by Doctor Who
Dennel scurried over to join Rose, and the two clung together. A wide forest of conical trees had resolved itself below them. If they dipped any lower she could probably lean out and touch them.
113
‘We’re still losing altitude,’ she shouted.
‘Like I hadn’t noticed.’ The Slitheen was too big to fit in the seat, so its work with the controls was hampered. It lurched between the different systems, breathing heavily, its slimy carapace dripping with foul-smelling sweat. But slowly, painfully slowly, it brought the shuttle back under something approaching control and their flight levelled off.
‘Yes!’ cried Rose. ‘You did it!’
The pilot gave Rose and Dennel a superior look as it punched in a new course and the ship veered upwards to starboard. ‘Don’t get too excited. Now it’s time to finish what I –’
‘Look out!’ Rose yelled, pointing through the window. ‘Quick!’
The Slitheen folded its cumbersome arms. ‘You don’t expect me to fall for –’
Some kind of miniature metal building was floating in the sky, directly in their path. With a sickening smash, they collided. The Slitheen let out a high-pitched roar of agony as the cockpit windows shattered over him and the controls exploded in flame. The lights went out, a cold, biting wind blew in, fanning the flames, squalling round the ruined control room.
‘Hang on!’ Rose shouted, clutching hold of Dennel, her hair gusting over her eyes, hiding from them the horror of the scene. ‘We’re really going down this time!’
The ship dropped from the sky like a stone. With a noise like thunder it began to char a crazy swathe through the tree-tops.
As the siren sounded for end of shift, Flowers walked with grave purpose back to Issabel’s office. She had carefully rehearsed what she would say. She had checked and double-checked the figures and prepared a set of notes to demonstrate to Issabel what the Doctor had shown her.
She shuddered. He’d been right, of course. Something was manipulating the planets in the heavens. But what did that ‘something’
want? What were its plans for the SCAT-house, being shunted further and further from the warmth of the suns?
114
But Flowers told herself firmly that she would not be flustered. She would be efficient and cool. And she imagined that the import of what she had to say would make even the Consul sit up and take notice of her for once.
But as she neared Issabel’s office, a terrible cry of pain sounded from inside.
Her first instinct was to run to her, to see if Issabel was all right. But just outside the door, she hesitated. There had been a strange, feral note to the scream of pain. Something almost. . . inhuman.
Issabel was sobbing inside now. ‘My cousin,’ she wailed. ‘My poor, sweet cousin. . . ’
Flowers felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. What was she hearing? The door was open just a fraction and so she peeped inside.
She’d never imagined Issabel had much of a heart beating away in that hunched body, but to look at her now, wringing her hands, pulling at her hair. . .
It seemed she had found something there – a tangle or a knot perhaps. Her fingers closed on whatever it was and tugged.
‘Clem Sel Hetch,’ she said thickly. ‘Oh, my sweet cousin. . . I must feel you fully. This hateful body is choking me. . . ’
Flowers stared on in terror as a pale electric light started sparking around Issabel’s shoulders in shades of blue and yellow. The top of her head had split open and now a sluglike mass of flesh was pushing itself out through the rupture. The thin, pinched body was shucked off like a rubbery husk as the light faded.
And the creature inside Consul Issabel revealed itself at last.
115
Issabel’struemassive,muscularframerippledwithpower. Thesticky flesh was the colour of maggots. The swollen black eyes leaked a milky slime, tears that dropped sizzling to the desktop. Then it started raging, smashing its great three-fingered fists against the walls, kicking in cabinets with its waxen legs in the mother of all tantrums. It was bigger and paler than either Ecktosca or Dram Fel Fotch, and its face was scored with thick black wrinkles.
Run, you idiot, Flowers told herself. Run before it sees you.
But then the creature pressed something under Issabel’s desk and a square of light appeared in the wall, a shadowy shape in its centre, shielded in part by a swathe of smoke. Flowers felt with a dreadful calm that she had to stay. There were too many mysteries here. She had to try to learn what was happening.
