Doctor Who BBCN17 - Sick Building (15 page)

The Doctor glared at him with bitter irony. ‘We’d best get a move on, hadn’t we? Up to the Dust Chamber, rescue your family. And then to the rooftop. Come on!’

Tiermann’s eyes were glittering and crazy, Martha thought. But he jumped into action. Her heart was beating an excited tattoo. They had done it. They were getting out!

Toaster was patting the exhausted Barbara on her square back. She was leaning heavily against the far wall. The Domovoi’s frozen mind had receded and now Barbara was her old self again. But she was quaking with terror.

‘Well done, old thing!’ Toaster cried cheerily, as the others started hurrying out of the override room. ‘I was so proud of you! You were magnificent, my dear!’

But Barbara was still looking worried. ‘But what happens. . . when the Domovoi comes back to life?’ she whispered. ‘What in the world is she going to do then?’

105

Theyknewsomethinghadhappenedbecausethemisthadstartedto clear.

That thick, cloying murk was separating and falling away in strands.

Somehow gravity was reasserting itself. Pale yellow light was filtering through the Dust Chamber.

They dropped heavily to the metal floor and the impact winded them, but then Solin yelled out in triumph: ‘They’ve done it! Somehow they’ve saved us!’

Mother and son huddled together as the thick dust settled on them in soft heaps. ‘Mother, we need to get out now. Can you make it?

Otherwise we’re going to be buried alive in all this filth. . . ’

She nodded urgently and together they found the door again. As he struggled with the bulky mechanisms of the bolts, Solin was thinking furiously. Would the Sukkazz still be out there? Had he and his mother really been rescued, or had the Dust Chamber stopped functioning simply because the whole Dreamhome was failing?

Perhaps they would emerge from this deadly situation, only to face a far worse one outside. . .

But there was only one way to find out, he thought, shoving aside the last heavy bolt and thrusting open the vault door. Out there the air 107

was fresh, clean and slightly fragranced. When they toppled into the corridor the two of them spent a little time sucking in that immaculate oxygen.

‘I thought we were going to die in there,’ his mother said. She was ashen grey and streaked with foul dust. Solin got a shock when he turned to look at her. She already had the look of a thin and colourless spectre.

‘It’s all right now,’ he said, futilely brushing the dirt off his plastic clothes. ‘We’re going to get out of this mess, Mother, I just know it.

We aren’t destined to die here on Father’s world.’

A glimmer of hope brightened his mother’s deathly visage. For the first time in ages she cracked a smile. ‘I think you could be right, Solin. We have to get out of this dreadful place. We have to hope that we can continue with our lives. . . ’ Her expression hardened. ‘It’s your father who has placed us in all this danger. His hubris and pride.

He has just about doomed us. . . in this automated. . . mausoleum of his.’ There was no mistaking the sourness of her tone. ‘What was I thinking of? Letting him lock us up in here – in this awful death t rap?

We were like specimens. . . like tame beasts in some kind of luxurious zoo. . . ’

She was shuddering with horror as Solin hugged her. She went on:

‘And you, Solin. All of your life has been lived in this artificial. . . this utterly fake Dreamhome. . . ’

He struggled to placate her. ‘I’ve been OK, Mum. I’ve been happy enough. . . ’

‘It isn’t a proper life. It’s not real. All of it is artificial,’ she said softly. ‘I should have had the courage to take you away from here.

Away from him. A long time ago.’

‘No, Mother,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. Come on, now.

We’ll get away. We can start our lives again, elsewhere. . . ’

She looked around at the narrow, gleaming corridor. Solin could see that she was looking around with a kind of dread. ‘This place hasn’t killed us yet,’ she said, her voice thick with tears. ‘But neither has it allowed us to live. . . ’

∗ ∗ ∗

108

When they reached the lifts on Level Minus Twelve, Solin and Amanda were amazed to discover that they were in full working order. And what was more, one of the cars was approaching their level.

‘I don’t understand,’ Amanda said, her voice rising in hope. ‘It’s as if the influence of the Domovoi has receded. Or she has somehow relented. . . ’ Amanda glanced around nervously. On their way to the lifts they had seen no sign of the Sukkazz, or indeed any of the other Servo-furnishings. Amanda slumped against the wall as they waited for the lift to arrive. She wasn’t used to this much stress and exercise.

She felt as if her whole body was giving up.

But she knew that she had to be strong and determined still: for the sake of her son.

Solin was thoughtful, one ear cocked, listening to the hidden and mysterious workings of the Dreamhome. All at once he guessed what had happened. ‘Father and the others! They have made it to the override room! Don’t you see, mother? They must have actually managed to close down the Domovoi. . . ’ A wild excitement surged through him. ‘We can get up to the rooftop. We can get to our ship!’ He was pacing about. ‘Now we can blast off and leave this planet in time. If the Domovoi really is out of action. . . ’ He stared at the display lights that told them the lift car was approaching their level from deep underground.

‘But. . . how long, though?’ Amanda whispered. ‘How long can they keep the Domovoi restrained?’

She knew how fiercely powerful Tiermann’s masterpiece was.

Years ago, as her husband made the technological breakthroughs which allowed him to build the Domovoi, Amanda had endured months of his swaggering bravado and showing off. To hear Ernest speak, back then, you would have thought he had invented and created some wholly new form of miraculous life. And perhaps he had.

Amanda could recall feeling disconcerted by the wild and somewhat unhinged claims that her husband had made. His bragging had known no bounds.

