Doctor Who_ The Deviant Strain Part 13

'Oh, ta,' Rose told him.

'But now someone's changed things round. They've adapted them so they deviate from the original plans and just take one defined strain of energy life force. And probably just the life force of human beings. Certainly it didn't like mine when I activated a bit of stone, though it took Catherine's no problem. So it's no longer working to design. Now it's only interested in the deviant strain.'

'You mean us.'

'I mean you.'

'Hang on, what do you mean by "activated"?' Rose asked.

'They don't do it all the time. Just when the ship needs some power. It's automatic unless there's some other need for the power. Then someone, the pilot usually, switches it on.'

'Except someone else has changed things, so now they can activate the probes and draw life force whenever they need it,' Jack said.

'No prizes for guessing who,' Rose realised.

'But it's going crazy now,' Jack said. 'There's attack of the blob monsters out there, and the stones are probably getting thirstier all the time. Is that all down to Mrs Knife*Killer Barinska going bananas?'

'Doubt it,' the Doctor said. 'That's all someone else's fault.'

Jack shook his head. 'Wait till I get my hands on them. Have you ever crawled through a torpedo tube in the dark with water pouring in?' He hesitated. 'OK, you probably have. So whose fault is it?'

The Doctor was examining his fingernails. 'Actually,' he said, looking up at Jack, 'it's yours.'

'What?!'

The Doctor shrugged and went back to looking at his nails. 'You answered the message. You told the ship we were coming to get it. So now it's preparing to be rescued, getting ready to leave.'

'And it needs more power,' Rose said. 'Is that it?'

'Yep. The stones are no longer drawing enough for it, especially as up till now they've only got power when they're switched on here and someone touches them.'

'Switched on?'

'Yeah, there's a manual switch wired in rather crudely on that panel.' He nodded at where Jack was leaning. 'Don't shuffle your b.u.m too much or you might turn them on again.'

'And these blob creatures?'

'Remote probes. Energy sources don't come to it, so it goes looking for them. They drain the energy and beam it back. The radio interference is a side effect as the ether fills with life*force transmissions.'

Rose thought about all this. 'Thanks, Jack,' she said at last. 'Good one.'

Jack sighed. 'So, at the risk of sounding as if I'm changing the subject, why did Barinska adapt the systems and what's she need the energy for?'

Rose was wondering that too. She thought about Barinska's face lined and aged almost beyond recognition... 'She's old, isn't she? She needs the life force to stay young.'

'Seems likely. That's why only human energy would do. I doubt she's the only one either. There's been a lot of mucking about with these systems. Lots of trial and error to get to this point. Though a lot of it is informed guesswork. I think they've had help, even though they may not realise it.'

'I wonder how old she really is,' Jack said.

'She looked ancient,' Rose told him. 'So, come on then. What happens now?'

'The ship keeps searching for energy. It'll store all it can until take*off.'

'Except it isn't gonna take off,' Jack pointed out. 'The pilot's dead, no help is coming. Unless, we...' He pushed himself away from the panel and turned to examine it.

'No good,' the Doctor told him. 'No way this thing can fly now. Too much damage and adaptation.'

'So, what it just keeps looking for energy?' Rose asked. 'For people to kill?'

'Yep.'

'For how long?'

'Till it leaves.'

Rose stared at him. 'But... that's for ever.'

'Yep. Unless we can find a way to drain it right down, even the emergency reserves. Then the systems will stop.'

'How do we do that?' Jack was ready at the control panel.

'Dunno. Dunno if it can even be done until I take a proper look.'

'Oh, you're a real help in a crisis,' Rose told him.

'So what happens now?' Jack asked.

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply. But it was not him who answered.

'Now, you die,' a voice said.

It came from behind the panel where Jack was. He swung round in surprise. Just as Sofia Barinska's bloodstained figure rose up from behind it.

'We shall get all the energy we need,' she said. 'For ever.'

The knife flashed as it caught the light, stabbing down towards Jack.

TEN.

The Doctor did not seem at all fazed by the fact the woman was forcing a knife down at Jack's throat.

'How old are you?' He sounded as if he was telling off a schoolkid. 'I mean, really how old?'

He was watching with interest as, to Jack's relief, Rose ran to help. The two of them were holding the woman's hands now forcing the blade upwards. But Barinska was incredibly strong, and she had her full weight behind the knife, trying to force it back down.

'Levin said he thought he recognised you and you told him that was your mother. But it wasn't, was it?'

The Doctor stood up as he spoke and wandered casually over to watch the struggle. 'I think you were here before that, weren't you? Maybe before the navy came. Before the scientists. One of the original whaling community, maybe.'

'Some help here would be nice,' Jack gasped.

'You didn't work it out all by yourself, did you?' the Doctor was saying. Then he seemed to realise what Jack had said. 'Oh yeah.'

But to Jack's annoyance, the Doctor did not try to help them deflect the knife. It inched closer to him again. Rose was losing her grip her feet sliding across the floor as she struggled to hold Barinska's wrists. The Doctor seemed to have disappeared completely.

Then suddenly it was over. Barinska gave a cry of surprise and fell backwards. The knife clattered to the floor and Rose grabbed for it as Jack pushed himself away from the control panel.

'What happened?' Jack asked.

The Doctor's voice came from the other side of the panel. 'I kicked her feet away.' His delighted face appeared above the panel and he waved. 'Come and see.'

Barinska was lying face down on the ground. The Doctor had his foot on her back, as if she was a hunting trophy. The woman was lying completely still, but the Doctor kept his foot firmly planted in position.

