by Nick Walters
The others screamed and turned their energy-weapons on the source of the attack. Something crashed through the fire, a morass of tentacles sprouting from a thickly armoured central mass. It flailed in the flames, crackling and hissing, and then was still.
What were these things? Perhaps the Garden had produced these monsters to fend off the Valethske, thought Peri in a flash of insight. A cloud of smoke descended on her and she began to cough uncontrollably.
The Valethske nearest to her turned, its gun swinging unerringly round to cover her. Peri shrank back down the tunnel but it was on her in a few strides, its free arm reaching down and grabbing her by the throat. Choking and coughing, Peri scrambled from the tunnel, falling into the arms of the Valethske, stifling her yell of pain in its leather-clad chest.
It held her by the shoulders, eyes reflecting orange sparks of flame. It had a stripe of white over one eye and ear, and there was a long scratch on its jaw.
‘Let me go!’ cried Peri, struggling in its grip. The creature hissed at her and shoved her away, probably keen to get back to the fight.
It raised its bulbous gun.
Peri backed away, eyes fixed on the black muzzle. The hunter grinned, enjoying Peri’s fear, toying with her. Behind it she heard its comrades scream with triumph as another monster-Gardener was incinerated.
Peri stumbled over something. The body of a dead Valethske. A plan formed in her mind, crazy and hopeless but her only option. Keeping her eyes on those of the Valethske, she crouched down and put her hands on the grip of the dead hunter’s gun. Slowly, she picked it up, surprised at its lightness, and stood, holding the weapon across her chest.
The Valethske cocked its head to one side, curious to see what she’d do next.
Peri brought the gun slowly to bear, not on the Valethske but on the writhing shapes through the curtain of fire. She found what she hoped was the trigger and pulled, gasping in shock as a white bolt of energy burst from the end of the gun.
There was surprisingly little recoil and the energy-bolt sailed straight through the flames; there was no way of telling if she’d found her mark. Well, she hadn’t even aimed.
She coughed again, the smoke stinging her eyes. Then she looked over at the Valethske and smiled, hating herself for doing this but it was her only chance of survival. ‘United against a common foe, right?’ she cried above the roar of flames and the shrieks of the other hunters.
The Valethske threw its head back and emitted a peal of piercing laughter. Then it strode over to her, moving with frightening speed, and dashed the gun from her hands. ‘As if I would trust a human!’ it snarled.
Peri rubbed her hands, hoping it hadn’t broken a bone. She felt irritated more than afraid.
Another hunter trotted over, its eyes widening in surprise as it saw Peri. ‘Flayoun, the odds are too great. We must retreat.’
Her captor - Flayoun - nodded, and kept her held tightly with one hand while it spoke quickly into a button-like device mounted on its collar. The other Valethske retreated until they formed a solid ring around Flayoun and Peri, keeping their weapons trained on the curtain of flame. Despite the desperate situation, she noticed they still had time to leer hungrily at her.
‘What are you doing, saving me for a post-game snack?’ she said to her captor.
‘Where’s the skirmisher?’ it hissed, ignoring her.
‘We should devour this human now,’ drooled another hunter. ‘Our last meal before our glorious sacrifice!’
Flayoun growled angrily. ‘No more deaths,’ he said. ‘We must report to the Vale Commander.’
Presently a dark shape began to descend through the smoke.
Peri recognised the blunt wings and sleek shape of a Valethske shuttle. Its rust-coloured hull gave no reflection to the flames that licked around it. The blast from its engines set up a typhoon of hot air that screamed around them, extinguishing the flames and sending the attacking creatures scuttling back.
Peri was pulled along with the hunters as they ran pell-mell across the grass through the still-burning cinders. She saw Valethske gathered around an oblong hatch in the belly of the craft, some ten feet above her head. The shuttle dipped a few feet lower and she felt strong arms lift her up. She caught a swaying glimpse of thorned tentacles massing at the gap in the flames.
