Invasion Of The Cat-People Part 4

The mirage faded and the TARDIS's central column was once more just an opaque cylinder filled with geometric shapes rising, falling and turning.

The door to the corridor was flung open.

Ben was standing there, his pyjamas clinging to his body contours. For a moment the Doctor thought he had been caught in the rain until the odour told him it was sweat.

If he'd lost that much bodily fluid, Ben had to be dehydrated.

As the Doctor crossed to help him over to the Louis XIV, Ben looked up.

'Doc. . . help Pol. I think she's in danger.' The young sailor collapsed in a heap on the floor.

The Doctor dropped to his knees and felt for Ben's pulse.

Strong but fluctuating. He would be all right after some rest and a drink.

Polly!

Polly was flying. Not in a plane but just by herself Through the night sky above London. Over Seven Dials, towards Covent Garden. The Inferno, the nightclub where she had first met the Doctor on Thursday the thirteenth of July 1966. She was pa.s.sing over it. Flying towards the river, along the Strand. Pa.s.sing Trafalgar Square now, turning down the Mall, up to the Palace - and over!

Exhilaration. The cool night air made her goose b.u.mps feel like the greatest goose b.u.mps ever. It was a release - all her problems, her anxieties, seemed to fade away as she whipped up Buckingham Palace Road and up towards Sloane Square. No one could see her, of that she was sure.

35.Otherwise there would be shouts and cries. A woman, flying! Free, like a bird.

She began to descend, involuntarily but slowly, around South Kensington. As her feet neared the pavement she landed as if she had flown all her life. The b.u.mp as her foot touched the kerb transformed into an easy step as she casually walked up a small flight of steps to a black front door.

Her hand reached out for the doorbell but there was a flash. She threw her hands in front of her face, her nose aware of the acrid burning of wood. The door was a pile of ashes and framed in the doorway was a creature. A monster.

Polly screamed.

She had faced robotic war machines, bionic Daleks and Cybermen. But an honest-to-G.o.d monster was a totally new experience.

Her subconscious mind took in the shape - it stood on two powerful legs, like a man, but the mammary glands told her it was female. It wore a sleeveless red jerkin and outsized red silk leggings, tucked into red leather boots. The flesh was covered in grey fur, flicked back and shining with health. The head, though. It was the head that wrenched the scream from her. It was a cat's head, green eyes staring in mute surprise at Polly. Its whiskers twitched and its ears dropped back flat against the furry skull. Drawing back its lips, it hissed and spat at her. In one paw was a ma.s.sive hand-gun and as Polly backed away the monster brought it up to fire.

Self-preservation took over and Polly dived. Not back, but forward, under the cat-thing's legs. It turned to follow but Polly instinctively smashed her fists down on its tail.

With a loud catawaul, the cat-thing dropped its gun and its claws unfurled. It lashed out, catching at Polly's sweater, shredding it apart. Polly scrambled back into the large entrance hall. To one side, an elderly woman lay spread-eagled on the bottom steps. Polly was no expert but she had seen enough corpses to recognize another one. Sitting further up the stairs was a young man, rolled up like a ball.

36.Polly had time to be aware that he was moaning softly before the cat used its powerful legs to pounce on her.

Polly's second scream alerted the man who suddenly looked up.

'No,' he yelled. 'No! Not you. Where's the Doctor?' Polly woke up, screaming.

Friday the eighth of July 1994. Eight o'clock in the morning exactly. The fire services, police and ambulances arrived very quickly. The small blaze was quickly doused and it was of some relief to the occupants of the bedsits that the only rooms affected were the ground-floor rooms and the hallway.

'It was that goth. Told you he was weird.'

'All those candles and spells.'

'Where is he? Was he burned up as well?'

'Bet one of his stupid candles fell against those black curtains of his and whommpf whommpf up it all went.' up it all went.'

'Poor Mrs Fuller.'

'Hey - does this mean we're gonna be evicted?'

The police never found any trace of the mysterious goth who lived in Flat 1. Nothing was left in anything approaching salvageable condition and no one even knew his name.

Maybe he had been completely burned up.

Poor Mrs Fuller. Looked as if she had inhaled the smoke and tripped coming down the stairs; her neck and back were broken in more places than the pathologist had ever seen before. But he could not account for the ma.s.sive scratch across the back of her neck. Nothing on the stairs or floor could account for that. It reminded him of a large claw mark, like a playful kitten would leave on a hand. Except this playful kitten would have to be lion-sized - or around six feet tall. And there were no reports of animals having escaped from Regent's Park zoo recently.

Like so many mysterious deaths at 164 Cadogan Terrace, SW1, over the last one hundred years, the police report on these two would never be satisfactorily closed.

37.'Polly? Polly Wright?'

The haze cleared and the lovely voice made her smile.

'Pol, you OK?'

A different voice, but one that was still rea.s.suring.

'Ben? Doctor?'

Her vision cleared completely and the Doctor was beaming at her. He clapped his hands together.

'There you are, Ben. I said Polly would be all right, given time.'

