Doctor Who_ The Art Of Destruction Part 2

18.'Normal.' echoed Basel, his head in his hands.

'Hang on.' said the Doctor, 'what am I sitting on?' He reached behind him and produced the tricorder. 'Wow! A dataget. . . You still use these!'

Basel s.n.a.t.c.hed it off him. 'It's Adiel's.'

In turn, Fynn took it from Basel. 'The data on the fungus crop I came for,' he said distantly, looking at the readout. 'No, wait. . . This isn't right. . . '

'Kanjuchi thought it was gold.' said Adiel. Her voice was quiet but it riveted the room. 'I wanted to prove he was crazy. I did a scan.'

Fynn looked at the Doctor. 'These readings are gibberish. The dataget's faulty.'

'Or else it's trying to break down chemical elements it's not programmed to recognise.' The Doctor half-smiled, but his eyes were dark and serious. 'Elements that aren't the product of Earth geology.'

Rose shut her eyes and waited for the inevitable storm of outrage and disbelief. But the room had fallen silent.

When she opened her eyes again she saw why.

A farm worker in dirty denim had pushed into the common room, his skin glistening with sweat. He was holding a golden bundle in his arms.

'Put it down, Nadif!' Solomon yelled beside him, as if the bundle was a bomb.

Clearly frightened, the worker obliged. His find hit the ground with a dull clang. Everyone stared then Rose realised what she was looking at. It was a golden statue of a huge bird of prey looked like an eagle in big gleaming knickerbockers.

Fynn stooped to see. 'Such craftsmans.h.i.+p. It's a work of art.'

'That's a vulture!' breathed Basel. 'A solid-gold vulture!'

'It's not gold,' the Doctor told him. 'And not a statue. That was a real vulture once. A living thing, enveloped in this same augmented magma.'

'What?' Fynn looked at him crossly. 'Augmented by whom?'

'I found it in the west field,' said Nadif fearfully. 'It was trying to fly, but it couldn't. It turned to. . . to this. Right as I watched.'

19.The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded, 'Anything else?'

'That isn't enough?' Basel wondered.

Fynn cleared his throat. 'May I remind you, Doctor, that I am the Director here?'

'Then start directing!' He pointed down at the vulture. 'We've got to get on top of all this before it gets on top of us.'

Fynn turned to Solomon. 'All right. Organise your teams to search for any more affected wildlife.'

Solomon nodded gravely and left with Nadif 'There must be another way into that cave,' the Doctor reasoned.

'Somewhere the wildlife's using.'

'Impossible,' said Fynn, looking edgy. 'The growth chamber has to be secure, no light, no change in temperature. The fungus can only thrive in a specific, controlled environment.'

'Looks like whatever else has turned up in that chamber's not so fussy,' said Rose.

'There was no daylight visible when Kanjuchi and I were inside,'

Adiel offered.

'Two options,' snapped the Doctor, prodding the golden bird with his foot. 'Either the vulture found a hidden way into that chamber or else this happened to it somewhere else.'

Fynn crossed to the door. 'We must get over there and see for ourselves.'

'There we are, then! Only took half an hour.' The Doctor joined him in the doorway. 'Come on, Rose.'

'No, Doctor, your friend stays here. The crop is at a crucial stage and the less disruption in the growth chambers the better.' The look Fynn gave Rose was as cold as his tone. 'On the way over, perhaps you will explain to me precisely who you are and how you come to be here.'

'Perhaps,' agreed the Doctor. With a roll of his eyes at Rose, he hurried from the room.

'Stay with the girls, Basel,' Fynn called over his shoulder, rus.h.i.+ng to catch up.

20.Rose eyed the metallic vulture. 'With the birds, you mean.' She was thinking uneasily about that s.p.a.ce pollution the Doctor had mentioned. That and the tekt.i.tes around Adiel's neck stones made by something falling from s.p.a.ce in the local area. You didn't need a degree in weird stuff to figure out there was most likely a link here. Adiel was staring at the golden statue too, her brown eyes glistening with the tease of tears. 'Why'd this have to happen?' she whispered.

'Why today?'

'Why any time?' said Basel gruffly.

'I can't believe Kanjuchi's dead,' she went on. 'If I hadn't run out on him, maybe '

'Maybe you'd be dead too,' said Rose.

The tears dropped down her cheeks and her eyelids dropped with them as the p-pill took effect. 'Don't let me fall asleep. There're things. . . things I need to. . . ' Adiel fell against the soft sofa cus.h.i.+ons and started to snore gently.

