Doctor Who_ The Dying Days Part 23

Staines tried to adjust the headgear that Xznaal had given him, but however much he twisted, it was still uncomfortable. It was like a smoke hood, but apparently it was an "automatic gill" that allowed humans to breathe the Martian atmosphere. Teddy was perfectly at home in his own hood, and didn't seem worried by the intense cold that had begun to nibble at their feet.

They had travelled up to the Martian ship, but this time they had ventured far further than just a reception chamber.

Nothing in the Martian ship could be cla.s.sed as 'small', but this was certainly cramped compared with the vast deserted corridors and echoing hangar-like chambers they had walked through to reach it. It was almost boxy, in fact.

'The C Cube,' Xznaal said. In his own atmosphere, his voice was perfectly normal, there wasn't any of that hissing and grunting.

'The what?' Staines asked, trying to sound intelligent.

'Command, control, communications,' Greyhaven explained patiently, 'the three things an army needs on the battlefield.'

Xznaal indicated his pleasure. 'From this room, I can conduct a campaign.' His claw rammed against a control.

The walls lit up with charts, maps, aerial photographs.

'We will be in Adisham in two and a half minutes.'

'We're moving?' Greyhaven was surprised. Staines was too, of course, but that almost went without saying. To see Teddy disconcerted was a rare thing indeed.

Xznaal hissed a laugh, and an image globe lit up in front of them. It showed the Kent countryside hurtling along underneath them. Staines steadied himself.

Xznaal punched another control. The image changed, showing what looked like an aircraft hangar. There were some odd-looking vehicles in the background: some looked like giant desk lamps, some like great camera tripods.

What really grabbed Staines' attention were the pair of Martians in the foreground, both of whom were a.s.sembling something from tubes of metal and thick, canvas-like material.

'It looks like they're putting up a tent,' Staines declared.

'Shut up, Home Secretary,' Greyhaven ordered.

But to his satisfaction, Staines saw that he was nearly right. As they completed the task with practised claws, he saw that they were a.s.sembling - 'Hang gliders?'

'That is right,' Xznaal said.

Greyhaven was a little taken aback at first. Staines watched the Acting-Prime Minister as he peered at the globe. 'I suppose that the technology is useful. Easily stored, no fuel requirement, radar-invisible, silent.'

The Martian pilots were strapping themselves into their harnesses.

'Lord Xznaal,' Staines began hesitantly, 'you seemed... uncomfortable at the Tower. Won't your men find it too hot for combat?'

'They will not be at full strength, but our scientists have increased the dosage of intravenous coolant. Their strength and const.i.tution is still far greater than a mere human or Gallifreyan. We are here.'

'Why are you only sending two warriors?'

'Why waste more resources on such a simple matter?'

Xznaal touched another switch. At some unseen signal, both pilots began running along the hangar. The back wall opened as they arrived and they leapt into the darkness.

Benny half-filled the kettle and took it back over to the power point. The Doctor and the Brigadier were in one of the other rooms, and by the sound of it, Eve had finally turned up. Benny was not a vain woman, but out of basic courtesy she couldn't face visitors until she was a little better-presented. Benny flicked on the kettle and searched for the coffee jar, wondering when she'd reached the age when one vodka gave her a hangover.

The Ice Warrior on the patio suddenly seemed more important, somehow. He turned to face her.

'Doctor!' she screamed, diving behind the sink.

The kitchen door pulsed and shattered, showering her with splinters of wood and shards of gla.s.s. The Ice Warrior was fumbling with the remains of the door frame, trying to get himself into the house.

Benny yanked the kettle off the counter, pulled the lid off and hurled the contents at the intruder's face.

It would have been enough to leave a human disfigured, probably blinded. The effect on a Martian was even more dramatic. It splashed across the warrior's forehead, steaming rivulets running down the ridges and grooves of his domed helmet. Water dripped over his chin and down the c.h.i.n.ks in his neck.

The Martian screamed a terrible scream, ma.s.sive lungs expelling every ounce of breath over jagged teeth. He sank to the floor, his claws flailing, unable to reach where the boiling water had hit him.

