Doctor Who BBCN10 - The Nightmare of Black Island (18 page)

Rose sighed. She had known that this was going to be the tricky bit ever since the Doctor had outlined his plan. They were sitting in the old-fashioned kitchen of the pub, a welcome refuge from the cacophony of the bar. Ali sat draped in an old tartan blanket, a huge mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Her parents sat protectively on either side of her. They had barely let her out of their sight since she had got back inside the house.

Rose had changed into an old sweatshirt and some tracksuit bottoms that Beth had lent her, feeling warm for the first time in what seemed like an age. She drained the last dregs of coffee from her mug.

‘Look, I know that this is hard for you, but the Doctor says. . . ’

129

‘The Doctor says. . . ’ Mervyn slammed his palm down on the table, sending cutlery flying. ‘He went up there to rescue Ali and now you just want to put her in danger again?’

‘She’s not going to be in any danger!’ Rose was getting exasperated now. ‘I told you, there’s a transmitter in the old lighthouse. That’s what’s been causing the nightmares. That’s what’s been controlling you, stopping you sorting this out for yourselves. All we’ve got to do is knock it out and the Cynrog are powerless.’

‘The Cynrog.’ Mervyn snorted. ‘Aliens with masks that live in the rectory.’

‘Yes! Disable the transmitter and it stops whatever they’re up to.’

‘Then why don’t I just go up there with a big hammer and smash the thing?’

‘No!’ Rose banged her mug down. ‘That won’t help.’

The Doctor had explained to her that simply destroying the transmitter wasn’t going to do any good. Worse, it might trigger something that affected the kids permanently. It had to be disabled carefully and precisely, he had been very clear about that. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, placing it on the dining table in front of her.

‘This is what’s gonna do the job. This and someone small enough to get where it needs to be used.’ She nodded at Ali. ‘She can do it. Just let her come with me and we can finish this.’

‘No.’

‘Mr Hardy. . . ’

‘I said no!’ Mervyn rose to his feet, knocking his chair backwards.

‘I’m warning you, girl. . . ’

‘Or what?’ Rose could feel her own anger building now. ‘What are you gonna do? Hit me? Throw me out? We’re the ones trying to help you. Me and the Doctor. If you’re too stupid to listen to what we have to say. . . ’

‘Stop it!’ Ali’s voice was shrill and piercing. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’

She pulled at her father’s sleeve. ‘Why are you shouting at Rose, Dad? She can stop it. She and the Doctor can stop the monsters!’

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Mervyn stared down at his daughter, not knowing what to say to her. Ali leaned across and picked up the sonic screwdriver, turning it over in her hand carefully. She looked up at Rose.

‘Can this thing really fix everything? Make it like it was before?’

Rose nodded. ‘The Doctor’s told me exactly what he wants us to do, but we’ve got to hurry.’

Ali hopped down off her chair. ‘Well, let’s go, then.’

‘Ali, no. . . ’

Mervyn reached out for his daughter, but she stepped away from him.

‘Dad, I don’t want nightmares every night. I’m tired of being afraid to go to sleep and letting the monsters get out. I want to be able to play with my friends without being scared. I don’t want you and Mum worrying about me.’

She looked over to her mother. ‘Mum, I know you cry every night.

I don’t want you to be unhappy because of me. Rose and the Doctor can put it right. I want to do something to help. Please. Let me do something. I’m not a little girl any more.’

She turned to Rose. ‘What is it that you want me to do?’

The Doctor watched as Morton hauled himself painfully up the stairs, step after agonising step, towards the wheelchair that waited for him on the landing. One of the masked Cynrog reached down to help him, but he batted the proffered hand away angrily and slumped breathless into the ancient metal-framed chair.

The Doctor studied the old man carefully. He had refused all offers of help, determined to make the climb on his own. Peyne had rung down to his office from the cumbersome old phone that sat on the table on the landing. The Doctor hadn’t heard what had been said on the other end, but it wasn’t difficult to work out.