'You didn't answer my questions,' he told her. 'But I bet you can feel it, can't you? The lingering presence in your mind of the dead pilot's own life force. His mental energy guiding you, instinctively, to repair the systems. To survive long enough to get the ship working again.'

Barinska did not move.

'You mean he ain't dead at all?' Rose said.

'Oh, he's dead as a dodo. Just his mind, or part of it, lives on in the systems. Symbiosis. The pilot is one with the machine his body may die but his mind lingers, like I said. Reaching out like the message. And what,' he asked Barinska, 'you found the ship and it talked to you, in your head, is that it?'

'That's how she was able to adapt the systems,' Jack realised.

'Yeah. Her and her mates, whoever they are. They think they want to live for ever. But actually it's the ship and the pilot that want them to live for ever. Or until the repairs are finished. Irony is, keeping its little helpers alive means the ship's crippled for good.' He rolled Barinska with his foot. 'I know you're not unconscious,' he told her. 'So who else is in on this, eh? Who else still thinks their life is their own?'

The reply was an angry, guttural snarl. Barinska rolled suddenly over and leaped to her feet. Jack made a grab at her, but she was too quick darting past and heading quickly for the hatchway leading out into the cave.

The door opened before she got there. Colonel Levin was framed in the doorway, his pistol drawn. He stared in surprise at the woman rushing towards him.

'Stop her, Colonel,' Jack shouted.

Several of Levin's men had entered behind him. They levelled their a.s.sault rifles as Levin ordered, 'Halt!'

But Barinska kept coming.

Levin hesitated. 'Halt, or I fire.'

Barinska was almost on them now.

'Fire!' Jack shouted.

Perhaps out of fright, perhaps realising the danger, perhaps instinctively obeying the order, the nearest soldier fired.

The bullets slammed into Barinska, knocking her backwards. She fell on her back with a groan.

Levin raised his hand to stop the firing. All the soldiers moved slowly towards the figure on the ground.

'I'd be careful,' the Doctor cautioned.

Even as he said it, Barinska heaved herself off the floor and ran full pelt at the troops. The soldier who had shot her was standing gaping at the wounds he had inflicted. Then Levin fired. A moment later the others fired too.

All except the soldier who had shot first. It was too late for him. Barinska's arm swept round viciously, catching him in the neck. He stumbled and fell, and as he crashed to the floor Barinska's boot caught him under the chin, snapping his head back with an audible crack. She grabbed his rifle as he fell, turned, levelled it.

The woman was driven back by the volley of bullets from the soldiers, so most of her own shots went wide. But one of the soldiers caught a round in the shoulder. Another was knocked backwards as several bullets smacked into his chest.

Barinska was staggering under the automatic fire. She still clutched the rifle but was unable to bring it to bear. She managed to turn, running back across the ship towards the Doctor, Jack and Rose.

Jack and Rose dived to the floor. The Doctor, however, was still out in the open. Bullets thudded into the floor as Barinska managed to fire. Dust kicked up at the Doctor's feet. He didn't hesitate. He turned and ran.

Jack twisted, enough to see the Doctor make it through the hatch on the opposite side of the control deck. He disappeared rapidly up the tunnel the other side.

Then Barinska herself came into view running after the Doctor, rifle at the ready. Her clothes were stained red and there were dark scorch*ringed holes across her chest. One bullet had all but taken off her jaw, leaving the skin ripped so that the lower half of her face was smiling like a skull. It did not seem to have slowed her down at all.

Levin and the soldiers reached the hatch just moments after Barinska. But it was moments too late. The heavy metal door had swung shut behind her. Now it was locked.

'There must be a way to open it from in here,' Levin said.

Jack got to his feet and dusted himself down. He looked round at the rewired panels. Several of them were smoking from bullet impacts. 'You want to guess which control to use?' Jack asked.

'Where does that tunnel lead?' Levin snapped.

'To Barinska's house,' Rose told him.

'You know the way?'

She nodded.

'Show us.' Levin pointed to two of the soldiers. 'You two, medical detail. Do what you can for the wounded.'

The Doctor's plan, such as it was, was to escape from Barinska without being shot. If he could stay ahead he might get a chance to look at the equipment she had in her house which, according to Rose's story, was where this tunnel led. From that he might be able to come up with an idea of how to cut off her supply of energy. The problem with this was of course that he could hear her running after him, and every now and again a bullet whined past his head or smacked into the floor at his feet to remind him that Barinska had something of an advantage.

Maybe he'd skip the tour of her house and just leg it. He could meet Rose and Jack back at the inst.i.tute later and decide how to deal with the s.p.a.ceship. And the remote probes. And Barinska. And he had noticed she said 'we' when describing her ambition to live for ever, so presumably she had friends with a similar investment in keeping the ship intact, though he had guessed that from the monkeys...

'Who wants to live for ever?' the Doctor muttered as he ran. 'Just today would be a start.' Another bullet flew past him, and he wondered how many there were in the clip. And how many she had used. And whether there was another clip attached to the gun. Not a very helpful line of enquiry, he decided.

He could still hear Barinska behind him as he started up the steps. Her breath was ragged and hoa.r.s.e, but she did not seem to have been slowed down by her wounds. Rapid repair, inherited from the ship's systems maybe. Something else he could wonder about later.

The Doctor slammed the door at the top of the steps behind him. There did not seem to be any way to lock it and he couldn't see anything to use to jam it shut quickly enough. So he ran.

Forget the equipment upstairs come back for that later. The air was ice cold in the Doctor's mouth, throat and lungs as he emerged from Barinska's house and set off down the road. Anywhere to hide? Not really she was too close. As in the house, she'd see if he tried to duck in anywhere. Just keep going, hope to extend his lead or that she would tire.