Doctor Who - The Colony Of Lies Part 2

The major was sitting at his desk, studying a screen.

"Exited from hypers.p.a.ce without incident," she reported.

"Excellent, excellent," replied the major without looking up from the screen.

Veena stood to attention, waiting for further orders. Major Cartor was an Earth-born man twice her age. Broad-shouldered and bull-necked, he looked solid, as if made from some kind of granite. He came from a military family, a long line of marines and grunts, but he had been the first to achieve officer status. A soldier through and through, he was happier planning strategy and campaigns than in the more prosaic civilian activities he was required to carry out on board the Hannibal. Hannibal. One of the things he particularly hated was the long, detailed and very boring briefing doc.u.ments sent to him from Federation Central. One of the things he particularly hated was the long, detailed and very boring briefing doc.u.ments sent to him from Federation Central.

"Any further contact from the colonists who requested our help?" he asked.

Veena shook her head. "Nothing sir. No contact from the planet at all."

"Well, there won"t be, will there, from the main mob? No technology and all that... Isn"t that their thing?"

Veena fought to stop herself sighing. Cartor was a good commanding officer but he did have a tendency to see everything in monochrome.

"Not exactly. The colony was founded on the principles of the Back to Basics Back to Basics Movement," she explained. Movement," she explained.

"Which eschews all modern technology, right?"

It was clear to Veena that Cartor had failed to read the full briefing doc.u.ment on this one.

"The Back to Basics Back to Basics movement believes that we"ve come to rely on technology too much, that we"ve forgotten how to live." movement believes that we"ve come to rely on technology too much, that we"ve forgotten how to live."

Veena could see incredulity building on her commander"s face and pressed on before he could make any inane comment. "But they"re not proposing living like cavemen.

They believe in making maximum use of natural and sustainable resources, and using simple technology."

"How simple is simple?" demanded Cartor. "The Romans had central heating, didn"t they?"

"There is no absolute, of course; it"s all relative. But in this case the founding fathers took a precedent. They decided that it was in the twentieth century that technology got out of control, so they drew a line in the sand well before that.

Influenced by the pioneers of the Old West, they decided they should build this colony using the same resources and technology available to the settlers back then."

Cartor raised his eyes to the heavens. "So what have we got here - cowboys and crukking Indians?"

Veena allowed herself a smile - she was fairly certain he was joking.

"Perhaps - but which is which: the so-called Realists who called us in or the Loyalists playing at "Little House on the Prairie"?"

Cartor frowned, not understanding the reference. Typical, thought Veena, he"s probably never read a work of fiction in his life.

Cartor sighed. "Looks like we"re going to have to go in and knock some heads together."

"Don"t we always, sir? Veena smiled.

In her experience, the far frontier colonies tended to be like children, needing the authority figure of the Support Ship to turn up now and again to bring them into line. Intergalactic social workers, that"s what we are, she thought, but she kept the thought to herself; it wasn"t a self-image Cartor would be able to relate to.

"You had better get the medics to wake our guest," he ordered. Veena frowned. She had been aware that they had taken a pa.s.senger on board at their last port of call, but since he had been immediately placed in suspended animation, she had expected him to remain on ice until their scheduled return to Earth towards the end of the year. "His stop already?" she found herself asking, unable to keep the curiosity out of her voice.

"You might say that," Cartor answered her, keeping his cards close to his chest. "No doubt he"ll explain everything when he awakes." With that Cartor turned back to his work, dismissing Veena. Annoyed at his unwillingness to share what he knew, Veena saluted, turned on her heel and left.

Billy Joe didn"t know how long he had slept but if the aches in his shoulders were anything to go by it had been some time. He sat up and began ma.s.saging the backs of his calves; it felt like his muscles had been replaced with rocks. Why had he woken up now? Everything was as it had been when he"d fallen asleep; it was just as dark and cold (though not as dark and cold as it would have been out in the open, of course) and the steady drip, drip of water finding its way thought the broken decks of the s.p.a.ceship was still the only sound to be heard. So why had he woken so suddenly, so absolutely? He"d always had a very developed antic.i.p.atory sense - not precognitive or any or that paranormal rubbish but just gut feeling - an early warning sign that something was just about to happen. It had happened when he"d broken his leg falling from a horse, when his grandpa had first taught him to ride, and again on that dark day, just before his father had been killed. On both of those occasions, however, he"d been unable to act upon the sense of warning; it had only been afterwards that he could even articulate his strange feeling. Today, however, would be different. He didn"t know why the hairs on the backs of his hands were standing up stiffly but he was not going to be taken by surprise again; this time he was ready.

