Doctor Who: Fury From the Deep (2 page)

The sound was definitely there: a deadly sound, slow, rhythmical, thumping, pulsating, like a heartbeat, reverberating along the entire length of the pipeline tube, way out along the depths of the ocean.

Jamie's eyes were glazed with apprehension. He never feared anything he could actually see, but this was an unnatural sound that sent cold shivers up and down his spine. 'What is it, Doctor?' he asked.

'I don't know, Jamie.' The Doctor was grim-faced as he listened to the deadly sound through his stethoscope. The pulsating heartbeat was becoming more mesmeric, more dominant, and the Doctor had that familiar look of sensing impending danger. 'It could be vibration from the pump. Except that... ' Suddenly, and without warning, he clutched his shoulder, and yelled out loud in pain. '
Aaah
!'

'Doctor!' Jamie and Victoria watched in horror as the Doctor toppled off the aluminum tube, and slumped with a thud onto the beach.

'Doctor, what is it? What's wrong with you?' Victoria was on her hands and knees in the sand, trying to shake some life back into the Doctor. But the Doctor's body was totally lifeless. His eyes were firmly closed, and his lips had turned a distinct yellow.

Jamie bent down and took hold of the Doctor's hand. It was ice-cold in the chilly wind. Ashen-faced, Jamie raised his eyes to meet Victoria's look of desperation. In a voice trembling with emotion, he said, 'He's dead. The Doctor's dead.'

Victoria wanted to scream out in anguish. But she was too stunned to react in any way at all. For a brief moment she and Jamie just stared at each other in disbelief, tears gradually swelling in her large blue eyes. The Doctor, their friend, their companion - dead. But how could it be possible? The Doctor had survived so many attacks on his life during their travels through time and space. The Doctor was as indestructible as time itself.

Jamie suddenly noticed a small tear in the left-hand corner of the Doctor's jacket. 'He's been shot!' he growled angrily. Rising quickly to his feet, the young Highlander swung his glance around to take in the entire stretch of shoreline. At the top of his voice he yelled, 'Where's the heathen coward that'd shoot a man doon in cold blood!'

Jamie's voice echoed over and over again along the beach, the cliffs, and the sand dunes. If there had been any seagulls riding on the crest of the waves, they would surely have taken flight in panic and terror. But there were no seagulls today, only more and more patches of white sea foam, floating in relentlessly on the swelling tide.

'Will ye no' come out!' Jamie's voice was shaking with emotion and fury. 'Or do I have to come and get ye?'

In the sand dunes at the rear of the beach, Jamie's defiant outline was brought into focus through the telescopic sight of the ghost figure's rifle.

'Murderers!'

It was the last word Jamie spoke. Suddenly, and without warning, he clutched his stomach, crumpled up in pain, and slumped in a heap onto the sand.

'Jamie!' This time Victoria
did
scream. But it was too late.

By the time she reached Jamie, his crumpled body was as lifeless as the Doctor's.

'No! Jamie! No...'

Victoria's tears could do nothing to revive the indomitable spirit of the Highland hero. Both he and the Doctor were gone forever, and there was nothing she could do about it. Crouched in the sand alongside Jamie's chilled and stone-like body, Victoria realised she was now completely alone.

The first flurries of snow fluttered down, and began to settle on the two still figures now stretched out on the sand. The air was suddenly quiet. Not a murmur. Not even a light breeze. Victoria, snowflakes glistening in her hair, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks, slowly raised her head.

At first, the sound was barely audible. But there was no mistaking it was there. The same, slow, rhythmical, pulsating sound like a heartbeat which the Doctor had heard reverberating inside the pipeline tube.

Victoria sprang to her feet with a start. The beach was no longer deserted. Standing in the dunes a short distance away, was the towering figure of a man, wearing a shiny black uniform and helmet.

In his hand he held the telescopic rifle which had brought down both the Doctor and Jamie. Soon, other figures were beginning to emerge from the mist: sinister figures, all in black uniforms and helmets.

'Who are you?' Victoria's voice, trembling with fear and anger, screeched and echoed across the beach. 'Why are you doing this to us?'

