Doctor Who_ The Dalek Factor Part 10

[image]

THE OLD MAN, WALKING HIVE, MOBILE BUG HEAP, INSECTILE congeries whatever it was indicated wisely. The jungle path takes us swiftly to a ramp that leads up to the ruined fortress.

For a moment we pause at the edge of the forest. Bird calls ghost through the tangle of branches. Toady reptiles cling to slimy tree trunks; they regard us with bulbous, alien eyes. Insects buzz all around. We're both watchful: those are vicious pests, ready to dart and sting in the blink of an eye. At that moment, I hear a voice calling from a thicket of swaying canes.

'Hey... hey...'

I look through the ma.s.s of s.h.i.+fting stalks that are twice as tall as me.

'Hey... Jomi...'

I glance at the Professor. 'That sounds like Dissari.' I move toward the canes. 'He must have managed to escape.'

'Take care, Jomi... It might not be really him.'

'I'll take a chance.'

I run toward the thicket. Standing there on a pathway is ranger Dissari. He's lost his helmet and his weapon. He looks dishevelled, exhausted. His face is scratched; nonetheless, he's smiling broadly.

'Jomi. Sweet life, am I pleased to see you!'I begin to walk toward him, but the Professor catches me by the elbow. 'Caution, remember.'

'Dissari, where are the others?' I ask.'I don't know... We had to split when we saw the Daleks. I've been running for hours.' He begins kicking at the vegetation that swarms over the forest floor. He's searching for something. 'I dropped my weapon,' he explains. 'h.e.l.l's door. How unprofessional is that? But I nearly bust a vein when I saw that.' He pushes aside a bush that conceals a coneshaped object.

I start back with a gasp.

'Don't worry. It's dead... I've met more dangerous juice cartons.'

The bush he rips down reveals a Dalek. Rust stains smear its flanks. Vines climb over its sh.e.l.l. The eye-stalk and two frontal limbs hang limply down.

In a relaxed way, Dissari kicks it. A hollow clang rings from the metallic body. The sound of an ancient mortuary bell.

Dissari shakes his head. 'It's been rotting there for centuries. Gave me a shock when I walked into it, I can tell you. Ran like crazy and jumped into that crater over there. Only I went and dropped my gun in the process. It must be hidden under these vines. Sweet life, look at them; they crawl like snakes.'

'I'll give you a hand,' I tell him. 'Professor, you'd best stay back. These weapons can become unstable if they're damaged.'

'Oh, don't worry. I'll watch from a safe distance. Besides, our whitehaired friend might make an appearance.'

I return to the search. 'No wonder you can't find the gun, Dissari; the moment you s.h.i.+ft the vines they s.h.i.+ft themselves right back. It's like trying to part water. Any luck?'

'No. I'm not even sure if I searched this area before.' Grunting, he stands up with a handful of vines he's snapped away from their bulbous roots. He slings them back over one shoulder, where they rattle against the corroding Dalek. 'Man, I'm glad to hook up with you again, Jomi. This is one dreary place. I didn't want to wind up spending my days and nights alone here.'

I crouch on the ground, running my hands through that tangle of vines, trying to find the ranger's gun as much by touch as by sight. My weapon is slung across my back. I feel the heat of the ammo cyst through my suit. For a while, I suspected that Dissari was one of the walking hives, but from the way he bled from scratches and rumbled on in that garrulous way of his, I knew it was the real Dissari, mentor ranger of six years' standing.

Dissari tends not to grab more than half a breath between every five hundred words or so of speech. I guess he's relieved to find a comrade.

'... c.r.a.p. You think that after all this time they'd have developed a gun that would come running when you whistled for the thing.' Grinning, he whistles. 'Here, boy. Here, boy.'

I'm working my way through the vines and glance up at him as he stands there, hands on hips, monologueing his way through my search search for for his wea his weapon.

'... Jomi, let me tell you. When you qualify, you want to enrol in Strategic Ops. They have soft chairs and big, big desks. They don't crawl through swamps on their bellies looking for old tin pots that have been dead for a thousand years.' He jerks his head back at the Dalek that's rotting away into jungle loam. 'Strategic Ops get extras. They get superior transport; they get apartments with views of the ocean; they don't eat supper out of a plastic bag.'

My eyes stray from his face as his monologue becomes a grouch about the hards.h.i.+ps of a ranger's way of life. The Dalek sits in the dirt; b.u.t.terflies flutter above it; a bird calls in a tree. Then, in one smooth movement, the old demon draws breath. The eye-stalk smoothly lifts to the horizontal; fluidly the limb and weapon do the same. And at that moment, though I don't see it, instinct alone tells me that a flood of some power, dormant for centuries, has just surged through the dark heart of the machine. Suddenly, its flanks acquire an uncanny l.u.s.tre. The moss and vines creeping over the carapace wither and shrink as life with a deadly purpose flows into once-inert components.

