Doctor Who - The Colony Of Lies Part 3

Although no longer bound by the ridiculous Back to Basics Back to Basics ideology that so limited life for the Loyalists, they still found their cache of high technology was very limited. Each raid on the colony ship gave them more and more supplies but the results were extremely random. And the colony ship itself had never carried that much high technology on the orders of Ransom himself. Nevertheless, month by month, the Realists were getting hold of bits and pieces, although never the things they really needed like power generators or solar chargers. The communicators had small solar chargers built in but the power packs they charged were relatively tiny and consequently they avoided using them unless absolutely necessary. ideology that so limited life for the Loyalists, they still found their cache of high technology was very limited. Each raid on the colony ship gave them more and more supplies but the results were extremely random. And the colony ship itself had never carried that much high technology on the orders of Ransom himself. Nevertheless, month by month, the Realists were getting hold of bits and pieces, although never the things they really needed like power generators or solar chargers. The communicators had small solar chargers built in but the power packs they charged were relatively tiny and consequently they avoided using them unless absolutely necessary.

The alien bunker was nowhere near as big as the colony ship but it was still a sizeable complex and Max had not explored all of its many levels. Without arranging a rendezvous, Hali could have spent hours walking round the bunker looking for him.

When he bounded up a few minutes later she could see that he had made a new discovery. Max was a little older than Hali, in his mid-thirties. Tall and thin, he would have been good-looking if he"d made the effort, but he rarely did.

His sandy-coloured hair was sticking up in clumps as usual, and he had a couple of days" beard-growth on his chin.

"What have you found now?" she asked as he greeted her with a swift kiss on the cheek.

"I think I"ve worked out how their suspended animation works," he announced happily. "Come and see."

"Maybe later," suggested Hali, resisting his attempts to drag her down the corridor. "We"re going on a raid."

"Oh right. In that case can you try and get some chocolate?"

he smiled.

Hali returned the grin. "Like that is a priority?"

"Okay, then, at least let me tell you about my discovery..."

A few weeks earlier, while exploring, Max had discovered some survivors of the disaster that had befallen their predecessors. The aliens - Max hadn"t been able to identify the race - were lying in coffin-like cabinets in some kind of suspended animation. Max had been frustrated at his inability to study them fully, but had done his best with the scant resources he had at his disposal.

"I think the deep sleep they"re in is a sort of hibernation..."

he explained to Hali, unable to contain his enthusiasm.

"What, like bears?" Hali asked.

"No, not really. But it is organically maintained; that marking on their chests I noticed, I think it"s actually another life form, some kind of parasite. And I think it"s the parasite that"s keeping them alive," he told her.

"And if you remove the parasite," wondered Hali, "would they wake up or die?"

Max shrugged. "I really don"t know. If I could just get hold of a revival kit from the colony ship..."

Hali frowned, confused. "But we use a cryogenic system.

Surely it wouldn"t be compatible?"

"But I might be able to amend it. Can you look out for one?

Please, Hali, for me?"

"I"ll see what I can do," she a.s.sured him, "but food is the priority. The vegetables we"re growing are feeding more of the local insect population than any of us!"

She gave him a quick kiss and a hug, and headed back towards the surface.

"Be careful," he called after her, but she was already out of earshot, leaving Max with the echo of his own warning reverberating around the tunnel.

Chapter Three.

