Maria shoved it open again.
‘But it’s the man from the factory, he’s on the street, he’s here -’
Then Kelsey gave an ear-splitting scream.
Sarah Jane and Maria turned. Halfway up the wall, something indescribably horrible was slithering around the side of the house towards them.
For a moment they stared, unable to believe what they were seeing.
In its true, natural form, the Bane looked something like a cross between a giant frog and an octopus. It was a good seven-feet long. Six enormous tentacles supported the shiny green globular body, three on each side. Their suckers clung easily to the brick of the house wall. A seventh tentacle formed a kind of tail. Smaller tentacles fluttered about its cavernous mouth, and in the centre of the bulbous head was one giant eye.
The Bane roared, a horrible slurping sound.
‘Inside! Get in!’ snapped Sarah Jane.
Maria and Kelsey dived into the house. Sarah Jane followed, slamming the door.
The door shuddered as the Bane hurled its weight against it.
Sarah Jane set her back to the door, struggling to keep it closed.
Kelsey went on screaming and babbling. ‘What is that thing? What is it? That’s not fair, what is it, what is it?’
The boy strolled out from the sitting room.
‘Hello, Maria, hello screaming girl.’
‘Never mind hello,’ said Maria. ‘There’s a great big alien out there!’
Outside, the Bane hurled itself against the door, roaring ferociously. The door shook, and started to splinter.
As the Bane thudded against the door, Sarah Jane heard the sound of the splintering wood and knew she couldn’t hold the door shut much longer.
‘Get upstairs!’ she shouted.
The boy looked concerned. ‘But we’re not allowed.’
‘I’m allowing you!’ yelled Sarah Jane. ‘Now go!’
‘What is that thing?’ shrieked Kelsey for what seemed like the hundredth time.
‘Just shut up and move,’ snapped Maria. All three ran up the stairs.
Sarah Jane held on for a moment longer then abandoned the door and sprinted after them.
Outside, the Bane gave another savage roar. Gripping the door with its powerful front tentacles it ripped it from its hinges. Hurling the door aside, it scuttled into the house.
Slithering across the ceiling of the hall like a giant lizard, the Bane followed the retreating footsteps to the foot of the stairs, dropped to the floor and scuttled up after them.
Maria, Kelsey and the boy ran up one flight of stairs, then another, Sarah Jane close behind them. They came to a landing and Maria realised they’d reached the top of the house. There was nowhere else to go!
Roaring, the Bane slithered up the stairs after them.
They were trapped.
Chapter Eight
The weapon
Suddenly Kelsey saw a little door in the wall to the right. Before she could move, Sarah Jane came running up the stairs, pushed past them all, ran to the door and snatched it open. ‘What’s up there?’ said Maria.
Sarah Jane turned in the doorway. ‘No, you can’t go up, I’ll be ten seconds, just ten seconds...’ She disappeared through the door.
Behind them they heard the slurping roar of the Bane as it clambered up the last few stairs. Ten seconds could be ten seconds too late, thought Kelsey.
The Banes voice came floating up the staircase - a horribly distorted version of Davey’s voice.
‘You will die, Miss Smith, you and the squealing Pigs-’
Kelsey huddled behind the other two for shelter. ‘This is not happening,’ she babbled. ‘This is so not happening!’
‘But that contradicts the facts,’ said the boy logically.
He didn’t seem frightened by what was happening, thought Maria. Just interested, the way he was interested in everything.
Now the Bane was at the top of the stairs, scanning them with its one great eye.
At the same time, Sarah Jane appeared in the doorway behind them. She was holding a silver-capped golden sphere with carrying handles, and a nozzle. There was some kind of firing stud on top of the sphere.
‘First the children,’ said the Bane in its horrible gloating voice. ‘And then you, old woman.’
‘Hey, not so much of the old!’ said Sarah Jane, moving forward.
She held up the device with one hand and thumped the firing stud with the other. A jet of gas shot out, enveloping the Bane.
The effect was amazing.
