Doctor Who_ The Deviant Strain Part 12

Jack looked from Rose to Sofia, who was standing with her arms folded and watching them with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'Really?'

'Really. That was after she tried to kill me, of course.'

Sofia unfolded her arms and started across the ship towards them. 'I shall make a better job of it this time,' she said.

All trace of tiredness or age had gone as she leaped at them. Rose recognised the knife from the kitchen as it swung towards her.

Her cry was lost in the sound of the gunshot. The knife went flying. Sofia was clutching her b.l.o.o.d.y hand. Jack was standing with the pistol braced in both hands. Rose's coat had fallen from his shoulders and lay in a heap on the floor.

The second shot caught Sofia in the chest, driving her backwards and knocking her off her feet.

Rose grabbed her coat. 'Come on.'

But Sofia was struggling slowly to her feet, chest a mess of red, hands slick and wet as they scrabbled for a hold on the floor to push herself up.

Another shot. Then Jack was grabbing Rose's hand and pulling her the other way back towards the medical area.

'No, no,' she protested. 'We can get out down the tunnel.'

But Jack wasn't listening. He dragged her through the hatch and slammed it shut behind them.

'She's dead,' Rose protested.

'Sure? Because I'm not hanging around to check.' He was spinning the locking wheel on the outside of the hatch. 'There has to be a way to keep this closed.'

'Why does there?'

'Because we need it.'

'And what now, then, Mastermind? I thought you'd had enough of swimming.'

'I have.' He was smiling. 'We go up the steps.'

'You what?' Rose turned to see where Jack was pointing. 'Oh, right.'

A flight of steps had been cut into the rock beside where the ship was embedded in the cave. She hadn't seen that before, hidden as they were in the shadows. But then she'd been more concerned with stopping Jack from freezing to death.

'I can guess where they go,' he was saying as he led the way.

Rose followed, pulling on her coat as she went. 'Good. Because I've no idea where I am.'

There was a door at the top. An ordinary door of the sort that might lead into an office. It opened a couple of inches, then stopped. Jack put his shoulder to it and Rose could hear something heavy shifting on the other side. She looked through the widening gap and saw a ma.s.s of cardboard boxes piled up against the door.

The door jammed. Rose helped Jack shove, but it wouldn't open any further. 'We're never getting through there,' she said.

As she spoke, a pair of hands appeared the other side of the door and started lifting the boxes away.

'Friend or foe?' Rose whispered.

'We'll soon find out.'

The door was swinging open. Beyond it was a small room. The floor was stacked high with the cardboard boxes. Papers spilled across the floor. A rack of metal shelves dominated the opposite wall, more boxes crammed into it.

And in the middle of it all stood a tall man with thinning, greying hair wearing a crumpled suit. Beside him was the Doctor.

'Oh, thank G.o.d, it's you,' Rose said. 'Hey, you'll never guess what we've found.'

The Doctor was peering past them, although all he could possibly see was a rock wall and the steps leading down into the cave. 'So that must be the secret way down to the old s.p.a.ceship, right?' he said. He grinned, hugged Rose to him with one hand and slapped Jack on the back with the other. 'Fantastic!'

NINE.

Alex Minin was looking bewildered. 'I never knew that door was there,' he said.

'Hidden,' the Doctor replied. 'Someone deliberately stacked all these boxes in front of it.'

'And what's this about a s.p.a.ceship?' Minin laughed nervously, as if to show he knew they were joking really.

'Yeah. s.p.a.ceship,' the Doctor told him. 'You know.' He demonstrated by flattening his hand into a s.p.a.ceship shape and flying it through the air between them. He made s.p.a.ceship noises.

'I don't think I do actually,' Minin said weakly.

'Sure you do. You must get some version of Star Trek Star Trek, even out here.'

'The one with Mr Spocksky,' Rose added helpfully.

'A s.p.a.ceship?' Minin said.

'A s.p.a.ceship,' Jack confirmed. 'And a homicidal mad policewoman killer*zombie as well. No extra charge.'

'Make that knife*wielding homicidal mad policewoman killer*zombie,' Rose reminded him.

'Barinska?' Minin was looking at each of them in turn, evidently convinced they were all mad.

'That'd explain a lot,' the Doctor said. 'Right, let's get going.'

'Good move,' Jack agreed. 'I suggest a three*p.r.o.nged initiative. The objectives, not in any order of priority, are the ship, the deadly glowing blobby creatures and the stone circle.'

'Hold on,' Minin said. He took a deep breath. 'What deadly glowing blobby creatures?'

'They'll be the remotes,' the Doctor said, as if this was obvious.

'Remotes?' Rose echoed.

The Doctor nodded. 'Shouldn't be a problem.'

'They're killing people,' she pointed out.

'So, shouldn't shouldn't be a problem, but they are.' The Doctor sucked in his cheeks and folded his arms. 'Someone's been messing about.' He turned to look at Minin. 'Monkey business,' he said quietly. be a problem, but they are.' The Doctor sucked in his cheeks and folded his arms. 'Someone's been messing about.' He turned to look at Minin. 'Monkey business,' he said quietly.

