Doctor Who_ The Scarlet Empress Part 29

'This has to be him,' said Major Angela.

"They froze him, they said. They said they put him where the sea would get him again. But it hasn't. He's been here ten years.' Gila sounded calmer now than he had in days.

The ice was pierced in many places by a bewildering a.s.sortment of daggers and knives and scimitars.'It looks like a giant pin cushion,' said the Doctor. He could never be sombre when everyone else was. He couldn't bear it. 'Or a giant game of Ker-plunk.'

'I've got that game in the bus,' said Iris.

'Or,' said the Doctor,'it looks like Excalibur.'

They took his word and each of them grasped the jewelled pommel of every sword and knife they could reach. Gila stretched up and took hold of the higher ones. They all pulled and, surprisingly, each of the blades slid out quite easily and cleanly.

They stood back.

'We can all be King Arthur,' the Doctor grinned.

'Now what?' asked Sam.

He pursed his lips and nodded at the ice. It was shimmering and pulsing and it began to melt. Condensation wisped and moisture rolled down the plane surfaces of the ice.

'He's waking up,' Angela said.

Soon they could get a better look at him. His head and shoulders emerged first, and he sat immobile, recovering himself, though they could all see he was returning to life. When his feeble arms emerged he flexed them gentry and the solid block of ice that trapped the rest of him began to crack much faster.

'It's him,' Iris smiled.

Sitting upright in his dewy, sticky sh.e.l.l was the Mock Turtle. His heavy calf s head was damp and his eyes were bleary, stuck together with decade-old ice and sleep.

'He looks,' said the Doctor,'as if he's just been bom, all over again.'

'I wasn't born,' said the Mock Turtle in a throaty whisper, 'I was hatched from a great big blooming egg.'

He shook himself and the last of the ice slid away. He asked them to help him down from the plinth.

'Doctor,' Sam said, tapping his velvet shoulder.'I hate to say this, but...'

'Say what?'

'Something along the lines of,"Doctor, look!"

He rolled his eyes.'They always say that.'

'But look!' Iris cawed.

Into the bay, with its wide white sails blazing and shining, the ship that had last night been in the far distance came rolling full of splendour and aplomb. From their sh.o.r.e, the party from Iris's TARDIS could see that it was launching smaller rowing boats, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with busy-looking figures, and they were heading determinedly for land.

'Pirates,' spat Gila.

'That ship is theKristeva ,' Iris said.'It's captained by the daughter of the Empress!'

Chapter Twenty-Five.

On The Kristeva

I am a turtle. Not the happiest of fetes.

I have a sh.e.l.l. I have flippers. I get nowhere fast. Unless I am underwater. Then I can do anything. Watch me go. In the past, when I hired myself out with the other three on adventures and quests, all the watery a.s.signments fell to me. Of course the Alligator Man, Gila, thought he was fast and fleet as I, as neat and polished as I, but my point remains that, essentially, he is a creature of the land.

He hated that.We weren't a very happy band, we four.

Turtles are born of eggs. I can even remember cracking out of mine.

What we tend to do, most of us anyway, is peck the egg apart from within with our little beaks and then we go lolloping up the beach to the sea's first cold embrace. At first you're born and you think, But I'm so ungainly! And then, no, not at all, that isn't the whole story at all, not when you get to the froth of the blissful, blooming water and you get all your faculties.

Of course, being a Mock Turtle, I had it harder from the start. I had this different head and my forelegs terminated in - of all things -hooves. Very shiny, pointed, rather delicate hooves, but hooves nonetheless, and I had flippers only at the back.

When I was born, when I hatched myself, I had to hammer the inside of my warm, creamy, coated egg with the fine tips of my hooves to break myself on to the golden sands. I had it harder from the start. Only a Mock Turtle, me.

And for the last ten years I've been frozen up, freed from the uniqueness of my bodily self, with only my mind ticking over. Luckily I find myself a low-level telepath (oh yes, only very low-level, as the d.u.c.h.ess once happily informed me, putting me in my place) and so, via various unreliable but nonetheless entertaining psychic channels,! have managed to keep my suspended self abreast of the ways of this maverick world. Even incarcerated I kept up.

I listened, year by year, as the Scarlet Empress gathered force, hatched her plans, spread her web. I overheard her guards as she sent them around the globe . I earwigged on djinn and viziers as they set stealthily forth to carry out her nefarious business. I know her schemes and dreams. So when my friends here arrived and unloosened the spell that held me in ice, I realised that the time had come to confront our overweening monarch. I have felt the approach of my compatriots, bless them.

It was the Scarlet Empress who put me here.Who froze me in ice, set me upon a plinth, who left my mind running on and on like a tiger in a too-small cage. She put me out of action in the place that would most torture and tantalise me: right beside the sea. I have tried to block out the sense of that surging ma.s.s of water, its salt-water tang, its relentless calling me back.