Instantly, the Bane checked its advance, tentacles flailing. Then it shot backwards down the stairs and collapsed in a quivering heap on the next landing. It blurred and shimmered - and became Davey. But not the suave, polished, assured Davey they’d seen at the factory. This was a terrified, confused Davey. He stared up at Sarah Jane, eyes wide with fear.
‘It’s the muffin!’ said Kelsey amazed.
The boy frowned. That is a muffin?’
Davey scrambled to his feet. He gave Sarah Jane one last fearful look and disappeared down the stairs.
All that remained of his alien monster form was a blob of thick black gunk on the spot where the Bane had transformed.
Sarah Jane shook the sphere and hit the firing stud. The gas jet expired with a final faint hiss.
‘Pity,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘that was the last one.’
She went down to the landing below and Maria followed.
Neither of them noticed Kelsey, curious as ever, slipping through the door above, followed by the boy.
Kneeling down, Sarah Jane produced a pencil and prodded the black gunk.
Maria peered over her shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’
Sarah Jane gave her a warning look. ‘Maria! Don’t get involved.’
‘I think it’s a bit too late for that. And, thank you. You saved our lives.’
Sarah Jane smiled. ‘I suppose I did.’
Maria smiled back, feeling, for the first time, that they might become friends.
Then Kelsey’s voice came floating down from above. ‘Oh my flipping heck!’
They looked up and saw that the landing above was empty and the door open wide. Maria turned and headed for the doorway.
‘No, don’t go up there!’ shouted Sarah Jane. But it was too late.
Maria ran up to the next landing and through the open door. She climbed the short staircase and entered the room beyond to find Kelsey and the boy staring, awestruck - which wasn’t surprising.
She was in a long attic room that ran the whole top floor of the big old house. Just beyond the doorway, three short steps led down to the main area.
It was a wonderful room, full of the most amazing things.
There were shelves running along the walls filled with an untidy assortment of books and maps and charts. There was furniture, some, but not all of it antique - chairs and tables and sofas and armchairs. There was a battered computer on an old wooden desk. There were filing cabinets, some in gleaming metal, others in wood.
And then there were the machines and devices of all kinds scattered about the room. Some were on shelves or occasional tables or in display cases. Others were just shoved casually into corners and alcoves. Some were metallic and angular, like parts of robots or rocket engines. Others were glistening, organic, almost plant-like, as if they had been grown rather than manufactured. All were indescribably alien.
There were personal touches as well. Photographs, some framed, some stuck up here and there. One showed a fierce-looking Army officer with a clipped moustache, another a handsome square-jawed young man in a duffle coat. Sarah Jane’s father and boyfriend, wondered Maria? There was a picture of a younger Sarah Jane, kneeling by what looked like a robot dog.
Despite its strange contents, the room was a friendly and welcoming place. Somehow it managed to be cluttered and cosy at the same time. It felt warm and safe.
That was because the room was Sarah Jane, thought Maria. Her whole life was here.
..
Then a cross voice said, ‘Who said you could all come up here? Don’t touch anything.’ And there was Sarah Jane in the doorway.
Maria was too curious to be scared. ‘These things… are they alien?’
‘Some of them, yes.’
‘Where did you get them?’
Sarah Jane sighed. ‘I suppose you’ve seen too much now. And it’s not as if anyone’s going to believe you. All right...’
She sat down on the room divider steps. Maria came and sat beside her.
‘Aliens are falling to Earth all the time,’ Sarah Jane went on. ‘Not just those stories on the news, all sorts of creatures. Some have got lost - like the one you saw me sending home last night. Some of them crash-land - and some of them want to invade.’ She looked hard at Maria. ‘Do you still believe me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really? How come?’
Maria considered. ‘Because you’re bonkers - but I don’t think you’re a liar.’
Sarah Jane smiled wryly. ‘That’s nice to know - except for the bonkers bit.’
The boy had been quietly studying the room, unlike Kelsey, who had been wandering round picking things up and putting them down. Suddenly he said, ‘This place is beautiful.’
Sarah Jane was genuinely touched. ‘Thank you.’ Kelsey picked up an old-fashioned magnifying glass and studied the boy through one magnified eye.
