by Doctor Who
‘What secrets do you hold?’ Ottak hissed. Then he flexed his muscles and crushed it to dust. ‘None. None at all.’
A vibration in the earth beneath him alerted him to someone coming. He turned expectantly – and suddenly a ghostly white head pushed upwards.
It was Korr, burrowing free of the sucking soil. Half of his body had been torn away, trailing ligaments and implants.
‘I tried to contact you, sire,’ Korr wheezed, ‘but the Valnaxi interference prevented me. Had to burrow here. . . ’
With a low, angry hiss, Ottak swiped at another statue, decapitated a winged figure. ‘What happened, Korr?’
‘I have located the memory wafers,’ he said, spitting them out of his mouth-skin. ‘The bipeds betrayed us –’
‘– but their machinery is sound,’ pronounced Ottak. ‘You have done well, Korr. We shall map out the warren and raze all defences, destroy its central systems, empty its treasures and crush them under-belly in the streets of every planet.’
‘Their greatest legacy will be lost for all time. . . ’ Korr wagged his body-stump from side to side in anticipation. ‘My injuries do not trouble me, sire. I wish to fight on.’
‘That wish is granted, Korr,’ said Ottak without hesitation. ‘The soil of this world has been enriched with biped blood and Valnaxi ashes, and we shall taste both in our bodies. We shall battle on and tear the heart from this Valnaxi hellhole. Then we shall ingest it! Then we shall regurgitate it and ingest it again!’
Korr nodded eagerly. Ottak left him there in his own pooling filth and headed for the command mound to fix the biped’s machine –before fixing the Valnaxi defences for good.
∗ ∗ ∗
149
The Doctor wasn’t sure how much time passed in the shadows and bloody backwaters of his mind. But he was dimly aware of his body rising up, moving like a sleepwalker, through the split at the back of the cave, into an empty cavern, trudging through ash. The darkness should have been absolute, but a golden gleam seemed to be lighting his way.
It was coming from his skin. The realisation shocked him into full wakefulness and he put his fingers to his face. It felt cold and hard.
His body had begun to turn golem, and his mind was heading the same way.
He had to hold on.
The Doctor pinched his cheek – it was pliable, but dead. He licked his icy golden finger but couldn’t taste anything.
‘Such a cold finger,’ he sang mournfully, the sound soon swallowed up by smoke and shadow. Where was the controlling force? He had to reach Rose before. . . before. . .
‘This skin is so not my colour, by the way,’ he complained noisily, trying to wake himself up as much as anyone else. ‘I mean, Space City in carnival time it’d go down a storm, but twenty-second-century Africa, come on! Underneath a volcano?’ He gave a sharp intake of golden breath, slapped his forehead, felt nothing. ‘ Underneath a volcano! How can I have been such a div!’
The data-get scans were taken from Solomon’s jeep; they only showed a cross-section through the volcano. They didn’t show what was hiding underneath it. And even if he could point the D–G down at the ground right now, it only had a range of a kilometre or so.
There was as much as forty kilometres of crust down there before you reached the mantle. . .
‘And that’s where you’re hiding, isn’t it?’ he yelled. ‘Deep, deep in the ground, close to the magma that feeds you, and out of the range of any scanning equipment minding your store of treasures. But how do I reach you, then, eh? Since this cave was so well guarded, I’m thinking maybe there’s a secret passage, a short cut, a teleport. Am I right? Oooh, I bet I’m right.’ He wandered around in the dark briefly 150
before losing patience. ‘Well? Am I coming to you?’ he yelled, ‘or are you coming to me?’
The next second, smoky pillars of light, dull as a November dawn, swam faintly into his vision, appeared in front of him. He took a step towards them and they shifted backwards. As he followed after them he felt a tingle like a current through his plated skin.
‘Teleport,’ he said, grinning to himself. ‘I’ve still got it. . . ’
His surroundings were shifting, growing lighter, brighter. Now suddenly he was in a huge circular space, a giant chimney of flame-red rock stretching upwards into blackness. Four jagged holes were cut at equal intervals into the sides of the natural arena, doorways of some kind – but too dark for him to see what lay beyond.
