Doctor Who_ Toy Soldiers Part 22

Then he beckoned, pointed to the latest hole, whispered, 'The Recruiter.'

Manda put her eye to the hole, saw a white blob. After a couple of seconds her eye focused on the view, and Manda saw that a s.h.i.+ny metallic curve, like part of a mirror or a silver teapot, crossed the white surface. A thin line of bright colours divided the silver from the white: the colours moved to and fro, reds and ambers and purples and greens. She looked through one of the other holes: it was drilled at a different angle, and gave her a view of a pulsing fabric made of thin lines of colour, the colours bright and constantly changing.

'What is it?' she whispered, awestruck.

'The bit you're looking at is the reader end of a mm'x synchronisis intradimensional energizer,' he murmured.

'Unfortunately, it's being gravely misused.'

Manda watched the s.h.i.+fting colours, realized that she could watch them for hours. 'Did it bring me here?' she asked at last.

'Yes and no,' said the Doctor. 'It brought you, but the instructions - ' The lights flickered. limm, I'd better have another look through there.'

Reluctantly, Manda tore herself away from the view, stood up. She became aware that her legs and arms were aching.

The Doctor put his eye to the spyhole: almost at once Manda heard footsteps outside the room, followed by a knock at the door.

'Doctor!' she whispered. But the Doctor, unperturbed, kept his eye to the hole in the floorboards.

The door opened, and one of the ape-faced things came in, filling the air with its rotten meat stench.

'Doctor!' hissed Manda again. The creature glanced at her and its yellow eyes flashed: Manda felt her body begin to tremble.

At last, the Doctor looked up. Ah, Private Jurrgh! I'm glad you've popped in. I've just finished the final retraining of Private Sutton here, and look what I've found!' He gestured at the floor. 'Something - or someone - has drilled a hole right through to the next level. Go on, take a look.'

The ugly creature screwed up its face and bared its fangs. Manda felt her breathing quicken: she looked at the open door behind the thing's back, wondered if she could get round the creature and out before it grabbed her.

But the Doctor seemed unalarmed. 'Just here,' he said to the creature, pointing at the holes he'd made, using a furled umbrella that Manda was sure he hadn't been holding a moment before. Private Jurrgh crouched down, put his eyes to the holes in the floor. There was a flash of movement and a dull thud: Manda thought she saw the silver drill, b.u.t.t first, connect with the back of the animal's skull. The beast slumped sideways with a groan.

The Doctor produced a small green ball from his Pocket; it looked rather like a lime flavoured bonbon. As Manda watched in amazement, he pushed open the creature's lips and dropped the 'sweet' on its tongue.

'... and call me in the morning,' muttered the Doctor.

Then he looked up. 'Come on, Manda. We've got work to do.'

Manda followed him out of the room and along the corridor outside. She wondered what the Doctor meant by 'work'; whatever it was, she hoped it didn't involve either scrubbing anything or screaming.

'What do you want me to do?' she asked as they hurried along. She noticed that the corridor lights were rapidly fading.

'Just follow me,' said the Doctor.

Manda bit her lip. 'This is leading somewhere, isn't it?'

she asked. 'I mean, we are going to be able to go home?'

'Home?' asked the Doctor, in a tone of voice that made Manda's heart stop in her chest for a moment. It was as if he barely recognized the word, didn't understand that such a thing as 'home' existed. But then he added, 'Yes, I should think so. If I got the parameters right. And all the others too.'

By now it was almost completely dark in the corridor.

Abruptly the Doctor stopped walking and tilted his head on one side. Manda saw a light ahead: a bright, white light, silvering the bricks on the sides of the corridor ahead of them.

'Shh!' said the Doctor, pressing himself flat against the wall. Manda followed suit. The bricks were cold and wet.

'Listen!' whispered the Doctor.

Manda listened, heard nothing except her own breathing and the thudding of her heart. Then she heard footsteps, and saw three of the bearlike creatures that the Doctor had told her were called Biune blocking the corridor, rifles in their hands; behind them, a fourth held a hurricane lamp which threw the others into silhouette.

'Stop or we shoot!' growled one of them.

'We have stopped,' observed the Doctor. 'We stopped as soon as we saw your light. And we have no desire to be shot, I can a.s.sure you.'

