Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 45

'Good evening. I'm the Doctor and this is my friend Rita.'

Two George Limbs looked up in surprise.

'Doctor,' said one.

'What a delightful surprise,' said the other.

A huge gorilla turned towards them and gave a shattering roar.

Rita fainted.

Davey O'Brien had no trouble getting the sweating, twitching Dr Bure to take him up to the garret in which his tortured other-world counterpart lay dying.

He tried not to look at the creature.

'What do you want?' the dying cyborg said.

His voice Davey shuddered. voice Davey shuddered.

'We've come to get you out,' he replied.

'Why?'

'In case you hadn't noticed, we're under attack. I'm trying to save you.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. But if our positions were reversed, I know you'd have 222 to do the same for me. Us.'

The thing took an awkward step towards him.

'Steady. uh... mate.'

Davey tucked himself under his alter-ego's gaunt, wire-threaded arms and tried to support him as they walked. Bure scuttled along just in front of them.

Davey stopped. He could hear movement. He struggled behind some pipes with his patient. Bure squeezed in behind them. He could see the silhouettes of two enemy troops.

He motioned to his companions to keep silent.

'Over here!' the other O'Brien bellowed with as much strength as he could muster.

McBride stepped out of the hospital into a cold, wet November night, wincing at the shock of the freezing rain. The hospital grounds were awash with other-dimensional troops. Overhead a futuristic Zepplin hung low and silent.

A searchlight from the airs.h.i.+p swept across the car park and McBride saw the rubble and broken gla.s.s left by the tremor.

A sharp shove in the small of his back set him stumbling over the wet pavement.

'Hey, bub, watch the coat.'

McBride glanced back at where two soldiers were manhandling Mullen and his wheelchair out of the hospital. The police officer looked pale and old and McBride felt his heart sink. He'd failed.

Instead of getting Mullen somewhere safe, he'd dropped him in the middle something worse.

'Hey, it's all right. I'll take him.' McBride caught hold of the handles of the wheelchair and stared at the soldiers defiantly. He looked around for O'Brien. Perhaps he'd managed to get away...

Hark pushed his way out of the door, protesting loudly.

'I tell you I'm not with these men! I'm a doctor, you have no right '

McBride gave a wry smile as one of the soldiers clubbed Hark casually over the back of the head and pushed him forward roughly.

The three of them were marched over to where a mobile command centre was set up in the middle of the square. One of their escorts saluted smartly.

'Three civilians found in the building, Captain Williams, sir!'

A young man in a captain's uniform raised himself painfully from his chair, supporting himself on an inelegant military crutch. He was badly bruised, one eye so swollen that he could barely open it. His uniform was ripped and McBride could see blood-soaked bandages 223 through the tears. One arm was mangled and twisted, and McBride could see the pain in his face.

Williams regarded the three of them carefully with his good eye.

'Medic. Check out the man in the wheelchair, see how he's doing.'

McBride stepped forward protectively. 'He's lost both legs. He's in a lot of pain.'

'Then if you get out of our way and let our medic take a look at him, perhaps he can help.'

McBride paused for a moment, then nodded. 'Thank you.'

'Don't thank me yet.' Williams snapped. 'Civilians, are you? So you wouldn't know anything about the apes that killed most of my men and beat me to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp.'

McBride said nothing.

Williams lowered himself painfully back into his chair. 'No, you wouldn't, would you? Just like you wouldn't know about a heavily armoured group of men who broke out of here an hour ago, and a rogue helicopter that slipped away at the same time.'

McBride shrugged. 'Like you said, we're civilians.'

Williams pulled an odd-looking service revolver from its holster and placed it on the desk in front of him.

'I am in command of a rescue squad. I currently have over a quarter men either dead or in a field hospital suffering from wounds inflicted during the battle to secure the area. And now there has been a seismic disturbance, which my technical staff inform me is due dimensional instability. An advance unit by the Thames has had to ward off an attack by lizard people emerging from an energy tear near Battersea. A sapper unit working on the bridge has had to destroy a number of heavily armoured robot creatures using blasting explosives.'

'Then I guess you've had better days.'

Williams pointed the gun at McBride.

'This city will soon be under martial law, and at the moment I can't think of a single good reason why I shouldn't have you shot.'

'There's a man who calls himself the Doctor,' blurted Hark.

'Shut up,' hissed McBride.

'He's not from here, he's different. Alien.' Hark was babbling now 'His X-rays were all wrong, a cardiovascular system unlike anything I've ever seen. It was he who set the apes loose. He did the adaptations, he...'

'I said shut up!' McBride swung a right hook at Hark, sending him cras.h.i.+ng to the floor. McBride lunged at him but a sharp blow on the back of the head sent him sprawling. He rolled over, groaning' and looked right into the barrel of Williams's gun.

224.

'Sir! Sir' we've got three more of them!'

A breathless squaddie scurried over. 'Found them in the bas.e.m.e.nt, sir.'

A figure was pushed past McBride. Captain Williams stared incredulously. 'O'Brien? Davey O'Brien?'

