Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids (9 page)

Even Mel was dumbfounded. She had every faith in the Doctor’s ability to fabricate excuses, but how was he going to explain this act away? She was to be disappointed.

‘Not to me.’ Rudge’s unctuous smile accompanied his triumph. ‘To the Commodore! He is expecting you.’ He gestured to the sentry. ‘Take him!’

‘Halt the Matrix!’ The Valeyard was on his feet. ‘I fail to comprehend this evidence. The Doctor is on trial for his life. Yet in his defence – a defence that is supposed to prove him not guilty of the charge of meddling – he presents us with a situation in which he is deliberately flouting accepted authority.’

The elderly Guardians of the Law began to mutter sympathetic comments.

‘Much of the evidence does seem to contradict your stated aim, Doctor.’ The Inquisitor’s contribution was put calmly, although her disapproval of the support being accorded to the prosecutor by what should have been an impartial gathering, was manifest. ‘Are you claiming the Matrix is again being falsified?’

‘No. And if the Valeyard would exercise the restraint that I showed during the presentation of his case against me –’

‘Huh!’

‘–
and
could suppress his blood lust –’

‘Doctor!’ The Inquisitor’s patience was not limitless.

‘This Court is dedicated to giving you a fair trial. Do not abuse its indulgence.’

‘My apologies.’

‘The Matrix, Doctor. I suggest we return to the
Hyperion
III
.’

The
Hyperion III
was skirting the edge of a giant whirlpool, the hub of which was a Stygian blackness. Even the surrounding cosmos had undergone a slightly sinister change...

Seated at the console, the Commodore was contemplating the massive whirlpool through the navigational window.

‘Bring us in closer,’ he instructed the Deck Officer.

‘Reduce the margin by a factor of point-nought-one, to point-nought-two.’

‘Very narrow margin of safety, Commodore.’ This was the Doctor speaking. He had arrived with the escorting sentry.

‘Not for a ship of the
Hyperion
class,’ replied the Commodore.

‘Still unwise,’ insisted the Doctor. ‘Quirky phenomena, Black Holes. They can gulp with unpredictable turbulence.’

‘When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it!’ That was the Doctor dispensed with. He dismissed the sentry with a curt wave. ‘I’ll handle this. Get back on duty.’

The sentry obeyed smartly.

‘What I
do
want to hear from you, Doctor, is the reason why I shouldn’t toss you in the brig! Fire alarms are not playthings for irresponsible buffoons!’

While the Doctor was receiving a verbal larruping from the Commodore, Janet was experiencing panic.

The fire alarm had meant that all passengers had assembled in the lounge. This was obligatory drill. The hoax having been quickly discovered, the gathering had dispersed. But Janet had noticed a missing passenger.

‘Mister Rudge,’ she called as she saw Rudge in the corridor with Mel. ‘Mister Rudge!’

‘Steady on, Janet,’ he uttered in his usual avuncular timbre.

‘It’s Mister Kimber, the elderly passenger in Cabin Ten.

He didn’t report to the fire assembly point and he’s not in his cabin!’

Rudge was far from bothered. Perhaps the old boy was a bit deaf or a bit obstinate. Elderly people did not always abide by the rules.

But Janet would not be assuaged. She urged the Security Officer towards Cabin Ten.

Mel went too.

Nothing had been disturbed in the cabin.

‘He hasn’t touched the drink I brought him.’

Rudge shrugged. ‘Well, maybe he’s just wandered off.

Absent-minded.’

‘Without his coat?’ exclaimed Janet. The jacket hung neatly in the wardrobe. ‘Or his watch?’

This did strike Rudge as strange. ‘When did you last see him?’

‘I didn’t. See him, that is. He was in the shower. I spoke to him through the door.’

Patting Janet consolingly on the shoulder, Rudge opened the bathroom divider...

14

The bathroom was deserted.

Apart from a residue of water in the shower and splashes on the tiles, there was no indication that Mister Kimber or his assailant had been in there.

‘Where can he be? With all these killings –!’

‘That’ll do, Janet.’ Rudge refused to tolerate histrionics.

‘Pull yourself together. Going to pieces won’t help. We’ll search the passenger quarters before we start assuming the worst.’

