Doctor Who: Dragonfire (9 page)

'It's the dragon! Get back!'

Stumbling and slipping, Glitz and the Doctor ran back towards the bulkhead door. The Creature lunged after them, and another two beams of fire pierced the air and burst on the ice just over the Doctor's shoulder. The Doctor and Glitz dived through the bulkhead door.

'Help me close the door, Doctor!'

The Creature was advancing down the passage towards them, as the Doctor and Glitz heaved on the door. Finally, it swung shut, and Glitz pushed the sealing bolts home. Exhausted, he fell back against the door and looked at the Doctor. 'Well, now that we've found the Dragonfire, what's next on the map's list of tourist attractions, Doctor?' But the Doctor's attention was fixed on a lower quarter of the door.

'Ah - I'm not absolutely certain that this one is over yet...'

Glitz followed the Doctor's gaze, and saw a small spot on the door that was beginning to burn through. Quickly, the hole worked its way around the edge of the door.

'Fascinating,' murmured the Doctor. 'It must be generating a spot temperature in excess of 1500 °C

Glitz felt a sudden cold chill that was nothing to do with the ice all around - it was the chill of death. He turned to the Doctor for possibly the last time. He would have preferred to die some other way - full of glory - but at least he wouldn't die alone. 'I've never been one for mindless heroic gestures, Doctor. Couldn't see any future in them. But just in case I don't get another opportunity to say this: you're all right by me.'

The Doctor turned to look at Glitz, and was about to say something when Glitz interrupted him. 'Stand back, Doctor.' A neat line of scorched metal ran round the outside edge of the door, and was beginning to splinter as the Creature heaved against it from the other side. Glitz fingered the trigger of his gun. The doorway burst in.

Glitz raised his gun and braced himself. There stood the Creature, in the doorway, right in Glitz's line of fire. He squeezed on the trigger.

'No!' The Doctor grabbed Glitz's arm and pulled it away. Glitz's shot exploded into the wall.

'Doctor!' cried Glitz in terror and amazement. He tried to pull his arm back, but the Doctor held on.

'No, Glitz - don't!'

Glitz waited for the beam of fire that would certainly kill them both.

Nothing happened.

The Creature was standing in the doorway, looking at the Doctor and Glitz uncertainly; they were at its mercy, if it wanted to kill them.

Instead, the Creature backed away, and lumbered off into the shadows.

Soon, its rasping breath was gone, and the passages were silent again.

Glitz looked at the Doctor. 'Why?'

The Doctor spoke with the quiet conviction of absolute certainty, the certainty of one who has seen all the terrors of the universe. 'Because we don't have the right to kill - ever.'

'But why didn't it kill us?'

'Perhaps we'd better ask it...'

In the Cryogenics Chamber, Belazs was wandering silently amongst the inert figures in their shadowy tubes. Her expression was sombre.

'Can't sleep, Belazs?'

Belazs started, and turned to see Kracauer step out of the shadows. His voice was warm and honeyed. 'Bad dreams again? Or good dreams?'

Belazs didn't reply, but continued to wander amongst the tubes. Then she turned back to Kracauer. 'How old do you think I am, Kracauer?'

Kracauer shrugged. 'Thirty-three... thirty-four...'

'And how old do you think I was when I first agreed to join Kane?'

Kracauer just shrugged.

Belazs's voice was hard and bitter. 'Sixteen... That was a long time ago.'

She held the palm of her hand up to Kracauer. He saw the scar branded deep in her flesh. 'Look at it, Kracauer.'

'The mark of Kane's sovereign.' His voice had turned cold.

'How many years do you think the scar will stay, Kracauer? You'd have thought that after nearly twenty years it would begin to disappear. But no.' She grabbed Kracauer's own arm, and twisted it round, so that he was forced to gaze at his own mark. Her voice was an intense whisper.

'How many years, Kracauer? A whole lifetime?' She let go of his arm and turned away. 'How many years before the mark goes away? Does it ever go away?'

Kracauer slowly lowered his arm. 'We sold ourselves. We knew what we were doing. We had a choice.'

'I was sixteen!'

'Even at sixteen, we had a choice.'

'And we still have a choice! We can choose to leave. He can't own us for ever.'

'People have chosen to leave before. They didn't live long. Death followed them, and caught them up.'

'Only as long as he is alive. If he dies, the mark dies with him!'

