Doctor Who_ To The Slaughter Part 32

Fitz swore. 'It's not them he's talking to.'

A small, silver flying saucer was droning towards the stage.

'Sook, no!' he yelled.

'Put us down on the stage, Boko,' said Sook.

'You're, crazy,' The Voice yelled, forcing himself in front of her blocking her view of the animals piling up around the stage, of Halcyon lying sprawled on his back, of Fitz and his friend signalling desperately for help. 'You're '

They slammed into something hard. The walls sparked and then gave way, and G.o.d The Voice could really scream when he wanted to G.o.d The Voice could really scream when he wanted to Fitz stared in horror as the control suite crashed into the force wall ricocheted back and performed a sick spiral downwards.

It hit the pink turf and rolled on its edge like a giant hubcap, over and over in a wide arc.

'Sook!' he yelled.

Finally, it ploughed into a wall and went up in flames.

Falsh ran through the cavernous underworld of stadium corridors, trying to push from his mind the horrors he'd seen in the arena. He had to reach Phaedra. He called her on the wristpad.

Nothing.

He tried Tinya. Zilch.

Nerren at least was still around. So he d.a.m.n well should be. 'Get me the location of Phaedra's R and D team,' he snapped at the little bubblescreen.

'I Sir, I don't know if I'll be allowed access '

176.

'Do it!' Falsh roared. 'I need that information now.'

He killed contact. There was something else he needed he'd have to stop off at the s.h.i.+p first. If Phaedra hadn't answered, that meant just one thing.

Trouble.

Falsh swore he would never let himself be caught unawares again.

Trix was trying to calm down Fitz. He was going mental over the smashed-up saucer.

'Doctor, turn off the forcefield,' he kept begging.

She waved at the bruised and bleeding animals, crushed in, screeching and roaring their rage, staring with bulging, hateful eyes. 'If he does, those things'll kill us!'

'But I've got to get out there! I've got to go and see if Sook's all right.'

'Fitz, I wouldn't get your hopes up,' she told him firmly. 'I mean. . . look at it!'

The control suite was just a flaming heap of squashed metal. The smoke or the heat had set off the stadium sprinklers, and suddenly an alarm was blaring and it was raining. At least it helped drown out the shrieks of the animals.

You could see the forcefield around them now a cheese-like wedge, with the broad end at the bottom. The water gushed down the straight side like a waterfall.

'I found a side exit back there when I was scouting around,' the Doctor told him, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. 'Seems to lead to those side stores where the animals were being held. It should be safe to go there now but please, be careful.'

'Thanks,' said Fitz. 'I'll see you soon.'

'Fitz,' Trix shouted as he ran off, 'we're finally all back together again and you want to just '

'Let him go,' the Doctor told her, shaking his head sadly. 'It's his decision, and a brave one.'

'The silly sod.' Trix surveyed the devastation in the arena. Sure, the animals were under wraps now, but the people were still swarming around the exits, trampling each other to get out of there. 'Hey, what's with you, anyway feeling under the weather? I would have thought you'd be right out there after him, doing your token bit for the wounded.'

He shot her an angry glance as he crossed to the bubblescreen. 'First I need to make this forcefield stable. If any of those animals escape the cage. . . '

'Help must be coming from outside soon, surely?'

'I should think so,' the Doctor agreed. He fiddled with the sonic barrier until both blaring alarms and b.e.s.t.i.a.l roars were quietened. 'A military presence in the area should actually be of use in that regard.'

177.

'What set the animals off like that, anyway? According to Fitz they were tame and harmless with Tinya this morning.'

'Tinya arranged this?'

'For a photo shoot or something.'

The Doctor merely grunted and performed further fiddles. The forcefield turned opaque and yellow. 'Sorry. I can't bear to look at them any more.'

'Don't apologise,' said Trix shakily. 'Tinya thought they'd make good filler for the show once the moon-boom was kaput. Instead, they stole the show.'

'Pacific animals turning into crazed, aggressive monsters. Remind you of anything?'

A s.h.i.+ver ran through her. 'That chiggock at the Inst.i.tute.'

'And those kitchens we pa.s.sed on our way here had been closed down. . . '

'Coincidence.' Trix frowned. 'Isn't it?'

The Doctor was already calling up channel ten-one-one. 'Three guesses what the big story is this evening,' he said. The screen showed the chaotic stadium exterior, piles of the dead around the gleaming golden gates, ambulances crammed with writhing ma.s.ses of wounded. 'I don't suppose there'll be news of anything else '

He broke off as an image of a chiggock suddenly filled the screen, with the caption, CALLISTO FOOD SHORTAGE. 'Compounding the problems in the aftermath of what's already been dubbed the "Callisto cataclysm" is an unexpected chronic food shortage, after Health and Safety officers decreed the destruction of a contaminated batch of chiggocks on the satellite. . . '

He flicked to the next news item. It showed scenes from a run-down testing lab on nearby Europa where animal subjects had apparently attacked and overrun their persecutors.

