Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition (7 page)

X

‘What is it, Doctor?’ Ben asked, his voice cracking high in alarm. He turned away from the hideous, glistening head of the thing, sickened.

But before the Doctor could reply, a low rumbling note sounded in the cavern, not carried by the spacesuits’ helmets.

‘There’s air in here,’ Polly realised, holding on to Ben now with both arms. ‘If we can hear something outside the helmets, there must be air, to carry the sound.’

‘Indeed,’ muttered the Doctor. A faint display flickered over the glass of his helmet. ‘Yes, and I believe it’s breathable.’

‘But Doctor,’ Ben protested, ‘you said –’

‘– that there was a vacuum in here, yes,’ said the Doctor irritably. ‘It would seem the situation has changed.’

‘It’s getting lighter, too,’ breathed Polly. The globe of her helmet knocked against Ben’s as she looked around.

Ben swallowed hard. ‘She’s right, Doctor.’ The broken glass above them was glowing now, magnifying the light the Doctor had thrown at the ceiling a hundred times.

Another deep, sonorous tone rang out, and the grating of metal on rock.

Polly looked terrified. ‘What’s happening?’

The Doctor came over to stand beside them, gesturing to the far wall where a pentagonal shape glowed with a cold sodium brightness. ‘It would appear a doorway is opening.’

Ben ripped the helmet from his suit and gulped down musty air. ‘Something’s coming?’

‘Coming to get us!’ Polly breathed as she took off her own space helmet and gripped it tightly in both hands. ‘To get us like it got that horrible thing there!’

‘Perhaps,’ said the Doctor, heavily. ‘And I wonder, did these unfortunate creatures here share in its fate?’

The Doctor was gesturing to a glassy rectangular shape standing on a raised flat dais beside the TARDIS. They’d missed it in the dark. Now, in the rippling sparkle of the growing light, Ben watched transfixed as grotesque nightmare shapes began to form inside the glass. Dark shadows gradually resolved themselves into twisted humanoid figures the same size and shape as the dead thing in the chair.

The space helmet slipped from Ben’s fingers and cracked open on the ground.

He was staring at monsters, frozen in glass at the moment of violent death.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

D
EATH
C
OMES AS THE
E
ND

I

THERE WERE NINE
of the creatures. They were massive, alien. The heavy lumpen faces were contorted in pain. Each one was dressed in once-white robes now caked black with dried blood.

Ben turned to Polly. She stared at the waxwork-like horrors for a few moments, then screamed.

The door in the wall had ground almost fully open. Golden light spilled into the chamber through the pentagonal entrance.

‘Quiet, Pol!’ Ben hissed, grabbing hold of her and turning her away from the gory sight.

‘Quickly,’ the Doctor rapped, cutting Polly off in mid-yell. ‘Back to the TARDIS!’

Ben tried to manhandle Polly, still clutching her space helmet, into the police box. But something was wrong. She wouldn’t shift. ‘Come on girl, pick your feet up,’ he urged her, fighting down the panic rising inside him.

‘I can’t move, Ben,’ Polly cried. ‘I want to, but I can’t!’

Ben felt his head start to spin, and a noise like rushing water in his ears. He left Polly and turned round to call for the Doctor to help him. The light shining through the doorway lit up the glass that housed the bloody figures. The Doctor was silhouetted against the glow. Slowly, awkwardly, he took a few steps towards Ben.

Ben turned back to Polly and found she’d vanished.

He gaped. ‘Doctor? Polly, she’s just… gone.’

‘Impossible, my boy,’ the Doctor said weakly, as he removed
his
own space helmet and placed it on the ground. ‘She can’t just have disappeared. We merely did not see her leave.’

‘What’s the difference? She’s gone!’ Ben felt stricken. The roaring noise became thicker in his ears. ‘And a few seconds ago she couldn’t move anywhere!’

But even as he spoke, the noise in Ben’s ears ebbed away, as did the dizziness. The Doctor fell into Ben’s arms suddenly like a puppet with cut strings. Ben sagged a little under his weight, but the Doctor soon recovered; Ben imagined the furious look the old man gave him was designed to cover his embarrassment at collapsing. A moment or so later his expression softened, and he looked at Ben with evident concern. Then he turned to face the open doorway, shielding Ben behind him.

