Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers Part 29

The Doctor, followed by the senior soldier, walked around the hexagonal controls to join me. 'It will be good to resume Batu's acquaintance,' he said lightly. 'I am sure he will want to see all this.' He waved a hand airily to encompa.s.s the room, then suddenly slammed it down on to the controls.

With a hum, the doors began to swing shut. Ignoring us, the soldiers ran forward, striving to pull against the interlocking white blocks. But their efforts were futile, and within moments we were all trapped in the control room.

I glanced over to see that the Doctor had used these few precious moments to resume his work at the TARDIS controls.

'Open the door!' the subordinate soldier shouted, tugging against the great white blocks with all his strength. I wondered if, for the first time, he was frightened.

'You will do as we say!' ordered the other, banging on the roundel-covered doors in frustration.

'With pleasure, my boy, with pleasure!' smiled the Doctor triumphantly. 'But I need to finish this first!'

The leader stalked towards him. 'What are you doing?' he asked in a quiet voice.

I was asking myself the same question. I looked over the Doctor's shoulders to see a small screen, seemingly connected to the alien control device, filling with random marks and symbols.

'Finis.h.i.+ng things off,' the Doctor said, with a final stab of the controls.

The screen flashed brightly, and then became dark.

XXVIII.

Angelus Reloading present mission diagnostics...

Complete.

Initial summary: Una.s.signed bunker penetrated and compromised. Provisional target GJU-435-FBK attacked and compromised. Revised mission success index: 100%. 100%.

Verify...

Mission success index: 100%.

Mission complete.

Without warning, the creature dropped Dmitri to the ground. Its entire body was shaking. Dodo saw its face flicker and change, melting away like a plastic doll's face consumed by fire. She caught glimpses of the governor's cook, Lesia, and many others she did not recognise then the whole ma.s.s collapsed to the floor like an oversized puppet with its strings cut.

Dmitri rolled away, coughing. Behind him, the pool that had been the monster a viscous ma.s.s of bone and skin and muscle began to ebb away. Catacomb winds caught the steam that rose from the dark remains, and Dodo held her nose in disgust.

It was the awful stench of a living thing being boiled into nothingness.

'What has happened?' demanded Batu. It was clear from his voice that, though he did not understand what had occurred, he was irritated it was not anything he had commanded.

'I. . I do not know,' stammered Isaac.

'I bet the Doctor's behind this!' exclaimed Dodo, breathless with excitement.

'Bring the Doctor to me!' Batu growled.

Mongke nodded. 'Yes, cousin. It is time we spoke to him again.'

XXIX.

Orbis The tip of the soldier's sword was pressed against the Doctor's throat.

'I cannot concentrate in these circ.u.mstances, young man,'

the Doctor said. 'You are trying my patience!'

The soldier said nothing, but lowered his sword a little. We all watched as the Doctor operated the controls again. With an electronic murmur, the doors opened. Beyond was the blackened sh.e.l.l of the governor's residence.

The Mongol soldiers exchanged whispered words, then turned back towards us. 'Come with us,' the leader ordered.

'Of course, of course,' said the Doctor, now a picture of compliance.

As we followed them from the TARDIS I turned to him. 'Is it all over?' I whispered.

'Very nearly,' said the Doctor. He paused for just a moment, examining the blackened remains of the building's once regal rooms and corridors. 'For the people of this city,' he added in a quiet voice, 'it was all over many months ago, when Prince Michael fled, and those who remained behind decided on a course of opposition. If only they had submitted to the Mongol Empire, instead of resisting it!'

'Might things have been different?' I asked.

'Perhaps, my boy. Perhaps,' he replied. 'But history, like conversation, has a habit of going round in circles.'

x.x.x.

Memento Mori 'I expected more of this weapon of yours!' Batu exclaimed angrily. He prodded at the congealed remains with the tip of his sword, then turned towards Dmitri. 'Why has it died? Why was it trying to attack you?'

Dmitri, still dazed from his encounter with the monster, shook his head. 'I do not... I do not know.' He paused, then crouched on the floor, wrapping his arms around his body.

Dodo thought she saw signs of the madness returning. 'I feel most unwell,' he said, and closed his eyes as if to sleep.

Isaac calmly stepped between him and the Mongol leader.

'None of us understand this creature,' he said. 'Perhaps the Doctor can explain.'

Batu nodded, and was about to turn to consult with Mongke when he noticed the flash of bright yellow on Isaac's tunic. 'The mark of the sons of Abraham,' he said with respect. 'Your faith has protected you.'

'I have little faith left, sir,' the old man said. 'Perhaps I had before your army approached, but with everything that has happened...'

'Nonsense!' beamed Batu. 'Do not your scriptures talk of unG.o.dly nations being used to punish the people of G.o.d when they fall from faith? Perhaps, like Genghis before us, we are the instruments of the Almighty!'

'Perhaps,' said Isaac.

Lesia spoke suddenly, her voice clear despite her grief. 'I have prayed that all the people of Kiev may be saved. I do not believe that my prayers fell on deaf ears.'

'But the carnage that awaits us,' said Isaac. 'The death of your own father... What is left for us now?'