‘You’re not so bad yourself, fella!’
‘What does that mean?’
Kelsey grinned wickedly. ‘Oh, he’s mine!’
The boy turned to Maria. ‘Is that good or bad?’
‘That’s bad!’ said Maria. ‘That’s very bad.’
Kelsey gave her a disgusted look.
Maria turned back to Sarah Jane and gestured around the room. ‘All this… is it just you though? On your own?’
Sarah Jane rose from the step and paced about the room.
‘The government knows all about aliens, and there are secret organisations dedicated to finding them. But they tend to go in with all guns blazing. I just think there’s a better way of doing it.’
‘But how did you get started?’
‘I met this man,’ said Sarah Jane. A very special man, called the Doctor.’ She gazed into space, her face radiant with memories. ‘Years ago, we travelled together.’
‘In space?’ asked Maria.
Sarah Jane nodded. ‘In space and time. Then it came to an end. Suddenly, I was back to a normal life. Electricity bills, burst pipes, bus tickets and rain...’
Kelsey had plonked herself into a seat in front of an astral telescope.
‘She’s completely loop-the-loop,’ she announced.
Sarah Jane turned to Maria. ‘You see? Who can I talk to about it? For years I tried to forget...’ She wandered over to a chair near Maria and sat down. ‘Then I met him again - the Doctor. We’d both changed, but it’s funny- we were both still the same. I learnt that I could carry on, here on Earth, doing what we always did.’ She gazed around the room. ‘That’s when I started this. I began my life again.’
Fascinating as all this was, Maria was more worried about the present.
‘And the Bubble Shock factory… it’s run by aliens?’
‘Oh, right, everyone’s an alien,’ jeered Kelsey ‘You, me, the Pope, James Blunt… actually I can believe that one!’
‘But Kelsey, you saw it,’ protested Maria. ‘That great big alien creature.’
‘I saw a muffin in a suit,’ said Kelsey defiantly. ‘That’s all! Like in films, it’s all pretend!’
A high-pitched beeping began to fill the room. It seemed to come from a shuttered wooden cabinet on the wall.
Maria jumped. ‘What’s that?’
‘Another invasion obviously,’ muttered Kelsey. ‘Little green men.’
Sarah Jane ran to the cabinet, separated the wooden shutters, one up, one down, to reveal a door of an old-fashioned safe.
‘He’s circled back again!’ she said happily.
She spun the combination lock and pulled open the door to reveal a monitor screen.
Maria leaned forward to look. On the screen was a blazing vortex of fire, like a miniature sun. A scattering of rocks and asteroids orbited around it. Floating, suspended in the centre of it all, was a robot dog - the one in the picture on Sarah Jane’s wall.
‘There was a scientific project in Switzerland,’ explained Sarah Jane. ‘They created their own black hole. If it gets free the Earth would be swallowed up. K-9’s sealing it off.’
Maria looked puzzled. ‘K-9?’
‘He’s my friend,’ said Sarah Jane, as if that explained everything.
Kelsey wandered over for a look. ‘K-9 as in canine? That is so lame.’
‘He’s been in there for a year and a half now, plugging the distortion,’ said Sarah Jane. ‘Every so often he passes my way’
Kelsey shook her head in disbelief. ‘Your best friend is a metal dog with its bum stuck in a black hole?’
Sarah Jane nodded. ‘I know!’ She spoke into the screen. ‘How are you K-9?’ she said affectionately. ‘How do you feel?’
The dog replied in a metallic robot voice. ‘Misunderstanding of the nature of this unit, Mistress. I do not feel. However, all circuits are functioning at full capacity.’
Maria leaned forward. ‘Can you ever come out, K-9?’
‘Oh, K-9, this is Maria,’ said Sarah Jane.
‘Greetings, young mistress,’ said K-9. ‘I cannot emerge until this breach is sealed.’
‘How long will that take?’ asked Maria.
‘I cannot estimate the duration of this task.’
‘What does he eat, nuts and bolts?’ scoffed Kelsey.
‘The small female is hostile,’ said K-9.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Maria.
