by Doctor Who
Repulsed by the horror of the scene, she found her attention taken by one who stood out – or rather laid down – from the rest. The giant worm had been chopped in half and was twitching obscenely on a stretcher that looked like the tough green carapace of some enormous insect.
‘Your Majesty,’ said Faltato, letting Adiel fall panting to the floor. ‘I was forced to restrain the bipeds. They attempted to –’
The Wurm king’s voice was an icy rasp. ‘Where is the Lona Venus?
Where are the masterworks? I wish to spit on them.’
‘Ah.’ Faltato grimaced. There might be a tiny – teeny-tiny – problem there.’
159
Adiel shivered in the long pause that followed.
‘Explain.’
‘The, um, bulk of the treasures hail from the most recent eras of Valnaxi history. While still of great merit –’
‘Faltato.’ Ottak slithered closer. ‘Did you, or did you not, identify this warren as the last great Valnaxi stronghold, said to be piled high with the greatest art treasures of all?’
‘Based on the visual evidence gathered from the last warren, it was only logical to assume –’
‘And have we, or have we not, travelled thousands of light years to secure these promised treasures?’
‘I’m sure the treasures will be here somewhere and that you will seek them out with your usual aplomb –’
‘Cover the exits,’ Ottak told his troops.
They squirmed off to obey.
Faltato shifted uneasily. ‘King Ottak?’
‘If the artworks are not here, then this is not the last of the warrens, as you claimed. It is merely a forgotten outhouse with obsolete defences, of no real worth.’ He hissed. ‘You are therefore a charlatan or a fool – and I will not tolerate either.’
‘The great works must be here somewhere,’ said Faltato desperately.
‘Underground, perhaps. Or – or maybe secreted in the summit –’
‘Our scans show there is nothing more!’ Ottak insisted. ‘I will not be cheated. Squad! Take aim.’
Adiel stared in horror as, with an ominous whirr of servos, the Wurms’ stump-guns trained themselves on Faltato. With a yelp he yanked her and Basel back to their feet, held them to him close like a frightened child clutching his teddies.
‘Bipeds are soft and fleshy, Faltato,’ Ottak went on. They will not shield you from us.’
Basel tried weakly to struggle, but Adiel found herself paralysed.
Time seemed to slow to a dread crawl.
Death was coming.
∗ ∗ ∗
160
The Doctor opened his eyes but they felt gritty and sore. ‘Feeling something! That’s nice. Ow! Niceish.’ He knelt up and rubbed at his eyes with his hands.
Unless he was very much mistaken, they were fleshy, dirty and definitely non-golden hands.
Breathlessly he rolled up his sleeve, clutched hold of his ankle, scratched his bum and stuck a finger in his ear. ‘I’m back!’ he shouted.
‘I was all ready to give myself up. But your magma gave up on me first! Couldn’t handle the cell walls and gave up, just as it did with the ’shroooms! Ha! ’ He whooped for joy and shook his head in disbelief. ‘How jammy am I? I’m immune, and now Rose and Solomon will be too! If you have a problem, if no one else can help, call for FUNGUS MAN! He’ll be there in the shake of a spore to. . . ’ The Doctor tailed off. ‘Um, hello?’
He took in his surroundings – not that there was much to take in.
He seemed to be in a deep, dark cave. The only illumination came from veins of faintly glistening light tracing wayward paths over the steep walls. They pulsed gently as if the rock itself was alive.
‘You are not Fungus Man.’ The voice came out of the darkness, ancient and dry, like the crackle of leaves in a bonfire.
‘Um, no,’ he admitted.
‘I’m the Doctor.
Where are Rose and
Solomon?’
‘They have been taken for teleportation above as you requested.’
‘Are they safe?’
‘You have risked all our lives.’ A pause. ‘You are not like the human creatures.’
The Doctor’s eyes probed the darkness, trying to see who was talking. ‘Have you been peeping?’
‘We have scanned you.’
