‘You can go another way, if you want.’
‘No, well stick together. But this symbol on the wall -
does it mean something?’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘Prison graffiti, I imagine.’
Krelbin regarded him coolly. ‘I’ll stick with you, Doctor, but I hope you aren’t holding out on me. I’d hate to think you’re not the friend you claim to be.’
‘Well, Colonel,’ the Doctor winked, ‘having heard your true feelings about our fellow hunters, I guess you know all there is about false friends.’ He set off walking.
Krelbin followed, his mouth curved in a silent snarl.
Rory aid Harry were staggered by what lay in front of them.
They’d emerged from a series of gutted rooms, only to find themselves teetering on the edge of a titanic gorge criss-crossed at various levels by metal skywalks. Some of these looked to be bearing railway lines - like ‘mineral lines’ on Earth - though many of their supports had rotted away, and they were sagging or, in some cases, had collapsed completely. The floor of the gorge was dotted with the rusted relics of digging machinery and the shells of bumed-out works buildings; the walls were pockmarked with what looked like manmade tunnel entrances.
They stood in respectful silence. Only Dora seemed unimpressed. She was pale as milk and shaking, as she leaned against a stone buttress. Harry finally noticed.
‘You all right?’ he asked.
She mumbled inaudibly.
‘Rory… Something’s wrong with Dora!’
Rory looked her over. ‘Delayed shock,’ he said. ‘She needs rest. But not here.’ He pointed to the far side of the gorge, where, perched on a parapet, there was something that looked like a medieval castle, though it had been made from plates of riveted steel. ‘If that’s where the inmates were billeted. We might be able to make it secure.
Just till help arrives.’
‘You’re sure help will arrive?’
‘I’m certain,’ Rory said. He turned to the door behind them, took the lump of charcoal from his pocket and again inscribed a jagged mouth.
‘What is that sign?’ Harry asked. ‘You’ve made it several times now.’
‘It might just be our salvation. Let’s find a way over there.’
They’d emerged onto a narrow ledge. It had a safety barrier, though in parts this had broken away, so they stayed well clear of the parapet, beyond which there was a drop of several hundred metres. They moved in single file, Dora stumbling between the two men. Every so often they came to a doorway. Glancing through, they saw the interiors of old machine houses or storage areas -
bare and damp, with broken hinges hanging from walls, struts of metal jutting up where appliances had once been connected. In one, there was a line of hooks with what looked like biohazard suits hanging from them, alongside a row of upright steel containers.
‘Lockers,’ Harry said, entering and opening a couple, only to find them empty. ‘Damn! Thought there might be something we could use.’
They went back outside - and stopped dead.
Down on the canyon floor, there was a scurrying
motion. Neither man said a word as he focused on a fast-moving, insect-like object. It had six jointed legs, which moved in a blur. Even from this distance, they could see light glinting from its shiny, red and black striped carapace.
‘What on earth…?’ Harry said slowly.
‘Nothing on Earth,’ Rory replied. ‘But it must be the size of a tank.’
‘It moves like one, too. Only faster.’
Whatever the insect was - and it WAS an insect, for they could now see its antennae twitching - it raced along the gorge at astonishing speed, scampering over obstacles with no difficulty.
‘Is it my imagination or is it coming this way?’ Harry said.
‘I wish it was your imagination,’ Rory said, spinning around. Maybe fifty metres ahead, the ledge projected further out via a manmade concrete lip, which was braced underneath with colossal girders. There looked to be a line of vehicles on top of it. It was possibly a terminus for one of the mineral lines.
“This way!’ he shouted.
‘Rory!’
Dora had suddenly collapsed into Harry’s arms - she seemed catatonic. White-faced with fright, he peered into the gorge; the insect horror had reached the foot of the cliff wall, and was now ascending.
‘If we try and carry her, we’re done for,’ Rory said, darting into the room where the lockers were contained and opening one. ‘In here.’
‘We’re leaving her behind?’ Harry said, incredulous.
