Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids (10 page)

He tried reasoning. ‘It’s not only your own work you’re destroying. Other people have contributed. You have no right to do this.’

‘You long ago lost sight of the difference between right and wrong,’ retorted Bruchner as he ripped more pages into shreds.

‘Why? Because of some unexplained incidents?’

‘On my way down here, I heard of another "unexplained incident". From the stewardess. That harmless old man is missing... How many more, Doland, before you and Lasky accept responsibility?’

Stepping out of the hut, Doland turned the key, locking Bruchner inside, then hurried off to find Lasky: she could deal with her recalcitrant assistant!

‘I’m far too busy for a horticultural dissertation, young woman,’ Lasky barked at Mel. As was her practice, the large-boned but trim-figured professor was taking her ritual exercise in the gym.‘ The activities of you and your erratic friend have already disrupted my routine.’ She pedalled furiously, notching up mileage on the tachometer.

Not put off, Mel held out the leaf she found stuck in the bathroom grille. ‘I only asked if you’d tell me what this leaf is.’ ‘After my work-out. And that’s final!’

Obduracy was hardly a characteristic Mel could reasonably object to, being amply endowed with the same quality herself. She withdrew temporarily to the vionesium sunbed to await the granting of an audience with the autocratic academic.

Doland burst in.

Glancing at Mel, his tone was hushed as he appealed to Lasky. ‘Can I speak to you privately?’

‘Really! But now, Doland!’ He got short shrift too!

Normally he would have deferred to her wishes.

However the urgency of the matter emboldened him. ‘I know you object to your schedule being interrupted, but this is extremey vital.’

‘Well?’ She did not stop pedalling.

‘It’s important you –’ he was very aware of Mel’s presence in the vicinity – ‘speak to Bruchner. Er – calm him down.’

‘Can’t you?’

‘He won’t listen to me.’

‘Where is he?’ Lasky dismounted from the exercise hike.

‘Locked in the work hut.’

‘Then leave him there to cool off. I’ll talk to him later.’

Sighing with exasperation, she petulantly snatched a length of paper towelling from a dispenser. ‘Perhaps I can get some peace in my cabin!’

Swabbing her face, she flung the screwed-up towelling into a large disposal bin on wheels and stomped from the gym.

‘Er – Mister Doland’ – this was Mel – ‘Let’s pick up where we broke off, shall we?’ She was thinking of the discussion they had had after the discovery of the mutant, Ruth Baxter, in the isolation room. ‘While you’re in the mood for explanations.’

‘Did I give you that impression?’ came the noncommital reply.

‘What are those pods in the hydroponic centre?’ Typical Mel. Straight to the point. No dancing about.

‘The result of another experiment.’ An oblique answer.

‘I could’ve made an educated guess at that! What was in them?’

‘Giant fruit. And, anticipating your next question, we left them on Mogar.’ He began to move off. ‘We’re merely taking the shucks as an example for fellow agronomists in Earth-bound laboratories.’

Mel glared after his departing figure. ‘I hope he’s a better scientist than he is a liar,’ she muttered to herself.

About to quit the gym, she halted.

An eerie, murmuring was filtering in... and it seemed to be coming from the air duct high above the parallel wallbars...

Nimbly, she scaled the wallbars, then strained against the grille, trying to hear more clearly.

But the murmurings remained indistinct.

Hanging on, arm crooked through the top bar, she looked around in frustration. If only she could amplify the murmurings – inspiration!

In a flurry of explosive agility, she descended the bars, snatched a portable two-way headset with a throat mike from the shelf, and reascended the rungs.

Feverishly, she hooked the headset to the grille, poking the mike through the slats. Then, leaping to the ground, she hared into the observation cubicle.

Fingers twitching, she contemplated the audio apparatus. ‘Think! Think!’ Anxiety was inhibiting her from sorting out the correct procedure.

She jabbed several buttons. Tiny lights flashed but no sound emerged. ‘Less haste... amplifier... amplifier...’

That’s what she was seeking. If she could amplify the murmurings, she would be able to hear what was being said.

She tried another control. Voices. Too faint. She increased the volume –

‘
– reckless actions! We must not make animalkind aware of
our existence. Not yet. They still outnumber us. If we are to kill
them all – and we shall – we must hunt them down secretly...
’

Mel’s mouth gaped with horror as she listened to the sibilant whisperings. This reflex was an unexpected bonus for someone...

