Doctor Who - The Colony Of Lies Part 17

Max reached out a hand to help Jamie past a section of the path, which circled a large, deep cavern. Jamie"s boot dislodged a rock, which fell, bouncing off the walls, and broke into smaller pieces. It was a long time before they heard it stop.

"Long way down," commented Max. "That"s why I went looking for an easier path. But if we"re to get to the base before the Tyrenian we need this short cut. Step carefully there."

Jamie did as he was told and crept along the path, which had become little more than a narrow ledge. He was quite relieved to reach the fir side of the cavern and return to a slightly more stable pathway.

"What I found was this bunker. I think the aliens - the Tyrenian"s - must have established this as their initial base when they first landed. When whatever disaster devastated their settlement, the survivors retreated here. Unfortunately.

The whole mountain is a little unstable now; still, if it shifts we won"t know much about it, eh?" Max laughed. Jamie didn"t rate his sense of humour much.

"Here we are, then," announced Max, as they came to a slightly open area. Jamie realised with a start that part of the floor of this cavern was grey metal not rock.

"We"re on to the roof of the bunker here. The other entrance I use comes in lower and I"ve managed to extend a tunnel to one of the complex"s airlocks, but up here we need to go in through a service hatch that I found..."

Max began to walk across the flat roof of the bunker, his footsteps echoing on the metallic surface and reverberating around the cavern.

"Shouldn"t we be a bit quieter?" asked Jamie, worried.

"That creature won"t have reached here yet," Max told him confidently. "Who"s to hear us?"

Twenty feet below them Lorvalan stood in a corridor listening to the echoing footsteps above. He reached for his gun and began to follow the sounds.

Federation s.p.a.cecraft now surrounded the Realists" tiny settlement. Two more giant shuttles had landed and disgorged streams of marines in full battle-armour. It looked like the preparations for a war. Hali didn"t like it one bit. With Max and Jamie gone on their secret mission, and Zoe having disappeared with Veena and Billy Joe in the small fighter craft, Hali was feeling very alone and isolated. The rest of the Realists were milling around the settlement, all normal activities having been suspended. Everything seemed to be in limbo; everyone was waiting to see what would happen next.

Hali decided to find out from the horse"s mouth. She sought out Major Cartor.

She found him sitting in his makeshift office in a duplicate field command base, the twin of the one that had been established fifty miles north at Plymouth Hope. Here he was orchestrating the forthcoming military action. "What exactly are you planning to do?" Hali demanded. Cartor looked up from his plans, unimpressed at her att.i.tude.

"That"s cla.s.sified, ma"am," he told her.

"I need to know. We need to know. Our people are confused.

We asked for help to secure the future of the colony; now it looks like you"re here to start a war."

"We are securing your future, believe me. And the first step is to remove the alien menace."

"Remove?" Hali wanted that term explained.

"My troops will go in, find the aliens" base and deal with it.

L and D. Locate and Destroy."

"But..." Hali stopped herself. She was thinking of Max and Jamie but couldn"t say anything to Cartor.

"But what?"

"Nothing," she said lamely. She headed for the door.

"Oh, Ms Devine?" Cartor called, without looking up from the map he was now studying again. "Have you seen Mr Forde or the boy Jamie recently?"

"No," Hali lied smoothly, "no, I haven"t. Why?"

"Just wondering. I wouldn"t want anyone to get in our way.

They might get hurt."

It was no good; Hali could see that he knew or at least suspected the truth. She sighed and turned back to face him.

"Actually, they are already at your prime target."

Now she had Cartor"s attention.

"What?"

"The aliens have a base, a kind of bunker, in the cave systems. You can get to it through the mountain. But it"s not suitable for your troops."

"I"ll be the judge of that. Why didn"t he tell us? Is he in league with these aliens?"

"Of course not." Hali was affronted at the suggestion.

Cartor didn"t look convinced. "This changes everything." He shouted for an orderly. "We"re moving out. Now," he ordered, before shooting another furious look at Hali. "Before the locals screw things up," he concluded.

The Doctor and Kirann jumped down from the buggy. They had reached the sh.o.r.es of a large lake. The mountains stretched up from the fir side of the water.

"I thought you said the trail was heading towards those mountains?" she said, confused as to why he had recently changed the direction in which they were heading.