'Ouch!' the Doctor shouted, his hands flying to his head.

'What is it?'

'Things just slotted into place,' he announced. 'Things with very spiky edges.

But they seem to fit.' He strode over and gripped her by the shoulders. 'Would you care to hear a disturbing theory?'

'Not really.'

'The s.p.a.ce slugs. Planted by Klimt on Leda, yes?'

She shrugged. 'So the s...o...b..-Doo bit goes, yeah.'

'It wasn't just a stunt, an act of spite to ruin Falsh's big night-of-a-billion-bangs. It was the aiming of the weapon. It was the pulling of the trigger!'

'And this is the pulling of Trix's leg, right?' She looked into his hooded, serious eyes. 'What are you talking about?'

'The ultimate weapon. That's what Falsh wanted. But it's quite a tall order there'll always be bigger and better firepower waiting around the corner, the same principle built upon and improved upon. And being a weapon, you'd 178 expect it to look look like one, wouldn't you; a gun or a bomb, a device of some kind.' like one, wouldn't you; a gun or a bomb, a device of some kind.'

'And so would your enemies,' said Trix slowly.

'Right.' The Doctor's grip on her shoulders tightened. 'So Klimt comes up with his s.p.a.ce slug, a creature that thrives in any environment even the wastes of s.p.a.ce.'

'Oh G.o.d, I get where you're coming from. It's a Trojan Trojan slug!' slug!'

'The slugs are deposited somewhere where they'll soon be discovered.

They're taken for study; found to be quite harmless.'

'Except they're not, are they?'

He shook his head. 'Somehow these slugs inflame and arouse the aggression in animal life.'

'How?'

'By giving off certain signals, affecting brainwaves? I don't know, that's all the clever-clever stuff.' He scowled, deep in concentration, thinking it through. 'Chiggocks have only a rudimentary brain, no defences. Easily over-come.'

'Creepy, but hardly the greatest menace to humanity,' Trix argued. 'Nor is a bunch of whipped-up animals.'

'Remember the corpses piled high at the Inst.i.tute.' He was looking at her piteously; willing her to understand. 'They froze over while they were still fighting.'

She swore. 'It arouses and inflames aggression in all all animal life.' animal life.'

'Yes. Starting with the simplest.'

'First the chiggocks, then the beasts. . . ' She chewed her lip. 'And eventually, us.'

The Doctor gave a macabre smile. 'Klimt developed his ultimate weapon all right. He's got it working right now. And this is only the start of the demonstration.'

179.

Chapter Twenty-three.

Fitz made his way out of the darkened stores and into the artificial daylight.

Cautiously, he looked out at the deluge in the arena. The animals had been veiled off by a curtain of crackling yellow energy The crowds were beginning to clear, revealing in their wake the bodies of the dead.

And there, a hundred yards away, was the big squashed kettle of the control suite, smoking and hissing in the downpour. Bracing himself, he ran towards it. The cold water soon soaked him to the bone.

He seemed to reach it in moments. 'Sook!' he shouted. 'h.e.l.lo? Anyone?' Finding the crumpled metal sheet of a doorway, he pushed against it. It wouldn't budge. His pa.s.scard, he must have that somewhere. . .

He waved the card all around the door and at last, with a grinding, grating noise, the metal split open. Evil-smelling fumes poured out into the sodden arena. He couldn't see for them.

'Sook!' he yelled again.

'Kreiner?' came the faint reply.

He burst through the smoke, eyes streaming, trying to find her. 'Hold on!

I'm coming!' He took a few cautious steps, then slipped and fell on something soft.

'Ow! Thanks a lot.'

He'd landed on Sook. At first he grinned with relief. Then he saw the blood she was covered in. Her bobbed hair was plastered in it, her pale face was black with gore. The end of her sharp nose had been sc.r.a.ped clean off.

'You OK, Kreiner?'

'Yeah,' he said, gently climbing off her and s.h.i.+fting round to cradle her head.

'And Halcyon?'

'I think so. He took a fall, but he's safe, he's asleep. My friends are with him.'

'What happened? We were coming to rescue you '

'You flew into an invisible wall. A forcefield, it's containing the animals.'

'Oh. Glad we got that straight.' Her eyes flickered closed.

'Hey, don't think you can just die on me now we've got that straight,' Fitz added quickly. 'Is anything broken?'

She swallowed with some difficulty. 'I think my Voice broke.'

'Huh?'

181.

She pointed a broken finger weakly behind him through the thin smoke.