She swung her legs up over the hatch, and felt a lurching sensation in the pit of her stomach as the shuttle lifted off and away. ‘Neat bit of flying,’ she said as she watched the flames recede through the open hatch.
As they flew higher, she could see more of the Garden, and she gasped. The crescent of flame was dwarfed beside the massive Tree. Its branches seemed to reach up into the sky, as if to snatch the shuttle back. All around the tree, the monster-Gardeners moved. She couldn’t make out individuals, just a great, thrashing mass that surged like a sea of thorns across the Garden.
Then with a painful grinding the hatch closed. Peri stood up and turned round to see Flayoun and the other hunters all staring at her.
Flayoun licked his lips.
Peri backed away, looking around for somewhere to run, to hide. But there was nowhere. This time, there really was nowhere.
Veek stepped through the white, slab-like doors of the time machine into green-tinted darkness. A dry smell of stone hit her with an almost physical shock after the sterile, odourless interior of the TARDIS. Her ears twitched, picking up distant scuttling sounds. She drew her blaster, alert for any signs of movement.
‘No welcome committee,’ said the Doctor. ‘But then I wasn’t expecting one.’
His words made no sense to Veek, so she ignored them and took in their surroundings.
They were in a subterranean cavern, high-ceilinged, dome-shaped. The air was cool, crisp, and tasted of minerals. Light-emitting moss covered almost every surface except the smooth rock underfoot. Where the curving roof met the floor, thick stalactites and stalagmites provided plenty of cover for anything that might be lurking, waiting to pounce. Between these formations, Veek could see hundreds of tunnels leading off.
It all tallied with the initial survey of the planet. A vast labyrinth of artificially constructed tunnels, just as the legends said. And the Gods grew old and frail and frightened, and so they fled, seeking to hide their cruel faces from the fledgling universe. Veek had known the words since she was a cub. Despite her complete loss of faith in the Great Mission, she had never doubted that the Gods had existed, and might still live in exile in some distant keep. So could they be here, beneath this garden-world? Could the Great Mission, against infinite odds, have at last succeeded?
Veek gripped her blaster. It would be useless against the Gods, but it made her feel better. She felt as if she was sinking in confusion, doubting her own doubts, like a whelp with the fever chasing its own tail.
‘Look at all these tunnels,’ came the Doctor’s voice, strained with sadness and frustration. ‘Peri could be anywhere.’
Veek glanced back at the TARDIS. Her way home. She thought of the honour of slaying the Gods, the exhilaration of revenge.
She could almost taste it, rich and strong like well-salted meat. It fired up her blood. She could not deny it. She could not deny that the success of the Great Mission would be a thing of the utmost glory. Then she thought of the forests of Valeth Skettra, of running through the fields after prey, rain hammering on her naked back, her mate - another, new mate -
strong and supple at her side.
The rains of Valeth Skettra washed the taste of revenge away and Veek knew what she wanted. What use were glory and honour, when you were so far away from home, so far away from the things that defined you?
Veek strode off towards the tunnel mouths. The sooner they found the Doctor’s companion, the sooner she could get home. But like the Doctor she could see how futile it would be, searching miles and miles of tunnels for one lone human
- and that was assuming it hadn’t perished in the explosion.
She called back to the Doctor over her sho
ulder. ‘Doesn’t your time machine possess scanning devices?’
The Doctor looked offended. ‘It most certainly does, but something’s blocking them.’ He rubbed his temples with his fingers. ‘Something’s trying to communicate with the TARDIS, interfering with its systems.’
A cold current of air slid around Veek’s neck. She shivered, and then growled, angrily dismissing the feeling of unease.
‘Legends speak of the mental powers of the Gods.’
‘You think they could be here? That Kikker’s insane quest has actually succeeded?’
Veek gritted her teeth, vowing to stick by her resolution.
‘Even if they are, I do not care.’
