Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (3 page)

K-9 whirred up to the Doctor. ‘Master. Statistical analysis of previous excursions suggest a ninety per cent likelihood that my assistance will be required to facilitate liberation from incarceration.’

‘What?’ said a voice from somewhere under the Doctor’s hat.

‘You will need me to rescue you.’ K-9’s rear antennae, which resembled a tail, waggled.

‘Oh. Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘So how can you come and rescue us if you’re already with us, hmm? Do try to be logical. Come on, Romana.’

‘Goodbye, K-9.’ Romana patted the side of the computer dog’s head and followed the Doctor outside.

*

The Doctor switched on a torch and ran the circle of light over the surroundings. Spiders scuttled across their webs. The beam settled on the bulkhead door, and the Doctor pulled a triumphant sonic screwdriver from the depths of his pockets.

Romana locked the police-box door behind her. ‘Where do you think we are?’

‘Quickly and smoothly, she says,’ muttered the Doctor under his breath, running the screwdriver over the bulkhead lock.

‘You do realise it is a terribly dangerous thing to do, materialising without an analogue osmosis dampener. We could have skipped over our own time paths,’ Romana said. ‘Anyway, we’re here now. Wherever it is.’ She brushed aside a shivering cobweb and ran a finger over one of the oversized hooks. ‘Not the most salubrious of…’

The Doctor swiped the screwdriver and the bulkhead jerked apart. ‘Aha! Where would I be without my sonic screwdriver!’

‘Still locked in a cellar in Paris, presumably,’ said Romana.

The bulkhead opened on to a cramped cockpit, and stale air gasped in, fluttering the cobwebs. Inside the cockpit, the instrument panels were filled with numerous displays and indicators, all unlit. The viewscreens were covered by two huge, corrugated shutters.

Stooping, the Doctor flashed his torch over the control panels and oscilloscopes. All the dials read zero.

Romana crouched beside him. It was chilly in here, and her breath frosted in the air. An identification plaque above the airlock door caught her attention. ‘The
Montressor
. A Class D security transporter.’

‘Nothing seems to be working.’ The Doctorjabbed experimentally at a few switches and turned to Romana, his eyes pondering. ‘I wonder what happened to the crew.’

‘Try manually opening the shutters. We may as well see where we are.’

The Doctor gripped the bottom of one of the shutters and tugged. The shutter rattled upwards and light blanketed the cockpit.

‘Good grief.’

Opening the shutter had revealed a whirling void. It was as though they were floating in a blurred, ever-changing ocean of colour. It was serenely, hypnotically beautiful.

‘A hyperspace tunnel,’ said Romana. ‘Only you could miss the entirety of the real universe and land us in hyperspace.’ She estimated the tunnel to be two miles wide; a cylinder of calm, like the eye of a hurricane.

The Doctor rubbed his lips. ‘Over there.’

Romana peered out. From the corner of the window she could see that their ship was connected via a short access tube to… well, Romana wasn’t sure what it was. It seemed to be a vast city. A space station bolted together at random by someone with no idea about design, or architectural viability, and who wasn’t particularly good at bolting things together. ‘A space station?’

‘Look closer.’

The city was constructed from the remains of spaceships. Over one hundred craft, of every conceivable type, all jammed together and interconnected into a mesh. At the centre of the construction was an interplanetary leisure-cruiser. Its rear bulk, the only part visible, was a patchwork of decay, its skeletal structure half-exposed. Smaller craft encrusted the wreck like limpets; their ship, the
Montressor
, was one of these. Other ships on the outskirts of the city were in better condition and were parked at specially constructed docking ports.

‘What do you think?’ asked the Doctor. He moved away from the screens, hands deep in his pockets. ‘I’m not sure whether to be impressed or not. It’s certainly very big.’

‘A graveyard of ships in space…’ Romana corrected herself. ‘In hyperspace. But why?’

The Doctor took out his bag of jelly babies, selected one, and munched it. ‘Do you know, I think we should find out. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck curling. Which can mean only one thing.’

‘Which is?’ Romana asked. Now the Doctor mentioned it, there was an eeriness in the air. Like a temporal detachment. Or a ghost
walking
over her grave. She stopped herself; she refused to be drawn into another of the Doctor’s incorrigible flights of fancy.

‘Time to get a haircut.’ A grin enveloped the Doctor’s face and he moved towards the airlock.

