She barely had time to register the eyeless face of the chalk-man looming over her before the creature reached out and grabbed her arm.
Adelaide struggled, but it was no use. The chalk-man’s grip was like iron. She felt a weird kind of wrenching sensation and then the world dissolved around her.
‘So do you believe this Jal Karath thing then?’
Donna was hot, sweaty and irritable. The Doctor had kept up a pretty mean pace on the long walk back to the TARDIS, and she had been determined not to be a hindrance by slowing him down. He had that look on his face that he got when she knew someone was in for it.
This was when he was at his rudest, when he was least tolerant of people being stupid or obstructive or not pulling their weight.
‘I’m operating on the assumption that he was telling the truth,’ he said, and added after a pause. ‘But that he might not have been.’
‘Thanks,’ she said heavily, ‘that makes everything much clearer.’ She made an exasperated sound and flapped her hands in front of her face.
The Doctor glanced at her. ‘Seen someone you know?’
‘It’s these flies,’ she said.
‘Can’t say I’ve ever been friends with a fly.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Knew some butterflies once. And beetles. I’ve
chatted to loads of beetles. Never a good idea to accept a dinner invitation from one, though.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Donna.
They rounded a corner and the Doctor grinned suddenly. ‘Have I got a brilliant sense of direction or what?’
There was the TARDIS, standing where they had left it in the shadows at the end of a quiet, narrow alley.
‘Home from home,’ she said. ‘So what happens next?
We get the readings from the TARDIS…’
‘Focus in on them with the sonic, and… spa-twang!’
‘Spa-twang?’ she repeated.
‘Technical term. Think of the zytron trail like a long elastic band at full stretch. And think of the TARDIS like a stone in the loop of the band. Soon as the sonic converts the readings into coordinates and feeds them back into the TARDIS, off we go… spa-twang!’
‘Sounds painful.’
‘Nah, it’ll be fun. Long as we’re strapped in tight there’s nothing that can go wrong. Well… almost nothing.’
Now that the TARDIS was in sight, he stretched his legs, putting on an extra spurt of speed. Donna struggled to keep up, still swiping irritably at the flies buzzing around her head. He was fumbling in his pocket for the key when suddenly there was a silvery shimmer in the air.
Next moment, four gelem warriors were standing in front of the TARDIS, facing them.
The Doctor stopped, looking warily at the white figures. Almost absently he reached out a long arm and
shielded Donna with it, positioning his body in front of hers.
‘Do you think they’ll attack?’ she hissed.
‘Dunno,’ he murmured. ‘Doubt they’re here for a chinwag. Gelem warriors are rubbish at conversation, probably cos they never watch telly or read Heat magazine – which I know is something you’ll find hard to believe.’
‘Oi,’ she said, jabbing him in the back. ‘So how do we get past them?’
‘We implement my brilliantly conceived plan,’ he said.
‘Which is?’
‘Dunno. Haven’t thought of it yet.’
He looked keenly about him, checking out the available resources. However, he had barely begun to do so when the quartet of gelem warriors turned towards the TARDIS
and placed their hands on it.
‘No!’ the Doctor shouted, rushing forward. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’
Donna realised what the gelem warriors were doing a split-second after the Doctor did.
‘Oh…’ she said, but by the time she had completed the expletive the air had shimmered and the gelem warriors had gone, taking the TARDIS with them.
As two more of the terrible men suddenly appeared, Ranjit turned and dived through the open doorway of a ramshackle lean-to. So far he had escaped capture partly due to good luck and partly because, as everyone else had started to panic, he had managed to keep his head.
Having seen the eyeless men before, he had not been as shocked as everyone else, and so had had the presence of mind to notice two things about them. One was that they didn’t run – there were so many people around that they didn’t need to – and the other was that they didn’t select their victims, but simply grabbed whoever was closest.
Ranjit had made it across the camp by keeping low, taking his time and using the shelters for cover. Even so, he had had a couple of near misses when the air had shimmered and the creatures had appeared in front of him.
