Doctor Who BBCN16 - Forever Autumn (21 page)

Like a heart engorged with blood, the Necris began to swell and rupture. As it absorbed more power than it was designed to hold, it started to glow fiercely, like a reactor core reaching critical mass. A high-pitched whine filled the Hervoken ship – a whine that escalated rapidly into what sounded like a scream of unbearable pain. . .

The ring of transformed children closing in on the Doctor, Martha, Rick and Chris suddenly stopped. Some of the creatures stood stock-still, like soldiers awaiting orders, whilst others began to sway and stagger about in confusion.

One child, which had become a hulking Frankenstein’s monster with a scarred, patchwork face and clomping lead boots, raised its hands to its head and dropped to its knees with a groan. As Martha watched, she saw the greenish lustre fade from the children’s eyes, and then a ripple of energy leave each of their bodies and spiral upwards into the vortex of mist. The image made her think of a mass of souls vacating the bodies of the dead. However, these children were not dying; instead, they were being given
back
their lives.

The instant the energy left them, each of the kids reverted to how they had been before the Hervoken spell had consumed them. As they became themselves again, they looked around, dazed and shocked, as if waking from a collective nightmare. A few burst into tears; some cried out for their parents. Martha watched the Frankenstein’s monster peel the mask from its face and realised it was Rick’s friend, Scott.

Meanwhile, something was happening to the Hervoken. They were beginning to thrash about like black sheets in a strong wind, to wail in their thin, childlike voices. The Doctor watched them unblinkingly, his face like thunder, sonic still held out before him, its piercing warble splicing the air.

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The thrashing of the Hervoken became increasingly more frenzied.

Martha thought of animals caught in traps, struggling desperately to escape. She saw their huge pale heads beginning to blacken and shrivel, their eyes sinking into their sockets, their many-jointed fingers curling up like burning twigs. Finally, their bodies began to crumble away, like vampires in sunlight, and within seconds they were nothing but ribbons of black ash, streaming into the centre of the vortex.

With the Hervoken gone, the green mist, which had shrouded Blackwood Falls since the Necris had been unearthed over twenty-four hours earlier, began rapidly to disperse. It too drained into the vortex, the radiance at the centre of which gradually faded and shrank until there was nothing left but darkness.

Once the mist had cleared, the vortex itself dwindled and died, simply petering out like a spent tornado. Suddenly Martha realised that for the first time since they had arrived she could see stars twinkling in the night sky. She took a deep breath, relishing the cold, clean sharpness of the air.

She turned to the Doctor and was about to speak when she heard and felt a deep, subterranean rumble. Almost immediately the night sky some distance away was illuminated by a harsh white glow, which surged upwards before disintegrating into a million greenish sparks that winked out as they fell slowly back to earth.

‘What was that?’ asked Rick in a small, shocked voice.

Martha began to shake her head, and then all at once it came to her.

‘It was the Hervoken ship, wasn’t it, Doctor? The tree. You did something to the book, didn’t you? Drained off their energy.’

The Doctor, his face grim, turned off his sonic and pocketed it before giving her a curt nod.

‘Never underestimate the power of the printed word,’ he said. ‘End of story.’

The Doctor and Martha stood with the Pirelli family, staring into the ash-filled crater at the bottom of the garden. There was no trace whatsoever of the black tree. Not a single twig had survived.

‘I don’t believe this,’ Tony Pirelli kept saying, shining his torch down 145

into the hole. ‘I just don’t believe it.’

The Doctor said nothing.

His face was expressionless, his hands stuffed in his pockets. It was Martha who had insisted on taking the boys home. The Doctor had wanted to slope off without saying goodbye, leaving the Blackwood Falls townsfolk to pick up the pieces of their lives.

‘Believe me,’ he had said to her, ‘it’s easier that way.’

‘For who?’ she had demanded, and he had just sighed.

In the end, he had agreed to stay a bit longer. He might be the one who usually called the shots, but when she dug her heels in, when she made it known that something was important to her, he was usually OK about it.

People had died tonight. Wherever they went, people
always
died.

And Martha thought part of the reason the Doctor never wanted to stick around afterwards was so that he didn’t have to come to terms with that. Maybe he thought that death followed him around, that when people died it was his fault. He had saved countless lives even in the short time she had been with him, but he never failed to be haunted by the ones he
didn’t
save.

Rick looked up at the Doctor now with something like awe. ‘What did you do?’ he asked.

‘I subverted the kinetic flow of the energy generated by the Necris,’

the Doctor replied. ‘It caused the ship to implode.’ He sounded almost ashamed.

