Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids (5 page)

Rudge had been a bystander for long enough. ‘It was Grenville, sir. A mineralogist.’

This did little to enlighten his commanding officer.

‘Doctor, any suggestion why a mineralogist who wanted to see you should be killed?’

‘None at all.’

‘Or why it is whenever you appear on the scene people begin to die?’ Spoken in anger and frustration by the Commodore, nevertheless the point seemed to subdue the Time Lord.

Not Mel. ‘Hey! I don’t care who you are, you’ve no right to say that to the Doctor!’

The Doctor shook his blonde, curly head. ‘He has, Mel,’

he said ruefully. ‘He has every right. It’s true...’

Quelling the klaxon had not allayed Sarah Lasky’s and Doland’s anxieties. They rose to greet Bruchner who came breathlessly into the lounge.

‘Well?’ demanded Lasky.

Before responding, he glanced nervously at the Mogarians seated at a nearby table.

‘Never mind them,’ snapped the Professor. Then, contradicting her own assertion, she clutched her subordinate’s arm and hauled him to the far side of the lounge. Doland followed discreetly.

‘Is the isolation room safe?’

‘Yes. I had a word with the stewardess. She said the emergency was in the waste disposal unit.’

Lasky was visibly relieved. ‘Then we can relax. Nothing to do with us.’

Bruchner’s dark eyes burned with suppressed fury. ‘That’s your assessment, is it, Professor? The danger’s past?’

The cryptic remark perplexed Doland: if all was well in the isolation room, then surely the danger was past.

What danger?

And what – or who – was in the isolation room?

These were the questions the Doctor would have posed had he been party to the exchange.

But he, uncharacteristically, was not asking questions at all...

6

‘That’s it then. End of the line.’ Could this really be the Doctor talking?

It was. Sauntering into the gym, he paused at the sunlamp. ‘Operates on vionesium. A speck no larger than a grain of sand will emit sunlight for umpteen years.’

‘What d’you mean – end of the line?’ Mel was nonplussed by this improbable behaviour.

Strangely dispirited, the Doctor ambled to the stationary walking machine. ‘Our contact. Obviously it’s he who’s been pulverised.’

‘So we give up?’

‘What else?’ He stepped onto the machine, and began walking on its moving platform.

‘That hydroponic centre. I told you about the sudden panic when I was in there.’ Mel was referring to the encounter between Lasky and Doland.

The Doctor showed no interest whatsoever.

But someone else did. Someone who was in the observation cubicle. Listening to every word being said...

‘Immaterial and irrelevant.’

‘I beg your pardon!’

Without interrupting his static walking, the Doctor delivered his homily. ‘My dear Melanie, if you wish to pursue this completely arbitrary course, pray hurry along to the hydroponic centre. And leave me to my peregrinations...’

‘Hold it! Hold it!’ The Doctor flipped off the Matrix in the trial room, causing the screen to go black. The Inquisitor, Valeyard and Time Lords swivelled to face hun. ‘That wasn’t as I remember it,’ he asserted.

‘How could you remember?’ queried the Inquisitor.

‘These events are in the Earth year 2986.’

‘But I reviewed this section earlier...’ The Doctor left the sentence unfinished. Disconcerted by what he had just seen, he could not get his thoughts together.

‘In preparing your defence?’ the Inquisitor prompted.

‘Yes, but there have been changes. That isn’t what happened. The girl – Mel – her information was important.

I wouldn’t have ignored it. Completely uncharacteristic.

Even the words – misused – they didn’t sound like mine.’

The Valeyard had heard enough. ‘What isn’t uncharacteristic is this resort to excuses and subterfuge.’

‘Elaborate, Valeyard,’ insisted the Inquisitor. ‘Such accusations cannot be allowed to go unchallenged in my Court.’

‘Apologies, my Lady.’ The Valeyard’s ingratiating tones barely accorded with his smug confidence. ‘To gloss over the wilful death of Peri, the Doctor conveniently presents us with another companion.’

‘Hardly a convenience. This is in the Doctor’s future.

He would not have met the young woman yet.’

The Valeyard bowed his elegant head. ‘I stand corrected. But my assumption of why he has elected to pursue such an arbitrary course in aborting this tale still remains.’

‘Arbitrary course...’ repeated the Doctor to himself.