The four horses galloped across the plain, a ma.s.sive cloud of dust trailing behind them. Hali led them in an arc, taking them around the area of Plymouth Hope, well clear of the outlying farmsteads, and bringing her raiding party to the more exposed side of the crashed colony ship. At the forest they slowed their pace, allowing their steeds to find a safe way through the undergrowth and the trees. Occasionally they could hear noises of movement somewhere amongst the trees and Hali would hold out a hand, bringing their progress to a halt. The four of them would sit alert in their saddles, not daring to speak, the only sound the slightly laboured breathing of the horses. Then, when Hali was certain that they weren"t about to run into any Loyalists, they would resume their forward progress. Through the treetops, they began to get tantalising glimpses of the dark tower of metal that was the colony ship, each time seeming to loom larger over the thinning forest. After a while, Hali signalled for them all to dismount. Efficiently and without words, they fed and watered the horses and tethered them before beginning the final stage of their journey on foot. As they walked they began to find bits and pieces of debris, parts of the ship that had shorn off in the final destructive descent. At last, they reached the edge of the point of first impact, where the destruction of the trees began. Even now, a hundred years after the event, the natural habitat was struggling to rea.s.sert itself and the raiding party were now able to see their target, still half a mile away, at the end of the trail. Hali beckoned them on and, keeping to the shadows, they began to follow the line of destruction towards their target - the wreck of The The Big Bang. Big Bang.

What Hali and her companions didn"t know was that, for once, the colony ship was not entirely devoid of life. Deep in its dark depths, Billy Joe was looking for a way out and, not far away, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were engaged on a similar quest. The Doctor had popped back inside the TARDIS and emerged with a pair of torches, which he had handed to Zoe and Jamie. For himself, the Doctor had managed to locate a battered miner"s hat, complete with lamp, which to the astonishment of all three of the TARDIS crew, actually worked when the Doctor switched it on. The Doctor had then led the way, taking his friends into the lower decks.

"Do ye nae think we should be heading for the outside, Doctor?" enquired Jamie, pointing back towards the blue sky they had seen, which was no longer visible directly but which contributed to the light in the area they had left behind.

"I rather think that tear in the hull will be quite some distance from the ground, Jamie. And I don"t know about you but I don"t really fancy jumping from a great height."

"You think there might be a way out at ground level?" asked Zoe. The Doctor nodded.

"Put it this way, Zoe, I certainly hope so..." The Doctor turned to give her a rea.s.suring smile and continued on his way. There was a sudden gasp, the Doctor"s arms windmilled wildly and then he shot from view, like a cartoon character realising it has run beyond the edge of a cliff. "Oh my giddy aunt," exclaimed the Doctor, his voice echoing and diminishing at the same time. There was a m.u.f.fled crash and then silence. Zoe and Jamie exchanged anxious looks and then cautiously hurried forward as fast as they dared.

"Doctor, are you all right?" Jamie shouted, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice.

Relief washed over him a moment later as the Doctor"s voice floated up to him.

"Ah yes. Still in one piece, Jamie, thank you for asking. But step carefully up there, both of you, the floor"s not exactly stable."

Zoe and Jamie were both training their torch beams on to the floor just in front of them and could see the jagged edges of the hole through which the Doctor had fallen. Creeping further forward, they peered over the edge and were relieved to see the Doctor getting to his feet and brushing down his already shabby jacket. "Terribly dusty in here," they heard him mutter. Zoe had more practical issues on her mind.

"Doctor," she asked, "how are we going to get down there?"

Although the Doctor seemed to have survived a drop of some five metres without damage, Zoe rather doubted that she or Jamie would be so lucky. And although the TARDIS contained all manner of high-tech medical devices from many eras and locations, they wouldn"t be much help to them if they broke a limb here, floors below where they had left their craft. The Doctor had clearly been thinking along similar lines.

"There must be an emergency staircase or access shaft somewhere - maybe even a lift shaft you can climb down - see what you can find. But be careful, eh?

"Och, don"t worry about us. Just you stay where you are Doctor, and don"t go wandering off." Jamie indicated a direction to Zoe with his torch. "I"ll try this way, you go the other. Call me if you find something."

Zoe nodded and headed off in the opposite direction. She could recall, in perfect detail, the schematic they"d seen on the upper deck but didn"t want to tell Jamie that she knew exactly where the service shaft was until she was sure that it was unblocked by debris. She knew how much he hated it when she denied him the chance of a bit of exploring.