A burly figure walked out of the light, dressed in a dark grey military uniform, holding a box in one hand and a dirty great gun in the other. The gory display case was between them for a few moments, then the figure moved into plain view, looking around cautiously.

‘Stone me,’ Ben muttered. ‘It’s a bird!’

The woman looked in their direction and froze. Light glinted off a sort of metal band she wore round her forehead.

‘She’s seen us,’ murmured the Doctor. He took a step forward, his hands going automatically to where his lapels would’ve been beneath his suit and floundering as they tried to grip the quilted fabric. ‘Madam,’ he began, ‘forgive me, I do hope our presence here doesn’t come at an unpropitious time?’

The woman stared at them in absolute shock for a moment.

Then she raised her gun.

II

Polly stared about fearfully. It was dark. Cold. One minute she’d been with Ben and the Doctor, and the next…

It all seemed a blur. She’d wanted to get away, so desperately, wanted to run headlong from the opening door in the wall. She’d had a feeling of flight, of disorientating movement, and then found herself here, all on her own. The fishbowl-like space helmet rocked gently on the ground at her feet.

It was a cave or something, deep underground. She’d gone to some caves once, nice and safe touristy caves, when she was eight. She’d run about the place in a bright red raincoat pretending she was a lost damsel, that there was no one else down there with her except for dragons. Except then, when she strayed too far from the crowd, when the fantasy became too scary, there was a daddy to rush back to, grown-up hands to hold. Now she was on her own. Not even with any dragons. Definitely no dragons, she told herself.

And kept telling herself.

There was only one thing to do, she knew that. To strike out on her own down these dark tunnels. To try and work out a route back to Ben and the Doctor. She could mark the walls with her lipstick… No, she was wearing this ridiculous spacesuit, no pockets. She could maybe chalk arrows on the wall? No chalk, and it was too dark to see anyway. Then inspiration hit her. She could build a little cairn of stones at the mouth of every tunnel she walked along. That might work.

Five minutes and two chipped nails later, she had made her first marker. Now, lip trembling, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she headed into the echoing dark of the tunnel.

She told herself that the whispering voices she could hear in the thick shadows were just her imagination.

III

As Ben opened his mouth to yell at the army woman to stop – a pretty pathetic gesture, but it was all he could think of to do –
another
soldier ran through the doorway. This one really was a fella, an oriental sort. He wore a headband like the woman, and like her he raised his gun in their direction, but Ben was gratified to see his real attention seemed taken by the figures on the dais.

‘Marshal.’

The woman didn’t react at the sound of his low, calm voice, but she didn’t sound happy. ‘I told you to remain where you were, Shel, covering the entrance.’

‘I thought I heard you scream,’ Shel said, still staring intently at the figures, like they were people he thought he knew.

She snorted. ‘You think I’m the screaming type?’

‘Marshal,
look
.’

‘I am looking,’ snapped the marshal. Her gun was still trained on the Doctor. ‘These aren’t droids. What the hell are these people doing here?’

‘We arrived purely by chance,’ said the Doctor, beaming benignly. Ben didn’t fancy any amount of old-world charm would work against this high-tech old bruiser. He wasn’t surprised when she didn’t smile back.

‘Not them, Marshal…’ This was Charlie Chan again. ‘
These
…’

Only now did Shel’s marshal take in the corpse in the chair to her left and the gruesome line-up to her right. After a few seconds her face finally took on some wonder at the sight. ‘Schirr bodies?’

Shel nodded. ‘They’ve been chipped. Criminals. Look at the branding on the chests.’

Ben saw from the corner of his eye that the Doctor was slowly edging towards the TARDIS doors. Not wanting to draw attention to the old boy with his eyeline, he swallowed hard and forced himself to look more closely at the bodies on the dais.

They all looked pretty similar. Each had a broad, round head, mottled pink. The eyes were milky-white and bulging, with pupils dilated to dirty red specks. The ears drooped down like
melted
wax from the smooth sides of the head, and the nose was a fat blob, nostrils thick with bristling hair. The lips were the most grotesque thing about each face, though: full and thick and rubbery, they lent the creatures a sort of obscenely sensuous appearance.

And now Ben came to look at the burst chest of the one on the far end that had taken Shel’s attention, he could see that there was some kind of weird symbol burnt into the smooth flesh above the wound. Like a long thin rectangle crossed through with a diagonal line.

‘My god,’ the marshal breathed. She lowered the gun and looked at Shel, her face a mix of emotions. ‘What kind of a trick…’

The two of them stared helplessly at the bodies in utter amazement.

