by Doctor Who
‘Something to think of me by,’ he said.
‘Won’t you need it?’
‘Nah.’ He shook his head and pulled a handful of tacky plastic lighters from his pocket. ‘I don’t smoke and chocolate gives me a rash. What else do I have to spend my block-walker’s wages on?’
She grinned. ‘I’ll see you again.’
He kissed her awkwardly on the cheek and turned to the mob. ‘All right, let’s do it!’ He and Kaz ran off to lead the mob onwards.
‘And look after yourselves!’ Rose added.
‘I’ll keep an eye on them,’ Riz promised. She squeezed Rose’s hand
– and pressed a big kiss on Robsen’s lips – before dashing off after the crowd.
‘Madness,’ said Robsen, wiping his lips. ‘All madness.’
Flowers didn’t watch them go. She was looking at the broken bodies of the Blathereen at the foot of the forest. ‘I do hope Dram and Ecktosca avoid that mob,’ she said.
‘A couple of Slitheen con-merchants we know,’ the Doctor explained to the others.
‘I know they’re wicked,’ Flowers sighed, ‘but I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.’
‘Me neither. But if we don’t get on with the job in hand, there’ll be more death and destruction than you can imagine. We have to get back to the SCAT-house.’
186
‘You’ve got a gravity amplifier to dismantle,’ Rose agreed.
The Doctor stared. ‘How’d you know?’
Flowers was impressed. ‘You really are a genius!’
‘No, we just earwigged on your little meeting with the big Blathereen.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, if you have to be stuck inside a monitoring platform. . . ’
Robsen looked worried. ‘Did that thing in charge get out of the building, Doctor? Can it do all it says?’
‘We have to make sure it can’t. Can you show me the warp-hole you came through?’
‘Yeah, we can follow the trail cut by the capsule,’ said Rose. ‘This way!’
Flowers thought her sides were going to physically split by the time they reached the clearing. Then her stomach started to churn as she took in the human remains lying about – those poor souls who’d been forced through the portals before the planets were fully in alignment.
The Doctor’s friend didn’t seem so bothered as she tramped over to the black platform. Flowers couldn’t help but wonder how much the girl had seen in her short life.
‘So, this warp-hole can take us to anywhere in Justicia?’ Rose said.
‘Back to where we left the TARDIS?’
‘Hope so. Later.’
‘How did those borstal kids get through?’ Flowers asked. ‘The warp-holes can only be primed by natives of Raxacoricofallapatorius, remember?’
Rose looked at her. ‘And Riz said that the Blathereen inside Blanc and the Governor were killed. So how did Maggi lead them here?’
‘That’s easy to explain.’
They turned to find that Maggi had entered the clearing. And just behind her –
‘Look out!’ Robsen shouted. ‘More of those things!’
Rose grabbed the Doctor’s arm. ‘Do we run for it?’
‘It’s all right,’ said the Doctor. ‘At least, I think it is.’
‘Ecktosca! Dram!’ Flowers beamed. ‘So you did make it out!’
187
Ecktosca nodded his dry, blackened head. ‘Thanks to our dear aunt here.’
With surprising dexterity, he dragged a silver zip across Maggi’s forehead. Tiny birds clattered from the trees as a now familiar blue electric light crackled across the clearing from the girl’s oddly immo-bile face.
Robsen stared in horror. ‘Oh, my God. . . ’
‘Their aunt,’ croaked Flowers. ‘ Another Slitheen.’
‘I was wondering how come Maggi had changed so much,’ said Rose sadly.
‘More than you realised,’ the Doctor agreed.
The Slitheen finished stripping off its human skin and stood before them, panting and sweaty. ‘That thing was a tight squeeze,’ she said, turning to Ecktosca and Dram. ‘Now have one yourself?’ And she gathered them to her in a warm and sticky embrace. ‘Come to your auntie Callis.’
‘’Scuse me?’ the Doctor called. ‘How’d you get here?’
Callis Fel Fotch opened her claw to reveal what looked to be an ornate gold brooch. ‘A local teleport device. Very handy. I can use it to pop up here, there and everywhere.’
