Doctor Who (6 page)

In return for giving the ever knowledge-hungry Blakelys a crash course in archaeology, Hogoosta had been taught more and more about physics by them.
Ollus, who loved talking about Hogoosta and his ‘funny, bony legs’, was keen to tell the Doctor as much as he could. The Doctor was grateful enough, although, despite being impressed at how advanced for his age Ollus seemed, he still wished that perhaps one of the older children had helped with the narrative at this point.

‘He sended things to Mummy and Daddy and they liked them, cos they thought those were good pictures, so they sended good pictures back to Hogoosta-funny-legs and they said he was smiling, but his mouths was so bony and funny that I couldn’t see a smile, but Hogoosta-funny-legs said he was happy, he used to talk to me and show me funny old things made of stone that were good and made me laugh a lot.’

The Doctor tried to stay focused. ‘And … er … that’s good, Ollus. That’s good. Er … but what
were
these pictures?’

‘Pictures and funny letters and numbers and things that Daddy said were numbers but were not like I sawed before, cos they were on stone and not like our letters or numbers, they weren’t.’ Ollus stared intently at the Doctor, as if this explained everything.

Complex equations of some sort, thought the Doctor. That’s what Ollus was talking about. Hogoosta was sending Terrin and Alyst complex equations ‘on stone’. Equations Hogoosta had found somewhere on this Cradle of the Gods monument, perhaps.

Much to the Doctor’s relief, Sabel picked up the story. She explained that her parents suddenly became unhappy. Things had been going so well between
them and Hogoosta, but now she heard them arguing with the Klektid archaeologist over the interplanetary comms screen. Sabel had heard that something her parents had sent back to Hogoosta in response to one of these equations on stone had proved to be ‘dangerous’ in some way. Hogoosta had told Terrin and Alyst to destroy all record of it. He said that no one must know of whatever it was.

‘But your father already had it in his head, didn’t he?’ asked the Doctor. ‘So … Hogoosta wanted him to come to Gethria, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Jenibeth said, through another mouthful of blobby sweets. ‘But Mummy wouldn’t let him go. She said that we must all go together. Mummy and Daddy loved each other lots, you see.’

‘Yes, yes … of course they did,’ said the Doctor quietly, feeling sad that such a strong emotional bond had led to such a terrible outcome. ‘And they loved you very much, didn’t they? They couldn’t leave you behind.’

Sabel nodded, a little teary now. ‘She said the Blakelys must stick together.’

‘Yes … yes, of course …’ the Doctor murmured, almost to himself, because he felt his anger at the Daleks rising again. But anger was no good for these poor children and their loss. He forced his mind to focus on clarifying what had happened.

‘So your Mummy and Daddy solved some ancient problem, and it turned out to be something more dangerous than this Hogoosta funny-legs chap had ever anticipated, otherwise he wouldn’t have spoken
about it on an open comms line in the first place,’ said the Doctor, in one continuous breath, feeling he was on the trail of something definite.

Ollus was playing with his spaceship again. Jenibeth ate the last of her blobby things, noisily. But Sabel had fixed the Doctor with a look. She was old enough to grasp what he was saying.

‘And the Daleks wanted this dangerous thing,’ she said, reasoning it out. ‘Because … they’re bad?’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Daleks do everything because they’re bad.’

And it must have been a pretty bad thing that Terrin had in his head, thought the Doctor, for him to leave his children behind and commit suicide with his wife. Terrin had, the Doctor realised, hoped to jettison the children to safety and destroy the ship, with him on board; but when the self-destruct
and
escape pod hadn’t worked, he’d opted to sacrifice his life through the airlock, then hoping to leave his wife alive. But although Alyst may not have known this ‘formula’, she knew enough about it for that knowledge to prove too useful to the Daleks. So she had sacrificed herself too.

There was one consolation in all this, thought the Doctor. At least the Daleks hadn’t managed to get hold of this knowledge. However, even though Terrin and Alyst had apparently come from a world that thought of the Daleks as people who helped others, Terrin had been sufficiently convinced of the terrible risk of letting even a supposedly benevolent race get hold of his secret that he had been prepared to die – and let the secret die with him.

