Doctor Who: Combat Rock (2 page)

He was wearing a tartan kilt and a slightly frilly shirt and gave off a general impression of being ready for just about anything. He turned and called to someone inside the box.

‘Victoria! Come an’ have a wee paddle.’

Another face appeared around the door, but not the one the young man had expected. This face was lined and contoured by a life beyond strange, a facial map bursting with character and mystery. The eyes were dark, benevolent, childlike and slightly scary all at once. They were the most remarkable eyes that Jamie had ever seen, although it was not something the young Scot thought about too often, his attention span not being overly long, or his observations overly detailed. The ruffled black hair that topped the face lifted slightly in the sea breeze and the short, comical-looking man stepped out, exuberant in frock coat and baggy checked trousers, his shoes crunching joyfully in the sand.

‘Well, I must say, this makes a most welcome change.

Wouldn’t you say so, Jamie?’ The Doctor looked around him with obvious satisfaction, as if the choice of location were entirely down to him.

‘Where are we?’ This was a new voice, and a new face, peering around the door of the TARDIS, like the Doctor’s a moment before. This was a pretty face, although maybe not beautiful. Long, full hair framed intelligent features and bright, inquisitive, although slightly wary eyes. She followed the other two out onto the scarlet beach, dainty in thin silken skirt and top. Jamie grinned as the breeze lifted the skirt to show her shapely thighs.

The Doctor smiled expansively and managed to look almost stupid as he struggled to come up with an answer.

‘Well, it seems almost to be... er, it could be –’

‘Och, he doesnae know,’ Jamie finished for him helpfully.

‘Well, let’s find out, shall we?’ the Doctor said, undeterred by this lack of faith. He gazed up the beach past the palms towards a line of buildings in the near distance. The others stared in the same direction. The buildings looked inviting, even from this far away. Gaily coloured awnings flapped in the breeze, terraces were bursting with plant life of striking hues. They could see figures moving to and fro before open-fronted establishments.

The Doctor was already marching briskly over the sand towards the signs of life. Jamie shrugged at Victoria, glanced back once at the wine-coloured sea, endlessly shushing the beach, and followed.

Klick. Whirrrrr.

The plump woman barged past the two satellite photographers and posed in front of the mummy. ‘Hank! Take a shot of me in front of this thing, will ya!’

‘The Mumi four hundred rain seasons old,’ the guide was saying, eyeing the plump tourist with a slight smirk. ‘He celebrated chieftain of this village and so preserved by his children in honour of his name.’

‘Preserved how?’ This came from the tall man in the blue safari suit, his eyes bulging with fascination. With his white hair spindling up at odd angles, bright, protuberant eyes and hooked nose, he resembled one of the exotic birds he was so keen on observing in the jungle.

‘Smoked over fire,’ the guide replied with a grin. He was standing behind the ring of tourists and smoking a cigarette imported from one of the nearer satellite planets colonised long ago by Earth. Illegally imported, as cigarettes had been banned hundreds of years earlier on all Earth colonies, although Jenggel held out against such restrictive laws, and was likely to do so for some considerable time now that the Earth-Indoni war had run its course. One of the villagers was smoking too, standing proudly behind the Mumi, his penis gourd jutting out bizarrely from his brown body.

‘He preserved to give spiritual guidance to his people in their dreams,’ the guide continued. Plaintive bird cries drifted from the jungle pressing around the village. The guide took another drag on his cigarette.

‘And to provide lucrative tourist income as well.’

The guide’s eyes widened slightly. It had been the Indoni businessman who had spoken. He did not turn to the guide but continued staring at the Mumi as the plump woman posed for her husband to snap her.

The guide sucked deeply on his cigarette before replying.

‘It is lucky for us your people colonised our lands and provided opportunities for such welcome prospects.’

This made the Indoni turn. He was a good foot taller than the guide, his clothes well cut and strong, unlike the worn garments of the local man. The Indoni smirked. ‘You Papuls would be lost without our civilising influence, it’s true.’

The guide smiled slightly.

‘
It moved
!’

The scream made them all jump. The fat Earth woman backed into her husband’s belly so abruptly he dropped the holocamera. The Indoni businessman began to laugh. The plump woman turned to him, her face incredulous and scared.

