Dr. Who - BBC New Series 45

by Hunter's Moon # Paul Finch

‘You’re right, of course. But that doesn’t mean I don’t take it. One good thing. Seeing as you’re more interested in preserving life than ending it, I’m guessing the black-light explosive you’ve supposedly clamped to my vessel is… shall we say, pure imagination?’

  ‘Do you want to take that chance?’

  ‘There’s no chance involved. Kill so many to save so few? That doesn’t compute. Xaaael! ‘ Krauzzen turned to his surly underling. ‘I commend you for recapturing these creatures.’ He pointed at Amy. ‘Particularly this one.’

  ‘It was nothing, my lord.’

  ‘And was it also nothing to lose her in the first place?’

  ‘My lord, I…’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later… but be assured, we will talk about it. In the meantime…’ Krauzzen pointed at the TARDIS, ‘how did that get down here when it was locked in my Secure Hold?’

  ‘Teleportation,’ Xaaael said. ‘We tried to get a homing fix when it left the Ellipsis, but we lost the trace. I only looked down here because it seemed the obvious place.’

  ‘Teleportation?’ Krauzzen ran a gloved hand across the TARDIS’s smooth panels. ‘This must be a special device indeed?’ He tried the door. ‘Still locked, I see.’

  ‘The girl has a key,’ Zarbotan said.

  Krauzzen turned to Amy, but the Doctor stepped between them.

  ‘Even if Amy gives you her key, Krauzzen, it’ll be no use to you. The secrets of the TARDIS are beyond your understanding. A lot of them are beyond mine, and I’ve flown her for centuries.’

  ‘Why should we believe anything you say?’ Zarbotan said, but Krauzzen held up a hand for silence.

  ‘Tell me, Doctor… what exactly is this TARDIS?’

  ‘A travel machine. The product of technology far, far in advance of your own. What you have here, my lord, is potentially the greatest asset in the galaxy.’

  ‘Why do I sense you’re about to try and make another deal with me?’

  ‘Not a deal. A bet. You’re a betting man, aren’t you?’

  ‘And this TARDIS is the prize?’

  ‘The TARDIS and everything inside it.’

  Krauzzen walked around the tall, blue box. ‘Everything inside it isn’t likely to be very much.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ someone else said. It was Xorax, finally finding the courage to speak up.

  ‘Kalik Xorax!’ Krauzzen almost laughed. ‘I thought I saw you skulking around.’

  ‘I’ve been inside this TARDIS, my lord. It isn’t just a spacecraft, it’s a laboratory, an observatory, a repository of alien knowledge—’

  ‘Shut up, Xorax!’ Zarbotan growled. ‘You have every reason to lie to us.’

  ‘Would I lie about this, when you can so easily discover the truth?’

  ‘Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it?’ Krauzzen said, turning back to the Doctor. ‘You want me to compete with you for this prize. Is that it?’

  ‘And for the instruction manual,’ the Doctor said. ‘As I

  say, you don’t know how to operate the TARDIS.’

  Krauzzen pondered. ‘Why don’t I just force you to show me?’

  ‘Well, I suppose you could. I’d imagine you’re very good at that sort of thing. But how will you ever be sure I’m giving you the full truth? For instance, you won’t know if the first set of directional coordinates I calculate for you will lead to the innermost vault of the Central Bank of Torodon, or to the heart of a supernova.’

  Krauzzen looked amused. ‘And let me guess… if you win the bet, you will take the TARDIS, and everyone else is free to go?’

  ‘It seems a small sacrifice on your part,’ the Doctor said. ‘You could gain an awful lot, and don’t stand to lose much more than you’ve already lost.’

  Krauzzen gave a crooked half-smile. ‘You’re obviously a man used to dictating terms, Doctor. Well… no longer.

  I’m not going to wager for property I already own.’ He turned to his men. ‘Take these prisoners to the Ellipsis.

  We can still make use of them. And this machine - we’ll open it somehow. Doctor, much as I’ve enjoyed our acquaintanceship, I’m afraid you’re too dangerous to be allowed to live.’

  ‘Scared?’ the Doctor asked.

  ‘Kill him,’ Krauzzen said, and half a dozen photon-rifles were raised.

