Falls the Shadow (9 page)

‘I’m easily confused.’

‘You’re a quantum physicist. It’s an occupational hazard.’

The Doctor changed the subject before Wedderburn’s doubts could grow.

‘Tell me about some of the others here,’ he asked. ‘I saw a man earlier – I didn’t have time to catch up with him. Tall, wears a mask, carries a lot of electronic equipment around with him?’

‘That’s Harry Truman. More tea?’ Wedderburn asked, receiving a nod. ‘He’s a sort of all‐
purpose, resident…’

Wedderburn’s sentence was cut short by a shrill yell from the corridor. A choked expletive turning rapidly into a scream, not of fear but of pain. The Doctor recognized the voice.

Bernice Summerfield.

The darkness
changed
. Where the first darkness had been a vast emptiness, the new dark was crushing, claustrophobic. Qxeleq could feel the walls. She could feel her body. She could
feel
! All her built‐
up fears and frustrations resolved themselves into one massive physical effort – a thrust of wings and antennae, hammering against the edges of her prison.

She exploded into the light. Light – stark and artificial – but light all the same and pleasant to her eyes. It illuminated a bizarre room, unlike anything from the world Qxeleq had known. It was too angular, lacking the graceful, soaring curves of the hive‐
structure buildings. The low ceiling left barely enough room to hover. The floor was covered in objects of a wholly incomprehensible nature. Portable murals on stretched frames; grotesque models; boxes filled with a hundred esoteric items. Many defied description.

Qxeleq saw that she wasn’t alone. A creature prowled on the edge of her senses – not one that had ever belonged to the Mind. It was mammal. Qxeleq didn’t share the squeamish antipathy to these animals felt by so many in the Hive, but this one here made her stomachs turn.

It was one of the kind that stood upright on its hind ‘legs’ – Qxeleq’s friend Xzhara kept a couple as pets, but this was twice the size and hairless – except for a clump of strands sprouting from its head. Qxeleq had never learned how to differentiate genders, but she instinctively felt that this one was a female. Its body was covered by interwoven, rigid cloaks.

In contrast to Qxeleq’s own cloaklessness, this mammal was
clothed
.

Qxeleq had been abandoned alone in a terrible, unfamiliar environment. She understood nothing, everything terrified her. In the heart of this insanity, she was presented with this sick caricature of normalcy. A mammal cloaked, mocking her. Disgusted, she hurled her full weight at the diminutive figure.

Until now the mammal had watched Qxeleq with repressed hostility. Under attack, she moved. Moved
fast
. She was smaller, more agile, better constructed for fighting than Qxeleq. She had the advantage of speed, but Qxeleq was stronger and obviously the more intelligent of the two.

The mammal took the initiative, slamming her body against Qxeleq’s brittle shell. Dull pain echoed through her body – an irritant rather than a real blow. The mammal thrashed wildly against Qxeleq’s hide. Pointless. Naked she was, but her body was naturally armoured. She took the offensive, digging her antennae into the mammal’s skin and clothes, seizing its head between her jaws. Crush the skull, twist the head off. Squeeze.

The mammal, sensing imminent death, began to beat at Qxeleq wildly. Flailing punches, stupid blows. Qxeleq didn’t care. Squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and…

Suddenly there were a hundred limbs descending towards her head. A hundred fists merged into one blow striking her left eye. A million optic nerves shrieked. Pain coursed through her head. She howled in agony, released her grip on the mammal’s head, hurling the creature across the room like a toy. The mammal’s body smashed into a pile of boxes on the far side of the room. Then she lay still.

The pain seared the left‐
limb side of her face. Her vision had become blurred, chaotic fragments. Instinctively she began to stretch her wings – to fly away, escape into the hiveroof – before realizing how useless it would be in this
cupboard
. She wanted to leave. Run away somewhere where the pain would die.

The darkness was before her. Qxeleq embraced it.

Then there was no pain.

Ace scrambled back to her feet and her senses. Her ribs were tender and bruised, there was a blood taste on her lips, but there was nothing broken. That was luck, she realized with a hint of self‐
loathing. The insect might have been slow – and Ace was the one packing the brains and human ingenuity – but it had been a big bastard, armoured like a tank, vicious with it. Given enough time it could have taken her apart. She’d been lucky hitting the eye, wounding it. It was crawling back into the cabinet – retreating to its hole. Satisfied it was completely inside, Ace leapt forward, slamming herself against the doors, trapping it.

