by Doctor Who
‘This isn’t anything to do with nature,’ said Rose. ‘It’s got to be. . . ’
He looked at her expectantly.
‘Well.’ She felt suddenly embarrassed. ‘It’s got to be alien or something.’
He grinned. ‘Yeah, right. Come on. We’ll see what Fynn has to say about it.’
He set off. With a last worried glance at the pile of canisters, Rose hobbled after him.
Fynn started as the Doctor suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Where was I?’ The Doctor stared round, took a deep breath in and winced. ‘Oh yes. In here, in pain and in the dark.’ He looked over at 32
the open entrance to the growth chamber. ‘Could be getting lighter.
When did Goldfinger step aside?’
‘Not long ago,’ said Fynn. ‘I – I was going to go inside but. . . ’ But I was terrified! He looked away. ‘I didn’t think I should leave you here.’
‘Ooh, sweet,’ said the Doctor vaguely. ‘What we have to ask ourselves is – why is he knocking us back one minute and welcoming us in the next? Eh? Mm? What’s changed?’
‘You used that tool on him. What was it?’
‘Sonic screwdriver.
Resonates magnetic fields, oscillates atomic
structures and available in a variety of attractive colours.’ The Doctor looked at Fynn. ‘D’you think he responded to a bit of posh technology, is that it?’
Fynn scowled. ‘You said he was dead.’
‘Oh, Kanjuchi’s dead, yes. The man himself, the man you employed, he’s dead as a dinosaur. But his body is still in service. Question is –whose service?’ The Doctor got up. ‘And whoever or whatever’s in charge, do they want to find out more about me and my posh technology, or do they want me dead? I dunno. I just dunno.’ He clapped Fynn heartily on the back and grinned. ‘I do a great impression of a lamb trotting off to the slaughter. Wanna see?’
‘I need to find out what’s happened to my crop.’ said Fynn quietly.
‘Let’s have a look, then.’ The Doctor slipped through the narrow gap between the two boulders and stepped cautiously into the growth chamber.
Fynn followed him quickly inside. ‘Oh no. No!’ In the red light, the crop of fungus stood gleaming as if it was made of gold. ‘What’s happened here?’
‘This stuff has coated Kanjuchi, that vulture and now your fungus. . . ’ The Doctor shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s designed to target organic life.’
‘Designed?’
‘By a controlling intelligence.’
Fynn wiped cold sweat from his forehead. ‘A controlling alien intelligence? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?’
33
‘I’m telling you.’ the Doctor snapped. ‘Down to you if you believe me or not. And fungi are classified as being closer to animal life than plant life. . . Perhaps this stuff isn’t very discriminating.’
‘But what does it want?’
The Doctor shrugged again. ‘Maybe it’s just trying to make your art look a little prettier.’
Suddenly there was a piercing shriek from above them as a bloated, enormous shape came flapping down from the rocky ceiling of the growth chamber and perched on the gleaming spires of fungus. It had a hooked, twisted beak, wings so badly distorted they had to be broken, talons like broken pitchforks. Its eyes burned, molten with malice.
‘Hold very still,’ the Doctor murmured. ‘Looks like our vulture’s come home to roost.’
‘Whatever happened to Kanjuchi has happened to the bird?’ Fynn whispered.
‘Yes. The DNA’s been reordered.’ He glanced behind him. ‘By that.’
Fynn peered into the crimson shadows of the growth chamber. He saw something gleaming there, slowly pulsing with white-gold light.
Rocking back and forth as if in anticipation. Waiting for them.
The vulture rose into the air on its burnished, broken wings. Fynn took a few involuntary steps backwards, then caught movement behind him. The large glowing blob split into four smaller entities and started to roll forwards. Fynn recoiled and the vulture hurled itself towards him. Fynn threw his arm up over his face, then took another step back.
But the Doctor grabbed hold of him. ‘It’s trying to herd us into that lot,’ he hissed. ‘The sonic screwdriver must have made it wary.
Whatever this stuff is, it’s taking no chances.’ The shining, cadaverous vulture flapped at him with another ear-piercing screech. ‘We’re trapped!’