Jamie moved as quickly as was possible on the irregular terrain, letting the flashlight in his hand swing in a wide arc, illuminating as much of his path, and the immediate surroundings, as he could. Although concentrating on the job in hand, part of his mind was occupied with concern for the Doctor. Jamie trusted him implicitly and had travelled with him for what sometimes seemed like forever, but he could be incredibly frustrating. He certainly had a knack for getting into trouble, and dragging Jamie and Zoe into it as well. No doubt there would be more problems than just searching for a staircase before they would get safely back to the TARDIS - there always were. The thought of the many strange and fearful creatures he had encountered during his travels with the Doctor made Jamie suddenly very conscious of the dark areas beyond his torchlight. Was it his imagination or had he just heard a movement over to his right? It couldn"t have been Zoe - she was somewhere behind him. Was it just his mind playing tricks on him? And then he heard it again and when he swung his torch around in the direction of the noise he caught a fleeting glimpse of something moving. There, behind a pile of broken furniture...

"Come out, I know you"re there..." Jamie spoke boldly but his gut churned with fear. If it were a Cyberman or a Yeti he wouldn"t stand a chance. But during the split-second that he"d been able to see his stalker he hadn"t seen any silver or fur; if anything Jamie would have sworn it was a human he"d seen, and a young one at that. Perhaps the Doctor had been right - the would-be colonists who"d come to the planet in this s.p.a.cecraft might have survived.

"I won"t harm you," he promised.

He waited, keeping his torch trained on the area where he thought the stranger was hiding. Suddenly there was movement - but from a point some metres to the right. Jamie swung his torch again, and this time there was no doubt - a humanoid boy, a few years younger than Jamie, had emerged from cover and was running away as fast as he dared. Jamie realised that he must have crawled on his belly away from the point where he had first seen them until he dared get to his feet to run.

"Hey, no, wait..." he shouted after the fleeing boy but it was clear he wasn"t going to stop. Throwing caution to the wind Jamie began to run after him. If nothing else it was clear the boy knew his way around the wreck, perhaps he could help Jamie get to the Doctor.

Zoe"s arms ached. The metal ladder she had discovered was in an extremely dark, and very claustrophobic, tube. Unable to climb down and hold on to the torch, she had been forced to turn it off and had managed to secure it down the front of her jumpsuit. Now it was digging into her ribs in a very painful way but she didn"t have a hand free to adjust its position. She dare not take either hand off the ladder for fear of falling. It hadn"t been designed with someone of her stature in mind and each rung was a long way from the next.

For Zoe this meant an agonising climb dangling from each rung, stretching out her legs blindly for the next one she could step on.

When she"d discovered the access tube, she had tried calling Jamie but all she got in return was an echo of her own voice reverberating off the metal walls. It was a big ship and, if Jamie had gone as far as she had in the opposite direction, he could well be a hundred metres away by now, if not more. Zoe considered her options - what was the most logical plan of action? She had decided to check that the ladder actually took her somewhere before trying to find Jamie, a decision she was now regretting. She let go with her left hand, and let herself swing from her right, stretching her left leg down to where she knew the next rung had to be.

Pointing her toes she just made contact. Relieved, she let her weight down onto the new rung, grasped the side of the ladder with her left hand and relinquished the grip she had with her right hand. Her stomach lurched as the rung she"d just reached gave way under her weight and she plummeted down. Her hands, sweaty from the effort of the climb, were unable to keep their grip and she fell at least a metre before her descent was arrested. Breathing heavily Zoe locked her right arm round the nearest rung and reached for the torch with her free hand. When her trembling fingers had located the switch and turned on the beam she nearly laughed. She was at the bottom of the tube and there, right in front of her, his attention on something that she couldn"t yet see clearly, was the Doctor.

"Ah there you are, Zoe," said the Doctor, casually glancing back at her, as if he"d been expecting her all along. "Come and have a look at this..."

