Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias Part 9

'Really? Well that's weird, 'cos her mother's got a photo of you and her by the side of her bed.'

She saw Michael's shoulders slump, slightly, in defeat.

'So you've come looking for your mum. Big deal. what's the big secret?'

'How do you know Mum?'

'It's the Doctor that knows her he said something about how she was a friend of someone called Liz Shaw. That mean anything to you? He got a postcard from your mum, saying something was going on here, and asked him to come and help.'

Michael looked away, eyes narrowing, that same clenching of the jaw she'd noticed earlier that day. She wasn't sure whether it was the Doctor or Liz Shaw that had struck a nerve.

'Do you know the Doctor, then?' she asked, suddenly not so sure that she wanted to know the answer. There was something in Michael's eyes, something in the set of his body that told her that she might be about to hear something uncomfortable.

'I know of of him. Everyone knows him. Everyone knows of of him.' him.'

'Everyone? I know he likes to get about a bit, but that's pus.h.i.+ng it a bit.'

'I mean everyone at UNIT.'

'United Nations Intelligence Taskforce UNIT?'

'Saving the Earth from invasion by aliens UNIT,' he smiled.

'Are you sure you should be telling me that? Isn't it a national secret or something?'

'You tell me you seem to know enough about it. I'm sure the Doctor's filled you in on it. So, what else do you know about UNIT?' He leaned back, the firelight catching his eyes.

'For a start, I know you work for them,' Ace said. 'In the photo that your gran's got by her bed, you're in a UNIT uniform, and when I saw you this afternoon, you said you were shopping for rations. Not a word that people usually use when they've just bought some bread and milk.'

'So you're here to spy on me, are you? Is that it?'

'Hey, don't have a go at me! I don't know what's gone on between you and the Doctor, but I'm not from UNIT. And from what the Doctor's told me, neither is he: he just helps them out when they're busy.'

'Oh, little Miss Innocent, are you?'

'I haven't got time for this.' Ace got to her feet and picked up her rucksack. She was cold, wet and tired, and the last thing she wanted was a round of verbal sparring. 'What are you so defensive about? The Doctor came here 'cos your mum asked for help '

'Have you seen her?' Michael cut in.

Ace looked down at him, wanting to say no, wanting to walk away and leave him no wiser. But she couldn't. 'I think something happened to her up at Graystairs,' she said reluctantly, and quickly related the pitiful amount that she and the Doctor had discovered so far. He chewed the back of his hand thoughtfully, as Ace watched him. She couldn't pinpoint it, but there was still something he was holding back. All she could see was a man whose mother had disappeared, and who had some sort of unresolved grudge with the Doctor. She sat down again. He pulled out a battered packet of f.a.gs and offered her one.

'No thanks tried 'em once. They don't quite go with high explosives. Anyway,' she continued hastily, forestalling his next question, 'how long have you been up here?'

'Just a couple of days.'

'So how come you haven't found her yet? Been to Graystairs? The B&B?'

He shook his head slowly. 'It's not that simple,' he said.

'You come all this way, and then don't finish the job?'

'It's more complicated than that,' he said, clearly struggling with whether he should tell her something or other. Ace s.h.i.+vered, despite the fire, feeling her patience draining away into the cold gra.s.s beneath her.

The Doctor stood on the ridge staring into the darkness. Behind him lay the oasis of light that was the village; and beyond that, up a gently sloping hill through the wood, was Graystairs. But his attention was focused in the other direction, on the cottage squatting in the shadow of the slope beneath him. A thin snail-trail of smoke, smeared out by the wind, coiled away into the sky. There were no lights.

Cats and dogs and sheep and wolves, he thought to himself.

These are a few of my favourite things. He tensed as he heard soft footsteps behind him footsteps that spoke of injury, and trepidation. Without turning, he spoke into the night.

'You do know that we almost saw you back at Graystairs, don't you?' He looked back slowly, his eyes narrow and hard. 'I think we need to have a little chat.'

