by George Mann
Of the squat, spider-like mutant, there was no sign.
Cinder crept forward, peering into the box. All she could see was a pall of thick smoke and the impression of some bright, internal lighting. She thought about calling out, to see if there was anyone still alive inside, but was worried about attracting attention. And besides, she had no idea who – or what – might be in there. No, she’d just get a little bit closer and take a look inside …
She froze at the sound of a man spluttering. It had come from inside the box. So – the occupant was still alive.
Quickly, she cast around for her gun. It was jutting out of the damp earth close by, and she hastily dug it out with her hands, getting thick, grimy clay wedged beneath her broken fingernails. She yanked it free, trailing cables, then dusted it off and checked it over.
The light on the power pack had dimmed and turned red, indicating that all of the stored energy had been discharged. Clearly, it had been damaged in the explosion. She cursed beneath her breath. Still, whoever it was who’d come down in that blue box didn’t have to know that. The weapon would still make an effective deterrent.
Brandishing it like a shield, she advanced slowly on the box, wary of any sudden signs of movement that might indicate hostilities. Was it an escape capsule? It certainly didn’t look very big, and the way it had fallen from the sky suggested it had been ejected from an orbital craft. The edges of the box were still glowing from its abrasive entry into the atmosphere, and a dark, sooty streak across its outer casing indicated that it had taken a glancing strike from an energy weapon. Had a Dalek saucer shot down the ship? She wondered if the occupant of the escape pod might even be human. But why were the words ‘POLICE BOX’ written on the side in big, bold letters? Nothing that was happening seemed to make any sense.
The man gave another cough, louder this time. Cinder sensed movement. She stopped walking and thrust the barrel of her gun in the direction of the box, just in time to see a head emerge from the open hatch.
With a loud huff, the man threw his arms over the sides of the box and hauled himself up, so that his head and shoulders were poking over the rim.
Cinder glared at him, unsure what to say or do. He was an older man, with a craggy, careworn face and startling green-brown eyes. His hair was silvery grey and brushed up into a tuft at the front, and he wore a bushy white beard and moustache. He frowned at her, looking perplexed. He appeared to be wearing a battered leather coat and a herringbone patterned scarf.
‘Well?’ he said, as if waiting for the answer to an unasked question.
‘Well, what?’ she replied, jiggling her gun to ensure that he’d seen it.
He raised both eyebrows as if taken aback by her insolence. ‘Oh, so waving a gun at me is the best thing to do in the circumstances, is it?’
‘Well …’ Cinder thought for a moment, confused. ‘Look, you’re the one who’s just fallen out of the sky!’
‘And just as well that I did,’ he said. ‘I’d argue that my timing is impeccable.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Cinder, failing to quell her exasperation.
‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Clearly in need of my help.’
Cinder felt a surge of indignation. ‘Oh, really?’ She shook her head at the sheer arrogance of the man. ‘I need your help?’
‘I should say so,’ replied the man.
‘And what makes you say that?’ asked Cinder. She was growing tired of this irritating newcomer and his ridiculous posturing.
The man made a gesture that might have been a shrug, if it hadn’t been for the fact he was hanging on to the edge of his box with both arms. Come to think of it, the position did appear a little odd, given how shallow the box actually was. He sighed. ‘If you don’t want to end up getting yourself exterminated, then I suggest you get a move on and hop inside.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘You want me to get in that box with you?’ She pulled her best ‘not in your lifetime, mister’ expression.
‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ said the man, ‘but unless you’re as stupid as you look, you’ll do as I say.’
Cinder had to fight the urge to pull the trigger on her gun in the hope that there was enough residual charge in the power pack to blast him into tomorrow. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You’re on your own.’ She turned to walk away.
‘NOW!’ bellowed the man. There was a sense of urgency in his voice that hadn’t been there before, an edge to it that made her suddenly decide to pay attention.
‘Ex-ter-min-ate!’