He got to his feet, his aches forgotten now, and he looked around, trying to pierce the gloom to see precisely what was surrounding him. He was in a relatively flat part of the ship, where a dozen decks had concertinaed on one side but not the other. It was deep inside the wreck, well away from any of the gaping holes in the fabric of what remained of the hull.

But, he realised with a sudden leap of his heart, there was a breeze. An impossible but unmistakeable breeze. No, more than a breeze: this was a wind, a full-blown wind, but inside, deep inside. How could that be? And now it was stronger still, a veritable tornado and then the noise sounded. Billy Joe slammed his hands over his ears as the aural a.s.sault increased in volume. A screeching, groaning, alien noise: the trumpeting of a hundred elephants, the moans of an army of the living dead. If there had been anywhere to run, Billy Joe would never had stayed put, but as it was, he had to settle for seeking cover. He took the best and nearest opportunity he had and dived behind the couch that he had used for a bed. The noise was now accompanied by a strange blue light that waxed and waned, flashing around the room like a nightmare lighthouse beacon, and then - as suddenly as it had started - the noise and light show stopped with a resounding, reverberating series of thumps.

All was silent. Gingerly Billy Joe poked his head above the back of the couch and was astonished to see that, a few feet from his hiding s.p.a.ce, something had appeared from nowhere. It appeared to be a ma.s.sive blue box, over two metres tall, with the words "Police Public Call Box" written on it.

Mouth hanging open, Billy Joe looked at the impossible craft in amazement, not daring to move. How long he stood there, frozen to the spot, he never knew; perhaps it was hours or merely seconds, but it certainly felt like an eternity.

Billy Joe"s mind raced with possibilities, his imagination running ahead of him and finding scores of scenarios that ended with him being blasted from existence by some hidden horror from within the blue box. Then, finally, after the moment of infinity had pa.s.sed, the hairs on the back of Billy Joe"s neck stood on end as, slowly, a door on one side of the box began to swing open.

The image on the scanner could not have been more unpre-possessing if it had tried. All Zoe could make out in the general darkness was a plain metallic-looking wall.

"It"s a s.p.a.ceship," she announced, unable to keep a sigh out of her voice. "Or a s.p.a.ce station."

"Och, well, there"s a surprise," muttered Jamie from the far side of the six-sided console. "And no doubt there"s a whole horde of monsters lurking just out of sight, ready to jump on us as soon as we step out o" the TARDIS." Jamie was dressed, as usual, in his kilt, his ever-ready skein dhu slipped into his knee-length socks.

Zoe turned from the scanner and smiled at Jamie; he clearly shared her lack of enthusiasm at their new landing site. Perhaps they could persuade the Doctor not to explore for once: they could out-vote him two to one. Not that the TARDIS was run on democratic lines; this s.p.a.ce/time ship had but one Captain, and even he didn"t always seem to have much control over the vessel"s journeys. Zoe had a sudden flash of inspiration; the key to getting the Doctor to do what they wanted was to make him think it was his idea. All they had to do was hijack his natural enthusiasm and apply it to the notion of leaving immediately without exploring. But how? Zoe hadn"t yet found an answer to that when the door to the TARDIS interior opened and the man himself - if indeed he was a man; Zoe had her doubts on the matter - emerged, brandishing what appeared to be a small chocolate bar in one hand. The confectionery was partly eaten and a smear of brown around the Doctor"s mouth told the rest of the story. Zoe wondered for a split second whether the Doctor on a chocolate high was more or less likely to be manipulated into a speedy exit.