Benny watched him, not out of any s.a.d.i.s.tic desire, just the opposite. She hadn't killed him. Martians were stronger than that, but that just meant that his agony wouldn't be over for a very long time.

83.A claw flapped to the floor, shaking the room. Benny was about to move to help him, when he began hauling himself up, straightening his thick legs.

Benny realised that she hadn't killed him, she'd only made him angry.

She spun on her heels and fled into the house, hoping to get to another exit.

It was around then that she heard the front door being wrenched off its hinges.

The image was infrared. Five bright light sources were scattered at various points in the house, al of them moving at great speed. Two dimmer shapes were lumbering inevitably towards them.

'Wait!' Greyhaven called. 'Do they have orders not to attack Eve and her friend?'

Xznaal grunted. 'They have.'

'And can they distinguish between individual humans, at night, in combat conditions?'

Xznaal chuckled. 'We shall see, won't we?'

The Doctor and Brigadier were almost at the front door when the Ice Warrior came crashing through it. It moved slowly, deliberately, breaking down the wooden panels with slicing claw-blows.

The Doctor stepped forwards, his arms held out. 'I only wish to talk,' he said softly.

The Ice Warrior lunged for him. The Doctor side-stepped, and flicked the light switch. The Martian reeled, dazzled by the 60 watt bulb.

The Brigadier had time to aim and fire twice before it had even reacted. Both shots glanced harmlessly off its shoulder blade.

'Why did I know that was going to happen?' the Brigadier asked wearily.

The Doctor grabbed his sleeve. 'Come on! We have to find Bernice.'

They ran back through the drawing room, turning on every light they could find a switch for. The Martian charged after them like a bull elephant. There was no sign of Eve or Alan. 'We almost had them convinced,' the Doctor shouted after the Brigadier.

'That's as may be, Doctor,' the Brigadier panted, 'But she's also the woman who betrayed us.'

They reached the French windows, opened them and ran out.

Only then did they see the Martian ship hovering above them.

'You have them in your sights,' Xztaynz exclaimed. 'Fire that ray thing of yours.'

'No! It might be Eve.' Gerayhayvun shouted.

In infrared the humans were bril iant white against the dark background of the foliage.

Xznaal turned to them both. 'To use the sonic cannon would be most unsporting.' He pointed a claw at the house, which showed the dimmer shape of the warrior moving relentlessly towards them. 'Besides, my warrior has found them.'

Xztaynz was peering at another part of the display. 'Your other chap has someone else cornered.'

The wall in front of Benny pulsed and the plaster and picture frames shattered and showered to the floor. She dived left and began leaping up the stairs. The steps creaked underneath her feet as she pounded up them.

The Martian below her was still groaning in pain. He lashed his claw, knocking out the banisters and almost taking off her feet. She was more nimble than the warrior, but he was quite capable of climbing stairs. Sure enough, he began plodding up after her.

She was gaining valuable time, but he was going to be able to corner her in the end. If they had waited a couple of years there would be no problem - Ace had spent a lot of time here in the early twenty-first century. Her bedroom combined the ambience of a student room with the sheer practicality of the Royal Armouries, filled as it was with posters of pop bands and nasty-looking military hardware. There would be all sorts of big guns Benny could have used. Ten years before all that, and the room-that-would-be-Ace's contained nothing but a wardrobe full of fur coats and the most dangerous thing in there was the dead bluebottle on the window sill.

Benny kept running upstairs, hoping to think of a plan before she ran out of floors.

The Ice Warrior was advancing across the patio towards them, pushing aside the garden furniture. It moved around the pool of light from the kitchen window. Its eyes burned red in the shadows. The Brigadier and the Doctor backed away from it. Every so often, Lethbridge-Stewart would fire off a shot at it, in the vain hope of slowing it down or hitting a vital spot. The Martian s.p.a.cecraft hovered over them like a vulture, its gunports gaping open.

The Brigadier looked across to the Doctor for guidance. His friend was playing around with the sonic screwdriver.