It took the Doctor about half an hour to reach the decrepit cottage, his sense of unease growing as he approached. And as he swung the rusted gate aside, the unease was exacerbated by a faint, sickly scent. He paused at the door, eyes narrowed, every sense stretched. With just a little effort, he tuned out the thin soughing of the wind, but all he could hear from within the cottage was a dark, echoey silence. His nostrils wrinkled and he knew instantly what had become of the missing sheep and pets.

The door was open, and the Doctor flinched as he turned the handle and the smell of putrefaction curled through the widening crack. His night-acclimatized eyes took in the tatty furniture, blankets and cus.h.i.+ons, limned by the soft, winking glow of a grid of lights set in the broad, bevelled edge of something that, grotesquely, resembled a coffin. Its side was yellowed and stained.

The Doctor glanced back into the night before stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind him. The stench that surrounded him was thick, almost palpable, and spoke of the depravity of the place more than simply death and decay. As he made his way gingerly towards the coffin, his foot caught something small and hard which skittered and spun away across the floor. The almost denuded skull of a sheep, a few b.l.o.o.d.y, tattered remains of flesh still clinging to the blood-washed bone, fetched up against the coffin with a b.u.mp. He shook his head in sorrow and disbelief and placed the palms of his hands against the lid. He didn't need to open it. He knew exactly what it was a fleshsuit tank a fairly new development from the Fleshsmiths. Could there be Fleshsmiths around here? It didn't seem their sort of thing, really: their forte was in supplying prosthetics, devices bodies bodies to others; they worked from behind the scenes, selling their services to those who could afford them. At least now he knew what had happened to the missing animals. He pulled his hands away from the device, rubbing the oily residue from the lid between his fingers. to others; they worked from behind the scenes, selling their services to those who could afford them. At least now he knew what had happened to the missing animals. He pulled his hands away from the device, rubbing the oily residue from the lid between his fingers.

Someone was walking around in a suit made from living, recycled biomatter.

Ace felt slightly light-headed from Michael's brandy. But after what seemed like hours of getting nowhere with him, she'd decided that there were more important things to do than to sit in awkward silence while he steadfastly refused to talk about anything of interest. Their entire conversation had been about Scotland, the weather and the Falklands conflict. Every time she'd tried to bring it back to UNIT, Joyce or the Doctor, Michael had steered it away again. Maybe she'd been trying too hard. Finally, heaving herself to her feet and wobbling rather uncoolly, she'd announced she was off. The relief in his eyes was almost insulting, but she knew how he felt: if he didn't want to talk, then he didn't want to talk. The brandy had imbued her with a certain bravado, and she decided she ought to get off her backside and do something do something.

As they said their goodnights awkward and devoid of the flirtations that Ace was beginning to wonder whether she'd imagined earlier and she tramped back across the field, she remembered that the Doctor had said to meet her at the hotel.

She presumed that the plan was to return to Graystairs and have a nosey around under cover of darkness, but she had a niggling feeling that, if she did go back, he wouldn't be there. Maybe she should steal a march on him, go straight there. A warm bed and something to eat was quite high on her list of priorities but even higher was another look at the laboratory: the Doctor might have found a beaker of poison, but she was determined that she was going to find something much more incriminating.

As she made her way back across the moonlit fields, the frosty ground crunching beneath her boots, she found herself growing uncharacteristically maudlin. Since she and the Doctor had arrived in future London, no one had seemed to want to be straight with her. Secrets and lies, she thought bitterly. No, that was unfair. Just secrets. And maybe things that the Doctor simply didn't know about: he couldn't know everything, after all.

And maybe Michael was exaggerating bitter and unhappy, but exaggerating. She took a deep breath to clear the fugginess in her head; her throat and stomach still burned from the brandy and she remembered that she hadn't eaten for hours.

Clambering back over the fence, she nearly tripped. Swearing loudly, she told herself to shush. Maybe she should have stayed with Michael and slept the drink off. But there was no way she was going to go back there now, just to have him laugh at her.

She checked her watch nearly three in the morning. If she could get back into Graystairs without being caught, then she'd have a better chance to poke around, find more evidence. Maybe even find Joyce. Maybe she should have told Michael where she was going, got him to come with her. No, bad move. She didn't know whether she really trusted him yet. Better to stick with the one person you could trust.