‘My cousin is close to death, Don Arco,’ the wrinkled Slitheen hissed at the screen. ‘I felt it. I felt his pain. What has happened?’
‘The shuttle en route to you with the genius girl on board has encountered difficulties, Ermenshrew,’ came an alien voice – by the rough and rumbling tones, it was another Raxacoricofallapatorian. ‘It 117
diverted to Justice Delta, where it collided with a monitoring platform. Clem Sel Hetch was piloting the craft.’
‘I should have insisted he use the pathways to reach us,’ said Issabel
– or rather, this Ermenshrew who’d been living inside that stooped old body. ‘Uncle Hipp Sel Hetch travelled here this morning to assimilate the equations I salvaged from the ruined datacore –’
‘– and he’s already told me that they suit our purpose,’ said Don Arco, the creature on the screen. ‘But you know full well that while our glorious bodies may brave the pathways, these human animals are less robust.’
‘Yes.’ Ermenshrew sniggered. ‘I have witnessed the results of my daughter’s cavalier experiments.’
‘A search is being mounted for the vessel. While Clem Sel Hetch still lives, there is hope.’ A pause, as Don Arco shifted closer. ‘Now to business. If the Doctor’s expert is dead, will it now delay the operation?’
‘I will not tolerate delays,’ she said darkly.
‘Well said. You’ve all waited long enough in those hateful little bodies. Final-phase replication is now in progress.’
‘Oh good,’ she purred.
‘My second cousins are ready to replace the plantation managers on Justice Epsilon. On Beta, the Governors of all borstals are to be replaced by my youngest stepsons – great kids but a little wild, the responsibility will be good for them. On Gamma. . . ’
Flowers listened with mounting horror as the litany of replacements went on. There were impostors in positions of power all over Justicia, on every world – and had been for some time, it seemed. Her head crowded with questions. Just how far did this alien corruption spread? What were these ‘pathways’ Ermenshrew had mentioned, and where did they lead? And as for this ‘operation’ that was stepping up a gear. . .
She looked at the figures in her hand, and realised with a cold dread that the proof she had so painstakingly acquired was unlikely to come as a surprise to her erstwhile boss.
The Doctor. She had to get to the Doctor.
118
As she turned, terrified, the tiniest squeak of a fart escaped her cheeks. But the effect on Ermenshrew was electric.
‘Wait, Don Arco,’ she snapped, sniffing the air with her poky little nostrils. ‘I have let my grief mask my other senses. I can smell a spy.
An ugly, big-boned human who now knows too much.’
Flowers crept away from the door. ‘Don’t faint,’ she told herself weakly. ‘Don’t faint, don’t faint.’
‘Can you dispose of it?’ she heard Don Arco growl.
‘We’re in the final phase now,’ Ermenshrew rumbled. ‘Its usefulness is ended.’
‘Then enjoy your hunt,’ hissed Don Arco. ‘If the work goes well, I shall be seeing you very soon.’
Flowers broke into a run. The papers slipped from her hand. Behind her, she heard the office door as it was flung open, and heavy footsteps squelching on the tiled floor behind her.
As she fled down the corridors she felt tears building up, tears of fear and frustration and disbelief. It was hard to run when your worl
d had been turned upside down. Especially when you had a really nasty stitch as well.
And then, as she skidded round the corner, she saw the Doctor. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of her. Globs clustered around his neck and shoulders, steering him back to his cell.
‘I wanted to stay working but these things called time on me,’ he sighed. ‘I’m close to a breakthrough, there’s no time to stop now!’
Gasping for breath, lungs on fire, Flowers couldn’t speak. She tried to mime a Slitheen with massive claws.
He grinned at her as the globs shuffled him onwards. ‘You been hitting the sauce, Flowers?’
She shook her head, staggered towards him, clutching the stitch in her side, struggling for the breath to tell him. ‘Globs off,’ she croaked, and they whooshed off to the shadowy ceiling.
‘Is this a keep-fit thing?’ he tried again.
Then Ermenshrew thundered round the corner, drool stringing from her jaws. When she saw Flowers with the Doctor, her wrinkles deepened in anger.