‘The Domovoi is a goddess, Amanda,’ he had cried, on the day that the super-computer came online. ‘She has the omnipotence and the 109

brilliance of a god. And yet she is our servant, Amanda. We have taken a god and put her into our basement. And now we can instruct her to do my. . . our. . . bidding!’

Such had been Tiermann’s arrogance back in the day. As Amanda and Solin waited for the lift car – and the minutes of precious reprieve were ticking by – Amanda was thinking dark thoughts. Ernest has brought this terror down on our heads. My husband has caused all of this disaster. And then a startling thought came to her: He has blasphemed against the Domovoi.

She shook her head, to stop herself thinking in this crazy manner. She had lived in the Dreamhome too long, and its workings had seeped into her brain. It was almost as if she, too, was under its control. Could Amanda really settle elsewhere, now? On another world?

Then the lift arrived.

Its doors swooshed smoothly open, to reveal that – startlingly – the car was filled almost to capacity with their friends and family.

The Doctor sprang out into the corridor, coat tails flapping, and he gathered Amanda and Solin up into a huge, gangly hug. ‘We thought you’d been vacuumed to death!’ he yelled. ‘We thought you’d been dust-busted!’

‘We were!’ Solin laughed. ‘Look at the state of us! We were shoved in the Dust Chamber. . . ’

‘Never mind! It doesn’t matter now! Tell us everything later,’ the Doctor said, coughing at the dust he had disturbed by hugging his friends.

‘We don’t have long,’ Martha said urgently. ‘The Domovoi is out of action. . . ’

‘It’s definitely down?’ gasped Solin. ‘We thought so. Did you do it?’

‘We all did it,’ said the Doctor.

‘But we have to get a shift on,’ Martha said. ‘There’s only minutes left. . . ’

At that moment Solin turned to see Amanda watching Tiermann stepping out of the lift. Her husband looked very pale and wan. He nodded to his wife and son very stiffly. No frenzied hugs of relief 110

and joy there, then. Tiermann had always been rather cold with his family. It was only now, comparing his behaviour with that of these new friends, that Solin could see just how remote his father was. How chilly and aloof he was. Solin was starting to think that his father was a weird and messed-up old man.

Tiermann was stooping and evidently in some pain. ‘This elevator will take us to the rooftop,’ he said. ‘Come along.’

Behind him Toaster and Barbara were ensconced in the lift car. To Solin’s eyes the robots seemed a bit embarrassed and awkward, as if they weren’t sure they were supposed to be here. And that’s exactly how they were feeling, too. The robots were certain they had no place amongst those being rescued from the Dreamhome.

As everyone crammed themselves into the lift, Solin heard his mother ask his father: ‘You are in pain. Are you all right, Ernest?’

‘Superficial pain,’ Tiermann growled at her. ‘Mere bodily pain. The greater pain. . . is in witnessing the death throes of my masterpiece.

The child of my genius. The grief lies in having it turn against me. In betraying it and being forced. . . to watch it die.’

The Doctor overheard this and tutted loudly. He patted Tiermann heartily on the back. ‘Oh, cheer up, Ernie matey! Never mind! I’m sure you can start up again somewhere else. But maybe next time, why not make your super-computer a bit less. . . um, bonkers and deadly, eh?’ The Doctor, chuckling, programmed the lift to whizz them up the top thirteen floors.

‘It is evident, Doctor,’ Tiermann said haughtily, ‘that you have never lost anything of value.’

The lift juddered into life and their ascent began. Something in the Doctor’s bearing stiffened with anger. Then he turned on Tiermann.

‘Oh, I have. Not that you are really interested, you silly, selfish old man. But I so have lost something of value.’

There was a lethal pause. Martha sighed.
Here we go,
she thought –though she didn’t like herself for thinking it. The Doctor was going to go all misty over Rose again.
Just ignore it,
she told herself.
Rose isn’t
here. It’s you now. And he cares about you, too.

Tiermann spat bitterly: ‘You have never lost your only home, Doctor.

111

You have never lost your place in the universe.’

Whoops,
thought Martha. Another own goal for Tiermann.

The others watched as the Doctor’s usually pliable and friendly features settled into a mask of frozen contempt. Tiermann shrank under that expression and flattened against the wall. And suddenly he could see – they could all see – that the Doctor had indeed known loss. More than any of them could imagine: loss of his home world, his people, his friends. The Doctor made all of that loss quite apparent, without even saying a word.

They remained silent as the lift went shooting up through the levels of the Dreamhome: Minus Nine, Minus Eight, Minus Seven.

Then the Doctor startled them all by grinning broadly. ‘I love lifts, don’t you? I even love it when they get to your floor, and give a little jump, and it feels like your stomach’s going to fly out of your mouth. I even love the bits of carpet they put up the walls instead of wallpaper. Why do they do that? Look, Martha. Even in space.

Even on Tiermann’s World. Little bits of carpet up the walls of the lift!

Amazing! What’s that about, eh?’

Then the lift was slowing down.

The machinery groaned and the car gave that little lurching jump as it arrived at the top level.

Level Plus One.

They had broken out of the underground, and out of the sealed levels. Now they were on the very rooftop of the Dreamhome. They had made it!

Incredibly, nothing had been able to stop them getting to the top of the house.

The lift went PING and everyone – even the robots – heaved a massive sigh of relief.

We are going to make it,
Solin thought.

The lift doors slid smartly open.

112

The spacecraft was sleek and gleaming. Like everything to do with the Dreamhome it looked expensive and luxurious. Perched there, on the flat rooftop of the building, it seemed all too ready to leap into the air and away from this place.