  The Doctor backed towards the safety barrier. ‘Kill me if you want, but you men should remember this - Xorg Krauzzen is happy to watch others gamble, and to profit by it, but he doesn’t have the nerve himself. Is a man like that fit to control your syndicate?’

  ‘What do you think, Lord Xaaael?’ Amy shouted.

  ‘You’ve gambled countless times, yet the man who gives you orders hasn’t got the guts!’

  Xaaael said nothing, but regarded Krauzzen with open disdain. Several other gangsters noticed this, including Krauzzen.

  ‘You have something to add, Xaaael?’ Krauzzen asked.

  ‘Not at all, my lord,’ Xaaael replied, but his tone was contemptuous.

  There was a long silence as the crime-lord glanced at his other followers’ faces. Those with ambition or those he’d recently chastised returned his gaze boldly. Others found it difficult to look at him. Only Zarbotan made a point of standing by his side.

  ‘It seems you’re playing for more than just the TARDIS,’

  the Doctor said.

  It perhaps wasn’t unusual in the world of organised crime for syndicate leaders to be subtly challenged in this way. Doubtless it was common practice for the alpha-males in this society to occasionally need to enforce their leadership by proving themselves individually. But Krauzzen looked more than a little irritated.

  ‘No one’s asking the impossible, my lord,’ the Doctor said. ‘Just that you take my bet. And show your men your personal steel, no pun intended.’

  Krauzzen rounded sharply on him. ‘An astute move, Doctor. But understand - for this inconvenience, things may go all the harder for your friends.’

  ‘I’m prepared to take that chance.’

  ‘You didn’t say what the bet was?’

  The Doctor straightened the lapels of his jacket. ‘I bet…

  I bet, Lord Krauzzen, that with a head start of just five

  minutes, I can make it all the way from this control tower, back across the industrial wastes of Gorgoror, to your Observation Booth. And that two of you - you yourself, and one other you nominate - will fail to prevent me.’

  There was a brief silence, and then snickers from the watching gangsters.

  ‘You realise those odds are ridiculously in my favour?’

  Krauzzen said.

  ‘All the more reason for you to accept.’

  ‘Doctor, this is suicide!’ Rory shouted, but the Doctor put a finger to his lips.

  Rory tried to shout again, but Amy clamped a hand to his mouth. She wore a grim smile, and kissed her husband on the cheek as if to reassure him that this was exactly the sort of ploy she’d expected the Doctor to try.

  ‘You’re quite serious about this?’ Krauzzen said.

  The Doctor offered his hand.

  Krauzzen held back from shaking it. He knew it would make him appear nervous and unsporting, but all of a sudden there was something about this thin, oddly dressed individual, with his unruly hair and his pale, boyish face, that Krauzzen found menacing. The Doctor was articulate and intelligent; he had charm and wit - yet the very lack of threat he seemed to pose was in itself threatening. He hadn’t just made it to the far end of the Gorgoror industrial complex, something never before achieved in the history of the fun hunts, but he’d also managed to bring most of the others with him. And he was unfazed by that achievement. He’d still had the energy and confidence to barter his way out of being executed.

  The Doctor’s bright eyes bored into Krauzzen as if

  he’d expected nothing less than to create this doubt in his enemy. Still he offered his hand, but Krauzzen ignored it, pushing the Doctor aside and summoning Zarbotan to be his right-hand man. />
  ‘Weapons?’ Zarbotan asked, slotting his hover-plate into the harness on his back.

  ‘Only what we’re carrying,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘You’re carrying nothing.’

  ‘And you’re carrying a photonic arsenal. Even less reason for you to back out.’

  ‘You can stop playing mind games,’ Krauzzen retorted.

  ‘There’ll be no backing out. In fact, I’ll even the odds. I’ll give you more than five minutes. I’ll give you ten.’

  ‘You’re too kind.’

  ‘But know this.’ Krauzzen now spoke in a low, intense monotone. ‘When I’ve won, I’ll be holding your friends as surety against you attempting to deceive me again.

  Even at the best of times it will be a living death for them, but it gets worse. You will give me full command of your TARDIS. You will tell me everything I need to know.

  Everything! You understand? If you fail to do that - on purpose, by accident, for any reason at all - these people will suffer unimaginable consequences! Am I clear?’