‘Concealing her. We’ll distract it, try to lure it away.’
Harry might have objected further, but he knew there was no time. They manhandled the unconscious woman into the container, closed its door and rushed back outside.
A quick glance over the parapet revealed that the insect was less than thirty metres below, and climbing swiftly.
They raced along the ledge to the concrete lip, which they saw was indeed a kind of siding where wheeled tubs, presumably designed to carry ore and raw minerals, were stored. One was seated at the head of a track, which dipped down across the gorge like a roller-coaster ride.
The insect had now reached the ledge, almost exactly at the point where the door gave through to the locker room. It surmounted the safety barrier, but then halted. Its head lolled from side to side, as its antennae twitched.
‘It’s going to find her,’ Harry moaned.
Rory assessed the truck sitting on the railway track. It was a simple affair, designed to be pushed or pulled. The only thing preventing it rolling down the steep track was a brake at its rear, which was currently locked.
‘Harry, get into this!’
‘What?’
‘Just do it!’ Rory grabbed a lump of shale and bowled it, cricket-ball style, at the insect, striking it on the eye. It swung towards them, and advanced.
Rory spun back to the truck, climbing onto its rear section and kicking at the brake. Harry jumped up alongside him, scrambling into the tub, finding it half-filled with rubble and water.
The truck remained stationary.
Rory leaped down again, looking beneath the vehicle to see if something was obstructing it. There was nothing there, but the undercarriage was eaten with rust.
Behind him, a demonic chittering sound grew steadily louder.
‘Rory!’ Harry bellowed.
Rory braced himself against the truck’s rugged bodywork, and gave it a massive shove. It moved slightly.
‘We’ve got to run!’ Harry said, half climbing out again.
Rory’s shout was a gunshot. ‘Stay there! Heee…aaave!’
The truck shifted forward again, with a squeal of corroded metal. The chittering sound now rang in their ears.
‘Rory, it’s too late!’
‘One more!’ Rory spat through gritted teeth.
He threw himself against the truck, his grimacing face a mask of sweat. The chains of rust gave, and the truck moved properly. Rory felt the ground slip from beneath his feet, but dragged himself up and charged at the vehicle again, bending his back as he slammed into it, arms outspread. The truck picked up momentum, rolling freely along the lines. Gravity started to lend a hand.
Harry shouted hysterically as he fixed on what was close behind them. Rory now had to run just to keep up, but when he felt the tracks vibrate beneath him as six giant feet came pounding in pursuit, it was all the impetus he needed.
He flung himself forward, hooking his elbows over the truck’s rim - just as it began to barrel downhill. Harry leaned over and, grabbing him by the belt, pulled him in. They now sped over a vast chasm, but the pursuing monster was still in touch. Rory, lying in the bilge at the bottom of the tub, looked up and saw a grotesque shape land on the back of the truck. Harry shouted madly.
This close, the insect-thing was almost too much to comprehend. A pair of bulbous, multifaceted eyes burned crimson. Mandibles large enough to masticate human bone snap
ped open, strands of sticky digestive fluid dangling between them. Rory was half-paralysed with fright as the thing reached a tapering, bony feeler over the rim towards him.
Then something heavy and metallic swept down and dealt it a terrific blow in the face. It was Harry. He was standing up in the truck with what looked like an old shovel. He struck it in the face again, a massive two-handed blow, but the monster clung on. Harry hit it a third time and a fourth, making savage impact on each occasion - but to no avail. It drew itself further over the rim, but now Rory joined the attack, grabbing hunks of rubble from the bottom of the tub and smashing them on its skull. Still it clambered in, its burning eyes hypnotic.
‘Hack it!’ Rory shouted hoarsely. ‘Cut it! Like with an axe!’
Harry understood and swung the blade edge-on.
Rough and blunt as it was, the first blow alone split the thing’s carapace, black humours spurting out.
