Doctor Who BBCN11 - The Art of Destruction

by Doctor Who

  ‘Easier to study than the vulture – and packs less of a punch than Kanjuchi.’

  Basel looked over at them. ‘The vulture got away.’

  ‘We know.’ said Fynn shakily.

  ‘And this lump of gold stuff,’ Rose continued, ‘must be the stuff Adiel was talking about – it attacked us.’

  ‘It wanted to convert you.’ the Doctor said.

  ‘We trapped it inside a billycan.’ said Basel.

  ‘If it stayed trapped, it had a good reason.’ The Doctor looked down at his bat. ‘Better get this little fella somewhere secure. Fynn, now’s your chance to play the good boss. Send the staff away for their own protection. Send them home. Nice early night and a cup of Horlicks, oooh, lovely.’ There was a steely edge to his tone. ‘This place has to be shut down.’

  ‘I’m not going home!’ Basel protested.

  ‘And I can’t shut this unit down.’ said Fynn. ‘The work is too important.’ He sighed. ‘But I suppose non-essential personnel can be dismissed for the day. . . ’

  Rose looked at him. ‘Think this will all be sorted by tomorrow morning, then, do you?’

  ‘Not by standing round here talking about it,’ Fynn said drily. ‘Doctor, that creature –’

  ‘Tolstoy.’

  ‘– must be analysed quickly, before it can mutate and enlarge. We must take it to the laboratory. Adiel can help prepare. . . ’ He frowned.

  ‘Is Adiel all right?’

  Basel was getting to his feet. ‘Left her in the common room. She was sleeping.’

  ‘Not any more.’ Rose observed.

  43

  Adiel was hurrying down the bark-chip path towards them, dreadlocks bouncing about her shoulders, face clouded with confusion.

  ‘What’s been happening?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re supposed to be sedated.’ Basel told her. ‘I gave you a p-pill!’

  ‘Yeah, in a fruit shot that’s half-caffeine, half-taurine,’ Adiel shot back, ‘like that’s going to work. I wake up and suddenly everyone’s gone, the common-room window’s shattered, nobody’s about. . . ’ She looked at Fynn. ‘Kanjuchi – is he all right?’

  ‘No.’ The Doctor smiled sympathetically, but shook his head. ‘I could be kind and say Kanjuchi’s not himself. But I don’t want to patronise you, don’t want to give you false hope – and I don’t want anyone to think there’s the slightest chance of survival if one of those golden blobs touches you.’

  ‘So he’s really dead, then.’ said Basel quietly. ‘Dead and gone.’

  ‘Not gone.’ said the Doctor. ‘Something else is controlling his body now. Something with a very particular purpose that’s woken up under that volcano, thinking it needs to recruit sentries. We need to know more about it and fast – before anyone or anything else leaves this world with a golden handshake.’ He marched up to Fynn and shook the bat in his face. ‘Shall we get on?’

  Rose sat in the laboratory, waiting for the Doctor to dazzle his dwindling audience with the results of his poking about. He was using the sonic screwdriver on the data-get, trying to get more out of it, she supposed. Frantic thumping and scratching were coming from a lead-lined box as the bat did its best to escape from captivity.

  Fynn was hunched up over a funny-looking microscope, checking stuff out, while Adiel got busy mixing and fixing solutions in beakers. All Rose could do was clock the way Adiel acted around Fynn; her whole body seemed to go rigid any time he came near her.

  Maybe something had happened between them – unhappy romance, or maybe he’d passed her over for promotion, or. . .

  Rose sighed. What did it matter? She hated feeling so useless, but suspected that even had she passed Chemistry GCSE she would still be just a mile or two out of her depth. She wished now she had 44

  gone with Basel and Solomon, rounding up the workers and sending them home early before finishing checking the unit for dodgy mutant wildlife. But she had an ankle slathered in twenty-second-century miracle cream and it was already feeling a lot better for being rested on a lab stool.

  ‘So this golden stuff.’ she began.

  ‘Magma form.’ the Doctor corrected her.

  ‘All right, this magma form. Will it come after us? Are we gonna be invaded by golden blobs?’