The sensitivity of Ace's hearing seemed to have been turned up from 'attentive' to 'paranoid': every crack of a twig, every rustle, every innocent animal noise had her glancing around, expecting her stalker to launch himself or herself, she realised at her from the darkness. She picked up a branch and hefted it clumsily. If nothing else, it gave her a bit of extra confidence.

There were still lights on at Graystairs: a couple of ground floor ones, one first floor and one on the third floor. She grinned as she imagined Connie and Jessie sneaking down to the kitchens for a midnight feast.

The door, as she'd expected, was locked; so she slipped round the side of the house, and after a few minutes found a ground floor sash window that was open in fact the frame at the bottom was splintered and chipped, so perhaps this had been the site of a recent breakin.With a bit of effort, she managed to get it open, wincing at the rumbling of the sash weights in the frame. She was in the residents' lounge, the armchairs painted with silver moonlight, the air curiously dry and dead.

She slid like a shadow to the foot of the stairs, paused for a moment as she heard m.u.f.fled voices from upstairs the bleeding out into the real world of some elderly nightmare and headed for the cellar door. As she opened it, she smelled something both welcoming and disturbing. Someone was cooking bacon down there. Her stomach growled.

She found the light switch, and winced at the brilliance of the single bulb as she flicked it. Blinking away the after-images, she tiptoed down the stairs to the lab pristine, sharp and, thankfully, deserted. The smell of bacon grew stronger, and she felt her stomach rumble again loud enough, she was sure, for the mystery chef to be able to hear. For a few moments she waited at the foot of the stairs. She thought she could hear noises in the distance, through the far doorway where, she presumed, there was a kitchen. Scanning the room, she smiled as she caught sight of a half-eaten bacon b.u.t.ty on one of the worktops. In a single, deft movement, she ran over, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and took a bite. She swallowed greedily and took another, moving sideways towards the other doorway, keeping her back pressed against the workbenches that ran around the room. She could definitely hear noises footsteps growing louder. It sounded like someone coming down a flight of stairs like the ones she'd just used, but ahead of her, through the kitchen. She froze and reluctantly put the remains of her sandwich down. Holding her breath which now seemed louder than the grumblings of her stomach she strained to hear what was happening around the corner.

And then she heard a m.u.f.fled woman's voice give a cry of surprise and a dull, metal clang, like someone banging their head on a saucepan.

Panic took hold, and Ace sprinted across the room, back towards the stairway.

In mid-stride, halfway to the stairs, she vanished.

Chapter Six.

Whereas Ace had entered Graystairs through a side window, the Doctor just marched straight up to the front door, fiddled with the handle and he was in. He stood in silence for a moment, sniffing the air. Strange how things smelled so different at night - dark and predatory, full of antic.i.p.ation, full of menace. His favourite time.

'We're not in Kansas now, Tom,' Ace whispered to herself.

The air was damp and heavy, and she felt a cold, unwelcome clamminess pressing at her skin, even through her clothes. She was in a dark, church-like s.p.a.ce, full of unfamiliar creaks and drips. Her first thought was that she was on a submarine the floor beneath her feet was a coa.r.s.e metal grating, the wall to her side curved away overhead like a hi-tech b.u.t.tress. Its surface was cold, moist metal, a sheen of condensation running down her fingers into the cuff of her jacket as she brushed her fingers on it. Puddles of curdled water lay at her feet, sc.u.mmed over, green.

Where the h.e.l.l was she? And how the h.e.l.l had she got there?

She glanced back but all she saw was a dark corridor, curving away from her. Pale bulbs of light, set high in the arching walls, cast a cadaverous glow. Out of the frying pan...

She must have come through some sort of transmat from Graystairs, she realised. Checking the walls nearby, she saw two thicker strips of metal, like slightly bent railway sleepers, that seemed to have been bolted onto the walls, just at the point where she'd appeared. Presumably, the transmat generators. She smiled to herself: a beaker of poison, Doctor? Huh! Let me tell you about the transmat and the secret base!

She hitched her rucksack onto her back and, feeling more s...o...b.. Doo than James Bond, started exploring.

