Doctor Who: The Green Death (14 page)

‘Doctor!’ he bellowed in the hallway.

The long haired ex-colonel in the kaftan and beads looked out from the living room. ‘They’re in the professor’s laboratory,’ he said. ‘And do you mind making less noise? I’m composing a poem for peace.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ Benton leaped to attention.

‘Just call me Jeremy,’ said the ex-colonel, and went back into the living room.

Benton marched to the laboratory where he found the Doctor peering into a microscope. The Brigadier sat perched on a high stool eating a sandwich that Nancy had just brought in.

‘I’d swear these are beef,’ said the Brigadier.

‘They’re not,’ Nancy laughed. ‘They’re exactly the same fungus you ate last night, but cooked differently.’

‘Permission to speak, sir,’ said Benton, standing in the doorway.

The Brigadier slipped off the high stool and quickly put his sandwich out of sight. ‘What is it, Sergeant?’

‘I’ve found a maggot for the Doctor, sir.’ He held up the old coal sack. ‘It was on the edge of the danger area.’

‘Is it dead?’ The Brigadier knew that neither bullets, pesticide, or even napalm had killed any maggots.

‘Not exactly, sir,’ said Benton. ‘May I put it down here?’ He carried the sack to the work bench and very carefully emptied the maggot from the bag. As the others watched he turned it over, prodding it with a pencil, to reveal that it was a hollow shell slit open on one side.

‘A chrysalis,’ said the Doctor. ‘So they’re beginning to change.’

The Brigadier stared at the shell. ‘Change into what?’

‘Like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly,’ the Doctor said. ‘My guess is whatever’s come out of that shell now has wings. Within a matter of hours they could be all over the country spreading the green death.’

For some seconds no one spoke. The thought of what might happen now was too awful. Then Nancy broke the silence. ‘Had anything to eat, Sergeant?’

‘What? Oh, no. Not since breakfast,’ he replied, his mind still fixed on what the Doctor had just said.

‘I’ll get you a sandwich,’ said Nancy, and went out.

‘What I don’t understand,’ said the Brigadier, ‘is why they’ve all stayed on the slag heap.’

‘Instinct,’ suggested the Doctor. ‘To stay close to the breeding ground until they’re ready to fly away.’

From down the corridor they heard Nancy scream. Sergeant Benton was the first to get to her. She was standing at an open door that led into the larder. The window of the larder was smashed in, a shower of glass on the floor. Laying on a shelf under the window was a maggot. It was quite dead. The Sergeant went forward cautiously, prodded the maggot with his pencil. The Doctor and Brigadier crowded into the larder.

‘It’s a complete dead maggot,’ said Benton in awe. ‘It must have killed itself smashing through the window.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said the Doctor, inspecting the maggot. ‘They’ve withstood bullets and fire... It must have died from something else.’

‘Maybe something it ate,’ suggested the Brigadier.

Nancy pointed to a plate on the shelf next to the maggot. ‘Those sandwiches! Look, it’s been at my sandwiches!’ There was maggot slime on the plate of freshly cut sandwiches, and marks where the maggot had bitten into them.

The Brigadier put his hand to his stomach. ‘I’ve just eaten some of that stuff myself!’ He turned pale.

‘You’re not a maggot,’ said the Doctor. ‘In any case, this whole community lives on that fungus stuff.’ He spoke to Nancy. ‘How much of this fungus have you got?’

‘A whole pile of it in the outhouse,’ she said.

‘Wonderful,’ said the Doctor. ‘We haven’t a moment to lose.’

Yates sat on the floor of the empty office where previously he had rescued the Doctor. His left ankle was chained to a radiator pipe. He inspected the chain and padlock carefully. There was no possible way to free himself. Then the door opened and Dr Stevens entered with two guards.

Dr Stevens smiled. ‘I have been discussing you with my superior,’ he said, meaning Boss. ‘We have decided on your future.’

‘May I be told?’ asked Yates.

‘Indeed, yes. You will be one of the first to be totally processed.’

‘You make it sound like a compliment,’ said Yates. ‘What does it entail?’

‘You will become a slave,’ said Dr Stevens. ‘You will have no mind or will of your own. But, like any well-cared-for animal, you will be very happy. For a number of hours each day you will work, and for the rest of the day you will eat, or sleep, or sing merry songs. And you will have no worries about anything.’

‘God gave Man the right of free will,’ said Yates.

‘True,’ agreed the Director, ‘but it causes so much trouble. Wars, people going on strike for higher wages, all sorts of social problems. We shall create a new order in which everyone will be content.’

