Doctor Who: Terminus (13 page)

‘She’s hardly touched,’ he said, putting a hand under her chin and tilting her face towards him.

‘Well, compared to some of these,’ Sigurd agreed.

Other Vanir were moving amongst the Lazars and pinning numbered labels to them. It was all running in an orderly manner, the way that Eirak liked it.

‘Take her first, then,’ he said, straightening, and Sigurd turned to beckon one of the others over.

‘No, wait,’ Nyssa said quickly, and Eirak gave her the cool look that he saved for troublemakers. He’d been right, she was hardly touched. The progress of the disease barely seemed to have advanced beyond the initial stages.

He warned her, ‘Don’t give us a hard time.’

‘But others are worse than me.’

‘The fittest ones go first,’ Eirak said. ‘There’s some kind of quota going, and most of these corpses won’t fill it. So just co-operate and don’t mess up our chances.’

He nodded to Sigurd. Two of the Vanir took Nyssa’s arms and raised her, protesting, to her feet.

Tegan and Turlough had found the control room.

They stood in the doorway, taking their first look.

‘Maybe they were here,’ Turlough said, but he didn’t sound as if he believed it. Tegan was looking at the two pressure helmets that had been abandoned on the main console.

‘Maybe somebody was,’ she said.

They moved in to look around. It wasn’t as promising as Tegan had hoped. It was one thing to suppose that you’d be able to spot the control that you needed out of all the others, but facing the reality was something else. She wouldn’t even know where to start.

Turlough reached over and tried a couple of switches, ‘Hey,’ Tegan said apprehensively, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Messing around, unless you’ve got a better idea.’

‘Well, don’t. The situation’s bad enough.’

‘We’ve got to try things,’ Turlough insisted, and to demonstrate he tried a couple more. All of the screens at every crew position suddenly came alight. ‘We can’t just stand around. What if one of these opens the door to the outside?’

Tegan looked at the nearest screen. It showed a diagram which she couldn’t understand, but which reminded her of the old-time maps which showed the earth at the centre of the universe, long before the spiral-arm backwater that was its true home had ever been imagined. She said, ‘Do you think it could?’

‘Well, how will we know if we don’t try?’

Tegan came around the desk for a closer look.

Kari had been right. Somebody was singing to himself

– breathlessly, tunelessly, and without much regard for the words. The song was something about being across the purple sea in the cold ground and sleeping peacefully, and the whole endless ramble was basically the same verse over and over with lines skipped, mumbled or hummed. When they came to the end of their tunnel, a cautious peek gave them a view of the singer.

‘Who’s that?’ Kari said.

‘He seems happy enough,’ the Doctor said. ‘Let’s find out.’

He was hunched over and limping, obviously very ill. Part of his face, chest and arm had been blackened by an explosion that had ripped open his armour–the same kind of armour worn by their attacker only a short time before. There was a strap around his neck which had been knotted to make a sling for his twisted arm, but despite his injuries there seemed to be an odd cheerfulness about him, self-absorbed and purposeful.

His cloak was spread out on the floor behind him.

There were three or four machine parts heaped on it.

The hood was wrapped around his good hand, and he was dragging the haul onward into the Terminus. It seemed to be a painfully slow business. As they watched, he stumbled and fell to his knees.

The Doctor started to move out of cover, but Kari held him back.

‘He’s ill,’ the Doctor said, and pulled free.

He cautiously approached the man, who was now making a weak effort to get up. Kari emerged from hiding, but she stayed some distance away.

The Doctor said, ‘Can I help you?’

The man looked up. He didn’t seem surprised.

‘Most kind,’ he said. ‘A burden shared is a burden...

something or other.’ And then he handed a part of his cloak to the Doctor, and made it up alone. The Doctor found that he was now expected to join in dragging the machine parts along. The man started singing again.

The Doctor said, ‘This isn’t really what I had in mind.’

The man broke off his song. ‘Oh?’

‘I thought you were ill.’

‘Ill?’ He looked around in case the Doctor might be talking about someone else, but then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, and resumed his dragging.

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder. Kari was, if her expression was anything to go by, getting pretty exasperated. He beckoned for her to follow.

