Dr. Who - BBC New Series 25 (9 page)

But to his immense relief, the massive, misshapen Cobra had obviously decided it had had enough. It turned and slithered away, disappearing back into the long grass at the side of the road.

The Doctor and Donna were laughing their heads off.

Donna had started it. At first it had been the rolling motion of the elephants which had set her off, and then she had been suddenly struck by the wonderful absurdity of her situation, and after that there was no stopping her.

Gopal, Ranjit and the three men from Gandhi’s entourage who had come along with them – quiet, studious types, very polite and diffident – had looked at her in astonishment, but the Doctor and Gandhi had seemed to understand. Gandhi smiled away, all avuncular good humour, and the Doctor, after grinning along for a bit, had become so caught up in the infectiousness of her mood that he had started to laugh too.

‘Why do Mr Doctor and Miss Donna laugh so much?’

Ranjit asked Gandhi, who he was riding with. ‘Are they affected by the sun?’

Smiling, Gandhi said, ‘No, they are affected by life.

Sometimes a person feels its worth and joy so keenly that their only recourse is to express the emotion through laughter.’

‘But aren’t they scared of what awaits us in the temple?’ Ranjit asked.

‘No doubt they are. But sometimes fear of the danger to come makes a person appreciate life all the more.’

It was the cry for help which finally snapped the Doctor and Donna out of it. As they approached a thickly wooded area of neem trees, they heard someone yell, ‘Get away! Help! Heeeeelp!’

‘That’s a kid,’ Donna said, but the Doctor had already leaped down from his elephant and was sprinting through the trees. He dodged between trunks and hurdled bushes, before bursting into a clearing. The abandoned temple loomed on the far side, but this wasn’t what claimed his immediate attention.

Directly in front of him, standing with his back to the Doctor, was a boy holding a catapult. Closing in on the boy were at least thirty monkeys, all of which were hideously enlarged, their bodies made monstrous by zytron energy.

Clearly whatever was responsible for the leakage was close by. The physical symptoms were more advanced in these creatures than in the patients the Doctor had seen at the hospital. The monkeys were smothered in black

lumps, some to such an extent that they could move only with extreme difficulty. They snarled and bared their teeth as they advanced; some were salivating like rabid dogs.

‘Hello,’ the Doctor said quietly to the boy. ‘What’s your name then?’

He had made plenty of noise crashing through the trees, but the boy’s attention must have been focused on the threat in front of him. He spun round now with a shocked cry, firing his catapult instinctively. The Doctor ducked and the rock flew past his head and took a chunk out of a nearby tree.

‘Whoa there, Dennis the Menace,’ the Doctor said mildly. ‘One thing I definitely don’t need is a side parting.’ He glanced at the monkeys, which were still edging forward. ‘So what do they call you then?’

‘Cameron Campbell,’ replied the boy.

‘Right then, Cameron Campbell, I want you to come over here and stand behind me. But do it slowly.

Understand?’

Cameron nodded and did as the Doctor asked. A couple of the bigger monkeys hissed and scuttled forward, their twisted, lopsided movement making them look like giant injured spiders rather than primates.

The Doctor produced his sonic and clamped it between his teeth. Then he used both hands to delve into his jacket pockets. In a muffled voice he said, ‘Now where did I put… aha!’

He produced a small, brightly coloured pyramid with a wick sticking out of the top. He spat his sonic back into his palm and used it to light the wick.

The pyramid fizzed and crackled, shooting out multicoloured sparks. Almost casually the Doctor tossed it into the middle of the advancing monkeys.

‘I’d shut your eyes if I were you,’ he told Cameron.

Suddenly there was a
fla-thoomp!
sound and ripples of multicoloured light radiated outwards from the fizzing pyramid. Screaming in alarm, the monkeys scattered in all directions, disappearing into the trees and bushes.

‘And don’t come back!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘There’s more where that came from.’ He looked down at Cameron. ‘You can open your eyes now.’

Cameron did so, blinking up at him. Before he could speak there was a rustling noise behind them, and Donna, Gandhi, Gopal, Ranjit and one of Gandhi’s attendants emerged from the bushes.

‘We saw a light,’ said Donna.

‘Was it Shiva?’ asked Ranjit fearfully.

‘Nah, it was a Maluvian Rainbow Cascade. Fun for all the family,’ said the Doctor.

Cameron saw Ranjit and his eyes widened. ‘I waited for you!’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you come?’

Ranjit looked shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry. I met Bapu and told him what had happened. When he and Mr Doctor said they would come to the temple with me…’ He shook his head ‘I did not think you would come alone.’

‘Well, you thought wrong,’ said Cameron, scowling at his friend.

‘Ah well, never mind, no harm done,’ said the Doctor briskly. ‘Right, I’m off for a quick nosey in the temple.

Who’s coming with me? Not you two.’

This last remark was directed at the boys. Ranjit looked relieved, but Cameron pulled a face.

‘I haven’t come all this way for nothing,’ he protested.

‘Yeah, you have. Sorry,’ said the Doctor dismissively.

‘I will take the boys back,’ Gopal said. ‘We will wait for you by the elephants.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ said the Doctor. ‘See you in a bit.’ He strode towards the temple’s pillared entrance.

Donna hurried to catch up with him. ‘You’ve got a way with kids,’ she said heavily. ‘You ought to be a teacher.’

‘Been there, done that.’ He took a reading of the building with his sonic. ‘

‘Anything?’

‘Not sure.’ He turned to Gandhi and his attendant, who were bringing up the rear. ‘How you doing there, Mohandas?’

‘I am ready for anything,’ Gandhi said happily.

