Doctor Who_ Grave Matter Part 29

'Obviously not tacticians. Now we can't wait long enough for them to be out of sight, I'm afraid, or they'll have finished with our decoy friends and be coming back. And that's not a pleasant thought for them or us.' He turned to Rogers and the other man standing by the plastic container. They had the straps in their hands, ready to heft it up and run with it.

'Ready?' the Doctor asked.

The two men nodded. Both looked grim and afraid. Their hands were grasping and releasing the ropes nervously.

The other person there was Janet Spillsbury. The Doctor looked at her, and she too nodded that she was ready The Doctor checked through the crack between door and frame again. 'OK,' he said. 'Time to go.' And he threw open the door.

It was not so much a run as a stagger across the back lawn towards the outbuildings. The Doctor pointed out where they were headed as they set off. As soon as they broke from the house, the villagers who had been heading away, round towards the commotion at the front of the house, turned and began to run towards the Doctor and his group.

The slow, lumbering run of the possessed villagers mirrored the stagger of the men dragging the container between them. Liquid was splashing out of it on to the lawn as they struggled on with it. The Doctor was hurling flasks and beakers into the early morning at what looked like random.

But almost all found their mark. Janet waited until she was closer, more certain of her targets.

Behind them they left a trail of groggy, kneeling people rubbing their eyes and looking confused. But still they were coming. They were pushing their way through a crowd now.

The Doctor had a beaker in his hand and was scooping liquid from the container and flinging it in a wide arc to try to clear a path through the sea of people in front of them. Janet joined him and they seemed to be succeeding. Rogers, almost exhausted from carrying the container, slipped on the wet gra.s.s, sank to his knees. The container started to tip.

At once the Doctor was there, dragging at the rope handle, pulling the container upright with one hand while pushing away a charging villager with another. Rogers managed to get up, to grab the handle again and resume his progress. They were almost there now.

Janet pulled open the door to the coach house. And as she did so, she caught sight of what was inside. And at last she understood what the Doctor was planning. She smiled thinly, waiting for the Doctor and the other two men to stagger in.

Then she slammed the door closed again, hearing a cry as someone was knocked flying.

'Right then.' The Doctor was immediately oblivious to the noise from outside, to the battering at the door and the shouts of the enraged villagers. His attention was completely focused on the next problem. 'Our challenge now,' he said, 'is to sling this bucket underneath. We need to be able to tip it, probably using one of the ropes.'

'We also,' Janet pointed out, 'need to get the helicopter out of this coach house. We can't take off in here. Can we?'

But any further discussion was cut short. The door of the helicopter was opened violently and suddenly, colliding with the side of Rogers's head as he reached under the fuselage. He gave a shout and went reeling, collapsing to the floor, stunned.

The other man backed away, his job only half completed.

From inside the helicopter jumped four people. Two were young men, fishermen, from the village. Then came Liz Trefoil. And finally, Peri.

The men were charging at the Doctor, arms out. One had a knife. Liz Trefoil stood beside the helicopter, her face contorted into a grin. Peri closed on Janet Spillsbury, her hands twisted into claws as she reached out.

Somehow the Doctor managed to avoid the knife and send the first of his attackers spinning into the second. They both collapsed in a heap. But after a moment they were rising to their feet again, coming at him again.

'You know you won't succeed,' the first man said. His voice was flat, dead.

'You can't succeed,' the second man added, his voice the same flat monotone as the first.

Behind them, almost casually, Liz Trefoil kicked out at the man backing away from the helicopter. Her foot caught him under the chin and sent him reeling into the shadows at the side of the coach house. 'There is no way you can ever succeed,' she said, as if continuing the same argument.

Peri had Janet by the hair, was dragging her head closer, ever closer to her extended fingers, aligning the eyes with her nails. 'Whatever you do,' Peri hissed, 'we shall still survive.

The rule of Mankind is over.'

The Doctor dived forwards, over the arms of the two men approaching him. He had his coat off, was waving it like a desperate bullfighter. As he rolled and flailed, his progress brought him to the helicopter. He turned to see Liz Trefoil's grinning macabre face close to his own. And he smiled back.

'Over for ever,' she said.

As she was speaking, the Doctor ducked away, flinging out his coat. The young woman flinched instinctively. But the coat was not thrown at her. It dipped into the container of liquid. The Doctor kept hold of the sleeve, letting the coat float for a moment on the surface of the viscous brew, then dragging it back. As he pulled it from the liquid, he flicked his wrist, and the coat whirled towards Liz, catching her across the face, spattering her in the liquid it carried in its wake.

She screamed, hands to face, twisting and turning away.

The two possessed men grabbed the Doctor from behind.