Then Peyne had stood in the doorway of the room, her unpleasant little disintegrator gun pointed squarely at the Doctor’s chest, patiently waiting as Morton made his creaking progress up the once grand staircase.

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‘Stubborn, isn’t he?’ the Doctor whispered conspiratorially to Peyne as Morton wiped his brow. He raised his voice. ‘You should get a stair lift. Make things much easier in a big place like this. Get Miss Peyne here to send for a catalogue.’

Morton wheeled himself over to where the Doctor stood, staring up at him with contempt. ‘Always keen on airing your ideas, aren’t you, Doctor?’

‘Oh, you’ll find I’m full of good ideas, Mr Morton. Bursting with

’em. Everyone a winner.’

‘But you’re not a winner, Doctor, and it is we who are bursting with ideas. At this very moment Miss Peyne and her colleagues are working hard to put right the little hiccup that you’ve created and then, I’m afraid, it’s business as usual.’

‘And what might your business be, Mr Morton?’ The Doctor dropped down on to his haunches, bringing his face level with Morton’s. ‘Al-lying yourself with the Cynrog? Filling the lighthouse with psychic transmitters? oh yes, I’ve been doing a little digging, turning up all sorts of interesting things, and I really don’t like what I’m finding. Not one little bit.’

He leaned closer to Morton, staring him full in the face.

‘But what’s it all for, eh? You’re not doing all this just to terrify a village full of children.’

‘It is a. . . necessary evil, Doctor.’

‘No, Nathaniel, it is not necessary.’ The Doctor’s voice was low and dangerous now, all sense of flippancy gone. ‘It is very
un
necessary. It is a sick, twisted game and it is going to stop.’

‘You think so, Doctor? You think you have all the answers?’ A grim smile flickered over Morton’s lined face. ‘Well, come and see the prize in our. . . game, as you put it.’

Morton spun his wheelchair and rolled across the landing. Peyne pushed the barrel of her blaster into the back of the Doctor’s neck, catching him by the collar and hauling him to his feet. She marched him along the corridor, following Morton and his creaking chair.

‘I’m told that your people were well travelled, Doctor.’ The old man’s voice echoed down the dusty corridor. ‘That they roamed the 132

reaches of time and space, eternally youthful. My own short span has had precious little youth, and the breadth of my wandering has been confined to this one small planet, but look at what we have created.’

He threw open the doors of the library.

‘Behold, the great Balor! Dark God of the Cynrog, Destroyer of Worlds!’

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The Doctor stepped into the crackling, electrically charged air of the library and gave a whistle of admiration.

‘Oh, now that’s impressive. Really, really impressive. I’m gonna give you eleven out of ten for that. Building a big monster in the library. A really
big
monster.’

He pulled out his glasses and perched them on the end of his nose, peering at the monstrosity that hung among the lightning flashes.

‘Doesn’t seem quite finished to me, though.

Lacking a few final

touches, hm?’

He paced slowly around the creature, squinting through the flickering light, watching as waves of energy rolled across it, modifying its form with every pass.

‘Can’t quite make your mind up on the details by the look of it. I mean, I know what it’s like choosing a body you’re happy with!’

He dived over to a cluster of silver machinery on one of the tables, hefting a bunch of cables in his hands.

‘Lot of power being channelled up here.’ He sniffed at the cable, then ran his tongue along it. ‘Mmm, psychomorphic radiation! Psychomorphic! Honestly! Anyone would think that you were trying to 135

manufacture a body.’

He dropped the cables with a bang.

‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re building a body, but that’s all it is at the moment – a body, a shell, a vessel.’ He snapped his fingers at the creature. ‘Oil Big fella! Anyone home?’

The creature didn’t stir. The Doctor turned back to Morton thoughtfully.

‘A decidedly empty vessel.’

Morton clapped his hands slowly. ‘Bravo, Doctor, bravo.’

‘What’s it for, Morton?’

‘As you have correctly surmised, Doctor, it is – or rather, it nearly is

– a body manufactured for inhabitation by a new soul.’

