Doctor Who

by David Solomons

‘Father, stop!’

  The crowd parted to let through a young boy and girl. The boy was wide-eyed with excitement, the girl’s expression sullen.

  ‘Jonathan,’ said Delgado tightly. ‘This is not the time.’

  ‘I told you,’ said the girl.

  ‘But I found him,’ said the boy. ‘The second guest for the feast. I took him below.’ His face fell. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  Graham seized his opportunity. ‘Second guest? So that means you’ve already got two men, right?’

  The boy nodded, pleased that someone appreciated his efforts.

  Delgado remained silent, thrown by the unexpected development. A ripple of uncertainty went through the rest of the residents.

  Graham adjusted his grip on the espresso maker. It was heavier than it looked. He pushed home his argument. ‘Your by-laws state that the annual feast consists of the flesh of two men. Not three. So that means –’

  Delgado had clearly made a decision. He waved a hand at the quartet, and they struck up again with their strange, pulsing music. Graham was drowned out once more, but he clung to the hope that he had the by-laws on his side. A hope that lasted little longer than ten seconds, when the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

  He could feel something powerful thrumming just below the earth’s surface. Whatever it was seemed to be drawn by the music. He swallowed. Or perhaps it was attracted by the scent of human flesh? He glanced down in time to see a grotesque snout burst out of the lawn, pink and glistening, a wriggling star-shaped thing with wormy feelers. It was attached to a creature the size of a grizzly bear, with matted, stinking fur and dirty claw-like hands that would have seemed comically oversized for its body if they hadn’t been so terrifyingly close to him.

  The creature’s arrival sent clumps of earth and stones flying. Its alien mouth gaped, and Graham let out a scream. The giant claws embraced him, he heard the snap of the chain that bound him to the post, and just before he blacked out he felt himself being pulled underground.

  It was Ryan, all right. Looking just the same as he had when they were at school together. He was dressed in a blue T-shirt, blue jeans and blue trainers. TARDIS blue. The ship had plundered her memory again. Like Aisha, he was a friendly face that the timeship was using to communicate with her.

  Ryan didn’t seem such an odd choice for the Doctor’s space– time machine. In her experience, nine-year-old children were restless, curious, strong-willed, often reluctant to do exactly what they were told or go where they were meant to, but fiercely loyal and with hearts far bigger than their outward appearance would suggest. Maybe a good fit after all. She decided to go along with the latest puppet show.

  ‘Why won’t it work?’ she asked, holding up the key with which she’d intended to mark the disc on the wall.

  ‘I already tried,’ he said. ‘I’ve been stuck in here for ages. The mark is always gone the next time you enter the corridor.’

  ‘So it is the same corridor?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure,’ said Ryan. ‘Sometimes it’s bright and endlessly long, other times it can be dark and a dead end. It’s a passage aboard an alien space station, or a burrow belonging to some subterranean creature. It’s on Skaro and on Gallifrey. But, yeah, it’s always the same corridor.’

  Yaz didn’t know what to think. She was in a corridor. The corridor, apparently. ‘Does it lead to the key to Vault Thirteen?’

  ‘I guess it must, eventually,’ said Ryan. ‘Everything’s in here.’

  ‘What do you mean “everything”?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said, a smile flitting across his face.

  She wasn’t in the mood for riddles. ‘I’ve got to find that key. You know how important it is. The TARDIS was supposed to take us to its location.’

  ‘Maybe it did.’

  This was infuriating. ‘But it didn’t go anywhere.’

  Ryan shrugged. ‘Do you remember what Mrs Knowles always used to say?’

  Old Know-It-All Knowles was a teacher from primary school. Not one of Yaz’s fonder memories. ‘Uh…“That is your last warning, young lady”?’

  ‘Yes, but there was something else.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me or not?’ she snapped at Ryan.

  ‘She said, “Stop thinking about where you’re going. Focus on what’s right in front of you.” ’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘I didn’t say she was original.’ He folded his arms in a grump. ‘And, anyway, she’s your memory.’

