Doctor Who: Plague of the Cybermen

by Justin Richards

  ‘A what? To where?’

  ‘You want to get out of here?’

  From somewhere behind them came an animal howl.

  ‘Yes,’ Olga said quickly.

  She put her foot into the Doctor’s cradled hands, and he boosted her up towards the roof of the tunnel. Now she could see the dark grey of the sky outside. There was a hole in the tunnel roof. She scrabbled for a handhold, pulling herself up and through into a pit.

  By the time she had worked out where she was, the Doctor had somehow struggled through behind her.

  Above them, a dark shape loomed out of the darkness, staring down into the grave. It was there for long enough for Olga to see it was a man – or man-shaped. Then it gave a strange grunt, and slipped out of sight.

  ‘Hello, Klaus,’ the Doctor said. ‘How you doing? Did you miss us?’

  He leaped nimbly up and out of the grave. There was a pause before he reached back to help Olga out.

  ‘Sorry about that. I’m just going for a little walk, collect some stuff. Your friend here seems to have fainted. Look after him.’

  Chapter 6

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ the Doctor assured her when he returned from his walk. He hadn’t told Olga where he’d been.

  Olga regarded the little round blue tablet with some wariness. ‘A precaution against what, exactly?’

  ‘There’s absolutely no danger whatsoever.’

  ‘Which is why you have given me this small round blue precaution.’

  ‘I’ve got one too,’ he assured her. ‘Look. Yum.’ He popped it in his mouth, swallowed, and tried to make it look like the tablet didn’t taste absolutely horrid. Without complete success.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what it is.’

  ‘Anti-radiation pill. Everyone will need one. I’ve got loads. Well, I think there’s enough.’

  ‘And there’s no danger at all.’

  ‘Might have exaggerated that just a smidgen. Though probably not. We collected up all the irradiated jewellery, but some people will already be affected.’

  ‘And this will cure them?’

  ‘It’ll stop them getting any worse. Most of them. For some …’ The Doctor turned away, staring across the tavern.

  The place was empty apart from the Doctor and Olga. Klaus had headed home when he’d recovered from witnessing a dark figure apparently rising from the dead in the graveyard. Even Gustav had gone to bed. As the Doctor had pointed out to Olga, it was the middle of the night, after all. Or it had been. The Doctor had spent so long saying things that Olga barely understood that it was probably almost morning by now.

  ‘So, what will you do now?’ Olga asked. ‘Give out your little blue pills and then go home?’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘You must have a home.’

  ‘Ah – home. Yes. Got one of those all right. It’s where I keep the little blue pills.’

  ‘So you’ll be going home, then?’ Olga said. She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  ‘Um, well …’ He avoided her gaze. ‘Sort of … not. That is, not as such.’

  ‘You mean “no”, then, do you?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, yes it’s no. If you follow.’

  Olga frowned. ‘Are you going to tell me what you’re planning to do?’

  ‘You think I should?’

  She nodded. ‘I think you should.’

  The Doctor considered. ‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ he agreed. ‘But you’re not going to like it.’

  Klaus joined them as the sun rose. The best Olga could persuade Gustav to provide for their breakfast was dark, dry bread and milk. The milk was good. After the Doctor had finished eating (and belched impressively before declaring ‘Manners!’), he showed Olga and Klaus a large paper bag full of the little blue pills.

  ‘Just tell everyone they’re Parma Violets,’ he advised.

  Olga and Klaus looked at him blankly.

  ‘Or not. Whatever. Moving on …’

  The Doctor told them to make sure everyone in the village got two tablets. One to be taken immediately, the other before bed.

  ‘It’s just a precaution,’ he said, and Olga raised her eyebrows.

  ‘And keep everyone away from the area where the metal was found that the Talismans were made from.’

  ‘It’s part of Gregor’s farm,’ Olga said. ‘Nothing grows in that field behind the church anyway.’

  ‘It’s cursed,’ Klaus said. He glanced at Olga. ‘Or so they say.’

