by Doctor Who
‘I beg your pardon?’ He frowned. ‘Young lady, I don’t know quite what that thing was in there, but –’
‘Look, we don’t have time for the whole “young lady" bit right now, OK?’ Martha grabbed hold of his arms and looked into his eyes. ‘If you want to do the full-on gallantry thing, there are a lot more young ladies over at Goldspur. You saw that thing in there. . . ’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you want them to see one too?’
‘My wife’s at Goldspur. . . ’ Chisholm’s brow furrowed. ‘The Beast’s all quiet and soundly secured. I’ll round up the chaps.’
‘And then we must get the Doctor back. He’ll know what to do.’
Martha stared about. ‘Where is Lord Haleston?’
‘I was looking for him, I couldn’t. . . Wait.’ Chisholm pointed to the adjacent hillside. ‘Look!’ Romand’s car was ascending the path to the main road, and there was Haleston sat beside him in the passenger seat.
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‘We’ve got to get after him,’ Martha said. ‘He won’t be expecting trouble.’
‘After a day like this one,’ muttered Chisholm, following this most unusual woman down the hillside, ‘I doubt any of us know what to expect.’
‘ Martha! ’
The Doctor was jerked awake by a pulse of power, shocking through his body. For a couple of moments he stared round blankly at his surroundings. Then the familiar alien pulse of the Zygon ship crept into his ears.
He was slumped in a kind of narrow stall made of the same fleshy, fibrous stuff as the rest of the craft. Spaghetti cabling ran up and down the wall behind him, and some of it was looped loosely round his wrists and ankles; it must have been holding him in place while Felic ran around the Lakes impersonating him. But now. . .
‘Body-print mechanism fused,’ the Doctor murmured, wondering what must have happened to his replica to break their connection.
The last thing he’d seen before blacking out was his own, living reflection; Felic had put on a Time Lord body as casually as the Doctor might put on an overcoat.
‘I’m going to visit your friend, Doctor,’ his doppelganger had said.
‘I’m going to rescue the person closest to you and see if she knows the difference.’
‘Ha! No problem. You’ll never master our secret handshake.’
‘You’d better hope she doesn’t guess I’m an imposter.’ The Doctor’s own smile had dazzled back at him. ‘If she does, she’s dead.’
‘What’s happened to you, Felic,’ the Doctor breathed. ‘What happened to Martha?’
Suddenly something tugged at his leg, and he gasped in surprise.
Molly Melton was looking up at him, unkempt and teary-eyed.
‘Help me,’ she said.
‘Should I?’ the Doctor asked suspiciously. ‘Are you really her – Molly Melton?’
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‘You know my name?’ There was nothing fake about the tears the girl had been crying.
‘If you’re real and you’re walking about, that can only mean that someone wearing your form must have. . . ’ He thought of the sickly Zygon children in the lab, pictured others still roaming the land, and shut his eyes sadly. ‘Must’ve gone.’
‘I don’t know where I am,’ said Molly sadly. ‘I woke up and I’m lost and. . . please. Who are you? What is this place?’
‘I’m the Doctor.’ He passed her a hanky from his coat pocket and crouched beside her. ‘And we’ve both been stuck in a Zygon body-print resource bank.’ He caught her puzzled expression and smiled.
‘Put another way, it’s a place where nasty orange trolls make perfect copies of people. They wear a person’s body as a disguise, see, so no one knows they aren’t really human at all.’
Molly blinked.
‘I think I know something you don’t,’ she said solemnly.
‘Eh?’
The girl’s pale blue eyes gleamed. ‘I can show you, if you’ll give me a penny.’
‘Got change for a sixpence?’ the Doctor asked, fishing out a coin from his pocket and dropping it into her palm. ‘It’s fine, you can owe me. Lead on.’
‘All right.’ She took a few steps away from the fleshy booth he stood in and smiled mischievously. ‘We’re here.’
The Doctor gave her a sideways look. Then he stepped out warily and saw that he was in a long, shadowy corridor filled with similar stalls. ‘Dear old Mrs U,’ he noted, walking along the line. ‘And Lunn!