‘Regret I must transfer my coordinates, Mistress,’ announced K-9.
‘Bye bye, K-9,’ said Sarah Jane. ‘Good dog!’
‘Affection noted, Mistress,’ said K-9 and faded away.
Sarah Jane closed the safe door and drew the shutters.
‘How long’s he gone for?’ asked Maria.
‘I don’t know, but I miss him.’
Kelsey giggled.
Sarah Jane rounded on her fiercely. ‘And don’t you laugh, Kelsey Hooper. He was my dog, my daft little robot dog and I miss him. And now I’m on my own.’
She sank into a chair and looked wearily around her. The trouble was, she wasn’t alone any more. Now she had three kids on her hands. And she still had to deal with the Bane.
She knew that Davey’s defeat would only madden them. The Bane would never accept defeat. Not now, when she knew too much about them.
They were sure to attack again. The only questions were when? And how...?
Chapter Nine
Takeover
One of the Bane was being dealt with already.
Looking scruffy and dishevelled, Davey stood before Miss Wormwoods desk.
He knew that he was doomed. The Law of the Bane did not tolerate failure. Yet, perhaps because he had spent so much time in human form, he couldn’t resist trying to save himself.
‘Forgive me,’ he babbled. ‘She had weapons, terrible weapons.
‘You know the penalty,’ said Mrs Wormwood icily. ‘A hunter who loses his prey is unfit to serve the Bane Mother.’
‘I’ll go back,’ promised Davey. ‘I’ll go back and kill her!’
He knew, even as he spoke, it was useless.
He was appealing to the mercy of the Bane - and the Bane had no mercy.
‘Kill her? I can manage that on my own? said Mrs Wormwood.
Touching the jewel at her throat, she blurred and shimmered and reared up above him in her Bane form. Her tentacles reached out for him.
‘Mother eats the children that fail her. You will become food!’
Jaws gaping wide, she swooped down.
Davey screamed.
Sarah Jane sat at a little laboratory table, studying
a test tube holding some of the evil black glop the Bane attacker had left behind. She was subjecting it to a variety of tests. It always helped to know your enemy.
Maria sat close by her, watching intently. In the background, Kelsey and the boy wandered around the room, looking at things, picking them up and putting them down. Resigned to their presence by now, Sarah Jane ignored them.
Maria spotted a familiar object on a table and picked it up. It was a heart-shaped disc. It bore a little screen and it was studded with controls. Sarah Jane had been holding it the night Maria had seen her with the alien in her garden.
‘What’s this then?’
SarahJ ane looked up. ‘Some sort of communicator. It was a gift, from the person you saw last night. She said if I ever needed help, I should use it to call her.’
Just what they needed, thought Maria. Help from some alien being, maybe with super powers.
‘Then let’s call her!’
Sarah Jane smiled. ‘She meant help with poetry. She was a Star Poet from Arcateen Five. Not much use to us now - unless you want to rhyme “trouble” with “double”.’
The boy wandered over. ‘Let me see.’
Maria looked at Sarah Jane, who nodded briefly.
Maria handed the device to the boy. ‘Be careful.’
The boy stood holding the device, turning it over and over in his hands.
Sarah Jane looked thoughtfully at him. ‘He knows nothing about the world. Everything is new to him. I think he’s some sort of experiment. Those aliens created him.’
‘He’s their child,’ said Maria.
‘He’s still human,’ said Sarah Jane.
She stood up, went over to the boy and took the device away from him.
‘If you don’t mind...I don’t like people going through my things.’
She looked round for somewhere to put the device. Her coat was hanging over the back of a chair, and she shoved the disc into the pocket.
The boy accepted her decision with his usual calm. His curiosity remained unabated.
That device on your wrist,’ he said. ‘It detects alien life?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then what’s it detecting now?’
‘How do you mean?’ Sarah Jane looked at her watch. The hands were whirring round and it was beeping almost inaudibly. She flipped it open and studied the data on the little screen. ‘He’s right!’
[Sarah Jane Adventures 01] - Invasion of Bane Page 5