  The Doctor buzzed a bit more with the screwdriver. ‘Know what I think? I think that it thinks that we are the invaders.’

  ‘Can you reverse the effect – turn the bat back to normal?’

  ‘Dunno.’ He put down the data-get. ‘These magma forms must secrete some substance that alters the host DNA entirely, converting the skin into a kind of flexible metal. And when the secondary mutation kicks in. . . ’

  Taking that as a cue, Adiel called up the output from an X-ray scanner pointing at the lead box.

  Rose shuddered at the image on the plasma screen.

  Little Tolstoy had mutated like the vulture into a hideous, bloated caricature of its former self. Its wings were burnished gold, one almost twice the size of the other. Its teeth and claws had lengthened. Its eyes were wide and aglow like white-hot metal.

  ‘Golem,’ announced the Doctor suddenly, whipping off his glasses.

  ‘What?’ Rose frowned. ‘The creepy thing from Lord of the Rings?’

  ‘No, golem. A living being created from clay.’ He was staring at the shifting, blue-black shadows on the X-ray screen. ‘A crude, primitive servant. Not crude as in it goes round shouting “Knickers!” all the time; crude as in roughly made, unfinished. Once brought to life by mystical incantations, it acts unthinkingly, unswervingly, for its master.’

  Adiel watched him, her dark eyes wide. ‘You think that’s what Kanjuchi and the transformed animals have become?’

  He nodded. ‘Only remade from magma, not mud.’

  ‘And using alien technology instead of magic spells?’ Rose ventured.

  45

  Fynn stared at them both in despair. ‘You make it sound as if you deal with things like this every day!’

  Rose and the Doctor nodded in perfect unison. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Question is.’ the Doctor added, ‘how long has this stuff been cooking up? The tektites on Adiel’s necklace – legacy of that meteor. . .

  We’re talking old, really old. Really, really, really, really, reallllllllllly old.’

  Rose lowered her voice. ‘But what about that space pollution the TARDIS picked up around here? That’s recent, isn’t it?’

  ‘ Really recent. Really, really, realllllllllly –’

  ‘Which means there’s been a spaceship in the area!’ The Doctor grinned. ‘Which could explain why this stuff has started reacting! It doesn’t like technology; it hated it when I started sonicking. . . ’

  ‘What are you two talking about now?’ Fynn demanded.

  ‘We need to know why this stuff has decided to start shaping the local animal life into golems, right?’ said the Doctor, rubbing his hands together. ‘So we need to know what’s in those uncharted caves.’

  ‘You can’t go back in there.’ Adiel blurted.

  Fynn was quick to agree. ‘We barely got out alive the last time.’

  ‘’S all right, keep your pants on!’ The Doctor gave them both a cocky smile and waggled the data-get. ‘I’ve fiddled with the scan-sensors on this, increased the range and sensitivity to full capacity. If we can insert some memory wafers, hook it up to an output screen, we should be able to build up a clearer picture of what’s sitting underneath that volcano.’

  ‘Those devices are extremely expensive, Doctor.’ said Fynn, snatching the data-get and training it on Adiel. ‘If your tampering has. . . ’

  He trailed off as a keen whine of power bit into the atmosphere. He studied the meter. ‘Incredible. Even at minimum scan, the volume of data –’

  ‘– will swamp its built-in memory, which is why we need the wafers.’

  The Doctor leaned in over his shoulder and stabbed a couple of buttons, powering it down. ‘Well, well – according to this. . . Adiel’s a littl
e bit alien.’

  46

  ‘What?’ Adiel stared at him, shifting on the spot uncomfortably.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’d say it’s those tektites round your neck,’ the Doctor went on.

  ‘Yep, the composition’s definitely alien, sure as eggs is eggs. Those stones weren’t formed in a meteor impact. They came from the forced landing of an alien spaceship.’

  Fynn disentangled himself, his face disapproving. ‘Doctor, really. . . ’

  ‘Really, really, really, reallllllly. . . ’ His deep brown eyes were agleam as he walked up to Adiel. ‘You say you got those pretty stones from round here?’

  She nodded. ‘The women at Gouronkah find them and sell them.’