And in these past ten years, did anyone, did any of my former allies and companions, come rushing to my rescue? Oh, no. Of course they didn't.

At first I felt sure, sure as could be, that they'd come after me soon. If not today, then tomorrow, or the day after. I pictured them struggling against the odds to come and fetch me. But they never showed up. More fool I, to have confidence in my supposed blooming friends. The days, the months, the seasons pa.s.sed and nothing happened. Major Angela, the obstreperous, unfortunately blind and bl.u.s.tering Bearded Lady, who once claimed pa.s.sionately and against all the odds to be in love with me, with my lovely gleaming h.o.r.n.y sh.e.l.l of green and greasy brown, my soft yellow underbelly - did she come running to collect me from my peril? No, she did not. Did Gila leave his life of petty thievery and urban crime? His smuggling and racketeering and shady connections? He came nowhere near me. His thoughts never turned to me. Did the d.u.c.h.ess deign to wing her divinely solar-powered way to this benighted sh.o.r.e? Did she h.e.l.l. And so here I am. And here they are. Suddenly wanting my help.Well.

And who is this? New friends and new companions to play with.

I turn to the human female. She is still a child, really, with soft blonde hair and a face glum as I'm sure I must look just now.'And what manner of creature are you, my dear?"

She looks startled at my question as if a creature such as I ought not to be able to express and frame ideas or opinions.

But we are on the move. We are in convoy. We are being led up the beach by a rabble of pirates. Of course. I felt the presence of the ship approaching even as I sensed my friends, drawing closer to rescue me.

And so now we are all in the same predicament. Prisoners together. I sensed the pirates coming, I sensed my rescuers coming. Not bad for a mere low-level telepath! Not bad for a mere Mock blooming Turtle!

The ship stands in the bay. Proud, bedecked by all manner of banners and gaudy, makeshift sails and, I must say, I'm enjoying colours again, only as I did when I was first hatched. The world is all new to me again.

Our rowdy rabble of captors in their filched and patched and extravagant outfits catch my eye, too, and I spend some time, as we are hustled up to the boats on the sh.o.r.e, simply admiring the spectacle.

Ahead, though, looms the Kristeva , and I must seriously consider whether I really want to be taken prisoner so soon, so soon after my rescue. The ship is a fat-bellied, fierce little tug, bristling with armaments and a glow of self-worth. Aggressive thing, staffed with bandits, burly henchmen and sc.u.m. How many of its scurrilous ventures and ploys I have tuned in to over the years, through the use of my stunted telepathic capabilities. I have followed the doings of the Kristeva , her crew and her captain with a certain relish.Yet I am in two minds about being rowed and taken aboard.

I am being carried aloft on a kind of bier. I haven't much strength as yet.

Gila, this girl child, and a tall man with curly hair are bearing my weight, none too steadily, as we progress towards the boats.

'I'm Sam,' says the girl. 'And this is the Doctor.'

I blink at them. In my past life, I was always pleased to meet new faces. I oughtn't let my standards slip. Remember your manners. Manners maketh the genetic freak.

The gangly tall man fixes me with a sudden piercing stare. He gabbles at me excitedly, 'Isn't it exciting to be kidnapped by proper, seafaring pirates!' He's talking to me as if he finds nothing strange in addressing a creature such as I. I can tell he's trying to be worldly and nice, refusing to comment on my hybridised oddity.'Don't you find that remarkable?' he asks me.

For talking too loudly he receives a hefty shove from one of the pirates.

A peculiarly attenuated being, with a scandalously long neck, and a dagger clamped in its pointed beak. Wears an eyepatch too, playing its part to perfection.

Alongside us is a woman being pushed in a wheelchair. She looks somewhat defeated, folded in on herself, her hands clasped firmly in her lap. Her eyes, though, are alive with interest, taking the whole scene in.

'Gila, Gila, my friend,' I call out to the bulkiest, the most scaly of my pallbearers. The one in whom you may imagine I have most in common.

But the Alligator Man just glares and glowers at me as if he isn't really delighting in our reunion at all. Major Angela, naturally, cannot see me.

She is being led by another, swarthy, pirate, and when I call out to her, she ignores me. I can't see the d.u.c.h.ess at all.

Oh, what a relief to breathe air again. My lungs, also, feel quite new and restored. Bliss to waggle my flippers and hooves.

They put us - none too gently, in fact - in a small wooden boat and my compatriots are compelled to row. I lean and listen to the regular suck and slap of the cold, cold, cold waves. And how I've missed being able to listen, to really listen, to things. And maybe I could just - while no one was looking - flop myself over the mildewed lip of the boat, and kick myself off into the delicious freezing water. Never be heard of again.

Temptation shivers me timbers of course, and grips me vitals in a tight swell somewhere beneath my bulky sh.e.l.l. How I would love to slip away now, into the sea.

But I can't I can't I can't leave my blooming friends. Oh no! Not me!

I'm loyal as loyal can be!

Another boat is rowing alongside us.