Like an ancient, steel cathedral, it felt abandoned but still inhabited by the spirits of the dead. It creaked and groaned and pinged around her, and she found herself splas.h.i.+ng through countless puddles of stagnant water. The air smelled of rust and algae, and it was only when she found a few control panels that she began to wonder where this place actually was. And the more she looked around, the more she felt certain: this wasn't just some secret hideaway this was a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Moments later, she stepped into a much brighter chamber one that hummed and fizzed and beeped with all the sounds you might expect from a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p: hoo, Doctor! Just you wait!

Arrayed round the room on sloping couches, their feet pointing towards the centre of the chamber, were at least a dozen people.

There was a progression in the equations around her. Her realization of it was more instinctive than informed. Joyce still felt that same sense of bewondered detachment as each new piece of the puzzle slotted itself into the whole, and then fell away, like huge icebergs of data detaching themselves, drifting off on new adventures. It was all to do with frequencies, she realized. Familiar equations formed around her as she made the connection, curious b.u.t.terflies around a particularly attractive new flower. Wasps around a honey pot. She could see Bessel functions and... weren't those Cantor sets? She reached out a finger she didn't possess and touched touched a set of numbers. They blossomed into others, fractal sequences, and she pulled her hand back, worried that she'd damaged them somehow. But the Eigenvalues of the matrix remained constant. She scanned the rows and columns. Something wasn't quite right. Not yet. There was a missing sequence. . She could see a dark gap in the streams of numbers, an invisible question mark over it. Joyce's non-existent brow furrowed as she tried to work out what was missing a set of numbers. They blossomed into others, fractal sequences, and she pulled her hand back, worried that she'd damaged them somehow. But the Eigenvalues of the matrix remained constant. She scanned the rows and columns. Something wasn't quite right. Not yet. There was a missing sequence. . She could see a dark gap in the streams of numbers, an invisible question mark over it. Joyce's non-existent brow furrowed as she tried to work out what was missing Ace gazed at the bodies around her. Their faces were illuminated by pale spotlights, and at the head of each bench was a twinkling pillar of electronic equipment. She scanned the faces around her most were elderly, but amongst them were a couple of younger people, a middle-aged woman and a woman who could only be Joyce Brunner.

Ace dropped her rucksack and rushed over to the sleeping woman. She recognized her face from the photograph in Norma's room a thin, taut face, dark hair tied back severely.

Joyce could be quite attractive if she made an effort, thought Ace, but at the moment her face was pale and drawn, dark shadows under her eyes. She followed the tangle of cables that ran from the electronic pillar and saw that they led to the nape of Joyce's neck. Gently, she rolled Joyce's head on its side, and saw that they spread out into a silvery net, seemingly embedded in her skin. Ace gave an experimental tug, reluctant to pull too hard in case it did any damage. She was surprised when, with a high-pitched squeak, the filaments seemed to withdraw into themselves, shrinking to a s.h.i.+ny nub the size of Ace's fingertip, just below her hairline. Joyce's eyes snapped open.

Ace jumped back, panicking that she'd done some irreversible damage as Joyce opened her mouth and screamed as light flooded her brain, burning through her eyes. Joyce clamped her hands over her ears to shut out the sickening din that lanced into them. Her stomach heaved, and only with an immense effort did she prevent herself from throwing up.

'Stop it!' Joyce screamed. 'Make it stop! Please, make it stop!'

She felt someone grab her wrists and pull them away from her head. The light scorching into her head faded as a dark shape pa.s.sed in front of her, making noises that she knew, deep down, were supposed to make some sort of sense, but she couldn't fit them together. Like an abstract jigsaw with no box, no picture.

Something pulled at her, changing her orientation, and the nausea punched her in the stomach again.

'G.o.d, my head,' moaned Joyce, struggling to sit up on the bench. She squinted at the girl in front of her, confused.

Everything was fuzzed over with a strange, multicoloured halo and she felt sick. Her mouth tasted sharp, metallic.

'Are you OK?' the girl asked.

'I don't know I feel dreadful.' She looked around. She was in some sort of church a wet, clammy church that smelled of old fishponds and rusty oil cans. Dim light filtered down from above. The room was filled with benches like the one she was now sitting on, each of them with a sleeping figure on it.