Ben was still looking worried. 'Yeah. Right. Polly, you gave us a bit of a fright.'

'I . . . I'm sorry, Ben. I had the most frightful dream.'

Suddenly she sat upright and the Doctor looked back at her questioningly. 'Doctor. Doctor, I was flying. Through London, although it wasn't quite right. It smelled . . . funny.

Heavy.'

Ben's eyebrows raised. 'Flying? In an aeroplane?'

Polly frowned. 'No . . . no, just by myself . . .'

Ben laughed.

The Doctor waved him down. 'Quiet, Ben, this could be important.' He smiled again at Polly and crouched down beside her bed. 'Tell me everything, Polly. Don't miss out any detail.'

After she had finished her story, Polly asked Ben to get her a drink. As he wandered off, she touched the Doctor's arm.

'I had an out-of-body experience, didn't I?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Why do you think that, my dear?'

Polly shrugged. 'I ... I'm not sure. One of my old flames, Roger, he used to be heavily into that sort of thing. Hare Krishna. Reincarnation, spiritual movement.'

'And you? Did you believe?'

Polly pulled the sodden bedspread towards her and drew her knees up. 'No. Of course not.'

'Are you sure? Not just a little?'

Polly looked at the Doctor and he smiled. Polly relaxed.

38.'Well, a bit I suppose. Ghosts, or spirits, things like that. I went to a seance once. Contacted Daddy's brother - not Uncle Charles but Uncle Randolph. He died during the war.

It was. . . weird. I don't remember much about it, but apparently I blacked out and the others claim Uncle Randolph spoke through me. When I told him about it, Roger said I was possibly a natural medium or something.'

She looked at her hands and played with a ring on her finger. 'Devon's funny like that. Once I moved to London to work for Professor Brett, well, those silly things just got forgotten. But just now, dreaming, I felt like I did down in Devon. At the seance. Sort of detached.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Well, Polly, it's not all rubbish, although a lot of people bury true spiritualism under silly mumbo-jumbo that makes it more pantomime than reality.

Psionics is not an exact science but quite real nevertheless.

Ghosts as such - your traditional sheet-wearing spooks come to haunt you or lead you to buried treasure - aren't entirely real, but some sorts of apparitions can exist.'

Ben walked in with a jug of water and three gla.s.ses. The Doctor looked at him. 'I think you ought to get out of those damp pyjamas, Ben. You'll catch a chill.'

'I'm OK -' he began to protest, but a look from the Doctor and he took the hint. 'Yeah. I'll have a shower too, if that's all right.'

After he had gone, the Doctor sat on Polly's bed and poured them both some water. 'Basically, there are two types of ghost, for want of a better word. There is a theory that everything material - bricks, stone, trees, et cetera et cetera - - are all like tape recorders. Everything that occurs, the echo of every noise and touch and even pa.s.sing people is somehow absorbed, and when the vibrations are right - sometimes sound, sometimes powerfully strong emotions like fear, anger or hatred - they can be played back like a recording. Thus ghosts. A far more likely alternative is that time is like a silk sheet. It wears down now and again and tiny breaks occur. Before they can be repaired something breaks through from the past or future from that exact 39 physical point in s.p.a.ce - a ghost.' The Doctor drank some water. 'I'm not saying which, if either, is right, but they both have evidence to support them and cynics to decry them. I believe in an open mind. I think you do too.'

Polly nodded. And smiled. 'I bet Ben wouldn't be so understanding.'

'Oh, don't count him out. He is brusque and brave but underneath it all, quite sensitive.' The Doctor grinned. 'Mind you, I expect out-of-body experiences are a bit out of his league, so let's not bother him with that right now. No, I think you were receiving a message. From the young man you saw. I had a similar vision. I think he was trying to deliberately attract my attention but your susceptibility to psionic powers caused you to take my place as a physical vessel.'

'He seemed to be in a lot of trouble. And there was that cat-thing.'

'Hmmm. A Cat-Person. The Felinetta are a widespread race of galactic scavengers, I think originally from the Lynx constellation. Like cats on Earth, they are split into many different races across the stars: the Lion-Men of Mongo, the Felinoids of Cait, the Cheetah People and their genetically engineered Kitlings, the mercenaries of Gin-Seng; even the Aegis have been known to use metamorphic cats in their undercover missions. I wonder where your Cat-Person was from? Vedela, perhaps, or Capella? It could have been one of the Kzinti warriors, I suppose. . .'

Polly could see this going on for a while. 'She was well-armed, anyway,' she interrupted. 'I'm fairly certain she'd killed the old lady and was going to kill the man.' Polly shivered suddenly. 'Oh, Doctor, it was horrible.'

As Polly hid her face in her crossed arms, the Doctor patted her on the back. 'There, there, Polly. It's over now. I think we'll go on holiday. I know a nice place in the north-west of England, in c.u.mbria. Shall we stop off for some Irish Sea air?'

Polly smiled. 'Oh yes, please, that would be so nice.'

40.

