Heart of Stone / Death Riders

by BBC

  ‘Chris said he was researching into the effects of UV rays on certain kinds of minerals,’ said Rory.

  The Doctor clicked his fingers. ‘That’s it. That’s it! Rory, you’re wonderful. Amy, tell Rory he’s wonderful.’

  ‘You’re wonderful,’ Amy mouthed at Rory with a wink.

  ‘I know,’ he mouthed back.

  ‘Now don’t get all soppy on me,’ warned the Doctor. ‘I’m thinking and soppy stuff gets in the way of me thinking.’

  ‘And what, exactly, are you thinking about?’ asked Amy.

  ‘That I need to speak to Chris, right now.’

  ‘But we don’t even know if he managed to get away from the monster.’

  The Doctor huffed impatiently. ‘He better have!’

  Jess was already trying her mobile phone. ‘There’s no answer. It’s not even connecting to Chris’s mobile – like there’s a signal problem or something. That’s not unusual around here, I’m afraid. But, if he is still alive, I’ve a good idea where he’ll be.’

  CHAPTER 14

  THE RESEARCH CENTRE

  The sports car skidded to a halt and Amy flicked a strand of red hair out of her eyes. ‘Not a bad ride,’ she said.

  The Doctor turned off the engine and smiled at her. ‘Bit cramped,’ he said. ‘I prefer things to be slightly roomier on the inside.’

  But the Doctor had, of course, relished the chance to drive Chris’s car. ‘It’s only fair – he might want it back, after all,’ was how he had explained it to Amy as he vaulted gleefully into the leather bucket seat behind the steering wheel.

  The morning sunlight glinted off the red paintwork as they climbed out of the car. It was going to be a beautiful day – hopefully. Amy couldn’t stop thinking about Ralph Conway. How did it feel to be turned into stone? Did he know what was happening? Did he know they were trying to help him?

  Amy stretched her legs. It certainly had been a tight fit in that car. The Doctor had parked alongside a chain-link fence backed by thick bushes. There was no way to see what was on the other side and no sign of an entrance.

  ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Amy asked.

  The Doctor pointed at a sign attached to the fence, half hidden by the foliage. It said:

  HENSON RESEARCH CENTRE

  NO UNAUTHORISED ACCESS

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  ‘Not very welcoming,’ commented Amy. She watched as the Doctor examined the fence. ‘I suppose you’ll want a leg up or something.’

  ‘Something,’ nodded the Doctor. He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the fence and the tip flashed green. A section of the chain-link quickly untwined and parted like a doorway.

  The Doctor switched off the screwdriver and smiled. ‘After you!’

  Amy stepped through the gap and the Doctor followed.

  ‘Don’t you think a big hole in their fence could be regarded as suspicious?’

  ‘What hole?’ asked the Doctor innocently, as he used the sonic to meld the links back together, zipping up the gap behind them.

  ‘I sometimes think that thing must be magic,’ said Amy, as the Doctor spun the sonic screwdriver and dropped it back into his pocket with a flourish.

  ‘Or just superior technology,’ he said. ‘Amounts to the same thing to the untrained eye. It’s simply a case of vibrating the wires in the chain link at the correct frequency to open them, and then reversing the polarity to close them.’

  ‘Like I said – magic.’

  ‘A pair of sliding doors would look like magic to a caveman.’

  Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, thanks – I’m no better than a caveman now, am I?’

  ‘Well, you humans have come a long way in the last few million years, but it pays not to get above yourselves.’

  ‘Charming!’

  The Doctor led the way through the bushes. ‘Stop grumbling, Pond! Come and look at this!’

  They emerged from the bushes by a tarmac path leading past a low, brick-built building. It was clean and modern, but with very few windows.

  They crept quickly around the corner to a car park and a pair of large glass front doors. There was no one visible in the entrance foyer.

  ‘That’s odd – no receptionist and no security guards,’ noted Amy. ‘And yet there are cars in the car park.’

  ‘It looks deserted,’ agreed the Doctor, cupping his hands around his eyes as he peered in through the glass. ‘Place like this should be busy. Lots of expensive equipment and top scientists – no one wants them standing idle.’