The Indoni stopped laughing.

The Mumi’s withered black hand was flexing its fingers.

The head was lifting from its slumped position on the knees.

The woman screamed again.

The bazaars and cafes thronged with people. The Doctor and his companions were in a market square, gazing about at all the activity as if at a loss what to do next. Street hawkers had already tried to sell them a bewildering combination of items, from sunglasses, watches, seashells, to drugs, women and even men, that they had seriously begun to doubt the wisdom of venturing from the safe haven of the empty beach.

Evening was beginning to settle over the market town, although the temperature seemed to show no real sign of dropping. Shadows stretched across the dirt and litter and rotten fruit strewn around them. Jamie was eyeing a nearby bar with some interest. ‘What about a wee dram?’ he suggested eagerly. He was eyeing the girls inside the bar with even more interest. They wore pleasingly little clothing, and their dark skin looked smooth and inviting. He hoisted his kilt and turned to the Doctor.

The Doctor was surveying the array of nationalities and races milling around the square with as much interest as Jamie had displayed towards the bar and the girls inside. While there was a variety of travellers investigating the bazaars with an inquisitiveness that marked them as offworld, the majority of the population seemed to be thin-framed and dark-skinned. It seemed a safe deduction that the latter belonged to the indigenous race as all the bars, stalls and shops seemed to be manned by people with these traits. Black-haired and fine-featured, they filled the pavements and streets, generating a constant hullabaloo of activity and noise as they pursued their trade, or their pleasure. They wore a mixture of Earth-like apparel – old jeans, T-shirts – and vibrant blousons and loose silk garments, obviously more suited to the exotic locale. The girls that had caught Jamie’s eye and who were dancing inside the nearby open-fronted bar were more provocatively dressed.

Victoria blushed at the lengths of thigh and cleavage that were revealed by short skirts and plunging tops. Jamie caught her reaction and nudged her, grinning.

‘Come on, let’s see if these lasses can show an old-fashioned matron like you a thing or two.’ Victoria pushed him in the back indignantly and turned to the Doctor for help, just as she always did when the young Scot was teasing her.

The Doctor glanced over at the noisy bar and then smiled placatingly at Victoria.

‘Perhaps we’ll go somewhere a little more... er... quiet to have something to eat, Jamie,’ the Doctor said.

‘Och, Doctor...’ Jamie’s face fell. Now it was Victoria’s turn to smirk.

The Doctor patted his shoulder. ‘You join us later if you like, Jamie. Maybe you can find out exactly where we are while you’re about it, eh?’

Jamie beamed brightly, and then just as suddenly looked a little disconcerted. ‘But where are you two going, then?’

The Doctor looked around the busy square. Then he pointed to a terraced restaurant festooned with exotic plants.

‘Well, what about over there for something to eat, Victoria?’

Victoria followed his gaze. It didn’t look as exciting as the venue Jamie was planning on visiting, but at least her modesty wouldn’t be affronted. And she was more hungry than she’d realised too. She nodded her head and then frowned at Jamie as he waved cheekily before striding off towards the bar.

The Doctor called him back. ‘You won’t get very far without these...’ Jamie looked at the small pile of coins the Doctor had fished from his voluminous pocket and took them from him eagerly. Then he paused as a thought struck him.

‘Are you sure these will be all right?’ He examined one of the mould-blue coins a mite dubiously.

The Doctor treated him to a conspiratorial smile. ‘Have I ever let you down before, Jamie?’

It was a stupid question. ‘Aye, loadsa times!’

The Doctor’s face fell. ‘Well, if you don’t want them,’ he said petulantly, reaching for the coins.

Jamie moved his hand so the Doctor couldn’t retrieve them. ‘Och, no. I’ll trust you.’ He turned towards the bar again.

‘We’ll be waiting for you, Jamie!’ the Doctor called after his retreating back. Jamie waved again briefly and practically ran up the steps into the bar.