‘Good man.’

They entered the temple, which felt refreshingly cool after the hot sun. It would have been gloomy had it not been for the bands of dusty light which spilled through the cracks in the ancient stonework.

‘Doesn’t seem to be anyone home,’ she said.

‘Certainly there is no sign of Shiva’s light,’ observed Gandhi.

‘That’s probably because the zytron engines of whatever landed here have powered down,’ the Doctor speculated. ‘But let’s stay alert, people. Stick close to me.

I’m the man with the plan.’

‘And what plan’s that then?’ Donna asked.

The Doctor glanced at her and swallowed. ‘Well, the plan to… um… have a quick look round and… see what’s what.’

‘Brilliant,’ she said.

‘Sometimes the simplest plans are the best ones,’ he replied huffily.

They moved through the antechamber and into the shrine. Inside was a large open space with an altar at the far end. Aside from the archetypal Indian designs carved into the stonework, the layout wasn’t all that different from the churches back home, Donna thought.

What seemed immediately clear to her was that the temple was empty and deserted, that whatever might have been here a week ago had now gone. She was about to say as much when she became aware of a strange silvery shimmer in the air. When the shimmer faded, a vast creature was standing in front of the altar.

She gasped, recognising the creature instantly. It was a massive, flame-red arachnid, from the front of which, rearing from the abdomen like a figurehead on a ship, was a vaguely humanoid female torso, encased in a ridged, armour-like exoskeleton. Instead of hands the ‘spider-woman’ had lethal-looking spikes, and her parody of a human face was set in a grinning snarl, the slavering mouth filled with jagged teeth, the eyes black and staring.

There were more eyes, a whole row of them, on the crown-like crest that jutted above the spider-woman’s brow.

Donna clutched the Doctor’s arm, her legs turning to water. ‘Oh my God, Doctor, it’s the Racnoss,’ she said.

The Doctor looked at her curiously, but said nothing.

On the other side of him, Gandhi’s attendant had fallen to his knees and bowed his head. ‘Shiva, forgive me, Shiva, forgive me,’ he muttered over and over again.

Gandhi was standing at the Doctor’s shoulder, staring up as though mesmerised.

‘What do you see, Mohandas?’ the Doctor asked quietly.

‘I see a great darkness, Doctor,’ Gandhi said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘A great darkness descending on the world.’

The Doctor nodded grimly and held up his sonic. ‘Well, all I see is a door that needs opening. Cover your ears.’

The sonic began to shriek, its blue tip glowing so brightly it was almost white.

Donna saw the Empress of the Racnoss flicker and distort, like a bad TV picture. Then the massive creature shattered into a million silvery fragments, which seemed to be instantly sucked into a central point, like dust into the nozzle of a powerful vacuum cleaner. A second later there was no evidence that the Racnoss had ever been there. The temple was empty and silent once more.

The central flight deck of the alien craft resembled a cave of smooth black rock, filled with a glowing plastic web interlaced with silvery-black lumps of metal. Pulsing strands and filaments snaked everywhere – some lashed together in knotted clumps; some trailing across the ridged floor like jungle vines; some hanging in fleshy loops from the uneven walls and ceiling. The metallic elements fused into the web most closely resembled machines, or bits of machines, that had melted and reformed many times over.

They were studded with spines and nodules that glittered and flickered with intermittent ripples of milky light.

The impression was that of an amateurish botch-job, a tangled lash-up of random elements that couldn’t possibly work. And yet it
did
work, the craft’s intricately interwoven systems united by one crucial component.

That component, ensconced in its messy cradle of technology, like a hospital patient hooked up to a dozen life-support machines, was the alien which had piloted the ship to Earth.

Right now the alien was agitated, having been caught unawares by the sonic attack. Its scans had revealed the inhabitants of this planet to be a level 2 species, yet the sonic attack had been consistent with a level 6 civilisation.

If it hadn’t been for the presence of its quarry, the pilot might not even have bothered setting the sensors which were linked to the displacement system. Fortunately, the sensors had interpreted the sonic attack as a hostile action and had automatically issued a relocation directive.

But the source of the sonic device still bothered the pilot. It didn’t think its quarry possessed such an instrument – unless it had stolen technology far in advance of its own. If so, then its quarry could prove more dangerous than had been anticipated. The pilot decided that steps would have to be taken if it didn’t want to be caught out a second time.

It sent out a thought-pulse to initiate a level 6

technology scan, and received the results within seconds.

Negative. Which meant that the sonic device was now inactive. It sent out another pulse, priming the scanners to detect any re-occurrence of sonic energy waves.

Now if the sonic device was activated again it would be ready.

‘So what
was
that thing in the temple?’ Donna asked.

They were sitting on the elephants again, heading back

to camp. Since the Racnoss had disappeared, the Doctor had been deep in thought, responding to her questions with little more than grunts. She had been patient up to now, but if he didn’t give her some proper answers soon she’d explode.

He blinked at her, as if roused from sleep. ‘It was a glamour,’ he said.

‘And what’s one of those when it’s at home?’

‘It’s a…’ He glanced at Gandhi, his attendants, Gopal and the two boys, all of whom were looking at him with interest. He pulled a face, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy, and then sighed, deciding as ever that the best policy was to plough on regardless.

‘It’s a kind of psychic shield,’ he said. ‘It was developed by the Kladdavoreesh to protect themselves from the squillions of predators on their planet.’ He grimaced. ‘Nasty planet, Kladdavor. Once got invited to a feasting ceremony just outside the Toxic Zone. Never again. Anyway, once word got about, glamour technology was copied, developed and adapted by loads of different species, often for military use or criminal gain.’