Doctor Who: Combat Rock (8 page)

And now of course, he believed. Many of his fellow townspeople were coming round too. Father Pieter and his colleague Father Tomas were very convincing, very persuasive. Julius had even begun to instruct some of the Papul children in the ways of God.

Agat was not such a bad place to live after all, despite the squalor, and the mosquitoes.

He unlocked the door of the museum hut, one of the longest buildings in Agat, and one for which Father Pieter and Julius both felt a great deal of pride, albeit for quite different reasons.

He entered the building, closing the door behind him, and collected his duster from the table next to the window.

Of course he felt proud of the building’s contents. It housed the relics of a dying belief system, it paraded the heritage of his people, and for all his new-found Christianity, Julius would never feel ashamed of the nobility and courage his forbears had displayed in forging a life out of the hostile swamps and forests, even if that life did revolve around headhunting as an essential element of their culture.

He also knew why Pieter was proud of the display of obsolete accoutrements of a barbarous age; to the missionary, the museum was an accolade to the victory of reason and organised religion over primitivism; it was a tribute to his and Tomas’s efforts to overcome the savage and warlike people they had been sent in to educate.

Julius could understand that viewpoint of course. He was a living example of that success story, and very grateful to his missionary friends for giving him the opportunity to advance himself.

He made his way past the various necklaces of Kassowark feathers and bones worn by warriors as they crept into the night on headhunting missions, and strolled down the aisle between stuffed reptiles and huge, flightless birds. He stopped for a moment next to the bizarre suit of ‘armour’ worn by his wild ancestors in times of village warfare. It was a full body piece made of woven hemp, including a fierce and odd-looking head mask that, when placed over the head and face, imparted a truly frightening aspect to the headhunter wearing it. It always gave him a little thrill of fear, propped there in the shadows of a dusty corner, as if waiting patiently for something, or someone.

He followed the aisle to the end of the building and readied his duster with a smile of satisfaction. The skulls were waiting for him as they always were. Strangely enough, he had never been frightened of these relics of true barbarism. The skulls were lined along a shelf, the eye sockets stuffed with red wax and seeds, the craniums adorned with straps dotted with the same seeds and tufted with Kassowark feathers.

These were the true legacy of Agat: the trophy skulls belonging to former victims of his cannibalistic forefathers.

Why should he be scared of the past? It had helped shape the noble, pure Papul townspeople of today.

He arranged the pile of human jawbone necklaces neatly next to the trophy heads, and swept the duster over the first skull, tickling a naughty cobweb from inside the hole on the left temple – the entry wound of the killer’s spear, and the point from where the brains would be scooped out and devoured – and moved on to the next skull.

He was just about to flick the duster along the top of the cranium when the first skull spoke to him.

Akima, and the cruiser was parked cheekily in the centre of the compound as if it was a visitor from the gods.

But these boys waved the banner of God spelt backwards and they certainly hadn’t come to offer the hand of blessing and peace to the villagers of Akima, and its infamous talking Mumi.

The Mumi was dragged from the elder’s hut by Clown and Pan. Clown kicked it from its stool, and watched it roll onto its skinny side as if daring it to come to life and curse him.

‘See,’ he bellowed to the cowering Papul villagers who were held at gunpoint by the rest of the Dogs. ‘It’s just a pile of black skin and bones. It ain’t got no magic. It can’t do no voodoo on the Clown and his boys. Believe it: this is nothing.

The only gods you have to fear are us,’ he gestured at the rest of his wild bunch,‘and these,’ he hefted his own pulse rifle demonstratively.

Pretty Boy and the others were already beginning to herd the men of the village against one wall. The semi-naked women moaned and sobbed as they anticipated what would happen next.

‘You’ve got to believe in what is real,’ Clown continued, his eyes invisible behind the sunlight dancing on his eyeglasses. He kicked the Mumi. A moan of horror lifted from the villagers.