‘Remember, we told you we had help coming!’
said Dram tri-
umphantly.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘I meant how did you get past Justicia’s defences, into the borstal and that poor girl’s body and. . . well, here.’
‘With stealth, ingenuity and cunning,’ said Callis modestly. ‘I hid on a passing space-wreck, teleported across to the Blathereen mothership, disguised myself as one of them, got myself sent to Justice Gamma – where I discovered they actually have the most fabulous shops! – and then I –’
‘Never mind! Thanks anyway.’ The Doctor turned back to scrutinise the warp-hole platform.
‘Why d’you kill Maggi?’ Rose demanded.
‘She was the right size for my fuller figure,’ said Callis, striking a sultry pose, ‘and she had the right contacts. I knew it would take a 188
small army to help me liberate my nephews, and that borstal rabble fitted the bill admirably. But if I showed off my true self. . . ’
‘So you used that teleport thing to pop up wherever you needed to,’
Robsen deduced.
Callis sniggered. ‘Yes, and I used her warp-hole to reach Justice Prime. But I was too late. The warp-log showed that the last several outgoing journeys had been to Justice Delta.’
Dram frowned. ‘What warp-log?’
‘It’s hidden in the tree trunk!’
‘S’pose it is a log,’ the Doctor muttered.
Rose glared at Callis. ‘You told all those kids in the borstal you could make them free. But you were just using them for yourself. You could have got them all killed!’
‘They got me through enough Blathereen bodies to pick up my nephews!’ Callis shouted. ‘That’s all that matters to me!’
‘So,’ said Flowers brightly, ‘perhaps we could all introduce ourselves properly?’
‘Indeed,’ said Ecktosca. ‘Callis Fel Fotch, this is the woman who treated us like menial slaves and who sought to steal our science to make her human masters rich.’
‘Let me kill her,’ she said. ‘Let me kill all of them!’
‘What, even me?’ called the Doctor. ‘The bloke who’s going to take care of your unbeatable rivals? Who’s going to put an end to the Blathereen’s plans for this place?’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘That’s lousy business sense.’
‘Big words, little human!’ rasped Callis. ‘What makes you think you can stop Don Arco where we have failed?’
‘He escaped the bombardment, Doctor,’ said Ecktosca. ‘We saw him vanish. His chair was built upon its own warp-hole.’
‘Paranoid scum,’ spat Dram.
‘Well, he was right to be, wasn’t he?’ Ecktosca placed a claw on his aunt’s muscular arm. ‘Callis, I’ve seen the Doctor at work. He’s resourceful. Intelligent.’
‘Haven’t we had enough for one day?’ Dram moaned.
189
‘Oh, you can clear off if you want. Cut your losses, see ya.’ The Doctor waggled his fingers in farewell. ‘But if Don Arco wins today, the Blathereen will lord it over you for ever.’
The Slitheen looked at each other.
‘Oh, all right then,’ sighed Ecktosca.
‘Good.’ The Doctor nodded, and kicked the black disc. ‘Then set that thing for the SCAT-house. I can’t figure it out.’
Callis had a go, muttering under her breath.
‘Can you trust them?’ asked Rose.
‘Don’t have a choice,’ the Doctor admitted. He turned to Flowers.
‘You know we’ve got to destroy everything
you’ve worked for?’
‘Let’s just get on with it,’ she said.
‘Warp-hole is primed and ready,’ Callis announced sourly.
‘Then let’s finish this,’ said the Doctor. ‘One way or another, this is gonna be the final showdown.’
Flowers found that the trip through the warp-hole was easier second time around. Materialising back in the aquaculture compound, she realised that this wasn’t good news. The planetary alignment must now be entirely perfect. The Blathereen would be poised for action.
‘So what’s our plan?’ asked Rose.
‘Good question.’
The Doctor sighed.
He was looking down at
Nesshalop’s eye, still where he’d left it beside the tomato plant. It sat closed now, a delicate frosted oval. ‘But there’s gonna be payback.’
‘Doctor,’ said Ecktosca. ‘I propose we turn your earlier bluff into reality – wreck the gravity warp above this place. That will disrupt the space tunnel network.’