‘You’re right. But you’re not like the human creatures either, are you
– so why are you trying to be?’ Silence. ‘Oh, come on. Shine a little light on the subject.’
The veins of light glowed brighter. Now the Doctor could make out strange, delicate machinery and instrument panels built above rocky perches set high in the rock. The controls seemed powered by thick 161
conduits that snaked down out of sight, presumably into the molten magma below. Clearly this was a centre of operations – or perhaps a throne room. Seven huge ornate structures, halfway between chairs and perches, resolved themselves from out of the gloom. In each, the body of a fierce, bird-like creature with fiery golden scales was propped, immediately familiar from so many statues and paintings in the caves far above. Faint black-gold smoke gusted round the bodies.
The Doctor took a step closer. ‘So. The Valnaxi race lives on after all. The last survivors.’
‘We are the Council of Valnax,’ said the ancient disembodied voice.
‘Our bodies are long since dead. Only the intelligence survives.’
‘Sentient smoke,’ the Doctor murmured. ‘And there’s no smoke without fire. You did this to yourselves, didn’t you?’
‘We knew the Wurms would revenge themselves on us.’ He turned at the sound of the low growl to find the female in Rose’s image standing just behind him. ‘Knew that they would scour the universe for all traces of our civilisation, to steal our art and treasures.’
‘And we knew that we could never return home.’ The male based on Solomon had also stepped out from the darkness. ‘That we faced eternal persecution.’
‘So the chosen few hid themselves away down here,’ the Doctor surmised.
‘Though we lack flesh, we are many thousands,’ the old voice said.
‘Though most choose to lie sleeping until they have a future to wake to.’
‘Waiting for the heat to die down under a volcano!’ The Doctor grinned. ‘That’s brilliantly twisted. Ha, ha, ha! That’s genius!’
‘The planet’s mantle sustains our systems,’ came the aged whisper.
‘And fresh eruptions hid all traces of our arrival.’
‘Apart from a tektite or two.’ The Doctor took a step closer to the thrones. ‘But you knew the Wurms would find you some day. In fact, you wanted them to. You didn’t leave those riddles and clues to the whereabouts of each successive warren for your descendants to find,
’cause your descendants are down here with you.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You set a trap, didn’t you? A long, slow trap.’
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‘The Wurms are brutally efficient but unimaginative,’ came the old, crackling voice. ‘By defending each warren in the same way, we have conditioned their responses.’
‘Each time,’ said the female, ‘they must scout the land, fight the guardians and the ranks of local sentries –’
‘People and animals,’ said the Doctor savagely, ‘living creatures whose purpose you perverted and pressganged into perpetuating this pathetic war.’ He paused. ‘Blimey, what a lot of p’s! Can’t you give p’s a chance?’
The Wurms thrive on conflict,’ said the male. ‘It was important to satisfy their desire for violence, to lead them onwards.’
‘So they battle their way through to a deactivation plaque and shut down the auto-defences,’ the Doctor concluded. Then they ransack the warrens to their heart’s content and pick up the clues pointing them on to the next little treasure trove. But here – for the one and only time – it’s different.’
The deactivation plaques respond only to the touch of flesh. The plaque far above is a fake, a decoration.
It conceals a genetic sampler designed to extract DNA, life essence and psychic energy at first touch.
Everything we need to reformat our race from a new template.’
‘Why?’
‘If the Valnaxi are ever to return to our home world and know peace, we need new identities. A new form.’ The smoke swirled in a tight, impatient motion. The form of our tormentors.’
The Wurms?’
The Doctor stared in consternation.
‘Why d’you
wanna look like Wurms?’
‘External appearances are irrelevant,’ said the female. ‘As artists we see through them to perceive the truth of things.’
‘What kind of an answer’s that?’ the Doctor complained. ‘And why such an elaborate scheme? Surely you must have had Wurm prisoners you could have taken as templates?’
The smoke darkened a touch.