'And, I'll tell you this, Jomi, as soon as I get back to the s.h.i.+p, I'm filing my application. Yeah, that's right, buddy, it's time Dissari got some soft bed time, too. Or I'll '

Still crouching, I swing my weapon up, ready to fire the moment Dissari throws himself to the ground. But my warning hasn't registered. He merely gives me a puzzled look while hunching one shoulder as if to ask: 'What the h.e.l.l are you playing at?'

'Dissari! Down!'That's the second he realises. His horrified eyes meet mine, then he spins to see the Dalek as it rotates its flattened dome to lock its eye-stalk on the man, while simultaneously targeting him with its weapon. The blast wave shakes blossom from the trees. I smell burning meat. The concussion comes like a boot stamping into the side of my face. I couldn't fire before because Dissari was in the way. Now my answering shot won't harm him. The blast from the Dalek's weapon has punched the ranger's torso into burning fragments and torn his head free from his neck. Sickeningly, the flayed skull rolls across the ground to stop right by me; its eyes still s.h.i.+ft from side to side as steam and blood ooze from its jaws. In the split second that I absorb the ugly scene, I automatically fire. The explosion tears the top off the Dalek, sending a geyser of biological matter and debris high in the air.

There's a sudden silence. Strangely, the very absence of sound hurts my ears. Then the insects begin to buzz again, and the birds call to one another.

The Professor runs up to me. 'Jomi... Jomi. Are you all right?'I cover the seared skull with a handful of vines; then, without a backward glance at the smashed Dalek, I walk away.

'Jomi,' the Professor tells me. 'You should rest for a while.'

Grim-faced, I shake my head. 'We've wasted enough time. Come on.'

The Professor is staring at the ruined machine. 'Jomi? That's a Dalek?'

'That was a Dalek.' Dalek.'

We leave the remains of ranger Dissari and the Dalek behind. In moments we've reached the ramp that, hugging the face of the cliff, rises to the Dalek fortress. Before climbing, we check the screen that the Professor unfolds from his pocket. It shows the platoon in their cells. They are enduring torture nothing less. Every few minutes, Kye's cell is engulfed with water. Again and again she fires the gun, punching a hole through the wall. The water empties, then the rupture reseals. She is exhausted. I know she can't last much longer. The same goes for Captain Vay, whose face is marked with cuts from tireless attacks by the creature. Pup crushes ant-like insects beneath his boots to prevent them from swarming up his legs. Rain bursts a walking hive with her fists. Meanwhile, the mouth of the pit in Fellebe's cell has devoured half the floor s.p.a.ce.

This renews the urgency in our pace. The Professor insists on leading the way up the ramp. He estimates it will take a good fifteen minutes to climb to where the cuboid building rests on the cliff top. Despite my relentless training at the academy for these kind of operations, I find the heat and humidity debilitating. My feet feel as if they've been encased in iron as I climb. The Professor's stamina astounds me. Time and again I have to grit my teeth and increase my speed to keep up with him.

He estimated fifteen minutes. We make it in twelve. The ramp sweeps inward through a doorway that's twice as high as a man yet built for no man. Close up now, I see vines clinging to the face of the structure, veins of festering green from which cl.u.s.ters of poisonous- looking red berries hang. At one side, the cuboid superstructure runs into the bedrock, as if the stone has become fluid at some point and part of the building has simply sunk into it. At the other side, the cubes stand on slender pylons that are interconnected by more of the aerial tube-ways. The place breathes a blood-chilling desolation. This could be some lonesome graveyard. Nothing moves. The spirit of abandonment pa.s.ses through these dead buildings like a lost soul.

Suddenly I'm struck by self-doubt. 'Are we sure they're here?''Your friends? We can't be sure. But of all the places we've seen, this seems most likely.'

'Then we're being lured here, too. It can't be a mere random set of circ.u.mstances that dumped us by a bank of monitors that show the platoon being tortured.'

'Oh, yes, it's dangerous. Incredibly so.' He gazes up at a moss-covered column. 'All of what we've witnessed suggests that we'll end our days in a cell, too.'

'Tormented by Daleks,' I add bitterly.

'You'd go back?'

'Me? Retreat? Never.' I check the weapon. The power level has been falling. 'I've still got thirty shots here. If I take even ten Daleks into

oblivion with me, then that's fine.'

I move forward, my training taking over. I'm alert to every movement, whether it's an insect flying by, or a leaf trembling before a breath of that hot, moist air.

'Stay behind me, Professor. I'm the one with the gun, remember.'

'Agreed.' He nods. 'Agreed with pa.s.sion. Lead on.'

