Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones

by Mark Speed

  She ran over the ceiling and down to the iron flap. There was no trace of polyp there, and she guessed that the salinity would have put them off. She concentrated for a moment, confirming her position with the Doctor via the biochip. This, then, was the limit for the polyps. The Doctor confirmed back to her that this was the pinch point for a hinterland of connected sewers covering a huge slice of South London. The good news was that it was limited to fifteen square miles. The bad news was that it was fifteen square miles on the surface, but hundreds of miles of sewer below ground.

  She ran back up and over the ceiling to the other two pipes pouring their contents into the chamber. Both had traces of polyp on them. The stressed one had taken the route with the filthier water; the healthier one had had first choice and taken the one with fresh water. The choice was hers as to which to hunt. She would go after the stronger one first, telling herself the decision wasn’t based on the fresher water.

  The polyp was feasting, tearing large chunks out of the inside of the humans and stuffing them into the mouth at the centre of its tentacles. The outer layers of the humans were very tough, and not something the polyp had encountered before – loose but waterproof and not easy to tear into.

  The lower legs of the second human had slipped through the rungs of the ladder when it had died, so the body was now hanging upside down, with its head a few feet from the bottom of the sewer. Conveniently, its head was facing the polyp, so it could feed on the innards of both men simultaneously.

  The polyp’s efficiency was the result of the extreme evolutionary pressures on its home planet. Being large and soft-tissued made it vulnerable. Its digestive system had adapted so that it could quickly squeeze the moisture out of its food and digest it quickly, thereby keeping the creature mobile. If it wanted, it could lose up to seventy-five percent of its mass of water quickly in order to go into hiding. It was precisely these abilities which had allowed its sibling to lay up undetected at the scene of the earlier killing.

  There were hard objects around the bodies, covered in human smells but completely indigestible. One of them kept emitting flashes of light when the polyp moved its foot. Its light sensors weren’t up to much, so it wasn’t particularly bothered by this. Indeed, the flashes occurred when it had the most pressure on its foot, which was when it had a large chunk of human flesh on the end of a tentacle. If anything, it was receiving a positive reinforcement – learning to associate the flashes with a full mouth. Its nervous system wasn’t complex enough to feel happiness, but it felt a primitive level of something best described as satisfaction. It didn’t have conscious goals as an individual, but deep inside its body was preparing to take positive action. It could feel that the change would require energy, and was feeding itself according to that future need.

  The twin rumblings of both the Victoria and Northern lines at Stockwell had infuriated Trinity because the randomness of the noise caused by poor engineering had made it difficult to filter out. She could smell the freshness of the polyp’s trail now and there was the smell of fresh and rancid meat in the water. There was a touch of spice, too – similar to that which she’d sensed on the human Kevin. Above was the rumble of traffic, and what she thought could be overland trains vibrating through the foundations of railway arches. This must be Brixton up ahead. She was getting hungry.

  She’d never been to Brixton – a big black cat or an outsized spider would have stood out, even in such a cosmopolitan and unfazed population – but she’d seen images on the news. Now she saw them in her head and imagined where she was. She concentrated on the Doctor, who confirmed she was a hundred yards south of the police station. She hated this background noise, but knew she wouldn’t have to tolerate it much longer because she could sense she was moving in for the kill.

  Then she smelled human blood in the water, and froze whilst she assessed the situation. The blood was fresh, and there was enough of it to infer substantial bleeding. A second later she realised that it was from more than one human because there were two blood types in it. As she accelerated upstream she updated the Doctor. This wasn’t the kind of news she wanted to give him, and felt she’d failed. But he needed to know – he always knew what to do. In her mind’s eye she could see him bashing his fist on the table in frustration but there was nothing either of them could do about it except get on with the job in hand.

  As the sewer split in two there was no hesitation in choosing the new route: follow the stench of blood which now filled her senses. The sewer curved around, limiting her visibility to ten yards in front, but she ran on regardless, her feet silent on the brickwork above the water. She could hear a sucking, gurgling noise from up ahead. She’d heard sounds like it before and knew it wasn’t a good sign.

  The tunnel straightened and she saw the gruesome scene just fifty feet ahead of her.

  The humans wouldn’t like this at all; the Doctor even less – but for different reasons. She put aside her anger for being too late and focused on her prey. It was feasting off the innards of the two dead humans, and was oblivious to Trinity’s presence. Every time a tentacle delivered a dollop of food the mouth opened with a gurgling noise and then made a slurping noise as it closed. Excess air was expelled with a farting noise. She concentrated hard and sent a mental image of the carnage to the Doctor. Trinity knew he was a stickler for good manners, but knew that the creature’s inability to chew with its mouth closed would not be at the top of his concerns.

  No trace of the polyp must be found by the humans.

  That was the overriding order. In which case, she had a very large meal to consume. That suited her just fine.