  Amy pushed one of the doors open. ‘It’s not even locked.’

  The Doctor followed her inside, ignoring the vacant reception desk, and went straight through the foyer to the double doors at the rear. ‘Hello!’ he called down the corridor beyond. There was no reply.

  ‘Doesn’t look like there’s anyone home,’ said Amy.

  The Doctor pushed open a door leading to an office. It was empty. Then he tried another door, this one marked with the word ‘LABORATORIES’.

  Beyond it was another corridor, this one lined with doors leading to various research labs. Each one had its own strange label.

  ‘Spectography, mineralogy, geochemistry …’ Amy read the signs on each door before opening them to reveal large rooms full of scientific equipment – but no people.

  Computers whirred and indicator lights flickered on a variety of machines – but there was no one to read the gauges or take down the readings.

  ‘It’s like the Marie Celeste,’ Amy said. ‘Everyone’s just … disappeared!’

  ‘I hope not,’ said the Doctor. ‘I visited the Marie Celeste. I don’t want to go through all that again.’

  Amy pushed open a door marked ‘UV Biochemistry’. ‘Um, Doctor, I think you’d better see this …’

  Like the other labs, this room was full of scientific apparatus – work benches, computers and other complex machinery. There were a number of people – scientists, Amy presumed – seated at the various workstations and equipment.

  But none of them were alive.

  The Doctor stepped cautiously into the lab.

  Hardly daring to breathe, Amy stayed in the doorway. The scene looked so strange and terrible that she didn’t want to even enter the room.

  The scientists stood peering into microscopes, or sitting at computer keyboards, utterly lifeless and unmoving – every one of them turned to stone.

  ‘Just like Ralph Conway,’ whispered Amy.

  The Doctor was moving from scientist to scientist, checking them with his sonic screwdriver.

  ‘No electrostatic activity at all,’ he said grimly. ‘They’re completely motionless – dormant.’

  Despite the Doctor’s reassuring tone, Amy stayed in the doorway, unwilling to walk into what suddenly felt like a graveyard.

  And then a heavy hand fell on her shoulder.

  CHAPTER 15

  WAITING

  Rory was helping Jess to tidy up at the farmhouse.They had moved a lot of the rubble and moon stone and dumped it in the yard. Rory had picked up most of the broken furniture and put back anything that was usable where it belonged. The rest, the remains of it, he threw into the yard.

  ‘You know, it’s not as bad as it looks,’ he told Jess, as he brushed the last chips of moon rock into a bin bag.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Most of this stuff is OK,’ Rory said. ‘The walls need a bit of rebuilding and re-plastering, but nothing a couple of good decorators couldn’t handle in a day or so. And the rest … well, it just needs cleaning up.’

  Jess sank into a chair. ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Rory tied the bin bag and swung it out of the back door. ‘You watch. By the time the Doctor and Amy get back, this place will look fine.’ He hesitated, seeing that Jess wasn’t convinced. ‘Tell you what, let’s take a break and have some breakfast.’

  Rory found a toaster and a loaf of bread and set to work. Jess joined him in the kitchen, staring out of t
he window at her father. He still stood by the Land Rover, little more than a statue.

  ‘Isn’t there anything we can do for him?’ she wondered.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Rory replied. ‘Maybe when the Doctor gets back …’

  ‘Maybe we should have taken him to a hospital or something.’

  ‘I don’t think that would help. Believe me, I’d know – I’m a nurse. I used to spend all my time in hospitals and never once did I see anyone brought in because they’d been turned into moon rock. No one would have a clue what to do. Except the Doctor.’

  ‘You really think he can help?’

  ‘There’s no one else I’d rather trust.’

  Jess let out a sigh. ‘I thought I could trust Chris – and look what happened there.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Rory said gently. ‘He was scared.’

  ‘We all were – but he’s the only one who ran away.’

  Rory shrugged. ‘Maybe that just shows he’s cleverer than the rest of us. I wish I’d thought of it.’

  ‘Don’t joke. I’m supposed to be marrying him, remember.’