‘And if they refuse to be content?’ Yates asked. ‘If they don’t respond to your total processing?’

‘Let us not dwell upon the impossible.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Bring him along.’

While Dr Stevens waited outside, the guards removed the padlock and chain from Yates’s ankle, then marched him down the corridor to the lift. Dr Stevens pressed the lift button.

‘We are doing you a great service,’ said Dr Stevens as they waited for the lift to arrive. ‘Ten minutes from now you will be permanently happy for the rest of your life, because you will no longer be able to think. Thinking makes for unhappiness.’

The lift door slid open. Dr Stevens went in first. The guards were about to push Yates in ahead of them. He hesitated, put his hand to his head.

‘The pain,’ he screamed, ‘it’s terrible!’

The guards looked at him in astonishment, in that moment lessening their grip on his arms. Yates suddenly leapt into action, grabbed the two guards and shoved them on top of Stevens in the lift. While the three men thrashed about on the lift floor, he reached round, pressed a button inside the lift, then withdrew just in time as the lift doors closed.

He raced down the corridor, saw a coiled up fire hose. On one end of the hose was a big brass nozzle. He pulled the hose from its reel, used the nozzle to smash a window.

Then he paid out the hose, so that it hung from the window to the open ground below. Knocking out the last bits of jagged glass with the heel of his shoe, Yates climbed through the window and escaped down the dangling hose to the ground below.

The Brigadier, Sergeant Benton, and a group of UNIT soldiers stood at the foot of the slag heap as the Doctor drove Bessie up into the great swarm of maggots. Through his binoculars the Brigadier watched as maggots snapped at the wheels of the vintage car, and some tried to leap into it to eat the Doctor. The Doctor stopped the car, stood up, dipped his hand into a jar of brown powder, and cast the fungus over a wide area. At once maggots lost interest in the car and fought to get at the fungus on the ground.

‘They’re taking the bait,’ said the Brigadier. ‘We may beat them yet.’

‘You know the saying, sir,’ said Sergeant Benton. ‘If you can’t beat ’em join ’em.’

The Brigadier looked at him. ‘I find that in the worst possible taste, thank you.’

The Doctor got back behind his driving wheel, and moved Bessie on to another area packed with writhing maggots. Again he stopped, and threw out handfuls of the fungus powder. A ripple ran through the sea of maggots as they wriggled towards the food.

But the Brigadier’s attention was on the point where the Doctor had first stopped. The carpet of maggots was now still. He looked through his binoculars. Every maggot that had eaten the fungus was dead.

‘We’ve done it!’ he shouted to the UNIT soldiers. ‘They’re dying off like... like maggots!’

For the next half hour the Doctor continued to drive about the slag heap, slaughtering maggots with fungus. Finally he waved from the top of the heap, started up Bessie again and drove down the slope. The waiting soldiers cheered.

Then the insect flew into view. It was three feet long, had four wings, and giant antennae protruding from its huge head. The soldiers’ cheers quickly turned into warning shouts. Not hearing over the distance, the Doctor waved to the soldiers. On his first sweep, the flying insect spat bright green venom at the bumping car, hitting the windscreen. The Doctor swerved to a halt, looked up. The insect wheeled above the Doctor, then turned for another attack.

‘Get the rifles,’ ordered the Brigadier.

Two soldiers hurried to a nearby van which contained UNIT equipment and arms.

The Doctor ripped off his flowing cloak, and stood up on the back seat of his car. He held out the cape at arm’s length.

‘Good grief,’ exclaimed the Brigadier, ‘what does he think he’s playing at? Bull-fighting?’

The two soldiers hurried forward with rifles, took up kneeling positions. ‘Ready, sir.’

‘Free fire,’ ordered the Brigadier, meaning it was up to the soldiers to decide when they could get in a killing shot.

The insect swept in again to attack. Then it seemed to be curious about the Doctor’s cloak, and it hovered in mid-air. The Doctor gently shook the cloak to entice the insect to attack. The two marksmen took careful aim of the hovering insect and both fired simultaneously. Instantly the insect flew up into the air, disturbed by the noise. The Doctor turned to the UNIT soldiers, raised his fist and shook it angrily.

‘I fear he doesn’t want our help,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Hold your fire.’

Again the Doctor took up his stance, trying to entice the insect with his cloak. The insect remained hovering high above Bessie. Then, all at once, it swept down for another attack. The Doctor gently shook the cloak. The insect, attracted by the moving object, flew straight at the cloak, spitting its venom. The Doctor held his position until the last moment, then threw the cloak over the attacking monster.