  She’d been going light on the camouflage to conserve energy. Now she turned it up to full effect, reducing her infra-red signature too, and crept to within twenty feet of the creature. She stopped and focused all of her senses on it. Within a few seconds she’d gained a comprehensive picture of its physiology. The thing was practically blind, but was sensitive to aerial vibrations and smells. Apart from its eight stinging tentacles with their lethal poison, and a gizzard that could crush glass, it was defenceless. It had grown accustomed to the vibrations from the Tube and overland trains, and the noise and smells drifting in from the manhole fifteen feet above would provide an extra masking layer for her attack. She would approach it from above, distract it, lasso those tentacles with web and then eat it alive from the foot up. Slowly. Her mandibles twitched in anticipation of the succulent flesh.

  She climbed to the ceiling, ten feet above, and started crawling her way along. Her attention was fixed on the polyp, which continued to gorge itself on the corpses. It had now managed to rip the waterproof trousers off the body lying in the sewer and was tearing at the leg muscles with four of its tentacles. This was prime human muscle; a bloody treat.

  There was a metal clang which was so close she could feel it through her feet because the ceiling was just five feet below street level. The polyp felt it too and stopped feeding. There was the sound of metal against metal as a tool locked into place.

  Then there was a grating noise of metal on metal. The polyp dropped the last hunk of meat from its tentacles into its mouth and pushed away with its foot as it started upstream.

  There was a flash as bright as lightning from the foot of the polyp, blinding Trinity’s dark-adjusted eyes.

  Trinity froze. Had she misjudged the creature’s defences?

  A solid beam of light from the open manhole cover hit the opposite wall as the cover above was pulled back. There was another loud clang as it hit the pavement to the side of the manhole. Agitated human voices filled the space underground.

  Out of her eight eyes, it was her infra-red pair which was working the best, and she was able to see that the polyp had stepped on an SLR camera as it had moved off, triggering the flash. That was a relief.

  The light from outside wasn’t allowing her flash-blinded eyes to see past, but she could hear the polyp splashing its way upstream and hissed in anger.

  “Hear that?�
�� came a voice from the aperture of the manhole.

  Artificial light now swamped in on top of the beam of natural light. There was no way she could go after the creature now – even with her best camouflage, the shadow that she cast in that situation might easily be seen.

  A man screamed and another swore as the flashlights fell first on the body dangling from the ladder, then on the one lying below it with its shredded legs.

  Trinity had been pushed into check by a polyp. She was furious as she retreated to the bend in the sewer and updated the Doctor on the situation.

  The camera.

  She’d left the camera.

  She crept forward to the bend again. This time she had her eyes guarded against the flash photography and bright lights that were casting strange shadows against the opposite wall. Her body still camouflaged, she peeked around to steal a look. The camera was within the radius of emergency personnel. There was a dangerous level of hysteria, and on each side of the killing scene stood a policeman poised with a Tazer. There was more shouting from above, and two more police officers, each armed with a Heckler and Koch G36 climbed down rapidly and took up position beside the ones with Tazers.

  When British police resorted to firearms, it was time to go – that was practically a Newtonian Law. She only wished they knew that she and Tim were their best hope, but by the time they’d understood – not that it could ever be explained to them – it would be too late.

  She crawled slowly backwards a few yards, came down from the ceiling and then ran back the way she’d come. If they had any sense, they’d be cordoning off a large section of the sewers and conducting a systematic hunt, and she didn’t want any more trouble than she was already in.

  It was the weekend, and specialist officers were thin on the ground. Hostile conditions in the sewers made the gathering of any more meaningful evidence impossible at the site of Friday’s incident in Clapham. A decision was made to move the team to Brixton, where it appeared that the beast – or whatever it was – had been interrupted mid-meal.

  This suited Tim fine: they’d been reaching out slowly towards the pool containing the polyp for hours, transferring themselves in a long, thin strand and then branching out into the fetid pool. They’d detected where it was lying low and had it surrounded with an ever-increasing mass of themselves which it couldn’t detect. Trinity had updated them on the physiology. If a colony of super-evolved slime could be said to have a sense of humour, then it would be true to say that they laughed derisively at the creature’s defensive and offensive capabilities. What use were stinging barbs or a powerful crushing gizzard against slime? What use were lethal toxins on a colony of beings so toxic that no civilisation in the Pleasant universe would welcome it on its home planet?

  Tim heard some drilling in the chamber, and sensed pieces of brickwork falling into the water. They would examine the activity later and report back.

  The last of the humans climbed up into the evening air of Clapham, and the place became still once more. After ten minutes the polyp began to relax and bring itself out of hibernation. It popped out a tentacle a few inches into the water and let it absorb water, expanding and growing longer. It popped out another and then began absorbing water into its body, expanding back to its original size.

  It stopped. Something wasn’t right. Its central nervous system wasn’t signalling back from the tentacles or the surface of its body. A flash of activity shot through its nerves but nothing happened because the nerves ended not in its own flesh, but in the slime that was rapidly digesting and absorbing it. Within a few seconds it was a stump without tentacles, its extremities dissolving into nothingness. A minute later the polyp had ceased to exist.

  Tim felt good about themselves: they had done a good job, and eaten fresh food. It reminded them of younger and more adventurous times. When an old being relives its youth it takes on some of the vivacity it has lost. And when a colony of such beings feels that way, it feels even better. Tim felt renewed and vigorous.

