DEEP BLUE

MARK MORRIS

Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd,

Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

London W12 OTT

First published 1999

Copyright © Mark Morris 1999

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Original series broadcast on the BBC

Format © BBC 1963

Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

ISBN 0 563 55571 8

Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC 1999

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham

Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton

Many thanks to Paul Tye for information about boats and

David Howe for information about families.

This is for Kevin Mullins, a great friend who was there at the

beginning and who has shared so much of the magic.

Part One

Seeing Stars

With a grinding of machinery and a clanking of chains the

trawl was winched aboard. As the huge net broke the grey

surface of the sea and rose into the air, it looked like a living

thing itself. Beneath its thick mesh thousands of fish

thrashed and writhed, their silver bodies flashing beneath

the blazing summer sun. When the trawl was clear of the

sea, Terry Robson operated the gantry arm and the net

swung out over the deck, drooling water which splashed

around the boots of the six-man crew.

The Papillon had been built in the thirties, a decade or so

before Terry was born. It was rusted and patched up, its

engine in need of constant attention, but Terry"s old grandad

still referred to it as „the new boat". The Robsons had been

fishermen for generations, perhaps even centuries, but in

recent years Terry"s dad, Malcolm, skipper of the Papillon,

had been muttering with no real humour about there being „a

sea change" on the way.

The big factory trawlers, with crews of up to a hundred and

no reason to come ashore except for the occasional repair,

were putting sole traders like the Robsons out of business.

For the moment they were still making ends meet - just - but

Terry was realistic enough to realise that it wouldn"t be too

long before they would have to diversify. Already many of

their friends and neighbours were supplementing their

income by taking groups of overfed businessmen for a day"s

sea fishing. If it hadn"t been so depressing it would have been

funny, making executive types pay for the privilege of freezing

their nuts off and chucking their guts up all day.

As Joe Tye, Terry"s cousin by marriage, released the cod

end, sending fish cascading in a slithering heap across the

deck, the gulls circling above the wheel house began to

shriek with frantic hunger. Terry moved forward to help sort

through the catch. A lot of the stuff that the trawl ensnared

would have to be thrown back - crabs, eels, pregnant

females, fish smaller than regulation size - but there looked

to be enough viable fish here, cod and haddock, herring,

whiting and plaice, to make this a good haul.

Joe"s son, Barry, who at twenty was the youngest of the

crew, and who wore his blond hair long like his pop-star

heroes The Sweet, was bending towards the mass of fish

slithering around his boots when suddenly he recoiled.

Terry"s Uncle Pete, his dad"s younger brother, glanced up.

Uncle Pete was a fearsome character, six-and-a-half feet tall,

with a bushy black beard, piercing blue eyes, and hands like

shovels. Barry was often the - mostly undeserving - butt of

Pete"s abrasive manner, which did little to sweeten the

already volatile relationship between Pete and Joe. Terry

didn"t know why his dad"s brother and his sister"s husband

disliked each other so much. Maybe it was just one of those

things, or maybe there was some history between them. The

fishing community at Tayborough Sands was tight-knit,

contained within such a small, neat block of the tourist town

that it could almost be termed an enclave. In such

communities favours were always returned in kind, and often

with interest, but by the same token no grievance was ever

forgotten. Grudges were worn like insignia and even passed

down through subsequent generations.

„Something frighten you, lad?" Pete growled. He had a

knack of making every sentence he uttered sound as if he

was accusing someone of spilling his pint in the pub.

Barry"s face creased in revulsion. „There"s another one of

them bloody fish," he said.

John Baycock, Terry"s best mate and the only non-family

member of the crew, piped up with his usual good humour,

„Aye, you tend to get a lot of „em around here."

Barry looked at him as if he didn"t realise John was joking.

Barry was a good lad and a willing worker, but he was not

over-endowed in the brains department.

„No, I mean... one of them fish. Horrible it is. Ugliest one so

far, I reckon."

„You sure you"ve not just come across a bit of broken mirror

caught in the net?" John said, making Terry and his dad

laugh.

Barry shook his head and shuffled backwards. „Horrible it

is," he said again. ‘I’m not touching it."

„Oh, for Christ"s sake, you big pansy," growled Uncle Pete

and strode forward through the slimy carpet, beetle-brows

knit together in a scowl.

Terry moved forward too. He wanted to get a closer look at

the deformity. There had been a lot of them these past couple

of weeks. Some said it was to do with the strange light that

Bob Elkins had seen land in the sea, but Terry thought it

was all down to pollution. These big chemical companies and

what- have-you dumped God knows what into the water

these days.