34
Fynn tore himself free of the Doctor’s grip. ‘You said your sonic device made this stuff wary,’ he said. ‘Use it again! Full power! Scare it!’
‘Full power?’ The Doctor stared at him in horror. ‘Have you any idea how much the batteries for this thing cost?’
The vulture thrashed through the air towards them and thumped the Doctor in the chest, knocking him down. Its talons raked the air above his face. At the same time, the golden blobs surged forwards to get him.
The Doctor whipped out his little ceramic wand and held it out towards the blobs. The tip buzzed blue. The vulture descended, twisted beak wide open to tear at his fingers, but the Doctor brought up his legs and pedalled the air to keep it at bay. The blobs stopped rolling forwards, pulsed faster, quivered as if they were trembling.
‘Ultrasonics,’ the Doctor called cheerfully over the raucous screams of the vulture. ‘Agitates the molecules. And sometimes. . . ’
With a deafening clap, the back of the growth chamber seemed to split open like a cracked eggshell. The vulture flew backwards as if repelled by some invisible force. The various blobs of molten matter flowed back into one.
35
Then the warped figure of Kanjuchi appeared in the narrow opening to the chamber, struggling to squeeze his golden girth through the gap between the boulders. His fingers tore and gouged at the stone. He even started to bite it, gleaming fangs crunching through the solid rock as if it was hamburger.
‘He’s not scared,’ Fynn shouted. ‘He’s livid!’
With a guttural roar and an explosion of stony shrapnel, Kanjuchi pushed through into the chamber and charged straight for the Doctor.
Fynn tried to help him Hp, but Kanjuchi was too fast. He swatted Fynn aside – and then ran on to the back wall of the chamber. There, glinting red-gold in the dull, scarlet light, he turned and planted himself firmly in front of the gaping split in the rock, his arms raised so he completely blocked the way.
‘Interesting.’ The Doctor jumped up, switching off his device. The primary purpose of this stuff has to be defensive. It’s trying to protect something – and so it’s converting local animal life into sentries.’ He beamed at Fynn – but then the smile faded. ‘But what’s it protecting, eh? What’s so important? And what’s suddenly set it off now if you opened up this chamber a while ago?’ He jerked his head at the split.
‘What’s through there?’ He took a couple of steps towards Kanjuchi and raised his voice. ‘I said, what’s through there?’
The golden fingers of the Kanjuchi statue curled and clenched into enormous, lumpy fists.
‘Come on, Doctor.’ Skin crawling, Fynn turned quickly and headed back towards the crumbling exit. ‘Before something else comes to bar our way.’
‘Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away, Director,’ the Doctor warned him. ‘Something’s woken up. Something very old and very hostile. And what we’re seeing are the first stirrings, that’s all. It’s gonna get worse, a whole lot worse. We’re talking huge amounts of worse here!’
Alarmist nonsense, thought Fynn as he hurried from the chamber.
He only wished he had the courage to say so out loud.
∗ ∗ ∗
36
Solomon walked slowly through the darkness of the abandoned eastern caverns, his dying torch spilling a sickly yellow light over the twisting path ahead. All around were piles of rubble where ceilings had collapsed and stalagmites shattered. Some of the lava tubes were too small to walk through, you had t
o crouch and crawl and even wriggle on your stomach. It was small wonder the eastern tubes had been pretty much written off, at least until the fungus crop had taken hold and they needed the extra room.
Solomon reached what seemed at first sight to be a dead end in the narrow crawl-space. But the dying torch beam suggested the shadow of stones piled there, blocking the way. He flicked off the light, started to pull the rocks away.
There was a distant sound somewhere behind him and he froze. He mustn’t be found here. If he was. . .
The noise did not come again. Solomon returned to clearing the stones from the narrow passage ahead, then wormed his way through the gap. On this side, the passage was taller and wider.
And someone was standing at the end of the passage.
A dark figure, holding a flaming torch.
‘What are you doing here?’ Solomon demanded.
‘We want more food.’ said the figure quietly, Solomon shook his head. ‘There is no more. I’ve told you all along, I can only give you one delivery each week.’
‘It is not enough.’