'Oh yeah, that's something else,' Rose put in. 'You see, there's these bodies.'

The Doctor stopped her, pressing his finger to her lips. 'First things first. Alex go and find the colonel. Tell him his missing men have probably been blobbed by now and he's to forget them. Then bring him down to the ship.'

'He'll never believe there's a s.p.a.ceship down there,' Minin said. 'I don't believe there's a s.p.a.ceship down there.' don't believe there's a s.p.a.ceship down there.'

'He will when he sees it,' Jack told him.

'It crashed here centuries ago. Maybe millennia,' the Doctor said. 'Crew's probably dead.'

'Yep,' Jack said.

'And it landed at the base of the cliff. Maybe even in the sea. Then over time the land has moved, and now it's buried under the cliff, close to this inst.i.tute. Through that door.'

'But hang on...' Minin pointed to the open door. 'Why would anyone build a secret door leading down to a buried s.p.a.ceship no one knows is there?'

'That's a really good question,' the Doctor agreed. 'You get Colonel Levin and we'll try to get some answers.'

On the way down to the ship, Jack and Rose told the Doctor their stories. He asked few questions and made few comments. But when Jack described the creatures that had cornered him and the soldiers in the submarine he exclaimed, 'Blue? Don't they know that's such a cliche?'

'Maybe where you're from. They're usually green here,' Rose said. 'I don't care what colour danger is. It's still... well, dangerous.'

'Yeah, but I mean dangerous and boring?' the Doctor sneered. 'Do me a favour. If you're going to have your life threatened, it might as well be fun.'

'Trip of a lifetime,' Rose muttered.

The hatch was still closed. Jack put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder as the Doctor turned the locking wheel.

'You sure you want to go in there?'

'Yep.'

'Mrs Knife*Attack might be waiting. I shot her a few times, but she didn't seem as impressed as she should have been.'

'Probably not. She's been dosed up on mutagenic revivification enhancement energy for a while.' Rose looked at Jack. 'What's he on about?'

'MRE,' Jack said. 'Like, life force.'

'Then why not say "life force"?' Rose said.

'Look, I didn't write the manual,' the Doctor protested. The hatch swung open. 'Anyway, she's probably legged it back to her house to recharge by now.'

'Let's hope,' Rose said. 'So you know all about it, then? Recognise the ship?'

'General type,' the Doctor admitted. 'Can't say for certain, but the technology's pretty standard for the Arcane Collegiate.'

'Never heard of it,' Jack admitted.

'It's pretty... esoteric.' The Doctor was examining one of the mutated, fused bodies. He drew the sheet back over it sadly. 'Like I said. Monkey business. Someone's been mucking about with the receptors.'

Rose was getting impatient. 'Look, will you just tell us what is going on here? Those of us who don't speak s.p.a.ceman would like an explanation.'

'And those of us who do wouldn't object,' Jack added.

'OK.' The Doctor wandered across to what seemed to be the main control area. He tipped the remains of the pilot out of its seat and flopped down in its place.

Rose gaped. 'Oh, gross.'

'He's dead, isn't he?'

The Doctor waved at them to make themselves comfortable. Rose sat on the floor, while Jack leaned against an instrument panel.

'He was probably killed in the crash, or at least his body was,' the Doctor said. 'Not much sign of damage, so the auto*repair fixed the ship up. But no pilot, so it's stuck. Thinks it's missed something, probably some component that still needs attention. Or it needs new parts. So the ship sends out a signal. Come and help, please. Run out of fuel or need a new carburettor or whatever.'

'And who does it send this message to?'

'No one. Everyone. Just beams it out into s.p.a.ce. Probably quite a strong signal to begin with. We caught the tail end as the power runs down, it weakens.'

'Then what?' Rose asked.

'It gets more power,' Jack said.

He was nodding as if things were becoming clear to him. They were clear as mud to Rose.

'That's right. It doesn't need much, not till it gets ready for flight. Just enough to keep the systems up and running, ticking over, and to keep the message going. Now it can absorb energy from the environment. Heat, light, power of the wind, anything.'

'Life force,' Rose said quietly.

The Doctor nodded. 'That too. But not just that. Not in theory. Anyway, it sticks up its antennae and starts to draw the power.'

'Antennae?'

'The stones,' Jack told her. 'That's right, isn't it, Doctor? We're right under the stones here.'

'This ship is made of stone stone?' Rose asked. She looked round at the instrument panels what she had a.s.sumed was brittle plastic could be stone, she realised. Thin, sculpted, shaped...

'Sort of, yeah. Like I said, the stones are antennae, prodded up through the ground till they reach daylight,' the Doctor said. 'Absorbing power. Same substance as the remotes, the blobs. Only solidified to withstand the elements and the test of time. It's all based on some pseudo*silicate material.'

'And then anyone who touches the stones,' Rose said. 'they'd be, like, drained of life force.'

'I doubt that was the original intention. It just needs a steady stream, a trickle of energy. But someone's tampered with the systems. It's designed to accept any type, any strain, of energy. Maybe it has a safety feature that excludes the life force from intelligent beings even humans,' he added with a grin.