And here, here at last, is Julia. Standing like a prow in the other humble landing vessel. Head flung back, laughing up her guts and the sea wind swooshes her gorgeous locks about. Proud, daring Julia. The heiress to all of Hyspero. The favourite of the Empress. The most daring and deadly pirate on the many seas of this world. She has the world in her hands already, but how widely it is known and feared, the fact that she would rather be a criminal and common cur, and steal it for herself. Julia clad head to toe in scarlet leather - quite a daring cut of outfit in itself. I note she's put on a little weight, and is squashed into her outfit a few ounces cosier than she would like. Good living does that, of course, and I imagine Julia's living is just fine. She has a golden megaphone in one gloved hand, which she brandishes and then holds in front of her mouth.

She brushes away her streaming, crimson hair and it whips in the salt breeze. Ravishing pirate princess, hectoring her captives. I try to wave to her, remembering the time we once met, in her mother's palace, but she ignores me, preferring to address us as a group. I sit up and realise that my strength is, little by little, drop by vital drop, returning to me.

Captain Julia of theKristeva is telling us something very simple. Through her megaphone she tells us it repeatedly, and with a certain aplomb.

'You are now prisoners of the Hysperon Empire! You are prisoners of the Scarlet Empress!'

Of course, of course, we already knew that.

Major Angela is muttering filthy swear words in the general direction of Julia's boat. Look at how long the Bearded Lady's beard has grown!

Most distinguished. A proper set of facial hair adorning her n.o.ble jutting jawline. What a pity she cannot look upon her own reflection. She doesn't seem very enchanted by my presence. This isn't at all how I imagined my return to life. Was I expecting parties and a great hullabaloo? Best to expect little, and make the best of what you get. So I will keep quiet.

This human child, Sam, seems rather nice and I shall think about befriending her. Make the Bearded Lady jealous, perhaps. Oh, I'm thawing nicely, with sensation stealing back in lively spurts and fits and starts. I can grind my teeth and stir my flippers and no longer do I shiver.

The crystals of ice on my long, long lashes have melted clear away, and so have those up my bovine nostrils. I give a small, a very small, moo of pleasure, and get a dirty look from the Alligator Man.

'My friends,' I announce cautiously, 'I am returned to life and full working strength!'

I try to stand in the boat, which rocks and makes it quite difficult.

'Much good it will do us,' Gila grunts. He was always very disparaging of my abilities.'We're going to be killed for sure. Either aboard that ship, or by the time we get back to Hyspero.'

'Is that so?' I ask.

He rolls his quite malevolent eyes. Poor Gila, I see, is looking more of a lizard than ever. See how his jaw has stretched into a rictus, a muzzle.

His teeth are dagger-like and protruding, overlapping. Has anyone mentioned to him how much he has reverted, and how much less human he looks? Perhaps they have.

'Is it up to me,' I begin,'to devise a sudden plan of escape?' I flick my eyes around the whole, doleful bunch of them. None of them look too clever and eager. 'Is it my turn now?'

Gila snorts in derision. He was always doing that.

'Have you got any ideas?' Someone leans closer to me. Taking me seriously at last. It is the man that the human child called Doctor.

'I might utilise my low-level telepathic abilities to call up some help.'

"Then, go on!' he urged me.

Already the boats were pulling up close to the gaudy ma.s.s of the mother ship. We could hear the relentless slap of the waves against her prow.

Rope ladders were sent down with a sudden, weighty flourish, unsc rolling and tumbling, their feet hitting the sea with a series of deft splashes.

'Do something,' hissed the Doctor and I close my heavy-lidded eyes and I began to concentrate.

The Captain of theKristeva , Julia, was already clambering up one of the ladders. First aboard as usual, as was correct. Her henchmen drew the two small boats together and they set about manhandling us prisoners and getting us to take our turn in climbing up the cold, wet ropes.

And I concentrated. I fixed my tiny mind on the creature only'certain leagues away. The creature who might just help us.

The old woman in her wheelchair moaned disconsolately.'How am I going to get up there in this thing? I can't climb!' She set her face defiantly.'What are you going to do about it?'

The pirates laughed and kicked her chair overboard. They held on to her and rocked with mirth as she watched her chair glug and sink.

Gila, oddly enough, leapt to the old lady's defence. He struck the one with the long neck and the dagger in its beak and knocked it off balance.

It fell backwards into the water. Pandemonium, suddenly, as the prisoners jostled and made both boats rock and sway in the water and the pirates struggled to take control and fish their shrieking, heron-like compatriot out of the chilling sea. An ape creature pounded at Gila's back and the two of them wrestled, threatening to capsize all of us.

Everyone was shouting. Loudest of all was the bellowing of Captain Julia, as she hauled herself aboard her ship, and looked down in disgust at the fracas below.

Major Angela had set her thick hands about the neck of a man-sized rodent. Sam was being squashed into the hull of our boat by the struggle and the Doctor rushed to free her.