  No one was looking, so Tim thought they’d enjoy themselves. They popped up their human avatar and let out a yell of joy.

  There was a flash of light from the top corner of the chamber.

  Tim cursed themselves: they should have known. The humans had installed a motion-sensitive camera of the kind used to photograph wild animals at night.

  They were careful to dissolve their avatar slowly, so that it wouldn’t trigger the motion sensor in the camera again. Once that was done, they crept along under the surface of the pool and sent some of themselves oozing up the wall to the camera.

  Tim had been hoping simply to destroy the device and take care of the offending photographic evidence. Unfortunately, leading out of the back of the camera was a cable: an internet connection.

  Tim cursed their luck and retreated back into the pool. They gave Doctor How and Trinity the good news first, then asked for advice on dealing with the camera, offering to destroy it if that was required. The consensus was that it would make matters a great deal worse, and Tim had to agree.

  On the plus side, they now knew that one of the polyps was in the sewage system in the branch south of Brixton and continuing to head south, and that another was in the area covered by the second outlet. Tim were instructed to make their way down to the outfall of the Effra into the Thames and await instructions. They headed off slowly downstream, chastened and feeling their age once again.

  The polyp slowed down. This wasn’t in response to any external stimulus, but to something new from deep inside. There was some physiological discomfort that was not caused by its sudden flight from the humans. It stopped in its tracks: the discomfort was now crippling.

  It planted its foot firmly on the base of the sewer, as if in response to a command that it could not control. A few seconds later a violent convulsion went through it and it stiffened in its upright position. It was too primitive to experience pain, but the discomfort was extreme. It convulsed even more deeply, and the convulsion – which to an observer would have looked like extreme cramp – created a linear rupture down the creature’s body. The rupture had an inwards curl to it and now created a deep fissure. The mouth split into two mouths, and then it was as if the body below the mouths unzipped as it split into two polyps joined at the foot.

  The muscular foot spasmed, and with a ripping noise the single polyp separated into two, each with four large tentacles, and four small tentacle buds.

  Each polyp had an identical memory of recent stimulations and responses. They continued heading south, one behind the other, until the one up ahead stopped as it detected fresh water coming from a tunnel leading off to the side. Its senses were so overwhelmed by the attractiveness of the fresh water that it practically hopped into the tunnel.

  The second polyp was just a few feet behind. It, too, detected the rush of fresh water from the side tunnel. Its senses were also overwhelmed, but it wavered as conflicting information overrode its desire to set off in that direction: it could detect its twin’s pheromones in the water. Food being scarce, it would have to continue along the main sewer in search of its own hunting grounds.

  Guided by the Doctor, Trinity made her way to a manhole between Balham and Streatham Hill. She’d heard the desperate activity of humans in the sewers behind her in the hours after escaping from Brixton. It was gone one o’clock on Sunday morning when she finally lifted the cover off and exited. She stood astride the manhole, dabbed the top of the cover with web and hefted it silently back into place. Then she shook as much of the filth off her fur as she could then scampered under a car, where she changed into her feline form.

  With her feline form came feline habits, but she resisted the temptation to lick herself clean. Still on full alert, she darted silently between the shadows towards home. She so startled a fox that it leapt into the side of a parked car and knocked itself out. Given her failed hunt, her desire to eat it was powerful, but her orders were to go straight home.

  The Doctor was standing silhouetted in
his black suit at the front door when she reached the drive of the house. As a super-predator there wasn’t that much in the Pleasant universe she was scared of, but letting the Doctor down was something that filled her with dread. He would never be angry with her but – of all beings – she knew the tremendous pressure he was under, and felt awful about not having been able to help him out.

  She let out a soft meow and slunk across the gravel, her head down and green eyes looking up.

  He crouched down as she approached.

  “Good girl,” he said softly. “I know you did your best.” He sniffed the air. “You’re a bit ripe, eh? Come on in and let’s get you fed properly. You must be famished. Then you can take a nice bath whilst we work out what the hell we’re going to do.”

  Trinity purred as she crossed the threshold, fighting her instinct to rub against her friend’s legs. The Doctor closed the porch door behind her and turned on the UV bath. “No offence,” he said, and turned it on a second, then a third, time.

  Doctor How was naked again; his clothes were on the wooden clothes hanger he’d brought with him to the reception at The Out of Town Club in Kensington, where the great and the good of the out-of-town community were here to welcome the new Rindan consul to her new posting. He’d done the rounds and issued reassurances about the threat from the polyps, and he could avoid her no longer.

  “Consul and Mr Pinca,” said Doctor How, bowing deeply. “What a great pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Earth, and to London.”

  The Pincas were almost identical to the Plenscas, whom they were succeeding as consul and husband with effect from that day. The subtle differences in appearance between individuals were in the blue-green pulsing veins visible just below the translucent surface of the skin, and above the visible organs. He kept his attention at eye-level, as was proper etiquette, and could feel other eyes in the room burning into him.