Doctor Who - Downtime Part 35

Sarah looked beyond him with a gasp. 'Mr Pennington!

Look out!'

Christopher turned, startled, momentarily fooled.

Sarah ran at him, twisting his gun hand. He struggled against her. The Yeti bellowed. In the midst of the melee, the gun fired.

Christopher yelped with pain and fell back clutching his arm. There was blood on it.

'Sorry,' exclaimed Sarah. She was toting his gun in her hand now.

Victoria saw the Yeti raise its claws and stalk towards Sarah. 'Behind you!'

'b.l.o.o.d.y little Miss Gutterati!' choked Christopher from the floor.

Sarah was dodging away from the Yeti. 'Turn off the power!' she called.

Victoria was back at the keyboard. 'That's what I'm trying to do!'

The screen flared and came up white, staring like an eye.

The shape of Professor Edward Travers stood at the centre of the university square. It turned slowly, its stick raised. The Intelligence was apparently taking in the breadth of its achievements.

To the Brigadier, even the air seemed to have been charged and activated with an oppressive energy. The pyramid of silver spheres was starting to give off a pale aura. The halo seemed to flicker around Travers too. The rupture on the side of the old man's face was widening.

His eyes settled back on Lethbridge-Stewart and he grinned. 'I shall impose an organizing order on your chaotic world. One thought to burrow deep into the Earth's roots and reach high into its skies. The humans shall provide me with new machines and new bodies.'

There was no sound of fighting now. And no sign of Sarah either. Only the crackling of the canopy overhead. The Brigadier determined to play for as much time as he could muster. He longed desperately to see his grandson, if it was only for his one last moment.

Travers's head jerkily turned to look at the steps. Two Chillys were leading a figure down into the square. A young woman with long yellow hair.

'Dad,' she called out.

The Brigadier was suddenly wearier than he had ever known. All those years when he had struggled to keep his two lives apart were swept away. He had medals for bravery and distinguished service. He had been made a CBE shortly before he left UNIT.

As a family man he had no honours.

Perhaps the two worlds he kept so separate had been colliding all that time.

His daughter walked with a dignity that he was infinitely proud of. He was scarcely proud of himself at all.

'Dad,' said Kate again as she reached him. It was rare that they ever looked at each other so directly.

'As bad as your mother,' he said awkwardly, hardly managing to disguise the deep tenderness he rarely admitted.

There was a sickly gurgle of laughter beside them. Travers was watching in fascination. 'You have blood ties, gaoler.' He mouthed the words eagerly as if they were something excitingly forbidden. 'Very well. I need more Yeti workers.

She can be the next.' can be the next.'

Captain Douglas Cavendish was suddenly animated. He moved towards the pyramid of silver spheres and lifted the topmost from the stack. It started to bleep.

'For all the torment that you gave me, gaoler,' hissed the Intelligence in Travers.

Cavendish set the globe on the ground. It moved immediately, homing in on Kate. The Brigadier dared not move for fear that the Chillys would restrain him too. The sphere stopped directly in front of Kate. It paused, rocking back and forth, preparing to leap.

The Brigadier threw himself across in front of his daughter as the sphere flipped into the air.

He caught it in both hands. He saw his face in it. It pummelled at his wrists, spinning and struggling in the cage of his fingers until it burned him.

The two Chillys holding Kate pushed her roughly aside and moved forward to a.s.sist the sphere. Kate stumbled and felt the weight in her coat pocket.

Her father lurched backwards under the globe's attack. He swung his clenched arms like a mace, forcing the Chillys back.

The machine's nerve jangling bleep had become a shriek as it forced towards his chest.

The army officer stood impa.s.sively over him.

The wild-haired old man, eyes gaping, tottered forward, eager to see the tournament. Willing it on.

Kate was blocked out. The gun metal was cold in her hands.

The old man was a monster. He was causing this. He was the driving force. When she was little, he lived under the stairs. Now he lived under the bunk and kept Gordy awake at night. He wouldn't have her father too.

Two gunshots cracked out.

The old man staggered and fell. He turned to gasp in amazement at his a.s.sailant.

Rage froze Kate. The pistol levelled in her outstretched hands. Her face was tight, locking in the scream.

You are Transgression. I am Retribution.

'Kate!' called the Brigadier as he dropped to his knees. The sphere was unrelenting.

She gulped air and woke out of the trance. Her fingers loosened and dropped the pistol in disgust.

The emotionless audience of Chillys round the arena were coldly scrutinizing her.

She saw her father fighting for his life. She was running to his aid.

