The Shadow Of Weng-Chiang Part 26

The steam continued to escape into the tunnels, cooling and expanding in cracks and crevices all through the interior of the mountain. Elsewhere, stray sparks from the strained cables started minor fires. It didn't take long for some of those sparks to reach an ammunition box in the weapons store of a guard post. It exploded, and the process began again.

The darkness was briefly illuminated by a flash more of shock than colour, and the rocks themselves quivered.

Billowing sheets of fire flowed through the tunnels and caves like surges of blood through veins. Flocks of bats scattered from the cave-mouths amidst windblown dust mere instants before plumes of dissipating flame stabbed out into the air after them. A deep rumbling that was well below the range of human hearing gradually sent dust rising from the quivering ground.

Severed cables lashed around as angrily as startled cobras, sending bolts of lightning across the crystal veins in the rock pillars. Filtered lightning burst sporadically from the pool of heavy water that flooded the base of the reactor cave.

The air in the control room was thick with sweat and the red glow of the emergency lamps. HsienKo could barely keep her hands from shaking, knowing that radiation could flood the mountain at any moment. It wouldn't bother her so much if she hadn't known what Magnus Greel had looked like in the final years, his flesh distorted and scrambled. She had never been vain about her looks, but that would be too much to bear.

This just made it even more important for her to concentrate on trying to control the problem. The door to the tunnel slammed open and HsienKo looked round, expecting to see Kwok come to rescue her. Instead, the Doctor skidded to a halt, the ends of his scarf flying, and Romana followed him in. 'You have got problems, haven't you?'

'Your police friend has destroyed the heat exchanger and the control linkages. I can't lower the control rods the rest of the way from here.'

The Doctor ran over to the observation window while Romana examined the monitoring gauges. She shook her head worriedly. 'Multiplication rate is one point four already.'

'That gives us about ten minutes before the biggest explosion this part of the world has seen since Krakatoa,' said the Doctor. HsienKo felt the blood drain from her face, leaving her rather light-headed. She had been a child at that time, but still remembered the effect that the volcano had had on the skies and weather. She had failed, she saw. As Weng-Chiang failed with his zygma experiment, so she had failed with this. The Doctor tugged at the levers experimentally.

'You'd better get out of here.'

'What?'

'Use the Dragon Paths. Tell all your people it doesn't matter where they go, but get out of here!'

'There are only twelve geomantic compa.s.ses and ten of them are linked to trucks back at the Dai temple in Tai'an.

I'll tell them anyway.' HsienKo reached for the intercom switch. She didn't know how many speakers would still be working, but there wasn't much else she could do. 'Attention!

Attention! This is HsienKo. This area is to be evacuated, repeat evacuated. All personnel should leave immediately. I repeat, this area is to be evacuated. All personnel should leave immediately.'

'Now it's your turn.'

HsienKo shook her head. She had brought all this about, so it was her responsibility to stay to the end, whatever happened. That was the honourable way. 'I'm the only one left who knows the layout of this reactor. You need my help.'

'All right, all right. We'll have to find a way to lower the control rods manually. Can that be done without entering the reactor cavern?'

'The chains run through a gearbox set into the roof. I'd guess the blast has stripped the gears.'

'Well then, all we have to do is cut through the chains and the rods should fall the rest of the way in. How do I get to this gearbox?'

HsienKo pointed to a trapdoor in the ceiling. 'There's a duct through there, that's how it was installed.'

'Is it s.h.i.+elded against the radiation?'

'As best we can. Your big problem in there is going to be heat. Even with the s.h.i.+elding, it's still going to be around two hundred degrees in there.'

'Nasty. Very nasty.' HsienKo shoved her desk underneath the trapdoor, while the Doctor took Romana aside and lowered his voice. 'Give me three minutes to sort out these control rods, then get out of here.' He handed her a key. 'You should be safe enough in the TARDIS.'

'But what about you?'

'After three minutes at those sorts of temperatures I'll have succ.u.mbed to heatstroke, which in these circ.u.mstances means I'm as good as dead.' Ignoring her horrified look, he discarded his coat and scarf and climbed into one of the protective suits.

Then he took out a slim silver device from his coat pocket.

HsienKo felt ashamed for having had that flush of hatred for these two earlier; she didn't deserve their help. 'It seems I owe you again,' she said, as the Doctor climbed onto the desk and prepared to lever himself into the conduit.

He paused. 'Then repay me by putting your skills to better use.' He disappeared into the darkness.

The Doctor's hands and knees were uncomfortably hot through the material of the protective suit, and he tried to keep them off the metal surface of the conduit as much as possible.