Barry was right about one thing this particular specimen was

the ugliest one so far. Terry saw it immediately amongst its

suffocating brethren, and recognised it as a cod despite its

hideous abnormalities. Oddly it was not flapping frantically

as the other fish were, but was lying still on its stomach, its

sides moving slowly in and out, almost as if it had adapted to

breathe the air. Its flesh was discoloured and bulging with

lumps that seemed to shift sluggishly beneath the skin, its

mouth hung open, revealing small but razor-sharp teeth, and

its eyes bulged as if it was glaring at its captors. Most

grotesque of all, though, were the black, porcupine-like quills

which had sprouted all over its body. Looking at it, Terry felt

not just repulsed but uneasy. Perhaps it was the creature"s

huge eyes, but it felt as though the thing was watching them

broodily, as if there was a nasty little intelligence working

away in there somewhere.

Although he had never been deep-sea diving, Terry knew a

couple of lads who had. They came into the Mutton for a pint

or two most Friday nights. The words of one of the drunken

conversations he had had with them came back to him now.

He remembered them telling him that divers were more

worried about cod than they were about sharks, because

whereas sharks would ignore you most of the time, cod were

vicious little buggers. They would latch on to your face with

their teeth if they could, then spin themselves round and

round until they"d torn off a circular chunk of flesh. Terry

remembered making a joke about it, telling the lads that the

cod were only getting their own back for all the fish and chip

suppers eaten over the years. Now, though, the recollection

filled him not with amusement but alarm, and as Pete bent

forward, extending a hand towards the fish, he couldn"t help

blurting, „Don"t touch it!"

Pete paused and half-turned, his blue eyes drilling into

Terry"s own. „What"s up wi" you? Don"t tell me you"re as much

of a lass as Shirley Temple here."

„No, it"s just that... you might catch summat, that"s all. We

don"t know what"s wrong with it."

„Terry"s right," said Joe. „At least get yourself some gloves. I

don"t like the way that bloody thing"s looking at you."

Pete shook his head, an incredulous look on his face. „I

don"t believe you lot. You"re like a bunch of frightened kids.

It"s only a -"

„Look out!" Barry screeched.

Moving so swiftly that it was almost a blur, the fish

launched itself at Pete. He span in surprise, hand raising

instinctively to protect his face. The cod opened its mouth

wide and clamped its teeth around his upraised fingers. Pete

yelled in pain and fury and swung round in an arc, the fish

clinging to him like some grotesque silvery glove that he was

unable to shake off. It would have been funny if it hadn"t

been so alarming, if the fish hadn"t then dropped some ten

yards away to the deck with a squishy thud, and if Terry had

not looked at Pete"s hand and seen only ragged stumps

gushing blood where three of his fingers should have been.

Pete held his hand up in front of his face, his mouth wide

open, and the furious roar died in his throat like a wave

spending its strength on the shore. For a moment the sea

was reflected, a dense grey, in his wide, astonished eyes

before they glazed over, his eyelids flickering.

„Catch him, lads, he"s going down," Malcolm shouted,

breaking the stunned silence.

Perhaps it was his skipper"s words that revived Pete,

perhaps just sheer bloody-mindedness. For even as his fellow

crew members moved forward, stretching out their arms to

keep him upright, giving the spiny, malformed cod a wide

berth as they did so, Pete roared like a battle-charged warrior

and thundered towards the fish still some ten yards away.

Terry wasn"t sure what his uncle planned to do - perhaps

mash the fish to pulp beneath his boots and retrieve his

bitten-off fingers from its gullet. But whatever his intentions,

Pete never got the chance to realise them.

The lumps that had been moving sluggishly beneath the

cod"s scaly skin suddenly seemed to coalesce into a single

bulbous mass at the apex of its spine. The cod opened its

blood-smeared mouth and let loose a shrill and raucous cry,

almost like the caw of a crow, which made Terry"s skin crawl.

Almost simultaneously the fishy lump swelled and the skin

ripped open from the pressure like cheap cloth. Barry let out

a squeal of horror and Terry felt a surge of fear as several

long, spiny, crablike legs quickly unfurled from the rent in

the creature"s back.

Pete might still have caught and crushed the thing beneath

his size twelve boots if he had not stumbled to a faltering halt

at the sight. The newly hatched legs stretched out, four on

each side, clicking like knitting needles as they found the

deck. Gaining strength, they flexed, grotesquely lifting the

body a few inches upwards. They quivered for a moment,

then, moving with astonishing speed, scuttled the creature

away towards the prow of the boat.

„Hey!" Pete yelled, as if to a purse-snatcher, and gave chase

once more. It was too late. The mutant halted a few feet from

the prow, bent its spiny legs in a crouch, and sprang over the

side. It hit the grey water with a splash and was gone.