119
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor.
Issabel,’ gasped Flowers. ‘That’s Issabel!’
He groaned. ‘Oh, terrific.’
Robsen woke to the sound of construction work outside his bedroom window. He opened the curtains, shrinking like a vampire from the blazing sunlight. There were cranes and ‘dozers trundling over the pale green marshland of the planet’s surface.
Once he’d dressed and gone down to the diner for brunch, he found Jamini sitting alone, stuffing her grumpy face with coffee and crois-sants.
He pulled up a chair beside her. ‘You couldn’t sleep with all that racket going on either, huh?’
She grunted.
He swigged from her coffee. ‘Suppose they’ve got to put the new prisoners somewhere. . . ’
‘They’re putting a load of them in here, till the new accommodation is built,’ said Jamini. ‘The Governor said so in his a.m. briefing. It’s crazy. . . ’ She scowled. ‘You didn’t hear?’
Robsen shook his head.
‘To make room there has to be a sharp increase in prisoners sharing cells. That’s males and females sharing the same cells.’
‘But. . . that’s crazy!’ Robsen protested. ‘It’s not just asking for trouble, it’s begging for it. What’s the Governor playing at?’
‘New directive from on high, he says.’ Jamini washed down another doughy mouthful with some coffee. ‘You know him, anything for a quiet life. No wonder Norris has pushed off. Probably saw it coming.’
‘Probably,’ said Robsen faintly. Through the windows he watched as the construction crew scuttled about, setting down the prison colony’s new foundations.
‘Come on!’
The Doctor grabbed Flowers by the hand and hauled her back the way he’d come. Legs cramping, ribs burning, she tried her best to keep up with him. The thumping squelch of Ermenshrew as she ran was 120
like some terrifying heartbeat echoing through the corridors. Flowers wondered what the prisoners would make of it, safely locked away in their cells.
‘There’s – no – where – we – can – go,’ she panted.
The Doctor ducked into a side corridor. But the globs whooshed down once more to stop him. He gasped with pain as they began to glow sickly yellow, draining his energy.
‘Off,’ Flowers said huskily, struggling to push out the words. ‘Get off! He has auth. . . authorisation.’
Almost reluctantly, the globs detached themselves and spiralled back to where they came from.
‘There’s somewhere we can go,’ the Doctor said thickly, wiping his mouth. ‘But I’ll need the sonic screwdriver.’
She patted the pocket of her tunic. He reached in and fished out the screwdriver.
‘So you were going to ask her if I could have it back!’ he beamed.
‘Soft. . . touch,’ she agreed.
The stamping behind them was getting louder.
‘Right, now, where’s your systems hub?’
‘Systems. . . hub. . . ?’ She slumped against the wall and waved an arm in the general direction of the power room. He grabbed the arm and towed her along after him.
Ermenshrew was gaining on them. Giant claws were clacking together in excitement.
‘Where now?’ the Doctor asked as they found themselves at a T-junction. ‘Quick, tell me!’
She pointed left. ‘She’s hunting me. . . Needs you. Won’t. . . won’t kill you.’
‘You’ve got to get more exercise, Flowers,’ the Doctor chided, yanking her along again. ‘Job like yours, lots of sitting around, no fresh air, it’s very bad for you. . . ’
The whole corridor was shaking with Ermenshrew’s pursuit. ‘Systems hub’s down here,’ she wheezed, waving at a narrow side corridor with black and yellow decals on the walls.
121
‘Access designed for humans only,’ he said approvingly, slipping inside sideways so the two of them would fit. ‘She should have a job to get to us.’
A grey bulkhead loomed ahead of them. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Keep my fingers crossed you weren’t exaggerating.’
‘What?’
He set her down and brandished the screwdriver. The door slid open sideways to reveal a dark chamber beyond – but at once the globs were dropping on to him, clustering round him like giant leeches, sucking greedily. The Doctor cried out in pain again.