Sweat was running down his face but he couldn't wipe it away, since the hood was in the way. It didn't take him long to reach the gears, where the chains that suspended the control rods were jammed around their wheels. The s.p.a.ce was just large enough for the Doctor to kneel on all fours, and contained a series of six pulley systems.

He wiggled the first experimentally but couldn't unjam it.

Instead, therefore, he made some adjustments to his sonic screwdriver. That wasn't easy, given the thickness of the gloves that were part of the protective suit. After a few seconds, he was able to direct it at the first chain. As the sound waves pounded the link he had chosen, it started to stretch and quiver, before finally snapping.

Romana and HsienKo watched the reactor cavern with baited breath. Almost a whole minute had gone by, when one of the control rods suddenly dropped into place, its severed chain splas.h.i.+ng down into the water behind it.

Another followed a few seconds later. Then another...

The wheels and chains were blurring before the Doctor's eyes and his head was pounding, but he managed to clamber over each set of gears and pulleys as he severed it. By the time he reached the sixth, his hands were shaking so badly with the heat interfering with his muscular control, that he could only hope he was cutting the right target.

Both Romana and HsienKo breathed huge sighs of relief as the last control rod fell into place. They both went back to the desk under the trapdoor. By HsienKo's watch, two minutes and fifty seconds had pa.s.sed. Was this all her quest was bringing her? The deaths of those who should be friends?

Vengeance-seekers were only supposed to have to dig two graves.

Romana was also looking worried, as there had been no sound from the conduit for several moments. It reminded HsienKo that Kwok was still missing; she wondered if she had been wearing a similar expression over the past hour or so.

She looked at her watch again. Two minutes, fifty-nine.

Shame flooded through her.

The Doctor suddenly dropped onto the desk, causing both women to jump back. He hopped from there to the ground, steadying himself against a chair and pulled off the suit's hood. His curls had been plastered to his scalp by sweat and his face was florid. 'I'll never have turkey at Christmas again.'

Romana almost folded up as the tension left her and HsienKo felt similarly relieved. The Doctor stripped off the protective suit and recovered his coat, hat and scarf. The trio left the control room, finding the tunnel outside filled with the scent of smoke.

They had barely moved into the tunnel when a group of guards turned the corner and froze in surprise. 'It's true,' the leader gasped. 'She's joined them!' They raised their guns and the Doctor, Romana and HsienKo scattered for cover behind jagged rocks.

The guards opened fire, blasting chips away from the rocks, but then a more distant volley sounded. 'It's true,' someone shouted, 'the guards are traitors!'

HsienKo risked a look over the top of her cover, seeing two groups of guards shooting at each other. She couldn't think why, but while they were thus occupied, she broke and ran. 'After her,' she heard someone call. She didn't stop to look back and check how many of them there were.

Sin had run out of fresh blood to release, but at least his vision had cleared. The door was beyond his ability to open, but he noticed a fire hose dangling from a shattered window above.

Snorting gently, Sin began to climb. Somewhere, there were more humans. As many as he could possibly enjoy killing.

Twenty-Two.

wok finally emerged from the cave on Sunview Peak, Kand was astounded. Smoke was pouring from the cave at the top of the next set of steps. Stranger still, for some reason, several of the people he could see running to and fro were shooting at each other, or landing punches and kicks on each other. He couldn't understand it at all. Was this part of the same madness that had affected Sin?

He jogged up the steps two at a time. 'Stop!' he bellowed.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?'

A soldier turned, raising his gun, and Kwok shot him before he could fire. He still had no idea what was happening, though. There was a shout from below and he turned back to the steps neighbouring the ones he had just climbed. A group of soldiers were ascending from Gongbei Rock. Perhaps he would get some answers, he thought.

'It's Kwok,' one of the soldiers snarled. 'He's HsienKo's lapdog. He must be in with them too!' The others agreed with a chorus of hoa.r.s.e cries along the lines of 'get him!' It was an answer of sorts, Kwok supposed. Obviously some of the Tong had turned against HsienKo. The question would be how to tell which ones. This group, of course, had already admitted their guilt.

Kwok kicked the first man in the teeth as his head appeared over the lip of the stairs. He jack-knifed back into his fellows, who all grabbed at the rock in an attempt to stay upright. By the time they had recovered their balance, however, Kwok had scooped up his MP38 and sprayed the tangled ma.s.s of bodies with gunfire. Blood spattered across the rock wall and steps as the struggling hatchet-men flopped around like fish on a trawler's deck.

The MP38 quickly ran out of ammunition and he discarded it, since there were no spare magazines in sight. HsienKo was in danger; he could feel that with a spasm of heartache. The question was; where was she?

