Doctor Who_ Night Of The Humans Part 11

'What's what?'

Amy nodded towards the sky. 'That,' she said.

'Oh...' gasped Charlie. 'That's not good.'

Suddenly, there was a loud bang, like the sound of a firework or a cannon being fired. The streak of light punched its way through a cloud, and was now rumbling through the sky with a thunderous drum roll which grew louder and louder, until it was almost deafening. Amy cupped her ears with her hands and closed her eyes as tightly as she could.

Seconds later the ground convulsed, as if somebody, some unimaginable giant, had taken hold of the Gyre and shaken it with both hands. Fragments of junk rained down from the structures of the human city, and they heard a cacophony of screams echoing through its streets.

'What was it?' cried Amy.

'It was a fragment of the comet,' said Charlie. 'It's started.'

"That was just a fragment?' said Amy, a little louder than she'd intended.

Charlie nodded.

From the watchtowers they now heard the blasting of horns, each overlapping the other, 133.

forming a discordant drone that howled out over the city's rooftops, but in the streets around them something else was happening. Peering out from behind a rusting metal crate, Amy saw a large door in a nearby building opening up, and a group of humans spilled out. Leading them was Slipstream.

'He's here!' she whispered. 'Slipstream. I can see him.'

Then she saw another face she recognised.

'And they've got the Doctor!'

The procession made its way along the street, heading towards the towering wreck. When they reached it, one of the humans began tapping away at a control panel.

'We have to do something, Charlie! We have to save him!'

Charlie held Amy's shoulder and pulled her back.

'What can we do?' he said. There's dozens of them. If we jump out now they'll kill us.'

Amy struggled free of his grasp, but didn't dare move more than a few inches, so that she could watch the scene once more. Next to the control panel, a large metal hatch opened up, the door coming away on mechanical hinges that groaned and creaked as if they hadn't been used in centuries. Slipstream, the Doctor, and three more humans entered, and then the rest of the humans moved on, 134.

rus.h.i.+ng down the street towards the city gates.

"This is our chance! said Amy. 'We've got to do something...'

'So... Manco, old chap. Which way?'

The five of them were deep inside the wreck, making their way along a corridor tilted at such an angle that they had to walk along its corner. Sancho had, until now, led the group, carrying a burning torch, and they had come to a junction of three more corridors.

'It would help if I knew what you were looking for,' said Manco.

Tuco brushed past and approached Slipstream.

'Yes, Mr Slipstream. Tuco would also like to know what you are looking for...'

Slipstream eyed Tuco with a look of disdain, his lip curling up into a sneer, and he sighed through gritted teeth.

'Is there really any need for you to be here?' he hissed.

'Oh yes! said Tuco. 'Yes. Tuco must be here. You have the heretics with you. Django wants Tuco here. To watch them.'

'And must you always refer to yourself in the third person?

It's a tad egomaniacal, old bean.'

'Tuco does not understand "third person".'

'No. I doubt Tuco would. So... Manco... As I was saying.

Which way?'

135.

Manco bit his lip. He looked to the Doctor with a helpless expression, nervously lowering his eyes, before turning to Slipstream once more. 'And as I was saying, it would help if I knew what you were looking for.'

Slipstream laughed casually, rolling his eyes. 'The hold,'

he said. 'We're looking for the hold. Where they kept the cargo. Do you understand that word? Cargo?'

Manco nodded. 'It's this way! he said, pointing straight ahead.

They moved on. At no point did the Doctor take his eyes off Slipstream. How could he not have recognised him the moment he saw him? But then, to the Doctor, so many years and regenerations had pa.s.sed since they last met. To Slipstream, it may only have been a few short years, or even months.

On their last meeting, the Doctor had been too late to stop him from committing his crime. The s.h.i.+p had crashed and hundreds of people had died. The only thing the Doctor could do was stop him before he made his escape with literally millions of precious stones, but stop him he had. He had stood in the courthouse as Slipstream was sentenced to one hundred years imprisonment for every one of his victims; seventy thousand years in all, a sentence he could never hope to survive. Unless, of course, he escaped.

And now Slipstream had given the humans 136.

the location of the Sittuun hideout. As Tuco and Sancho had taken them out of the throne room, Django was already planning his attack.

137.

Chapter.

14.

The dazzling light from Schuler-Khan reflected off the crystal surface of the great salt plains, making it look almost like an ocean on a summer's day. The human city was far behind them now, as they made their way west. Schuler-Khan reflected off the crystal surface of the great salt plains, making it look almost like an ocean on a summer's day. The human city was far behind them now, as they made their way west.

From a distance, at the edges of the swamp, they would have appeared as a s.h.i.+mmering mirage; the dark line of humans, some marching and some riding great clunking, wheezing contraptions, powered by steam or by levers, like handcars from the distant, Earth-bound past. It would have been silent at first, this s.h.i.+mmering apparition on the horizon, framed between the twinkling white desert and the dark black silhouette of the tower. Then, slowly, the sound of the humans'

progress 139.

would grow louder: the crunching of a hundred pairs of feet on salt crystals; the rusty whine of turning wheels and the mechanical thump and hiss of the engines.

Sat on top of the largest vehicle was Django, his throne transplanted from its chamber onto a machine that propelled itself along on eight mechanical legs. His long, scraggly hair and bedraggled robes rippled in the breeze behind him, giving him the appearance of a human flagpole or a mascot.

His face was caked in thick make-up. His skin was a deathly shade of white, his mouth framed with a garish crimson smile and his eyes with bright blue hoops. Dark black lines like sickles arched up on his forehead.