The broken shape of Travers, wounded, bleeding, punctured by darts of light, lurched into her path.

Victoria shielded her eyes as she fell away from the staring screen.

Gunshots splintered the air of the generator chamber as Sarah Jane Smith fired the gun again and again. The Yeti was bleeding, but it never faltered a s.h.a.ggy hill driving Sarah into a corner.

The gun ran out of rounds. She flung it uselessly at the brute. The monster bellowed in triumph and raised its clawed hand to strike.

'Daniel!' called Victoria.

The claws faltered, dipped slightly, then rose again.

'Daniel! I know you're still clinging there.'

Again the monster faltered. It angled slowly towards Victoria, its clawed hand still raised.

She crossed the floor, walking straight up to the huge creature. 'Daniel. Remember your disciplines.'

The Yeti turned completely, towering over her. She faced up to its gaze. Its hand came down in a strange human gesture of contemplation, tapping at teeth it did not have in its colossal head.

From the floor close by came Christopher's burst of mocking laughter.

The Yeti started to growl.

'Daniel,' Victoria repeated quietly. 'What do you seek?'

The creature stirred uneasily, but its attention was held.

Victoria thought back to Tibet. An ancient lama had once asked her that question. Whatever else had happened since, the answer she had given had been undeniable.

'Daniel. Remember the disciplines you have learned.

Remember your inner strength. We all have it. You among all of us are strong. Above all things, remember the Truth.'

She felt the stirrings of his mind trapped inside the thing he had become. It was all confusion. There was guilt and sorrow and terrible pain. More than anything, she recognized a will to survive, not to give in. There was a single thought that she heard repeatedly. It said, I want to fly away.

'Remember what we are taught, Daniel,' she said. 'Fight the evil. Remember the sword that cuts through the thorns of deceit. Be the Sword of Truth, Daniel. Cut yourself free.

Remember.'

The Yeti stirred again. Its claws started to rise.

'Daniel!' scolded Victoria.

A face slid in from the side. 'You're dead, Danny boy!'

sneered Christopher.

A rage erupted in the Yeti. It roared its fury. Victoria ducked clear as the monster went berserk, flailing and thrashing in the air. Fighting an invisible force. Fighting inside itself.

Christopher did not move fast enough. The Yeti s.n.a.t.c.hed at him, catching him in a monstrous bear hug.

'No, Daniel!' pleaded Victoria. 'Not him! Destroy the generators!'

The Yeti tossed Christopher's broken corpse aside. Still enraged, it was casting wildly about for anything on which to vent its confusion.

'Here!' Victoria called, pointing to the control consoles.

The Yeti bore down on her instead.

'Daniel!' she shouted. 'The Truth!'

The creature reeled in despair.

Sarah suddenly charged out of nowhere, cannoning into the Yeti with all her might. Caught off balance, the huge creature toppled sideways onto the console.

There was an eruption of smoke and sparks. In the heart of it Victoria could see the Yeti striking repeatedly at the disintegrating machinery.

The whine of the generators began to pitch down.

No longer. He couldn't hold the shrieking sphere off any longer.

The Brigadier saw the cadaver that had once been Professor Edward Travers lunge wildly at Kate. Smoke was seeping out of its clothes. The corpse swung at her with its stick, blocking her path to him.

'Access denied!' declaimed its tortured voice. 'Access denied!'

The pyramid on the stone plinth suddenly fell apart in an eruption of sparks. The globes scattered across the square around him like a break on a snooker table.

The beams from the roof pyramid flickered and died.

The UNIT Captain slumped to the ground like a discarded puppet. Two Yeti at the top of the steps swayed and tumbled forward, reeking of smoke.

The attacking sphere lost all of its will. Lethbridge-Stewart tossed it contemptuously aside and struggled to his feet.

The Travers body was casting about in the detritus of its perdition. 'I am not defeated!' it croaked.

The Brigadier marched towards it, ready to show it the door. 'Leave our world alone.'

' My My world!' Travers's arm rose up to strike like a Yeti. The Brigadier caught it by the skinny wrist. It was hot as a fever world!' Travers's arm rose up to strike like a Yeti. The Brigadier caught it by the skinny wrist. It was hot as a fever burning up.

Eye to smoking eye.

'You're not wanted here. Go back to h.e.l.l. Back where you came from!'

The Intelligence in Travers darted its eyes around the arena.

Everywhere the Chillys were standing, pulling off their headphones. The Children of the New World, Children of the Old Earth, eyes ablaze with the power it had unlocked in them.