HsienKo had no idea why the Tong had split into these factions, though it would be logical to a.s.sume that the fugitive Li had something to do with it. She had to find Kwok, then together they could leave the Tong to kill each other. Her chance at revenge had gone anyway.

She slowed in her headlong flight as she realized that the light was not just coming from the bulbs above. There was a faint blue luminescence emanating from the tiny crystal particles in the rock itself.

She stretched out a finger to touch the rock. She knew that the crystal could carry a current that was the reason for choosing this location but she didn't expect it to maintain that current when the power was shut down. Unless something else was causing it...either the heat from the reactor or the stresses and strains created in the rock by the blasts of exploding equipment and munitions. Either way, the resonance circuit was still operating.

She laughed softly. The G.o.ds must be on her side, if nature itself was going to allow her her chance for revenge. The point where the energy would eventually focus was the Jade Emperor temple, so she had to get there.

The quickest route was to her right and up, so that was the direction she took. Unfortunately, the time she had taken to pause by the rock had allowed the hostile soldiers to catch up; she heard one of them shout an alarm as they spotted her.

She bolted for the tunnel and took the corner very sharply.

However, there was a wall of fire where a door had been blown off a guard post, blocking the tunnel. Silhouetted against the flames was the figure of a man. He turned towards her, gun in hand.

The Doctor and Romana had been trying to find their way back to the surface since the guards had chased off HsienKo.

They watched the occasional flash of a chronon discharge from the rocks with trepidation. There should definitely be some signs of the process slowing down by now.

The Doctor halted in mid-step, as if playing a game of statues, and turned slowly, making Romana wonder whether he was really interested in getting out in one piece or not.

'Someone's following us.' He looked down. Then she saw the faint s.h.i.+mmer in the crystal grains in the floor. The Doctor dropped to his knees and pressed his ear against the ground.

'What do you hear?' Romana asked. Were these blasts causing some kind of earthquakes, she wondered.

'Somebody singing "Hi ho, hi ho".' He straightened, his face a mask of worry, which was most unlike him. 'Romana, I think things are worse than we thought.'

Romana had doubted that was possible. 'In what way?'

'The chronon discharges are still getting bigger. Shutting down the reactor doesn't seem to have helped.'

'But where's the power coming from?'

'That's a good question...I know!' He thumped the floor with his fist, and winced. He got up, ma.s.saging his bruised hand. 'Piezoelectricity!' The explosions must have disturbed the balance of the whole structure of the mountain '

'Pressure causes piezoelectric discharges, and most of the cables are still intact...'

'Which means that the energy build-up in the resonance circuit will still short out the zygma beam.' They looked at each other, and Romana wondered whether the Doctor felt as chilled at that idea as she did. 'Let's go.'

'Where?'

'The TARDIS. There's only one thing left we can try.' For some reason, he didn't sound very enthusiastic. They hurried out into a wider tunnel with daylight at the end. They emerged into the grounds of the Jade Emperor temple.

'This is where Greel first arrived, according to HsienKo,'

said Romana.

'What? In the temple?'

'Yes.' She wondered what difference the specifics made.

'Then that's got to be where he'll arrive today the zygma beam can't s.h.i.+ft through s.p.a.ce.' He pointed west, to the neighbouring peak, on which stood the South Gate of Heaven.

A familiar blue box contrasted with the red bricks of the gate.

'There's the TARDIS.' It was about five hundred yards away, though the path across to it curved slightly around the peak.

The time travellers rushed onwards, dodging Tong soldiers who seemed intent on fighting each other. Two tried to attack the Doctor and Romana, but their fellows used the distraction to shoot them, and so they made it to the gate unmolested.

As they approached the TARDIS, however, a soldier leapt out, swinging at the Doctor's head with a gim gim straight sword. straight sword.

The Doctor ducked and shoulder-charged him. The man went flying over the Doctor's shoulder and landed a few feet away.

He picked himself up and raised the sword to strike out at Romana. Then suddenly he arched, blood welling up from his mouth. He pitched forward, revealing both a long tear up his back where the ribs on one side had been ripped away from the spine, and the Peking Homunculus standing behind him.

Romana had heard of its nature from the Doctor, but hadn't imagined so graphic a demonstration that he was right. She wasn't sure if the faint gurgling she heard was air bubbling up through the body from a collapsed lung, or Sin laughing softly.

Sin's targeting system had a very good memory, but the heat pattern that faced him now was quite unique in its experience.

It was cooler, like a recent corpse. This was one he had faced before, the one who had consigned him to oblivion by tearing out his main power conduit.