He was standing on a cushion of air, and beneath him molten lava glubbed and bubbled with powder-flash brightness. He wondered if it was his golem shell protecting him from the heat, or if that was down to the invisible barrier.
Then the glowing shape of the magma-form guardian emerged from the black doorway facing him.
‘It’s you, is it?’ said the Doctor. ‘I want to speak to the organ grinder, not his morikey.’ The guardian rolled a little closer, and he looked around warily. ‘Come on. Where are your mates, then?’
The guardian came to a stop and the Doctor felt a twitch in his mind. ‘Oh. . .
No mates. It’s just you, isn’t it? Must be a whole network of teleportals around so you can check up on the place – you just keep popping up here and there, subdividing to make it seem like there’s loads of you. . . Ow!’
The Doctor tailed off as a sibilant whisper swirled through his head like smoke. Don’t resist us. By blocking our control you’re upsetting the balance of the defence network. We cannot manipulate our servants. We cannot resist our enemies.
‘Then you’d better give me what I want right now,’ snapped the Doctor out loud. ‘Rose Tyler.’ He took a threatening step towards the magma form. ‘You can’t harm me any more – but the Wurms can harm you, and I’ll let them. I don’t know why you took her, but I want her back. Now.’
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The guardian didn’t move.
‘Who’s in charge here!’ the Doctor hollered.
A curtain of smoke seemed to gust away from that same dark doorway as two shiny golden figures shambled into the arena. Misshapen statues of a man and a girl.
‘Oh, God,’ the Doctor whispered.
The male figure was clearly all that was left of Solomon Nabarr.
But it was the sight of the girl that had made the Doctor’s hearts stop dead. Her face was a distorted mask, as if the features had formed on a custard skin and been poked about by a child’s finger. One cheek, one eye bulged, while the other side seemed to melt down into the fat Schwarzenegger neck. The body was hunched and simian. One arm flapped feebly, clearly broken in two places, while the other was swollen like the misshapen legs. She stood facing him, her distorted features fixed in reproach.
‘Rose,’ he croaked. ‘Oh, Rose, I’m so sorry. I was too late. . . ’
152
KingOttakstartedatthesuddensoundofclearcommunication. The ship’s scanners burst into full function, scattering the static. In its place came pin-sharp images of the battlefield, courtesy of the cam-flies, their transmissions magically interference-free.
The pictures showed the Valnaxi guardians dropping from the sky, struggling feebly in the ashy murk of the ground. The cams zoomed in eagerly on Ottak’s troops blasting the twisted creatures to bits with lasers or cannon-fire, or surging eagerly through the mire towards the doorway to the Valnaxi vaults.
The tech-bugs brought the biped’s device to him. They had integrated Korr’s memory wafers and powered up the machine. Once the cam-flies had circled the volcano, the layout of the vaults would become clear and a strategy – bold and precise – would be arrived at.
Now Ottak could broadcast his commands over the ship’s loud-speakers and be heard. ‘Squad One, secure the bipeds’ entrance to the easterly tunnels. Squad Two, secure the gateway to the western network. All other units, destroy your enemies where they lie.’ He crept over to the internal comms. ‘Korr, ready yourself.’ He puffed up his soily, segmented chest. ‘Soon I will fire the final shots in this long war. The last Valnaxi outp
ost will stand crushed and its host planet 153
vaporised. It will be soon, Korr.’ Ottak smiled inside as he watched his indomitable troops do his work. ‘Very soon.’
The Doctor stumbled towards the figures. ‘Oh no. Come on. . . no way,’ he said, words almost failing him for once. ‘I. . . Solomon, I’m so sorry. . . But Rose. . . ’
The baleful figures stood watching him.
‘Why did you do this?’ he shouted up into the rocky arena. ‘If they’re not fighting Wurms for you up above, why did you need to do this to them down here?’
‘ Stop fighting us, ’ came the voice. ‘ There’s nothing worth fighting for now. You have lost her. You have lost Rose Tyler. ’
‘At least set her body free,’ he pleaded. ‘Let her be as she was.’