  Yaz had endured quite enough of TARDIS Ryan. ‘If that’s all I’m getting from you, then I’m out of here. Where’s the door?’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘There is no door. You’re stuck.’

  The corridor shook, and Yaz stumbled, just managing to stay on her feet.

  ‘The TARDIS is still under attack,’ said Ryan. ‘Lots of its systems are malfunctioning, including the one that put you in here. The Doctor is doing what she can out there –’ he pointed vaguely above his head – ‘but she’s also trying to outrun that warship.’

  The mention of the Doctor was a sharp reminder to Yaz. ‘I saw something. The Doctor. She was dead.’

  The mask slipped and the TARDIS’s true face showed through. ‘Yes, she does that.’

  ‘Was it real?’

  ‘Define real?’

  ‘I mean, did it – will it – happen?’

  TARDIS Ryan cocked his head to one side and regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and pity. ‘It must be so confusing for you, having to exist with such a basic understanding of time. I mean, you still believe in all that past, present and future stuff, don’t you?’

  ‘What other way is there?’

  ‘I’d tell you, but your brain is too simple an organism to contain the ideas. It might explode.’ He grinned, evidently intrigued by the grisly prospect. ‘It’s a bit like hiccups,’ he said.

  For a moment, Yaz thought he was referring to the incomprehensible theory of time he’d alluded to.

  ‘What’s gone wrong with the telepathic circuits,’ he clarified. ‘Except that hiccups don’t usually drive you insane.’

  ‘Is that what’s going to happen to me?’

  ‘Oh, at the very least. Certainly if we can’t get you out of the TARDIS circuits before the Doctor is forced to travel in time again. Which she must – and soon. It will come down to a choice: you, or the fate of the universe. Same old, same old.’

  Yaz swallowed hard. ‘Better find me a glass of water then.’

  ‘That doesn’t cure hiccups. It’s a myth.’ He turned his back and began to walk off along the corridor. ‘No, there’s only one proven way to get rid of them.’

  ‘What’s that then?’

  He paused, then spoke without looking at her. ‘I’m going to scare you out of your skin.’

  Ryan returned to consciousness with a great gulp.

  He immediately wished he hadn’t. It was the smell that hit him first: the same stink he’d detected at the entrance to the tunnel, but much stronger here. The stench of death. It poured into his nostrils, making him gag. Jonathan’s lantern lay a few metres away, casting a pool of light over a boneyard. Pale white shards littered the earth. Skeletal fingers poked up through the soil floor, twisted, snapped, licked clean. The smooth ball of a thigh bone was a blank, one-eyed stare in the darkness.

  Ryan was in no doubt that these were the remains of victims devoured by the creature that had attacked him in the tunnel. The same fate awaited him unless he could find a way out of this place. He strained to hear in the dank silence. Nothing but the faintest suggestion of…violins?

  At least the monster wasn’t in here with him – for now. He tried to move, but met resistance. He was wrapped up to the neck in a hard shell of dried mud, his body cocooned so tightly he couldn’t feel his limbs. He calmed himself with a series of deep breat
hs, and his mind flitted back to the terrible moment when he’d first seen the beast. That evil kid had led him right into its clutches, delivering him to it like a bargain bucket of fried chicken. Panic had gripped him as every impulse screamed ‘run’, but his body refused to co-operate. And then it was too late. The thing had drenched him with spit, and he’d felt his legs go numb. After that, everything was a blank. Based on his current predicament, he guessed that the creature had hauled him back here to its lair, somewhere beneath the garden of Never Square.

  Feeling the paralysing saliva beginning to wear off, he attempted to wiggle a finger. A tiny movement. It felt like a major victory, but unless he was going to dig his way out with his pinky it wasn’t enough. He continued trying to work his hand free, but he needed options. His thoughts turned to Graham. With a bit of luck, he was already aware of Ryan’s situation and was even now on his way to rescue him. Better yet, Graham had contacted the Doctor and she was on her way.