Friday the eighth of July 1994. Eight o'clock in the morning.

Peter Moore never knew what hit him.

One minute he was cheerfully gnawing on a rather dry cuc.u.mber sandwich, the next he was flat on his back at the foot of the wooden staircase he had been climbing. He was no longer cheerful or eating. Instead his left arm was twisted awkwardly behind his back and although it did not hurt as such - just a dull ache - he was aware that it felt numb and that was not right.

He wanted to call out to the others but as he opened his mouth a blast of chill air swept over him, drawing both his voice and courage away. His eyes widened as something came towards him, floating down the stairs. It was a woman, dressed in a severe black uniform, a tiny white pinny around her waist, tightened cruelly enough to give the impression of a slimness she did not really possess. He stared in mute surprise - although she took very deliberate steps it was as if she was descending an invisible set of treads four inches above the real ones. Her feet were not touching anything.

Peter noticed that she was carrying something in her right hand, cupped out of sight by the other. She clearly had not noticed him, her eyes fixed dead ahead. Only as she stepped a mere three steps from him did her face change. She looked down, not at Peter but to his left. He followed her gaze but there was nothing there, just the dusty wooden floor. He looked back at her and realized that her skin was quite grey and there were dark rings under her eyes. She was either unwell or lacking in sleep and she seemed to be fighting back against some pain.

Suddenly she stopped, her hand falling away to reveal a candle in a holder but Peter saw no extra light from it, or felt even a waft of warmth. Like the woman, it was as if it were not quite there - just a step out of sync with him and the house. Her eyes widened, still looking away from the floor and to his left. Peter could not move because of his arm but knew she was staring at the door he had come out 41 of. Slowly she shook her head and her mouth opened wide in horror. She screamed and dropped the candle. Peter expected to hear her shrill yell but instead his ear drums were buffeted by a rush of wind and a screeching like fingernails across a chalkboard. He tried to put his good arm towards his head to block out the noise but could not. The woman stumbled and fell towards him. Instinctively, he pushed his arm forward to ward off her body although he knew he would never feel it.

In the last second, he heard her yell and his scream joined hers in a cacophony of terror.

There was an almighty crash behind him and he was aware that pairs of hands were hauling him up and away from the stairs into a room. Soothing words were being whispered in one ear by a soft Welsh-accented voice while on the other side, a familiar Australian male was making waspish comments about weight and alcohol intake.

'Si . . . ?'

'Shut up and sit down,' was Simon's response.

The screaming was fading - his own and the woman's.

Gradually his eyes focused. He was back in the Ex-Room, the team's concerned faces staring at him. One seemed to detach itself from the others and float towards him, and Peter shook his head trying to restore his vision to normal.

He blinked a couple of times and sure enough Professor Bridgeman was there, a pen-torch flashing into his eyes.

Peter winced and tried to pull away but Bridgeman's grip was strong.

'N-now, Peter, do stop fussing. You know this doesn't hurt,' Bridgeman was saying.

'Sorry,' mumbled Peter, his vocal chords finally rea.s.serting themselves. 'What . . . what happened?'

'You tell us,' grunted Simon beside him.

Peter turned from Bridgeman's blinking light and stared up at Simon's blond-framed face. He tried to reach out and grasp his friend's arm, but instead a thousand needles drilled into his brain and he cried out.

42.'Jeez - his arm!' Simon leaned over and Peter felt his arm being moved. It was only a gentle movement but he could not help releasing a further yelp of agony.

'Is it broken?' asked Carfrae.

Peter had let his cries become a soft gasp by now and as he rested his head back he saw the glare that Simon shot Carfrae. 'No, he's making this fuss because he's snagged his sleeve,' he growled.

'I only asked,' she said.

Peter waved the bickering away. 'Hey, guys, not over me, 'kay?'

Professor Bridgeman came into his vision again. 'Let me see that arm p-please, Simon,' he said. Bending down, he carefully ran his hand around it, wincing slightly as he felt near the elbow. Peter found himself wincing as well. 'Not broken, I think. But probably dislocated in a very awkward place.' He tutted quietly. 'I k-keep telling you youngsters to take it easy. Do you ever listen?'

'Apparently not,' snapped a Germanic voice from the opposite doorway. Peter tried to look up but then decided he could not be bothered. It was only Kerbe, probably still dressed as if he were addressing some high-powered executive board meeting, his gelled hair slicked into perfect shape and not a trace of five o'clock shadow. How did he always look so perfect? He carried on barking at them, rude as always. 'It seems that I cannot leave you alone for more than three minutes before you injure yourself. Next time, I will pick my team more carefully.'

'I would thank you, Herr Kerbe, n-not to belittle "your team" so freely in future,' said Bridgeman. 'P-poor Peter has had an accident that any of us could have at any time. An unavoidable one, due to no one and nothing.'

Kerbe stared at Peter and gave a tiny nod and smiled tightly. 'I apologize, everyone. My concern for Mr Moore's injury made me . . . cranky, I think you would say. I apologize.'