‘Good idea.’ Flowers pointed to the inspection ladder. ‘Ermenshrew went up there unprotected, so the workings must be safely below the surface.’
‘Right, Ecktosca, Callis – get busy,’ said the Doctor. ‘Robsen, you stay on guard here, all right?’
‘I’d rather not,’ he said, with a nervous look at the Slitheen.
‘We’re on the same side now,’ said the Doctor. ‘So I want to take Dram with me.’
190
Dram narrowed his enormous eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Muscle. In case of trouble.’
‘Run along, Dram,’ muttered Ecktosca, turning to the inspection ladder.
‘Good luck,’ said the Doctor. ‘The rest of you, let’s move it. The main event’ll be happening in the gravity workshop – this way!’
At long last, it was ready.
In the workshop, Ermenshrew surveyed the completed gravity amplifier console with grim satisfaction. It was a gleaming dome of chrome, plumbed into a fearsome criss-cross of heavy-duty cables and junction boxes that filled half the cavernous workshop. There was a large space left in the latticework, but now that was ready to be filled.
She had lost her daughter and her cousin. Many of her more distant family had died in the sudden attack on the Blathereen HQ. But their deaths would not be in vain. The operation would be a success in spite of everything these tedious humans had tried to do.
Blista, Yahoomer, the Sucrosian creature she’d had to maul in order to show who was boss around here – they were all slumped against the far wall, exhausted by their labours. If she had any spare globs she’d have had the filthy aliens removed to their cells. But the ones the Doctor hadn’t managed to destroy were busy elsewhere.
Don Arco sat slumped in his chair, sucking in the fuggy atmosphere from the many salve-candles arranged all around him, staring miserably at a wall-screen. It showed the humans systematically burning down the Executives’ towers, cheering and dancing and gloating.
He clenched his claws. ‘Our analysis engines, our forecast systems
– all destroyed!’
‘They’d already given us most of the data we need,’ Ermenshrew reminded him. ‘We’ll build new ones. This place will be our base of operations now.’ She smiled. ‘At least they can’t get their nasty little hands on the guidance controls.’
‘We should have stayed to kill the little vermin.’
‘And lose valuable human breeding stock?’ She shook her head.
‘Those children will keep. There’s no way off that world. They’ll soon 191
start to starve. Then we can round them up with ease and use them to start building more storehouses.’
‘I know, I know,’ sighed Don Arco. ‘But it sticks in my craw that these humans should get one over on us.’
‘Maybe this will take your mind off things.’ She gestured to the amplifier.
‘It’s ready?’ Don Arco writhed in his chair with excitement. ‘This is going to do it? This is going to shift the entire system through space?’
‘Once the guidance system is connected, yes,’ said Ermenshrew.
‘But without the gear on Delta to collate the data –’
‘Oh, we can’t go out on a business trip,’ Ermenshrew agreed. ‘It won’t be precise and measured and controlled. But we can go for a little joyride, can’t we? Burn up some planets. Knock whole suns off their orbits and watch them whizz away. . . ’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Don Arco struggled up from his chair, his blubber quivering majestically. ‘Guards, help me stand.
Technicians – connect the guidance systems!’
Four guards helped hold him carefully upright while two technicians took the chair. They broke off the sides, heaved off the seat –and revealed the pristine panel of ultra-technology beneath it.
Don Arco chuckled, setting his candle flames quivering. ‘The two most priceless things in the universe, side by side all this time. That guidance system – and my butt!’
Ermenshrew began to giggle with glee. The technicians tittered too as they made the necessary connections. ‘Still warm!’ said one.
Then the guards joined in. Yahoomer, Blista and Nesshalop huddled together as the laughter grew in volume.
‘Now it begins,’ hissed Ermenshrew. ‘The warp-holes will start collecting the potential energy of the planets’ flight through space. The energy will be amplified, it will be sent from portal to portal, picking up speed and power. . . An enormous, four-dimensional centrifuge generating enough force to rip open chasms in the fabric of space itself?’
