Doctor Who_ Ten Little Aliens Part 26

'This is the way,' Tovel said.

The pa.s.sage wound on, getting brighter the further they got. The fleas skipped and scuttled over their faces and hands. Ben brushed them away furiously. Then he realised Roba and the others had stopped - and, a moment later, saw why.

'Stone me,' Ben said, staring out into a star-filled night.

'They put a window in here.'

'Why would they do such a thing?' Creben wondered.

'I wonder, yes,' said the Doctor, making a big show of contemplating the mystery. Ben supposed he was grateful for the extra rest. 'Why one window, and why here?'

'Well, it's not a bad view, is it?' Ben said. The stars were solid points of light, glaring out from the most absolute blackness Ben had ever seen.

'Nothing out there,' Roba remarked.

'Not yet,' Joiks added.

Roba led them onwards 'Can't get no further,' said Roba. 'Rockfall. Time to get busy.'

'All right. Polly said she ran straight down this tunnel from the blue area.' The heavy crack of boulders impacting against floor and wall punctuated Tovel's speech as Roba got his hands dirty. 'If we can clear that lot, we'll be on the way to getting clear ourselves.'

Ben wished he could believe it.

As Tovel helped Roba dislodge the really big stones, Joiks and Creben both began work themselves. While Creben sized up different rocks, looking for those that might bring a number more tumbling down without further effort, Joiks tore at the landslide. He was probably imagining each one was Frog's head. She'd given the berk a right b.l.o.o.d.y nose; if it hadn't been flattened a dozen times before she'd probably have broken it. Still, it had knocked some of the c.o.c.kiness out of him and no mistake. He was good as gold and keeping his lip b.u.t.toned. Ben almost liked him that way.

Poor old Frog. If there was even a chance they could stop what was happening to her...

'Come on, Ben,' Roba called, as he heaved at a huge boulder. 'You can maybe s.h.i.+ft the pebbles, OK?'

'Yeah, yeah.' Ben was glad to see the big man back on side, but a little wary of him too since his acting up back in the control room. He grappled with a chunk of slate too big for him to tackle easily alone, just to show willing. But the thought of Frog had suggested something to him. ''Ere, Roba.

That cut of yours. How come your suit's not digging in, staunching the blood or whatever?'

'It ain't working,' Roba grumbled, not looking up from the rockpile. 'Cheap c.r.a.p they give us.'

They worked on. Just as he was beginning to think that any second now the noise of cras.h.i.+ng rock would bring the stone angels flapping back in sympathy, Ben saw a wisp of wraith-like blue light ahead.

'Look!' he called. 'We're almost through!'

V.

Haunt stirred, her eyes opened almost involuntarily. The control room snapped back into sharp focus. The fever had broken, and her thoughts had suddenly an awful, fragile clarity. She felt not just the dreadful empty pain in her side and the warm throb of the shot in her arm, but the full weight of her responsibility for the safety and success of the mission. All those lives that depended on her.

She was so tired. Too tired. Didn't they realise that?

Her eyes closed. Just for a moment Haunt thought of Ashman again and wished she could go back there, back then, to that time on Toronto.

VI.

Shade had been sleeping silently for some time now; or so Polly had thought. She stopped as she approached him. He was lying facing away from her, curled up.

Lindey's palm-sized computer was gone from his pocket.

Polly stealthily advanced. Now she was close enough to see he was actually using the computer, holding it up to his eyes, entirely caught up in whatever it was showing him.

Polly reached in and grabbed the computer from him.

Shade spun round in surprise. Polly stifled a gasp, felt her stomach churn, and the flesh at the back of her thighs go tight at the sight of him.

His face was a mess of half-formed scabs, and streaked with bright red blood. Guilt was written gorily all over him.

'Guess I'm always going to have the same effect on people, aren't I,' he said. 'One look and they scream.'

'This isn't about your face,' Polly snapped. 'Except in as much as you seem to have two of them. Oh, yes, you were so sad to have lost poor old Lindey one minute... didn't stop you stealing her computer thing and keeping whatever it might tell you to yourself!'

She wanted him to deny it. He didn't. She looked at the screen, focussed on the green capitals cl.u.s.tered there.

PRESS OK TO KILL FILES ++.

'What's going on, Shade?' she breathed.

'Nothing,' he said, his hoa.r.s.e voice sounding more choked than usual. 'Give me that palmscreen.'

'I'll get Haunt to show me how it works,' she said defiantly.

Shade stared helplessly at her, his face twisted in pain. For an awful moment she thought he was going to start crying too.

'But if you tell me, I won't tell anyone else,' she added.

Shade laid his head back down on the firm mattress. 'I don't suppose it matters much, since we're going to die anyway.'