‘Wurms disintegrate themselves
rather than remain prisoners. In any case, in the war time such technology did not exist. Science does not come easily to our race. It took many years to refine the process.’ A pause, then the voice con-163
tinued more sadly, ‘We overestimated our enemies’ abilities – believed the Wurms would find our warren here far, far sooner. We thought, perhaps, 300 years. . . ’
‘And instead you’ve been stuck here for 2,000.’ The Doctor whistled. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. No offence, but as scientists and master planners you lot make very good artists.’
‘It is for our art we have done this,’ came the dry old voice. ‘Our planet is home to a binding force, an energy – the wellspring of our creativity.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And away from the homelands, we cannot create,’ the voice went on. ‘We have no art. No function, no purpose. Our most ancient and valuable masterworks are hidden away in vaults here, and we wait with them. Until the day we can return to create new and better works.’
‘Return?’ The Doctor stared at the bodies on their thrones. ‘So. You wanted to look like Wurms so you could fit in back home. . . ’
‘They infest our world but cannot destroy the binding force. It waits there for us. It calls to us.’ A pause. ‘We are so little without it. We fought so hard and for so long to preserve it. Now, if the only way we are able to commune with it is to live among our conquerors in secret, then so be it.’
‘Only it’s all gone wrong, hasn’t it?’ said the Doctor.
‘’Cause here you are, all arms and legs. After all those centuries, the Wurms didn’t make it to the bogus deactivation plaque first, did they?’
He shook his head sadly at the gleaming, stylised figures. ‘Solomon did!’
As she stared down the barrels of two dozen cannons, Adiel knew she should have been terrified. But there were too many questions crowding her head. How had her parents felt, looking back at the end of their lives? How afraid had they been? What had even happened to them? She’d spent so long clinging to the same questions, and with all she’d found out she was still no nearer an answer. And now, as she faced the taking of her own life, she realised that it didn’t matter. The 164
answers to those questions would change nothing. She would never stop missing her mum and dad, never stop loving them, never stop wanting to make them proud.
And as the guns finished clicking into position, fear finally bit at her.
And in its teeth came the certainty that her mum and dad would have fought to stay alive, done anything, tried anything.
She would fight too.
‘Any last words, Faltato?’ the Wurm king enquired mockingly.
‘None come to mind,’ said Faltato faintly. ‘Oh, hang on. . . ’
Adiel realised something was digging into her back. Something in Faltato’s breast pocket that Basel must have overlooked. A little jolt of hope went through her and she twisted in Faltato’s grip. ‘Don’t make me look at them!’ she wailed, pressing herself up against him and dipping into the pocket. Her fingers closed on a slim tube.
‘King Ottak,’ said Faltato wretchedly, ‘allow me to speak to my fellows at the Hadropilatic Fellowship. Let them double-check my findings and prove to you –’
Discreetly she pulled out the tube, reached over and pressed it into Basel’s hand. He started, looked at her. Grinned and nodded.
Ottak hissed like an air brake. ‘I tire of your final words, Faltato.’
(‘Can you work it?’ Adiel asked Basel.)
‘Let us revel in your final screams instead!’
(‘I can die trying,’ he whispered.)
Faltato’s nerve finally broke and he launched into a desperate stumbling run, dragging his human shield with him.
‘Aim your weapons!’ Ottak roared to his troops.
Basel raised the thin little tube. A blue glow of power buzzed from its tip. Adiel waited, breath baited.
But all that happened was the Wurm on the stretcher yelped as his floating stretcher whizzed off as if jerked on a string and smashed into the cavern wall, before capsizing over the patient.
‘Korr!’ Ottak hissed. ‘Biped scum, your blood shall enrich my soil for this!’
Basel looked at Adiel helplessly – then Faltato slipped and collapsed, 165
dragging them down with him. Adiel cringed as her face fell against his – it was like nuzzling a big rotten vegetable.
‘Destroy them all!’ roared Ottak.
But then Adiel blinked as a skein of golden smoke drifted into sight right in front of them. Two gleaming figures began to form there.
‘Golems!’ shouted Basel.