'That golden thing gives me the creeps,' said Basel quietly, 'Me too,' Rose admitted. 'It's still so. . . sort of lifelike. I mean, I know it was alive, but it still looks like any second it's going to '

The bird suddenly turned its bald, golden head and fixed her with molten eyes. Then it launched itself up from the floor, screeching and flapping its ma.s.sive, gleaming wings, flying straight for her face. 21 [image]

Rosedivedasidewithashriekofalarm,bouncedonthesofacus.h.i.+on and tumbled off it on to the floor. She covered the back of her head with her hands as if that was going to make Big Bird think twice about ripping into her with that sharp, s.h.i.+ning beak. . . Then suddenly something hard and heavy landed on top of her. It was Basel. 'What are you doing?' she gasped.

'Protecting you!' he said, as if this was somehow obvious. The metal vulture's wings whistled through the air above them. 'Get off me, you muppet!' she hissed. 'We've got to get proper cover!'

'Under the couch,' said Basel, and they squirmed with some difficulty beneath it. Rose looked at him. 'What about Adiel?'

'Threw a blanket on her.'

'Next time, I'll take the blanket and you can jump on her, yeah?'

There was a loud slam as the golden creature smashed into a wall and collapsed back down to the ground. Rose watched warily from under the sofa, heart bouncing like her chest was playing ping-pong, as the bird struggled up and drunkenly tottered on its talons. With a grating, mechanical screech, it beat its heavy wings once more and flapped up at the window, only to slam into the gla.s.s. It bounced back, 23 circled and tried again. This time the window shattered. The vulture's rasp of triumph was like gears sticking as it whooshed outside, rising up over the baking landscape.

Rose was first out from beneath the couch. 'There goes the airconditioning,' she said, wincing as sandy grit blew in through the broken window. 'Come on. We can't let Big Bird just disappear.'

'Who?'

Basel pulled back Adiel's blanket, checking she was OK. It seemed that she'd slept through the whole thing.

'Never mind,' said Rose. 'Let's just get after it. It was stone dead one minute well, metal dead and then it came back to life! The Doctor is so gonna want to study it.'

'Let him catch it, then.' But almost immediately Basel seemed to have second thoughts. 'No, hang on. You're right. We should get after it.'

'Why the change of mind?'

His eyes widened. 'If the bird came back to life. . . '

Rose nodded. 'Maybe so's your mate Kanjuchi.'

Basel leaped through the jagged hole in the gla.s.s, Rose right behind him, kicking up sand and bark as they ran. High above, gliding through the glaring blue of the sky, was the weird vulture. Like them, it was making for the dark silhouette of the volcano. Fynn crept reverently through his growth chambers, the dataget held tight in one hand. Usually he loved coming here, to the cool, quiet caves. It was like a return to childhood. The chitters and scuffles of the bats reminded him of the funny noises made by the air-con in his mother's Nigerian apartment. The warm red haze was like his old night-light.

The young Edet Fynn had spent night after night hatching plans and possibilities in his bedroom as to how he would transform the world of war and famine and death around him into one of new life. His mother was a scientist and his father had been too, but he would be greater than either.

24.Edet Fynn was going to save the world. And the things in these caves and pa.s.sages would help him achieve that.

'Oops,' said the Doctor behind him, slipping in guano and almost losing his balance.

Fynn bit his lip and said nothing. The man had finally shown some ID that proclaimed him to be from the Global Farming Standards Commission, here to make a spot inspection of the agri-unit. A pain. Especially on a day like this one was shaping up to be. At the back of his mind lurked the suspicion that this was all some elaborate practical joke that the staff were in on. But he would play along for now. Let them have their fun. Give people what they want and they tend to go away quicker; that had always been his mother's advice. After what happened to his father, she never had time for anyone who'Blimey, this stuff's slippery,' said the Doctor, almost stumbling off the pathway.

'Be careful,' Fynn hissed. 'The fungus is very fragile.'

'How did you stumble on to it, anyway?'

'The bats' waste had built up here in the old lava tubes for hundreds of years. A natural fungus was growing on it.' He crept on through the cavern. 'One of the oldest, most primitive forms of life on Earth. Fungi do not require sunlight, do not need to produce chlorophyll as plants do. They feed on anything, dead or alive, breaking down matter and digesting it in order to grow.'

' Almost Almost anything,' the Doctor agreed. anything,' the Doctor agreed.

'I am evolving in my fungus a taste for many kinds of organic matter,' Fynn explained. 'I have already re-engineered its DNA to increase the nutritional value. I have enhanced its life cycle so that it grows tall and fleshy. If I can only make it hardy enough to withstand different environments extremes of heat and cold. . . '

'Then it could be farmed where conventional crops never grow,' the Doctor concluded.

'The Earth's crust is up to fifty kilometres thick in some areas,' said Fynn. 'Imagine the potential crop yield if we were to farm one thousandth of it!' He smiled to himself. 'Imagine how my critics will eat their words.'

25.'Why, what have they been having a go about?'