  ‘Gouronkah?’ Rose wondered. It sounded more alien than some of the places the Doctor took her.

  ‘A backwards little settlement nearby,’ Fynn explained. ‘The locals tend to be. . . intolerant of staff from the agri-units. See us as violating the land, the old traditions.’ He frowned. ‘Why would you wish to consort with such people, Adiel?’

  Adiel shrugged, and Rose caught the coldness in her dark eyes. ‘I believe my vacation time is my own, Director.’

  ‘May I see the stones?’ the Doctor asked, holding out his hand.

  A little reluctantly, she passed him the necklace. And as she did so, the lead box suddenly jumped with a violent scrape across the table-top, making everyone skitter.

  ‘Whatever’s underneath the volcano, that thing in there’s pretty keen to get back,’ said Rose shakily.

  ‘Director Fynn, I need to take a rest period,’ Adiel said abruptly.

  Fynn nodded, distracted again by his souped-up data-get. ‘Thirty minutes, no more. We need to start imaging that volcano.’ He looked at the Doctor. ‘This will be of untold value to the project. We can accu-rately survey the entire lava-tube network from the outside, increase user access and harvesting efficiency. . . ’

  ‘Yeah, hello, Director?’ The Doctor made a pair of scissors with his fingers. ‘Cut.’

  Not meeting anyone’s gaze, Adiel swept across the room to the far door.

  47

  The Doctor went over to Rose, put on a smile. ‘Give her a few minutes,’ he said under his breath so Fynn wouldn’t hear, ‘then go after her.’

  ‘Worried I might be getting lonely?’ said Rose.

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘Worried she might be getting up to something.’

  In the pink-red glare of the setting sun, Solomon stood at the edge of the east fields and watched the guards talking at the main gate.

  The day shift would soon be drifting back to their homes in Condo City Three, or to the dive clubs, casinos and bars they preferred to kill time in.

  In many ways, the new cities were every bit as dirty and dangerous as the camps and shanties they had been thrown up to replace.

  Solomon thought of the comfortless cement block he’d been assigned when he’d first started working for the agri-units. The toilets backed up and the tap water was undrinkable. The whole district smelt of sewage and all residents were on a waiting list to move to better ac-commodation on the east edge.

  Three years later Solomon was still waiting.

  ‘Hey, Solomon, man,’ said Nadif, shuffling amiably along, raising small clouds of sand in his wake. ‘You off duty too?’

  ‘Nah,’ he said mildly, still watching the chatting guards, carefree in their ignorance. ‘Looks like I’m here to stay.’

  ‘Bad luck, my friend. Reckon we could all use a drink after what we’ve seen today.’ He paused, troubled. ‘Fynn and his type will explain it all away, right?’

  ‘Uh-huh. You wait.’

  Apparently reassured, Nadif nodded and set off for the main gate.

  ‘Be seeing you.’

  Solomon nodded. ‘Guess you will.’

  Where else would he be? His father had said he could come home

  – to the family home – any time he wanted. But Dad had died the same way he had lived, in hardship and poverty, because he stayed true to the old traditions, the old ways. Solomon didn’t want that 48

  for his sons. He wanted them to have a shot at the chances in life that his ID pass had ruled out for him from birth. If you were born in an old-style village – or Native Settlement (Primitive) in the new-speak – then you had to fight tooth and nail and wait for ever for even the most basic urban upgrades. Solomon had taken thirteen years to work his way up from labour grade nobody to Chief Overseer, selling himself to the likes of Fynn for peanuts – but it was worth every cent he never saw. Now his sons were graded urban sector, attended speed schools, would have their own bank accounts some day – would stand a chance of getting out of the poverty trap and into a better life for themselves somewhere else.

  So long as their daddy wasn’t exposed as a thief. So long as he didn’t wind up in a labour camp because he couldn’t turn his back on his old birthplace and his father’s ghost.

  So long as the golden death didn’t come for them all. Solomon spat on the floor and watched the sun slowly sinking behind Mount Tarsus.

  ‘Please, God,’ he murmured as the sky went on darkening, ‘don’t let others suffer for my sins.’

  49

  Rose made her way to the common room. The broken windows had been boarded up with planks of wood. Only a little clear glass remained to hint at the beautiful African nightscape.