‘ Stop fighting us and we will. We promise. ’
The Doctor lowered his head. Then he cocked it to one side. ‘We?
Hang about. Who’s we?’ He spun all around. ‘Who am I talking to?’
‘ There is little time. The Wurms will destroy us and this world you care for. We must defeat them. Surrender yourself to us or we cannot fight. ’
‘Stuff that! I’ll never surrender!’ He looked at the Rose golem, suddenly wary. ‘I don’t trust this!’ He pivoted on one golden foot, shouting into the shadows. ‘You’re trying to pull a fast one. Who are you?’
Suddenly Rose’s gleaming skin turned brittle, tore away in flakes of gold. Veins and arteries rose up in her arm, darkened into cracks, split open.
The Doctor stared in alarm – then Solomon hurled one massive golden fist into his chest. Literally. It came away at his wrist as he threw the punch. The Doctor went down in a hail of golden shards as the fist shattered.
He stared up as Rose’s lumpy face broke open like a shell.
Or a chrysalis.
Because there was another face behind the crumbling mask. Like an artist’s impression of Rose, not quite enough detail, a sketch somehow brought to life. The dead husk of the body peeled away to reveal 154
the slim, muscular figure underneath. It was not hard and golden, nor glowing like magma; the dark-honey flesh looked baby-smooth and flawless, no human complexion could compare. A similar stylised figure was stepping out of the remains of Solomon’s golem, but the Doctor’s eyes were riveted to the girl and the way she looked at him –at once both so familiar and so strange.
‘Rose?’ the Doctor whispered.
‘No,’ said a low, soft voice. ‘Not Rose. Rose Tyler is only the template.’
The Doctor sat up. His head felt raw and it hurt to think. ‘What do you mean, “template”?’
‘The future of the Valnaxi race.’ The words came from the male’s precisely sculpted lips, but the voice was identical. A tear was running down his cheek. ‘Translation pattern now complete. New physical form achieved for both genders. Templates can be discarded.’
‘We wished you to surrender peacefully,’ said the newly hatched golden Rose, her lips turning down in dismay. ‘But we must stop your mental disruption before the Wurms destroy what is left of our army.’
The two figures advanced on the Doctor like golden shades, perfect arms outstretched, perfect hands hooked into claws.
Basel busied himself not just with shifting pictures and figurines but with scoping out Faltato whenever he could, looking for the telltale bulge of the Doctor’s device in the monster’s flared jacket.
They had moved to the cavern where the bats had attacked Solomon. Unfortunately Faltato had gone straight next door in search of his missing masterworks. He hadn’t found them, but he’d found the tunnel the Doctor had opened up – and deliberately caused a cave-in.
Not just to stop golems or guardians creeping up behind them, Basel reckoned, but to prove to them there was nowhere they could go.
The screwdriver thing was their only chance. It had driven those bats away from Solomon; it could maybe protect them again. It had to be better than just loading up this freaky treasure till their usefulness was at an end.
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Faltato was watching them from a safe distance, as if worried the stuff was about to blow up in their faces.
‘Are these from the same period of Valnaxi history too?’ asked Adiel, piling some crockery carefully into the transporter.
‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘And so are those in the next cavern.’
‘That was the last one,’ Basel informed him. ‘No more after that –just tunnels.’
‘But there must be more!’ Faltato railed, stamping several feet on the floor. ‘ The Lona Venus, The Flight of the Valwing. . . They must be here! Where are they?’
Suddenly a loud, gurgling voice burst from Faltato’s communicator, clear as day. ‘We have victory over the guardians.’
‘King Ottak!’ gasped Faltato. ‘I – I’m delighted!’
‘The routes to the warren are clear and have been scanned and mapped out in full,’ he went on. ‘After searching for so long, we shall finally seize the Valnaxi masterworks for public desecration. Our hearts, and the hearts of our people, will soon fill with rejoicing. I will be with you shortly.’
‘Great!’ squeaked Faltato, his pincers flopping due south.
With a final hiss, Ottak broke contact.
‘That’s it, then,’ said Basel weakly. ‘They don’t need us for protection no more. We’re dead.’