Suddenly the thing’s grip was precarious. The second chop followed the first into the same wound, opening up a hideous breach. A flood of corruption burst out, and, with its antennae twitching madly, the monster fell back from the vehicle, tumbling along the track and vanishing into the gulf below.
The wagon jolted over some fault in the line, and Harry crashed down on top of Rory, squashing the breath from him. The truck careered downhill, working its way along the network of tracks, turning sharply as it racketed through points systems, banking around curves, steadily gaining speed. All the way, Rory and Harry lay senseless, completely oblivious to the danger.
It’s kill or be killed on Gorgoror,’ a gangster commented.
Two of them were watching a screen in the Salon on the Ellipsis. They’d been channel-hopping through a variety of images from the surface, finally settling on the labour camp. The drama unfolding there now seemed to have ended, and the mineral truck on which the two humans had narrowly evaded death was negotiating its way to the bottom of the gorge.
‘Turn that off!’ Xaaael said irritably. He was seated at a nearby table, playing himself at a game of Knight & Sword.
The other two exchanged knowing grins. They knew what irked him. Lord Krauzzen had taken personal charge of the Observation Booth on the surface but, instead of trusting the Ellipsis to his nominal second-in-command, had given it to his bodyguard and chief enforcer, Zarbotan - someone Xaaael regarded as a brute thug with no finesse.
They sauntered away, leaving him brooding.
‘What’s the matter, Lord Xaaael?’ someone else asked.
‘Will no one will play you because they know what a cheat you are?’
Xaaael glared up. Amy was collecting empties from the surrounding tables.
‘Hold your tongue, girl! You speak if you’re spoken to on the Ellipsis.’
‘You know, my husband only made that mistake because he fell for your goading. It’s a pity you didn’t pick on me. I’m not so easily intimidated.’
‘Indeed?’
Amy glanced at the table in front of him. Again, it was laid with black cloth and marked with gold squares. Xaaael was moving plastic counters around it.
Some lay face down, but others were face up and bore different coloured designs. It looked like a combination of backgammon and solitaire. She didn’t know how to play either, but at this moment was prepared to busk it.
‘We have games like this on Earth,’ she said. ‘And I’m regarded as an expert.’
‘I’d be more impressed if you were an expert deckhand.
These tables need a touch more polish. Not to mention the floor.’
‘Afraid to take me on?’
Xaaael sneered. ‘Your servitude here will not last for ever. You should mind your manners, lest the decision how to end it ever rests with me. Now get out of my sight.’
Knowing better than to push her luck too hard, Amy turned away.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘I only play competitively when there’s a prize worth winning.’
She turned back. ‘And if I told you I had such a prize?’
‘You have nothing I couldn’t take from you right now if I so wished.’
‘The knowledge of how to open our spacecraft, perhaps?’
He glanced up again.
‘I know you’ve tried to get in and failed,’ she went on. ‘I also know you’re thinking that anything so well protected must be very valuable. And you’re right. Though you’ve no idea how valuable.’
He almost looked amused. ‘And you’ll give me the opportunity to win this intelligence?’
‘Just think how much credit you’d have with Lord Krauzzen.’
Xaaael’s cobalt eyes gleamed. Possibly he was thinking beyond winning credit with Lord Krauzzen. ‘And if you win?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘Longer rest periods. A private berth so I don’t have to share with the other girls. Your guarantee that I won’t be sent to Gorgoror.’
‘You ask a lot.’
‘Sorry.’ Now it was Amy’s turn to sneer. ‘I mistook you for someone who often plays for high stakes.’ She made to walk away.
‘Wait a minute.’ He indicated the black cloth. ‘You know this game, you say?’
‘Sure.’
Xaaael glanced around. It wouldn’t do for him to be seen pitting himself against a mere slave girl. ‘On the next deck down, we have cabins reserved for private entertainment. One of them belongs exclusively to me.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Meet me there.’ He stood up. ‘And bring your secret knowledge. You’ll soon be sharing it.’
‘You’re familiar with this creature?’ Krelbin asked.