Of course, if your spy in the camp’s on starvation rations, let him impersonate someone lying in bed all day. Oh, and here’s poor, faint-hearted Mrs Lunn. But who else is. . . ’
His voice trailed off as he saw Molly pointing into the shadows further down the corridor. He joined her and saw who – or rather what
– was perched improbably in the next stall. And the next. . . and the next. . .
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‘Oh, no,’ he whispered, putting both hands to his temples. ‘Why didn’t I think? Why didn’t I consider the obvious!’
‘This corridor goes on for miles,’ Molly informed him helpfully.
‘There’s so many of them –’
‘We’ve got to do something.’ The Doctor grabbed hold of Molly’s hand. ‘The Zygons can be anywhere, everywhere, hiding in plain view.
We’ve got to get out of here, right now!’
As the carriage bumped her bones along the dark country lanes, Martha decided that if she ever got back to her own time she would write a book called Travel in the Edwardian Era. It would be a short book – OUCH in capital letters followed by fifty pages of bad language.
Then the ornate stone archway that marked the entrance to Goldspur loomed up from the moonlit darkness, and a thrill of nerves went through Martha’s stomach. Her heart was pounding a rhythm in sym-pathy with the chorus of horse hooves on the dirt track. Beside her, Chisholm was cradling his shotgun, lost in thoughts that were perhaps too grim for him to share with ‘one of the weaker sex’. Martha sighed, and wondered how he’d react to some of the stories she could tell him.
Their carriage was the first in the convoy, and the driver took them right to the front of the house. All the lights were on, and Martha waited for a curious face to appear at one of the many windows, or for Chivvers to open the door in his stoic fashion. But she saw no one.
Martha got out of the carriage herself rather than wait for the foot-man to open the door for her. She looked around nervously. The din of carriage wheels and hooves as they ground against the pebbled driveway carried through the night, a real racket.
But it didn’t seem to bother the herd of cows that now came meandering out of the night, crossing the lawns and heading nonchalantly for the house like they were calling round for dinner. Some of the hunting party had noticed now, and were swapping bemused glances.
Some of the horses skittered nervously.
‘Dashed strange behaviour,’ noted Chisholm, as more cattle came lumbering round from either side of the house. Martha suddenly saw 134
they were advancing almost in formation. Ranged with the others they described a loose semi-circle around the hunting party. . .
Lord Haleston looked at Romand with some consternation as he drove along a narrow, leafy lane. Darkness had all but fallen, and the Rover’s electric lights did little to dispel the gloom. Nevertheless, Romand kept up an alarmingly high speed.
Haleston cleared his throat indignantly. ‘Forgive me, Monsieur Romand, but I fail to see how this can possibly be a better route to Goldspur.’
‘It is better for my tyres,’ said Romand, with an apologetic smile.
‘Less rutted, yes?’
‘I appreciate that, as I appreciated your offer of a lift,’ said Haleston patiently. ‘But really, there is a great deal to be done –’
‘Wait. What is that?’ Romand frowned, pointed to something sitting in the road ahead. As the car slowed down, Haleston recognised the large English Mastiff even before he saw the blackened patch on its back.
That’s Teazel. Edwar
d Lunn’s dog.’
‘He is far from home,’ Romand observed.
‘We’ll take him along with us.’ Haleston twisted round to shift the heavy film camera from the rear seat, then remembered his manners.
‘Er. . . do you have a blanket? If the dog is wet you may wish to cover –’
‘It is of no consequence,’ Romand told him curtly, as the dog trotted towards them. ‘Not when matters of such importance abound.’
‘Indeed,’ said Haleston, opening the rear door and allowing the dog to settle silently in the back. ‘For a start, I must send word to the King that we have captured the Beast of Westmorland.’
‘You have already informed his equerry, yes?’ Romand interrupted, as the car pulled jerkily away. ‘My attendance at the function will be approved?’
‘Yes, I sent my houndsman to Stormsby with my proposals. I do not foresee any difficulty there. Meantime, I must inform my guests at Goldspur that those in the hunting party are all well, I must check 135
my wife has made all the arrangements for receiving the King the day after the ceremony. . . ’ Haleston cleared his throat. ‘So – if a more direct route could be taken, you see, it really would be best all round.’