'His blood temperature is minus 200 °C. Touch one part of his flesh with yours and your living tissue will die. How do you propose to kill him?'

'With heat! Even here in Iceworld, it's too warm for him. I've seen inside the Restricted Zone. It's where he keeps his refrigeration unit. He has to return there whenever his body temperature rises too high.

Destroy his refrigeration unit, Kracauer, and he'll die!'

Kracauer saw flames of hatred burning in Belazs's eyes. He smiled.

Ace had cleaned the large cut on Mel's head, and then produced a small camping fire and some chemicals out of her canvas shoulder bag.

The two women now sat in silence, their faces lit by the flickering glow of the flames, Ace intent on her chemical reactions, and Mel watching her. Mel spoke.

'I don't know how to say thank you...'

Ace felt uncomfortable, and she bit her lip and continued heating liquids.

'You saved my life, Ace.'

'Look, you're putting me off.' Ace's voice sounded slightly annoyed.

Why was Mel trying to embarrass her like this?

'Sorry.'

Ace relaxed. Maybe Mel wasn't trying to embarrass her at all. 'Yeah, well... It all balances out on the end.' She continued mixing chemicals, and her mind wandered back to Perivale. 'Do you know what I did for a job when they threw me out of school?'

'No.'

'I worked as a waitress in a fast-food cafe. Day in, day out, the same boring routine. The same boring life. It was all wrong. It didn't feel like me that was doing it at all. I felt like I'd fallen from another planet, and landed in this strange girl's body, but it wasn't me at all. I was meant to be somewhere else. Each night, I'd walk home, and I'd look up at the stars through the gaps in the clouds. And I'd try to imagine where I really came from. What my real Mum and Dad were doing. What my real body was doing - not this awkward, clumsy, spotty thing that I was stuck inside. I used to look up at the stars, and dream that one day everything would come right. One day something would come and take me back home. Back to my real home.' She sighed miserably. 'Then it really happened... and I ended up here. Ended up working as a boring waitress again. Only this time, I couldn't dream of going nowhere else.

There wasn't

nowhere else to go.' She looked up at Mel, and saw that Mel was smiling. Ace flared up angrily. 'Here - what you laughing for?'

Mel shook her head dreamily. 'Because you just described the way I used to feel five years ago, when I was a teenager. How I still feel, sometimes. How everybody feels sometimes.'

Ace relented, and looked down at the fire. She stared into the dancing flames. 'There's something I've never told anybody. Do you promise not to laugh, and not tell no one?' She looked up at Mel, with large, trusting eyes.

'Never.'

'My name... it's not really Ace. My real name's Dorothy.' She suddenly looked anxious. 'That's how I knew they couldn't be my real Mum and Dad. My real Mum and Dad would never have given me a naff name like Dorothy. Don't you see?'

Mel smiled sympathetically.

Ace's anxiety melted away, and she smiled in return. She turned to pack away the chemicals. 'Come on then, Doughnut. Time to move.'

Kane's body was growing warm again, and the atmosphere of Iceworld clung to him oppressively. He returned to his cabinet in the Restricted Zone to cool down again. The statue sparkled with an intoxicating beauty as Kane passed it. He turned to look at it. 'One day, when we return home, I shall erect colossal statues in your honour. The final act of your killers will be to kneel in front of the monuments, and see the past rewritten! I promise you this.'

He turned away from the statue, and lay in his refrigeration cabinet.

The lid closed, and the automatic voice began to intone the temperature. 'Ambient cabinet temperature: minus 10 °C. Target temperature: minus 193 °C. Cabinet temperature falling... minus 20

°C... minus 30 °C..." The voice continued as Kane closed his eyes. '... minus 70 °C... minus 80 °C...'

A figure emerged from the shadows: Kracauer. He approached the cabinet, and looked inside. Through the transparent lid, he saw Kane lying dormant inside. A control column stood a few metres away.

Kracauer inspected it and located the thermostat controls. He reset them for 30 °C above ice. The voice continued to monitor the temperature, '... minus 175°C... minus 180°C... minus 185 °C... minus 185 °C. Steady at minus 185 °C. Ambient cabinet temperature: minus 185 °Candrising... minus 180°C... minus 175 °C...' But Kane was unconscious, and didn't hear the voice.

Mel and Ace reached a fork in the Ice Passage, and stopped to decide which way to go. 'Down there?' guessed Mel, pointing down one passage.