  ‘Poisoned soil, like poisoned people,’ the Doctor said. ‘Best make sure everyone knows to keep away. The radiation will eventually decay, diluted by the rain – there’s enough of that round here, after all. But for the next century or so I’d keep well clear.’

  ‘What will you be doing?’ Klaus asked. ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Olga told him.

  ‘My work here is done,’ the Doctor said seriously. Then he sighed. ‘Oh, how I’d love it if that was true. I’ve always wanted to say that. But sadly not. Busy busy busy, that’s me.’

  ‘But doing what?’ Klaus wanted to know.

  ‘Oh, stuff.’

  ‘To do with the Plague Warriors,’ Olga said.

  ‘Well, sort of. Look …’ The Doctor took a few moments to rearrange the plates and beakers on the rough wooden table. ‘Imagine the plague – the poison – is like this bread. The loaf has shattered, which isn’t beyond the realms of the possible as it’s pretty dry and stale.’ He banged it on the table a few times to prove his point. ‘So crumbs have spread right across the village. Which is this table.’

  He pulled the bread apart and scattered bits of it liberally over the table, and over Olga and Klaus too. ‘Actually,’ he admitted, ‘it’s not at all like this, but I’ve started so I’ll finish.’

  Klaus and Olga just stared.

  ‘Now, we’ve gathered up all the crumbs. Or rather, you and the villagers have. Well done, everyone.’ The Doctor waited. He nodded at Klaus. He sighed. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crumbs.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Klaus realised. And brushed the crumbs off the table into his palm before dumping them back on the Doctor’s plate.

  ‘Now then,’ the Doctor went on, ‘did you see what I did there?’

  ‘You made a mess and got someone else to tidy it up,’ Olga told him.

  ‘Well, yes. Story of my life, actually. But also I kept some of the bread!’ The Doctor raised the remains of the loaf in triumph. He grinned, took a bite, chewed. The grin faded.

  ‘So?’ Klaus asked.

  ‘So I’m going to look for the rest of the bread.’

  ‘Which is poisonous, yes?’ Olga said.

  For a moment it looked like the Doctor was going to spit out his mouthful of bread. Then his face cleared. ‘Ah – no, not really,’ he said. ‘That’s just the hypothetical bread, in the metaphor, the allusion. We’re looking for the real … thing. OK?’

  Olga looked at Klaus. They both shook their heads.

  The Doctor sighed. ‘It’s only the reactor and its housing that are dangerous. I’m looking for the rest of it. Whatever it is. It’ll be perfectly safe,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ Olga said. ‘Because I’m coming with you.’ Her words surprised her almost as much as they seemed to surprise the Doctor.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘You’ll need help.’

  ‘Don’t argue with her,’ Klaus said. ‘It never works. She always gets her own way, she’s so stubborn.’

  ‘I am not,’ Olga insisted.

  Klaus smiled. ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘I’m coming,’ Olga repeated. ‘You said it’s not dangerous.’

  ‘Well, not really. Provided we take precautions.’ The Doctor held out the paper bag. ‘Parma Violet?’

  The Doctor seemed to take more than necessary pleasure in explaining to Olga that they should steer clear of the church in case the Plague Warrior – damaged or not – was still there. Somethi
ng else was also lurking in the shadows, he explained. But he was rather vague about what.

  It was only when they reached the churchyard that Olga realised why he’d told her this at all.

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘I am always serious.’

  ‘Well, I already know you well enough to be sure that’s not true.’ Olga looked down into the grave. ‘You really are serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘We need to get into the catacombs. Can’t risk going through the church. The castle’s too far away. This is the only other door.’

  Olga just stared into the dark pit.

  ‘I’ll lower you down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She didn’t mean it.

  A few minutes later, grimy and dishevelled, Olga followed the annoyingly enthusiastic Doctor down the same bone-riddled passageway as she had suffered the night before. Again, she did her best not to look too closely at the skulls and bones and skeletons. Tried not to imagine they were watching her every step of the way. Blank, empty eyes stared out of the blank, empty darkness.