This secret, the Doctor pondered, whatever it was, must have been something truly terrifying. Terrifying enough for a mother and father to leave their cherished children to an uncertain fate … but a fate which at least offered them some hope of life.

He knew also that this would be just the beginning of it all for the Daleks. If they had set their sights on getting hold of this secret formula, for whatever purpose, they weren’t going to give up easily. The Doctor knew that, inevitably, he had to try to stop them, no matter what the cost.

When the planetary defence satellites of Carthedia picked up an unidentified craft, whose pilot apparently refused to make contact, initially the government gave an order to scramble an attack force of three orbital fighter craft. But as they approached, the pilot of the unidentified ship finally broke comms silence, explaining that the ship’s transmitter had been malfunctioning, ‘like most of the rest of the ship’, and that he had only just managed to fix it. He further explained that he was bringing three children home. Three children whose parents, Terrin and Alyst Blakely, had sadly died during an ‘attack’ on their spacecraft as they travelled to the planet Gethria.

This piece of information sent shockwaves around the Carthedia holo-TV media. Three days previously, they had reported on the loss of this very ship. An unidentified freighter captain had given testimony to the effect that a ship chartered by Terrin and Alyst Blakely, to take them and their children to Gethria, had been found, drifting in space, the entire family dead, as
a result of an engine malfunction.

So, for those in front of the cameras of the breakfast news bulletin, when this ship entered Carthedia’s atmosphere and headed for the capital city’s central landing pad, it was like they were presenting a live broadcast of the return of a ghost ship.

‘Back from the dead,’ proclaimed the newsreaders as their main headline that day.

When the ship finally touched down, the news media were out in force.

In the control room of the ship, the Doctor was screaming. The ship was vibrating like it was the end of the world, every circuit seemed to be blowing and anything not welded to the spot was rattling, crashing and smashing to the deck.

‘Geeee​rrron​imooo​ooooo​oooo!’

He locked the landing controls into their final sequence, with the retros firing at full blast, thundering like the raging, opening jaws of hell. There was nothing helpful he could do now to assist the landing, so he spun his chair round so that he could check all three children were still safely strapped into their chairs.

They were. Thank goodness.

It was so clear now, thought the Doctor, that Sabel was the most grown up, because she was aware enough to be terrified – but she was trying to hide it. Ollus was almost completely oblivious to what felt more like a slow motion crash than a landing. He was still managing to play with his tiny spaceship toy, seemingly irritated by the distraction the shaking ship was causing. Jenibeth
had found another bag of jelly blobs and was far more interested in cramming the sweets into her mouth than any impending prospects of death.

The Doctor gave them all a desperately optimistic thumbs-up signal. For a moment, Sabel managed the smallest of smiles. Then the ship crunched onto its landing struts … at least that’s what the Doctor hoped had caused the gigantic crashing noise, the automatic cut-off of the retros and the sudden, shocking silence.

He froze for a moment, checking for that awful feeling of free fall that might have signalled that the landing rockets had cut off too early, leaving them plunging to certain destruction. But no, he was sure they had landed. All was still.

The Doctor allowed himself a long, outward breath, realising in the process just how much of a breath he’d been holding in … and for how long.

There were only a few creaks of the hull settling now, and the odd spark of control panels and systems that would, hopefully, never see service again.

‘We’ve arrived,’ the Doctor managed to murmur through his dry throat. Then he gave the children his biggest smile, putting his thumbs up again.

Allowing the Doctor only the smallest nod of acknowledgement, Sabel quietly released her safety buckles and jumped down from her chair. She trotted straight across to Ollus and Jenibeth, unlocking their buckles for them and taking them by the hand.

The Doctor looked on as they formed their familiar little formation, with Ollus in the middle, this time trying to pull away to play with his spaceship.

‘Put it away for now, Ollus,’ hissed Sabel.

The Doctor wondered what kind of homecoming this was really going to be for the children. Who would look after them now? Releasing his buckles and standing, he suddenly became aware of an unexpected noise. He cocked an ear. The children had heard it too.