Cinder twisted on the spot to see the spider-thing emerging from the ruins on her right. She cursed, loudly. She’d been so intent on her argument with the man in the box that she hadn’t been paying attention. She should have known better. She pointed her gun at the Degradation and squeezed the trigger, but as she’d expected, nothing happened. The power had completely drained.
Cinder was quickly running out of options. She could stay out here and attempt to fight off a Degradation with a gun that would prove about as useful as a wooden club, try to make a run for it and expose herself to being shot in the back, or dive into a small blue box with an old man who had just fallen out of the sky.
‘Out of the frying pan, into the fire,’ she muttered. As the Degradation came clambering over the remains of a wall, dislodging a flurry of loose bricks, she backed up, took a run-up and leapt into the open hatch of the escape pod. She brought her knees up to her chest as she jumped, preparing to fall into a crouch as she landed inside the shallow box.
‘Incoming!’ she screamed, to give the man chance to take cover before she landed on him.
She crashed down on her backside, slamming painfully into what felt like metal floor plates, and rolled to her left, putting a hand out to stop herself. With her other she still gripped the Dalek weapon close to her chest.
The momentum carried her over onto her side, and she ended up with her face pressed against cool metal, which seemed to thrum gently with the vibration of an idling engine.
Something didn’t feel right.
She’d screwed her eyes shut during her fall. She opened them, expecting to see the old man pressed up against her in the confined space, taking cover from the Degradation outside. Instead, the sight of a large, circular room greeted her.
She sat up, clutching the gun to her chest.
The room was utterly incongruous with what she’d expected. The walls were aglow with a series of odd, round impressions – sunken lights, perhaps – and rough stone pillars arched overhead to support the roof.
A raised dais housed what looked like a control panel, of sorts – although the controls in question appeared to be patched up and cobbled together from scavenged components that had been made to fit. Nests of cables drooped from the ceiling.
The whole place had a higgledy-piggledy sort of feel to it, like it was constantly being made over by an inveterate tinkerer, or mended by someone who was never able to get the right parts. It was the control room of a ship. She supposed she could have knocked herself out during her leap into the escape pod and had only just come round, hours later, in a different place. But try as she might to convince herself, she didn’t believe that for a moment.
The man whose head and shoulders she had seen sticking up out of the box was now standing by the control panel, attempting to adjust the picture on a small computer screen. He had his back to her, but it was definitely the same man – he was wearing the same brown jacket and his hair was the same silvery grey.
She glanced behind her. Bizarrely, she was sitting with her back to the hatch. She studied it for a moment, assessing the size and shape of the opening. She supposed, on reflection, it was technically more of a door, but it looked about right. It was definitely the hatch she had jumped through.
‘It’s … it’s …’ she stammered.
The man stopped what he was doing and looked over at her. ‘Bigger on the inside. Yes, I know. Let’s get that bit over and done with quickly, shall we?’
he said.
‘It’s the right way up,’ finished Cinder. ‘The box was on its side, and now I’m the right way up.’
‘Oh. Right. Hmmm. I wasn’t expecting that one,’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. That’ll be the relative dimensional stabilisers. Stops you from, well … falling over.’ He looked down at her and raised an ironic eyebrow. ‘The inside can be orientated differently to the outside.’ He waved his hand, as if explaining away a miracle as nothing but sleight of hand.
‘And it’s bigger,’ said Cinder.
The man laughed. ‘And there we are. That’s the one I was expecting.’
‘Which means …’ Cinder’s expression darkened. ‘Is this a TARDIS?’
‘It is,’ said the man. He returned his attention to the console and began examining the readouts on the computer screen. It looked antiquated and a little decrepit. He tapped at the keypad, as if trying to get something to work.
Cinder peered over his shoulder to see what he was looking at, but all she could see on the screen was a mass of unfamiliar pictograms, scrolling and shifting about in an apparently random dance.