  ‘Quite. Crystal. As mud.’

  ‘Then we have our bet. The clock is ticking.’

  The Doctor sprinted across the viewing deck, stripping his jacket en route. On reaching the barrier, he looped the garment over the zip-line, and leapt from the platform.

  ‘Geronimo!’ he shouted, rocketing over the chasm.

  They flooded to the barrier to watch. When the Doctor was above the mountain of cinders, he dropped like a stone. Amy’s heart was briefly in her mouth, as he plummeted a dozen metres - but landed relatively softly in the mass of yielding rubble, and rolled down its slope amid clouds of dust. Reaching the ground, he jumped to his feet, pulled his jacket back on, threw a salute towards the tower, and dashed off.

  ‘Bet you didn’t expect that?’ Amy said to Krauzzen.

  ‘That extra five minutes seems like a mistake now, eh?’

  ‘Still smiling, I see,’ Krauzzen replied. ‘It suits you. I’ll see to it that your mouth is surgically fixed that way.’ He stalked off. ‘Xaaael, take the TARDIS and these prisoners to the Ellipsis. And prep the ship to break orbit.’

  The first thing the Doctor did was try to get underground.

  Krauzzen and Zarbotan would be coming after him on their hover-plates, which were capable of terrific speed.

  In the depthless maze of tunnels and conduits that was Gorgoror’s underworld, this advantage would be reduced.

  But it was easier said than done. His nonchalant salute to the control tower might have implied that his fall into the cinders was all in a day’s work, but it had knocked the wind from him. He stumbled groggily through several rows of derelict buildings, before hearing the distant throb of the Raptor-Bird’s engine.

  He didn’t pause to wonder what this meant, but clambered down a ladder into a manhole. Once a significant distance below the surface, he took a catwalk in the vague direction of the power plant. It was pitch-dark, so he used the light of his sonic screwdriver. Even so, he almost stepped over a precipice when he reached a point where the catwalk had simply rotted away. Sweat was soaking through his clothes as he doubled back. He was sure his ten-minute start was almost up already, and he hadn’t put anything like enough distance between himself and his pursuers.

  He took turns at random, running hard, though his feet were hammering on the old, rusty metal, and echoes rang throughout the subterranean grottos - something he couldn’t afford for too long. He descended another ladder - only to find himself ankle-deep in cold, slopping water.

  He waded through this for fifty metres, stumbling on slimy sediment, until reaching a stone wall from which a culvert protruded. This was not much more than a metre in diameter, so he would only be able to move along it at a crouch. He heaved himself up into it and scrambled forward on hands and knees, now thinking he could hear voices behind him. No doubt he’d left a trail that a skilled tracker could follow, but it wasn’t impossible that they’d have additional devices to hand - a heat-seeker or bio-tracer. A few metres later, the culvert sloped upward -

  and then began to spiral.

  Even with two hearts pumping blood through a physiology superior in so many ways to a human’s, the Doctor was now gasping for breath, barking his knees and elbows on rugged metal as he wormed his way around the twists and turns. The only consolation was that it would be equally difficult for Krauzzen and Zarbotan, though they, being at least semi-cybernetic, would tire even less quickly than he would. At the top of the spiral, he clambered over a concrete lip into a vast machine hall, though its towering stacks of equipment were little more now than oxidised frameworks of cogs and chains, and all of them sheathed with dust-webs.

  He dashed across it towards another doorway, but almost halted when he glanced through one rusted mechanism, and saw floor space covered with what looked distinctly like human bones.

  Even after everything he’d seen already, this was a gut-punching shock. There were many of them - far too many to have come from a mere handful of skeletons. Of course, whether the marrow had been sucked from these sad relics or they’d been incinerated by blaster fire was irrelevant. It all boiled down to the same thing now.

  His anger gave him new energy. He ran on determinedly.

  The next door led into a warehouse the size of a cathedral, and filled with steel barrels hoarded in great pyramids. The Doctor paused, panting. The barrels had been here untouched for so long that the green paint with which they’d been covered was flaking away, as were several bizarre markings stencilled on them in vivid red and resembling the upper portions of skulls. Almost certainly this was a warning regarding the contents of the barrels - they were toxic or flammable, or maybe both.