Ace shrugged. 'I suppose so.'

'Ah, Mel - you've brought my umbrella, I see!'

Mel spun round to see the Doctor striding out of aside passage.

'Doctor!'

'Professor!' cried Ace, with a broad smile. Then her face fell as she saw Glitz following the Doctor. 'Bilgebag,' she sneered.

'Sprog,' countered Glitz.

'No squabbling, now,' interrupted the Doctor, before Ace and Glitz could start fighting. 'There's no place for animosity in a serious scientific undertaking.'

'You mean the dragon?' inquired Mel.

'Actually, it doesn't seem to be a dragon at all,' explained the Doctor. 'It seems to be more of a semi-organic vertebrate with a highly developed cerebral cortex.'

Ace was jumping up and down with excitement. 'And it's got laser beams in its eyes, and it tried to kill us!'

The Doctor turned to Ace. 'Did it really? Hmm, I wonder what you did to annoy it?'

'It just came at us, Professor! No warning!'

'Well, let's see what this vertebrate with laser beams in its eyes has got to say for itself, shall we?' The Doctor strode off down the passage, but after a few steps found his way blocked. He looked up, and found himself staring into the lifeless face of one of the crewmen sent after Mel and Ace. The Doctor raised his hat politely. 'Ah! Hello, and where might you have popped up from, then?'

'Don't argue with it, Doctor,' called Mel. 'Run!'

The Doctor quickly replaced his hat. 'Well, can't stop. My young friend says we should be running along now -and she's usually right in these matters.'

The four companions turned to escape back up the Ice Passage, but a crew-woman lurched out of the first side passage, blocking their escape. The companions turned back, and tried to escape down the second fork of the passage, but another crewman appeared in that exit.

They were completely surrounded by the five crewmen and women.

'What do they want with us?' asked the Doctor.

'They've been sent by Kane,' explained Mel.

'He's got masses of them frozen in his deep freeze!' added Ace.

'Cryogenics, eh?' muttered the Doctor, as the crewmen and women began to advance.

Glitz peered at the first crewman. There was something familiar... 'Hang about. I'd recognise this mutinous rabble anywhere!'

'Friends of yours, are they?' asked Ace sarcastically.

Glitz turned to address the murderous zombies. 'Lads, lasses, you won't believe how pleased I am to see you again.' The crewmen and women halted, and turned slowly to look at Glitz. He stepped forward to speak to them. 'Surely you remember me - Glitz? The times we had together.

Don't you remember?' The crewmen and women stared blankly at Glitz.

'It's no use, Glitz,' explained the Doctor. 'Ace says they've been cryogenically frozen.'

Glitz ignored the Doctor, and tried to make contact with his former crew. 'Don't you remember that time we bought a load of vegetables cheap, and then discovered they were ferocious biting vegetables from Vega-3!' He turned with feigned concern to one of the crew-women.

'By the way, Winterbottom, how are the bite-marks getting along? Can you manage to sit down now?' There was no movement in the crew-woman's expression.

'It's no use,' the Doctor tried to explain. 'Deep cryogenesis causes sclerosis of the conscious neural pathways.'

'What about that time we captured a space freighter, and then discovered it was carrying natural fruit alcohol? We got well dehydrated that night, eh?' The crewmen and women continued to stare blankly at Glitz, as though they hadn't heard him.

'It's completely impossible for them to recall any events prior to cryogenesis.'

But there was a flicker in the face of the tallest crewman. 'I remember,'

he said in a slow, dull voice.

The Doctor turned on the crewman in amazement. 'In fact, there's only one possible exception to this -'

'I remember how you left us behind once on a barren asteroid...'

'- and that's in the case of overpowering anger and hatred!'

The overpowering anger and hatred began to force its way into the face of the tall crewman, who turned to look at Glitz with venom. 'I remember how you always got first choice of our pickings.'

Glitz began to get worried. 'Really? I don't recall...'

'I remember, I remember how you sold us to Kane, to be frozen as mercenaries.'

'Lads, lasses, come on - a joke's a joke.'

The crewmen and women began to advance on the four companions with hatred in their eyes.

'I thought they were friends of yours, Bilgebag?'

'Well, more acquaintances actually.'

The tall crewman drew his gun, and raised it in front of him. Glitz turned away, not daring to look.