Clown walked away a few steps, enjoying the reaction he was getting from the crowd. Pan decided to take his fun away from him and fired first, his Luger spitting a neat lance of energy at the Mumi’s feet, engulfing them in flame. Clown shrugged as if he wasn’t fussed about being deprived of his sport, and that’s when Grave seared the headman. Clown looked over his shoulder, saw the naked man drop, his penis gourd a shaft of flame, and sauntered off towards the cruiser.

Pretty Boy and Bass followed, clearly not savouring the carnage that was going to ensue. Thoughtfully, Pan watched them go.

Grave and Twist were flaming the men, Saw was revving his chainsaw and wading in, his rifle purposefully left behind in the cruiser.

Screams and blasts of power mixed with the sputtering engine of Saw’s tool.

Pan pulled a cigarette from his pocket and watched the Mumi burn.

‘People of Agat, warriors of Papul. You are free. We are free.

Free to’kill. Free to regain what we have lost’

The voice was husky and hollow, as if forced from a throat
of bone, not of flesh.

You are free.

We are free.

Free to kill.

Free to kill.

Free to kill...

Regain... what you have... lost.

The hell of the south coast, all his colleagues called it.

So what if all the other missionaries who had ventured into those untamed swamps never came back again?

Tomas was different. Resourceful, confident, well supplied. He would not take risks that his own common sense and faith determined were not worth taking. He was no fool.

He was the best of them, and even Pieter who had achieved so much in this small heathen pocket of Jenggel, had learned a great deal from him.

Father Tomas was a credit to them all. He was a symbol of what could be done.

And now be was a bloody martyr.

He cut the thought out of his head. Tomas would return.

It had been a good thirty rainseasons since he and Tomas had arrived in Agat, two young men just out of theological school, intent on preaching the word of God to the cannibals.

Earth’s missionary influence had spread far indeed, and after the Indoni war had ended, it had seemed the ideal opportunity to send more troops, albeit soldiers of a different kind, into the wilderness of Papul, to cement the civilising foothold of Earth with the stabilising foundations of the Church.

That had been before the Indoni ‘invaded’ Papul, of course, but even they couldn’t stop the word of God from being spread. Missionaries were tolerated in Papul for the same reason Sabit fabricated the truth for his interstellar broadcasts: he didn’t want to alienate Earth and its Coalition.

It had taken thirty rainseasons, but Tomas and Pieter had done the seemingly impossible, and teased the locals of Agat away from their previous bloody, albeit colourful, lifestyle.

Head hunting was now a thing of the past in the region around the shanty town, and with the bravery of people like Father Tomas, the Kirowai region further along the south coast would be next to succumb to the benefits of civilisation and Christianity.

The hell of the south. The Kirowai. The most savage and
unrepentant cannibals in Papul. He’s not coming back and
you know it.

He poured himself a glass of red wine and sat back in his armchair. He could see the populace of Agat trudging past his window, the boards trembling beneath their myriad feet as they went about their daily callings. Men, women, children, all dressed in at least some items of Earth origin – T-shirts or trousers, shorts, skirts – even if they were a little ragged and torn. And all contributed by those indefatigable soldiers of God, Fathers Tomas and Pieter.

They had achieved oh so much in those thirty years. Father Pieter could afford to sit back and take it easy now, if only for five minutes. Relax, drink his wine, his report on Sabit completed, and ready for shipment to the Church on Earth.

But God, he felt alone.

He could see his reflection in the window across the room.

Grey hair, thinning at the top, grey beard. An earnest, strong face, but one lined with worry and loneliness. Life among the cannibals could do that to a man.

His reflection was obscured. A figure was leaning against the window. A bulky figure, the head obscured by something.

The glass abruptly flew inwards, scattering across the floorboards. Father Pieter was scrambling up from his armchair as the figure groped its way through the shattered window, but the shock of what he saw pushed the missionary back in his seat.

The man was wearing the hemp tunic from the Agat museum, although now it was smattered with blood. The head-piece masked the features, alien and horrible with its gaping circle of a mouth and pierced mini-shields sewn over the eye holes. Kassowark feathers nodded from the pointed apex of the hemp hood. Around the neck, the figure wore a human jawbone necklace, dirty and stained with age.