  ‘People do a lot of stupid things before they get married,’ Rory said, with some feeling. ‘Don’t be too hard on him.’

  ‘Maybe dad was right. Maybe he isn’t right for me.’

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ Rory said. ‘But at the end of the day, it’s not your dad who’s marrying him. It’s you. Only you can decide.’

  CHAPTER 16

  WHAT WENT WRONG?

  The hand felt unnaturally heavy. Amy spun around with a yelp, expecting to see the Rock Man towering over her.

  But all she saw was Chris Jenkins.

  He looked tense and scared – almost as much as Amy. His face was pale and drawn, with dark circles under his eyes.

  ‘You just frightened the life out of me!’ Amy yelled, swatting his hand aside. She felt relieved and angry at the same time. It didn’t help that she could hear the Doctor laughing softly behind her.

  ‘Look out!’ the Doctor said, miming a big scary monster. ‘It’s Chris!’

  Amy aimed a blow at his shoulder. ‘Hate you.’

  ‘Chris, glad you’re here,’ the Doctor said, moving past her and shaking Chris by the hand. He looked dazed and confused as the Doctor peered closely into his eyes, as if searching for something deep within.

  ‘Doctor … Amy …’ Chris mumbled. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Oh, that was easy. Your sports car. Love it! Goes like the clappers, lovely motor.’

  A frown twitched into view on Chris’s forehead. ‘How’s Jess? Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, she’s fine – apart from the fact that her dad’s been turned to stone.’ The Doctor looked around the lab again. ‘A bit like your friends here.’ He turned back to Chris, a steely look in his deep set eyes. ‘Care to tell us about it?’

  ‘Um, yeah. Yeah. That would be good.’

  ‘So all that talk about analysing rock samples and handling moon rock – you knew something was already wrong,’ said Amy a little later. They were sitting in a side room around a coffee table. It was some kind of rest area for the scientists, with a drinks machine and a small snooker table.

  ‘Yeah,’ Chris replied, sipping coffee from a polystyrene cup. He stared at the table in front of him. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Why didn’t you speak up, then?’ Amy demanded. She was annoyed with him. ‘At the farmhouse. You could have said.’

  ‘I was scared. I don’t really understand what’s going on – you see, I think it might be all my fault.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Part of the research we do here … well, there was a project, investigating the effects of UV rays on various kinds of rock.’ Chris sighed and ran a hand down over his face. ‘Including moon rock samples. It’s something to do with NASA’s preparations for the next moon landings. They need to control dust contamination. Our research was important – and top secret. I didn’t want to start chatting all about it to strangers.’

  ‘But still – even when that Rock Man attacked us …’

  ‘I panicked. I just wanted to get away.’

  ‘And you wanted to draw it away from Jess Conway,’ interjected the Doctor. He was potting a red on the snooker table. The tip of the cue clicked against the ball and it shot straight into the corner pocket. ‘Because you knew what it was after.’

  The Doctor straightened up, rubbed the end of his cue with a piece of blue chalk attached by a string to the table, and smiled gently. ‘You knew it was coming after you.’

  Chris closed his eyes. ‘When we started the experiments, the results were completely unexpected. The moon dust reacted in ways we couldn’t have guessed at …’

  ‘Electrostatic animation, cross-polarisation of the electrons at atomic level,’ said the Doctor quickly. ‘Yes, worked out all that for myself. The question is – what went wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The Doctor potted another red with a rattling stroke of his cue. ‘Oh, come on, Chris. You must have a clue.’

  ‘The moon rock had to be handled with extreme caution at all times,’ Chris said. ‘The samples were kept in sealed cases. We handled them using gloves inside an airtight box. All the normal precautions. But one day … one of the insulated gloves tore. It must have been a sharp edge on one of the rock samples. I’m not sure. But the seal was broken.’

  ‘That wouldn’t normally be a problem,’ remarked the Doctor thoughtfully, lining up another shot. ‘Moon rock is pretty harmless.’

  ‘That’s what we thought. But we were wrong.’

  ‘The people in the lab,’ realised Amy sadly. ‘Were they … infected or something?’