The sinister figures in black remained silent. Then they were joined by two odd-looking men, one-tall and thin, the other small and fat. Both were wearing white medical tunics and caps.

Victoria's immediate instinct was to run. But as she turned, she was confronted by a sight of sheer horror. The beach all around her was a mass of white sea foam. And out of the foam appeared large clumps of seaweed, all pulsating with life, like a human heart.

'
No
!' Victoria's scream provoked the most chilling response from the seaweed clumps, for they suddenly burst into a frenzied cacophony of sound, pulsating faster and faster, as if daring the intruder to move towards them.

Victoria covered her ears, desperately trying to protect them from the deafening, deadly sound.

In the sand dunes, the towering, ghostly figure raised his rifle, and focussed on Victoria through the telescopic sight.

As soon as she was struck down by the silent bullet, Victoria's cry of pain was muffled by the pulsating sound of the seaweed clumps in the foam all around her.

And then it was quiet again. Not a murmur. Not even a slight breeze.

The sinister figures in the dunes watched and waited. One by one, the clumps of seaweed withdrew into the safety of the foam.

The snow was falling thick and fast now, leaving a thin carpet of white over beach and cliffs.

It took only a few minutes for snowflakes to cover the three lifeless bodies spread-eagled forlornly in the sand.

2

The darkness seemed interminable. No dreams, not even a nightmare. Just a long, dark void.

Victoria was the first to stir. Her eyes suddenly sprang open, to be greeted by a strange vapour-like mist. She tried to move her lips in an effort to speak. But all she could manage was a croak.

Somehow she felt disconnected from the rest of her body, because she was unable to move any part of it. Finally, she made another attempt to speak.

'Doc-tor... Doc-tor...'

Although her voice was barely audible, it was enough to produce an immediate response from the Doctor, who was somewhere very close by.

'Victoria! Are you... all right?' He spoke in a strangulated voice, as if the words were stuck in his throat.

'I... I can't move... my legs...'

'I can't move... either... ' Jamie's voice joined them, also from close by. He sounded like his tongue had become too large for his mouth. 'Wh - what's happened to us?'

One thing was clear. The three time-travellers were certainly not dead, and they were no longer on the beach. They were lying flat on their backs, head to head, spread-eagled on the floor of some enormous building, which at the present moment appeared to them as nothing more than a blurred haze. And all around them, odd sounds.

Bleeping, pumping, thumping, electrical, mechanical.

Gradually, the haze began to clear. Two blurred shadowy figures were standing over the trio, each carrying telescopic rifles.

The Doctor managed to focus on them, and regain some of the strength in his voice.

'Would you mind telling us where we are?'

The two blurred figures remained silent, and bent down to take a closer look. Their faces seemed large and oval, grotesque and distorted.

'Why don't you answer?'

Once again Victoria tried to move, but without success.

'Doctor, what have they done to us?' she wailed. Even the ability to cry had been denied her. 'I can't move!'

The Doctor tried rolling the pupils of his eyes, but they felt too heavy and stiff. 'Don't panic, Victoria. I think we've been tranquillised.'

'What!' Jamie was outraged. 'Who do they think they are?'

'I think it's we who should be asking the questions.' A third face joined the two blurred figures. The voice was gruff and bronchial. 'And I shall expect quite a lot of answers.'

The haze had now completely cleared to reveal a burly-looking man, probably in his early fifties, with greying hair, a jutting jaw, and vacant grey eyes. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the two guards, and studied each of the three helpless figures spread-eagled before him.

Jamie found it agonising to try and move the muscles in his face. 'What is this place?' he croaked.

The man with the jutting jaw leaned closer, enabling Jamie to read the large name-patch on his shiny black plastic uniform:
ROBSON, S. CONTROLLER 1
. 'You mean you don't know?' said Robson, the corner of his mouth curling into a cynical smile.

Jamie glared at the jutting jaw with frustrated anger. 'If I could just get up... ' he snarled through clenched teeth.

'I shouldn't try if I were you!' Robson's smile quickly faded.

