Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition (36 page)

The holographic Harken Batt jerked into speech. ‘…known only as the Doctor is now striving to defeat the terrible menace, and to
avert
the certain and harrowing massacre of every soul on board the G-Lock.’ There was a pause. ‘It is a task that may cost him his very life.’

Something moved in the background of the image. A black shape, humanoid, dropping down the ladder. Harken peered more closely, but couldn’t make it out.

‘Whilst the Doctor here lies dead, daring to defy the deadly danger within its own dominion, his glamorous companion Romana has gone to get assistance.’

The shape grew larger behind the hologram Harken. A man in a scientific white suit carrying a laser pistol.

‘Meanwhile, I, Harken Batt, have been given the crucial, invaluable responsibility of waiting here on guard.’

Behind him, the man in the suit raised the pistol to his head.

‘Waiting here on guard. Watching. Constantly vigilant to any threat that may lurk in the shadows.’

The image broke up into squares and vanished.

Harken slowly turned around. The scientist was standing there, pointing a pistol directly at him.

‘So you are Harken Batt.’ The scientist indicated the surroundings with a gloved hand. ‘Welcome to my creation.’

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

THE SKY WAS
overcast, the heather carpet of the moorland bristling under the wind. A solitary leafless tree stood silhouetted on the horizon, writhing back and forth.

The Doctor gritted his teeth, the rain whipping his hair as he strode forward. The smell of the air was deep, clean and refreshing. After the clinical, brightly lit artificiality of the G-Lock it was a strange sensation; the surroundings seemed somehow more gritty, more vibrant.

So this was the realm of the Repulsion. The Doctor tightened his scarf around him, and followed a rubble-strewn path up a small hillock.

‘Call this an afterlife!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘Pah!’

Paddox looped a chain around Harken Batt’s wrists, checked the fastening was secure and then retrieved the holocamera. He switched it off and placed it on the floor beside the journalist. ‘You still haven’t explained what you were doing here.’

‘The Doctor. He’s going to save us from dreadful destruction. There’s some sort of entity controlling the zombies, and he’s gone to confront it. He has made the ultimate sacrifice.’

‘Has he really?’ Paddox examined the corpse in the middle coffin, stroking the Doctor’s hair and lifting each eyelid in turn.

‘The Doctor is merely undergoing the Beautiful Death. He is experiencing the afterlife. That is all.’

Harken could feel the cramps beginning in his arms. So this was how his career would end. Shackled to a wall in some damp crypt with a maniac waving a gun about. He wasn’t ready to die, not
yet
; he wanted to be famous when he died, he wanted tributes and extended news coverage; he wanted to have mattered. ‘Please don’t kill me,’ he whimpered.

‘Do not worry. I do not kill without a good reason. You shall be given an opportunity to observe the completion of my work.’

‘The… What are you doing, exactly?’

‘It is quite simple.’ Paddox smiled. ‘I am going to die.’

‘Sorry. For a moment there it sounded like you said you were going to die?’

‘Whereupon I shall return to the point of my birth and relive my life over again. And then all of this will cease ever to have happened.’ He approached Harken. ‘There will be no mistakes, no missed opportunities, no failures. There will be no necroport, no Beautiful Death.’ Paddox patted Harken’s cheek. ‘And you will not be here, tied to the wall.’

‘Oh,’ said Harken. ‘That makes me feel much better.’

The beach extended for miles, the pebbles unrolling down to a surging grey sea. The sea railed against the rocks, crashing into violent spumes. There was the sound of seagulls cawing, but the sound was distorted and unreal and there were no birds in sight.

The pebbles clacked as the Doctor made his way along the tideline. In the distance, a building protruded from the cliff face; a white, square block with a single door and window. A wooden cross was fixed to one wall.

A small, inquisitive face peered out through the window, then disappeared inside the church as the Doctor climbed the winding, smooth steps up from the beach.

Inside the building it was dark and calm, and there was no sign of the girl. A wooden table holding a chessboard stood in the centre of the room. Stooping under the low ceiling, the Doctor straightened the board and moved a pawn forward. ‘Trapped for eternity in a low-budget remake of
The Seventh Seal
!’

He turned to the door to see a small girl in a blue dress standing there. And then she slipped away, giggling.

