Dr. Who - BBC New Series 25 (16 page)

By the time they arrived back, Mr Gandhi had filled her in on what she had missed during her doze. He told her about the Doctor’s reappearance and about his and

Donna’s abrupt departure.

Now Adelaide was back at work, tending to the sick and wounded and trying not to think about how tired she was. She was in one of the medical tents, helping Edward dress a particularly nasty head wound, when they heard shouts and screams from outside.

They looked at each other in alarm.

‘What on Earth…?’ Edward said.

The camp had been established as a sanctuary, a place which catered for all religions and castes, but Edward and Adelaide were not naive enough to think that this meant they were exempt from attack. They knew there were still plenty of fanatics who believed that each strata of Indian society should remain within its own separate enclave, and who were prepared to go to extreme lengths to make their point. Even Gandhi had come in for criticism by those of his own people who were appalled not only by the fact that he mixed with ‘untouchables’, but that he had even described them as Harijans – Children of God.

‘You stay here, my dear,’ Edward said, and hurried to the tent entrance.

‘My eye,’ Adelaide muttered, though she left it a few seconds before going after him.

It was early evening, but not yet dark, or anywhere near. As Adelaide stepped outside, a harsh white disc of sun still shone down from a cloudless sky, illuminating the terrible scene before her.

Like blemishes on her vision, the air was full of silvery shimmers, and chalk-white men, identical to the ones which had materialised on her lawn that afternoon, were

appearing all over the camp. Naturally, their presence was causing widespread panic. People were shouting and screaming, fleeing in all directions, trampling over one another’s shelters and even each other to get away.

It was immediately evident why the hideous figures were there. Adelaide saw them grabbing people at random – men, women and children – and simply vanishing with them, just as they had with the Doctor. They seemed to hunt in pairs, and their numbers remained constant; as one pair disappeared with a victim, or sometimes two victims, another pair would shimmer into existence. Although people were running hither and thither, for the chalk-men the operation was clearly akin to shooting fish in a barrel.

Sometimes the air would shimmer and they would appear directly in the path of someone who would then be unable to prevent him-or herself running straight into their clutches. To Adelaide it looked like a battlefield, albeit a bloodless one, or one of those dreadful depictions of Hell by the artist Hieronymus Bosch.

She saw Edward in the crowd, running towards a pair of chalk-men who were bearing down on a small girl of around six years old. The girl was standing transfixed, like a bird mesmerised by a snake. Edward was clutching his old service revolver, its muzzle pointing at the sky.

He shouted something, but in the general cacophony of panic-stricken voices Adelaide couldn’t make out his words. It was clearly a challenge, however, for a moment later he lowered his gun and fired at one of the chalk-men.

The shot made a loud crack in the early evening air. To her horror, Adelaide saw the chalk-man stagger as a black

bullet hole appeared on the left side of his chest, just beneath his collar bone. More horrifying still was the fact that the shot barely slowed the creature down. Almost immediately he straightened up and resumed his remorseless advance.

Edward loosed off another two shots, hitting the same man in the chest once again, and then his partner in the stomach. When this too had minimal effect, he raised his gun butt-first and ran at the men, as though fully intending to club them unconscious with it.

He was too late to save the girl. Even as he ran forward, one of the chalk-men reached out and grabbed her arm. An instant later the chalk-man and the girl shimmered and vanished.

‘You filthy…’ Edward yelled, his voice carrying above the screams and shouts of the crowd. He reached the second chalk-man and brought his revolver down in a savage arc towards the creature’s hairless skull.

Adelaide winced, anticipating the impact, but with blinding speed the chalk-man’s hand shot up and grabbed Edward’s arm before the gun could connect. A look of horror, rage and disbelief appeared on Edward’s face –and then he and the chalk-man also vanished.

Adelaide’s hand flew to her mouth. Desperately she wondered what to do. It was pointless trying to flee through the camp, just as it was pointless joining the mêlée with the intention of giving aid. In the end she decided to go back into the tent and take shelter. Once the mayhem was over, she would seek out the Doctor and Donna and tell them what had happened.

There was something about the Doctor. Something authoritative and reassuring. She felt instinctively that he would know what to do. Turning, she lifted aside the flap of canvas and re-entered the tent.

She barely had time to register the eyeless face of the chalk-man looming over her before the creature reached out and grabbed her arm.

Adelaide struggled, but it was no use. The chalk-man’s grip was like iron. She felt a weird kind of wrenching sensation and then the world dissolved around her.

‘So do you believe this Jal Karath thing then?’

Donna was hot, sweaty and irritable. The Doctor had kept up a pretty mean pace on the long walk back to the TARDIS, and she had been determined not to be a hindrance by slowing him down. He had that look on his face that he got when she knew someone was in for it.

This was when he was at his rudest, when he was least tolerant of people being stupid or obstructive or not pulling their weight.

‘I’m operating on the assumption that he was telling the truth,’ he said, and added after a pause. ‘But that he might not have been.’

‘Thanks,’ she said heavily, ‘that makes everything much
clearer.’ She made an exasperated sound and flapped her hands in front of her face.

The Doctor glanced at her. ‘Seen someone you know?’

‘It’s these flies,’ she said.

‘Can’t say I’ve ever been friends with a fly.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Knew some butterflies once. And beetles. I’ve

chatted to loads of beetles. Never a good idea to accept a dinner invitation from one, though.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Donna.

They rounded a corner and the Doctor grinned suddenly. ‘Have I got a brilliant sense of direction or what?’

There was the TARDIS, standing where they had left it in the shadows at the end of a quiet, narrow alley.

‘Home from home,’ she said. ‘So what happens next?

We get the readings from the TARDIS…’

‘Focus in on them with the sonic, and… spa-twang!’

‘Spa-twang?’ she repeated.

