‘Oh,’ said Mr Carstairs. ‘Oh. . . Congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
There was a moment’s silence between them. Mr Carstairs had turned his attention once more to the corner of the loading bay, where his wife now stood, talking to the small group of colony residents. He recognised many of them but he couldn’t say he knew all of them by name.
How could she know them?
‘Do you think they’ll let us go?’ asked Zack.
Mr Carstairs turned back to face the young newlyweds.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘These Sontarans. Do you think they’ll let us go?’
He wasn’t sure how much of an authority on the matter they expected him to be, but they were looking at him now with so much hope that he couldn’t bear to shatter their illusions.
‘Yes, I’m sure they will,’ he replied. ‘Just a few more hours, maybe, and then this will all be over.’
‘I just want to go home,’ said Jenny, her smile crumpling and a fresh tear rolling down one cheek.
Zack put his arms around her, holding her head to his chest and stroking her hair.
‘You heard the man,’ he said. ‘It’s gonna be fine.’
Suddenly the crowd beside them was split in two by a procession of Sontarans, marching toward them, their batons held in the air.
‘You two!’ one of them barked, pointing at Zack and Jenny with his baton. ‘Come with us. You are to be questioned.’
‘No!’ sobbed Jenny. ‘No, I don’t want to go. . . No. . . Please, Zack. . . I don’t want to go. . .’
Zack tried at first to hold them off, but it was no use. The Sontarans had them both turned and cuffed in a matter of seconds.
‘Wait!’ said Mr Carstairs, following them. ‘Where are you taking them? What are you going to do to them?’
One of the Sontarans turned and held him back.
‘That is no business of yours,’ he growled.
The small group of Sontarans was nearing one of the exits when a voice cried out, ‘Wait! Don’t take them, take me!’
The unit stopped in its tracks, two of the soldiers holding Zack and Jenny still, and turned around to face the crowd. A man was pushing his way out past the others and into the open space between the crowd and the exits. It was Riley Smalls.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘I know where there are Rutans!’
The Sontarans looked at each other with expressions that Mr Carstairs could only read as puzzled. One of them let go of Jenny’s shoulder.
‘Is this true?’ the unit leader barked at Smalls.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I know where there are Rutans. I can take you there. There are dozens of them.’
The unit leader turned to his group, eyeing Jenny and Zack in turn with a derisive sneer.
‘Put them back with the others,’ he said. ‘We can interrogate them later.’ He gestured at Smalls. ‘Seize him.’
The cuffs were removed from Zack and Jenny’s wrists, and they were pushed back towards the other residents and visitors.
The rest of the unit now surrounded Riley Smalls and walked him out through the doors. Only a handful of Sontarans stayed behind, each guarding an exit, but none in the crowd dared make a move.
Zack and Jenny walked back to where Mr Carstairs was standing. Jenny was crying almost uncontrollably. Zack’s jaw trembled, and he closed his eyes tight as if he were fighting back tears of his own.
‘Are you OK?’ said Mr Carstairs.
‘Why is this happening to us?’ asked Jenny. ‘Why?’
They were in an elevator now, rising up above the Western Docks to a tier of exclusive luxury apartment pods.
‘Where are you taking us, human?’ asked one of the Sontarans.
Riley Smalls stood at the front of the elevator, facing the doors. He was glad they couldn’t see his face, or his fear.
‘My apartment,’ he said, taking in a deep breath. ‘There are Rutans there. They forced their way in, last night. They said it would be a good place to hide.’
The group leader grunted.
‘And how do we know you aren’t a Rutan?’
‘I’m not,’ said Smalls. ‘But I’ll take you to them. They’re plotting against you as we speak.’
The Sontarans now murmured to one another in what he could only imagine was their equivalent of excited chattering. They seemed genuinely ecstatic at the prospect of engaging the Rutans in conflict.
Smalls took another deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then breathed out as slowly as he could, for fear that they might hear his nervousness.
The elevator stopped, and a synthesized human voice said, ‘Level Five. Please confirm identity.’