Billy Joe ran for his life, all the built-up tension and fear exploding into action. He did not really know why he was running, the man in the skirt with the strangely accented English didn"t seem particularly threatening, but the manner of his arrival had been so unusual (coupled with the fact that Billy Joe was somewhere he shouldn"t be), that had been enough to set him off. And now he had started to run he dared not stop. He could hear the stranger coming after him.

Billy Joe darted between the debris that filled the corridors, clambering over rickety piles of the stuff with reckless haste but, despite his best efforts, he could tell that he was failing to put any distance between himself and his pursuer. He glanced back to see exactly how far away Jamie was. His eyes had adjusted to the lack of light on this level by now and he was shocked to see the stranger only a few metres behind him. He turned back and scrambled up a fallen support beam that lay over a pile of debris. At the top his weight was sufficient to shift the balance of the beam on its fulcrum. He steadied himself with his arms outstretched and stepped forward tentatively. Like a primitive seesaw the beam shifted, and Billy Joe slid along what was now the down side. As he neared the bottom he cast caution to the wind and jumped forward only to find the floor giving way under him.

He had time for a startled cry and then he was falling.

Desperately he stretched his arms out and managed somehow to grab hold of the end of the steel beam that was now poking into the new hole he had just made. With a great effort he got a second hand on to the end of the beam and hung there for a moment. He didn"t dare look down; the broken pieces of floor had fallen for a good couple of seconds before he heard them impact on the ground below. His heart leapt into his mouth as a metallic sc.r.a.ping sound filled the air and he felt the beam begin to move. It was sliding, slowly but with increasing speed, into the abyss. Was his pursuer pushing it, intending to make him fall? A second later a man"s hand burst through the hole.

"Grab hold. I"ll pull you up," offered Jamie. Billy Joe hesitated, not sure whether he could trust him. The beam shifted again, lowering him further into the darkness and almost beyond the reach of his would-be rescuer"s hand. Billy Joe couldn"t be certain about the stranger but he could trust gravity; it wasn"t really a choice at all. He grabbed the man"s hand. Jamie was not a big man by any means but he was strong, and Billy Joe was wiry and lightly built; with a grunt or two Jamie was able to haul the boy up and out of the hole.

He scrambled on to safe ground as the steel beam hurtled past him into the darkness. A moment later a loud boom announced its landing below.

Still panting from his exercise, Billy Joe turned to look at his rescuer.

"I guess I owe you my life, stranger," he said.

Jamie was also breathless. "Don"t mention it," he gasped, self-deprecatingly.

Zoe was a little upset that the Doctor had shown so little interest in her well-being but she soon felt better when she saw why. The Doctor had found some kind of secure bulkhead, intact, and made of a more resilient metal than the rest of the s.p.a.ceship. Where most of the wreck was showing signs of the inevitable entropy, metal fatigue, rust and decay, this section was gleaming as if it were new. Zoe was reminded of the old joke about s.p.a.ce distress beacons: if they"re made of such indestructible material why don"t we use the same stuff to make the s.p.a.ceships?

The Doctor was exploring the surface of the bulkhead with his fingertips. "Can you feel it?" he asked Zoe in a fascinated tone, "I think these panels are more than just decoration, I think they"re doors."

"Doors to what?"

"I don"t know but I"ve seen their like before somewhere, if only I could remember. There"s something of the Tombs of Telos about them."

Zoe was immediately concerned. She had heard from Jamie all about the Doctor"s adventures on the Cybermen"s adopted planet. "You don"t think there are Cybermen behind there, do you?"

"Oh goodness me, of course not. What would Cybermen be doing on a ship like this? No, Zoe, I think there must be something else behind here, something that was important to the colonists but something they"ve managed to do without."

Zoe looked along the length of the shiny bulkhead - it disappeared into the distance in both directions. If these panels were doors then there were lots of them: maybe hundreds of them. What might they be concealing?