'You know, lying in this position, it
is
rather difficult to communicate,' said the Doctor. He was right. He and his two companions did look faintly ridiculous stretched out in such an undignified position on the floor.

'Shall we give them some U4, sir?' The voice was that of a young man in his late twenties. He was a weak-looking individual, with blue eyes, a pale face and gaunt expression, and a mop of blond, unruly hair that constantly flopped carelessly over his right eye. His uniform was too big for him, and he looked as though he could do with a good meal. He had a cultured way of speaking, which was in complete contrast to his boss, Robson. His name-patch showed:
HARRIS, F. CONTROLLER 2
.

For a moment, Robson ignored his second-in-command. He was too occupied staring menacingly into Jamie's eyes.

Harris tried again. 'Mr Robson, sir. The U4.'

This time Robson swung an irritated glance at him, as if to refuse the request. But after quickly thinking better of it, he straightened up, waved his hand, and strutted off.

Harris immediately signalled two engineers to come forward.

They were carrying small transparent gas cylinders with mouth-piece attachments. Harris took one of the cylinders, then all three engineers knelt down beside the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria.

'What are you going to do?' Victoria's eyes rolled from side to side in helpless panic, as Harris approached her with the cylinder mouth-piece. 'Keep away from me... no!'

'It's all right, don't worry,' said Harris, flicking a lock of his unruly hair out of his eye. 'The U4 will soon bring you round.'

'No!' Victoria's terrified yell of protest was instantly stifled by the mouth-piece. The same treatment was also given to the Doctor and Jamie, and the sound of hissing gas was heard immediately.

It took just sixty seconds for the U4 to achieve its task. The first to feel its effect was Jamie, who suddenly felt life returning to his big toes. He quickly pushed off the mouth-piece, sat up, and yelled out triumphantly. 'I can move!'

Seconds later, the Doctor and Victoria were also revived, and all three were soon on their feet again. At last, they were able to look around the extraordinary building they had been brought to. It was indeed a remarkable sight.

They were standing in what seemed to be some kind of Communications Control Hall, the nerve-centre of a huge gas refinery. The Hall was completely circular, like the inside of a mosque, and it looked as though it had been built entirely of aluminium and perspex. The floor of the Hall was in fact a well, flanked all the way around by a narrow observation platform, which was reached by means of two or three perspex steps. The walls themselves were almost completely covered by a mass complex of snake-like pressure tubes, valves, gauges, wheels, handles and levers.

The windows were portholes, placed at high angles to reveal nothing but the open sky.

Dominating the Control Hall itself, however, was the massive aluminium pipeline, which curled overhead around the walls, out to the beach, and beyond, to the rigs in the North Sea. On the observation platform there was a transparent door, through which could be seen the Impeller Area. Here the giant piston thumped up and down relentlessly twenty-four hours a day, pumping natural gas through the main pipeline, out to receiving stations in Southern England.

The main communications panel was a towering triangular shaped cone in the centre of the Hall. The cone contained at least ten video monitors, and a vast array of satellite computer systems, all linking the Refinery to its rigs and the outside world. And set on top of the cone was a huge illuminated panel, showing the actual position of the rigs out at sea, indicated by flashing coloured lights.

The Control Hall was manned by a team of engineers and communication technicians, each of them wearing identical one-piece uniforms made of a shiny black plastic material with patches showing each crewman's name and job grading. Only the engineers wore helmets, and these were made out of reinforced transparent perspex.

The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria stared in wonder at the vast complex of computerised equipment surrounding them. Lights flashing, buzzers buzzing, distorted voices calling from video monitors, sinister figures in black dashing back and forth in frenzied activity. And behind this, the constant throbbing sound of the giant piston pump, reverberating around the metallic walls.

'You were on the beach by the pipeline in a restricted area!

Why?' The Doctor, Victoria, and Jamie turned with a start as Robson's coarse voice cut through the atmosphere like a rifle shot.

Robson was a crude man: there was no place in his life for moderation.

'We were lost, that's all,' said Victoria timidly.

Robson ignored her. His attention was fixed firmly on the Doctor. 'You were seen tampering with the emergency release valve remote controls. You're a saboteur!'