'I thought that thing was a tool, not a weapon?'

The Doctor looked up. 'If you'd ever been hit over the head with a wrench, you'd know that the one can often be the other.'

He held the screwdriver aloft.

'Halt!' he ordered the Ice Warrior. To the Brigadier's amazement it did. A moment later he realised why: there was a gun of some sort on its wrist and now, for the first time, it had a clear line of sight.

84.'Listen to me,' the Doctor insisted, squeezing the sonic screwdriver. An ultrasonic whine filled the air. 'Your weapon fires waves of sonic energy. This device works on the same principle. Not only will it counteract your shots, it will return them to their source. You.'

The Ice Warrior moved its arm a little, adjusting its aim.

'If you fire that weapon the only thing you'l destroy is yourself,' the Doctor warned.

The Martian must have heard him, but it gave no indication that it had done so. Instead the tube on the Martian's wrist lit up, and the air was filled with a hissing noise like air escaping from a burst tyre.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the Martian contorted as if it was its own reflection in a fairground mirror. It tried to grab its head, but couldn't control its limbs. Final y there was a great crack, and the Martian's sh.e.l.l burst open in a single line from shoulder to pelvis. It fell to the floor, al the light gone from its eyes. Martian blood and tissue was gushing from the wound.

'Wel done, Doctor!' the Brigadier congratulated him. 'Now we can rescue Bernice.'

The Doctor nodded, horrified by what he had done. 'I can't guarantee that the power supply will deflect another blast,' he said absent-mindedly.

'Still,' the Brigadier said, 'it wil give the gunners up in that ship pause for thought before they loose off any shots.'

There was silence in the C Cube.

'What happened?' Greyhaven asked.

'The Time Lord is operating a sonic jamming field. Our energy weapons will be reflected if we use them.'

'And one of your warriors has just been killed?' Staines whimpered.

'Yes. The Doctor wil die for that action.'

Benny had ended up in her room, right at the top of the house. There was nothing up here but memories and alcohol.

She closed the door, and tiptoed across the room trying not to make a sound. She'd managed to lose the Ice Warrior for the moment: she could hear him crashing around on the floor below, looking for her in the bathroom. It wouldn't take him long to work out where she had gone.

The attic room. "The honeymoon suite". She and Jason had taken this room, made it their own on the few times they'd stayed here. The Doctor had left them alone as she and her husband moved the stuff up here from her old room on the floor below.

She picked up the box of matches sitting on the little fireplace and remembered a dozen mornings squatting by the fire with a match trying to get the d.a.m.n strips of newspaper in the hearth to light. Meanwhile Jason lay under the duvet pretending to be asleep while he was watching her out the corner of his eye. She'd light the fire, then scurry back to the bed and he'd pul the duvet open and let her in.

And now the room was empty. Just her, a crate of vodka and a bed that was too big for one person.

The Ice Warrior was coming up the short flight of stairs.

Benny pulled one of the unopened bottles from the box and unscrewed the top. Supermarket vodka this, nothing special. The Doctor, of course, was a bit of a connoisseur and wouldn't touch anything that didn't smell of Red Army engine oil. She wasn't fussy.

Benny just had time to take a swig as the Ice Warrior crashed through the door. He had to bend down almost to a crouch to get in, and seemed to fill the room.

She stood, a little awkwardly.

'h.e.l.lo,' she said weakly, holding up a lit match. 'Beware the power of my mighty weapon. Sorry, it's the best I can do.'

Like all Martians, he was instinctively nervous around fire, but he wasn't going to stay scared for long. He had scars al along one side of his head where the water had splashed it. Nasty green weals hadn't quite finished forming.

Benny winced as her match burnt down to her finger. She dropped it and lit another.

'Look, I hate al this fighting,' she said in his native tongue. The sentiment was actually quite difficult to get across in the Martian language, their love of al things Thanatotic meant that it was pretty close to doublethink: 'good things are bad' and all that. 'Couldn't we just sit down over a bottle of voddy and talk it through?' She held up the bottle by way of demonstration.