  ‘Mutated,’ Chris replied. ‘It was horrible. Slowly at first – everyone was aware that they were getting heavier, stiffer … and then suddenly …’

  ‘Sudden organic molecular reconfiguration,’ finished the Doctor. He had cleared the table. He carefully placed the snooker cue back on the green baize surface. ‘They never stood a chance.’

  ‘And neither did Ralph,’ said Amy.

  Chris’s head jerked up. ‘What?’

  ‘The Rock Man touched him, remember. Triggered the molecular change thingy.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Chris buried his face in his hands. ‘Not Ralph … What must Jess be thinking?’ He stood up. ‘I have to see her. She’ll be distraught. Her dad’s all she’s got …’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said the Doctor. ‘Jess is OK. Her dad is OK – for the moment. The effect is unstable and I think the process can be reversed. But I need to know more about how it happened.’

  Chris drew a deep breath. ‘All right. What can I do?’

  ‘Show us where the real work was done,’ replied the Doctor without missing a beat.

  Amy frowned. ‘But I thought that was the lab …’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘The work you say you were doing here – it would require at the very least a UV laser set-up, positively charged electron chambers and a nuclear particle tracker. There’s nothing like the equipment necessary in there – and certainly no sealed unit.’ He swung his gaze around to face Chris. ‘So, come on, out with it: where’s the top secret lab?’

  CHAPTER 17

  HOGGETT’S OFFER

  There was a knock at the farmhouse door – or what remained of it.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Rory. He went out to the kitchen and found a large, overweight man with a very red face standing in the doorway.

  ‘Hoggett,’ said the man as Rory appeared.

  ‘I’m sorry … ?’ Rory said.

  ‘Who the Devil are you?’ the man demanded, his thick eyebrows drawing down over a pair of small, but very sharp, eyes.

  ‘Er … I’m Rory. I’m just visiting.’

  ‘Where’s Conway?’

  Rory glanced out into the farmyard, where Ralph Conway stood immobile by the Land Rover.

  ‘Come on, boy, spit it out,’ demanded the man. ‘He must be here some
where. Tell him I want to see him!’

  ‘Dad’s not available right now,’ said Jess, joining Rory. Her voice was cool, and Rory immediately got the impression that neither Jess or this rude visitor liked each other.

  ‘This is Mr Hoggett,’ Jess told Rory. ‘You could say he’s our next-door-neighbour. He owns the farm across the valley. And the farm next to that. And three farms beyond that.’

  ‘Four,’ Hoggett corrected. ‘And it’ll be five when I get this place.’

  ‘And we keep telling you,’ said Jess icily, ‘that this farm isn’t for sale.’

  ‘It might not be on the market,’ agreed Hoggett. ‘But that doesn’t mean it can’t be bought.’

  ‘My dad has already told you to back off, Mr Hoggett. We’re not interested.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see about that,’ said Hoggett. ‘I’ve come to make a new offer. One that even someone as stubborn as your father would be hard pushed to refuse.’

  ‘Look,’ said Rory. ‘This isn’t a good time. As you can see … we’ve had a bit of bother and …’

  Hoggett looked quickly around the kitchen, taking in the broken table, chairs, plasterboard and door frame. ‘I can see that, boy. I’m not blind. And that’s exactly why I’ve come. It’ll cost a damned fortune to rebuild this place … money I know Conway doesn’t have. If he can’t afford to pay any workers, then he can’t afford to pay for the upkeep of this place.’

  ‘He’ll find a way,’ Jess argued – but she didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Hoggett scoffed. ‘The place is falling apart – look around you!’ He glanced around the kitchen and seemed surprised to find just how bad a state it was in. ‘I mean, look at it! Place is falling apart!’

  ‘Really,’ Rory said, as firmly as he could manage. ‘This isn’t the right time.’

  Hoggett gave him a withering look. ‘I’ve come to speak to the organ grinder, boy – not one of his monkeys. Where is Conway? Don’t tell me he’s left you two in charge?’

  ‘Dad isn’t here at the moment,’ Jess said patiently. ‘Maybe if you could come back another time–’