Smalls placed his hand over a glowing screen above the elevator’s control panel. A thin beam of light passed from top to bottom, the doors opened, and he led the Sontarans into his apartment.
It was a vast living space decorated sparsely with modern, minimalist furniture. There was a sunken seating area and a dining space, above which a circular, O-shaped fish tank was suspended from the ceiling. The apartment seemed almost too big for one person, yet there was nobody else to be seen.
‘Where are they?’ said the group leader, as they following him into the apartment, the doors closing behind them.
‘I’ll show you,’ said Smalls.
He walked past the seating area, crossing over to the fish tank, stopping there for a moment to gaze up through its glass bottom at the fish inside.
‘Hello there,’ he said, tapping gently at the glass. ‘Daddy’s home. Not hungry yet, are we?’
Inside the tank, the fish darted around the artificial plants, weaving in and out of ceramic boots and miniature castles.
‘Where are they?’ the Sontaran grunted again, more forcefully this time.
‘Oh yes,’ said Smalls, turning to the Sontarans and smiling.
He left the dining area and made his way to the far wall, beside the large viewing window that gave him a view of the colony’s enormous suspension disks and the clouds of Saturn stretching off into the distance. The wall itself was hidden behind two curtains, which Smalls set about opening, revealing a large round door, next to which there was a bright red lever.
‘This way,’ he said.
The Sontarans crossed the apartment, their guns charged and ready.
‘What are you waiting for?’ said the group leader. ‘Open the door.’
Smalls nodded. The Sontaran’s belligerent order had made this so much easier for him. There was no going back now.
He took a deep breath, swallowed, and pulled the lever.
All at once the lights in the room went out and were replaced with a dim red glow. Another synthesized voice spoke, coming to them from every corner of the apartment.
‘Emergency exit activated. Emergency doors opening in ten. . .’
The Sontarans looked to one another, and then at Smalls.
‘You betrayed us!’ The group leader roared, as he and his men turned and bolted for the elevator doors.
‘Nine. . . Eight. . . Seven. . . Six. . . Five. . .’
Together the soldiers tried to prise the doors apart, but it was no use. They were shut tight and airlocked.
‘Four. . . Three. . . Two. . .’
The group leader turned to Smalls, and saw the human laughing, tears streaming from his eyes.
‘One.’
With a thunderous crash, the circular emergency door was wrenched free and flung out into space like an enormous discus. The apartment was filled with a deafening roar as everything not bolted down was wrenched up and jettisoned with the force of a hurricane. Swinging back and forth on its chains, the fish tank shuddered and shook before breaking free, shattering as it caught the edge of the airlock, its contents flung out into the void like a shower of diamonds.
Smalls braced himself against the wall, deafened by the noise. The Sontarans clawed desperately at anything they could grasp, but it was no use. One by one they were picked up a
nd thrown out through the airlock like rag dolls tossed aside by monstrous, unseen hands.
Smalls was losing strength. The air in the apartment was all but gone, the noise dying away into an unsettling silence, the temperature plunging lower and lower until his hands were numb and he felt even the moisture in his mouth begin to freeze. He had lost all consciousness when he too was finally launched out into the black and barren sky.
The Doctor couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t the best place to leave him, but it would have to do for now.
He drew the blanket up until it covered the Major’s face, and for a moment he sat there, his head hung low. He wondered whether the Major had a family, and if so where they might be. Back on Earth, perhaps, or spread out across the galaxy on a dozen different colonies. It was hardly a fitting place to leave him, and hardly a fitting end to a life. He had to finish this, and soon.
He looked down at the Major’s body one last time.
‘Little ears,’ he said, smiling sadly, ‘and little noises. You’re a genius, Major.’
He got up from the hotel bed and walked back into the TARDIS, where the three teenagers were now sat around the console. The high spirits following Wallace’s recovery had now mellowed and been replaced by a sombre melancholy.
‘So,’ said Jake, looking up at the Doctor, ‘what’s the plan?’