We're inside the building now. This is a vast entrance hall with high ceilings. Grey tubes snake through the air above our heads. Clumps of gra.s.s grow from the floor. Maggots swarm in the torn body of a dead toad. A bush with brilliant blue fruit grows from a fissure in the wall; it drips a toxic sap that has killed and stunted all the plants nearby. In here there is nothing that I would recognise as furniture. Merely angular extrusions from the floor. Most of these are black. A number have monitors inset into their flanks. They show my friends at torture. Water. Insects. Pit. Beast. They are weakening. I find myself wondering: who will be the first to die?

A geometric shape glides from behind one of the monolithic forms.'Dalek!' I shout the warning. A split second later, I aim my weapon at the metallic cone with its eye-stalk and gun-stick trained on me.

'Wait!' The Professor shouts. Faster than I can fire, he scoops a fistsized hunk of metal from the floor debris and lobs it at the Dalek. The sc.r.a.p metal strikes the Dalek dead centre. There's a thud, rather than the expected clang. Instantly it dissolves into a cloud of insects that disperse into the vast hall.

'Remember, Jomi. Nothing is as it seems.'I glance at the firearm's indicator. That's a precious shot saved. It also serves as a warning. That I should be on guard at all times.

We move toward the only other exit from the hall. From the shadows, another figure glides forward. This is different. I react on the level of creature instinct. To the Professor I hiss: 'Get down!' At the academy we are trained to do the impossible. That is: to evade Dalek weaponry once it's locked onto us as a target. Only one in a thousand possesses the ability to do this. Those who can are offered the opportunity of a career in the Ranger Division: a posting of unmatched prestige and honour. You must have a gymnast's prowess and be able to move with incredible speed, first in one direction and then in another, fluidly changing course without pause and maintaining sufficient acceleration to break free of the Dalek's targeting system. Simultaneously, the ranger must be able to fire with total accuracy. I do this now. Move forward and left, then snap right.

The Dalek fires first. I feel the surge of heat through my suit. A miss. Behind me, the structure of the building absorbs the explosive energy of the blast, as it's surely designed to do.

My turn. The shot hits the Dalek with enough force to shear its limbs. A spilt-second later, the superheated particle stream incinerates the organic content of the monster with such a furious rapidity that the metal carca.s.s explodes, flinging debris the full length of the hall.

Glancing at the ammo meter, I click my tongue. 'It's drawing the soup out of the cyst like I don't know what. I figure I'm down to ten shots.'

'We need to move quickly, then.'I sprint into the pa.s.sageway (over smouldering Dalek fragments), with the Professor following. But this place is big... it's huge... Where am I going to find those torture cells?

TWENTY-TWO.

[image]

CORRIDORS RISE, FALL. SOMETIMES I SENSE WE ARE subterranean. Other times we find ourselves following pa.s.sageways that become bridges high above ground, linking one tower with another. Meanwhile, I try not to guess what we might see if we were to look at the monitor screen the Professor carries in his pocket.

We reach a point where two tunnels intersect. This is all guesswork. We turn left, following a corridor that runs downward. Then the Professor catches my arm.

'No. Look back the way we came.'I follow his line of sight. At the centre of the intersection I see a figure. 'It's the same one,' I whisper. 'The old man.'

'And if I'm not mistaken, Jomi, he's showing us the way again.'The old man points. He's indicating the pa.s.sageway that leads straight on, whereas we turned left.

'He was right before, Professor?''Indeed he was. But then again, is he merely showing us the quickest way to our own prison? Hmm?'

The answer that comes before mine is far more eloquent and infinitely more convincing than the one I was framing ever could be.

A ball of light sears a path through the air. It strikes the white-haired old man in the chest. Instantly he dissolves into a vapour that ascends toward the ceiling.

'Back against the wall, Professor. Here comes another one.'Even as I finish speaking, I see the Dalek glide to where the old man was standing. My reflexes are hot. I've aimed and fired before I've even framed the aim-shoot t aim-shoot thought.

The Dalek bursts into blobs of fire that spatter against the walls.The Professor takes the lead. 'We should be close,' he tells me. 'These must be the prison guards.'

'It looks as if we had an ally. I wish he'd lasted a little longer.'

'Oh, I don't know... I get the impression that our guide might be around somewhere.'

Where the old man had stood at the top of the slope, a wash of black powder covers the floor. All that remains of him after the Dalek struck. The Professor scans the burnt dust, then crouches and picks up a small object between finger and thumb. It's an insect that has been seared by the intense heat.

'Our friend the winged parasite.'

'So the old man really was one of the walking hives.'

'It looks that way.'

'But you said these hives tricked their victims into thinking they were safe.''Then the little beauties lay eggs under their skin at the first opportunity. Yes.' He's thoughtful. 'So why are they trying to help us?'

'Another deception?'

'Possibly. Or perhaps they hate the Dalek as much you do.'