"Doctor," she began, "you"re right -" but before she could finish her sentence the Doctor had interrupted her.

"Right? Of course I"m right. That food machine has to go.

Taste this."

He waved the remains of the snack bar in the direction of Zoe who rapidly raised her hands and shook her head. The Doctor turned to Jamie who was already reaching for the bar.

"Aye, I"m famished," said Jamie, taking the proffered bar and devouring it in two quick bites. Almost immediately a pained expression came over his face as he screwed his features up in disgust.

"What the devil is this?" he exclaimed.

"Strawberry jam and peanut b.u.t.ter!" explained the Doctor simply.

"But that"s a horrible combination!" Jamie complained.

The Doctor was nodding in agreement. "Terrible, terrible.

Like I said, that food machine has got to go. I"ll have to open up one of the galleys. I think there"s one a floor or two below..." He paused, thinking. "Or maybe above. Never mind, I"m sure we"ll find it." The Doctor looked around the console room with a critical eye, as if weighing up a spot of redecoration. "You know, I always fancied a kitchen area in here, somewhere to make a nice cup of cocoa.. Maybe one day..." he trailed off, then suddenly seemed to become aware of the scanner, displaying the gloomy view outside the ship.

"Oh my, have we landed? I hadn"t noticed." The Doctor, all thoughts of food, kitchens and redecorating gone from his mind, hurried to the console to check the readings.

Zoe and Jamie exchanged a quick anxious glance. It was now or never.

"Actually, Doctor, I was just saying you were right... in what you said the other day. About our next stop."

"Our next stop?" questioned the Doctor, not looking up from the dials he was scanning.

"Yes," Zoe continued, gathering in confidence. "You were saying we needed some fresh air, some countryside, a bit of sunshine... Anything but another s.p.a.ce station, that"s what you said. Isn"t that right, Jamie?"

Jamie was frowning, trying to recall a conversation that had never taken place.

"I don"t remember th- ," he began before Zoe quickly cut him off.

"Of course you do." She shot him a significant look and wiggled her eyebrows and was relieved to see the penny drop.

"Oh aye, that"s right, Doctor. You said you"d find us somewhere to remind me of the Highlands."

"Did I?"

Zoe wasn"t sure whether the Doctor was buying this or not.

She made a "go on" sign at Jamie, who floundered for a moment and then continued.

"You said you"d find us somewhere to relax, with plenty of sun, the great outdoors, plenty of peace and quiet."

"Like this?" asked the Doctor. Jamie and Zoe looked at him and found that he was waving in the direction of the scanner.

The Doctor was adjusting a k.n.o.b that seemed to control the camera" that fed the scanner; the display now showed another section of the grey corridor but one with a great tear in the fabric, beyond which a vast expanse of spa.r.s.ely gra.s.sed plain was visible. Even in the black and white of the monitor the gleaming sun could be seen reflecting off small lakes. It was as tranquil a view as Zoe or Jamie could hope to see. In unison they both sighed. The Doctor turned to them both, steepling his hands and grinning with his regular enthusiasm.

"Shall we explore?" he suggested. And without waiting for an answer he reached for the door-opening control.

Billy Joe watched with fascination as three people emerged from the dark box. How was it possible for the three of them to have been inside in any kind of comfort, he wondered?

Come to that, how was it possible for the box to appear out of thin air? Somehow he had managed to get his reluctant limbs to move and while the door had slowly opened, Billy Joe manoeuvred himself behind the seating area in the mess hall.

Now, lying flat on the ground, he could see three pairs of feet.

Although he couldn"t see the rest of their bodies Billy Joe was fairly sure the new arrivals were human. One pair of feet was shod in st.u.r.dy-looking boots and thick woollen socks. The three or four inches of hairy leg that he could see above this suggested both that the creature was male and that he didn"t appear to be wearing trousers. The second pair of feet was much smaller and delicate, suggesting a woman, an impression confirmed by the style of the shoe, a silver-coloured boot in soft leather with small, elevated heels. The final newcomer wore rather battered brown suede shoes that looked as if they had been worn for years and bore the scars of frequent repairing. The bony ankles of this man - if indeed it was a man - were clad in mismatched socks, one a dark shade of blue and the other sporting the image of a purple cartoon dinosaur, and the legs were dressed in slightly baggy checked trousers. Billy Joe listened with amazement as they began to speak in his own language.

