Doctor Who_ The Deviant Strain Part 7

Nikolai had almost reached the sub when he heard it a faint crackling like electricity, combined with a wet, slithering sound. Like something heavy being dragged across the concrete behind him. But when he looked, there was nothing there. Just shadows.

'Hunting. Waiting for the right moment.'

There were a few lights still working along the quay. They only bothered to replace the bulbs in the lamps as far as the inn, and a few between the inn and the sub for Nikolai's benefit. Between the pools of pale light they cast were islands of darkness. The lamp closest to Nikolai flickered, sputtered and died.

'Waiting for the dark.'

It unsettled him. He could feel the cold biting into his bones despite the alcohol that usually numbed his senses. He quickened his pace. And it seemed that the slithering sound was getting quicker as well. Quicker and closer.

'Waiting to strike.'

It was wet and slimy, like seaweed. Wrapping round his neck and throat. Tightening. Choking. Nikolai clawed at it, ripped at it with his nails as he fought for breath. But the strength seemed to be leaving his arms. As if he was drifting off to sleep. He could feel himself slipping away. Then more of the tentacles slapped at him, grabbing and holding and pulling.

'Waiting to kill.'

Sapping his strength and killing the scream before it left his mouth. He sank to his knees, toppled sideways. Felt himself being dragged away.

'And poor Nikolai doesn't know what's happening. He only knows one thing.'

The last thought he had was that someone needed to see to the generator. Then the darkness closed in around him and his mind was sinking into oblivion.

'That without him the generator will stop.'

Rose listened, transfixed, on the edge of her seat. The old man was staring apparently into s.p.a.ce, except his eyes were completely white. Unseeing. Just a story, she told herself he couldn't really know. This couldn't really be happening.

The lamp flickered, like lightning, casting shadows across Georgi's lined face, as he said, 'And the lights will go out.'

And the lights went out.

FIVE.

The door to the inn crashed open. Everyone turned to stare and saw Rose's haunted face as she looked round for Sofia Barinska. The room was lit now with flickering candles.

The policewoman was with her in a moment, the glazed look in her eyes gone. 'What's wrong? Is it old Georgi?'

Rose was gasping for breath. 'Oh, I'm so unfit it's not true. Where's Nikolai where's the boiler bloke?'

'Gone back to the boiler. To the sub.' She nodded at the nearest candle. 'Not before time, either.'

'Probably let it run dry,' someone called out. 'Wouldn't be the first time.'

'Not that Nikolai ever runs dry,' someone else added, to general amus.e.m.e.nt.

'We have to find him.' Rose was pulling at Sofia's arm. 'Come on.'

'Why what's wrong?'

'Georgi saw... Well, not saw exactly but...' Rose shook her head. 'Just come on, all right?'

Sofia shrugged. 'All right.' She quickly collected her coat from the back of the chair where she had been sitting. 'Keep me a bottle,' she said to the barman. 'I think I might need it later.'

'You want us to come with you?' one of the fisherman asked Rose as she waited impatiently. His speech was slurred and it looked to her as if he'd have trouble standing up. 'Keep you safe, eh?'

'I'll be safer without your help,' she told him.

His friends laughed, and went back to their drinks.

'Tell me what happened,' Sofia said as soon as they were outside.

Snow was falling again large, lazy flakes as she led the way briskly towards the sub where Nikolai should be working. She was silent after hearing Rose's story.

'Look, I know it's weird, but better safe than sorry. And the lights did go out,' Rose finished, almost apologetically.

They pa.s.sed between two of the huge submarines dark shapes thrusting out of the water like beached whales in the gloom of the night. Sofia's small torch was the only light apart from the pale glow of the moon breaking through straggly clouds and shining off the snow.

'Are they just going to leave these things here?' Rose wondered, staring up at the huge, dark shapes on either side of them.

'Like us, they are left to rot. Forgotten. They grow old, waste away, die.' She stopped and reached out towards the submarine. 'Feel it.'

'What?'

'Go on.' Sofia ran the palm of her hand across the hull of the boat.

Rose copied the movement. It was rough, like sandpaper, and her hand came away dark with flakes of rust.

'That hull used to be smooth and polished and young.' Sofia was looking intently at Rose through the near*darkness. 'And now... It's like you and me, isn't it?'

'What do you mean?'

'Your skin so smooth and perfect.'

'You should see me first thing.'

'But one day it will be like mine. Dry and ageing and wrinkled.'

'You're not doing so badly,' Rose said. 'I mean, how old are you?'

Sofia laughed. 'You wouldn't guess to look at me,' she said. Despite the laugh, there was an underlying bitterness to her tone. 'Come on, let's find Nikolai.'