‘Ah, but we would never have found Teazel here, had we not come this way,’ said Romand. ‘Perhaps things happen for a reason, hmm. . . ?’
Haleston did his best to remain calm as the dark scenery sped by.
But then he recognised a distinctive junction. ‘Good heavens, man!
We’re practically in Kelmore! Kindly turn around at once!’
Romand braked, and Haleston grunted with satisfaction as the car began to slow. But then he realised the man was reacting only because the road ahead was blocked by milling cattle. Nine or ten Friesians were looking over languidly in the light of the electric lanterns.
Angrily, Haleston stood up in his seat. ‘Where the devil did this lot come from?’
‘I do not know,’ said Romand. ‘But I know where they will be going. . . ’
Haleston stared in horror as Romand’s features started to shimmer and melt in a fierce red light. The man’s neck swelled. Nodules grew out of the blazing flesh.
Quaking with fear, Haleston scrambled down from the car and fumbled with the rear door. ‘Teazel!’ he gasped. ‘Quickly, boy. . . ’
But as he forced open the door, the film camera tumbled out and hit the track in front of him. The wooden lid cracked loose.
And a duelling pistol clattered out from inside.
The squat, malevolent demon in the driver’s seat hissed in anger.
Haleston reached for the weapon – but Teazel jumped down on top of it, barking fiercely. The Mastiff too had become engulfed in the same, sinister glare. Teazel’s form was twisting, changing. . .
‘No. . . ’ Haleston shook his head, feebly. ‘It isn’t possible, it isn’t. . . ’
He turned and started to run towards the cattle. If he could only put them between him and the demons. . .
But now the cattle too were aglow. Haleston was trying to push past but the same evil fit was upon them, their bodies consumed with 136
unearthly fire as their bovine forms twisted into something alien. . .
the monstrous kin of those things in the car.
‘I’m going mad,’ Haleston croaked, staring round wildly. ‘This can’t be happening. . . Such creatures do not exist!’
He shut his eyes and tried to will the apparitions away, even as gnarled fingers closed on his throat.
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‘OK, this is officially weird,’ said Martha as the cattle closed in. Like the rest of the hunting party, she found herself being driven back towards the front steps of the house.
And then, like something out of a cartoon, the cows reared up and stood on their hind legs. A dull red glow suffused their black-and-white hides.
‘It’s a trap!’ Martha shouted. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’
Chisholm swung round and stared at her in horror. ‘More of those orange creatures-?’
‘I didn’t know they could take animal shapes,’ she cried, kicking herself for not even considering the possibility. ‘Come on, while they’re still changing, run!’ She tried to lead the charge herself, but many of the men had already fallen to their knees in terror as a dozen squat Zygon silhouettes lunged out from the crimson currents of energy. She started to push between two of the morphing creatures, but a clawed foot lashed out against her ankle and sent her stumbling backwards into Chisholm.
Then the firing started, as one of the men gave the nearest Zygon both barrels of his shotgun. The creature gave a bestial screech and 139
staggered back – but, before the man could reload, two more Zygons pressed their clawing hands against his face. His screams almost drowned the boom of another gun firing – this time harmlessly into the air as a Zygon knocked the barrel upwards, then smashed the face of the firer with the back of its fist.
‘Stay behind me, Miss Jones,’ Chisholm shouted, backing away up the steps.
But Martha was already scaling them full pelt. She was about to hammer on the door, to yell for someone to let them inside, when the door opened.
A Zygon towered in the doorway. Its scabrous arm was held tight around Ian’s neck. The alien’s dark eyes burned into Martha’s as the claw-like hand moved slowly towards the terrified boy’s tear-stained cheek. . .
‘Everyone stop!’ Martha screamed at the top of her lungs. The men turned in shock and surprise.
‘Drop your weapons.’ The piggy eyes of the Zygon in the doorway flitted between them, alert to any attack. ‘Remain still. If any of you move against us, I will execute this child – and your females will soon follow.’
‘Sorry,’ Ian whimpered.