There was no pressure on the doors, no resistance from inside. Not now, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t get hungry again. She wanted to avoid another fight if she could help it – no point in getting her head torn off for nothing – so she cast round the room for something to jam the cabinet shut. Questions formed in her mind, irritating questions without simple answers. Where had the insect come from? It was too bloody big to fit inside comfortably, maybe the cabinet was at the wrong end of a transmat gate? Maybe it was dimensionally transcendental? Where did it fit with the other weird shit? There had to be a link. Somewhere.

A voice broke into her train of thought. Smooth, resonant, disdainful.

‘Perhaps it’s the burglar season, Cranleigh. We seem to be suffering from a plague of them. Maybe we should set traps?’

It came from the doorway. Careful to keep her back pressed against the cabinet, Ace craned forward to see the newcomer. A tall man in a dinner‐
jacket with a grotesque blank for a face. It was grinning perversely, but the eyes behind the mask were glaring with contempt. Behind him, a second man – casually dressed, casually attractive. He too stared at Ace, without the obvious disgust of his masked colleague, without any emotion whatsoever. His body was hunched and twisting, as if he was forcing himself to seem small.

‘Come away from the wardrobe. Keep your arms by your sides,’ the masked man ordered, not bothering to look at her. As if she wasn’t at all important. She disliked his manner immediately, and shook her head in defiance.

‘I’m warning you,’ he continued, bored, ‘my friend is a dangerous psychotic who could rend you limb from limb at the slightest provocation.’ Ace’s eyes flicked automatically to the second man, who smiled meekly, avoiding eye contact.

‘What planet’re you from?’ she growled at the mask.

‘Move away,’ the mask repeated, ‘slowly.’

‘You’re in charge here,’ Ace continued in a low, dangerous voice. ‘You’re behind all this. You know exactly what’s going on, don’t you?’

The mask said nothing.

‘People who wear masks,’ Ace continued, her temper slipping into her voice, ‘have something to hide.’

Still nothing.

‘I know what’s in this box,’ she yelled. ‘We know everything you’re up to. Me and the Doctor, we’re going to sort you out!’

‘The Doctor?’ the voice asked lightly, mask cocked to an angle, so that he was looking directly at her. Ace bit her lip, realizing what she’d given away.

‘That was the man in the corridor.’ Mumblings from the dangerous psycho. ‘That was his name. His name that was his. Name his that was. What his name that? Wame nat hos.’

‘So what’s in the box?’ The mask’s tones were smooth and goading. Calling her bluff. She could deal with that.

‘Insect.’ Ace tried to sound nonchalant. ‘Don’t think I haven’t seen it. Freak. Monster. Bit like you.’

The mask said nothing for a while.

‘Original, but hardly plausible,’ he said, finally, moving towards her. Ace slipped into a defensive posture, glaring aggressively.

‘Don’t,’ she warned, ‘come,’ (he wasn’t listening), ‘any,’ (still coming), ‘closer!’ She smashed a fist into his stomach. The mask reeled – not as much as Ace hoped. She’d misjudged the…

An arm smashed across her face. A knee embedded itself in her stomach. She bent double, collapsing to the floor in agony, nose bleeding. It hurt. The masked man was quick. He’d lashed out with a force that came hand‐
in‐
hand with pleasure. Under normal circumstances Ace would leap up and castrate him with her bare hands. Normal circumstances didn’t involve giant insects trying to unscrew her head – she didn’t want another fight now. She’d lose, for one thing. So she lay still, waiting for the pain to subside.

‘Let’s see the monster, shall we?’ The mask flung open the cabinet doors with a flourish.

The cabinet was empty.

‘What a shocking waste of space.’ The doors slammed. The blank non‐
features of the mask swam into view, leering down at Ace. ‘Get up.’

Ace made an act of standing up, glaring at her attacker. It was the only resistance she felt able to put up. That and a contemptuous dismissal, spat through clenched teeth.

‘I was wrong – you’re not in charge. You’re a hired thug.’

‘Ladies first,’ the mask said wearily, indicating the door.

Cranleigh lingered after Truman had taken the burglar away. There was something about the woman’s story that struck a chord. Monsters living in cabinets, like a dream he’d once had, or a story he’d heard. He stole over to the cabinet, placing shaking hands on the handles.

The woman had been lying. The box was empty. He’d seen it. But there was a part of him that wanted another look, desperately wishing the story to be true. He pulled at the doors, certain of disappointment.

He stared into the cabinet, into two vastly complex compound eyes. The eyes of a monster. Grey and pink and massive, wings and tendrils, mandibles, antennae, exoskeleton like leather. A monster to end all monsters, living in his attic. The stories were true. Thank God.