He paused, steeled himself. 'The fungus is unfortunately poisonous.'

'Ah.' At least the Doctor didn't laugh, as so many others had. 'That does sort of offset the nutritional value a bit, doesn't it?'

'It is simply a matter of finding the right medium in which to grow the fungus. I will achieve it. I have already performed experiments which would. . . ' He saw the exaggerated innocence in the Doctor's expression and realised he was being patronised. 'Those who gainsay me are fools,' he said quietly, 'wis.h.i.+ng to hold back human progress.'

'Let me guess they see corn and aloe vera growing on the same stalk and they think Frankenstein, scary science, all that.'

'Genetic modification is more an art than a science,' Fynn insisted.

'So if the ma.s.ses can't eat your mushrooms, they can gather round and admire them instead, right?' the Doctor said. 'Well, speaking of admiring, Kanjuchi is just through here. Remember him? The member of your staff who's dead?'

Fynn closed his eyes. This had to be a practical joke. The golden vulture, the faked readings on the dataget, it was all nonsense. . . As they turned the corner of the sinuous pa.s.sage, he was busy rebooting the sensors. And so he almost walked into Kanjuchi, gleaming like gold in the red haze, his face a metal mask, distorted with fear. If it was a statue, it was incredibly lifelike.

'There you go. Now, that really is a work of art.'

Fynn stared at the Doctor. 'If you're trying to trick me. . . '

But the Doctor tapped the scan b.u.t.ton on the dataget. A few moments later the diagnosis flashed at him in cool blue liquid crystal: ORGANIC-MINERAL CONTENT, COMPOSITION UNKNOWN.

'Kanjuchi has been affected maybe even infected by an alien substance.' The Doctor was looking at him sternly, as if daring him to disagree. 'I think it's something that's mixed with magma from the depths of this volcano and re-engineered it. Questions are why, how, what and from where?' He smiled suddenly. 'Cheer up. At least we know when. Roughly speaking, anyway.'

'Doctor. . . ' The screen on the dataget had started blinking and Fynn showed him.

26.COMPOSITION s.h.i.+FTING.

Suddenly a splitting, crackling sound exploded from the golden statue. Kanjuchi's already ample stomach seemed to swell larger. His head bobbed slowly from side to side as his neck bulged, as if fluid was pumping beneath the gilded skin. The perfectly sculpted clothes stretched and deformed as the shoulders broadened, the legs extended. It was like looking at the same statue reflected in a distorting mirror. Bigger. Bulkier. Still more disturbing.

'I think it's time I did a little composition-checking of my own,' the Doctor announced. He produced a small ceramic tool from his trouser pockets. The tip glowed blue as he held it against one of the figure's slab-like fingers.

Then suddenly the grotesque figure lashed out in a single savage movement. Its huge hand struck the Doctor in the chest, smas.h.i.+ng him against the rough basalt wall.

Fynn cried out in shock and alarm. He held totally still, waiting for any sign that Kanjuchi might move again. But the figure remained immobile. Cautiously, Fynn crossed to where the Doctor lay in a bony heap. 'Are you all right?'

'What?' The Doctor's eyes snapped open.'

'S'OK, don't worry. I think I got my sample.' He undid the top b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt and peered down at himself. 'Yeah, I can just pick the residue out of my ribs.'

With a drunken smile, the Doctor's head lolled back and his eyes shut, leaving Fynn alone with the hideous, bloated figure. Its eyes seemed fixed on him, not only reflecting the crimson light but absorbing it, burning with dark energy. And as the shock and disbelief crowded in on his rational thoughts, the noises and the cool and the red glow signalled other childhood memories. They put him in mind of those long nights when the nightmares came, when he cried out for his dad, who was never coming back, and when the shadows pressed in all around like these dark, distorted walls.

Only down here the sun would never rise.

27.Fynn screwed up his eyes, trying to marshal his thoughts, to make sense of the impossible things he had witnessed.

When he opened them again, the burnished statue was standing a metre further to the left.

And the way into the chamber was clear.

28.

[image]

Soloman watched as Nadif and a handful of the perimeter guards spread out through the crop fields, hunting for more golden creatures that only scientists could explain away. While he wasn't a man of science, Solomon did know one thing.

'It's my fault.' he murmured aloud, wiping a trickle of sweat that the sun had no sway over from the back of his neck. All my fault. And only I can do anything about it. And only I can do anything about it.

Steeling himself, he trudged off towards the sealed entrance of the eastern cave network.

The climate made running harder than Rose would have believed. The blazing sun was merciless, the air so hot it hurt to breathe. Gusts of warm wind blew sand in her eyes and she had to keep blinking them clear.

Even so, she saw the dazzling vulture swoop down on to a ledge in the foothills of the volcano. It seemed to duck down or vulture down, anyway and vanished from view.