The Doctor had reached the TARDIS doors. Ben clenched his fists. What was he doing, they couldn’t go without Polly –

But the doors wouldn’t open.

Ben could see the Doctor pushing with all his strength against them. Then he looked round at Ben, furiously, like it was somehow his fault.

‘No,’ said the marshal, dragging her gaze from the monsters back to the Doctor and looking oddly pleased with herself. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She raised her gun again, strode closer to them all. ‘The corpses of the most wanted criminals in all Earth’s Empire, just waiting around to be discovered by a military unit on manoeuvres? Not very likely, is it?’

Shel was frowning. ‘But Marshal –’

‘Oh, come on, Shel,’ she sneered. ‘This is a live ammo exercise, remember? DeCaster, dead? And here? It’s a trap. It has to be.’

The Doctor cleared his throat. ‘It may be a trap, yes, it may well be,’ he said airily. ‘But it is not one set by us.’

‘Is that a fact. Just who are you?’ the marshal demanded.

‘I am the Doctor.’

Ben stood to attention. ‘Able Seaman Ben Jackson, HMS
Teazer
. I mean… well, that’s my ship, see…’

He trailed off. The marshal’s face was darkening with every syllable.

‘As I mentioned earlier,’ the Doctor said quickly, ‘our party arrived here purely by chance, and one of our number –’

The woman glanced over at Shel, casually. ‘This is part of a trap. I’m going to kill them.’

‘You can’t!’ Ben protested. ‘What have we done to you?’

‘This is outrageous behaviour.’ The Doctor was clearly bristling.

The woman was unmoved by any of it.

Shel spoke gravely: ‘Marshal Haunt, that is in direct contravention of the Codes and Ethics of War.’

‘We’re on a training exercise,’ Haunt pointed out wearily.

‘That is an absurd distinction,’ the Doctor retorted. ‘Now if you’d only listen to us, Marshal… Haunt was it…?’

The name suited her, Ben decided. She was quite a big girl, around Polly’s height but stockier, and she could’ve been the jolly sort. Instead she had a troubled look about her, a pained expression in her eyes, like she’d taken some bad news in the past that had never got any better.

Shel spoke again, his voice dead calm, like they were discussing the price of tea or something. ‘Procedure is to take any civilians into safekeeping.’

‘Civilians? On this speck?’ Haunt looked unconvinced. Her space-age rifle still pointed their way.

‘We are travellers,’ the Doctor said. ‘You could call us refugees in an experimental craft.’ To Ben’s surprise he gestured to the TARDIS. ‘One that bends the dimensions, passing through solid matter.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Haunt simply.

But Shel was nodding. ‘In the Japanese Belt such technology is being developed. It
is
a possible explanation. But it’s also
possible
they’re part of the team that set this place up.’

Haunt looked uncertainly at Ben and the Doctor. ‘Well?’ she asked.

‘As you observe, we are helpless civilians trapped in this terrible place,’ said the Doctor mildly. ‘We cannot escape here, and we look to you for protection. So too does our friend Polly,’ he added hurriedly. ‘She can’t be far away but I am dreadfully worried about her. Dreadfully.’

Haunt’s face darkened. ‘There’s more of you wandering about here?’

‘Only her.’

Ben wondered what the Doctor was up to, telling these maniacs about Polly.

He spun round as a new voice rang out: ‘What the hell…?’

A black bloke strode through the five-sided doorway this time. A huge great geezer, he carried a slim rectangular pack on his back, a space-age kit bag.

‘Roba?’ Haunt rounded on him. ‘What’s going on, where’s Frog?’

‘Outside on guard.’ Roba was massive, but Ben could tell Haunt had the power to make him feel two inches tall. ‘Our tunnel led to some weird tomb-place. We went through the circles and found them silver doors.’

‘All right,’ Haunt snapped. ‘Shel, brief Roba on…’ She broke off. ‘On whatever the hell is happening.’

‘Yes, Marshal,’ said Shel, unfazed.

Ben held his breath as Haunt stalked closer.

Her eyes narrowed. Her finger was still curled round the trigger of her rifle. ‘So. Your ship was attacked? You strayed into the Spook Quadrant?’

‘I’m not familiar with your terminology for this area of space, though I’m sure you are right,’ said the Doctor with a tight smile.