The Mumi’s shrivelled head swivelled, staring at the tourists with no eyes. One bony arm lifted, pointing at the plump woman. For a moment the other tourists were convinced the keening scream was coming from her, despite its horrifying unearthliness. But the woman’s mouth was closed for once, her ample bosom pumping up and down in her terror. An object flew from the Mumi’s mouth – the tourist in the blue suit saw it clearly. It flashed across the space between dead thing and fat woman and then connected, coiling around her throat, an emerald green snake the width of a man’s finger. Its fangs sheathed themselves in her bolster-like neck.

One of the satellite tourists dropped his camera and toppled backwards. His friend thought it was just from shock until he saw the snake hanging from his face, clinging to his forehead by its teeth. Another snake whipped from the Mumi’s open mouth, fastening itself to the beautiful throat of the Indoni woman. Her husband caught her as she fell.

The plump woman was writhing on the ground, and her skin had already transformed. Her face looked like a carnival mask – lurid green as if smeared with Halloween greasepaint, her mouth a clown grimace. Her wobbling husband wobbled over her, gut heaving, until a snake latched onto his bald patch and he followed his spouse to the grass.

The guide was already running. As he dashed for the gate leading out of the compound, he couldn’t resist one look back, and saw the Indoni businessman screaming, screaming, then swallowing a snake that hurled itself from the Mumi’s mouth.

He went down, no longer screaming but choking. Blue Suit lay next to him, hands the colour of leaves that spasmed violently, and were still.

The surviving tourist backed away and tripped over the green-fleshed corpse of his friend. But the Mumi seemed to have finished its macabre attack. The villagers were on their knees before it now, quaking in terror. Others had emerged from the huts upon hearing the screams and chattered animatedly in their fear, staring from the scattered bodies to the Mumi, unmoving once again on its stool.

And then it spoke to them.

Hollow, echoing tones, as if dragged down the dusty halls of centuries, it spoke and then was quiet again.‘
Children of the
Papul. You are free. Free to kill. Free to regain what you have
lost
.’

The head slumped forward on the skinny knees. From the jungle a bird shrieked endlessly.

Jamie couldn’t help smiling. He had just walked upstairs into Heaven.

Women everywhere.
Gorgeous
women everywhere. Jamie had never seen such exotic, beautiful creatures. Brown skin, perfect figures, long black hair, flashing eyes, white, white teeth glowing in the special lighting. Dancing, dancing. Jamie was looking, looking. He didn’t know where to look next.

There weren’t many men with brown skin in the bar, only those who served the drinks, but there were a few obviously alien men with white skin, some with yellow, and one or two with scales that they’d obviously tried to tone down with foundation cream, now beginning to evaporate in the sweat of the nightclub.

Jamie leaned against the bar and wondered what to drink.

He could see what looked like a bottle of whisky on a shelf above an array of fearsome-looking beverages, at whose alcoholic content he wouldn’t even dare to make a guess. He gestured at the bottle and the barman pulled him ‘a wee dram’.

The barman took the coin Jamie offered him and frowned at it. Jamie frowned too. Then the barman shrugged and tossed it into his till.

Jamie turned and watched the girls dancing. Thanks Doctor. He raised the glass to his absent companion. He’d actually done something right for a change and brought them somewhere decent. He wished Victoria were here so he could tease her about the lovely lasses cavorting around the dancefloor.

Cavorting wasn’t the word. These girls knew how to dance. The music was unfamiliar to him, maybe a marriage of Earth-type rapid beats with more exotic alien instruments –

och, he was no expert – but he had to admit it formed a perfectly potent backdrop to watch the ladies perform their gyrations.

He sipped the drink and was even more satisfied to find it really
was
whisky.

He caught one of the girls, who was dancing like no-one Jamie had ever seen before, looking at him. She saw him notice her attentions and flashed the Scot
the
loveliest smile.

He choked on his whisky, then regained his composure enough to smile back. The girl continued flinging herself around, almost flying, she was that agile.

Paradise.

Jamie felt more contented than he had in a long time. He couldn’t take his eyes off the lithe girl on the dancefloor. She wore black trousers with a provocative, deliberate slit on one thigh, allowing a glimpse of smooth brown skin. She was wearing a tight black top, albeit more modest than most of the revealing clothes the other girls were sporting, and perhaps that was what drew his attention to her more. Her bare arms shone under the subdued lighting as she twisted. Her long dark hair flung itself around her face as she smiled at him again, and then she was beckoning to him.