The Brigadier and his men raced up the slope of the slag heap. By the time they reached the Doctor he was gently lifting the cloak from where the insect lay. It was absolutely still, its neck broken.

‘What a beautiful creature,’ said the Doctor.

‘It was trying to kill you,’ said the Brigadier.

The Doctor, rather sadly, got back into Bessie. ‘And we were trying to kill it, Brigadier.’ He looked up the slope at the mass of dead maggots. ‘Whatever they were, they thought they had a right to live.’ He started Bessie’s engine, and slowly drove away from the scene of carnage.

‘You know,’ said Sergeant Benton, ‘I’ll never understand the Doctor. He’s always so sorry in the end for the horrible creatures we come across. It isn’t human.’

‘You’re forgetting,’ said the Brigadier, ‘he isn’t.’

The Doctor looked at the green stain on Professor Jones’s neck. It had spread considerably, and the professor’s condition was much weaker.

‘You say he was delirious?’ he asked.

‘For a little while,’ Nancy answered, standing by the bed. ‘Then he went into this coma.’

‘Could you make out anything he said?’

Jo shook her head. ‘No, nothing.’ Her eyes were reddened with crying.

The Doctor straightened up. ‘Well, I shall have to hope for some serendipity of my own—a happy accident.’

He turned to go. ‘I shall be in the professor’s laboratory.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Jo. ‘That word—serendipity. I had an accident in the lab. I knocked over some powder on to his slides, and he wasn’t very happy about it.’

The Doctor was suddenly excited. ‘Can you show me which powder?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then show me, quickly.’ He raced off to the laboratory, Jo close on his heels.

12
One World, One People, One BOSS!

Using great thongs to lift the maggots, UNIT soldiers were putting the carcasses into sacks to clear the slag heap. Sergeant Benton came up to the Brigadier and saluted.

‘Almost finished, sir.’ He grinned. ‘Should be able to get back to London pretty soon.’

‘Why?’ asked the Brigadier. ‘Doesn’t the local beer suit you?’

‘If you think about it, sir,’ said Benton, deferentially, ‘none of the men have had a moment to taste any yet.’

‘We shall go when we have sorted out Panorama Chemicals...’ The Brigadier’s words tailed off as he saw Yates running towards them.

‘Sir!’ shouted Yates. He ran up to the Brigadier. ‘The computer, sir!’ He was out of breath and could hardly get the words out. ‘It’s... it’s going to make slaves of everyone... sir.’

‘Come on,’ said the Brigadier, helping Yates to his jeep. ‘Catch your breath, then explain it all to the Doctor.’

When they arrived at the Nut Hatch they found the Doctor busily working on Professor Jones’s slides and calculations. Yates explained what he had discovered on his return visit to Panorama Chemicals. ‘Whatever it’s going to do, Doctor,’ he concluded, ‘it’s going to happen at four o’clock today.’

The Brigadier looked at his watch. ‘By Jove, we’d better get there right away. Ready, Doctor?’

‘As soon as I’ve finished this,’ said the Doctor, still working.

Nancy asked, ‘What is it you’re doing exactly?’

‘Making an aqueous extract of the amino fraction of this fungus,’ the Doctor replied. ‘For an injection for Professor Jones.’

‘I can do that,’ Nancy smiled. ‘I’m not only a mum here, you know.’

‘Great,’ said the Doctor. He turned to Jo. ‘You make a paste with some more of that fungus powder and apply it to the green stain on Cliff’s neck. And mind you don’t knock anything over!’

‘Doctor,’ Jo protested, ‘if I hadn’t knocked over the powder on to the slides...’

But the Doctor had already hurried out, followed by the Brigadier. Yates smiled at Jo. ‘Do you ever feel he doesn’t appreciate you?’

Jo nodded. ‘Frequently!’ She continued to make the paste.

In the room at the top of the Panorama building, Dr Stevens was being admonished by Boss. ‘Not only are you a fool,’ Boss told him, ‘you are an inefficient fool. As Oscar Wilde so nearly said, to lose one prisoner may be accounted a misfortune, to lose two smacks of carelessness.’

‘I am very sorry,’ said Dr Stevens. ‘Are we still going ahead?’

‘Naturally,’ said Boss. ‘Report, please.’

‘The medical staff have completed all implantations,’ said Dr Stevens. ‘The slave units are ready to be activated.’