  The Doctor had borrowed a couple of oil lamps from Gustav. He held his steady, raising it to illuminate anything of interest – usually gruesome interest. Olga’s lamp wavered and flickered nervously.

  ‘You want to know what I think?’ the Doctor asked.

  ‘Not especially.’ She knew he would tell her anyway.

  He did. ‘A long time ago, there really was plague. Bubonic, probably. It was very popular from the fourteenth through to the seventeenth century. Oh look!’

  As if to reinforce his point, the Doctor moved his lamp over a shelf hewn into the side of the tunnel. A rat stared back at him from the inside of a skull. Its black eyes glittered for a moment, then it turned and scurried out of sight. Olga caught a glimpse of its tail – long, segmented, leprous …

  ‘So the Black Death came and went. The victims were buried down here, or in lime pits below our feet. Memories persist, and any unexplained or frightening death is attributed to the plague. Or if it’s too bizarre to the Plague Warriors.’

  ‘And what are the Plague Warriors?’ Olga concentrated on what the Doctor was saying in the hope it would be marginally less grotesque than the surroundings.

  ‘Well, once upon a time …’

  ‘Another story,’ she muttered.

  ‘… Long enough ago that no one remembers when, but not so long that it’s been completely forgotten, something arrived here. It burned through the night sky and fell to the ground.’

  ‘You mean the lightning storm that destroyed the church?’

  ‘Whose story is this?’

  ‘My apologies, Doctor.’

  The Doctor sniffed, chose a passageway apparently at random and set off down it. This tunnel was slightly narrower than the others and – mercifully – dead-body-free.

  ‘You were saying,’ Olga prompted. ‘One dark and stormy night …’

  ‘Exactly. Well put – very apt. One dark and stormy night, something crashed into the church. A spaceship.’

  ‘A space ship?’

  The Doctor turned and looked back at her. His face was thrown into sinister shadow by the light from the lamps.

  ‘Sorry, I forget the context sometimes. A spaceship,’ he explained. ‘A ship that flies through the sky, between the stars. Trust me, they do that.’

  Olga shrugged. Maybe it was just a story after all.

  ‘Anyway, the spaceship crashed. It badly damaged the church and ploughed, if you’ll forgive the metaphor, into the farmer’s field. Feel free to insert your own mashed potatoes joke here.’

  There was a pause during which Olga made no jokes at all.

  ‘Anyway,’ the Doctor went on at last, ‘spaceship crashes into field. The reactor housing is shattered, but the reactor shuts down safely, which is ablessing.’

  ‘Why?’ Olga wondered, though she had little idea what he was talking about now.

  ‘Because the remains of the church and all of the village are still here. Rather than a big smoking hole in the ground.’

  She nodded. ‘Go on.’

  The Doctor took another turning. The tunnel widened into a large area with several other tunnels leading off. The Doctor pointed to each tunnel in turn, including the one they arrived from. Then he sat down cross-legged on the ground.

  ‘Reactor housing shatters, and over the years the villagers find bits and pieces of it. The radiation levels decay over time, but it’s still enough to be fatal. Sadly.’

  ‘Like a plague.’ Olga crouched down beside him.

  ‘As you say. Cancers, fatigue, tumours, general ill-health. The greying of the skin …’

  ‘But you have cured that now. We collected the metal pieces, and you gave us the blue tablets.’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, probably. But we’re now right at the end of the process. It sorts itself out in time.’

  ‘That is true of most things,’ Olga pointed out.

  ‘I hope not.’ The Doctor jumped back to his feet. ‘Or I’d be out of a job … This way, I think.’ He set off down another tunnel. Olga hoped he was keeping track of the way they’d come, as she was already completely lost.

  ‘And the Plague Warriors,’ she prompted.

  ‘Cybermen. They were on board the spaceship when it crashed.’

  ‘And one of these Cy-ber-men survived the crash? The one in the church?’

  ‘I suspect more than one survived. They’re scavengers essentially. They take what they need to survive whatever the cost. But in this case someone’s been scavenging from them.’

  ‘Who?’

  In answer the Doctor held up his hand. They stopped, just shy of a sharp bend in the tunnel. ‘Listen,’ the Doctor whispered.