‘But for whose soul?’ The Doctor cast a wary look at Peyne. ‘You mentioned the name Balor. I seem to remember a rather unpleasant figure from Cynrog mythology named Balor. Now, let me see if I’ve got this right. Balor, the general of the Cynrog hordes, left for dead after the battle of Grantran Prime, then revived through one of your questionable accelerated genetic-mutation experiments and revered as a god. Something like that anyway. I do hope you haven’t been having RE lessons from Miss Peyne here?’

Peyne hissed unpleasantly. ‘Be respectful in the way you refer to our god, Time Lord.’

‘You
have
been listening to Miss Peyne. That’s a great shame. . . ’

‘On the contrary, Doctor, Peyne has been a great comfort to me over the years.’

‘Nathaniel, listen to me,’ The Doctor’s voice was urgent now. ‘Whatever Peyne has told you, whatever she has promised you, the Cynrog are not to be trusted. They are vicious, brutal killers, they –’

‘They saved my life, Doctor! My life and the lives of all those in the ward!’

‘What?’ The Doctor eyed Peyne suspiciously. ‘What possible reason could you have for getting involved in human affairs? What are you doing with those people downstairs?’

‘You understand nothing, Doctor.’ There was contempt in the Cynrog commander’s voice. ‘You are so typical of your race, blundering in 136

with your high moral stance, acting as judge and jury to the universe.

We are well rid of your kind.’

‘Doctor, listen to me!’ Morton’s voice was pleading now. ‘Listen to the reasons for this. Perhaps then you will have some understanding of what we have had to endure. Of what I have had to endure.’

The Doctor fixed Morton with a piercing gaze. ‘Tell me.’

Morton leaned back in his chair, his eyes misting with remem-brance. ‘I was ten years old. My cousin had come to Ynys Du with my aunt and uncle, a holiday by the sea.’

The Doctor did a quick calculation. ‘The 1930s?’

‘It was 1935. A glorious summer. We were full of the joys of youth, Doctor. Seven of us, good friends, happy children, not so different from those that play in the streets of Ynys Du today.’

‘Except that you and your friends weren’t tormented by creatures.’

‘Oh, but we were, Doctor. Tormented by a creature more terrible than you can imagine.’

‘What happened to you, Morton?’ The Doctor’s voice was gentler now. ‘What did you see?’

‘The seven of us had left our parents in the village. They were too busy with their gossip and their shopping. And my father and uncle were far too interested in the local beer to pay any attention to their errant offspring. We made our way up towards the cliff top – Ynys Du was a good deal smaller then, the woods closer, a haven of cool shadows. My cousin was never a good influence. He had stolen half a dozen cigarettes from my uncle’s jacket pocket. It had been our intention to hide in the woods and smoke them.’ Morton gave a grim smile. ‘They say that cigarettes are bad for your health. If I had known the consequences of that particular illicit cigarette. . . ’

He closed his eyes, as if willing the past back to life. ‘We sat on the edge of the wood, smoking our cigarettes, laughing at the younger ones coughing and spluttering, watching the sun on the waves. And then we saw it, low on the horizon, a blaze of light, pulsing, throbbing.

At first we thought it was just light glinting on some great ship in the far distance, but the closer it came, the more we realised that this was no earthly ship.’

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‘A spacecraft.’

Morton opened his eyes. ‘It was just magnificent, Doctor, a vast disc of copper and bronze skimming over the sea. We sat watching it approach, mesmerised by its beauty, realising only far, far too late that the occupant of this magnificent machine had no control over his craft and what danger we were in.’

‘It crashed?’

Morton nodded. ‘We thought that it would smash into the cliff face, but at the last moment it lurched skyward, skimming the tree tops so close that I thought we would be able to reach out and touch it. We watched it arc overhead, and then it started to fall. We ran, terrified, as it smashed through the trees, the sound of tortured engines ringing in our ears. And then it exploded, throwing us all to the ground, splintering trees like toothpicks. We were lucky that day, or so we thought. We survived the explosion. If we had picked a slightly different spot for our nefarious activities. . . ’ Morton shrugged. ‘Then perhaps things would have ended then and there and none of this would be necessary.’