Adiel took a deep breath. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’
Suddenly she ran off. Faltato turned automatically to stop her – and the second his back was turned, Basel jumped on him. He grabbed hold of the alien round its suited midriff, patting over its pockets for the screwdriver.
‘How dare you touch me there!’ Faltato spluttered between high-pitched gasps, then fell writhing to the ground. Adiel doubled back and joined the struggle, but soon cried out as a pincer locked on to her arm, as a tongue lashed out and wound round her neck. Basel found another pincer closing round his throat. He clawed at Faltato’s slimy face, jabbing his fingers into his eyes, until two more tongues took hold of his wrists and yanked them so hard he thought both arms might jump out of their sockets.
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‘Biped savages,’ Faltato groaned, legs scrabbling beneath him as he tried to right himself. ‘No one crosses me. . . ’
Basel felt the world start to throb into darkness, felt the pincer start to scissor into his neck. They’d blown their last chance. Now it was over.
The Doctor backed away but the golden shades moved with balletic speed and grace to grab him. While the male held him in a bearhug, the female’s fingers closed round his throat. She looked oddly unhappy about it, though, staring at her hand as if she did not trust its movements.
Being throttled ought to hurt, the Doctor decided. But it didn’t.
‘Ha!’ he laughed in the female’s face. ‘Is that all you’ve got? Can’t feel a thing!’ The magma form bubbled up to him, surged around his leg, then pulled back uselessly. ‘Looks like your guard dog’s lost his teeth too. This golden skin makes a warrior out of anything that lives – shame you didn’t worry about them ever turning on you.’ He brought up both legs and planted his feet in the female’s stomach, then pushed. That broke her grip on his throat and made the male overbalance, dragging the Doctor down with him. But the female was soon back on the attack. The Doctor rolled backwards out of the way so she stumbled into the male instead.
‘New bodies, always tricky getting used to them, isn’t it?’ the Doctor remarked, eyeing the nearest of the dark doorways. ‘Cup of tea helps, I always say. Got any tea? Africa’s a good place for tea. We could sit down, have a cup of pure Kenyan, chat things through –’
‘Do not fight control!’ shouted the male. ‘Our enemies are near. We must have defences!’
‘And I must have Rose!’ he yelled back. ‘Solomon too. They’re not templates to be discarded, they’re people. If you will release them and send them out of this place through one of your teleporters. . . then I’ll give myself up to you.’ He gr
inned suddenly. ‘And what a catch!
I’m spoiling you here.’
The golden figures looked at each other. Then they took a few steps backwards as a golden smoke began to waft across the centre of 157
the arena. Moments later, two golems appeared – the real Rose and Solomon, standing still as statues but not yet mutated.
‘Reverse the effect!’ he demanded.
‘If that were possible,’ said the female that had taken Rose as her template, ‘we would have done so on you.’
‘Good point. So it’s down to me,’ muttered the Doctor, rushing over to them, pulling the data-give from his pocket. He paused for just a second – then gave Rose the first dose, Solomon the second. He held his breath, wondering if it would work, if the magma effect would be driven out by the sudden cellular disruption. Or if all his wild improvising and Fynn’s bravery had been for nothing.
‘Now you must surrender yourself,’ said the male. ‘Now you must stop fighting.’
‘You said you’d teleport them to safety.’
‘There is nowhere safe while you block our network. But they will be taken from here.’
The Doctor bit his golden lip and closed his eyes. Darkness pressed in on him almost at once. There was a force in that darkness that wanted to do his thinking for him, wanted to control him. ‘Take care, Rose,’ he whispered as he let those thoughts crash in and drown him.
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The imperious question roared around the cavern: ‘ if you are quite finished playing with the bipeds, Faltato? ’
For a split second Adiel could only feel overwhelming gratitude as the leathery tongue around her throat slackened its hold and as Basel fell choking to the rocky ground. But then she saw King Ottak and his Wurm hordes squelching into the chamber. Lumps had been pecked out of them, their pink-grey skin was blackened and much of their soil had fallen away, but the mood of bloodlust and elation was unmistak-able.