It was more like a tunnel than a ship, Jack thought. The light from the three men's torches picked out ancient ironwork. A layer of rust covered everything and their feet splashed into water that dripped constantly from every pipe and seal.

The soldier with the Geiger counter walked between Sergeyev and Jack, his torch on the meter as he watched the needle judder and quiver.

'Anything?' Sergeyev asked.

'Slightly above the background level outside. Just an old reactor wanting attention.'

'Don't we all,' Jack murmured.

'This is a waste of time,' Sergeyev complained.

He was right, though Jack was loath to admit it. 'How much further to the reactor?' Jack asked.

'How should I know? I'm not a submariner.'

'I believe they are at the back of the boat,' Razul said.

'Boat?'

'Submarines are not ships, they are boats,' Razul replied. 'I know. My cousin was on the Kursk Kursk.'

'Poor devil,' Sergeyev said quietly.

'What happened to the Kursk Kursk?' Jack asked.

Razul looked up, his surprise at the question evident even in the pale light from the torches.'It sank.'

Submarines do that, Jack thought. But he didn't say it. Instead he said, 'Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I'm surprised this thing hasn't sunk.'

'It will,' Sergeyev told him. 'And I don't want to be on it when it does. Sir,' he added, as an afterthought.

'All right. We'll head back to the quay. How are the others doing?'

They turned round in the narrow corridor. Jack was wondering how people managed to work on such a small vessel never mind live there. The main corridor had rooms off it at intervals, but they were tiny, cramped, cluttered with pipes and cables and equipment. As if the crew had been an afterthought.

Sergeyev was talking into his lapel mike, tapping at his earpiece. 'Must be the hull of this thing, deadening the signal,' he said. 'I can't raise any of them.'

'We'll try again once we're outside,' Jack decided. 'Readings still OK?'

'I'd rather they were lower, but they're what I'd expect,' Razul reported.

Jack could feel the ladder rusting away under his feet. A constant snowfall of dust and grit and oxidised metal fell into his face from Razul above him. But Jack stayed close he wouldn't put it past Sergeyev to slam the hatch shut as soon as Razul was out, leaving him trapped inside.

But Sergeyev was already down on the dockside, talking urgently into his mike. As Razul and Jack joined him, he shook his head. 'Still nothing, sir.' Now that there was a possible problem, he was the complete professional all surliness gone.

'Recommendations?' Jack snapped.

'We should check on them physically.'

'You mean go and look?'

'Yes, sir. I mean go and look.'

'Except we don't know where they are,' Razul pointed out. 'One group went to the dry dock, another headed south. But where they are now...' He shrugged.

'See if they've checked in with Colonel Levin,' Jack said. 'Maybe it's us who have the communications problem, not them.'

But before Sergeyev could do that, they heard the scream. It cut through the icy air from close by perhaps the other side of the submarine. Ear*splitting and abrupt. A shriek of surprise and fear in the night. It chilled Jack more than the cold air.

'That was Rose,' he said out loud, as he started to run.

She felt such a wimp. She felt even more of a wimp when Jack and the two soldiers came running and she ran to hug Jack. It made things slightly better that Sofia was staring horrified at the shapeless ma.s.s on the edge of the quay. But not much.

'Are you OK?'

She nodded. 'It's just the shock.' Should she tell him about old Georgi? Where should she start?

Sofia and the other soldiers were examining the body.

'Is it...' Rose couldn't go on.

Sofia nodded. 'It is Nikolai. Just as you said.'

Sergeyev shone his torch into the face. Or rather what had been the face. He quickly turned the light aside. 'Like the boy in the stone circle,' he told them. 'The body is like jelly.'

Jack took a moment to check that Rose was all right and, when she a.s.sured him she was, he joined the two soldiers. 'Did you manage to get Levin?'

Sergeyev shook his head. 'There's just static. Like interference. Or jamming.'

'Deliberate?'

'Who can say?'

'It's not the radiation.' the other soldier said. 'Not enough of it for that level of interference.'

'Then we're on our own,' Jack told them. 'We'd better try to find the others.'

'Do you know anything about generators?' Sofia asked.

'Why?'

'Because the lights have gone out,' Rose said. 'Nikolai was on his way to stoke the generator, or whatever you do with it. It provides all the power for the village.'

'Where is it?' Sergeyev asked.

'On the Rykov Rykov,' Sofia said. She pointed to the vast looming shadow of a submarine fifty metres down the quay. 'We ran cables from there to the old generating plant when it packed up.'

'I'm an engineer,' Razul said. 'I'll see what I can do.'