"Well, now, this is interesting..." The voice was low and somehow friendly, full of an inexhaustible pa.s.sion for new experiences. By the sound alone Billy Joe thought he would like the owner of this voice. "Jamie, Zoe, come over and take a look at this."

Billy watched No Trousers and Silver Boots cross to join Odd Socks. Neither name was familiar to Billy but Jamie sounded a little like James, a name that had been popular among Gen-One parents for their sons, so Billy decided that No Trousers must be Jamie. He wondered what the third character"s name was but he didn"t have to wait long.

"What is it, Doctor?" A girl"s voice - Zoe, Billy Joe a.s.sumed.

She sounded pretty and Billy Joe flushed at the thought.

There were only two girls in Plymouth Hope anywhere near his age and neither Betsy-Ann Cahill nor Wendy McKinnock had ever shown any interest in him, leaving Billy Joe severely restricted in his emotional development when it came to relationships with the opposite s.e.x. Nevertheless, he felt instinctively that he would be able to talk to Zoe.

"You can get a better view from here, see..." he heard the Doctor say.

"I was right - it is a s.p.a.ceship." exclaimed Zoe.

"More like a wreck of one, if you ask me," muttered a new voice gruffly. This must be Jamie, thought Billy Joe, marvelling at the newcomer"s unusual accent.

"You"re right there, Jamie," said the Doctor. "I"d say we were in the remnants of some kind of colony ship that had a bit of a crash landing. I wonder if any of the colonists survived?"

Billy Joe very nearly jumped up to answer in the affirmative but although their voices sounded friendly he couldn"t forget the amazing manner of their arrival. For all he knew they could be allies of the Realists. Or representatives of the Federation; maybe even Earth Gov officials. He dared not reveal himself until he knew more about them. The trio of newcomers was examining a schematic of the ship that the girl, Zoe, had managed to locate on a bulkhead. Taking his chance, Billy Joe began to move, crawling backwards and then sideways like a crab, until he was around a corner and able to get to his feet. Moving as stealthily as he could, he hurried away from the newcomers, not noticing that he was heading deep into the wreck, deeper than he had ever been before.

Thirty kilometres away from the crash site, in the shadow of a mountain range to the south of Plymouth Hope, a ramshackle collection of prefab buildings and survival shelters formed the only other human settlement on the planet. Constructed almost entirely from materials stolen from the parent colony, the Realists" Base didn"t even have a name. The Realists just called it Home". The Loyalists, if they could ever find it, would have other words for it. Amid the prefabs that made up the base the crumbling ruins of an earlier settlement could just be seen, poking through the dusty soil like teeth emerging from a gum.

Hali Devine carefully rea.s.sembled her replica-41 calibre Colt Lightning, having spent the last half hour oiling and cleaning it. She loaded six bullets into the chamber and slipped the gun into her holster. She wished she had an energy weapon rather than this brutal instrument; a weapon that could be adjusted merely to stun rather than one that would tear into flesh reeking b.l.o.o.d.y havoc. Of course it was all Ransom"s fault, as with everything that was wrong with life on this G.o.dforsaken colony. According to the rules of Back Back to Basics, to Basics, an energy weapon was considered a high-tech product and thus banned, whereas the simplistic, mechanical and, in Hali"s opinion, unsubtle Colt revolver was an acceptable alternative. Not that Ransom had envisaged a life of constant warfare on his perfect colony world, but the cursory results of the Planetary Survey Probe, which he had consulted when deciding on his target planet, had alerted him to the presence of native wildlife from which the colonists might need to protect themselves. an energy weapon was considered a high-tech product and thus banned, whereas the simplistic, mechanical and, in Hali"s opinion, unsubtle Colt revolver was an acceptable alternative. Not that Ransom had envisaged a life of constant warfare on his perfect colony world, but the cursory results of the Planetary Survey Probe, which he had consulted when deciding on his target planet, had alerted him to the presence of native wildlife from which the colonists might need to protect themselves.