  However, the hard truth was that he couldn’t rely on either possibility. He had to figure something out by himself.

  Slowly, his eyes were adjusting to his surroundings, and he could see more of what lay beyond the lantern’s reach. The bones weren’t all that was shining on the ground. He also caught the mirror glint of something metallic. It looked just like – and it seemed ridiculous even as the word popped into his head – a toaster. Just when he was roundly dismissing the idea as some kind of hallucination brought on by the poisonous saliva, he noticed another object next to it. He could have sworn it was a chrome kitchen tap.

  There was a groan from the other side of the room, beyond the lamplight. Ryan stiffened, certain that it must be the creature. Then it happened again, and this time it sounded human.

  ‘Hello?’ Ryan ventured. ‘Is someone there?’

  There was a cough, then a weak voice said, ‘Help…me.’

  Ryan squinted past the glow of the lantern to discern the outline of another unfortunate prisoner encased in a mud straitjacket. There was someone else trapped down here.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Tom,’ the man replied in a whisper.

  ‘I’m Ryan.’

  Tom’s thin voice gained strength, taking on a tone of outrage. ‘Those people – they’re monsters!’

  ‘Not the monster I’d be worried about right now.’

  Tom gave a desperate laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘I came to kill it. That’s my job.’

  ‘You’re awful at your job.’

  ‘It’s some sort of mole, but I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Ryan could hear the shock in Tom’s voice. It got him thinking. If the creature was basically a giant mole, maybe it had something in common with its regular-sized cousin? Something they could use. ‘How were you going to kill it?’

  ‘Spring-loaded traps. I know what you’re thinking, but forget it. The most one of my traps would do to that thing is give it a sprained finger.’ There was resignation in his voice.

  Ryan wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘Come on, you’re an expert. You’re like a mole hitman. There must be something you can think of.’

  There was a pause, as Tom racked his brains. ‘Moles are fiercely territorial. If another one came into the run, they’d fight each other.’

  ‘Great. So your solution to our man-eating-monster problem is another man-eating monster?’

  ‘Sorry. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t something I was expecting to deal with when I woke up this morning.’

  ‘I bet the Doctor would know what to do.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘She is…’ Ryan caught himself before he said a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. Instead, he finished with, ‘A very smart and resourceful friend.’

  ‘Pity she isn’t here,’ Tom said.

  ‘Wait!’ A thought struck Ryan. ‘She kind of is.’

  By flexing his trapped fingers, he’d managed to scratch out a space around his hand. Now he used what leverage he had to claw through the mud to find his pocket. He dug furiously. After what felt like hours but was really only a matter of minutes, he had penetrated a few centimetres. He felt for the outline of the white cube. Nothing. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he wondered for a moment if he’d put it in the other pocket – but he was positive it had been this one. The pocket was empty. That meant he’d lost it. When the creature had lugged him from the tunnel to the lair, the cube must have fallen out.

  Ryan felt the fight go out of him – almost. He rallied himself once more. There was still a chance the cube was here in the lair somewhere.

  ‘Okay, Doctor,’ he called out.

  No reply.

  One more try. ‘Okay, Doctor!’

  He held his breath.

  A second later, a pinprick of light appeared in the darkness and the Doctor’s voice sang out, ‘Hello, Ryan. I’m listening.’

  The tiny holographic image popped up as she spoke the welcoming words. Ryan knew it was a facsimile of her, but he had never been happier to see anyone in his life.

  ‘What in the blue blazes is that?’ said Tom.

  There wasn’t time to explain. ‘Doctor, how do we get out of here?’

  He crossed the fingers of his free hand and hoped that he’d get a sensible answer and not some random stuff about sponge cake. A wide red beam fanned out from the cube. Ryan guessed it was scanning the lair for information.

  ‘You appear to be entombed in mud,’ said the hologram. ‘How would you describe the consistency?’

  ‘It’s kind of like dried clay. I’m in a pot, basically. How does that help, exactly?’

  ‘Earth singer Mariah Carey can reach a pitch of over three thousand hertz,’ replied the Doctor’s hologram.