But he was struggling back into his coat now, and they grabbed him by the sodden sleeves. At once, both let go, staring at the yellowing stains on their palms, collapsing to their knees, Only Peri was left now. Her eyes were almost completely white as she let go of Janet's hair and pushed the woman roughly away. 'Our survival is all that counts,' she said as she stepped towards the Doctor. 'Everything else, everyone else can be sacrificed for that.' Then she was running at the Doctor, screaming, arms thrashing as she came at him.

He twisted away, the helicopter behind him. And at the last possible moment, dived aside.

Peri's momentum carried her forward, towards the aircraft.

She struggled to stop, but collided with the side of the container where it was pushed half under the belly of the helicopter. For several seconds she teetered, trying to retain her balance, arms working, swaying. But then the Doctor grabbed her legs and tipped her headlong into the viscous liquid.

'I don't think you can overdose on this stuff,' he muttered to himself as he pulled off his coat again and rolled up his sleeve. Then carefully, delicately, he reached into the murky depths and pulled Peri's head clear of the water. Her eyes and mouth were tight shut. She coughed once, then spluttered out a stream of the yellow goo before opening her eyes and staring in horror at the liquid. Her eyes were a sudden startling brown.

'Good,' the Doctor proclaimed, and let go of Peri. With a coughing splutter of surprise and indignation she disappeared beneath the surface of the liquid once more, before emerging again a moment later.

Janet was checking on Rogers. He was slumped against the wall of the coach house. 'I'm afraid he's out cold,' she told the Doctor.

'Ah,' said the Doctor thoughtfully. 'And I suspect you'll be telling me next that you can't actually fly this thing?'

She stared at him, mouth open. 'Is that why you brought me here with you, rather than sending me with the others?' she asked. 'In case something happened to Rogers? Because, no - I have no idea how to fly a helicopter.'

The Doctor nodded, sucking in his cheeks. 'Well,' he said slowly. 'It can't be that difficult. Can it?' He bent down to see how much progress they had made in attempting to sling the container beneath the helicopter's skids. 'I'm sure I've done it before,' he murmured.

The villagers fell back as the doors to the coach house creaked open. They stood, expectant, as the doors reached the limits of the hinges. Then they were crowding round, pushing their way inside.

But not for long. A young woman was striding towards them. She seemed almost to glow in the pale morning light.

The sun was rising over the back lawn of the Folly, glinting on her wet clothes and skin. Somehow sensing the danger of touching her, the villagers fell back slowly.

Behind Peri, the Doctor - helped by the recovered fishermen, Liz Trefoil and Janet - pushed the helicopter slowly and ponderously out of its hangar.

The villagers could see what was happening, and they evidently did not like it. Several ran forwards. But Peri was in their way, between them and the others, narrowing the angle.

As they touched her, they fell away, stained and coated by the liquid in which she was drenched. She turned for the briefest moment as she heard the door to the helicopter's c.o.c.kpit click open.

'This stuff had better wash off, Doctor,' she shouted at him as he disappeared inside the cabin.

Moments later the rotor blades swung slowly, noisily, into life, lifting as they rotated ever quicker. The nose of the helicopter dipped slightly, the tail lifting first. Then it was above Peri, the wind from the blades cutting through her, making her shiver. Drying the gelatinous clothes to her body.

Dispersing the liquid was simple in the event. As the helicopter swung back and forth, so the container beneath it swung, sloshing liquid over the side. As the container emptied, so the Doctor was forced to make ever more exaggerated manoeuvres to coax the liquid out.

But spill it did, and in a thick cloud. The liquid fell as droplets, mixing into the air and creating a colloidal yellow mist that sank slowly to the ground engulfing all beneath it.

The helicopter flew low over the line of villagers at the side of the house, banked over the group by the coach house. It swung past the frantic scramble at the front door of Sheldon's Folly. The Doctor caught sight of Christopher Sheldon waving like a tourist to him. He saw Bob Trefoil struggle to stand up again amidst a group of collapsing villagers as the mist around him thinned and dispersed. He saw Peri sitting cross-legged outside the coach house staring down at her sodden clothes.

All round the house, villagers were collapsing to their knees, keeling over. Then slowly, as if in a dream, they were pulling themselves up again and staring about in disbelief and confusion as the helicopter whirled and circled above them like an avenging angel.

The Doctor brought the helicopter round for another pa.s.s.

Not because it was necessary, but because it was fun.

It reminded Peri of their first night in Dorsill. The venue was the same, and the people were largely the same. Only the atmosphere was different. The pub was full, packed with laughing people. There were a few people missing, of course.

Most notably Mike Neville, though Peri could not honestly say she was very sorry about that. And Dave Madsen.