‘Same words... an echo...’ They were the very words he himself had used to Mel in the gymnasium.

‘Your assumption, Valeyard?’ The Inquisitor persevered with her interrogation of the gloating prosecutor.

A dramatic pause... then the
coup de grâce
: ‘That she, too, is going to her death!’

‘No! No!’ The Doctor’s alarm betrayed that this was what he feared. ‘My Lady, I can’t explain... I’ve... I’ve a feeling I’m being manipulated. The evidence is being distorted.’

‘Preposterous! Absolutely preposterous!’ The Valeyard was contemptuous. ‘Forgive me, Sagacity... The idea the Matrix could lie. No, it is we who are being manipulated –

to obscure the damaging truth.’

‘Lies! Lies! This is complete fabrication!’

‘The truth, Doctor,’ persisted Valeyard. ‘You sent your companion down to the cargo hold. Into a situation which you described, I quote’ – a brief glance at his notes – "Can’t you sense it, Mel? Evil. There’s evil in this place...!" ’

‘This is all wrong!’ The Doctor was desperate now.

‘Every instinct of which I’m capable would have compelled me to stop her!’

‘Yet you did not...’ The Valeyard emphasised each syllable.

No response from the dismayed Doctor.

The Inquisitor took over. ‘Doctor, either you continue with your submission, or I must consider the evidence for the defence to be concluded.’

An air of expectancy gripped the Court: the elderly Time Lords in their russet robes; the Inquisitor, her classical looks enhanced by the white and gold filigree head-dress; the Valeyard with the inky black, tightfitting skull cap outlining his pale regular features – all awaited the decision of the cornered prisoner.

The Doctor activated the Matrix.

Following her hunch, Mel slipped stealthily into the cargo hold. On tenterhooks, she skirted the main aisle, keeping to the perimeter of each pool of light to avoid detection.

Every creak, every step tested her resolution as she made for the mellowly-lit hydroponic centre.

Passing a door marked
TECHNICAL STORES
, she froze.

‘What are you doing prowling around down here?’

It was Edwardes, the young Communications Officer.

He had come to the stores for a micro-component.

‘Prowling? Why should I be prowling?’ Mel had decided to bluff it out.

‘Because this area is off-limits. And I suspect you know it.’ The disapproval lacked conviction. Mel’s vivacious and attractive personality had registered with the young officer when he had championed her on the bridge.

Exploiting his admiration, Mel eschewed subtlety. ‘I wanted to have a peep at the hydroponic centre.’

‘Any reason in particular?’

‘I think it could tie in with the mysterious Mayday call that was sent from your communications room to the TARDIS.’

Edwardes rubbed his neck as he remembered the unpleasant sensation of being knocked cold by an unseen assailant.

‘I’m not going to touch anything,’ she promised. ‘What harm could it do?’ Edwardes’ obduracy was melting as he gazed into the beguiling brown eyes with their long-fringed lashes.

‘I’ll probably regret this. But come on: a conducted tour only. No wandering off on your own.’

Little did he realise how prophetic that prediction would be as he led Mel towards the hydroponic centre.

Mel used the occasion for more prying. ‘Tell me, who is that woman with the dragon’s voice?’

‘Professor Sarah Lasky. She’s an agronomist. So are her two assistants, Bruchner and Doland.’

If they were agronomists, Mel knew the study of plant life was their subject and therefore this specially lit and watered centre must have been set up for them.

Edwardes confirmed this. ‘Yes, we had to allocate part of the hold.’

They had reached the outer gate and while Edwardes pressed his palm against the PPR lock, Mel read the warning notice. ‘Why is only low spectrum light allowed in the place?’

‘Something to do with photosynthesis. Low spectrum light allows the plants to stay dormant.’

The outer gate swung open. ‘I’ll go ahead,’ he said.

‘Don’t want you breaking your pretty neck in the dark.’ He placed his hand on the inner mesh gate.

‘
Aaaaah!
’

In a cascade of sparks, Edwardes was slammed against the fence. Lights flared. His body convulsed. A powerful current surged through his quivering frame, crucifying him. Arms outstretched, his electrified corpse slumped to the floor. A high-tension cable had been malevolently attached to the mesh, creating a death trap.

Aghast, Mel instinctively backed several paces, unable to take in the horror. Shaken free by the impact, the cable was arcing, bathing Edwardes’ body in intermittent flashes of white light.

