by Doctor Who
As luck would have it, she’d jumped the wrong way. Another Witiku had now appeared, cutting off her path to the main exit of the tent.
Rose tried to stay calm, knowing that fear and panic would only put her in more danger. She looked around, desperately, for something – anything – she could use as a weapon. Her eyes alighted on the steaming-hot cup of jinnera. Shame to waste a good cuppa, she thought, but needs must. She grabbed the cup and threw the contents in the direction of the nearest creature’s face.
To her surprise, it squealed and retreated, clearly in pain. Rose was amazed. Surely the jinnera hadn’t been that hot? But whatever the reason for its success, her makeshift weapon was certainly having a devastating effect. The creature fell to its knees and was clutching at its face with two of its hands, while the other two waved wildly.
The talons were retractable, Rose noted, and the creature seemed to be trying to scrape every drop of jinnera off its coat with its three-fingered hands.
‘Rose, quick!’
It was Rez, at the tent flap, beckoning to her. Taking care to keep clear of the floundering lower arms, which still had the talons fully exposed, Rose ducked around the creature she had brought to its knees and joined Rez. The blond boy grabbed her hand – so like the Doctor, thought Rose again – and pulled her out into the night.
The village was in pandemonium. People were screaming and panicking, running in all directions. One or two of them had burning torches, but most of the Laylorans were, quite literally, in the dark.
It was impossible to see how many of the creatures were attacking them.
The one that Rose had thrown her drink at staggered out of Rez’s tent, all but bringing it down around him. Rez urged Rose to follow him.
At the edge of the village they found Brother Hugan, shouting and gesticulating. At first Rose thought the witch doctor had lost his mind, 72
but then she realised that he was actually trying to herd the frightened villagers away from danger.
‘We need to get to the temple,’ he was calling. ‘Don’t panic, just hurry. . . ’
Rez and Rose tried to help. A small child had managed to lose her mother and sister and was sitting by an extinguished fire, crying and obviously terrified. Rose picked her up and carried her towards the line of people now disappearing into the dark forest, in the direction of the temple. Rez recognised the child and helped Rose find her mother.
Rose felt an odd shudder of empathy when she saw the look on the Layloran mother’s face as she was reunited with her little girl. It was the look she saw on her mum’s face every time the Doctor took her home to the Powell Estate for a visit.
The screams were less frequent now and there was no immediate sign of the attackers. Further back in the darkness of the village they could still be heard, though, crashing through the tents as if looking for victims.
‘What do they want?’ Rose asked out loud.
‘I didn’t fancy stopping to ask them,’ confessed Rez. Somewhere out in the forest they could hear Brother Hugan urging the refugees on towards safety. Rez and Rose seemed to be the last people left at the village’s edge. Rose looked back, as one of the creatures appeared, with an unconscious villager on his shoulder.
‘They’re taking people!’ she cried.
‘If you don’t come now, you’ll be next.’ Rez insisted, and Rose allowed him to lead her away.
The forest was much less idyllic at night, Rose discovered. A pair of glowing moons in the star-speckled sky gave some light, but it was all filtered through the canopy of trees, making life at ground level rather murky. The floor of the forest was treacherous, what with creepers and tree roots, and more than once Rose fell and had to be helped up by the nimble-footed Rez. She was surprised how at home the human boy seemed to be here, making his way through with the ease that Rose had when navigating Oxford Street on a shopping trip. He 73
seemed to be able to sense obstructions, leaping over fallen trees before she had even registered them. So, she thought with a grin, not only Superman but Tarzan as well!
Behind them she thought she could hear sounds of pursuit, but after a while these faded and she was pretty sure they were no longer being followed.
Short of breath, she stopped, bent over and placed her hands on her knees. Rez, ahead of her as always, skidded to a stop and doubled back to join her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I just need a minute,’ she gasped.
Rose seemed to do a lot of running in her adventures with the Doctor but somehow it was never enough for her to get used to doing this sort of thing effortlessly.
Suddenly Rez pulled her to the ground, rolling her into the cover of a large bush.
‘Oil’ she began. ‘You can cut that out!’
But he covered her mouth with his palm and hissed a ‘Sssh’ into her ear. Something was moving nearby.
Rose gulped and nodded at Rez to indicate that it was safe to remove his hand. She wasn’t going to make a noise. At least not consciously. But she was all too aware of her heart thumping in her chest, surely loud enough to be heard above the sounds of the forest. The footsteps came nearer.
Rose squeezed her eyes shut and tried to shrink inside herself. Just go past, she thought, just go past. Suddenly the bush she was hiding under was pulled aside and something reached down towards her.
It was Mother Jaelette.
‘You nearly scared me half to death,’ she whispered at her angrily, but the Layloran woman didn’t seem particularly concerned about that.
‘Quick. Come with me,’ she whispered back, dragging Rose out from her cover and forcing Rez to follow.
She began to lead them through the forest. Rose caught glimpses 74
of the temple buildings to her left and realised that they were walking around it.
‘Did everyone get away?’ Rez asked.
Mother Jaelette nodded. ‘Those that escaped are fine. But there are still some people unaccounted for. . . ’
‘And what about the creatures?’ asked Rose.