‘Aren’t you?’ the Doctor said. ‘I mean, having hunted on Gorgoror so often.’
‘Krauzzen restocks the wildlife before each hunt. I’ve never seen this species before, but it wouldn’t be here unless it was highly dangerous.’
The Doctor made a show of lowering his transmat-rifle. ‘On this occasion, Lord Krauzzen made a mistake.
This is a shologgi from the planet Pyrites. It’s a herbivore, and inclined to be docile.’
They’d been making their way through the section of the prison connected to the labour camp, advancing along a concrete gantry, at the end of which a stairway led down to another barred-off security area, when they’d suddenly found this creature blocking their path. It was a great ape, covered with shaggy red hair. It was also huge; on its hind legs, it would probably tower to two and a half metres or more. Its broad, sloping shoulders implied phenomenal strength. Its arms were heavy, knotted with muscle. But at this moment, it was sitting at the foot of the staircase, its eyes half-closed.
Krelbin raised his Eradicator. ‘We should dispense with it anyway.’
‘And alert our real prey? Good plan,’ the Doctor said.
‘How much further ahead can they be? They must be exhausted by now, but if they hear gunfire they’ll simply run again.’
Krelbin paused. ‘What do you propose?’
‘We edge past.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely. You see the hatch on the other side of it?’
The shologgi was slumped to the left, which allowed a narrow passage between itself and the right-hand wall.
A few metres beyond it, there was a heavy steel bulkhead through which a circular hatch connected with the next section.
‘The shologgi could never fit through that tiny aperture,’ the Doctor said. ‘Once we’re through there, we can just walk away with no danger it may follow. Here -
let me show you.’
As the Doctor descended towards the beast, it watched his approach, but with an uninterested, dull-witted expression. He halted a couple of steps above it, and glanced back. ‘The whole of life is one big gamble, wouldn’t you say, Colonel?’
‘Not for you, I don’t think, Doctor. I imagine there are few occasions when you don’t stack the odds in your favour.’
The Doctor continued down, treading softly when he reached the bottom and sidling past the animal
. Its head turned as it tracked his progress, but still its gaze was lidded. ‘Easy does it, old fella,’ the Doctor said soothingly.
‘I’m not your enemy.’
It made no move, except to lazily scrape a hand across its hairy belly. Once he was clear, the Doctor walked to the hatch, where he stopped and turned back.
‘You see?’ he shouted. ‘The solution is not always to pack overwhelming ordnance. Understanding alien life forms can be just as effective.’
‘Spare me the lecture.’ Krelbin slung his Eradicator
over his shoulder, and commenced a wary descent.
‘Of course, out in the wild, appearances can be deceptive.’
Krelbin reached the foot of the stair, and began to negotiate the narrow path leading past the shologgi. It was only a few metres in length, but once again, though the animal watched him, it appeared groggy, uninterested.
‘Especially when a creature has been so abused that its true nature is lost,’ the Doctor added. ‘Take the shologgi. On Pyrites, they were trained for gladiatorial combat. Needless to say, the training methods had to be extraordinarily brutal, barbarising them into something that nature never intended.’
Krelbin was still edging past the beast, but now, sensing a change in tone, glanced towards the Doctor and saw that he’d produced something from under his jacket.
He didn’t recognise the sonic screwdriver.
‘The signal for them to fight is always the same,’ the Doctor said. ‘A high-pitched whistle.’ He briefly activated the screwdriver, which gave off a short, intense bleep.
With a savage grunt, the shologgi sat upright, the eyes under its bony, furrowed brow suddenly fixed on Krelbin with a feral gleam.
Krelbin froze. His Eradicator hung on his back, his pistol at his hip, but the brute was less than a metre away; he’d reach neither in time.
‘And that was only a millisecond,’ the Doctor said cheerfully. ‘Imagine what would happen if I gave it a real blast. Now… this is going to be so simple that even a bone-headed militarist like you will get it, Colonel. You’re going to draw your two firearms and slide them across the floor to me. Understand?’
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