At the moment she stopped talking, Veek saw something stirring out of the corner of her eye. She swung her blaster up and fired in one smooth action. The blaster-bolt was like a shooting star in the gloom of the cavern. It hit home with a deafening crack that echoed all around the massive space like a thunderclap. Flakes of stone detached from the ceiling and sprinkled down on Veek and the Doctor like snow.
‘Don’t shoot!’ said the Doctor belatedly, trying to snatch the blaster away from her. He cast a nervous glance at the cavern roof. ‘I doubt that energy weapons have ever been fired in here, and your excavations can’t have helped. We don’t want the whole planet crashing down on our heads. It would hurt, for one thing.’
Veek was getting used to the way the Doctor prattled on like a deranged battle-veteran, especially when in danger, and had already started across the smooth, dark rock to the source of the movement. She heard the Doctor’s soft footsteps follow.
At the conical base of a ridged stalagmite, Veek saw that her shot had found its mark, and smiled in satisfaction, squinting as she tried to make out what it was she had killed.
Some sort of giant insect, the size of a calf. She’d hit it square in the head, now a charred and splintered hunk of chitin, its dark tarry lifeblood leaking out and dripping on to the cavern floor.
She knew what the Doctor was going to say. His eyes held that dark look of power again, of censure and disapproval.
‘There was no need to -’
Veek waved him into silence, letting a hiss of anger squeeze through her clenched teeth. ‘I am Valethske, Doctor - I kill instinctively. Please do not chastise me for it again, or I may forget myself and kill you!’
The Doctor stared at her. ‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but for you lot it’s clearly the height of sophistication.’
Veek knew she’d been insulted somehow but decided to ignore it. ‘You talk too much, Doctor. Your opinions do not matter to me. I hunt, I kill, I eat. Nothing you think or say can change that.’
There was sadness in his eyes. ‘Have you no sense of morality at all?’
Veek frowned. ‘What is morality?’
The Doctor looked appalled. ‘You mean you don’t even know?’
Veek realised her tail was flicking about like a serpent and reached around to smooth it. ‘This is not helping to find your companion,’ she reminded the Doctor.
‘I know.’ The Doctor stooped to examine the dead creature, poking his nose right up to the smoking remains of its head.
‘Some sort of subterranean insect species, obviously. Now I wonder...’
Veek turned away from the kill and scanned the cavern for more. There - a short distance away, a herd of the creatures was spilling from a tunnel-mouth, their black carapaces jostling against each other, antennae groping the air. They were making a high-pitched, bird-like twittering that made Veek’s sensitive ears twitch.
She called back over her shoulder. ‘Doctor - here. More of them.’
‘So I see,’ he said, wiping bits of carapace from his hands with the cloth she’d seen him use earlier. ‘Let’s follow them, shall we?’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? They could lead us to Peri - or the Gods.’
Veek hesitated, then set off after the Doctor. He looked as perky as a cub again. His sudden switches of mood seemed to indicate a deranged mind, but Veek had seen the intelligence peeping out from beneath his façade. By Azreske - was she beginning to find mere prey interesting? She imagined slicing the Doctor open and consuming his innards. He would probably hold on to life long enough to make some disparaging comment, and chastise her for killing him. The image made her grin widely.
They caught up with the slow-moving herd of insects as they filed into a tunnel. The creatures were either blind and deaf, or uninterested in Veek and the Doctor, because they made no sign of having noticed them. They were big, as big as the cattle bred back on Valeth Skettra for meat.
A thought occurred to Veek. ‘These insects could have consumed your friend, Doctor.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he said airily. ‘From our dead friend’s mandibles - what was left of them - it’s plain that these creatures are vegetarian.’ He grabbed Veek’s arm, his words speeding up with enthusiasm. ‘You see, I’ve worked it out -
most of it, anyway. This whole planet is a garden, dedicated to producing fruit for these underground dwellers. You’ve seen the motile plants, yes? Well, they exist to tend the gardens and harvest the fruit.’