‘Blast it!’ he barked suddenly in response to something he’d read, and Cinder started, her finger brushing the trigger of her gun.
‘If this is a TARDIS,’ she said, ‘then that means you’re a—’
‘Time Lord,’ he said, interrupting. ‘Yes, that’s right. Well done.’ His tone was patronising.
Cinder took a deep breath. She edged back, shuffling on her behind. She brought the barrel of her weapon up so that it was pointing at the Time Lord. She was beginning to think she’d have better luck out there with the mutant Daleks. She could hear one of the Degradations now, hammering at the door, trying to force its way in behind her. Thankfully, the doors of the TARDIS seemed to be holding.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ she said, her voice wavering.
The Time Lord sighed. ‘Drop you somewhere safe as soon as I possibly can,’ he said. ‘That way I might be able to get a little peace and quiet.’ He glanced at her, as if to weigh up her response.
‘Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you now?’ she said, brandishing the Dalek weapon. There was no way he could know it was damaged, that the charge had all bled away.
‘Because I saved your life?’ he said, reasonably. ‘Because you don’t look like a murderer, and because the power pack for your salvaged gun is completely dead.’ He reached around the control panel and began flicking switches.
‘Saved my life!’ she snapped, indignant. ‘You almost crushed me to death, hurtling out of the sky in your … your … box!’ She cursed under her breath in frustration. He must have seen her try to fire at the Degradation, and worked out she had no power left. That meant she was exposed. Nevertheless, she might still be able to take him in a fight if he tried anything. She was a lot younger than he was, after all.
‘Oh, I see. So it would have been simplicity itself to extricate yourself from that Dalek patrol?’
She didn’t think much of his condescending tone, given that he’d basically crashed his ship. He withdrew something from just inside the fold of his jacket, but she couldn’t quite see what it was.
‘They weren’t Daleks,’ she countered. ‘I’d already dealt with the Dalek. Those were mutants. Degradations.’
The Time Lord shrugged. ‘A Dalek is a Dalek,’ he said, ‘whatever their form and from whichever epoch or permutation of reality they originate.’
‘Is that true of Time Lords, too?’ asked Cinder, the sarcasm dripping from her voice.
‘Sadly, I believe it is,’ he replied.
‘But, you are a Time Lord?’ she said, waving the gun to ensure he hadn’t forgotten about it. He wasn’t looking. He’d returned to tinkering with the object in his hand – a thin, metal cylinder with a glowing end, which made an infuriating buzzing sound every time he pressed a button on it.
‘Yes,’ he said, drawing out the word, as if indicating his impatience. He held the device up to his ear and pressed the button, listening intently to the sound. Then, frowning as if frustrated with the thing, he banged it repeatedly against his palm.
‘Then where are your skull cap and robes?’ said Cinder. ‘You don’t look much like a Time Lord.’
‘I’m told there are exceptions to every rule,’ he replied. He raised his device to his ear again, listened to the sound, and then, apparently satisfied, slipped the device into a leather hoop on the empty ammo belt he was wearing and dusted his hands.
‘What is that thing? A weapon?’ she said.
He offered her an impatient look. ‘No. It’s a screwdriver. Now, why don’t you put down that gun? You’re upsetting the old girl.’ He patted the TARDIS console fondly. ‘And to be perfectly frank, you’re upsetting me.’
Cinder ignored the last part of his jibe. ‘You mean, more than you’ve just upset her by crashing her into a planet?’ she retorted. She lowered the barrel of the gun all the same, although she refused to relinquish her grip on it entirely.
‘There, now,’ said the Time Lord. ‘Doesn’t that feel better?’
Cinder gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Look, what are you doing here, on Moldox?’
‘Ah, so that’s what this dreadful-looking planet is called, is it? Moldox.’ He said the word like he was trying it on for size, then shook his head, as if deciding it wasn’t for him. ‘More to the point, what were you doing out there, facing off against those Daleks?’
‘An ambush,’ she said.