Screaming, Mel fled from the hold to fetch help.

But, not only Edwardes’ dead body was being bathed in the white light... the arcing from the cable reached beyond him to the giant pods.

The nearest pod began to rupture... a small slit severed its central seam.

The same with the next pod.

And the next.

Right along the row, the pods started to burst. Eerie enough in itself.

But from the first ruptured seam came an even more horrendous sight: a flexing, waxy, olive, leaf-veined hand clawed through the ever widening gap...

7

Hair streaming, in a turmoil of terror, Mel streaked blindly through the dark cargo hold and blundered into two patrolling guards who had been alerted by her screams.

‘What are you doing here? You were told –’

‘Back there!’ cried Mel. ‘Edwardes! He’s dead!’ She gestured towards the hydroponic centre.

So evident was her distress that the second guard, without waiting for instruction, ran to investigate.

‘He just touched the fence and –’

‘Save your explanation for the Commodore, lady.’ The first guard was less responsive. He played by the book.

A sensible maxim as it was to prove.

‘Have you found him?’ he called to his colleague.

‘Yes. He’s dead all right,’ came the grim response.

‘Stay with him. I’ll send help.’ Fierce with rage over the slaughter of his comrade, Mel’s captor bundled her roughly from the hold. For once she did not argue.

The still arcing light cast the bent figure of the remaining guard into silhouette as he knelt beside the body of the Communications Officer.

It also illuminated the giant pods... and the waxy, leaf-veined, claw-like hands groping through the rupturing shucks...

But there was more.

A shuck, split wide open, was empty...

Whatever had been inside was now free...

Free and shuffling towards the unsuspecting guard...

‘Another death, Doctor?’ pronounced the Valeyard to the assembled judges in the Trial Room. ‘But for the caprice of chance, the victim would have been the woman, Mel. Your culpability is beyond question.’

The Inquisitor was inclined to concur. ‘You could have prevented her from venturing into the cargo hold. Instead you appeared to encourage her.’

Indignation furrowed the Doctor’s pleasant features.

‘When I reviewed the Matrix, that isn’t what happened!

There’s something out of sync!’ He knew this to be true but could not understand how that could be. After all, the Matrix was inviolable. Or so he had always believed.

‘More futile grasping at straws. When the facts tell against you, cry fraud!’ The Valeyard’s insinuation carried weight. The Time Lords nodded in agreement.

‘Do you wish to reconsider, Doctor?’ asked the Inquisitor.

‘No. I’m being manipulated. But the only means of discovering why and by whom, is to press on!’

Against the infinite velvet blackness of space, the titanic, multi-decked
Hyperion III
glided implacably onwards.

Nothing untoward hindered its flight.

Inside its vast, futuristic interior, a different scenario was unfolding. Especially in the cargo hold.

A grille from an airduct had been removed.

Legs protuding, Edwardes’ body was being tortuously hauled into the exposed duct.

By whom? Or by what?

The only clue was a waxy, olive, leaf-veined, clawing hand yanking Edwardes’ remains from view...

Then it reached for the corpse of the second guard...

‘Why aren’t you wearing a pulsometer?’

Unknown to the apathetic Doctor, Professor Lasky had entered the gymnasium. She waggled a pulsometer under his nose. ‘The heart should be monitored while exercising.’

The Doctor halted the walking machine. ‘Which heart would you suggest, Madam?’ He squinted at the meter.

Clipped to the ear, it would register the heartbeats of the wearer. Time Lords have two hearts, but Lasky wouldn’t be aware of this. The Doctor decided to play the fool with this domineering pedagogue. ‘Unfortunately it doesn’t register a double pulse.’

‘Double pulse? What are you? A comedian?’

‘More of a clown, actually. Care to hear my rendering of
On With The Motley?
’

Lasky was spared this excruciating experience by the arrival of Rudge. ‘Excuse me, Professor Lasky.’ He spoke politely to her, not so to the Time Lord. ‘Doctor, you’re required on the bridge!’

‘The Commodore wants a chat? Good, I shall enjoy that.’

‘I don’t think you’ll find enjoyment’s on the agenda!’

Beyond the neat array of sophisticated controls, through the navigational window, the serene panorama of space was at odds with the tenseness gripping the inquest on the bridge.