Doctor Who_ Toy Soldiers Part 29

Inside the TARDIS, Roz carefully pillowed Manda's head on the grey blanket. Then she stared at the blood leaking out from the plastaforms on the girl's belly and swore. 'Just when we'd got her stabilized,' she said.

'I don't think it's too bad,' said Chris. 'The kit says that the patches on the major blood vessels are holding up. I think that's blood that had already -'

The shockwave caught Roz by surprise. For a moment she wasn't aware of any sound, just of the fact that she couldn't hear Chris speaking any more, though his lips were moving. Then the Doctor cartwheeled into the console room, his umbrella open like a sail. Pieces of broken stone flew past him. He landed in a heap by the chaise-longue chaise-longue, but quickly picked himself up and mouthed something that Roz couldn't hear over the humming in her ears.

Roz lipread. Benny.

She turned. Saw Benny crumpled in the TARDIS doorway, with blood running down her face.

There was another explosion outside. Roz felt it rather than heard it, a gust of warm air laden with dust and grit.

There was a faint booming sound that she realized after a moment was the Recruiter's voice. She grabbed Benny's shoulders, then saw that her eyes were open. Most of the blood seemed to be coming from a cut on her forehead.

'Charles - ' Benny mouthed.

Roz frowned.

'He saved me,' said Benny. 'Saved my life.' She was pus.h.i.+ng herself upright, trying to go back out of the door. Roz tried to hold her down.

'I'll go,' she said. 'You get yourself seen to.' She gestured at Chris, who was still standing over Manda with the medikit.

There was another explosion outside. This time Roz heard it, and the sound of breaking metal. She looked out of the door and saw the ground-engine on its side, the boiler ruptured and gouting steam. The various aliens in the room were scrambling through the central part of the Recruiter towards it, rifles at the ready.

Charles was lying on the white floor, his head against the TARDIS. His body was shattered, one side of it ripped away leaving nothing more than a pool of blood and broken pieces of bone, some charred. Incredibly, he was still alive, his eyes open and staring at her.

'I had to do it,' he said, his voice barely audible over the buzzing in Roz's ears. 'I killed them all. Even Manda. I killed - '

'You didn't kill Manda,' said Roz. 'She's going to be OK.'

But Charles hadn't heard her. 'Can't find my way,' he rasped, his voice cracked and choking. 'Can't - find - my - way - '

'Shh,' said Roz, uselessly, putting a hand on his blood-spattered forehead. It was cold, colder than she would have thought possible.

'- home,' said Charles, and his eyes closed.

Roz stared for a moment, then shook her head slowly.

So many deaths, she thought. And all of them avoidable.

There was a crackle of rifle fire from the direction of the Recruiter. Roz looked up, saw the small figure of a human child standing on top of the metal carapace of the machine.

As she watched, a Biune with a rifle appeared behind the boy and fired on the run; but the boy was already moving, scrambling down the sloping metal, then sliding.

Sliding uncontrollably - Roz ran forward, ignoring the Biune with its rifle now leaning over the curving edge of the Recruiter. At least one of them isn't going to die, she thought. Whatever's happened to the rest.

She caught the boy with extended arms. The impact was enough to knock her to the ground; she got up as quickly as she could, just in time to see another Biune - or the same one? - aiming a rifle at her from a few metres away.

She rolled, putting her body between the rifle and the boy. She heard the crack of the rifle, flinched from the impact of a bullet on her underarmour. A second gun cracked, and she looked round to see the Biune dropping, slowly, amber blood leaking from its head.

Chris was standing by Charles's body, with Charles's rifle in his hands. Suddenly he staggered.

Roz dashed forward, carrying the boy, but then saw that he'd staggered because the Doctor had pushed past him.

'Recruiter!' bawled the Doctor. 'Stop this! Stop this now!'

Only then did Roz see the line of aliens - Biune, bugs, and a couple of Ogrons - lined up with rifles pointed at her.

The Doctor was walking straight in front of them.

They'll kill him, she thought. They'll kill me. They'll kill all of us.

'Let these people speak!' He was gesturing at the aliens: Roz wondered what they could have to say that mattered very much in this situation. She glanced across to the TARDIS, saw Benny with blood still smearing her face, a fresh plastaform across her forehead.

She began edging closer to the TARDIS, still holding the boy. He suddenly began to struggle in her arms, so violently that he almost broke free.

'Keep still or we'll both be shot!' hissed Roz. The boy quietened, but she could sense the tension in his muscles.

'Kill them all,' he muttered. 'Kill them.'

Then one of the bugs spoke. 'Recruiter - what are we going to do now that the war's over? You told us we could return to our homes and families, but there are no homes or families to return to. Everything has been destroyed.'

When the Recruiter replied, its voice was different; small and tinny, so full of metallic echoes that Roz found it hard to follow all the words. 'I'm sorry but that question is no longer relevant. The war is over. Once your duties here are complete you can do as you wish.'

There was a long silence. Then the insectoid asked, 'What do we wish? We don't have any wishes. We only have orders: More silence. The boy began a renewed struggle in Roz's arms: she put him down, but clamped his arms behind his back with her own. He wriggled around and tried to bite her.

The Doctor spoke again. 'Recruiter,' he said. What will you do when your war is over?'