The first time he had escaped by ducking out of sight a split second before the men had fully materialised, and the second time one of them had actually been shooting out a hand in his direction, when a thin, turbaned man had blundered into their path, inadvertently barging into Ranjit and knocking him out of the way.
Now, as Ranjit dived through the doorway of the lean-to, he heard a little scream. He rolled over in the dust and jumped straight to his feet. A girl was huddled in the shadows at the back of the shabby construction, her eyes wide and dark, her knees drawn up to her chin and her clenched fists pressed to her face.
Ranjit raised a finger to his lips and hoped that the girl wasn’t too scared to see sense. He hoped too that the eyeless men had not heard her scream. If they came crashing in to investigate the sound there would be no escape for either of them.
He waited for almost a minute, his ears attuned to the slightest movement. However, he could hear nothing above the screams and pounding footsteps of the camp’s
inhabitants. The eyeless men may have gone or they may simply have been standing outside, waiting patiently for him to emerge. It didn’t help that they moved almost silently, like ghosts. He let another thirty seconds slide by, and then he turned to the girl.
‘I am going now,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here. If you wait until all is quiet, I am sure you will be safe.’
The girl stared at him, too scared to nod or even blink.
‘Goodbye,’ Ranjit said, and then he crept to the entrance of the lean-to and peeked out.
The half-made men were nowhere to be seen. Ranjit breathed a sigh of relief and ran across to the next dilapidated shelter. He kept low and alert as he continued his zigzag progress, and minutes later he reached his destination.
At least two of Gandhi’s attendants were usually stationed outside the entrance to his modest shelter on the far edge of the camp, coordinating the large number of people who wished to speak to the Mahatma on a daily basis. Now, though, the shelter was silent and seemingly deserted. Ranjit fervently hoped that Gandhi and his attendants had either fled or that he would find them huddled inside.
His greatest fear was that Bapu had been taken by the eyeless men. Young as he was, Ranjit knew that an India without Gandhi was unthinkable. Peering from right to left, he slipped across to Gandhi’s shelter and pressed his face against the ragged sheets of cloth draped across the entrance.
‘Bapu,’ he hissed urgently. ‘Bapu.’
To his surprise, a calm voice said, ‘I am here.’
With another quick glance behind him, Ranjit lifted one of the sheets of cloth and slipped inside. Gandhi was sitting crosslegged on the floor, having evidently been in a state of prayer or contemplation.
It was clear that Gandhi was alone, but Ranjit looked around anyway. ‘Where are your attendants?’
‘They have fled in terror,’ Gandhi told him.
‘They abandoned you?’ Ranjit asked in astonishment.
Gandhi smiled. ‘They did not wish to do so, but I insisted that they go. I told them I had no right to be responsible for their fate. I’m afraid, for their own sakes, I was very forceful.’ He laughed lightly, as though this was a great joke.
‘Why did you not go with them?’ Ranjit asked.
�
��It is not my nature to run away,’ Gandhi said. ‘I will not fight these foes, but neither will I flee from them. If they find me here, then it is God’s will and I will accept it.
And if they do not find me here, then that is God’s will also.’
Ranjit thought about this for a moment. Then he said, ‘I have come to rescue you.’
Gandhi shook his head. ‘I do not need to be rescued.’
‘What if it is God’s will that I rescue you?’ Ranjit said.
There was silence for a moment, then Gandhi chuckled.
‘How do you propose to rescue me?’
‘I will lead you away from here along the safest route. I will defend you if necessary.’
‘I will not allow anyone to raise their hand in anger in my name,’ Gandhi said.
‘I will not raise my hand,’ Ranjit said. ‘I will shield you.’ He paused, then added, ‘We need you, Bapu. These enemies we face, they are not living enemies. They are like men, but they are not men. They are… demons, from another world. They are a threat to us all, and I believe that the only way to defeat them is to stand against them.
But to do that we need you and the Doctor to find a way.
You are both very wise, and together I know that you can help us. Please, Bapu, come with me.’