The Time Lord gave her an approving look. ‘An ambush?’ he echoed. ‘Just you, your friend and a single, salvaged Dalek energy weapon. I’m impressed.’ He looked momentarily forlorn. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.’
Cinder looked at him, confused. ‘My friend? I was alone.’
The Time Lord frowned. ‘The TARDIS picked up two human life signs in the crash zone. One of them disappeared just after a massive energy discharge from one of the Daleks. I’d assumed you were together.’
Again, that strange itch at the back of her mind, as if there was something she should be able to remember, but couldn’t. ‘I …’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
The Time Lord nodded, but it was clear he was troubled by her answer. ‘Well, you might as well make yourself at home for a minute or two,’ he said, doing a lap of the console, making adjustments to the controls. ‘I’m just going to get her started up again.’ He grabbed a lever with a worn wooden handle and pulled it towards him. The tall glass chamber at the centre of the console flickered briefly with bright, white light, and the nest of tubes at its heart began to rise up inside the column. But then the light dimmed, and there was a deep, unsettling groaning sound from beneath the floor.
‘Damn it!’ said the Time Lord, striking his fist angrily against the control panel. ‘She’s out of action. She’s going to need some time to heal before I can take her off-world again.’
‘Off-world?’ said Cinder. A sudden, unbidden thought had entered her head. Was this it? Was this the chance of escape she’d been looking for? Could she hitch a ride off the planet with this eccentric old Time Lord? The thought was appealing. She’d toyed with the notion of leaving Moldox hundreds of times over the years, but the opportunity had never presented itself. Could this be it? Her chance for a fresh start, some place where the war was nothing but a distant memory, a fairy story told to the young to encourage their good behaviour. Places like that had to exist somewhere out in the cosmos.
‘Well, it’s not as if we’re in a particular rush,’ she said, finally getting to her feet. She propped the gun against the metal railing, but made sure to remain within grabbing distance of it. It wouldn’t really do her much good in a tight spot – at least until she found another power pack – but if things got ugly, it was all she had.
‘We?’ said the Time Lord.
‘You said you were going to take me somewhere safe,’ said Cinder. ‘And I can assure you, Moldox is not safe. It’s difficult enough avoidi
ng the Dalek patrols. I’d rather die than let them take me prisoner.’
‘Prisoner?’ said the Time Lord. ‘That’s not like the Daleks. Not unless they’ve got plans for this planet. What happens to the people they’ve taken?’
Cinder shrugged. ‘All I know is that they’re taken to the cities. That’s what the patrols are for – to round people up. They only exterminate you if you try to run or fight back.’
‘Are they sinking shafts into the ground? Digging out mines?’
Cinder shrugged. She had no idea.
‘I think you’d better show me,’ said the Time Lord.
Cinder’s heart sank. ‘What about the Daleks?’ She realised the hammering at the door had ceased. Perhaps the Degradation had given up and scuttled off to report. Nevertheless, she rather avoid going back out there to find out.
‘We can cross that bridge when we come to it,’ he said. ‘What’s the nearest city?’
‘Andor,’ she said. ‘About ten miles from here.’
‘You know the way?’
Cinder nodded. ‘It’s dangerous,’ she said. ‘There’re thousands of them there. There’s stories … about the mutants, and the new weapons they’re developing.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said the Time Lord. He took one last look at the monitor, and then started toward the door. ‘Come on. There’s no time like the present.’
‘If I do this,’ she said, still standing by the console, ‘if I take you to Andor and show you the Daleks, then you’ll take me away from here in your TARDIS, to somewhere safe?’ Her voice cracked as she said the words. She jammed her hands into her pockets so he wouldn’t see she was trembling.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I will. I promise.’
‘How do I know I can trust you?’
His eyes met hers, before he turned and walked through the door. ‘You don’t,’ he called behind him.
Thinking that she didn’t have anything else left to lose, Cinder grabbed her gun and ran after him.