Mother Jaelette turned to her and put a finger to her lips. ‘That’s what I want to show you,’ she whispered. ‘Look. . . ’
She pulled back a curtain of vines and Rose and Rez were able to see them shuffling away in the distance. For a moment it looked like a school outing, with the creatures walking along in crocodile fashion, but then the moonlight caught the vicious claws and Rose remembered how deadly and dangerous they were.
‘Where are they going?’ she asked, but even as she spoke she had an idea of the answer. ‘That’s the direction of the crashed spaceship, isn’t it?’
Rez nodded. ‘I think so.’
Rose thought for a moment about what this meant. Were the creatures connected to the spaceship somehow? But the Doctor had been taken away by men, not monsters. She was missing something, some connection. If only the Doctor were here.
‘I have to get to that ship in the morning,’ she announced.
‘But that’s where the creatures are going. . . ’ Rez pointed out.
‘Which is why I have to go there,’ Rose replied determinedly.
Rez could see that she wouldn’t change her mind. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you at Saxik rise.’
The last of the beasts had disappeared now. Mother Jaelette started to lead them back to the parts of the temple site that the tribe were using as a haven.
‘Did you notice something odd about the Witiku?’ she asked them as they walked carefully through the dark forest.
‘Odd?’ retorted Rose. ‘They’re two-metre-high hairy monsters with claws the size of skewers, how odd do they have to be?’
‘How many Witiku attacked the village tonight?’ asked Jaelette, ignoring her sarcasm.
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Rose wasn’t sure she could answer that.
‘A handful. . . Three or four,’ she estimated.
Rez had a much clearer idea. ‘There were three. The two that attacked us and one other.’
‘Exactly,’ she said in a weary tone.
With a sudden rush of understanding Rose caught on to what she was getting at. ‘But just now. . . we saw a dozen of them or more, heading for the spaceship.’ Mother Jaelette looked grim. ‘Brother Hugan was right. The Witiku army is growing. Another night like tonight and they will outnumber us.’
Rose thought she had the answer.
‘If Brother Hugan knows so much about the things, maybe he knows a way to stop them.’
Jaelette shook her head sadly.
‘You’re right that he knows more about the Witiku than any of us,’
Jaelette told her solemnly, ‘but Brother Hugan is one of the missing!’
Trainee Pilot Jonn Hespell had been amused when the Doctor persuaded Professor Shulough that she’d stumbled across quite an asset in capturing him. The environmental-control system had been a piece of cake for the stranger to fix, and having sorted that out he’d been foolish enough to volunteer his services for any other little jobs she might have. Three hours later Hespell suspected that the Doctor was beginning to wonder if this might have been a mistake. Having just survived a crash landing, there were dozens of ‘little jobs’ that needed his attention, and Hespell had been assigned the task of shepherding their new super-mechanic from problem to problem.
‘The thing is,’ announced the Doctor, as he followed Hespell through the narrow crawl-spaces of the engineering deck, ‘it’s not a matter of what’s damaged, it’s more of question of trying to identify something that isn’t!’
‘It wasn’t that bad a landing,’ Hespell said loyally.
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‘Oh no, any landing you can walk away from and all that,’ commented the Doctor, his eyes twinkling. ‘Was it you at the controls, then?’
Hespell blushed and shook his head. ‘Major Kendle,’ he confessed.
‘Ah,’ exclaimed the Doctor, ‘older-driver syndrome. I understand.
Of course, by that reckoning I’m too old to drive anything more than a motorised zimmer frame, so maybe I shouldn’t be too critical.’
Hespell couldn’t make head or tail of anything the Doctor said. Was he really trying to claim that he was older than Kendle? He looked again at the Doctor, but there was no sign of any cosmetic work. He really did look to be in his thirties.
Meanwhile, the Doctor stole a glance at his guide, amused to see the confusion on his face. That was good. Confused people were more likely to tell you the things you needed to know. In his experience
– which was, in this field, pretty considerable – keeping people off balance was a useful tactic.
‘So, tell me about this ship. Bit of a mongrel, isn’t it?’
Wrong-footed again by the sudden change of subject, Hespell couldn’t find a way to evade the question. Which was exactly what the Doctor wanted. ‘I guess so. It started out as a pleasure vehicle, I think. But it’s had a few upgrades over the years.’
‘And how long have you been part of the crew?’
Hespell shrugged. Sometimes it was easy to lose track of time completely on a job like this. ‘About eighteen months,’ he answered, ‘give or take.’
The Doctor nodded as if this was the most interesting thing he’d ever heard. ‘Privately funded? That’s rare these days, isn’t it?’
‘That’s why I signed up,’ Hespell confessed. ‘Who wants a boring life in one of the corporate fleets? Professor Shulough was offering a good old-fashioned adventure.’
‘And did you get it?’
The Doctor was examining the engine cradles. Old-fashioned dark-rimmed spectacles had appeared from somewhere and he was peering at the read-out screens carefully.
‘What?’ asked Hespell, confused again.
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‘The adventure she promised. Did you get it?’
Hespell thought about this for a moment and then shook his head.