With Janet in tow, he exited, brushing past Mel.

About to follow, she lingered. Something nagged.

Another disappearance? The investigation needed a fresh approach. But what? She fingered the wristwatch. An inscription on its case read:
With you every second. Peter and
family
. The stewardess was right. Mister Kimber wouldn’t voluntarily have gone anywhere without his keepsake.

She peered into the bathroom. Initially it yielded no clue – but wait! The old man was supposed to have been taking a shower... yet the fluffy bath towel was folded on the shelf. Crisp and dry. Not even damp.

A positive deduction that spurred her on to examine the bathroom more keenly... and to discover an object not in keeping with the sterile surroundings. Attached to the air grille, caught by its stem, was a waxy, olive-green leaf.

Two waxy, olive-green arms were humping the lifeless Kimber between the inner and outer shells of the space ship’s bulkhead.

Laboured breathing accompanied the grim journey as the corpse was lugged clumsily towards a lattice-work of truss and transverse girders. Although not constructed for this purpose, the girders formed a cage.

The breathing became more stertorous and the two arms flexed and braced to tip the body into the makeshift cage... rolling it on top of the corpses of the electrocuted Edwardes and the guard who had found him.

Its ghoulish task completed, the creature stretched to full height. Walking upright, the biped’s head was sculpted like a closed ivory brown bud. It had sunken cheeks that projected forward an o-shaped, rubbery mouth. Curling, transparent sepals shielded ear-slits. Neither eyebrows nor lashes framed the lidless, staring eyes in the grotesque, noseless face. Noseless because, like plants, it breathed through its waxy leaves.

As it advanced, shuffling, it gazed approvingly at the makeshift cage, then patted its green arms with congratulatory fervour... The only sound was the rustling of the leaves that grew all over its body and from the arms and legs.

This was a Vervoid.

One of the creatures that had been able to emerge from the giant shucks after the impact of high intensity light.

Approvingly, it crushed the three humans together as though making room for more, before shufflling away again along the narrow duct leading from the bulkhead and the cage...

‘A grim picture, Doctor.’

An apt comment from the Commodore who had just been given a description of the mutant in the isolation room.

‘I’ve no reason to lie, Commodore.’

‘And I’m not questioning your honesty. Simply your methods. However, I’m left with little alternative but to begin to cooperate.’

‘Begin? I take it you mean, begin
overtly
to cooperate.’

‘This could be the shortest alliance on record! You’d do well to remember I’m in command here!’

‘Commodore, you’ve been using me. I would never have been allowed to run free if you hadn’t condoned it!’

The Commodore’s eyes twinkled as he met the Doctor’s gaze. ‘Fair comment. So shall we dispense with the fencing?’

‘Agreed.’ But the Doctor wasn’t finished. ‘Frankly, I think you should report the death of the investigator Hallet to the authorities on Earth and insist on being given details of his mission.’ The Time Lord knew if they could discover what Hallet was meant to be investigating on the ship, they would have a lead to the murderer... and to any other mystery aboard.

‘You underestimate me to that extent, do you?’

‘Sorry. They refused?’

‘Top secret. By the time they’ve gone through channels, we’ll probably have docked!’

‘That can’t happen!’ Instinct told the Doctor that whatever evil existed must be confined to the
Hyperion III.

‘No-one will be allowed to disembark. The murderer won’t escape.’

‘The murderer... yes...’ Abruptly he turned to leave.

Second thoughts. ‘You’ll tell me as soon as you get a reply, Commodore?’

‘Certainly, Doctor. I’ll match you for candour...’

The ambiguity of the reply did not miss the Doctor as he departed.

Robbed even of his pomposity, Rudge’s ambience would have suited Uriah Heep rather than that of a superior officer as he came into the lounge.

‘Did you find Mister Kimber?’ Janet kept her voice low.

Atza and Ortezo, although some distance away, were seated at a table.

‘Not a sign. You?’

She shook her head.

‘I’ll have to report we’ve lost another passenger. That’ll improve the Commodore’s temper, I’ll guarantee!’ he said and made for the exit.

Atza rose from his recliner. ‘Mister Rudge!’