The load was heavy even with two of them pulling, and after a short time the man called a halt. He lowered himself to sit on the floor, exhausted.

‘Many thanks,’ he said. ‘Aid much appreciated. Just a short breather before the, ah, final... whatever...’

‘Any time,’ the Doctor told him. Now it was time to face Kari. She was looking angry.

‘You’re breaking every rule in the book,’ she said.

‘Then we work by different books.’

She held up her useless burner. ‘You could have been walking right into danger, and I couldn’t have helped you.’

He’s harmless. Which is more than I can say for the rest of the wildlife that we’ve encountered in the Terminus.’

‘And what do you think he can do for us?’

‘With careful handling, we can get him to explain the set-up here,’ the Doctor began, but it was at this point they realised they were again alone. There was only one way that the cabaret could have gone, and the Doctor and Kari moved as one to follow him.

They were expecting to find a further extension of the tunnels, instead they found where the tunnels led: to the engines of the Terminus ship.

They were held in spherical reactor globes, supported in steel cradles with coolant pipes and control cables snaking around, and each had a tiny inspection window. The glass would be leaded and tinted to near-opacity, but so fierce were the energies inside that each glowed like a tiny sun – that is, with the exception of the globe immediately to their left.

This globe was dark and dead-looking.

The man had made it all the way to the far end of the row. This obviously wasn’t his first visit, because there was a heap of junk, scrap and odd machine parts stacked in front of the globe. Now, ineffectually shielding his face with his arm, he was trying to lift a piece from his latest haul and place it on top.

‘There’s our radiation source,’ the Doctor said.

Kari didn’t understand. ‘A junkheap?’

‘The globe. It’s cracked.’

The man managed to add to the pile, but he fell back after the effort. The Doctor and Kari caught him, one on each side. ‘Easy now,’ the Doctor said, and they guided him to a safe distance and sat him against the support structure of the inactive globe.

‘Most kind,’ he said. ‘I...’ he hesitated, and squinted at the Doctor. ‘I’ve seen you before.’

‘About a minute ago,’ the Doctor agreed.

The man shook his head. ‘Short-term memory’s the first to go,’ he said sorrowfully.

Kari said in a low voice, ‘He needs a medic.’

The man heard her, and he looked down at his scorched and damaged arm. ‘I tried to pull down the control cables,’ he said, ‘but I picked the wrong ones.

Power lines. So since I couldn’t stop the buildup, I had to wall it in...’ he looked towards the heap of scrap.

‘Only now I’m not sure I’ll get it finished.’

‘What buildup?’ the Doctor said.

‘The radiation spill. I used to monitor the levels. My name’s Bor. Every time it gets worse, the forbidden zone gets bigger. But this time it’s more serious.’

‘In what way?’

Bor weakly indicated all around them. ‘These are the engines of the old Terminus ship,’ he said. ‘Know what would happen if one of these exploded?’

‘We’d be in big trouble,’ Kari said. ‘They don’t just explode, they chain-react.’

Bor looked at the globe above. ‘That’s how this one went,’ he said.

‘I don’t think so,’ the Doctor said gently. ‘The ship wouldn’t still be here.’

Kari added, ‘None of us would.’

‘Oh,’ Bor said airily, ‘it was a long time ago. And the ship was protected, that’s the point.’

‘This is very interesting,’ the Doctor said, ‘but...’

Bor didn’t seem to hear. He was looking at his scrapheap again. ‘That one’ll go next. The crack’s always been there, but the leak’s been getting worse. I didn’t find out why until I followed the control cables.’

Valgard was thinking that he’d heard enough.

He’d been standing in the shadows at the end of the row for most of the conversation, and any doubts that he may have had were now gone. Not that it mattered; the object of the exercise was to return from the zone with evidence that he’d carried out his unwelcome job so that he could watch Eirak wriggle and squirm and try to get out of the bet that he’d made. He probably had no intention of carrying out his part of the bargain, in which case Valgard was going to see to it that his authority in the Terminus would be ended forever. If you couldn’t believe his promises, why believe in his threats anymore?

For now, speed was the main problem. Valgard needed to get back as quickly as possible to minimise the effects of the zone and give himself the best chance of fighting them off. He was running on the effects of a Hydromel high, brought on by the use of more than half of the drug remaining from his last issue. What remained couldn’t keep him going for much longer.