'Come on,' said the girl, trying to help her up. 'We need to get out of here.'

Another jolt of pain stabbed at her stomach as she got unsteadily to her feet, and she had to sit down again.

The girl glanced edgily at her. 'Look, have a rest while I try to get some of these others unhooked.'

Joyce watched as the girl crossed to an elderly woman and began to fiddle around with a cable that seemed to run into the back of the woman's head. What was she doing? She touched the back of her neck, and pulled her hand back sharply as she felt something hard and metallic embedded there. She looked around at the others, all of them apparently sleeping and, she guessed, muzzily, all with the same metal things in the backs of their necks. She closed her eyes, faint after-images of numbers and equations dancing on her retinas. She felt sick again, her arms heavy.

'Where are we?'

'You don't want to know,' the girl replied as the woman on whom she was working began to moan, thras.h.i.+ng her head from side to side. Joyce raised her hand, opened her mouth to ask the girl if she knew what she was doing. The girl's words and tone of voice suddenly registered with her, as if they'd been spoken minutes ago, smeared out into long, time-delayed echoes.

'If I didn't want to know,' replied Joyce tartly, wincing at the icy needles that stabbed her temples, 'I wouldn't have asked.'

'Fine we're in a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and we got here through a transmat. That OK for you?'

The girl helped the elderly, white-haired woman into a sitting position, and Joyce realized that the look of terror and confusion on her face must have mirrored her own.

'Look,' said Joyce, 'I don't know who you are, or what this is all about, but I asked a civil question and I think '

'Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Help get Jessie it is Jessie, isn't it? - sorted whilst I wake Connie up.'

Joyce bristled at the girl's tone: as well as sarcastic and rude, she was also bossy. And Joyce wasn't used to being ordered around by someone as young as this. Reluctantly, she slid to her feet and went over to help the elderly woman who was squinting, trying to cover her eyes and ears simultaneously.

'Who are you?' the woman moaned as Joyce tried, feebly, to comfort her.

'I'm Joyce. Don't worry, we'll get you out of here. Your name's Jessie, isn't it?' She glanced over at the girl who nodded.

'Well everything's going to be fine, Jessie.'

'Where's Ernest? I want Ernest! What have you done with him?'

'Who's Ernest?'

'What have you done with him? He was here ' Jessie looked around the room, her eyes wide with fear. Under her hand, Joyce could feel her shaking.

'You're the girl from Graystairs, aren't you? Is he here? Is Ernest here?' Joyce looked round the supine bodies, but Jessie wasn't interested in them. She started rocking, silent tears streaming down her face. For a clear, cold moment, Joyce imagined that she saw her own mother there, terrified, lost. Only then did she realise that Jessie, and probably most of the other people in the chamber, was a patient at Graystairs. Was Mum here? She looked around again, but was relieved to find that she wasn't. But amongst the faces, she was disturbed to see a couple of the staff that had been in Graystairs on her previous visit including the woman she thought of as 'Matron'. The girl was unplugging another elderly woman whose reaction, thankfully, seemed less extreme than Jessie's. (And, Joyce noted with an awkward embarra.s.sment, even less extreme than her own had seemed.) At least to her. As the third, well-built, brown-haired woman sat up, Jessie saw her and her crying stopped as she went over to comfort her 'What is this horrid place?' Jessie asked, cradling her friend's head. Joyce looked to the girl for an answer.

'It's... I'm not sure. My name's Ace, by the way, and this is Joyce. Come on, we have to get you and Connie out of here before someone comes.' Ace ushered Jessie and Connie to their feet. 'How do you know my name?' asked Joyce.

'I'm a friend of the Doctor. Now come on. I can't imagine this place doesn't have some sort of alarm. We have to get out.'

Joyce frowned. 'Doctor? Doctor Menzies?'

'No,' Ace said with strained patience. ' The The Doctor. Now Doctor. Now come come on on!' Supporting Connie, Ace and Jessie began splas.h.i.+ng their way through the puddles of water towards the arch of the doorway.

She paused only to pick up her rucksack and throw Joyce an irritated look, before the three of them shuffled out into the corridor.