"The trail we were following is going that way but I started to get another signal - a much stronger signal."

Kirann looked around - all she could see was the blue water of the lake and the wild countryside around it. Nothing that looked like it might be sending out any energy signal.

"Where"s it coming from, then?" she asked, finally having scanned the horizon thoroughly.

The Doctor answered her question with one of his own.

"Does anything strike you as odd about this lake?"

Kirann cast her eyes over the lake. Its deep blue colour suggested that it was deep but the water was calm. The air above the lake shimmered slightly in the heat of the sun but that wasn"t particularly odd. She shrugged, unable to answer the Doctor"s question.

"What about the birds?" he prompted. Kirann looked again but no, she hadn"t missed anything. "There aren"t any birds,"

she remarked impatiently. The Doctor smiled. "Exactly, but look over there, or there..." He pointed out towards the mountains and then back the way they had come across the plain, which was dotted with the occasional tree. In both areas birds could be seen going about their business: feeding, nesting. Kirann had not really had a chance to notice the local wildlife yet and hadn"t registered them.

"So - there are birds on this planet but not over the lake.

What does that prove?"

The Doctor crouched down and started sc.r.a.ping in the earth. Eventually he found what he was looking for: a small flat-bottomed stone. He pulled his arm back and sent the stone skimming across the water. It bounced three times and then sank. The Doctor pouted, disappointed. He found a second stone and repeated the action. This time the stone bounced four times and then it fell abruptly with a loud clanging sound.

The Doctor got to his feet, smiling in triumph "There"s something in there. Something big. We just can"t see it," he announced.

"How do we get on board something we can"t see?" asked Kirann, practical as ever.

The Doctor chewed his lip, thinking. "I wonder..." he mused.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked to Kirann like a small pen. He fiddled with the controls and then pointed it at the invisible ship.

"All I need to do," he muttered, almost to himself, "is cycle through the frequencies until I hit at the right one. Then I should be able to activate the air lock and..." Suddenly a rectangular hatch appeared in thin air and a walkway lowered, stretching from the doorway of the invisible object down to the edge of the lake.

"We don"t need to see the whole ship... just the way in, eh?"

he smiled, waving an arm in front of him. "Would you care to walk this way?"

Kirann, shaking her head in disbelief, started to walk up the gangway.

Jamie dropped down into the gloomy interior of the alien bunker. Max was already ahead of him, looking to find a way to more familiar parts of the complex. Max beckoned him on to a lift shaft where he pointed out handholds that they could use to climb down. It was a bit of a stretch - the Tyrenians were, on average, a little taller than humans - but Max and Jamie managed to use the ladder without too many problems.

At the bottom of the shaft they prised open a pair of doors and found themselves close to the area that Max knew best: the Tyrenian equivalent of a cryogenic chamber.

"This is where I first saw one of the creatures," he told Jamie as they entered the outer room. "They use some other animal to help them achieve what we achieve with extreme cold: a complete slowing down of all life processes. It"s quite remarkable."

"Aye, I"m sure it is..." Jamie was looking around the chamber. The three primary cabinets were all empty. A tank at the side of the room was filled with the parasitic creatures, swimming octopus style in the murky water. Beyond the first three cabinets were three rows of five similar cabinets. Jamie moved over to look at these but they were still sealed with heavy lids. It was impossible to see what might be inside.

Jamie fiddled with the catch of one - trying to force the locked lid.

"Can you give me a hand with this?" he called across to Max, who was happily looking into the empty cabinets. Max looked up and saw what Jamie was trying to do. He hurried across to help. Together they managed to shift the catch and began to force up the heavy lid. As it opened they were able to peer inside and were shocked to see that it was empty.

Jamie felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle and it was just enough warning to save his life. He heard an angry, throaty roar and felt the air move as something hurled itself at him. He dived to the side just in time to avoid the blow; Max was less lucky. Rolling to his feet, Jamie could see a red splash of blood fly through the air and Max falling backwards. Over him stood the figure of one of the aliens.

But there was something different about this one, Jamie realised. His uniform was ripped and torn, his eyes wild, his mouth drooling. There was no intelligence in this face, just raw, animalistic rage.

Dyselt stood over the human and raised his arm to strike a second time.