'My father once said that "No" is still an answer to prayer,'

said Lesia, her face smudged by soot from the torches and by her tears. 'The Lord's ways are not our ways. For my father, this was justification for working through his own strength. That was his undoing. His faith was ill-directed, but well intentioned.'

'G.o.d smiles on you, pretty girl,' said Batu. 'There is some reason... I cannot pin it down. But there is reason in all this.

Always.'

Mongke nodded. 'You are all safe now honoured guests of the khans! Your bravery is commendable.'

'Your butchery will one day be punished!' spat Nahum suddenly, holding Lesia tight to him. 'You cannot gloss over your evil!'

Mongke shook his head. 'We merely do what has to be done.'

'Please, let's find the Doctor,' said Dodo, tiring of dances with words around the ma.s.sacre of innocent people.

Batu nodded. 'We shall find him, and he shall tell us the secrets of this place... of the creature.'

He moved into the tunnels, followed by a small knot of soldiers, then Dodo and the others. A contingent of archers brought up the rear.

As the last man stepped away from the angel's crypt and into the shadows the entire labyrinth shook, gripped by a powerful explosion. Soldiers came running, through rubble and flame and falling debris, but it was too late.

The casket had exploded, scattering the walls with useless shreds of metal and quicksilver circuitry. Of the angel itself, only a dark smudge on the floor remained. In time, that too would fade.

Dodo and the others came to a halt in the main aisle of the cathedral. It seemed barely touched by the battle, and autumnal light streamed in through the stained gla.s.s. The air was still heavy with prayer and the smell of incense; just for a moment, it was as if nothing had changed.

Batu allowed them to rest there for a moment. Dodo looked at the survivors of Kiev Isaac, Nahum, Lesia and Dmitri.

There might be others, somewhere in the city, but as far as she knew, that was it. Tens of thousands of people, whittled down perhaps to less than a handful.

She looked at Dmitri, slumped in a pew, seemingly asleep.

'Do you think he will ever recover?' she asked Isaac.

'Who can say? I shall tend him, as best I can. He shall be comfortable.'

'What will you do?' Dodo asked. 'Now it's all over, I mean.'

'We shall make a new home somewhere. And I shall continue my work, and try to bring G.o.d's words to the people.'

'After all this,' Dodo said, amazed. 'And after what you said to the Mongols... I thought that would be the last thing you'd do!' 'I have choices to make, young lady,' Isaac said solemnly. 'I have not even argued with G.o.d for many years. I either now resume my arguments, or I join the silent, awful world that is deaf to the Almighty. Does He exist? What form does He take?'

He glanced at a crucifix attached to a nearby wall. 'Did He do something as undignified as that that? These are weighty questions. I have been asking them all my life.' He sighed. 'Perhaps little has changed.'

'And we need to find if mother has survived,' said Nahum, his voice breaking a little.

'Yes,' said Isaac. 'So much death,' he added quietly. 'So much death.' Then he closed his eyes tightly against the tears, and said nothing more.

Dodo touched Lesia's arm lightly. 'I'm sorry,' she said, the words tumbling over themselves. 'I'm sorry... Your father. What happened to him was terrible.'

Lesia gripped Nahum's hand tightly. 'I have lost a father,'

she said, 'but I have gained a husband, and a father.'

Dodo beamed brightly. 'You mean...'

'There is no one for us to hide from now,' Lesia replied.

Dodo was about to say something else, but she left her words unspoken in the scented air. It felt as though she was saying goodbye, and that was how she wanted to remember her friend: strong-hearted, even while staring into the gaping maw of death.

Escorted by soldiers, Dodo walked from the cathedral, and did not look back.

The Mongol attack had destroyed those parts of the governor's residence that had survived the fire. Only a single tower remained, and Dodo found the Doctor and Steven at its top, looking down on the ruined buildings of Kiev in awestruck silence.

They embraced in silence, and stared at the city where thousands of innocent people had died. The walls had been breached in many places, falling on to the hovels that cl.u.s.tered for protection at their base. Residential areas had been razed to the ground, and every state building over a storey tall was little more than a pile of rubble. Of the Church of the Virgin, little remained. The collapse of its roof had done more damage than any Mongol siege engine or gunpowder sh.e.l.l.

Only the Cathedral of St Sophia was untouched, its towers seeming close enough to touch. And, underneath them, the catacombs that had for so long concealed an alien secret.

The air over Kiev was thick with the stench of death and infection. Crows wheeled overhead, the only beneficiaries of the battle.

The Doctor turned as Batu and Mongke appeared behind them. The wind tugged at the Mongols' beards and hair and, perhaps, irritated their eyes. Only that could explain their tearful gaze as they, too, looked over the city.

'You must let anyone who has survived live,' said the Doctor. 'A dead city is of little use to your empire.'

'Of course,' said Batu, without looking at him.

Mongke turned to the Doctor. 'The weapon under the cathedral, the "angel" .What was it?'

'A poor trapped beast, far from home,' said the Doctor. 'Still trying to fight its own war, and make sense of a puzzling world.'

'As do we all,' said Mongke.

'You too have behaved with honour,' said Batu, addressing the Doctor. 'You shall live to travel to other lands, other cities.'

'Thank you,' said the Doctor.

'We have heard that your blue box contains rooms,' said Mongke. 'How is this possible?'