Gandhi looked long and hard at the boy, his eyes unblinking behind his spectacles. Finally he raised his hands, palms up, as if placing the matter in the lap of the gods.
‘How can I refuse?’ he said.
The Doctor was furious. ‘Take off your hat,’ he snapped at Donna.
‘You what?’
‘Just do it. Take it off and turn it upside down.’
She glared at him. ‘A “please” wouldn’t go amiss, y’know.’
He gritted his teeth. ‘ Please take off your hat, Donna.’
‘Certainly,’ she said, removing her wide-brimmed hat and shaking out her long red hair. She held the hat upside down, then her eyes narrowed and she drew it back. ‘Hang on, you’re not gonna throw up in it, are you?’
He glared at her.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened to me.’
He opened his mouth, and then shook his head. ‘No, on
second thoughts, I don’t think I wanna know.’
He started delving into his jacket pockets, scooping out great handfuls of stuff and dumping them in the hat.
Among all the alien bits and pieces were dusty sweets, a bouncy pink ball with Donald Duck’s face on it, a rubber spider with three legs missing, an old creased postcard of Brighton Pier, a mass of linked paperclips, weird shells, variously coloured chunks of stone, a cocktail umbrella…
‘Is this a general clearout or are you actually looking for something?’ she said.
‘Tracking device,’ he muttered.
‘What, to track the TARDIS with?’
‘Not my tracking device, their tracking device.’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me.’
He pulled a scratched old cassette box out of his pocket and his face brightened. ‘Aw, I wondered where that had gone.’
‘What is it?’ asked Donna.
‘Recording of me and Elvis singing “How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?” We were gonna release it as a single, but Colonel Tom wouldn’t let us, grumpy old so and so. Probably just as well, really.’ He slipped the cassette into the breast pocket of his jacket and said, ‘It wasn’t just a coincidence, the gelem warriors appearing like that and nicking the TARDIS. The only way they can have found it was by monitoring my movements. Which means someone, somewhere, must’ve planted a tracker on me. Unless…’
His head snapped up and he peered intently at Donna.
Discomfited, she said, ‘What you staring at me for?’
He didn’t reply. Instead he whipped out his sonic, pointed it at her face and turned it on.
Donna flinched, but immediately realised he wasn’t actually pointing the sonic at her – he was pointing it at something above her head. She looked up, and was just in time to see one of the circling flies shimmer and change into a little whizzing metal object. She jumped back as the thing fizzed and sparked, then dropped out of the air, like a tiny warplane disabled by enemy fire. The Doctor switched off the sonic, stretched out his other hand and caught the thing in his palm. He and Donna leaned forward to have a look at it.
It was a disc of brushed metal about the size of a Smartie. Donna could see a tiny inset propeller and a miniscule lens on the front, like a black dot of an eye.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured.
Impressed, Donna said, ‘That thing was disguised as a fly?’
The Doctor flipped the disc into the air and caught it again. ‘Glamour technology,’ he said.
‘That’s well devious.’ She straightened up. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Mohandas was gonna call a meeting, address the people. We’ll have to use it to spread the word, get everyone looking for the ship.’
‘That could take ages.’
A scowl flashed across his face. ‘Got any better ideas?’
‘No,’ she sighed.
‘Come on then.’ He spun on his heels, and then stopped. ‘Oh,’ he said.
Donna turned to see what had taken him by surprise, and her eyes widened.
Gopal was standing at the entrance to the alleyway, pointing a gun at them.
There was a moment of silence, then the Doctor said conversationally, ‘That’s a Mezon disintegrator 7.5, isn’t it?’
Gopal licked his lips. He looked sweaty and nervous.
Donna saw that his upraised hand was trembling.
The Doctor shoved his own hands into his pockets and said in the same casual tone, ‘You wanna be careful with that. The settings aren’t designed for big fat human fingers like yours. Ideally you need to be on 13-85 for close work like this, but I’ve seen people stick it on 13-89, thinking it won’t make a difference. Trouble is, the 89s are the span settings. One false move and Calcutta’ll become a big rubble pancake. Course, you’re probably not bothered about that, being a ruthless intergalactic warlord and all.’