Lamp fittings were either cracked or empty, the panelling was warped, and the carpet was threadbare. The smashed limbs of statues lay strewn across the hall. The interior of the leisure cruiser had seen better days.

Romana and the Doctor walked carefully through the derelict ship. The airlock had opened on to an access tube, which had brought them aboard the cruiser through an airlock duct. Romana noted that the walls were scarred with holes blasted into the woodwork by some sort of energy weapon.

‘Signs of a struggle,’ she remarked, pulling her jacket around her. ‘Quite a battle by the look of it. Do you think there’s anyone left alive?’

The Doctor pulled a face. ‘Whatever happened, it was a long, long time ago.’ He prodded a finger at a tapestry. The material crumbled to charcoal in his hands. ‘So much for art alone enduring. And what’s this?’ The Doctor slapped his hands clean and pulled aside a heavy curtain to reveal a doorway. It opened on to a stairwell that spiralled into the level beneath. The Doctor motioned Romana inside.

This level of the cruiser had been recently inhabited; the cabins had been converted into shops, the ceiling covered with coloured sheets. The impression was of a narrow street bazaar. The shops, for the most part, were offering souvenirs, jewellery, clothing. Or, at least, the remnants of them. Everywhere, there was devastation.

Behind their smashed windows the shops were blackened husks. Leaflets, food containers and abandoned goods littered the corridor. The overhead public-address speakers hissed and the Chinese lanterns hanging in each doorway flickered, filling the corridor with an unearthly twilight.

‘“The Beautiful Death”.’ Romana examined a bill poster, crinkled on to a nearby wall. The poster advertised the forthcoming event in bold, swirly lettering. Beneath the words an angel smiled, arms outstretched in rapture. The angel had the face of a skull.

‘“Midnight. The Great Hall”.’

The Doctor peered at the poster. ‘“Turn On, Tune In, And Drop Dead.” How peculiar.’

‘This place looks like a bomb hit it,’ commented Romana.

‘If we’d only arrived earlier. Story of my life.’ The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. He seemed troubled. ‘You know, I have a very nasty feeling that –’

In the distance, there was a cry for help.

The Doctor hightailed down the corridor in the direction of the sound, his scarf flapping in his wake. Treading over the litter, Romana picked her way after him.

The corridor opened on to a high-ceilinged deck, a once-elegant staircase sweeping down from an upper gallery. The staircase was littered with corpses. They had hideous wounds, their skin and clothes forming a roasted glue. The stench of death clung to the air.

Hand over her mouth, Romana drew nearer. Most of the bodies were human, although there were some other races: translucent, milky creatures with bulbous eyes, and two short, humanoid lizards. The corpses were dressed in colourful clothes: kaftans, duffle coats, capes and tie-dye T-shirts. Though it was hard to tell where the tie-dye ended and the blood began.

‘Over here, Romana.’ The Doctor squatted beside a figure lying huddled against one wall.

The figure was wearing body-length black robes, but what took Romana’s breath away was its face. It was a mask, an horrific caricature of a skull. The skull was covered in grooves representing facial muscles, and appeared to be screaming in agony.

‘Help me get this mask off,’ the Doctor said. ‘Quick!’ Romana knelt beside him and together they unfastened the straps fixing it in place. Romana lifted the mask off and placed it to one side.

It was a man in his early thirties. Perspiration streamed off his forehead. He looked up at Romana and the Doctor, and raised a grateful smile, his jaw trembling. ‘They came for us…’

‘Who came for you?’ asked the Doctor.

‘The…’ The man stuttered. ‘They hunted out the living…’ His eyes bulged. ‘They are the walking dead!’

‘Don’t try to speak,’ said Romana, smoothing his hair. The man’s eyelids drooped, he mumbled to himself and lost consciousness.

‘The walking dead,’ said the Doctor. ‘I knew it would have to be something like that.’

‘He’s sustained burns to neck and chest. He needs painkillers, disinfectant. Dressings.’

The Doctor agreed. ‘We can’t leave him here. I think we’d better –’ He put a protective arm on Romana’s shoulder and led her to one side.

Two medics were approaching, both dressed in turquoise uniforms. One of them, a young woman, scanned a life-detector across the bodies. The detector hummed when pointed at the man in black robes. ‘That one there. He’s still alive.’ Reading from the datascreen, she spoke with wooden efficiency. ‘Minor burns and trauma. He’ll survive.’