  ‘Uh, I think that device of yours is broken,’ said Tom.

  Ryan had to agree. The erratic cube had gone off on another useless digression.

  ‘However, what is required here is a very low frequency,’ the hologram went on, ‘such as you’d find among the basso profundo opera singers of the planet Oktavist IV. I am now accessing my database for a recording of their performance of The Magic Fruit, in which the heroine, Carmina, using only her cunning and a pan-dimensional pineapple, outwits the evil Count Visakov, only to discover in the final act that he is, in fact, her father from a parallel world, and in order to preserve her freedom she must throw herself from the tallest tower in the – You know what? Not important right now. Stick something in your ears. Here it comes.’

  It began as a faint hum, deep and restless, like the distant grumbling of some fairy-tale giant. The humming grew rapidly, reaching into every corner of the lair. Ryan felt an uncomfortable pressure building in his ears. Now it was a choir of giants. There was nothing he could do to block the relentless sound but, just as he was thinking it couldn’t get any worse, he heard a crack, and then another. He was suddenly aware that he could feel his arms. The sound had split open his mud prison. It was like that trick with the singer who shatters the wine glass using just her voice to reach – what was it called? Resonant frequency, that was it.

  With a grunt, Ryan pushed at the weakened mud case and a chunk fell away. Quickly, he dug himself out and saw that Tom had done the same. They met in the middle of the lair, astonished at their escape.

  The humming stopped.

  ‘And that’s just the overture,’ said the hologram.

  ‘Thanks, Doctor,’ said Ryan, sweeping up the cube. ‘Now we need to get out of this sewer.’

  ‘To unclog a blocked drain, the best thing to use is your trusty plunger,’ said the hologram. ‘If you haven’t got one handy, try borrowing one from a Dalek.’

  Ryan shoved the cube back in his pocket, muffling the rest of the useless advice.

  Tom picked up the lantern and swung it about, searching for a way out. More of their prison took shape in the beam. Among the gnawe
d bones littering the ground were dozens of shiny objects, including the toaster and kitchen tap Ryan had spotted. Some items had been down here so long they’d lost their lustre, but many gleamed in the rare light. There were pieces of jewellery, coins, trophies, and enough chrome kitchen gadgets to stock a homewares department.

  ‘I think your mole might be half magpie,’ said Ryan. He froze in fear, startled by a face, then realised it was just his own reflection in a mirrored serving tray.

  Tom swept the lantern towards the back of the lair, picking out an archway in the mud wall. ‘Come on,’ he said, already moving towards it.

  ‘No, wait.’ Ryan placed a hand on his arm, and they both heard the now-familiar scuttling. ‘It’s coming.’

  There was another sound too this time, as if something heavy was being dragged along the ground.

  Tom shook his head, appalled at this turn in their fortunes. He made a decision. ‘I’ll distract it. You make a run for the surface.’

  As brave as the offer was, Ryan wasn’t going to let Tom sacrifice himself. ‘No way. We’re getting out of here together.’

  What would the Doctor do? She’d never let one of her friends give their life for hers. No, she’d come up with a last-gasp plan – which, based on Ryan’s panicked breathing, was right about now.

  ‘Can moles see?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom, ‘but not very well. Why?’

  Ryan peered into the darkness. At the last tick of the last second, it came to him.

  Yaz ran for her life along the never-ending corridor. She had experienced fear before, but nothing – not even her recent adventures with the Doctor – could have prepared her for this. Nine-year-old TARDIS Ryan had made good on his promise to scare her out of her skin.

  ‘They’re all in here,’ he had said, then proceeded to reel off a list of strange names. ‘Autons, Ogrons, Daemons, Plasmatons, Cryons, Zygons…’ The list continued, seemingly as endless as the corridor. ‘Draconians, Osirians, Silurians, Sontarans…’

  Ryan’s measured voice possessed the power of an incantation, summoning fear from the shadows. Yaz sensed something cold and eyeless detach itself from a wall, and decided not to hang about.