Doctor Who_ Dark Progeny Part 28

'We'll take the chopper,' she said, snapping her goggles back down over her eyes and dashing off into the dark squall. Close on her heals, Jorgan was launched suddenly off his feet by the huge explosions that followed. He crashed to the ground, a confused heap entangled with the trooper.

' What the What the ' '

More detonations. He was showered with dirt and flying debris. The trooper let out a scream and Jorgan saw her grasping her leg. The blasts continued, one after another, rolling like thunder, until finally all that was left was the sound of the screeching winds.

Raising his head, Jorgan looked back to see the remaining earthmovers im-mobile, their caterpillar tracks ripped like canvas, immense chunks of mangled metal.

'They rigged the tracks with dynamite,' Jorgan hissed, still struggling to catch his breath.

The trooper was scrambling to her feet. He followed her as she set off limping into the squall. Making their way round the side of the base camp, they both cluttered to a halt when they saw the military chopper sitting in the churned mud, its nose poking upwards and the rest of the body a ma.s.s of lumpy smashed parts.

Veta sat with her back to the window, and Josef slumped on a small stool opposite. He watched the guard and the guard watched him back. For a second, Josef thought the man was asleep on his feet. His eyes seemed to glaze over, going completely out of focus as if he were staring into the s.p.a.ce above Josef s head. Then Josef saw him run a hand through his hair and realised that he was inspecting his own reflection in the gla.s.s.

191.

'We got systems back on line,' Veta said softly, her fingers flickering with almost imperceptible motion across the surface of the remote control. 'They're very patchy. All the resources are being put into military security. They've got full shielding on all their communications.'

'Watch they don't detect you.'

He received a flash of her shadowed eyes and she didn't need to utter a word.

'Where are you?' he asked.

'I got access through Peron's system. We got her pa.s.scode and her security.

I've set up a cloak to stop anybody looking at what I'm doing in here.'

'What are are you doing in here?' you doing in here?'

'I'm going to use the same trick on them as they used on us.'

'Uh?'

'Is he still looking?'

'Yeah.'

'Does he look suspicious?'

'Just looks like he's doing as he was told. He looks bored.'

'Anybody else about?'

'No. Wait. Yes. Somebody talking to him.'

'Is he still looking in here?'

'No. Yes. No.'

Josef was moving. Unexpectedly flying through the air. They landed together in the shadow of an incubator.

'What are are you playing at?' he hissed, gazing anxiously back at the window to see the guard looking into the room again. you playing at?' he hissed, gazing anxiously back at the window to see the guard looking into the room again.

Then he saw himself and Veta still sitting there talking. In the middle of the room. On their little stools. Then Veta's hand grasped his ear and she dragged him back under cover of darkness.

'He'll see you,' she said. 'Keep down.'

'What are you doing now?'

'Just shut up.'

He did as he was told, trying to get a view of what she was up to in the corner of the room. There was a repeated low rattle of metal against metal, then Veta fell backwards and he saw that she had a vent grille in her hands. She pushed it over to one side and began to feed herself into the hole in the wall. Then she was gone with a shuffling sound, and he poked his head in to watch her disappear into the suffocating blackness.

'Are you coming or what?' she whispered, her voice echoing slightly in the enclosed s.p.a.ce.

192.Scrambling on his hands and knees, he set off in pursuit, concentrating on the soles of her feet moving ahead of him with a quick rhythm. She stopped and he heard another clatter of metal and a new source of dim light entered the confined s.p.a.ce as Veta extricated herself from the vent. He followed, poking his head out to find himself in another room very similar to the one they'd just left.

Except, of course, that this one didn't have a guard on it.

The Doctor had asked Bains to excavate a small hole. With his digging equipment stored in the caves, it was a simple enough task. He'd piled the loose soil each side, then, as the Doctor had requested, left a single shovel to fill the hole back in.

He found the Doctor and the children back at the chopper in sombre mood.