  The Doctor again heard shouting voices. With nowhere else to go, he began to climb the nearest pyramid, but soon realised this was a mistake. It was tedious, agonising work, and as the barrels weren’t fastened together, several slipped away beneath his feet, clattering to the floor. About twelve metres overhead, he saw what looked like the end of a conveyor system - steel struts with wheels along their sides - projecting from a hatchway. Only twelve metres, but the Doctor was so racked with fatigue it might as well have been a thousand. There came a shrill bleep behind him, and a photon blast hit the barrels below.

  They exploded in a cloud of flame and glowing steel fragments.

  The Doctor climbed as hard as he could. As the blazing barrels cascaded beneath him, others ignited. Balls of white-hot flame erupted into the air, and Xorg Krauzzen, riding his hover-plate with the honed skill of the Special Assault commando, swerved up between them. It was he who had fired the shot, and his photon-rifle was at his shoulder again.

  The Doctor turned to face him. Krauzzen came to a halt a few metres away. His hair hung in a wild, unravelled mop. Despite his prosthetic features, he was grinning maniacally. ‘The game’s up, Doctor. I’d prefer you alive, but I’m sure your machine isn’t so vital to me that dead won’t be just as good.’

  The Doctor didn’t bother arguing, he just dived forward, catching hold of the hover-plate with his fingertips, his body swinging beneath it.

  ‘You damn fool!’ Krauzzen bellowed, as the plate tilted.

  Desperately, he tried to rebalance himself, and set the vehicle in motion - swerving it up at ninety degrees to avoid the face of the pyramid. The Doctor clung on with both hands, but was whipped around like a piece of rag as the vehicle veered like a fighter plane, banking and hurtling across the massive chamber. Krauzzen was still struggling to regain control, and unintentionally crossed paths with Zarbotan, riding his own plate. Zarbotan jerked aside at so acute an angle that he was dismounted and went tumbling thirty metres to the warehouse floor, which he struck with a colossal impact. His hover-plate catapulted upward and vanished through the entrance to the conveyor, crashing and splintering as it caromed through the system’s mechanical innards.

  Krauzzen swore brutally, turned his rifle around and smashed down at the Doctor’s fingers with its butt. First he aim
ed at the left hand, so the Doctor hung by the right.

  When Krauzzen aimed at the right, the Doctor swapped over.

  ‘Damn you!’ Krauzzen roared. ‘You’ll die for this!

  There’s no bet, no deal… you’ll just die!’

  They’d now sailed out of the warehouse and were bulleting along a wide gangway bridged by numerous cross-girders. The first missed Krauzzen’s head so closely that he was forced to duck. But now his rage turned to glee. He shifted position so that his plate rode downward.

  The Doctor saw the next cross-beam approach, realising that it would strike him full on. At the last second, he released his grip. He fell about four metres, bouncing and rolling on the straw-covered floor.

  Bruised all over, he climbed to his feet and hobbled in the opposite direction - but only made it thirty metres before a nightmarish figure blocked his path.

  It was Zarbotan, or what remained of him.

  The hulking shape was not just mutilated by the acid, but was now broken as well: the steely mask of his face was crushed beyond recognition; one arm hung from its shoulder joint by a sparking wire; dark, oily fluids streamed from the rents where shattered mechanisms had pierced his plastic-coated organs; torn tubes and severed cables dangled between his legs. Despite this, Zarbotan lurched forward, whirring and clicking like a wind-up toy. The Doctor diverted sideways through an aperture and ran towards another vast, industrial building, though this was one he’d expected to see.

  He glanced back. Zarbotan was still in pursuit, albeit far behind. However, high overhead, there was a shattering explosion as a streamlined shape burst from a crystal turret. It was Krauzzen, emerging like a bat from a belfry.

  With breathtaking skill, the diabolic figure performed a massive loop-the-loop, and came rocketing downward, his white mane streaming behind him. As he plummeted, he fired. The ground erupted in fury, but the Doctor ducked away from it, entering the next building and threading through a mass of fallen timbers and masonry. Beyond this, he attempted to descend a switchback stair, the well of which was equally crammed with wreckage. Tripping, he fell full-length down a perilous gradient, which only terminated when he crashed through a glass partition, and found himself on the lip of a gargantuan crater.