For a few moments nobody moved. They stared at the patch

of churning, foamy water that briefly marked the creature"s

passing, transfixed with mouths agape and eyes wide, until

the sea smoothed itself over as if to deny the existence of

such a monstrosity. His voice clotted with awe and dread,

Malcolm said slowly, „Twenty-eight years on the sea, and I"ve

never seen anything -"

Pete interrupted him with a rattling groan. Then he keeled

over face-first, crashing to the drenched, slippery deck like a

felled oak.

Terry realised with a guilty start that for the past moments

he had forgotten about the terrible damage to his uncle"s

hand. For the first time he saw the blood pooled and

spattered around Pete"s prone body. There was an alarming

amount of it, and the wound was still pouring with blood.

Terry rushed forward, skidding to his knees beside his uncle

at the same time as John Baycock and Joe Tye. A few

moments later they were joined by Malcolm, who thrust the

first aid box from the wheel house into his son"s hands. Only

Barry hung back, his face ashen.

Terry had to will his hands to stop trembling in order to

open the box. He took out a bottle of antiseptic, oily with

fingerprints from previous mishaps, and a roll of bandage in

a cellophane sheath. He tore the sheath open with his teeth

and began to tug at the bandage inside, dismayed to see his

own grubby fingerprints instantly soiling the pristine white

gauze. He was about to pour some of the antiseptic on to the

bandage when Joe Tye muttered, „What"s that stuff on his

hand?"

For a guilty moment Terry thought Joe was accusing him of

being unclean, but then realised he meant Pete. The big,

bearded man"s breath was a rattle in his throat, his eyelids

flickered, his body shook as though with fever. Perhaps it

was shock or loss of blood. In a daze, Terry looked down at

his uncle"s mutilated hand.

It was the blood that had swamped his attention before,

but Terry now saw the „stuff" that Joe had pointed out.

Through the blood he saw that Pete"s wound was coated with

a glutinous, jelly-like ooze. Terry swallowed and shuddered.

He imagined the creature disgorging the gluey substance like

poison from its diseased body on to his uncle"s. Frantic to

prevent the stuff from penetrating the wound, Terry yanked

at a length of bandage, but it refused to tear, merely

stretching instead.

John Baycock delved into the first aid box, grabbed a swab

and began to wipe the gel away from the wound. Terry

flashed him a glance of gratitude, unscrewed the lid of the

bottle and poured antiseptic directly on to Pete"s hand.

Semiconscious, the bearded man hissed and muttered, his

body tensing momentarily.

„Easy there, big man," Joe Tye soothed with a tenderness

that surprised Terry despite the circumstances.

When he was satisfied that the wound was entirely clean,

John Baycock applied a lint dressing, holding it in place as

Terry wound the bandage tightly around his uncle"s hand. He

worked swiftly and carefully, trying to outpace the blood that

continued to soak through the lint and the gauze and

threatened to reduce his good work to a sodden red mess. As

more and more bandage was applied, an almost palpable

relief coursed through the men, as if hiding the terrible injury

from view could somehow quell the horror of the incident

that had caused it. When Terry was finished it looked as

though his uncle was wearing a single white boxing glove.

„Will he be all right?" Barry murmured, stepping hesitantly

forward now.

Terry shrugged and felt his dad"s hand pat him twice on

the shoulder.

„Good work, son," Malcolm said in a low voice as if his

words were meant for Terry alone. Then raising his voice, the

skipper added, „All right, lads, keep him as comfortable as

you can. I"m taking us home."

In the two weeks since he had been given his new job title,

Jack Perry had been practising the term in his head and in

front of the mirror in his bedroom. „I"m an environment

coordinator," he would say, qualifying the statement with a

slight raising of the left eyebrow and a smug little smile. In

his mind he would be at a party, sipping Pina Colada and

speaking to a woman who looked like a cross between Sally

Thomsett from Man About the House and that girl from the

Hai Karate ads. The woman would gasp in admiration and

her eyes would brighten with interest. Perhaps she might

even lick her glossy red lips in lascivious anticipation.

It was at this point that the fantasy would begin to

dissolve. If the woman enquired further, Jack would have to

admit that he drove a truck for the council and that the only

authority he wielded was over a bunch of moaning, long-

haired students who were simply out for a bit of holiday

money. Not only that but every morning at 5 a.m. he and the

students - most of them hungover, or soporific from the pot

they had been smoking the night before - pulled up on to the

promenade, got out clad in overalls, boots and thick rubber

gloves, and tramped down to the beach, laden with shovels

and industrial-sized refuse sacks.

Sometimes, lying in his bed at night and hearing his

widowed mother in the bedroom next door tossing restlessly

in hers, Jack would wonder where it had all gone wrong.

There were no parties in his life, no Pina Coladas, no Sally

Thomsett lookalikes. There were not even any friends to

speak of - not real ones at any rate. Just casual

acquaintances, people he knew on a superficial level: people

at work; people he bumped in to now and then who had been

to school with him, and who, like him, had never moved

away; fellow enthusiasts at the steam railway where he did

voluntary work every Sunday.