He stepped out into the light. ‘Tell them nothing, Bor!’ he shouted. ‘They’re company spies!’

Bor’s expression changed in an instant. ‘You’re from the company?’ he said, horrified. ‘You seemed so friendly!’

The Doctor and Kari both stood. ‘They’ve got great respect for their employers,’ the Doctor observed.

Valgard stepped out for a closer look at Bor. It was the first view he’d had of Bor’s condition. ‘You’ve been torturing him!’ he accused.

‘Have they?’ Bor said. ‘I can’t remember...’

Valgard was still advancing on them, his staff held crosswise. As they both remembered, he could use it to good effect. Kari brought her burner around, but Valgard wasn’t to be fooled.

‘You’ve no power for that,’ he said. ‘I was there when you found out, remember?’

Valgard kept on coming. He changed his grip on the staff, holding it out to full length and sweeping it from side to side. ‘I’m taking you back for Eirak to see,’ he said.

‘Fine,’ the Doctor said, ‘Let’s go. There’s no need for violence.’

‘That comes later. When we’ve finished questioning you.’

‘Ah. I see. In that case...’

He seemed to be about to turn away – at least, that’s how Valgard read it, which was what the Doctor had intended. On the next sweep of the staff he turned suddenly and caught the end with both hands.

For a moment, it was stalemate. With no central pivot to give the staff leverage, they were in a contest of strength, a contest that the Doctor won.

Valgard was whipped aside. The weight of his own armour kept him going, and he spun into the junk that Bor had heaped before the cracked reactor globe.

With an almost deafening sound, the junk came down with Valgard sprawling in the middle of it.

‘My wall!’ Bor shouted in agony as he got to his feet, but he was drowned out by Valgard’s screams as a beam of unchecked radiance burst from the globe.

Valgard rolled aside. Bor arrived and, again using his arm to shield his face, attempted to pile some of it back.

‘Well done,’ Kari said approvingly, but the Doctor could get no pleasure from the victory.

‘He’s not as strong as he looks,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

They turned to leave, but it wasn’t going to be so easy. The darkness that blocked their way was huge and powerful, and its eyes glowed a dull red.

Force of habit had Kari reaching for her useless burner. ‘What is it?’ she said.

The massive beast was unmoving. Valgard had recovered sufficiently to prop himself up, and he said,

‘You ought to know. Your people brought it here.’

‘We weren’t sent by the company,’ the Doctor said.

He was beginning to get irritated at the persistence of Valgard’s misunderstanding.

It lifted one immense paw. It took them a moment to realise that it was pointing at Bor.

‘It wants something,’ Kari said, although she couldn’t make out what.

‘It wants Bor,’ Valgard said from the floor. ‘It’s been ordered to find him and take him back.’

‘Let it pass,’ the Doctor suggested to Kari. Slowly, cautiously, they moved aside. The Garm moved towards Bor. For all its size, it moved in total silence.

‘Look at that skin,’ the Doctor said as it passed them.

‘Like natural armour.’

Kari tried to make it out. The Garm just seemed to soak up the light. ‘Radiation-resistant?’ she said.

‘A purpose-built slave to work in the danger area.’

The Garm raised Bor from the floor as if he weighed no more than a handful of paper. Bor hung there limply, without the strength to fight or resist. But then as he was turning, the Garm stopped.

Nobody really heard it, but they all felt it: a deep stirring that was beyond sound and almost beyond sensation. ‘Subsonics,’ the Doctor said, adding as the Garm moved out with Bor, ‘obviously some kind of signal.’

A moment later, and the beast was gone.

Kari looked at Valgard. He stared back defiantly, although he still didn’t seem able to make it up from the floor. She said, ‘What about him?’

‘Leave him,’ the Doctor said.

‘I should kill him.’

‘He’s too weak to follow us. Come on.’

The Doctor set out with some obvious sense of purpose. He was scanning the walls and the open latticework of the ceiling above. She had to catch up before she could ask, ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Control lines,’ the Doctor explained, but when he glanced at Kari she was looking blank. ‘The ones that Bor said he followed.’