Someone who had stolen into the observation room...

Whose gloved hands thrust a muzzle with an aerosol attached over Mel’s parted lips...

She managed only a suppressed scream before succumbing to the anaesthetizing gas....

‘ "
Is there anybody there?
said the traveller",’ the Doctor quoted from Walter de la Mare. His delivery was perfect. A pity there was no-one to appreciate it in the deserted lounge.

‘Perhaps she’s in the gym.’

She was.

But not performing aerobics... or skipping... or pedalling on the exercise bike. Comatose, Mel had been buried beneath layers of crumpled paper towelling in the wheeled wastebin. The question the Doctor had posed was less than apposite: Mel’s destiny rather than her whereabouts was more relevant.

Humming tunelessly, shoving a train of wastebins, a rubbish collector clattered into the gym. He swapped 126, the bin containing Mel, with a pristine replacement.

‘Allow me.’ With a friendly grin, the Doctor, entering, held the door ajar for the rubbish collector and his wagon-train to exit.

A courteous gesture that sped Mel on her way to a grisly disposal.

16

In his quest for Mel, the Doctor poked his head into the observation cubicle... and noticed the audio deck tape spinning on record.

Curiosity to the fore, he rewound the tape and activated the reply: ‘
– reckless actions. We must not make animalkind
aware of our existence...
’

The sibilant message of hate that had confounded Mel was repeated for the Doctor.

Gloom had settled upon the rubbish collector as he plodded into an elevator and descended to a lower deck. He no longer hummed his tuneless song. The good-natured repartee that invariably sparked between himself and passing crew members was absent: the red alert was curbing the usual bonhomie.

Coupling fresh bins to his train, he trudged on, oblivious to the fact that in bin 126 lay the anaesthetized Mel. Her erstwhile assailant had cast the innocent collector in the role of an accomplice to murder....

‘
... to kill them all – and we shall – we must hunt them down
secretly.
’

If these sentiments disturbed the Doctor, the next sound from the tape appalled him.

It was Mel’s stifled scream.

He also recognised and understood the import of the sequence that followed, which culminated in his own

‘Allow me’ to the exiting rubbish collector!

On wings of desperation, he gave chase.

‘The wastebins! Where do they go?’

Janet blinked at the distraught Doctor in apparent bewilderment as he burst into the lounge.

‘Wastebins?’

‘Quickly, woman! Where are they taken?’

‘The pulveriser. Why do you want –’

She was alone again!

A line of wastebins, including 126, abutted the pulveriser.

In fairly rapid succession, the bins were upended and rammed against the iris-shaped shutter.

The rapacious jaws opened and the bins’ contents were sucked into the mincing blades to be fragmented and spewed into space. Under the expert manipulation of the operator, each bin was evacuated in mere seconds.

Inexorably Mel’s bin trundled closer... closer.. then the wait was over... 126 rolled into position... With practised economy, the operator tipped the lid and grasped its sides –

‘
Stop!
’

Pell-mell, the Doctor dashed into the disposal unit and flung himself upon bin 126!

Yanking it from the operator’s grasp, he burrowed beneath the tangle of paper towelling.

There lay Mel in blissful repose..

Her dark-fringed eyelashes fluttered and she smiled drowsily at her rescuer.

Relief brought an groan-worthy pun from the Time Lord. ‘Don’t throw in the towel, Mel!’

In contrast with Mel’s tranquilised mood, turbulence dominated the navigational window on the bridge. The spiralling tentacles of the Black Hole of Tartarus curled ominously as the
Hyperion III
got closer.

However, the Commodore glowered not at the Black Hole but at the contrite Rudge who had just brought news of Mister Kimber’s disappearance.

‘Why in Hades haven’t you reported before now? As a Security Officer you’re an unmitigated disaster!’

‘That’s hardly fair –’

‘Silence!’ The Commodore bridled. ‘We’ve had a passenger murdered. According to you, another’s disappeared. Three members of the crew are missing, unaccounted for. And you haven’t a clue as to why they’ve gone or where they are!’

To be just to Rudge, he could not know.

Nor could anyone else.

Not unless they made a habit of crawling through the air vents to the bulkhead where Vervoids were milling about.