‘Not a lot. Most of the time it’s been very, very tedious. Until today of course.’ Hespell laughed, a tad embarrassed. ‘Now I’m getting more adventure than I bargained for!’
The Doctor was using some kind of tool to seal a loose connection.
The device buzzed and glowed with a strange blue light. ‘There. That should do it,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘That should start recharging now. Give it twenty-four hours or so and you might just be able to think about trying to fly this thing again.’ He looked around, puzzled. ‘If the trisilicate engines are off-line where’s your power coming from?’
‘Emergency generator,’ Hespell said, as if it was obvious.
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. ‘Show me.’
The young crewman led the stranger back through the engines and up to the main deck of the craft. ‘We set it up in the cargo bay,’ he explained, as they reached a pair of double doors.
‘Really?’ The Doctor sounded suspicious. ‘Why’s that, then?’
Hespell activated the door controls and the answer became obvious.
At the rear of the room was an ugly-looking metal machine which was giving off a terrible stench.
‘It’s a bit. . . antisocial,’ apologised Hespell.
‘Antisocial? That’s an understatement!’ Despite the foul smell the Doctor approached the machine to look at it more closely. ‘Is this really what I think it is?’
‘It’s a micro-fusion generator,’ Hespell admitted.
The Doctor looked seriously unhappy. ‘Technology that is banned on most civilised planets. What on earth is this monstrosity doing here?’
Hespell looked a little embarrassed. ‘It was the smallest but most effective back-up power source. Apparently.’
‘Smallest and dirtiest,’ the Doctor retorted, glaring at it with an intensity that would have made most people want to shrivel up and die on the spot. ‘Where are the coolant filters?’
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‘There, er, aren’t any.’ Hespell couldn’t even look him in the eye now.
‘So where are you venting the –’
The Doctor broke off as he spotted the answer to his own question.
From the rear of the machine a pair of clear hoses were carrying dirty yellow liquid away. The hoses led to a hatch in the wall of the room.
The Doctor ran over to examine it.
‘Tell me this leads to some kind of safe waste-disposal system,’ he demanded sternly, fearing the worst.
Hespell shook his head, keeping his eyes directed at the floor.
‘It just goes outside,’ he said in a quiet voice.
The Doctor got to his feet and moved swiftly to the door. ‘I need to speak to Professor Shulough,’ he announced, and disappeared before Hespell could stop him.
The professor and Kendle were in the lab, looking over the latest scan results, when the door burst open and the Doctor spilled into the room, like a force of nature.
‘Come in,’ said the professor sarcastically.
‘You have to shut down that generator,’ the Doctor said in a voice that suggested any argument would be a waste of time.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You’re pouring toxic waste on to this planet’s surface, in violation of every rule in the book. You have to shut it down.’ The Doctor’s eyes burned with passion. He couldn’t believe how stupid and irresponsible these humans were being.
‘We’re a long way from the Empire’s courts, Doctor. This far from home, we have to make our own rules.’
‘I thought you were looking for paradise? Do you want to destroy it before you’ve had a chance to look around?’
Professor Shulough just shook her head. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Doctor. It’s a big planet. Even if we run the generator for a week, it’s only a drop in the ocean.’
The Doctor looked aghast. ‘How dare you? You’re visitors here.
Can’t you treat the planet with some respect?’
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bsp; 79
The professor crossed her arms and leaned back on her console, preparing herself for a long argument, but she never got her chance as Hespell came running into the room.
Kendle sighed. ‘Doesn’t anyone knock any more?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ gasped Hespell, ‘but they’re back. The creatures. And this time there are more of them!’
On the bridge the repairs had progressed well and the full complement of hull cameras were now operational again. And the view screen showed that Hespell was right – at least a dozen of the creatures were emerging from the inky black of the forest. The cameras switched to infrared and they could see them in more detail as they swarmed towards the ship.
‘Break out the small arms,’ Kendle ordered, and led the way to the armoury, which was a large cupboard at the rear of the bridge.
When unlocked, this proved to be stuffed to the gills with various kinds of handguns and other weapons. The Doctor recognised the stun blaster that Hespell had used on him earlier.
‘Stun settings only,’ he suggested, not wishing to be part of a mas-sacre.
‘Do those talons of theirs have a stun setting?’ retorted Kendle sarcastically.
The Doctor stepped up to the man and eyeballed him. ‘And how many times have they used those talons on one of you? They’ve not hurt you at all. It’s not you they’re concerned with.’
For a moment the Doctor thought he was getting the message through, but Kendle roughly pushed him aside. ‘Come on,’ he ordered the rest of the crew. ‘With me. At the double.’
He headed out, followed by Hespell and Baker.
Professor Shulough picked up the stun blaster. ‘Make yourself useful,’ she suggested, indicating that the Doctor should help himself to a weapon.
‘No, thanks,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’m allergic to the things.’
‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a coward,’ replied the professor.
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‘And I wouldn’t have taken you for a fool. It’s not cowardice,’ said the Doctor in a steely tone. ‘I just don’t like guns. They stop people thinking.’
The professor simply glared at him. ‘Then don’t get in our way.’