They were sitting cross-legged on the ground, arranged in a circle like a cla.s.s of schoolchildren and the Doctor the teacher. In the middle of the circle was the small shrouded shape of the dead child.

As Bains approached, the Doctor clambered to his feet and met him with a face full of starcast shadows.

'I thought it was only right to devise some sort of ceremony,' he told Bains quietly.

Bains saw that the children were touching one another gently, pointing across the circle and muttering.

'What are they doing?'

The Doctor smiled, but it was a smile full of sadness. 'Speaking their names.'

'Sorry?'

The Doctor grasped him by the shoulder and pulled him away. They walked a small distance and the Doctor's hand remained on Bains's shoulder.

'They didn't have names,' he said, stopping and lowering himself and Bains to the ground. 'They were just given numbers. The numbers of their cells. It's all that was needed to differentiate them for the purposes of the experiments.'

Bains watched him with a mixture of shock and horror, but the Doctor avoided his eyes. He was watching the children as they ceremoniously pointed to one another, and his face was dark.

'The naming of kids is a difficult matter,' he said softly, his voice just audible above the strange cries of the nearby winds. 'It isn't just one of your holiday games.'

They shared a short silence.

193.

'They named themselves, you know,' he said suddenly. 'Quaxo, Coricopat, Rum Tum Tugger, Mungojerrie, Rumpelteazer, Bombalurina, Mr Mistoffelees, Macavity, Asparagus, Bustopher Jones, Skimbleshanks, Jellylorum.'

'Those are names?'

'Oh yes,' the Doctor said quite earnestly. 'Particular. Peculiar. Dignified.'

Another reflective silence.

'I suggested Old Deuteronomy. But they wouldn't have it. They said I I was Old Deuteronomy. "Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time; He's a cat who has lived many lives in succession." They understood. They understood so much. was Old Deuteronomy. "Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time; He's a cat who has lived many lives in succession." They understood. They understood so much.

The poetry is almost a thousand years old. And I didn't give them anything except a handful of names. Dr Pryce was right when he said they get inside your head. But he was wrong about them being evil. Look at them.'

The children remained cross-legged on the ground, still pointing at one another simply speaking their new names. They looked slightly ridiculous in the clothes the Doctor had put on them. He'd raided Bains's wardrobe and adapted anything he could find. Jumpers that were far too large. Shorts tied with string that came down to their toes. Coats with strategic knots. Shirts torn in two.

They were smeared with dirt from their ascent in the city superstructure. Dark marks that streaked their pale faces. A motley band of ragam.u.f.fins if ever he saw one. But they also looked solemn, reverent and entirely and wholly innocent, thought Bains.

'Have you ever conducted a funeral?' the Doctor asked him suddenly.

'I'm sorry?'

'A burial. Have you ever conducted the service for one?'

Bains was gawking at the man. 'No.'

The Doctor looked disappointed. 'I don't know if I'm the right person to do it,' he admitted.

'They seem to look up to you,' Bains said.

He emitted a delicate laugh. 'They do, don't they?' Then he looked sombre, his eyes abruptly distant.

'It's difficult,' he said finally. 'I lost somebody. A good friend. He died out in the storm when we landed. I should have been there for him. I let him down.'

'No,' Bains told him. He didn't really know the man at all, but he knew beyond all doubt that what he was about to say was the truth. 'You don't let people down. It's not in your nature.'

She had a rendezvous with death, and Foley wasn't looking forward to it one little bit. The chopper bucked and lunged through the storm and she would 194normally be shouting orders and abuse at Klute who was in the driving seat.

But the words just wouldn't come. The anger was no longer there.

The mission had started out as a straight search-and-retrieve. But a few minutes after they were airborne Peron had amended her instructions, obviously a command from Tyran. They were to bring them all back dead.