Don Arco sniggered. ‘Bring it on!’
192
Outside the workshop door, Rose, the Doctor, Flowers and Dram Fel Fotch were all listening in with gloomy faces.
‘Sounds like they’re almost ready to go,’ said Flowers.
‘I might have known they wouldn’t stop to fix the damage on Delta first,’ the Doctor complained. ‘They’re like kids at Christmas. Can’t wait to play with the new toy, even if they break it cos they’ve not read the instructions first.’
‘You’d be the same,’ Rose retorted.
‘True. But today I’m the one who sticks that toy back in its box.’
‘But it sounds like there’re loads of them in there,’ whispered Flowers. ‘You can’t just walk in.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘No.’ Flowers gestured to a red light to the side of the doors. ‘For a start, she’s locked the vault from the inside.’
Rose frowned. ‘Doors that lock from the inside – in a prison?’
‘In an emergency, the Consul can use a special code to seal herself in any room. For her own protection.’
‘Well, this is an emergency all right.’ The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver, but it barely produced a glow. ‘And that’s not going 193
to help us. So what can we do? How do we get them out?’
‘Got any bombs?’ Dram wondered.
‘No,’ said Flowers flatly.
‘We could wait for the other Slitheen to sabotage that gravity warp thingie,’ said Rose.
‘There’s a chance Justicia could move, even if that’s out of action,’
said the Doctor. ‘Only with even worse results.’
Flowers nodded. ‘The gravity network would be left unstable. The second they move through the portal, every planet in Justicia could be sent spinning off into outer space – or into a rip in the fabric of space, never to be seen again.’
Rose looked at them in alarm. ‘Then shouldn’t we tell the Slitheen to stop until we’ve nobbled Don Arco?’
‘Then they’ll use Justicia to destroy some other solar system, and then another.’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘No way.’
‘So we need a distraction.’ Rose reached into her pocket and produced Dennel’s lighter. ‘We could set off the fire alarms! That might get the guards out of there at least.’
Flowers shook her head. ‘Any fire is neutralised locally by the auto-spri
nklers.’
‘Fire,’ whispered the Doctor. ‘I wonder. . . ’ He turned to Flowers.
‘Distraction time. Take Rose, and get off to the systems hub. I need zero gravity again. Just around this section.’
‘What are you going to do – float up and crawl through the glob holes again?’
‘Never mind that now.’ He grinned. ‘Everyone wearing watches?
Give me fifteen minutes, then hit it.’
Rose looked at the Doctor. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Taking risks. Pushing my luck. The usual,’ he told her, taking Dram by the claw. ‘But first, we’re going to the solar workshops. See you soon!’
‘You’d better,’ said Rose, and she set off after Flowers.
Ecktosca and Callis were gasping for breath after the long climb up the inspection ladder. It was dark, the only light coming from streaks of 194
luminescent gel scratched into the rocks by the Blathereen engineers.
A chrome cylinder extended down from the ceiling, glinting in the half-light. The gravity warp device was like a massive tooth – the mechanical roots of it were down here in the SCAT-house, while the structure itself must stretch up for hundreds of metres through the planet’s crust.
‘Will there be security overrides?’ wondered Callis. ‘Booby traps?’
‘Even if they knew about the existence of this shaft, no prisoner would be permitted to enter,’ Ecktosca reasoned, testing the housing of the warp with his claws. ‘And if there are any globs still functioning, they wouldn’t have access to a Blathereen hidey-hole.’
‘Globs?’
‘Bio-machines. Warders. . . Don’t worry, I think we’ll be –’
But as he ripped away a panel in the metal, bulbous shapes floated from out of the near-darkness at the fringes of the inspection shaft and fixed themselves to the Slitheen.
‘ These things are globs, right?’ sighed Callis. They began to glow a greenish-yellow, and she swore with the pain. ‘What are they doing?’
‘Ermenshrew must have reassigned them,’ Ecktosca gasped. ‘To disable anyone tampering with the warp.’
‘Never mind disabling.’ The globs glowed brighter and brighter as they sucked greedily at the Slitheen life essences. ‘They’re going to kill us!’