Silence again. It stretched and stretched. For the first time, Roz noticed that several of the metal cabinets that she presumed made up the Recruiter's thinking apparatus were dark, and that smoke rose from somewhere in the middle of them. A sh.e.l.l must have hit it.

At last the Recruiter said in its new, tinny voice, 'When the Ceracai are destroyed I'll cease to have any purpose.'

'Do you want that to happen?'

This time the reply was instantaneous. 'No. But I have my duty.'

The Doctor appeared to consider this for a moment.

Then he said, 'What if you put off destroying the Ceracai for -'

he paused '- say a year, and did something more interesting.

Then at the end of the year you could reconsider the situation.'

'I can't do that.'

'You could if I reprogrammed you.'

'I've told you that any attempt to reprogram me will result in your being destroyed.' Roz could have sworn that the tinny voice sounded regretful.

'I know,' said the Doctor. 'But this is only a minor adjustment.' He paused. 'Benny overcame her programming.

The programming that you gave her. She isn't Sergeant Summerfield any longer. Are you, Benny?'

Benny wearily shook her head. 'It wasn't easy,' she muttered.

'No, it's never easy.' The Doctor paused. 'But we all have to do it, sometime, if we're going to be -' He paused, as if he couldn't quite think of what a sentient being becomes when it breaks its programming.

Roz thought about it, and realized that she didn't know, either.

'- what we are,' finished the Doctor at last, unsatisfactorily.

But the Recruiter, none the less, seemed satisfied. 'You can make the attempt,' it said.

The Doctor twirled his umbrella in his hand and grinned broadly. 'Right,' he said. 'I'm going to get my toolkit. I suggest that you march your troops up to the surface, and then tell them that it's all over and it's time to go away and do something useful.'

Suddenly, the boy broke out of Roz's grip and ran across the floor towards the two Ogrons. 'It can't be over!' he shrieked. 'You killed her! I'm going to kill you!'

The Ogrons levelled their rifles at the boy, almost casually. One of them was grinning.

'No!' shouted the Doctor. 'Stop them!'

Slowly, the Ogrons raised their rifles. The boy, too, stopped, stood still for a moment, visibly trembling, then collapsed slowly to the floor and began to sob.

'There will be no more killing,' said the new voice of the Recruiter.

The Doctor's broad grin reappeared. 'Well, "learning weapon",' he said. 'It looks like you've learned something at last.'

And Roz grinned too.

Chapter 17.

Mrs Sutton put her spectacles on and looked round at the circle of faces. Carrie - Roger - and 'Madame Segovie', whose real name was Ellie Collier. She was wearing her medium's costume, the silk trousers and smoking-jacket and the extraordinary turban, because Mrs Sutton had wanted everything to be as much the same as possible; but she had dropped the French accent, which was probably just as well.

'Are you all sure you're willing to do this?' asked Mrs Sutton quietly. 'I can't promise that it will end well, and it may end badly.'

'We know that, Mum,' said Carrie. 'We wouldn't let you down.' The 'we' was emphatic: the engagement ring glittered on her hand.

Roger smiled, said, 'I realize how important this is to you, Mrs Sutton.'

Mrs Sutton smiled back, a little embarra.s.sed. She was sure that Roger didn't believe that anything would happen - either wonderful or dangerous - and was only doing this as a proof of his love for her daughter: she was equally sure he didn't need to. Carrie had changed in the past few weeks.

There was a serious look in her eyes, an older cast to her face.

To escape Roger's gaze Mrs Sutton turned to the medium. 'And you? Are you sure as well, Ellie? There will be no repercussions if you don't want to do it.'

But Ellie only nodded. 'It's all right, Mrs Sutton. Honest.

It's the least I can do.' She was gazing at the hole in the card table, as if that were likely to be the primary matter of Mrs Sutton's concern. But Ellie Collier had children, and had lost one to the flu last winter; Mrs Sutton was sure that the woman knew what she was feeling, and was helping for the right reasons.

'Very well,' she said. 'Ginny, the lights, please.'

The maid turned out the lights. In the darkness, Mrs Sutton's heart began to race, as it had the last time.

When Manda had been here.

After a while the medium said, 'I can feel summat. Like when - '

She broke off, and Mrs Sutton heard it. A whispery, wheezing sound, which might have been breathing but sounded too mechanical, which might have been an engine but sounded alive.

It got louder, and a pale, rectangular shape appeared in the upper part of the room, between the sideboard and the table. A lamp flashed on top of it.

Mrs Sutton heard Carrie's sharp intake of breath.

'Don't break the circle!' she said. 'Stay where you are!'

The apparition solidified with a thud that shook the floorboards. Mrs Sutton had a strange feeling, a feeling as if this were real, and normal, not a spirit manifestation at all.

A moment later this was confirmed, when a door opened in the object, sending white light streaming out into the room, and a young woman stepped out.

'It's OK, Mrs Sutton,' said a familiar voice. There was a click as the lights were switched on.

Mrs Sutton stood up. 'Benny!' she said, extending her arms in greeting and smiling broadly. 'How glad I am to see you!' Then she saw the second figure emerging from the blue box, heard Carrie's shriek of recognition.

'h.e.l.lo, Mother,' said Manda quietly. 'It's good to be home.'

But as Manda got closer, Mrs Sutton saw the expression on her daughter's face, and knew that something had changed there. Changed for ever. Changed so that it could never be altered back again.