'He's not a.s.signed,' said one of the Biune. 'He must be the one.'

The Doctor doffed his hat. 'I'm the Doctor and this is my friend Manda.'

There was a pause. 'What is your a.s.signment?'

'I'm afraid I haven't got one. Perhaps I mislaid it.' The Doctor began feeling around in his pockets in the dim light of the lamp. He produced several pieces of paper, one of which Manda recognized as a Great Western railway ticket. Most of the others were strange shapes and colours. Finally the Doctor proffered a triangle of green paper with the words GREATER MANCHESTER TRAFFIC AUTHORITY - ROADSIDE PARKING PERMIT written on it. 'Will this do?' he asked.

The Biune didn't even look at the piece of paper. 'Come with us,' he said. 'If the Recruiter has a use for you in the present situation, it may let you live for a while.'

Benny was looking at the stars.

There were a lot of them, and they were very bright, but none of the constellations were recognizable: she was sure that, wherever she was now, it wasn't a planet she'd visited before. Well, not one where she'd got a chance to look at the night sky whilst sober, anyway.

'What are you looking at?'

Gabrielle's voice: the little girl was sitting on a fallen slab of bricks, hugging her knees. Starlight made her body indistinct, her face a shadowless blob. She'd at long last put the gun away, accepting Benny's promise that she wouldn't make a run for it.

'The stars,' she explained to Gabrielle. After a moment she added, 'They've turned round.'

'Turned round?'

Benny shrugged. 'Well, we have. We're not headed north any more, more sort of -' she glanced up at the sky again, twisted her head back and forth a few times to work out the angle - south-east. The trench must be curving.'

The words had a dramatic effect on Gabrielle. She jumped up, drew her gun. 'That means we're behind enemy lines!' She looked around, as if expecting the enemy to spring out and ambush her. Benny had been worried about that a few times herself, but they'd met no one. And this stretch of the trench was crumbling, duckboards rotten, earth dried up.

It had clearly been abandoned for some time.

'It's all right, Gabrielle,' said Benny tiredly. 'We can't be behind any lines. We've been in the same trench all along, haven't we?'

Gabrielle nodded, but didn't put her gun away. 'If the enemy catch me, they'll kill me.'

'I didn't kill you,' Benny pointed out. But as she spoke she had a sudden, sharp memory of what Iggh and Urggh had done to the little girl in the ground-engine. So when Gabrielle said, 'You're different,' Benny just nodded morosely. She didn't fancy Gabrielle's chances if they met any Ogrons in red and yellow uniforms.

Then she thought of something.

'Gabrielle,' she asked, 'what did you call the enemy?'

'Call them?' asked Gabrielle. She was still standing, her head jerking around, checking for targets. 'They're the enemy.'

'And your own side?'

'Friendly. Mustn't fire on them. Always right.' The words came automatically, with a metronome rhythm that Benny recognized all too well, from the inside of her own skull.

Best not to think about it.

But if they didn't even have names - 'No names, no pack drill,' she muttered.

No nothing, in fact. No manufacturing capacity, no hospitals, no command structure above the level of sergeant - although there'd been a Lieutenant Sutton when she was working for the Recruiter - hadn't there? Her memories of that period were alarmingly hazy.

Benny frowned. She needed more time, she realized.

Time to locate the gaps in her own knowledge more closely.

Time to work out where the Doctor might be, what she could do to help him. The best thing would be to keep walking - she could think whilst they walked.

But where would they end up? With a shock, Benny realized that Gabrielle was right. If the trench was curving slowly round, then they would soon be travelling south. They would have walked around the end of no man's land, and would be in the trench where her own unit had been stationed, or one running closely parallel. Which meant - Which meant that the trenches were the same on both sides. The same trench The same trench was on both sides. Which was no way to run a war - in fact it was crazy, and only made sense if some third party wanted access to both sides. was on both sides. Which was no way to run a war - in fact it was crazy, and only made sense if some third party wanted access to both sides.

A third party like the Recruiter.

Benny swore under her breath. The Recruiter wasn't working for one side, commanding and controlling. It was working for both sides. It was obvious.