  Adiel and Basel were leaning forward on separate couches, talking in low voices. When Rose walked in they looked up guiltily, like they were whispering dirty secrets. ‘Just fancied a fruit shot,’ said Rose vaguely, crossing to the fridge. ‘Everyone sent home who needs to be?’ Basel nodded.’

  ‘Cept me.’

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Basel, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t. She pointed to her bad foot. ‘Mind if I drink the fruit shot here? Need to rest the ankle.’

  Adiel looked meaningfully at Basel and shrugged. ‘We can speak Kenga,’ she said.

  ‘That’s nice for you,’ said Rose blankly.

  Basel’s expression was apologetic. ‘Conversation’s sort of personal.’

  ‘Yeah, well, don’t mind me,’ said Rose, turning to her drink. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’

  Which, to her amazement, was exactly what they did.

  51

  ‘I just can’t believe you’ve done this,’ Basel muttered. ‘People are gonna get hurt.’

  ‘Security will know, they’ll be prepared.’

  ‘That lot are animals! This situation could go belly up in a moment.’

  He shook his head wearily. ‘What I really can’t get my head round is that you’d drop Solomon in it, just like that.’

  ‘I have to,’ Adiel said simply. ‘It’s for the greater good.’

  ‘Act like an activist, talk like a scientist,’ he sneered.

  ‘I don’t see why you’re not happier. You told me yourself that you were after something that could get you publicity.’

  ‘Yeah, the right kind of publicity – like catching a solid-gold vulture,’ Basel agreed, loud as you like. ‘Something that’ll draw attention to what places like this are doing to the environment. Something small enough to smuggle out of the unit before Fynn starts covering everything up.’

  Rose stared at them, gobsmacked. So that was why Basel had been so keen to catch the golden vulture – and quite happy to let her risk her life helping him. What she couldn’t believe was the way they were chatting about all this like she didn’t exist, like she wasn’t even worth their secrecy.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Adiel. ‘If this alien golem stuff is really true, the government will put this whole place under wraps, top secret, all of that.’

  She looked at Basel. ‘But a story like this, this is news. If I’m going to get Fynn investigated –’

  ‘Listen to yourself!’ Basel shook his head like he was disgusted.

  ‘Don’t pretend you’re doing this for Gouronkah. This is abou
t you.’

  Rose couldn’t stay quiet any longer. ‘What are you two on about?’

  ‘Told you, Rose, it’s personal.’ Basel turned back to Adiel. ‘Whatever happens, State Guards will end up searching the tunnels, find out what Solomon’s been up to – and pack him off to a labour camp.’

  ‘If he’s got secret links to this glowing stuff, then maybe he deserves it!’

  ‘ What?’ Rose said, more loudly.

  ‘He’d never do something like that!’ Basel insisted. ‘He’s straight.

  52

  You know damn well that without him everyone in Gouronkah would have starved to death. He’s risked his whole life for them –’

  ‘They don’t need handouts,’ Adiel insisted, more animated now than Rose had ever seen her. ‘They need their independence.’

  ‘Independence won’t fill your belly,’ said Basel wearily, ‘whatever your student mates might say. And if you think I’m gonna stand by while you sell Solomon down the river –’

  ‘I hadn’t realised you were so close.’ Adiel’s voice was growing colder. ‘Well, I’m telling you, he went straight to this golden panel

  – he knew it was there.’

  ‘You what? ’ said Rose, whose chin was almost scraping the floor by now.

  Adiel ignored the outburst. ‘And then he tried to bring the roof down on it!’

  ‘How come you were even there, spying on him, anyway?’ Basel challenged. ‘When we left you, you were sleeping.’

  ‘My watch alarm went off – I had to keep my meeting. I came to, saw those windows all broken.’ She looked genuinely troubled. ‘I got worried, wandered out. . . Then I saw Solomon going into the tunnels and I followed him.’

  ‘What meeting’s this? What’ve you been up to?’ Rose demanded.

  Finally, they both took notice.

  Adiel peered at Rose like she was something under one of Fynn’s slides. ‘You understood what we said?’