His gaze was fixed firmly on the horizon, beyond the swaying plastic tubes of the swamp. Django smiled maniacally and gnashed his teeth. He looked skywards, to the burning light of the star that grew ever bigger above him, staring into its light until it hurt his eyes, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. The tears drew jagged streaks of blue and red across his face as they fell.

If there was only some way he could send a warning. Something that might alert the Sittuun...

The Doctor hadn't spoken for some time. The five of them - Tuco, Sancho, Manco, Slipstream and the 140.

Doctor - had pa.s.sed through numerous pa.s.sages, climbing flights of stairs and metal ladders. In one room they had found nothing but gla.s.s sleep pods, each one containing a skeleton.

The higher they climbed, the more they heard the wind howling through the rusting hulk. Sometimes the howling would stop, and there would be an eerie silence but for their footsteps. Then, every once in a while, they would hear the sound of something cras.h.i.+ng in the distance, and the ground beneath them would shake.

The Doctor paid little attention to any of these sights and sounds. His mind was working overtime. Amy was out there, somewhere. Amy Pond from Leadworth. What was a girl from Leadworth doing in a place like this? If she was with the Sittuun, then she was in danger. He had to warn them. He had to get out of the human city and back to the TARDIS. He had to at least try and convince the humans to save themselves, or allow him to save them. So many things to consider, and so little time.

'Say, Slipstream...' he said, stomping up to the front of the group. "This thing... that you need my a.s.sistance with?'

'Yes?' Slipstream looked at him with one eyebrow arched.

'What is it? What are we looking for, exactly?'

Slipstream sighed. 'I don't think you'd believe me if I told you, old chap.'

141.

Try me.'

'Very well. We are looking for the Mymon Key.'

The Doctor gasped. 'But... but that's impossible.'

Slipstream started laughing, his laughter echoing along the corridor and deep into the bowels of the s.h.i.+p. 'Oh, that's priceless, Doctor. Really, it is. You're the last of your kind, and you still manage to toe the party line, even when there's no party left.'

Manco was looking at them both and frowning. 'What is the Mymon Key?' he asked.

The Doctor turned to him. "The Mymon Key was an energy source. A limitless energy source. Forged on Mercutio 14 by the Hexion Geldmongers. Whoever owned the Mymon Key would have the power to do anything. It drew its power from gravitational force. It could drive a s.h.i.+p safely through a black hole. It could be used to tear the fabric of the universe apart. Wars were fought over it. Endless wars.

n.o.body had the right to that kind of power.'

Slipstream nodded, grinning. "That's the one!' he said, cheerily.

'But the Mymon Key was destroyed...'

Slipstream shook his head. 'No, Doctor. Not destroyed. It was taken back. When they realised the damage their masterpiece had caused, the Hexion Geldmongers took it back to Mercutio 14 and locked it inside a casket, an intricate puzzle box.'

'But...' The Doctor was breathing heavily now, 142 shaking his head and running his hands through his hair. 'The wars didn't end there. Mercutio 14 was attacked. It was destroyed. The Mymon Key was destroyed with it.'

Slipstream patted the Doctor's shoulder playfully, still smiling. "Fraid not, Doctor. You see, that's the thing with wars. All that chaos and confusion. Seems the casket was seized before its makers were wiped out. Only problem was, the Geldmongers were a crafty lot. Only somebody fluent in Hexion could unlock the casket, rendering its contents quite worthless. It found its way to a museum of antiquities back in the thirty-first century. From what I can gather, there were budget cuts, you know how things are. The casket was sold to a private buyer in Andromeda. It was in transit when the s.h.i.+p carrying it simply vanished. Pfff! Like that.'

'This s.h.i.+p...' the Doctor whispered.

Slipstream nodded. 'Well done, Doctor. Not just a pretty face, are you?'

'And how do you know all this?'

'Well, Doctor, for all of its many faults - the knuckle-headed guards, the freezing cold, the dreadful food - Volag-Noc does have a rather splendid library. Awful lot of potboilers and bad thrillers, of course, but the history section was superb. I was looking at a seventy-thousand-year stretch, Doctor. Plenty of time to read.'

143.

The Doctor shook his head, his eyes screwed shut. 'And you sold out the Sittuun for this?'

Slipstream leaned in close to the Doctor and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

'I wouldn't worry too much about them, Doctor. That canyon? To the west? Only bridge across it is gone, I'm afraid.

Kaput. Those savages won't get far.'

Eventually they came to the end of another corridor, and pa.s.sing through a large hatch they found themselves in a cavernous room, flanked on both sides with enormous gla.s.s screens, each one blank, lifeless and grey. The hatch led out onto a narrow walkway, below which the room fell away, perhaps thirty metres beneath them. They were in the nerve centre of the s.h.i.+p, the control room. Thousands of years earlier, it would have been filled with crew members, hundreds of them. Now it was home to nothing more than tangled vines and swirling clouds of dust.

'This is the room! said Manco. 'The one I told you about.

The screens... they don't work.'

'Oh, we'll see about that,' said the Doctor.

He marched along the walkway, past Tuco and Sancho, until he reached a bank of consoles, which he studied for a moment.

'Doctor...' said Slipstream. 'We've no time for fun and games.'

'See this?' said the Doctor, pointing at his face.

144.

'This is me concentrating. Which means it's your turn to shut up!

Slipstream lifted his gun. 'See this, Doctor? This is a gun.

Which means you'll do as I say.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Nice try, Slipstream,' he said. 'But you need me, remember? Now this won't take a moment...'

Before Slipstream could say another word, the Doctor had his sonic screwdriver aimed straight at the console. It buzzed into life, and all at once the console was lit up with flas.h.i.+ng lights.

'What is he doing?' hissed Tuco. 'The tower is sacred. The tower is the home of Gobo!'