Cranleigh gazed at the monster dreamily. A part of him was so happy it wanted to kiss the creature below that beautiful, infinite eye. The rest screamed, slammed the doors and fled from the room.

By the time the Doctor reached the conservatory door the yells had stopped. It didn’t matter. This was where the sound had come from. This was where Bernice Summerfield was.

The door was locked.

Wedderburn was heading towards him, not walking as such, but without the urgency that he felt the situation entailed.

‘Open the door!’ he snapped.

‘I…’

‘Are you going to open the door, or am I going to force it?’ he roared, bristling with impatience. Despite his bluster, he was still carefully observant. Wedderburn was stalling, deliberately trying to slow him down. Not out of malice, perhaps.

‘I…’ Wedderburn stalled again. The Doctor dismissed him from his thoughts and turned to the door. More haste was needed, less subtlety. A sharp application of pressure just… there. He kicked the door to one side of the lock. Wood cracked, splintered and gave way. The door swung open with a modest creak and the Doctor flung himself into the room.

The air of the conservatory was heavy with the scent of chlorophyll, the light suffused green. The floor was covered in steaming hot vegetation, growing from deep earth trays. The walls were hidden behind moist tendrils. The conservatory was sweltering – Wedderburn wasn’t sparing his heating bill. He had recreated the Amazon in miniature. His own tiny piece of paradise.

The comatose body of Bernice Summerfield lay slumped on the edge of Eden, half‐
obscured by ankle‐
deep greenery. The plants around her were writhing. They were orchids – larger than average and coloured white, brown and grey – and
moving
, thrashing about on thick but flexible stalks. A few bell‐
shaped heads bobbed up as the Doctor approached, guilty children watching a teacher bear down on them. Others ignored him, craning forward to get closer to the body.

Limp tendrils extended from the heads of the plants, attaching themselves to Benny’s exposed flesh, clustering around her neck and wrists, jostling for positions like suckling animals. Each tendril twisted and throbbed as something pink and liquid coursed through them. Benny’s skin was chalky white. The Doctor abandoned caution and smashed his way across the room towards his companion.

‘Break the feeding lines,’ Wedderburn called. ‘Try not to damage any of the flowers.’ The Doctor barely heard. He reached Benny, seized a clump of tendrils in his fist, wrenched at them. The lines remained firmly attached to Benny’s skin. A cluster of orchids surged forward, spitting more tendrils at him. They lashed at his face, nuzzling round his neck. There was a sharp pain as one managed to break the skin. He ignored the discomfort and concentrated on Benny, tearing at a single tendril until it snapped. Blood fountained from the severed end, spilling down his shirt, leaving a pink, sticky stain. It was far too much to be healthy.

‘Leeches!’ he yelled, redoubling his efforts. More tendrils were broken, more blood spilled. The broken lines plugged straight back into Benny’s bloodstream.

‘Doctor!’ Wedderburn yelled. ‘Pull her clear,
now
!’

Something heavy and wet landed in the next flower bed, others followed, slapping down in the midst of the orchids themselves. The plants stopped suddenly, as if considering. The Doctor seized the opportunity, scooping up Benny’s uncomfortably light body, dragging her out of the orchids’ reach. The tendrils fell away, latching instead on the red mounds closer to hand. There was a raw, bloody stench in the air. An easier target.

‘That should keep them distracted,’ Wedderburn said wearily, throwing another chunk of meat. The Doctor didn’t thank him. His attention was focused on Benny and the wet stains that welled up around her neck and wrists.

‘“Mutant varieties”?’ he shouted, incredulous anger directed at the botanist. ‘They’re not mutants, they’re…
alien
!’

‘They’re strange, I admit. I found quite a few mutants in the Amazon – plants and animals. But these are the weirdest.’ There was a measure of pride in Wedderburn’s reply. Too much to avoid the Doctor’s anger.

‘Don’t you realize how irresponsible you’ve been? You’re talking about them like prize‐
winners at a village fête. They could have killed her!’

‘Yes, they
are
prize‐
winners! Vampire blooms. Until recently it was our big myth.’ Wedderburn scowled, his pride stung. ‘It’s hardly my fault if someone decides to stroll in the middle of them, is it? Why d’you think I lock the door?’

The Doctor looked away, into the cold face of Benny Summerfield. She could be bleeding to death. She could be dying in his arms. Another dies,
always
another! Suddenly weary, he let his face sink into his cupped hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean… It’s just…’