Getting into the Tyrenian mother ship had been relatively easy, staying alive once inside had proved to be a good deal more difficult. The Doctor and Kirann had been attacked the moment they had reached the inner airlock door. The ship"s AI, not recognising them as authorised visitors, had attempted to trap them in the airlock and deprive them of oxygen.

"Don"t panic," the Doctor suggested but it was too late: Kirann was already fainting from the lack of oxygen. The Doctor hurriedly pulled a panel from the wall and tried to reprogramme the sensors. His eyes flickered as the oxygen level fell away, his fingers unable to maintain their grip on the sonic screwdriver. But his intervention had done the trick - air began to flood back into the chamber, as the AI now registered both of them as Tyrenian.

Recovering, the Doctor carried Kirann through the inner door into the corridor beyond and looked for somewhere to put her down. She began to stir and he laid her gently on the ground, supporting her head. Her eyelids flickered. "Gently does it now, Kirann. Nice easy breaths," he suggested.

Once again he was impressed at the physical resilience of the recently revived human. Within minutes she was sitting up and talking.

"What happened?" she asked.

The Doctor tried not to look too smug but failed miserably.

"I persuaded the ship"s computer that I was the captain."

"Aren"t you lacking a little bit of height and an awful lot of hair to pa.s.s as one of those things?" Kirann grinned.

"Luckily the AI doesn"t have any "eyes" as such..."

The Doctor helped Kirann to her feet and led the way down the corridor.

Kirann looked around her with amazement. It was clearly a large ship but there was no sign of occupation.

"So do you think this has been here since The Big Bang The Big Bang landed?" she asked the Doctor. landed?" she asked the Doctor.

"Perhaps. Maybe even longer."

"So where are the crew?"

The Doctor operated a door and they walked into a large room that was clearly the ship"s bridge. "Good question," he said, "Let"s ask the computer." The Doctor sat down in one of the chairs, and started to fiddle experimentally with the controls. Like everything in this ship the console was designed for the tall Tyrenians and the Doctor looked somehow childlike as he sat up in the giant chair and stretched to reach the keypads. Kirann watched, fascinated, as the Doctor worked his magic, patiently trying out various modes of attack until, as last, he sat back with a satisfied grin on his face.

"That should do it," he announced and then, in a slightly raised voice, he spoke again. "Computer?"

A voice, electronic but clearly based on the Tyrenian voice, filled the room. "Yes, Captain."

Kirann was impressed. She nodded encouragingly at the Doctor.

"Confirm mission status," the Doctor demanded.

And the computer told them everything they wanted to know.

A little over one hundred years ago the Tyrenian ship had landed on the planet with the intention of establishing a colony. The Tyrenians were homeless, the ship they had was stolen, and they had been searching for somewhere to call home for years. Axista Four seemed to be the answer to their quest.

They had deployed a series of satellites to ring the planet, establishing a planetary defence system to protect their fledgling colony. They had then landed their ship, cloaked, for extra security. The settlement itself had been built into the shadow of the mountains, using the natural caves. Deep inside the cave systems they had built a secure shelter, the bunker, a retreat in case of emergency.

The arrival of the humans had been that emergency. The automatic planetary defence system had done its job; it had reacted to the arrival of the humans" colony ship and fired on it, wounding the giant s.p.a.cecraft and causing it to crash into the planet"s surface.

The Tyrenians had reacted with caution. They were still weak after their years of homelessness and the majority of their numbers were still in Alisorti-a.s.sisted Deep Sleep.

Thousands of sleeping Tyrenians had already been transferred into the deepest parts of the bunker, to secure their safety. Now the arrival of the humans presented the Tyrenians with a dilemma: should they revive their full force in case of an attack, or wait and see what the humans would do if they survived?

The Doctor looked over at Kirann.

"Now we know what happened to the colony ship and why it was damaged in certain places; it was shot down," he commented.

Kirann nodded, looking pale. "Shot down by satellites placed by prior colonists. Which means that the Tyrenians were here first. We should never have landed here. We had no right." She looked shaken to the core. "The whole colony was built on a lie!"

Chapter Fifteen.

Zenig circled the lake. He had seen something catching the light on the far side of the water and had decided it warranted investigation. What he found was the buggy that the Doctor and Kirann had been using. Zenig sniffed the air and caught their scent. They had stood here next to the buggy for some time and then moved off, on foot, towards the water.