The Doctor emerged from the building and straightened up. Standing incongruously by the doorway was Gallura, his fronds ruffling in the breeze. ‘Doctor.’

‘Ah, there you are,’ said the Doctor. ‘You don’t happen to have seen a small girl hereabouts?’

Gallura stared out to sea. The water was calm, and the tide had gone out. ‘The girl has chosen this reality for her home.’

‘What?’

‘She says she prefers it.’

‘She’s one of the survivors from the
Cerberus?
’

‘She did not want to be resurrected on the G-Lock,’ said Gallura. ‘She alone of all the passengers wished to remain here.’

‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s why the numbers were out. The girl wanted to stay here, which left only 217 tourists to be transformed into zombies. Which is why Hoopy wasn’t taken over by the Repulsion. He was the spare one, the one who had been reserved for the girl.’

‘Exactly, Doctor. She refused to surrender herself to the Repulsion.’

‘Isn’t she a little lonely here?’

‘She is not alone, Doctor,’ said Gallura. ‘There are others.’

‘Others?’

‘Forty-one others. Participants in the Beautiful Death…’

‘… who enjoyed it here so much they didn’t want to come back to life.’ The Doctor made his way down to the beach. ‘Aha. So that’s it. That’s who K-9 sensed in the corridor. Lost souls.’ He looked up at Gallura. ‘Speaking of whom, where is he?’

Romana reached the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner to Corridor 79.

She halted. Standing a few metres in front of her, facing down the corridor, were the Doctor and Hoopy. They were talking amongst themselves. The Doctor pointed. Romana followed his gaze.

At the end of the corridor, on the edge of the blackness, were two lizards in florid coats. Between them they carried a metal box.

‘Biscit! Xab!’ cried Hoopy.

Romana ducked back around the corner and then, pressed against the wall, she inched herself forward to glimpse what was happening.

Hoopy waved to the two lizards. ‘Guys, it’s me, Hoopy!’

Romana’s view was partially blocked by the Doctor, but she could see the two lizards glaring, their eyes black as midnight. And then Romana realised what they were holding.

‘K-9,’ yelled the Doctor. ‘No!’

‘Master. Assistance urgently required,’ said K-9.

The two zombies faced each other and smiled, oil streaming from their mouths. Together, they heaved K-9 into the interface. There was a sputter of sparks, and K-9 was completely engulfed.

It was an endless, brick-walled corridor in what seemed to be a disused mental hospital. Gallura walked down the passage, the Doctor following behind him.

They passed some unlabelled doors and empty trolleys. ‘You know, there is something terribly odd about this place,’ said the Doctor. ‘But I can’t quite put my finger on it.’

‘Normally, the Repulsion draws on the subconscious mind of the individual to create an afterlife. It gives him or her whatever they want to believe heaven to be like.’

‘I see,’ said the Doctor. ‘So it can re-create loved ones from memories and so forth. Or re-create childhood holidays.’

‘Exactly. Except in your case, it has nothing to build such impressions from.’

‘Ah, well…’

‘As the Repulsion casts into your mind, it finds only disbelief. It has been forced to fall back on borrowed images.’

‘That’s it!’ laughed the Doctor. ‘We’re wandering around in a universe composed of clichés!’

Gallura halted. The door they were standing beside had a small plaque in the centre of the frosted glass. It read ‘K-9’.

The Doctor gripped the doorknob, and let the door creak open.
Inside
was an office, sunlight streaming in through the window blinds.

The room was untidy, desks and shelves overflowing with papers and books. A grandfather clock stood solemnly in one corner, its pendulum still. A blackboard was covered in mathematical equations.

Sitting perched in a chair was K-9. His tail waggled as the Doctor walked in. He extended his probe, as if to check it was really the Doctor. ‘Master!’

‘K-9, K-9, K-9!’ grinned the Doctor, gripping the robot dog by the sides of his head. ‘You’re all right?’

‘Affirmative, master,’ whirred K-9. ‘All systems functioning at seventy per cent efficiency.’

‘Seventy per cent! Well done!’ said the Doctor. ‘You don’t know how pleased I am to see you.’

‘You’re saying that nothing can pass through that…’ Hoopy indicated the darkness, ‘… without being kill-fried?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘The forces that exist within the interface are unimaginable. K-9 wouldn’t have stood a chance, poor chap.’