‘I authorise this prisoner. . . to undertake emergency work. . . on the systems!’ Flowers beat ineffectually at the pseudo-creatures, trying to knock them loose from his shoulders. ‘Release him!’ But this was a serious cautioning offence, and the globs seemed intent on draining him dry. They pulsed and glowed and fattened, the folds in their gummy bodies smoothing out.
As the Doctor sank to his knees he thrust the sonic screwdriver into Flowers’s sweaty hands. Only then did the globs move sluggishly back up towards the ceiling shadows.
‘You needn’t have bothered,’ she said, flashing her passcard under his nose. ‘I have access.’
‘Now you tell me,’ he muttered, shaking with pain. ‘That glob on my wrist. It’s had me before, back in the projects room.’
‘You recognise a glob?’
‘Trust me. It has a very distinctive bite.’ He grinned weakly. ‘Know what? I think that’s a good thing.’ He nodded to the dark room that had opened up to them. ‘You’d better do it.’
‘Do what?’ she said desperately. ‘Doctor, you haven’t told me what –
’
She broke off as a long shadow fell over them. Ermenshrew had appeared at the end of the corridor behind them. She gave an exultant shriek at the sight of them and her wide, sticky baby face twisted into a leer of malevolence.
Flowers felt like a mouse cowering in a mouse hole.
122
Trapped.
And the cat wasn’t about to give up.
Carefully, Ermenshrew squeezed into the corridor sideways and started scrabbling towards them.
Rose woke up feeling as if a giant had shoved her into a sack full of rocks and then swung her over his head for half an hour.
She was sprawled in a darkened wreck, with Dennel lying slumped face down over her legs and a Slitheen’s smouldering foot crushing her chest. The shuttle must have crashed through half a forest on its way down – not great for the environment, but enough to slow them to a halt. She wriggled out from under Dennel’s dead weight and the huge, smoking foot and checked her body for bruises or breaks.
Still just about in one piece, Rose stood unsteadily. Green fronds and exotic flowers crowded in through the shattered windows, blot-ting out most of the sunlight. She could hear the weird chirrups and chitters of alien critters outside and shivered. Just her luck if she came through all this and then got bitten by a poisonous ant or something.
Stooping, she checked up on Dennel. He was still breathing, though he had a nasty purple bruise over his temple.
‘You’re alive, then.’
T
he low rumble of words made Rose jump and spin round. The Slitheen had raised his blackened, crispy head to regard her. Thick yellow pus dripped from a puncture in his left eye. He looked to be in a bad way.
The Slitheen propped itself up on one lumpen elbow. Rose backed away against the console. It hummed mournfully into some semblance of life.
‘We crashed into a monitoring platform – one of the eyes and ears of Justice Delta,’ said the pilot. ‘We’ve reached Justicia’s administration centre, the heart of the system. You can call for help.’
Rose frowned. ‘What do you care?’
‘I don’t want to die,’ he said frankly. ‘I can’t move. Call for help, you must.’
‘Why so keen? If humans find you in your real form –’
123
‘They will make me well again so they can put me in prison.’ The creature chuckled, its one good eye agleam. ‘The prison we were heading for. I expect they will take us straight there!’
Rose chewed her lip. A distress call might suit her, and even the Slitheen. But the Executive would put Dennel back in borstal and chuck away the key.
‘I’ll call for help,’ she agreed. ‘On one condition. You don’t mention Dennel to anyone, yeah? We hide him and let him stay behind. When I get out with the Doctor we’ll pick him up, get him out of here.’
‘Fine,’ hissed the creature without argument. ‘Now, hurry.’
Between heavy, laboured breaths it gave her the pilot’s code so she could work the console, told her which buttons to press.
‘Mayday – or SOS, or. . . Well, whatever,’ she said, feeling a bit self-conscious now she was talking into a microphone with a big monster hanging on her every word. ‘This is Rose Tyler, you were holding me in a detention centre on Justice Beta. I was being transferred, now I’ve crash-landed. My location is –’ She squinted at a small read-out –
‘north quad, seven by eight alpha.’
The screen on the console buzzed with lines of static. ‘Look, this is actually pretty urgent. The pilot turned out to be a Slitheen, and there was a bit of a fight and we –’