O'Brien shook himself free from his captors. 'Name, rank and serial number is all you're going to get.'

'Davey, it's me, Frank Williams. Remember?'

O'Brien stood stiffly to attention, staring straight ahead 'O'Brien, D.

Captain, Royal Air Force. 262704K, sir?

The squaddie pointed nervously over his shoulder, 'Er, sir, I think you should see the other one.'

'Other one?' Williams frowned. 'What the devil are you talking about, soldier?'

'The other O'Brien, sir. Over here.'

Williams turned and his jaw dropped.

McBride rubbed his aching head and craned his neck to see. Bure and the O'Brien that had tumbled through from another dimension stood in the rain, a dozen soldiers standing guard around them. As he watched, the young pilot shambled forward, mechanical legs hissing and clanking, pain running in waves across his face with every step that he took. He reached out, pleading. 'Take me home, Frank. For G.o.d's sake. Take me home.'

Williams caught him as he tumbled forward. 'Medic! Medic!'

Army doctors darted across the square, taking O'Brien from Williams's arms and lowering him gently onto a stretcher. McBride saw a look of pure horror flicker across the chief medic's face as he examined O'Brien's legs, then the stretcher was whisked away in a blur of motion.

'Who did this?' Williams hissed.

No one answered. Then 'It was him!' shouted Dr Bure, pointing at his boss Dr Hark. 'I only took orders...'

Hark stepped forward, his voice trembling. 'We did our best. We needed to find out how you worked, how you were built.'

Williams spun, his face a mask of rage, fumbling for his gun. 'You animals! You primitive barbarian butchers!'

The army captain levelled his revolver, his hands shaking with fury.

Hark dropped to his knees with a whimper. McBride closed his eyes.

He was dazzled anyway.

Tendrils of blue lancing energy tore through the night air, making the rain hiss and boil. The ground heaved and split, and McBride felt himself tumbling backwards. He crashed into O'Brien and the two of 225 them rolled across the pavement. From the hole in the shattered tarmac came the ants, hundreds of them, pouring out into the road like a black tide. Hark barely had time to scream before they were on him, pincers tearing into his flesh. Gunfire tore through the night air as disbelieving soldiers came to their senses. Williams fired round after round into the advancing tide, bellowing orders.

McBride felt someone hauling him to his feet.

'We've got to get out of here!' screamed O'Brien.

'Where's Mullen?' McBride looked around frantically. 'Did you see where they took Mullen?'

'Forget him, he's gone.'

'No, d.a.m.n it! I'm not going to lose him now!'

McBride struggled to get free from O'Brien's grasp, oblivious to the chaos erupting around him. All he could think of was his friend.

O'Brien suddenly gave a scream of horror. McBride spun. From over the pile of the shattered tarmac appeared two of the ants, antennae witching. With a high-pitched chirruping, they darted forward.

McBride lashed out with his foot, catching one of them in the side of the head and sending it skittering across the rubble. He saw the other one catch O'Brien's arm in its jaws. The young soldier screamed in agony as the ant started to drag him back towards the entrance to Its tunnel.

McBride threw himself on the creature's back, kicking and screaming, hammering on the slick black chitin. He was barely slowing it up. O'Brien twisted and spun in the ant's jaws, bellowing with pain.

McBride looked around frantically for something that he could use as a weapon.

A length of steel bar jutted out from the shattered pavement.

McBride lunged for it, muscles straining as he struggled to pull it from the rubble. The bar s.h.i.+fted a few feet, then jammed. McBride screamed in frustration. O'Brien was hammering at the ant's head with a lump of rock. Blood was pouring from his arm now, shocking against the jet black body of the ant.

McBride put all his strength against the bar. With a grind of steel on stone it came free. Bellowing in rage, McBride brought the bar cras.h.i.+ng down with all his might. There was a horrible crack and the ant collapsed down onto the rubble, thick ichor spurting from a deep crack across its back.

Flinging the bar to one side, McBride scrambled over to O'Brien, whipping off his tie and slipping it around the soldier's arm.

'Are you all right?'

O'Brien grimaced as the tie pulled tight. 'Oh yeah, get bitten by 226 giant ants all the time.'

He gripped McBride's arm. 'Thanks...'

'Don't thank me yet.' McBride hauled O'Brien to his feet, his face grave. From over the top of the rubble came another ant, then another and another. A cacophony of chittering filled the air.

'Nice knowing you, McBride.'

A shattering roar drowned out the clatter of the ants and everything was lit up by another sheet of brilliant blue lightning. McBride craned his neck back as a s.h.i.+mmering tear ripped up into the night sky.

Through streaming eyes, McBride could see something moving inside the tear, something vast pus.h.i.+ng its way through.

A huge boot crashed down, smas.h.i.+ng onto the ants. McBride kept leaning back, trying to see the top of whatever had just pushed, through the dimensional bridge. A voice like distant thunder boomed out through the rain.

'Gordon Bennet!'

'What the h.e.l.l is that?' screamed O'Brien.

McBride's jaw dropped as he craned his neck higher and higher. She was huge.