The Doctor took a deep breath and smiled.
‘Glad you asked,’ he said, walking up to the console. ‘Right. . . Now. . . Who knows who Francis Galton was?’
Jake, Vienna and Wallace frowned at him.
‘Anybody? Anybody? No? Right. . . Francis Galton was the inventor of the dog whistle. You must know what a dog whistle is. No. . .?’
They shook their heads in unison.
‘OK. . . A dog whistle is a whistle that only dogs can hear. You see, a dog can hear anything from 16,000 to 22,000 Hertz. You must know what Hertz means. . . Right?’
‘We kind of did it in school. . .’ said Jake.
‘Molto bene!’ said the Doctor. ‘OK. . . So dogs can hear anything up to 22,000 Hertz, but humans, you see, can only hear up to 20,000. Are you with me so far?’
They nodded, still looking at him with eyebrows raised in wonder as if they didn’t really understand a word of it.
‘So a dog whistle,’ the Doctor continued, ‘makes a sound that’s over 20,000 Hertz. Comprende?’
‘Comprende,’ the teenagers mumbled.
‘Great stuff! Now. . .’ The Doctor started turning dials and flicking switches on the console, ‘if I do this. . .’
Suddenly the TARDIS was filled with a single, near-deafeningly shrill note. Jake, Vienna and Wallace covered their ears with their hands, and then the noise ended as abruptly as it had begun.
‘Horrible, wasn’t it?’ said the Doctor, grinning fiendishly.
‘Ow!’ said Vienna. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘That,’ said the Doctor, ‘was kind of like a human dog whistle. It’s a frequency that drives humans mad! If I’d tweaked it just a teensy bit more you’d have all gone blind and keeled over.’
‘You’re mad!’ said Wallace. ‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘OK, Wallace,’ said the Doctor. ‘I know this is all a bit new and weird for you, but you’re going to have to bear with me on this one, OK? Right. . .’
He turned to the console once more, turning another dial and flicking another switch.
‘Now how about this?’
The Doctor held out his hands as if he were demonstrating something sensational, but the TARDIS was almost silent.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Jake.
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘You can’t. But to a Sontaran. . .’
The teenagers looked at one another, still puzzled for a moment, until one by one the penny dropped and they looked back at him, grinning.
‘You mean. . .?’ said Vienna.
‘Oh yes!’ said the Doctor. ‘The only thing is, I don’t really fancy inviting all the Sontarans round for tea and biscuits just so I can deafen them.’
‘So what can we do?’ asked Jake.
‘We,’ said the Doctor, ‘need to find somewhere that we can play that noise to the whole of the colony.’
He began pacing around the console and then, in a sudden fit of inspiration, darted out into the hotel room. The children followed, and found him staring down at the video screen in the corner of the room.
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Brilliant, just. . . brilliant.’
THE PLANTS WERE now little more than a disintegrated mulch, a foot deep in places, that swamped the floor of the Oxygen Gardens. Sarg had only had to remind the unit that each plant contained millions and possibly billions of spores, each one capable of transforming another living being into the Rutan Host. Then, as they opened fire upon the plants with their rifles, they had taken to the task with relish.
Now the gardens were silent, the main chamber filled with the rancid odour of burnt vegetation. The Rutan plot had been foiled, their plans destroyed. All that was left to do was to execute those humans that the Rutans had already taken.
Sarg still harboured a desire to destroy the entire colony. They could return to their ship and fire a single shot into the core of Chelsea 426 – a blast that would tear out the structure’s heart and send it tumbling down into the tempestuous clouds of Saturn, leaving no survivors.
He was still frustrated with General Kade’s unwillingness to listen. What kind of a Sontaran was he? Their mission so far had been far from Sarg’s liking. Where was the combat that every Sontaran dreamed of? Where was the glory in taking prisoners? It made no sense to him.
He was about to call his unit together and take them back to the loading bays, when a lone soldier entered the main chamber.