It was a simple enough instruction. All back dead. All back dead. Three syllables. The kind of order the military mind was trained to understand. No frills. No complicated long words to fluff the meaning or give rise to any misunderstanding. No room for any kind of personal bias. Dead. Simple. Three syllables. The kind of order the military mind was trained to understand. No frills. No complicated long words to fluff the meaning or give rise to any misunderstanding. No room for any kind of personal bias. Dead. Simple.

She'd risked her skin to save this man. She'd felt physically sick to see him interrogated. She'd realised with a wrench that she'd developed quite suddenly a very great respect for him. These were feelings she was completely unfamiliar with. Her duty had always been very clear. No grey areas. Just black and white.

Orders were orders and the enemy was the enemy, even if you knew full well he didn't deserve to die.

If she deserted, if she tried to help him, she'd be hunted down and treated no better than he had been.

So, then. A simple choice. Ultimately, either way, her rendezvous remained unchanged.

Using ropes, Bains and the Doctor stood either side of the grave and lowered the body into the ground. The children huddled nearby watching with sombre faces. No tears. No nothing. Just blank expressions. The Doctor had said they were only two months old. Although they appeared much older, perhaps they had no concept of what death really meant.

While Bains removed the ropes the Doctor prepared to say a few words. He appeared ill at ease, gazing off into the distance trying to sort his thoughts.

'It's difficult,' he said at last, 'to lose a friend. We can all only really deal with loss in our own. . . private way.'

A pause of quiet sorrow.

'Some of us. . . ' he began again, but the words stumbled to silence and he stood there with tears in his dark eyes, unable to speak and unable to meet any of their expectant gazes. One of the children took him by the hand, and he tried to force a smile into his lips that refused to come. His face a muddle of pain and memories and regrets, he shook his head and Bains saw a solitary tear roll down his cheek.

'I'm sorry,' he muttered in a broken voice.

195.

The girl pulled him down to his knees in the dirt. She stroked the side of his face and the Doctor grabbed her suddenly, scooping her up and hugging her tight.

Then he bent and returned her to her feet, offering a handful of soil. She watched him in puzzlement, and he took a handful for himself and tossed it on to the body.

'To say goodbye,' the Doctor explained, his voice barely a whisper.

She did the same, and so did the others while the Doctor stood by gazing deep into s.p.a.ce and time and himself.

Bains gathered the children together and led them off towards the caves.

There was no need for words. They knew where they were going. They knew the Doctor needed time alone. As they picked their way over the uneven ground, Bains heard a single sharp stab of the shovel behind them.

The wind was full of strange distant cries. He looked up through the tunnel above them into the black-blue depths of s.p.a.ce and stars, and realised he'd never before seen the night sky on Ceres Alpha. There had always been storms that came with the dark. He'd never seen the stars from this world. And now there was a window on them and they looked crystal clear and lovely. He discovered one of the children tugging at his sleeve and bent down to see what he wanted.

'Twinkle twinkle,' said the boy.

'Little star,' one of the others continued.

'How I wonder,' said another.

'What you are,' somebody finished.

He smiled at the simplicity of it, but it was a smile tinged with gloom. Funerals were terrible things. A child's funeral doubly so. The universe was so very full of might-have-beens. So very full of grief.

' Bains! Bains! ' the Doctor screamed. ' ' the Doctor screamed. ' Bains! Help me! Bains! Help me! ' '

When he looked back, the Doctor was gone. For a split second there was only blind confusion. Then Bains saw the dirt flying and set off at a run.

' Bains! Help me! Bains! Help me! ' '

Falling to his knees at the side of the grave, Bains peered over to see the Doctor frantically swiping the dirt from the small corpse. He looked up with wide mad eyes.

' He's alive! He's alive! ' '

The body was pushed up to him, and Bains took it with a numb sense of unreality, laying it on the soft soil to see that it was indeed moving. He saw 196small fingers grasping at the edge of the material, pulling it aside. Then a face spattered with mud.