There was a low rumbling sound. Almost like a muted, constant roar. No … not quite constant … It wavered up and down a little.

‘OK, anyone know what that is?’ asked the Doctor. ‘I mean, is it normal for your planet?’

The children had no answers.

The Doctor ran to the main airlock door. For a moment, he felt a little strange about the prospect of passing through this exit. This, after all, had been where Terrin and Alyst had ended their lives. But he pressed on.

Tapping a few keys, he was able to read the atmosphere outside. Nothing odd about it. It could easily sustain human life. Then, before he could do anything more, the opening mechanisms of the door started to crash and moan into place. All at once, the outer door began yawning open of its own accord.

Someone was opening it from the outside, overriding the internal controls. Instinctively, the Doctor stepped back, putting out his hands to protect the children, who were caught in squinting awe as the inner door unsealed, giving way to a penetrating shaft of …

Fresh daylight streamed in. Fresh, bright, fragrant daylight. For a moment, it seemed so joyously powerful that it might take their breath away. Even the Doctor,
so used to so many different environments, was moved to shield his eyes and put a steadying hand upon his own chest. The children stumbled backwards. Ollus was literally open-mouthed in shock. Jenibeth started to cry without restraint, this physical catalyst seeming to release all her grief in one go. Sabel suddenly lost all self-control and threw herself at the Doctor’s leg, hiding her face behind the pocket of his tweed jacket.

‘It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right!’ he shouted, trying to sound as reassuring as possible over the terrible din.

Finally, the open doors of the airlock clunked into place. Through the still dazzling brightness, the Doctor could make out the sound of heavy footsteps padding towards them, accompanied by the tight jangle of what was surely military equipment. Bobbing shadows of combat troops in helmets, brandishing formidable energy weapons, played over them.

Ollus and Jenibeth instantly ran to join their sister, clasping onto the Doctor. Ollus, clawing frantically, suddenly as determined as a scared kitten escaping up a curtain, scaled the Doctor’s coat and put his hands around the Time Lord’s neck. Jenibeth was close behind, settling on the Doctor at chest level.

The Doctor suddenly found himself in the role of some kind of pack horse, detailed to child-carrying duties, as the military squad encircled him, pointing their guns, scanning relentlessly for any sign of a hostile move.

‘We’re unarmed!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘No need to panic! These are children, not offensive weapons.’

A few moments later, the military team, without
a word and with no expressions visible behind their assault masks, were escorting the Doctor and his surrogate family across a precarious-looking gantry. It was now that it became clear what the strange, rumbling noise had been, distorted as it was through the metal layers of the ship’s hull.

Several hundred feet below them, basking in a vibrant, glowing Carthedian sunset, was a vast crowd of people, numbering around ten thousand, the Doctor guessed. They stared up, waving flags and banners enthusiastically, roaring delightedly as every single one of them seemed to catch sight of the Doctor and the children at once.

The Doctor wondered what all this fuss was about; but he, Ollus, Jenibeth and Sabel were not allowed to dawdle and take in the sheer spectacle of their welcome. The soldiers pushed them on across the gantry and into a vast building in front of them. The Doctor suspected this might be some kind of ‘border control’ area.

As they cleared the entrance port, an iris-like door sealed behind them and, for a moment, it appeared as though they were in complete darkness. Blinking frantically, the Doctor realised they were in fact illuminated by a pale, greenish light. Suddenly, the soldiers plucked the children away from the Doctor. He tried to protest.

‘Now, wait a minute! There’s no need to be so—’

But he found himself brutally pushed back as the children were pulled away. Jenibeth cried loudly again, sobbing bitterly, her eyes darting around in confusion. The Doctor tried to catch her gaze, hoped he did, and
mouthed ‘It’s all right’ to her. It had no outward effect. Ollus and Sabel had fallen into a kind of numb, terrified silence. Along with the Doctor, they were all deposited into well-worn, padded chairs, spaced at equal intervals across this large, dark chamber. The chairs instantly locked them all into seated positions by way of mechanical grips, presumably activated remotely.

‘It’s all right, don’t struggle,’ said the Doctor, as the soldiers retreated into the darkness.