‘Huh?’ said Rick.

‘He made their spells run backwards,’ said Martha, knowing she was massively oversimplifying what in reality was no doubt a very convoluted and technical explanation. ‘He undid everything the Hervoken had done.’ Suddenly a thought struck her. ‘Hey, does this mean Mr Clayton will have got his mouth back?’

‘S’pose,’ muttered the Doctor.

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ she said, trying to cheer him up.

‘Hmm,’ he replied.

‘So this Necris thing?’ said Chris. ‘You changed it with your little torch? When you were hanging out in my room this afternoon?’

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‘It wasn’t hard,’ said the Doctor almost apologetically. ‘It was just a bit of basic tinkering.’

‘The hard bit was convincing the Hervoken they’d beaten you,’ said Martha. ‘You certainly fooled me.’

The Doctor shrugged. They’d have been suspicious if I’d just given the Necris back to them, even if I’d made it sound like an exchange for the lives of the townspeople. They’d have checked it over and found out what I’d done. I knew our only chance was to make them think they’d outsmarted me. They were hoist with their own petard.’

‘But what if they’d agreed to your terms?’ said Martha. ‘Would you have fixed the Necris for them and let them destroy the town?’

The Doctor frowned. ‘I knew they wouldn’t.’

‘But what if they
had?
’

He looked at her, and his eyes suddenly seemed as black and depth-less as space. ‘I gave them their chance,’ he said evenly. ‘They didn’t take it.’

Martha saw Tony and Amanda Pirelli looking at the Doctor almost warily, and knew what they were thinking:
Is this the kind of person
we want our boys hanging around with?

‘Excuse me, mister,’ Tony said almost hesitantly, ‘but who exactly
are
you again?’

‘I’m just a traveller, passing through,’ the Doctor said.

‘What’s
that
supposed to mean?’ asked Amanda.

The Doctor shot Martha a look:
See? I told you it was easier to just
leave.

A voice came floating out of the darkness, beyond the crater.

‘Sounds like we might be in for a spot of subsidence, thanks to you, Doctor.’

‘Etta!’ said the Doctor delightedly. ‘In the nick of time, as always.’

Tony shone his torch into Etta’s face.

‘Do you mind?’ she said, raising a hand.

‘Sorry,’ he said, and lowered the beam, lighting the way ahead for her.

‘My, what a big hole,’ she said. ‘My garden fence is down there somewhere. Mind you, I think I prefer it without the tree. Much more 147

neighbourly, don’t you think?’

‘Er. . . yes,’ said Tony.

Etta was carrying a large plate, which she held out towards the group. ‘Who’s for a Halloween cookie?’

The cookies were in the shape of bats, coated with black icing, with red dots for eyes.

‘I think I’ll pass if you don’t mind,’ Martha said with a shudder.

‘Me too,’ said Rick, then caught a warning look from his parents.

‘Then again, maybe not.’

‘Lovely,’ said the Doctor, shoving most of a cookie into his mouth.

He made exaggerated yum-yum noises, and grabbed another from the plate, then, after a moment’s hesitation, a third, which he dropped into his pocket.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘well, better go. Things to do, people to see. Goodbye all. Come on, Martha.’

Without waiting for a reply, he turned and strode away, leaving Martha smiling sheepishly round at the group.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t like goodbyes. Well, I’d better. . . ’ She wafted a hand vaguely in the Doctor’s direction.

Etta smiled. ‘Go on, dear. You catch up with your spaceman. And tell him. . . thank you. On behalf of us all. Tell him thank you for saving our town.’

‘I will,’ said Martha, and raised a hand. ‘Well, bye everyone. Maybe I’ll see you again some time.’

She doubted she would, though. That was what life with the Doctor was like. Meet people, share extraordinary times, move on.

‘Wait up, Doctor,’ she shouted, jogging after his gangly silhouette.

And although she wanted to, she didn’t look back.

Not once.

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Justin for opening the door, to Paul and Mark for sharing the adventure, to Gary for the guided tour, to Russell and the gang for giving us the programme we always dreamed of, and to Mike Tucker, Graham Groom, Gareth Preston and Alan Richardson for feeding the geek.

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• Front Cover
  
• Contents
  
• Prologue
  
• One
  
• Two
  
• Three
  
• Four
  
• Five
  
• Six
  
• Seven
  
• Eight
  
• Nine
  
• Ten
  
• Eleven
  
• Twelve
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Back Cover