'But if it was so obvious, why didn't I realize it straight away when I broke the Recruiter's conditioning?' she muttered aloud. For that matter, why didn't I think about where we were going until now?' She was aware that she still wanted to do it: walk on along the trench, taking Gabrielle with her, until she met up with her own unit - ' They're not my unit! They're not my unit! ' She felt beads of sweat form on her forehead as she tried to fight the compulsion. Obviously it wasn't as easy as it had seemed: deep-level hypnosis was involved, and probably there was a physical component too. ' She felt beads of sweat form on her forehead as she tried to fight the compulsion. Obviously it wasn't as easy as it had seemed: deep-level hypnosis was involved, and probably there was a physical component too.

She would have to keep fighting it, or she would betray Gabrielle and the Doctor - and herself.

She became aware that Gabrielle was staring at her, gun levelled. She stared back at the girl, said quietly, 'I'm trying not to betray you. Don't make it difficult for me.'

'I think we should go back,' said Gabrielle.

Benny thought about it for a moment. Every instinct screamed, no, go on, join up with your unit and hand the prisoner over - She remembered the blood jetting from the dying girl's arm, the hollow snap of her neck breaking. Her body began to shake.

'Compromise?' she said, her voice unsteady. 'We get out of the trench and go north?'

No, screamed her inner voice. Not that way. It's impossible. It's dangerous. It's forbidden.

'It's forbidden,' said Gabrielle aloud. 'It's impossible. It's dangerous.' Benny could hear the metronome ticking, the same rhythm in her skull and the girl's anxious voice.

Nothing's forbidden,' she said. She stood up and started towards a place where the side of the trench had caved in, forming a rough slope of broken earth and stones leading to the surface.

'I can't let you!' Gabrielle's voice was shaking too. 'I'll have to shoot you!'

Benny kept on walking, steadily.

'Please!'

Benny had reached the bottom of the slope. She turned, started to climb, concentrating on finding hand-and footholds in the loose material. But her legs were shaking, and she slipped and fell on one knee.

'Please, Benny!'

Benny started to get up, heard the click of a safety catch.

But the sound hadn't come from the trench: it had come from ahead of her. She looked up, saw a rifle barrel gleaming in the bright starlight, held in the white hands of a skeleton dressed in the remains of a pale-coloured uniform.

Benny swallowed. Walking skeletons were the last thing she needed at the moment. Especially walking skeletons with rifles.

There was a soft, rattling footfall, and a second skeleton appeared by the side of the first, dark-boned, also carrying a rifle. Benny looked around, saw that the sides of the trench were lined with them, some pale, some dark. A few wore helmets loosely on their bare skulls. Gabrielle was staring, open-mouthed.

'We're dead!' she said. 'We are in h.e.l.l!' She fired, a single shot: Benny somehow wasn't surprised to see the gun jolt out of her hand immediately afterwards. Gabrielle gave a cry of pain, clutched at her wrist.

But Benny had seen the flash of a rifle, knew that the gun had been knocked aside by a bullet, not by supernatural means. She looked more closely at the 'skeletons', saw large compound eyes in the 'skulls', the gleam of chitin under the tattered uniforms.

'Who are you?' she asked.

'We are the True People,' said a soft voice, full of clicking and whistling noises. 'We are neutral in the war.'

Benny felt her shoulders relax. She could almost have hugged the skeletal form. 'We're neutral too,' she said, 'in a manner of speaking.' She extended a hand. 'I'm Benny.'

The skull-like head tilted to one side. No,' said the soft voice after a moment. 'You aren't neutral. You're an animal.

You're fresh meat.'

' What? What? Look, I've had a long day - ' Benny broke off as she became aware that two more of the skeletal figures were behind her, carrying Gabrielle between them. They were holding an arm each. She remembered Urggh and Iggh, and suddenly felt rather sick. 'I think you're mistaken,' she said. 'I mean, I think we could help each other.' Look, I've had a long day - ' Benny broke off as she became aware that two more of the skeletal figures were behind her, carrying Gabrielle between them. They were holding an arm each. She remembered Urggh and Iggh, and suddenly felt rather sick. 'I think you're mistaken,' she said. 'I mean, I think we could help each other.'

Again the head tilted to one side. No, you're fresh meat,'

insisted the skeleton. 'We'll take you to the food depot at the Citadel.'