The figure was naked below the waist-length body-piece, and in the right hand, a stone axe, also plundered from the museum, like the necklace and the tunic. In the left, a severed head swung by its hair, the neck oozing blood that pattered onto the boards. The figure was silent, apart from its husky breathing.

Pieter tried to form words in his throat but all that he could produce was a frog noise. He tried again, while the figure waited for him to grope his way through this nightmare.

The missionary could see the man’s white teeth behind the mouth piece, and a glimpse of bird-mad eyes behind the pierced tiny shields, but nothing else.

‘What... what do you want?’ he finally managed, fear locking him in his seat. He felt gripped by the knowledge that he was going to die, and felt that it was all so meaningless and inexplicable, and of course, oh so horrible. To die like this. To die at the hands of the godless, when he had lived with them for thirty years, matured as they matured, suffered with them, felt their pain, their joy, their...

It was all so horrible to die like this.

The head was flung at him. It struck the arm of his chair and rolled at his feet. Pieter gaped at it speechlessly. He recognized the man (the man? the head!): an Indoni trader whose name escaped him. The figure was moving again, approaching Pieter who pushed himself back in his chair, still semi-paralysed by shock and fear.

‘We are free,’ the figure whispered and stopped again, no more than three yards away from the missionary. And now Father Pieter was reeling from more shock, because he knew the voice, knew the man to whom it belonged, and that was even more inexplicable, even more godless, because it belonged to a man Pieter trusted, respected,
loved
.

‘Julius?’

His voice was small, like a child’s.

This could not be.

This could not...

‘Free to kill. Free to regain what we have lost.’ The words, like the entire incident, made no sense to Pieter. He put out a shaking hand, but whether it was to stop his friend from approaching, or to seize him and shake some sense out of him, even he didn’t know. The bloody figure backed away, and then was clambering through the shattered frame.

Father Pieter remained in his armchair, staring vacantly at the window as if expecting the glass to flip back into place, for the entire incident to rewind, never to have happened.

But of course, the head was still there at his feet, like a gruesome pet, to remind him that it had.

He had often thought about marrying an Indoni girl. They were so beautiful after all, and he’d never found a Papul girl that appealed to him in quite the same way these slight, sinuous beauties did. Especially the one not far behind him now. Wina. Yes, what a rare beauty. Was Wemus deluding himself or had he actually caught her sending him some interested glances throughout the day, first of all in the canoe, and later as he occasionally stopped the group to inform them about the various wildlife that scurried, slithered and hopped incessantly around them?

No, he was fooling himself. Although he prided himself on being a handsome Papul man, he also knew that it was rare indeed for one of the haughty Indoni women to ever look twice at the thick-bodied, heavy-featured islanders. Perhaps that was what made him want one so much. But then, the young man from Earth with the peculiar skirt obviously had something going on with her. The other girl was attractive too, in, a somewhat coarser manner. Her clothes, her body, face, voice, all were less refined than Wina’s. He’d let that slimy Drew character continue to make advances on her, it really didn’t bother him. Of course if he made any more moves on Wina...

Then there was the white girl. Companion to the Doctor.

No. He didn’t like white. Too blotchy, too bumpy, too... too
white
.

He hacked at a hanging vine until it dropped neatly at his feet. The Doctor was right behind him, slightly out of breath but obviously taking a great interest in the journey. Wemus grinned at him and the Doctor smiled back, mopping sweat from his brow.

‘Wemus can carry coat for you?’ he offered, puzzled as to why the alien should want to continue wearing the garment in the steamy temperatures of the rainforest.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No thank you, Wemus. I wonder,’ he looked around him at the dense, glistening vegetation,‘are there any particularly dangerous varieties of wildlife we may be likely to encounter?’ He clasped his hands before him, his face full of a childlike wonder. Was he really as simple as he liked to make everyone think? Wemus scrutinised him with interest before replying. The alien was definitely strange, but there was something about him that generated respect too. There was a strength and a great sense of compassion about him that was unlike anything the Papul had ever sensed in anyone before.