‘I am not a warlord,’ muttered Gopal.
‘Nah, course you’re not,’ said the Doctor dismissively.
‘I’ll bet you’re just creating all those gelem warriors to hire out as butlers. Butlers R Us – dinner served, enemies annihilated. You can use that in the brochure if you like.
Just give me a credit in the small print.’
Gopal shook his head quickly. ‘The gelem warriors are not mine, Doctor. As you well know.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Donna butted in before the Doctor could respond. ‘Can I just ask before I get totally confused – is Gopal human or alien?’
The Doctor tilted his head back. Despite having a gun pointed at him, he looked not just relaxed but positively cocky. ‘He’s a Jal Karath,’ he said, ‘and his name’s not Gopal, it’s Veec-Elic-Savareen-Jal-9.’
‘And he’s been using this glamour technology thingy to disguise himself as a human?’
‘Yep.’
‘So… what does he look like really?’
The Doctor scrunched up his face. ‘Well, he’s a kind of… black weed. With eyes. Lots of eyes.’
Now it was Donna’s turn to pull a face. ‘No wonder he’s wearing a disguise.’ Raising her voice, she shouted, ‘Think you’re clever, do you, killing all those people?
Turning ’em into these gelem things.’
Gopal swung the gun in her direction. The Doctor took a deliberate sideways step into its path, shielding her.
‘I have killed nobody,’ Gopal protested.
‘Course you haven’t,’ said the Doctor airily. ‘Wouldn’t harm a fly, you. That’s why you’re pointing a gun at my noggin.’
‘I resort to such measures only because you leave me no choice, Doctor.’
‘Really?’ the Doctor replied. ‘And how do you work that one out?’
Gopal
licked his lips. He still looked nervous. Donna saw a line of sweat trickle down his face. ‘I know you are in league with Darac-Poul-Caparrel-Jal-7.’
Donna blinked. ‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’
‘He’s the other Jal Karath I was telling you about,’ the Doctor explained.
‘The space policeman, you mean?’
Gopal laughed. The sound was hard and bitter. ‘Is that what he told you? That he was a Hive 7 Enforcer?’
The Doctor glanced at Donna and raised his eyebrows.
‘Might have done. You inferring he was telling porkies?’
‘Darac-7 is an opportunist, Doctor. He’s a bounty hunter, a mercenary, a slave trader, an arms dealer and a pirate. He makes money however and wherever he can, and he doesn’t care who he hurts in the process.’
‘Is that right?’ the Doctor said, as if he didn’t believe a word.
‘Is he telling the truth?’ Donna hissed.
The Doctor gave a non-committal shrug.
Addressing Gopal, she said, ‘If that’s true, then what makes you think we’d be involved with a scumbag like that? I’m a bit insulted, as it goes. Do I look like the sort of person who hangs around with gangsters?’
‘I cannot deny the evidence of my own eyes,’ Gopal replied.
‘What, all seven million of ‘em?’ Donna snapped back.
The Doctor gave her a mildly reproving look and asked, ‘What evidence is that?’
‘At the temple this morning you claimed that Darac-7’s ship relocated when you attempted to penetrate its glamour with your sonic device. But I believe you used your sonic device to divert the ship to a location where the humans would not discover it. And this afternoon, at the Campbells’ residence, you used your sonic device to summon Darac-7’s gelem warriors. And now here you are, safely returned from your meeting with Darac-7. Why would he let you go unless you were in league with him?’
The Doctor shook his head, a half-smile on his face. ‘I can see where you’re coming from, Veec-9, me old chum, but you’re wrong. First off, Darac-7 told me the ship in the temple was yours, not his. And second, this lovely little sonic of mine is brilliant at opening doors and detecting energy emissions and putting up shelves, but I can’t relocate great big spaceships with it or whistle up my own personal posse of gelem warriors. Here, have a look if you don’t believe me.’
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