‘Later.’ Rudge did not pause.

‘Come here!’ This was not a request from Atza: it was an order! Made in such a peremptory fashion that the Security Officer should have objected.

He did not.

Instead, he hesitated, then diverted to where the two Mogarians waited.

‘We want to know what is happening,’ Atza said.

‘Yes. Where was the fire?’ Ortezo joined in.

‘It was a false alarm. Nothing to worry about.

You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve urgent things to do.’

‘Sit down, Rudge! There is only one thing you have got to do!’

‘That is to tell us exactly what is going on!’ Ortezo commanded.

Before sitting, Rudge self-consciously checked to see if Janet had overheard the telling exchange.

Ignoring this, Atza delivered the final mandate. ‘And I suggest you begin telling us right now!’

Fear is a contagion; an emotional virus. Imperceptibly, with enervating stealth, it spreads, eroding the fortitude of even the most stalwart.

Infected by the insiduous malaise, the sentry outside the isolation room shifted uneasily. An irresistible combination of sounds was undermining his resolve. In sequence they were a metallic clinking, a vague shuffling, and a door hinge creaking.

He had to know the cause. Therefore, risking reprimand, the sentry abandoned his post and sauntered to the corner.

No one was in the corridor... But an air duct grille was unlatched... and swinging gently on the recycled currents of air. Little did he know it was the duct from which Mel had heard eerie murmurs while the Doctor was concocting his deceptive fire alarm caper.

Intrigued, the sentry took the fateful steps to inspect the grille... But before he could peer in – a Vervoid shuffled from the adjacent cabin...

Awestricken by this grotesque apparition, the man’s training took over. Frantically tapping in a code, he raised the communicator to his lips to summon help – a waxy, olive, leaf-veined hand darted from the air duct and shot a stinging thorn into his cheek.

‘
Yes?
’ The Commodore’s voice echoed through the communicator.

No reply to the question was received on the bridge.

Only the wheezing gasps of choking came back...

‘
What is it?
’ Perplexed, the Commander leant closer to the intercom.

‘
State your position!
’ The disembodied instruction filtering from the communicator fell on dead ears.

Poisoned by the lethal thorn, the sentry had collapsed to the floor.

‘Quickly,’ the attacking Vervoid called to its cohort.

‘Help me with this.’ The voice, in a minor key, was dominated by a hissing since consonants took preference over vowels.

Between them, the Vervoids gathered up the dead sentry and bundled him into the duct, treading on the communicator in the process.

Static crackled discordantly on the bridge as the communicator broke.

‘What the blazes was that?’ The Commodore flicked off the intercom. ‘Trace that call!’ he instructed the Duty Officer.

Swivelling the command chair, the Commodore rose and went to the concave navigational window. Leaning forward, knuckles resting on the sill, he gazed out at the unfriendly vacuum of space. Most of his adult life had been spent traversing this celestial ocean with its impersonal hostility, and, from the beginning, he had never managed to shake off the feeling of vulnerability. Not that he would admit it. The garbled voice on the intercom brought home the new dimension to his vulnerability: the enemy was within.

Broadly, he had two options. To mount an assault; pull every available man from his post and organise a detailed search. There was an almost overwhelming attraction to pursue this positive path, yet he knew that with all the ship’s personnel, a search of the huge intricate ship could not be completed before they docked.

The other option would be to keep the crew on red alert, which had the crucial benefit of providing the passengers with a greater degree of protection.

However, events were about to make the Solomon-like ponderings racking the Commodore superfluous –

catastrophically so...

15

Defence may have been the Commodore’s choice but not Bruchner’s. The scientist had taken a violent initiative.

One that aroused fierce indignation in Doland. What he saw in the hydroponic work but was tantamount to treason. Bruchner was destroying the notes and papers of their experiments.

‘Have you gone out of your mind, Bruchner?’ Doland was aghast as he viewed the devastation.

‘I have been. But not any more. I’ve regained my sanity.’

In contrast to the havoc he had wrought, Bruchner was calm; unnaturally so.

Doland wanted to wrench the precious notebooks away.

They represented years of research. However, he was wise enough to realise any arbitrary move on his part would just inflame the situation.