Veek remembered what the Doctor had tried to tell Kikker back at the excavator pit. ‘And also to repel invaders?’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘I haven’t seen these hostile plants yet, but I bet they’re some sort of accelerated mutation, antibodies - “plantibodies”, if you like - produced by the planet to keep hostile visitors out, to protect the subterranean colony.’
It seemed an elaborate, though effective, form of defence, thought Veek. She imagined a world full of savage plant-creatures converging on the ship, and felt a pang of regret that she wasn’t there at the fight. She wondered if Flayoun was still alive - and if so, if he had managed to convince Kikker of her heresy. It hardly mattered now - she was going home soon. She wondered if anyone had noticed that she, the Doctor and his time machine were all missing. They must have found Ruvis’s body by now. She imagined the look on Kikker’s face when he found out. He’d punish someone for it, probably disembowel an innocent Vale Guard to vent his anger.
They were now deep within the tunnel; its walls were smooth, clearly machined by some sort of energy beam. It seemed to have been designed specifically for the insects; it was wide enough for them to walk three abreast and the curved ceiling gave plenty of space for their jostling carapaces. Veek tried to peer over the top of the herd to see where they were going, but to no avail. The tops of their carapaces were almost level with Veek’s nose. Their hind legs looked capable of delivering a hefty kick, but Veek could sense that these creatures posed no threat. Mindless, lowly insects.
A thought struck her. ‘So it’s all for these bugs!’
The Doctor smiled. ‘I wondered when you’d notice that.’
Veek struggled to make sense of it. ‘This whole planet, just for them?’
‘I think they’ve rather got it made, don’t you? All they do is wait for the harvests, eat, reproduce and think chitinous thoughts.’
Veek let out a cackle of laughter. ‘So this isn’t the last retreat of the Gods after all! It’s just a giant insect hive!’
The Doctor nodded, and then shook his head, and frowned.
‘It doesn’t make sense - the alien presence smothering the TARDIS couldn’t have come from these simple creatures.’
They walked on in silence. Presently they emerged into another cavern similar in shape to the one in which they had landed, only much smaller and with fewer tunnels leading off.
Veek noticed that from one of the tunnel mouths, light flickered - not the sullen green glow of the ubiquitous moss, but a shimmering luminescence, like sunlight reflected on water. The herd of insects were milling about a flattened area that bisected the cavern, antennae groping the air. They seemed to be looking for something.
She heard the Doctor catch his breath, and focus his gaze on the far side of the cavern.
Veek followed his
line of sight. There, lying on the smooth rock floor, was a human figure.
‘Is that your companion?’ said Veek, indicating the body.
The Doctor had already started towards it and she heard his voice echo around the rock walls. ‘I don’t think so!’
With a glance at the herd of insects, Veek ran after the Doctor. She reached him just as he was lifting the human into a sitting position, resting her head on his shoulder. Her skin and hair were white, bloodless, and she had about her the unmistakable aura of death. Her eyes were closed and her hands clawed the air before her.
The Doctor put his hand gently over the woman’s, bringing them down into her lap.
‘Aline,’ said the Doctor. ‘Oh, Aline, I tried to stop you.’
Aline. Not Peri. Veek sighed. How many ‘friends’ did the Doctor have? Were they all down here, roaming the caverns like lost cubs?
The human woman opened her eyes. Veek was surprised to see that the irises were silver, like mercury. ‘Doctor?’
The Doctor smiled down at it. ‘Hello, Aline.’
They talked while Veek paced up and down in impatience.
Surely now he’d found one of his friends, they could leave?
She could see the Doctor intent on the woman’s whispered words. Surely it would be better to dispatch her now, save her suffering and them some time.
Veek drew her spike-knife and began to sidle closer to the Doctor and the woman.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sterilisation
The Valethske hadn’t killed and devoured her on the spot.
Peri had to be grateful for that. Flayoun had stopped them, saying that he wanted to use Peri to help restore the Vale Commander’s faith in him. How, she had no idea, but the other hunters had reluctantly agreed. And so they had chained her to a stanchion below the flight deck and forgotten about her, getting on with the business of flying the shuttle.