‘Any more would be missed.’ Solomon walked towards the man with the torch and held out his hand. ‘It’s good to see you, Talib, but I’ve warned you never to come here.’
Talib accepted his hand, but his face was cold as the darkness. ‘Rob-bers and rebels took most of the food. They took our sheep and cows, even the mats we sleep on. And they will be back.’
‘I cannot give you any more,’ said Solomon. ‘You risk too much, coming here. If you were seen – if anyone knew the tunnels stretch as far as Gouronkah – you could find yourselves relocated to the shelters, or pushed into aid camps. Is that what you want?’ He looked at Talib 37
suspiciously. ‘No. I know what you want. You want to find your own way through, don’t you? Trying to take food for yourself.’
‘We need it, Solomon.’
Solomon couldn’t keep his voice from rising. ‘If I’m caught stealing for you, I’ll be sent to the labour camps. And then you’ll get no food, nothing – you understand? Nothing ever again.’
Angrily, Talib thrust his face up against Solomon’s. ‘If we do not get more we will have no need of the food. Because we will all be dead.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Solomon shook his head. ‘I can ask Basel to speak to his friends at the Iniko camp. . . ’
‘Your father would be ashamed,’ Talib sneered. ‘You say you want to help your village, but –’
‘I left Gouronkah fifteen years ago, yet still I’m risking everything to help you!’
‘You are Fynn’s now.’
Solomon didn’t react. ‘On Sunday,’ he said slowly, ‘there will be food left as usual in the marked cavern. If I think I can safely increase the amount, then I will. Now, go.’
Talib turned and stalked away, soon swallowed by the shadows.
For a good minute, Solomon stood listening to the sound of Talib’s footfalls echoing away to nothing. When he was satisfied the man had gone he started to follow him, then squeezed himself into a narrow side tunnel. The floor was uneven, coated with welled-up lava. The ceiling was festooned with evil-looking stalactites left from the cooling of the molten roof. Solomon wasn’t bothered by claustrophobia but in some of these passages it felt as if he was trapped inside an enormous instrument of torture.
Perhaps because he was nearing the machine.
Solomon had found it while looking for a less difficult path through the crumbling labyrinth of lava tubes; the faster he could smuggle food from out of the agri-unit, the safer for all concerned. That had been his plan.
Only now something had woken up, no one was safe.
Kanjuchi was dead, and Solomon felt sick with the certainty that he would not be the last.
38
He turned left into another tunnel. The walls sagged here; half-melted, they mirrored his resolve. And at the end of this long, dark tunnel he could already see the magma-like glow of the machine. Why had the damn thing started glowing?
Because you found it, he told himself. Because you woke it up.
He turned off his torch. The excavating work in the catacombs had weakened the whole area and a crack had become a fissure. Solomon had worked on the split, enlarged it, forced a way through in the hope of finding a short cut. Instead he’d stumbled upon a secret burial chamber for. . . this.
Solomon stared at it: a large rectangular panel in the floor, the size of a cinema screen and made from the same gleaming, golden material as Kanjuchi and the vulture. It had been laid into the smooth surface of an ancient pool of lava and weird sculpted controls lay shimmering like molten metal on its surface. A strange, muted thrum, somewhere between the rush of a stream and the hum of a generator, sang like freshness through the fetid air. As if the panel was somehow new – not hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old.
He should have told someone, of course. Told Fynn, let it be his problem. But Fynn would want it studied, the tunnels would be crawling with experts and scientists, and he’d be lucky to get a tin of beans out to Talib once in a blue moon.
His tools still littered the tunnel. Solomon picked up his hard hat and a shock hammer and stared at the golden panel, which was glowing and humming serenely. ‘Time you were hidden from sight again,’
he murmured. Just a few hammer blasts and he could bring the roof down. Maybe then things would be better.
Solomon took a deep breath and released a hammering shockwave up at the ceiling of the chamber. The whole place shook around him.
He risked bringing the roof down on his head as much as on the panel, but there was no alternative. Gritting his teeth, heart pounding, he fired again. This time huge clumps of the ancient rock were knocked free from the roof to shower down over the panel. But they couldn’t smother its shimmering, molten light.