Romana pulled herself back, and glanced around the corridor. At the base of the stairwell there were four cabin doors, each closed. She approached the nearest one and tried the handle. It was unlocked.

She glanced back down Corridor 79 and felt her stomach wrench as a time distortion surged over her. The two Gonzies were changing, their bodies flickering.

The Doctor and Hoopy ducked behind pillars on either side of the corridor, the Doctor mouthing at Hoopy to remain silent.

The transformation was complete. At the end of the corridor, in their dusty blue uniforms, were Rochfort and Byson.

Romana had seen enough. She ducked back round the corner and hid in the nearest cabin, swinging the door shut behind her.

She waited in the blackness for what seemed like hours, and then she heard two sets of footsteps patter past and clang rapidly up the
stairs
. And then, seconds later, there was the stomp of approaching boots. They halted outside the door.

Romana held her breath, one hand to her throat.

She could hear Byson’s voice. ‘Life. I can sense life!’

‘Only the Repulsion may live!’ shouted Rochfort. ‘This way!’

The boots clumped up the stairs. Romana let out a sigh, pulled the door open and stepped out into the corridor.

The Doctor blew the dust off K-9’s nose. ‘Are you sure you understand the plan, K-9?’

‘Affirmative master. However, this unit estimates it is dependent on too many unknown variables, and the probability of failure…’

‘Do you have any better ideas?’

‘Negative.’ K-9’s head drooped. ‘Suggestion. Your plan has a remote possibility of success, and no other alternatives are available, therefore your plan is the optimum course of action.’

‘You mean it’s better than nothing?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘That’s very good of you, K-9.’ The Doctor placed the robot dog on the floor and turned to Gallura. ‘All right. Which way to the interface?’

Instead of a reply, Gallura stepped back into the hallway. The Doctor followed.

The hallway had changed. Instead of a brick-walled corridor, they were now back on the
Cerberus
, with wooden panels and a thick carpet.

A short distance away there was a wall of shimmering light, and beyond it the corridor continued as if viewed through cloudy liquid. Around the edges of the distortion there was a blue flickering, as the edges of the two realities combined.

The Doctor peered through the interface. On the other side of the liquid a figure was emerging from the darkness.

The Doctor grinned.

Romana approached the wall of blackness. In front of her, the liquid
swished
, sending her reflection swirling over its surface before breaking apart into a thousand ripples.

The Doctor patted K-9 on the back. ‘Go on then, K-9. Go to Romana. Good dog.’

K-9 whirred his ears and trundled forward, into the liquid. As he hit the interface, the surface bobbed and the corridor beyond blurred and swam.

On the other side of the wall Romana stepped back as the interface swilled apart, waves juddering across its surface. K-9 slid out of the oil, his eye visor glowing triumphantly.

Romana approached K-9 and squatted down. ‘K-9. Is it really you?’

K-9 whirred his ears for several seconds. ‘Affirmative mistress.’

Romana gazed into the darkness. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

The Doctor watched Romana turn and lead K-9 down the corridor, and quickly disappear into the shadows. Then the interface misted over, the corridor fading away.

‘Now for the difficult part.’ The Doctor was surrounded by crumbling stone walls, columnated ruins encrusted in moss. Where windows had once been, there were now only arched frames and supports.

He made his way to the nave of the ruined cathedral, his hands in his pockets. There was no sign of Gallura; the strain of creating the opening to the G-Lock must have weakened his psychic projection.

The Doctor followed some steps as they wound down, wet with the drizzle. As he walked a mist rose up around him.

The fog abruptly cleared and he was standing in another section of the cathedral. Nearby there was a blackboard covered in equations. Beside it was a grandfather clock and a table with a chessboard.

The Doctor moved a pawn forward. ‘Yes, yes, very surreal,’ he said. ‘Well, where are you, then? Come on!’

A voice cracked out like thunder. ‘Welcome to my reality!’

The Doctor felt the hairs on his neck standing on end, and turned. There, standing about twenty metres away on the exposed and empty moorland that suddenly surrounded him, was a shadow. The silhouette of a man, a man with curly hair, a long coat and a scarf whipping in the wind.