The Doctor dashed over to assist the medics. ‘Hello. My name’s –’

‘Are you injured at all?’ asked the other medic.

‘No, I –’

‘Right. You can carry him.’

‘Carry him?’ said Romana.

‘To the medical bay. Down there.’ The medic indicated another of the corridors.

‘Right. Of course, the medical bay.’ The Doctor tucked his arms under the robed man and eased him upwards. The man groaned as his head fell back, but he remained unconscious.

‘But what about the rest of them?’ asked Romana.

The young woman glanced at the bodies. ‘Them? They’re all dead.’

‘What happened here?’ Romana asked.

‘Time for that later,’ said the Doctor. The black-robed man was lolling in his arms. ‘This man needs medical attention.’

*

Executive Metcalf wallowed in his office. It had been converted from the cruiser’s control cabin and retained many of the original features. The gold rails, the plush carpet, the Art Deco lamps. The two large windows looking out on to hyperspace. His treasured collection of artworks, sculptured blocks of abstract form. The luxury helped remind Metcalf he was important because, at the moment, important was the one thing he didn’t feel.

The chair pinched him at the sides, and Metcalf wriggled himself into position. The events of the previous day had left him rattled. His collarless ochre-and-brown suit, normally the last word in executive style, seemed to be two sizes too big. His hair, normally combed into a neat side parting, was bedraggled. And he could feel sweat collecting at the waistband of his trousers.

He ran his hand through his hair for the fifteenth time that day. In front of him, the holophoto of his wife and the two little ones. Smiling idyllically. Luckily, they’d not been involved. Which probably wasn’t surprising, Metcalf thought, since he hadn’t seen them since his wife had run off with the holophotographer twelve years ago.

Beside the photo was an interaction terminal, the monitor showing nothing but rolling static. All that remained of ERIC. That dratted computer. He’d almost grown fond of it.

Metcalf was in the process of loosening his tie when the door opened, admitting two uniformed officers.

‘Executive Metcalf?’ Both of the officers wore regulation silver-and-black tunics, peaked caps and identification badges. Each had a laser rifle slung from his belt.

‘I am, yes,’ said Metcalf. His tie slithered out of his hands on to his desk. ‘You must be –’

‘We are Investigators. My name is Dunkal, and this is my colleague, Rige.’ Dunkal was in his fifties, a stern, weathered officer. He spoke as though he was spitting out words he didn’t like the taste
of
. ‘We believe there has been an incident.’

Rige had slicked-back hair and a seedy manner. He fingered one of the artworks. ‘Incident.’

‘That’s right, yes,’ said Metcalf. ‘Do sit down, officers. I’m afraid there has been a not inconsiderable… well, catastrophe is one word that springs to mind.’

‘Catastrophe?’ Dunkal didn’t like the taste of the word ‘catastrophe’. He eased himself into the seat opposite Metcalf. ‘D’you hear that, Rige? There’s been a catastrophe.’

Rige didn’t reply. He wandered around the office, his hands clasped behind his back.

Metcalf continued. ‘There was a malfunction with the Beautiful Death, one of our attractions. You may have heard of it. Unfortunately what happened was that it turned a couple of hundred tourists into… it’s quite difficult to describe.’

‘In your own time.’

‘It turned them into the living dead.’

Dunkal stroked his moustache. ‘The living dead. Right.’

‘And they went on, for want of a better word, a rampage.’ Metcalf gulped. ‘Most undesirable. And then, on top of all that, both the Beautiful Death attraction and our computer supervision system, ERIC, were destroyed. All because of one man’s sabotage, I hasten to add.’

‘And the living dead?’

‘They died.’ Metcalf gave an embarrassed cough. ‘Permanently, this time.’

‘I see,’ digested Dunkal. ‘And all the result of sabotage, you say? So someone tampers with this Beautiful Death of yours, whatever the hell that is, and then blows it up, taking your computer with it? And they also turn a couple of hundred tourists into zombies, and then kill them. Permanently. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Exactly.’

‘It’s the classic scenario,’ stated Rige. ‘If I had a credit every time…’ Dunkal scowled at him and the words tailed off.

‘And when all this was happening, you were?’ Dunkal turned
back
to Metcalf.

‘Well, here, in my office. Putting efforts in place to organise an evacuation,’ said Metcalf. ‘In no small measure.’