed her eyes, rubbed them, then opened them again. She looked around her. Everything seemed to be just very slightly out of focus.

  The room was suddenly flooded by a burst of sunshine. Maggie gradually eased herself up from the bed, steadied herself, and went to the window.

  The snow had stopped falling, and that which had settled was beginning to thaw. But the sky was still a relentless sheet of dark grey, relieved only by an unexpected chink of sunlight. Maggie looked up and felt the brief caress of warmth on her cheeks. But the glare was too much, so she quickly shielded her eyes with one hand, and left the room.

  By the time she reached the kitchen, Maggie was feeling very shaky indeed. She made straight for the internal communications video, set in the wall above the dishwasher, then, using the remote control transmitter, tapped out three numbers. Almost immediately, Price's face appeared on the monitor screen. 'Control!'

  Cold beads of sweat were pouring down Maggie's face, and she found it hard to speak: 'M - Mrs Harris. Married Q - Quarters Block 420. Is m - my husband there p-please?'

  'We have an emergency on here at the moment, Mrs Harris. Is anything wrong?' asked Price.

  'C-could you please f-find him. Tell him... tell him I'm not feeling very well.'

  'Right away, Mrs Harris!' Price's face disappeared from the monitor screen.

  Maggie found her way to a chair at the kitchen table by the back door. Her head was now throbbing with pain. As she sat there, her mind became restless and confused. She could hear voices, all talking together at the same time. Dozens of them. Hundreds.

  Suddenly, she looked up with a start. The voices had gone, to be replaced immediately by another, more positive sound. Thumping. Pulsating. Maggie's eyes were rivetted towards the back door. The thumping sound was becoming louder, and louder. It was like listening to the sound of her own heartbeat...

  At the Refinery, someone was moving around in the darkness of the Oxygen Store Room. He was tall and thin, and was clothed from head to foot in a white tunic, trousers, cap, and gloves. Only the face of the mysterious figure could not be seen. It was hidden behind a rubber gas mask.

  Slowly, methodically, the white gloved hands felt their way along the rows of emergency oxygen cylinders. Finally, they selected one, broke the seal on the cylinder cap, and turned on the tap. Immediately, a hissing sound was heard. White gloves moved on, then did the same with two other cylinders. Gradually, the hissing sound increas
ed.

  Suddenly, the masked figure turned in alarm towards the door.

  Victoria was snooping around the corridor outside. She tried the handle of a door marked LABORATORY 2. It was locked. She turned with a start. Footsteps were approaching the far end of the corridor. She looked around frantically for the quickest means of escape. On the opposite side of the corridor was a door marked OXYGEN EMERGENCY SUPPLY. She tried the handle and the door opened. She rushed in. As she did so, Harris came hurrying down the corridor.

  Inside the Oyxgen Store Room, Victoria listened at the door. The sound of Harris's footsteps outside gradually disappeared. Victoria breathed a sigh of relief.

  As she was about to leave the room, Victoria heard the hissing sound of escaping oxygen. She tried to turn on the light, but it wasn't working. The fumes started to make her cough a little, so she covered her mouth with one hand. "Then she quickly felt her way around in the dark, searching the racks of cylinders to find out where the escaping gas was coming from. Within a moment or so, she had managed to turn off all the taps.

  The room was now silent again, and Victoria began to recover from the overpowering atmosphere. It was only then that she realised she was not alone. She slowly looked around, her eyes desperately trying to penetrate the eerie darkness of the room.

  'Who's there?' Her voice was no more than a timid whisper.

  Suddenly, a shaft of light from the corridor outside, beamed straight onto Victoria's face. Standing in the open doorway was the sinister gas-masked figure. Victoria made a rush for the door, only to find it slammed closed before she could get there. She frantically tried turning the handle, but in the corridor outside, a pair of white-gloved hands turned the key in the lock of the Oyxgen Room door.

  'Let me out of here!' yelled Victoria, struggling to open the door. But the door was very firmly locked, and once again she was a prisoner. For a moment, she just stood there in the dark, alone and frightened. Then she quickly took the hairpin from her hair, and set to work on the door lock.