Adiel closed her eyes. The Wurms opened fire.
The Doctor stared half-disgusted, half-pityingly at the blank faces of the Valnaxi-humans. ‘What a cods-up,’ he said. ‘Lying dormant all this time, you didn’t realise the humans had developed, that they’d been digging out the volcano and weakened the caverns – exposing the plaque too soon. Solomon found it, touched it and your systems took his DNA, life essence and psychic energy. . . ’ He nodded, growing excited. ‘Maybe that’s why you didn’t see him as a threat till he brought the roof crashing down on the plaque and smashed it! And so now you can’t steal the Wurms’ identities. They’re gonna loot the place and push off and torch the whole planet, and while you may survive way down here, you’re stuck as humans – and ohhhhh boy are you ever gonna stand out like sore thumbs on your home world looking like that. . . ’
He tailed off, expecting confirmation, or angry denial – something.
But the throne room stayed silent. The smoke hung in an almost solid curtain just ahead of him. The male and the female watched him closely.
‘Um, it’s good of you to tell me all this by the way,’ he said quickly.
‘But – call me paranoid, I’m suddenly wondering why. Why?’
The silence, the watching, went on. Then suddenly the magma guardian blazed threateningly into the throne room.
‘Oh, I get it,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’ve been waiting for my cells to revert, haven’t you? So you can make me into one of your golems.’
The female looked at him almost sadly. ‘Yes.’
He pulled a face. ‘And. . . I’m guessing my immunity’s worn off?’
The male nodded.
‘Whoops,’ said the Doctor, as the magma form surged towards him.
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Eyes tight shut, Adiel listened to the squelch of the Wurm cannons, blast after blast, and wondered how come she was still alive. But only when she felt human hands gripping her own did she open her eyes.
Solomon was crouching protectively over her, no longer golden, just the same as he had always been.
‘I – I thought you were dead,’ she stammered.
‘There’s still time,’ he said grimly, dragging her up. ‘Come on.
Move.’
Adiel saw in a moment that Faltato was no longer prime target, with or without his human shield. The Wurms had opened fire on the storm of bats and vultures that had soundlessly swooped into the
chamber to attack, and the packs of misshapen dogs and hyenas that now came snapping and howling to join the fray. The Wurm guarding the jagged entrance to the next chamber had left his post to take part in the fighting, and Adiel realised that Rose was leading Basel to shelter there. Faltato was already disappearing through the slit in the stone.
‘Where did you appear from?’ Adiel shouted over another deafening volley of shots as they pushed through into the next chamber.
167
‘Out of thin air, I think,’ said Rose. She looked pale and woozy, trying to hold Basel upright while holding it together herself. Adiel took him off her hands and they all collapsed behind an enormous Valnaxi sculpture – where Faltato was waiting.
‘Out of thin air, indeed.’ Faltato sniffed. ‘You were sent through a matter transporter.’
‘It was amazing,’ said Basel, kissing Rose before throwing his arms round Solomon. ‘They came through this smoky yellow light, all gold and golem-y – then it just wore off and they were normal.’
‘We weren’t regular golems,’ said Rose, eyes closed, fingers pressing against her face. ‘We were, like, golems deluxe.’
‘They wanted something else from us,’ Solomon agreed. ‘And I guess they must have taken it.’
Faltato clearly wasn’t impressed. ‘From the timing, I’d say they sent you through to distract Ottak’s forces while their guardian drones attacked from the rear. Though I don’t see why the drones were playing dead. . . ’
‘Something the Doctor did,’ said Rose. ‘He was down there, blocking their golem control.’
The alien groaned. ‘I might have known he’d be behind it.’
‘I could see you all,’ said Solomon distantly. ‘The moment I was taken, it was like I was part of some greater mind. . . Like that mind was listening to me. I did my best to keep those golden creatures away from you. But when I knew whatever was holding me needed a female for study, I. . . ’ He looked between Adiel and Rose, awkward and shamefaced. ‘I couldn’t let Adiel. . . ’