An awful wave of self-doubt thundered around his mind like the 39
aftershocks of the fall-in – it’s not going to work, you’ve screwed up –but he’d come too far to stop now. He bit his lip and blasted again, felt his bones jump and rattle as, with an ear-splitting crack, the roof of the chamber gave way completely. Debris rained down around him.
Solomon wasn’t sure if it was his nerve that had broken or a spell the machine had cast over him. But suddenly he was running for dear life through the tunnel, playing his torch beam around the weird, warped walls of twisting passageway, praying the shockwaves wouldn’t cut off his only way out.
He was running so fast, he didn’t see Adiel watching him from the thickest shadows, her fingers toying with the beads about her neck.
40
Rose followed Basel into the entrance to the growth chambers. The cave was cool and dry, and it didn’t smell too good. He took a torch from a hook on the wall near the doorway and flicked on a beam of dull crimson light.
‘Don’t wanna disturb the bats.’ he explained. ‘There’re thousands of them living up in the ceiling.’
‘You take me to all the best places, don’t you?’ Even as she spoke, her foot knocked against something. ‘What was that?’ She recoiled, took a step back and trod on something else. ‘Ugh! And that. Give me the torch!’ She swiped it from him and pointed the beam down at the cavern floor. Small, golden figures lay scattered over the slimy floor.
‘Oh, God,’ Basel murmured. ‘You know what I said about bats in the ceiling?’
She nodded. ‘Looks like they’ve come down in the world.’ Suddenly one of the little bodies started to twitch. ‘Uh-oh.’
‘Just like the vulture.’ said Basel. They’re coming back to life! Let’s get out of here.’
‘But there’re thousands of them, you said. If they start flying up and dive-bombing everything, the Doctor and Fynn won’t stand a chance!’
Rose hobbled on into the cave, but the tiny bodies lay like a thick 41
golden drift across the floor. ‘Doctor!’ she yelled, trampling over the bodies. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Rose.’ Basel shouted, ‘whatever did this to
the bats will do the same to us if we let it!’
An eerie chittering and the scissor-blade swish of wings cut through the darkness. ‘Doctor, are you in there?’ Rose persisted, feeling the ground start to squirm and writhe beneath her feet. A small shape went whizzing past her shoulder and she flinched. ‘Doctor!’
‘Yeah!’ came his happy shout. ‘I’m in here with Fynn. But we’re coming out.’
‘Hurry it up – we’ve got a bat situation here!’ More shot past. One snagged her hair with its wings or its claws, and she swiped blindly, desperately to knock it clear.
‘Look out!’ Basel yelled.
There were bats everywhere, burning with fiery light.
Something had sent them into a frenzy. Rose saw the Doctor dragging Fynn along by the sleeve and racing for the exit. Satisfied he was OK, she pulled her top up over her head and fled too, as fast as her throbbing ankle would allow. The air was thick with bats, snagging on her clothes, smacking into her arms and legs. They’re just mice with wings, she told herself. Weird, mutant golden mice with wings, yeah, but. . .
She felt dizzy, disorientated, and was desperately clinging on to consciousness for fear of falling headlong into the mess of writhing bodies on the ground. Then suddenly she felt arms about her, guiding her along. ‘Doctor?’
The next minute Rose felt the heat of the sun on her bare arms, baking her gooseflesh in moments. She saw Fynn dabbing at a cut to his cheek, Basel lying flat on his back on the ground, chest heaving –and found the Doctor grinning into her face. ‘What were you doing, coming in after me?’
‘Don’t say anything about me being batty,’ she warned him. He looked wounded. Then he started to open his shirt and she saw he was wounded. ‘How’d you get that bruise?’ she asked him.
‘More interestingly, how did I get this little feller?’ He pulled out 42
a small, golden creature from inside his shirt, cupped in one hand,
‘Funny you should ask! Well, when I was younger I was a demon batsman. Handy in later life when you meet demon bats.’ He pulled out his glasses, flicked them open and pushed them into place. ‘Think I’ll call him Tolstoy. Looks like a Tolstoy, don’t you reckon? Hello, Tolstoy! who’s a pretty little golden boy, then?’ He grinned at her.