Martha heard shotguns fall to the ground with a clatter, and a gloating hiss of satisfaction from the Zygon before her. ‘What are you going to do with us?’ she demanded.
The Zygon didn’t speak, but its lips twitched in a cruel smile.
Lord Haleston was being led on a nightmare march through dark, wet forest by the inhuman creatures. The cold, Christmas smell of the conifers mingled with a tang of iron as the brutes jostled him along.
He was grateful the moonlight was so thin; the demons were easier to accept as mere shadows in the dark.
His senses were still screaming: Such things cannot exist. He had studied so many species, classified and ordered so many organisms by their shared characteristics. He had sought and thought to understand life. Now these beasts tormented him not only with their bony grip 140
and whispered threats, but with their very being. Such creatures were a blasphemy against the Creator. They had no place in the living world. They could only be spirits of supernature, denizens of hell.
‘How much further?’ Haleston asked hoarsely. ‘Where are you leading me?’
‘Ohhh, to their cunningly hidden underwater spaceship, I should think!’
It was the Doctor’s voice, ringing out through the darkness.
Haleston stopped dead in his tracks in a small clearing, and his escorts did the same. One of them spoke in a whispering voice: ‘The Doctor has escaped.’
‘Yep! I found an underground channel leading from the hillside down to the spaceship in the lake.’ the Doctor explained. ‘Very clever and surprisingly roomy. Lick of paint might be nice, mind. Where’s Martha?’
‘The female is of no consequence.’ came the deep gurgling reply.
‘Sounds like you don’t know! That’s encouraging.’ Haleston was coming to doubt his senses. ‘Doctor, how did you get here ahead of me?’
‘Use your loaf, your grace! I didn’t. The me you’ve been dealing with was really one of them – more of their clever alien technology.’
There was a rustle of foliage; the crack of dead wood somewhere in the dark, and the Zygons stared around as if trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. ‘Very clever. Lord Haleston, have you met Brelarn, Warlord of the Zygons?’
&nbs
p; Haleston heard the rasping, angry hiss close behind. ‘Show yourself, Doctor.’
‘Unfortunately, Brelarn, it was less clever to leave your cunningly hidden spaceship more or less unmanned. I could sneak out pretty damned easily. Even Analyst Taro’s pushed off.’ The Doctor’s voice had a harder edge now. ‘So I strolled out of your secret tunnel, Brelarn.
Strolled. I suppose most days you post a couple of cows on guard outside the hidden entrance. Why not? None of the locals would bat an eyelid. But not tonight. Everyone’s gone.’
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‘Be silent,’ Brelarn warned him. Silently, he signalled two of his Zygon demons to explore eastwards.
‘So, deserted spaceship, hardly any guards. . . ’ Now the Doctor’s voice seemed to come from the west. ‘Makes me think that some last-ditch, opportunist attempt to save your Zygon skins is afoot tonight.
Something big enough for you to risk showing your hand to the humans. . . ’
‘I will kill this human unless you show yourself,’ Brelarn rasped.
‘Come off it! When you’ve gone to so much trouble to get him?
After you’ve spent so long spying inside his house and reading his diaries? No, whatever you’re up to, you need Haleston. You need him baaaaad. But why?’
‘The King!’ Haleston shouted, feeling sick. ‘In my vanity, I arranged for Romand to attend a private function with the King. But Romand is one of them.’
‘Is that it, Brelarn?’ Beneath the Doctor’s voice, stealthy sounds of movement carried through the forest – seemingly behind them now –and another two Zygons lumbered away to investigate. ‘You want to take Edward the Seventh’s body print and put a Zygon on the throne?’
‘The British King is a figurehead, nothing more,’ Brelarn sneered.
‘But were he to be assassinated. . . ’
Then it’s not the King you want.’ said the Doctor, his words cutting coldly through the darkness. ‘Of course. It’s his funeral, isn’t it?’
The gun in the camera, thought Haleston. So ‘Romand’ can smuggle the weapon inside. . .
‘Imagine the outcry should this so-called “Uncle of Europe" be shot dead.’ Brelarn agreed. ‘World leaders will gather for the funeral, and there they will meet and mingle with the politicians of this country.’