No one said anything. It was not the time. But Liz Trefoil struggled to smile, pushing her red hair away from her brave, freckled face. This was a rebirth, a point of evolution not regression. Time for tears and memories later. For the moment, her father enclosed her at regular intervals in a huge bear hug before sending her off on minor errands or to refill gla.s.ses.

The Doctor was at the bar, holding forth noisily about the evils of technology and how he envied the islanders their isolation from both people and things. He and Janet had been working with Christopher Sheldon for most of the day, distilling gallons more of the yellowish liquid and then using an improved version of the plastic container to spray it out over the islands from the helicopter. Now the Doctor was noisily confident that every piece of ground had been covered.

Certainly everywhere seemed to be stained sickly yellow and was tacky to the touch.

'But it'll soon wash away,' the Doctor promised. 'Rain, mist, fog...You have plenty of all of them. Just a matter of time.' He smiled at Peri. 'Like so many things,' he added softly. And she smiled back.

Sir Anthony, as everyone now knew him, had spent hours on his mobile phone organising all sorts of people and things, explaining away the failure of the experiment, the sad loss of Logan Packwood. Hilly Painswick was chatting noisily to the Reverend Parker while Miss Devlin listened and sniffed nearby. Old Jim sat alone in a corner, puffing on his pipe and watching everything with a creased expression of wry amus.e.m.e.nt.

Christopher Sheldon had given up trying to convince anyone that he was not responsible really for saving the islands from the developers, and now he accepted the acclaim with patient resignation. As he held up his hand to stem the flow of praise and advice from Mrs Tattleshall, Peri noticed that the middle finger had never grown completely back. It stopped just shy of the nail. As she stared at him across the crowded room, Sheldon caught her eye and smiled at her. She smiled back, and pushed her way to the bar towards the noise of the Doctor.

'Are they really free of it?' Peri asked quietly as they slipped out of the back door just after midnight.

Most of the villagers were tired, their bodies worn out from fighting against the alien material within them, and had drifted off home at around the usual closing time. A strange reversion to normality.

'Oh I think so.' The Doctor took a deep breath of the cold, misty night air. 'There have been no supply boats for a few weeks. Not even the mail boat got through because of the fog between here and the mainland. The islands are pretty much doused now. If we missed anything, it will pick up the cure through the food chain or the water just as it was originally infected.' He paused beneath a gas lamp and turned to look back along the misty village street.

They pa.s.sed the church and the quay in silence, walking briskly to keep warm. It took them nearly an hour to get back to the TARDIS. It almost glowed through the gathering fog as they approached. In the distance they could hear the sea crashing on the rocky coast of the island. Like when they had arrived. It seemed an age ago.

'Oh no!' the Doctor exclaimed as he inserted the key in the lock.

'What?'

He pulled his hand away from the TARDIS door. It was stained yellow. 'Sticky,' he complained. 'How very tiresome.'

'So we really did get everything,' Peri said. 'You can hardly complain. It's your own fault, after all.'

'It'll wash off in the vortex.' The Doctor made to wipe his fingertip on her nose, and Peri ducked out of reach with a laugh. As she moved, she caught sight of a pair of birds - seagulls - perched on the outstretched limb of a nearby tree, silhouetted black against the grey of the misty night. For a moment, just a moment, she felt a sudden pang of fear.

But the Doctor was already holding the door to the TARDIS open and ushering her inside.

'No,' he said as she pa.s.sed him and he caught sight of her anxious expression, 'there's no way that any infection could have escaped from the islands. I'm sure of that.'

'Good,' she said. 'That's good.' She nodded as she headed across the console room and towards her bedroom. 'Good night, Doctor. And thanks,' she added.

'Thank you, Peri,' he said softy as the door closed behind her. Then he flung his coat across the console with an exaggerated gesture, clapped his hands together grandly and set to work at the controls. He froze in mid-stretch for a lever as a thought occurred to him. 'Oh no,' he said with annoyance.

'I forgot to ask the date.'

As the yellowish blue shape of the TARDIS became misty and faded into the echoing fog, a pair of seagulls rose from the branches of a nearby tree. They turned their pale eyes towards the sound of the sea, and set off through the thickening night towards the mainland.

About the Author.

Justin Richards has written over a dozen novels as well as articles, audio plays and some non-fiction. In the past, he has worked variously as a technical writer, editor and book designer, fiction editor, software architect, business strategist for a multinational corporation, and an odd job man at a hotel for postmen.

In an obvious career progression, he now acts as Range Consultant for the BBC Worldwide Doctor Who series. He is registered as an inventor in the European Union and also has patents registered in the USA and j.a.pan.

Justin is married with two children, the older of whom wants to be just like dad when he grows up - playing with computers and watching television.

In his spare time, he... Sorry, in his what?