'What do you mean, we're going to die?' Polly demanded.

'Isn't it obvious?' Shade whispered. His brilliant green eyes seemed to look straight through her. 'Don't you see? It's me, Polly. The reason we're going to die. It's all me.' me.'

'What are you talking about, Shade?' Polly croaked, backing away.

'I'm from Earth. You know what that means?'

Polly sort of half-shook her head, not wanting to get sidetracked by unnecessary explanations.

'Privilege. Power. Reward.' He gazed up at her. 'My family could buy the planet that Frog grew up on, and barely notice the expense.'

'So?'

'So I didn't want to be like that. Just about money, and privilege. I wanted to give something back.' He smiled at her, a strained sort of smile.

Give something back. Polly thought back to the New Year's resolution she'd made in 1963, to work in the charity shop for cancer research. Giving something back. But she'd hated the squalor of the grey little store in Notting Hill, standing all day amid the remnants of drab little lives on shelves and hangers. She'd walked out after a week - making her mum ecstatic in the process - and donated a pricey pile of last year's fas.h.i.+ons instead to a.s.suage her guilt.

'Go on,' she nodded.

'I joined up. Thought I'd fight for the Empire. Coming from Earth, they made me a lieutenant straight off.' The smile was still on his face, though now it looked like someone had carved it in with a pen knife. 'On New Jersey...'

'You hurt yourself there,' Polly remembered. 'The mine...'

His face crumpled. 'I was squad leader. Schirr everywhere.

Walked straight into an ambush.' He contorted his lips over his clenched teeth, trying to keep the words coming.

'That wasn't your fault,' Polly said gently. 'You were helping the children...'

'No. There were no kids. Except the kids in my squad.' He swallowed. 'Didn't fight. Didn't lead. Just left my men to it.

They were screaming... I didn't care. So scared I ran straight into a mine.'

Polly looked down at the screen again, at the word 'OK', as Shade kept on talking, so quietly she could barely hear him.

'It took half my face off and stopped my career dead.

Without my connections - those same stupid connections I was running from - I'd have been court-martialled and either executed or else given ceremonial duties on some c.r.a.phole world mid-empire.'

'And instead?'

'Instead I was given an honourable discharge, and allowed to rejoin the following year with a doctored record.' He started to cry, a soft mewling noise coming from somewhere deep inside. 'Every day I look at myself. And I remember.'

I never forget the sc.u.m that did this to me, Shade had told her back at the rockfall. Polly looked up from the palmscreen. Shade had told her back at the rockfall. Polly looked up from the palmscreen.

It was hurting her eyes. 'Lindey found out, didn't she?'

'Someone she knew died thanks to me. Thanks to me believing I could be something I'm not.' He clicked his tongue.

'You've got the files there. I think she was going to blackmail me once I'd made AT Elite.'

'Why?'

'Show me one person who's happy where they are. I've always kidded myself I could rough it out in Empire. She wanted Earth contacts, I suppose.'

'And now she's dead?'

Shade stared dreamily into s.p.a.ce. 'All I need do is. .h.i.t the b.u.t.ton, kill the files, and my secret is safe.'

Polly pushed the palmscreen inside her s.p.a.cesuit. 'I know your secret.' She raised her eyebrows at him. 'What about me?'

'It doesn't matter,' he whispered. 'Thanks to me, we're all going to die anyway.'

'No. That's silly, stop it.'

Shade shook his head, shut his eyes. He seemed suddenly exhausted. 'I can't stop it. No one can. I'm a jinx, see. And the ambush, it's happening all over again.'

VII.

The patch of blue light had got everyone excited. Ben noticed that even Creben had abandoned his methodical knocking out of the key rocks in favour of scrabbling at the pile like the rest of them until the hole was big enough to scramble through.

There was a pressure in Ben's ears, like a sea was roaring and rolling in his head. A glittering indigo filled the wide pa.s.sage, blissfully welcome after the murk of the tunnels or the sick green glow of the fleaweed. His feet felt like they were barely touching the ground, like he was floating through the night sky in summer. How many warm evenings had Ben looked out at that dark expanse and imagined he could splash out into it as easily as he could the warm, dark sea.

'Ben.' The Doctor's voice was sharp in his ear, and a hand pressed down on his shoulder. 'Ben, listen to me.'

'What?' Ben shrugged off the Doctor's hand. He didn't want to listen. He only wanted to look. They'd reached an outcrop of rock overlooking a dark chasm. Waves of Caribbean blue rolled across roof and floor, translucent sheets of sparkling light that splashed against the rocky walls and out into the air. It was beautiful.

The Doctor raised his voice. Now it sounded like he was addressing a whole crowd.

'Ben, all of you, listen to me.'

Who else was here then?