‘Colonel Sarg,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘There has been an incident, sir. Unit 12. . . They were investigating possible Rutan activity above the Western Docks. It appears one of the humans, the man they called Smalls. . . He killed them, sir.’
Sarg walked towards the soldier, who in turn took a step back, as if he expected to be struck down.
‘Killed?’ said Sarg. ‘What do you mean, “killed”?’
‘He killed them, sir,’ repeated the soldier. ‘Blasted them out of an airlock. They’re all gone, sir. All six of them.’
Sarg let out a terrifying roar, lifting up his rifle and firing it into the ceiling. There was a flash of light and then a shower of sparks, which rained down around them.
‘Smalls, you say?’ said Sarg.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Was he Rutan?’
‘No, sir. We don’t think so.’
‘Human?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sarg turned to the rest of his unit.
‘Do you see?’ he growled. ‘This is what they are capable of, these humans. We should have killed them all when we had the chance. But Kade is a coward.’
The other soldiers looked at him now with surprise and the closest thing to fear that a Sontaran could express. Had the Colonel lost his mind? He was talking about a superior officer; the commander of their division.
‘I am going to talk to General Kade,’ said Sarg, walking now towards the exit of the main chamber, ‘and I am going to demand that this time we leave and we destroy this den of vermin, once and for all.’
‘So how do you know all about them, then?’ asked Jake.
The four of them were crawling along one of the ventilation shafts that ran above Tunbridge Street, the Doctor in the lead with Jake and Vienna close behind, followed by Wallace.
‘Who’s that?’ said the Doctor.
‘These Rutans and Sontarans. How do you know all about them? I’ve never heard of them.’
‘Met them before,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Far too many times. Mind you, once is enough. Thing is, they’ve been at war for fifty thousand years. You can go centuries with peace and quiet, and then it all flares up again. And they’re fo
rever fighting on somebody else’s doorstep.’
‘But how have you met them?’ asked Jake. ‘Where did you meet them?’
‘Oh, here and there,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think the first time I met the Sontarans was in Medieval England. Or was it Spain? It’s all a bit weird. . .’
‘Medieval England?’ said Vienna in disbelief. ‘Now I know you’re making it all up.’
‘Uh, hello. . .’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m the one with the little blue box that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Is a trip to the Middle Ages all that weird? I mean, when you think about it? Really?’
‘Uh. . . yes,’ said Vienna. ‘And that’s another thing. . . How is it bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?’
‘Right,’ said the Doctor, ‘here goes. . . You see, there are four dimensions that you’re aware of, yes?’
‘If you say so,’ said Vienna.
‘Well there are,’ said the Doctor. ‘Three in space, and one in time. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. There are lots and lots of dimensions. It’s a bit like having a box filled with lots and lots of little boxes.’
‘A blue box?’ said Jake.
‘Well. . . It doesn’t have to be blue,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Now, if you’re holding the box you might not be aware of all the little boxes inside. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. . . It’s just that you can’t see them. Well that’s a little bit what dimensions are like.’
‘Yes. . .’ said Vienna, ‘but the boxes inside the big box are still smaller than the big box.’
The Doctor sighed.
‘You humans,’ he said. ‘You’re one of the most endlessly fascinating and inventive species in the universe, but when it comes to something just a little bit confusing you’re like toddlers sometimes. Every answer gets another question.’
‘Well it’s not our fault we’re confused,’ said Vienna. ‘You’re a very confusing man. And what do you mean, “you humans”?’
‘Hush now,’ said the Doctor. ‘Jake. . . The map? We’re coming to the end of Tunbridge Street. Which way to the studio?’
Kade had been expecting Colonel Sarg, even before one of his guards entered the Mayor’s office to announce his arrival. Word had already reached him of Riley Smalls’ moment of self-sacrifice. It was a curious act, but one he couldn’t help but admire in some small way. It was utterly futile, of course, and had achieved nothing. Six Sontarans were lost, but they were mere foot soldiers. Nothing had changed.
The Taking of Chelsea 426 Page 11