The corpse of the sentry from outside the isolation cabin was being added to that of Mister Kimber and the earlier victims in the improvised cage.

‘We are doing splendidly,’ hissed the First Vervoid, surveying the pathetic pile of bodies.

‘Congratulations must be delayed until that is full,’

cautioned the Second Vervoid.

The First Vervoid nodded approvingly. ‘We shall not have long to wait...’

‘It’s gone!’

‘What has?’

‘The tape.’ The Doctor was scrabbling among the tape stacks in the observation cubicle. ‘The proof we need to force Lasky’s hand.’

‘The killer’s obviously removed it.’

‘Just as he tried to remove you.’ Mentally the Doctor had a vision of the chomping pulveriser and the end his companion so nearly suffered.

‘He?’ picked up Mel. ‘Why not she?’

This thought had not struck the Doctor. ‘Lasky?’

‘Or the stewardess, Janet.’

‘Janet?’ Incredulity tinged the reply.

‘Wouldn’t’ve taken a man’s strength to lift my weight. A woman could’ve dumped me in the wastebin.’ Perfectly true. Petite and slender, Mel would have been no weight to lift. Considering this fact, the Doctor entered the gym and, puffing, clambered up the wallbars. Mel, more sprightly, climbed up beside him.

He peered into the duct. ‘What are they? And how do they link with these murders?’

‘Whatever they are, they’re not human! We’re all to be destroyed, remember?’

‘Still got that piece of leaf ?’ he asked as they descended.

Mel produced the leaf she had found in Mister Kimber’s bathroom. The Doctor compared it with the leaf he had taken from Hallet’s pocket: the one Mallet had discovered in the hydroponic centre when he was masquerading as a Mogarian.

Abruptly, the Time Lord turned to leave.

‘Where’re you off to?’

‘Hydroponic centre. There has to be a connection.’

‘What about me?’

‘Follow your own theory. See if Janet’s got the tape.’ He paused. ‘But, Mel, be careful...’ His concern for the spirited diminutive redhead was genuine.

‘You too, Doctor.’ She was equally concerned.

They parted to go their separate ways.

However, on the Matrix screen the Doctor’s colourful figure could next be seen not in the hydroponic centre, but in the communications room where, unbelievably, he had launched into a ruthless and systematic demolition of the equipment! Transmitters and receivers were reduced to scrap as the Doctor, in the style of a rampant Dervish, chopped at them with an axe!

‘I didn’t do that!’ The Doctor clenched the rail of the prisoner’s dock.

‘Stop the Matrix,’ the Inquisitor commanded.

Exaggeratedly world-weary, the Valeyard took up the cudgel. ‘Are we to be subjected to more chicanery, Sagacity?’

‘It wasn’t me in there!’ protested the Doctor.

‘Ridiculous! We all saw you. You’re scarcely mistakable in that outfit.’

‘I didn’t smash the equipment.’

The Inquisitor intervened. ‘Are you saying, Doctor, the communications equipment was not sabotaged?’

‘No. It had to be to prevent the Commodore getting information from Earth. But I didn’t do it.’

‘Then who did?’ she asked.

‘The murderer.’

‘The murderer?’ the Valeyard repeated. ‘I think, Inquisitor, the Doctor is telling us more than he realises...’

‘The prosecutor delights in scoring cheap victories, my Lady,’ responded the Doctor scornfully. ‘But I swear to you when I reviewed this section earlier in preparing my defence, I was nowhere near that communications room.’

‘So once again the defendant is accusing the Matrix of being wrong,’ came the Valeyard’s sarcastic dismissal.

‘Are you, Doctor?’ queried the Inquisitor.

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘If you’re questioning its veracity, is there any value in continuing with the Matrix?’ she persisted.

‘What else have I got? Without evidence to prove my innocence, I’m condemned.’

This was too good an opportunity for Valeyard to miss.

‘And
with
it you are condemned it seems, Doctor... Shall we continue?’

The Doctor looked contemplatively at the Valeyard.

Disputed though the claim may be, he knew the sacred Matrix had been violated. By whom or for what purpose, he failed to comprehend. Surely the execution of a Time Lord, serious as that would be, hardly warranted such a heinous crime.

17

‘Let’s hope we don’t need to call for outside help!’ The Commodore surveyed the shambles in the communications room.