  At first, Olga could hear nothing. Then she realised that what she had taken for a general background buzz in her ears was in fact voices. Distant, indistinct, but voices.

  Gesturing for her to be careful, the Doctor peered out round the corner of the tunnel. Olga pushed past him, leaning out so her head was below his.

  Ahead of them the tunnel opened out into a huge cavern. The sides of the area receded into darkness. But across from where the Doctor and Olga were, two figures crouched beside a pile of debris. They were lit by oil lamps, similar to the ones the Doctor and Olga had brought.

  The debris glinted in the flickering light – metal and glass, plastic and rubble. It had spilled down into the cavern through a hole ripped in the side of the area, like a landslide at a rubbish tip. There was a faint red glow from beyond.

  ‘Is that the sky ship you spoke of?’ Olga whispered.

  ‘Some of what’s left of it.’

  ‘And Drettle and Worm,’ she said, nodding towards the two distant figures.

  ‘Looks like they don’t just loot bodies,’ the Doctor said. ‘Collecting stuff for our friend the Watchman, probably.’

  ‘Like the items he had in his room, on his table?’

  ‘Exactly,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘He makes use of whatever he can find. Like Lord Ernhardt’s hand. Not good.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Anachronistic,’ the Doctor said, as if it was a swear word.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means it shouldn’t be here. Not here and certainly not now.’

  Olga considered this for a moment. ‘Are your precaution tablets also anachristics?’

  ‘That’s completely different. The evidence gets destroyed by the process of using it.’ He pulled out his metal wand with his free hand. The lamp juddered alarmingly in the other. ‘Talking of which …’ He checked the readings. ‘No, we’re OK here. Level’s not too high.’

  ‘And what about those two?’ Olga asked, meaning Drettle and Worm.

  ‘Ignore them for now. We need to see that ship. Now we know where it is, we can circle round and find another way in.’

  Olga was more inclined to circle round in an about-turn and head straight back home. Or at least towards daylight and the inevitable rain.<
br />
  ‘What are these tunnels?’ she asked as they turned down yet another passageway hewn from the living rock. It was more to take her mind off other things than because she really wanted to know. But once she had asked the question, she realised she was interested to know the answer.

  ‘Mining originally, I’d think,’ the Doctor said. ‘Adapted in medieval times for catacombs and burial chambers.’ He wiped his finger down a wall, examined the dust he’d collected, then licked it off. ‘Iron ore, and the stone’s obviously good for building.’ He glanced up at the roof of the tunnel. ‘It isn’t natural.’

  ‘Not if it was a mine,’ Olga agreed.

  ‘Oh I didn’t mean the tunnels. I meant the weather.’

  ‘Weather? Down here?’

  ‘No, no – up there. All that rain. Lightning and thunder. It’s worse than …’ He paused, perhaps to think of the rainiest, wettest, stormiest place he’d ever been. ‘The planet Karn. Or no, wait – Margate,’ he decided. ‘Worse than Margate. It definitely isn’t natural.’ He paused to grin at Olga, his face contorted grotesquely by shadows from the flickering oil lamp he held. ‘Which is why we’re here. Keep up.’

  Olga wasn’t sure if he meant keep up with his walking or his elliptical conversation. But she hurried after him anyway.

  The ship from the sky had crashed through the walls of the tunnel, embedding itself in the solid rock. A wall of metal cut across their path. But the side had been ripped open by the impact, leaving a ragged tear through the bent, rusted side. From within the dark maw came a deep blood-red glow.

  ‘Emergency lighting,’ the Doctor whispered. ‘Since the reactor was obviously damaged beyond repair, they must have long-term storage cells.’ The Doctor’s metal wand whirred and whistled. ‘Fuel cells can only store power for a while, so they must be replenishing it too. Capturing it from the atmosphere, like using a lightning conductor.’

  ‘That is the term you used for the device we found in the church,’ Olga recalled.

  ‘Well remembered. They’re channelling the power from the lightning storms. Storing up energy they drain from natural phenomena.’