‘Technical term. Think of the zytron trail like a long elastic band at full stretch. And think of the TARDIS like a stone in the loop of the band. Soon as the sonic converts the readings into coordinates and feeds them back into the TARDIS, off we go… spa-twang!’

‘Sounds painful.’

‘Nah, it’ll be fun. Long as we’re strapped in tight there’s nothing that can go wrong. Well… almost nothing.’

Now that the TARDIS was in sight, he stretched his legs, putting on an extra spurt of speed. Donna struggled to keep up, still swiping irritably at the flies buzzing around her head. He was fumbling in his pocket for the key when suddenly there was a silvery shimmer in the air.

Next moment, four gelem warriors were standing in front of the TARDIS, facing them.

The Doctor stopped, looking warily at the white figures. Almost absently he reached out a long arm and

shielded Donna with it, positioning his body in front of hers.

‘Do you think they’ll attack?’ she hissed.

‘Dunno,’ he murmured. ‘Doubt they’re here for a chinwag. Gelem warriors are rubbish at conversation, probably cos they never watch telly or read
Heat magazine – which I know is something
you’ll
find hard to believe.’

‘Oi,’ she said, jabbing him in the back. ‘So how do we get past them?’

‘We implement my brilliantly conceived plan,’ he said.

‘Which is?’

‘Dunno. Haven’t thought of it yet.’

He looked keenly about him, checking out the available resources. However, he had barely begun to do so when the quartet of gelem warriors turned towards the TARDIS

and placed their hands on it.

‘No!’ the Doctor shouted, rushing forward. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’

Donna realised what the gelem warriors were doing a split-second after the Doctor did.

‘Oh…’ she said, but by the time she had completed the expletive the air had shimmered and the gelem warriors had gone, taking the TARDIS with them.

As two more of the terrible men suddenly appeared, Ranjit turned and dived through the open doorway of a ramshackle lean-to. So far he had escaped capture partly due to good luck and partly because, as everyone else had started to panic, he had managed to keep his head.

Having seen the eyeless men before, he had not been as shocked as everyone else, and so had had the presence of mind to notice two things about them. One was that they didn’t run – there were so many people around that they didn’t need to – and the other was that they didn’t
select their victims, but simply grabbed whoever was closest.

Ranjit had made it across the camp by keeping low, taking his time and using the shelters for cover. Even so, he had had a couple of near misses when the air had shimmered and the creatures had appeared in front of him.

The first time he had escaped by ducking out of sight a split second before the men had fully materialised, and the second time one of them had actually been shooting out a hand in his direction, when a thin, turbaned man had blundered into their path, inadvertently barging into Ranjit and knocking him out of the way.

Now, as Ranjit dived through the doorway of the lean-to, he heard a little scream. He rolled over in the dust and jumped straight to his feet. A girl was huddled in the shadows at the back of the shabby construction, her eyes wide and dark, her knees drawn up to her chin and her clenched fists pressed to her face.

Ranjit raised a finger to his lips and hoped that the girl wasn’t too scared to see sense. He hoped too that the eyeless men had not heard her scream. If they came crashing in to investigate the sound there would be no escape for either of them.

He waited for almost a minute, his ears attuned to the slightest movement. However, he could hear nothing above the screams and pounding footsteps of the camp’s

inhabitants. The eyeless men may have gone or they may simply have been standing outside, waiting patiently for him to emerge. It didn’t help that they moved almost silently, like ghosts. He let another thirty seconds slide by, and then he turned to the girl.

‘I am going now,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here. If you wait until all is quiet, I am sure you will be safe.’

The girl stared at him, too scared to nod or even blink.

‘Goodbye,’ Ranjit said, and then he crept to the entrance of the lean-to and peeked out.

The half-made men were nowhere to be seen. Ranjit breathed a sigh of relief and ran across to the next dilapidated shelter. He kept low and alert as he continued his zigzag progress, and minutes later he reached his destination.

At least two of Gandhi’s attendants were usually stationed outside the entrance to his modest shelter on the far edge of the camp, coordinating the large number of people who wished to speak to the Mahatma on a daily basis. Now, though, the shelter was silent and seemingly deserted. Ranjit fervently hoped that Gandhi and his attendants had either fled or that he would find them huddled inside.

His greatest fear was that Bapu had been taken by the eyeless men. Young as he was, Ranjit knew that an India without Gandhi was unthinkable. Peering from right to left, he slipped across to Gandhi’s shelter and pressed his face against the ragged sheets of cloth draped across the entrance.

‘Bapu,’ he hissed urgently. ‘Bapu.’

To his surprise, a calm voice said, ‘I am here.’

With another quick glance behind him, Ranjit lifted one of the sheets of cloth and slipped inside. Gandhi was sitting crosslegged on the floor, having evidently been in a state of prayer or contemplation.

It was clear that Gandhi was alone, but Ranjit looked around anyway. ‘Where are your attendants?’

‘They have fled in terror,’ Gandhi told him.

‘They abandoned you?’ Ranjit asked in astonishment.

Gandhi smiled. ‘They did not wish to do so, but I insisted that they go. I told them I had no right to be responsible for their fate. I’m afraid, for their own sakes, I was very forceful.’ He laughed lightly, as though this was a great joke.

‘Why did you not go with them?’ Ranjit asked.

‘It is not my nature to run away,’ Gandhi said. ‘I will not fight these foes, but neither will I flee from them. If they find me here, then it is God’s will and I will accept it.

And if they do not find me here, then that is God’s will also.’

Ranjit thought about this for a moment. Then he said, ‘I have come to rescue you.’

Gandhi shook his head. ‘I do not need to be rescued.’

‘What if it is God’s will that I rescue you?’ Ranjit said.

There was silence for a moment, then Gandhi chuckled.