The Doctor had his hands pressed together, fingertip to fingertip, and the tip of his tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth, a sure indication that he was deep in thought about something. Zoe knew the signs well. The Doctor was weighing up the odds, battling with his incurable curiosity.

"Do you want to try and open it?" she asked, although she already suspected she knew the answer. The Doctor could no more resist a locked door than he could a nice cup of strong tea; however, on this occasion he surprised her.

"No," he said finally after a long pause. "No, I don"t think I do. Not yet. Let"s see if we can find out a little bit more about where we are first. Come on, I"m sure there must be some people here somewhere."

And with that the Doctor turned away from the bulkhead and started to look for an exit. The pa.s.sageway running along the front of the bulkhead disappeared into darkness in both directions but the Doctor thought he could see a faint glow of daylight from one end and began to lead the way.

Some hundred metres back in the other direction, Jamie and his new friend Billy Joe were just coming across the shiny bulkhead themselves. They"d found a twin to the service ladder Zoe had used earlier and had climbed down. Billy Joe dropped to the floor and found Jamie examining the unusually pristine section of wall.

"This disnae look as old as the rest of the place," he commented as Billy Joe joined him.

"I"ve never scanned it before," Billy Joe confessed, "I"ve never been this deep into the wreck. I don"t think anyone ever has."

Jamie frowned as a thought hit him. "You say this was the ship your people sailed in -" he stopped, seeing Billy Joe"s look of disbelief. I mean travelled in, to start this colony?" The boy nodded. "So why haven"t they stripped this whole place?

Surely all these materials could have been useful to them."

Billy Joe smiled wryly. "You"re not wrong there. But that"s not what the Gen-Ones thought. They had this idea, this rulebook to live by. They call it Back to Basics. Back to Basics. More like More like "Back to the Stone Age" if you ask me."

Now Jamie was confused. 'Back to Basics 'Back to Basics? So what"s that all about, then?"

Billy Joe sighed. "The reason this colony was finished before it even began..."

Jamie took another look at the rectangular patterns cut into the surface of the bulkhead. "Do you think these might be doors?" he wondered. Billy Joe shrugged. Jamie gave a panel a little shove but nothing happened. Using his shoulder he tried again but he just bounced off. "Reckon it"s solid," he decided.

Somewhere behind the bulkhead a sensor registered the motion and activated a sequence of signals. Something long dormant began to stretch and move.

"There"s someone in the ship," stated Freedom bluntly.

Tam looked up from his desk and with cold eyes regarded the man who had just burst into his office with nary a by-your-leave.

"Folks usually knock before barging in," he suggested levelly.

"Didn"t you hear what I said? There are people in the wreck," Val Freedom repeated, leaning forward heavily on the desk. Tam wrinkled his nose with disgust; the liquor fumes on Freedom"s breath were unmistakeable.

"Your imagination must be working overtime Val. Go home, sleep it off."

"I"m telling you I heard it with my own ears," insisted Freedom.

Tam looked at the man again; for all his faults - and there were many - Freedom wasn"t the type to make up a story like this. Even when he"d been drinking. Tam realised that he needed to hear more of this story.

"What were you doing up in the exclusion area anyway?

Looking to do a little pillaging?" The flush of anger that burst on to Freedom"s face told Tam that he was wrong on that front.

"I"m not a lawbreaker, Tam. Don"t you go accusing me of a thing like that."

"I"m sorry, Val, of course you"re not - apart from the laws you don"t take too kindly to, like the ones about brewing your own ale. Is that what you were doing up there; have you set up some kind of distillery in the shadow of the wreck?"

"What if I have? The important thing is that I was up there and I heard noises in the wreck. Movement."

"That"s why we keep out of it Val - it"s a dangerous place, falling to bits."

"I heard voices. I swear I did. We need to get a posse up."

"You think it"s a Realist raid?" asked Tam, taking his visitor seriously now.