Hali checked her watch and, slipping her jacket on, hurried out of the building. Over by the corral, where the Realists"

precious quartet of horses was held, Hali could see her three companions were already waiting for her. Like Hali, the trio was dressed in dark, tight-fitting clothing. The largest man wore a wild bushy ginger beard, perhaps grown as compensation for his shiny bald pate. The second man was darker-hued and diminutive; his dark eyes darted all over the place, missing nothing. The third waiting figure was female, like Hali, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Hali was tall and thin, Saro was short and thick-set; Hali"s hair was blonde and cut in a sensible bob, Saro wore her dark hair shaved at a length of a few millimetres.

"Are we doing this or what?" asked the darker-skinned man as Hali arrived.

"All in good time, Chamick," she said tartly, as she joined the trio. Chamick was young and impetuous; his energy was undeniable but he was given to overenthusiasm and needed to be reined in.

"Remember, we need food more than anything else on this raid," she said to the group in general. "In and out as quick as possible and let"s try to avoid any fighting."

"If they start shooting I"m not leaving my gun in its holster,"

Chamick began hotly.

"If we do this right they won"t even know we were there,"

rumbled the big bearded man, Gathan. Chamick looked up into the face of the older man and, seeing his expression, decided to avoid further comment. He turned back to Hali, who was now putting a saddle on to one of the horses, a well-built chestnut mare.

"We do need some electrical bits and pieces too. If I"m to improve our signal..." Chamick was a bit of a techie and was responsible for the group"s slightly ropey communications equipment.

"Why not use some from the alien bunker?" suggested Gathan. Chamick shook his head firmly. "It"s not compatible technology," he explained ."Maybe given time to study it... But we don"t have the time do we?"

"Anyway," added Saro with a grin, Max would never let you take anything from his find in a million years. Not until he"s finished with it."

Hali nodded, as she mounted her horse. "Max does rather treat that thing as his own special project.

"I don"t know how you put up with it," grinned Saro as she hoisted herself into the saddle of her own horse.

"Actually, we"d better check in on Max before we go. In case he has anything to add to our shopping list," said Hali, leading the horse out of the corral.

"What, like a full First Contact lab, language a.n.a.lyser, bio-scanner, that kind of thing?" asked Chamick, a little sarcastically.

"Maybe not," replied Hali, grinning.

When they reached the entrance to the caves a few minutes later, the quartet found Max"s horse wandering around looking lost, the rope that had tied him to a tree trailing behind him. Throwing her own reins to Saro, Hali had quickly dismounted, recaptured Max"s horse and found a more secure place to tie him. "Max Forde might be a master of a dozen scientific disciplines but he can"t tie knots to save his life," she commented. "Anyone else coming in to see Max"s toy?" she asked, but the other three shook their heads, maybe a little too quickly. Hali couldn"t blame them, the pa.s.sageway through the rock was both dark and cold and although it started out in quite a large cave, it rapidly became little more than a tunnel. No one in their right mind would ever have explored it for fun, but Max had been on the trail of a faint electro-magnetic signal and had hardly been aware of his surroundings. Although the last fifty metres or so were traversable only on all fours, all thoughts of discomfort had evaporated once he reached the metal hull of the alien bunker.

Max had a theory that the aliens" settlement had been wiped out by some conflict or natural disaster and the survivors had retreated to the bunker. Exactly how long ago this had all happened was still a subject of some dispute - the ruins were clearly ancient but, by contrast, the materials in the bunker were very well preserved.

Since he first discovered the bunker, Max had tried to make the approach to it slightly easier to navigate, but he had been limited by the fact that using explosives might damage the whole cave system. He had managed to persuade some of the men at the Realist camp to aid him with picks and shovels but they had quickly grown uninterested in the manual labour. As one volunteer had put it, "This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to get away from at Plymouth Hope!"

As she reached the bunker, and the crude entrance hatch Max had cut with the last power pack they had for their solitary energy weapon, Hali pulled out her communicator.