If it wasn"t for his trains - his weekly pilgrimage to the

railway itself, the books he spent hours poring over, the

beautifully complex model rail network he had set up in the

attic and which he added to constantly - he didn"t know what

he"d do. Oh, he had dreams of going to parties and meeting

beautiful women, of being the pivot of an uproarious circle of

friends, but when it came down to it he was only ever happy

in the company of his trains. His trains were a constant, his

trains never let him down. The only thing that ever blighted

the time he spent with them was the knowledge that sooner

or later reality would impinge again, highlighting his

inadequacies, crushing his spirit with its casual cruelty.

Hell is other people, he thought on this particular morning

as he crunched the truck down through the gears and

brought it to a shuddering halt on the seafront. Even if by

some miracle he did one day meet Sally Thomsett or the Hai

Karate girl and she did, by some far greater miracle, turn out

to fancy him, he honestly doubted whether he would be able

to cope. Part of him desperately wanted to be loved and

accepted, but the more dominant part balked at the prospect

of what that would really involve. People - real people - were

different to fantasies. They were too unpredictable, they

wanted to enter into relationships that needed to be worked

at, partnerships in which compromises had to be reached,

sacrifices made.

„What"s this? Offering a silent prayer to Neptune?" said a

voice from the back of the truck, and Jack realised he had

been daydreaming again. It had been happening with

increasing regularity this past week or so, an inability to

concentrate on what was happening around him, a tendency

for his thoughts to drift inward. By now he was finding it

difficult to keep track of conversations without his mind

slipping away. It was almost impossible to settle down to read

or watch TV for any length of time. Perhaps it was all to do

with the fact that he"d been sleeping badly of late. His dreams

had been full of dark, unsettling images that caused him to

wake several times a night, sweating and gasping for breath.

The frustrating thing was, he could not recall the specifics of

any of these nightmares. If something beyond his usual

anxieties was bothering him, he had no idea what it was.

„Sorry, just... erm... just collecting my thoughts," he

mumbled in reply and, twisting round, attempted a grin that

he couldn"t help but feel sat awkwardly on his face.

The group in the back, his eight-strong workforce, four

lining each interior wall of the truck, stared back at him

sullenly. Jack felt sweat trickle down his forehead, moisten

his armpits. At forty-four he was a good quarter-century

older than every one of these boys. They made him feel dull,

fat, ugly and unaccountably nervous. They made him feel like

a teacher in dubious control of a class of students who felt

nothing for him but contempt, or perhaps, even worse, pity

„Right," he said with hollow bonhomie, „let"s get to it then,"

and he rubbed absently at the rash that had sprung up on

his arms in the past week, and which in the muggy, sweaty

heat was itching more than ever.

They climbed out of the truck, carrying the paraphernalia

they would need to clear the beach of rubbish left by both

holidaymakers and the outgoing tide. Jack had been doing

this job for a long time and had seen enough stuff washed up

on the beach to put him off swimming for life. As well as the

usual rubbish - bits of old fishermen"s netting, plastic

bottles, rusty tins - there had been dead animals (dogs and

cats mainly, and once half a horse, trailing bluish-white guts

bleached of blood), syringes, surgical dressings, raw sewage

and chemical drums rusted and punctured. He had never

found a person, or bits of a person, but he knew one or two

workers who had. Mike Salters and Craig Branch had once

found the body of an old woman floating in on the tide, her

face black and eyeless, shrimps and baby crabs spilling from

her mouth as the waves dragged her up on to the beach. And

there was talk that Tony Carver had once found a man"s

decomposed head in a Sainsbury"s bag, the victim of a

gangland killing whose dismembered body - minus the hands

- had apparently been recovered later from a skip behind one

of Tayborough Sands"s plusher hotels.

Jack adjusted his spectacles and looked out over the clay-

coloured expanse of beach. Although it was already muggy,

the day was still struggling to open its eyes. Dark clouds

smeared the sky like old mascara. On the horizon, the rising

sun was a blur of lipstick-red. As they trudged down the

uneven stone steps on to the beach, a sea-breeze ruffled over

them, which, while bringing welcome relief from the

humidity, carried with it a stench of rotting seaweed and

dead fish.

Vaguely Jack waved his troops off to cover different

sections of the beach, noting that their grunts of

acknowledgement were becoming surlier by the day. He

ought to do something about it, he supposed, assert his

authority, but he felt both too intimidated and too lethargic.

As he moved down the beach armed with his shovel and his

roll of refuse sacks he noticed that one of his workers,

Simon, a thin seventeen-year-old with straight blond hair cut

in a pageboy style, was scratching feverishly at the crook of

his elbow through his overalls, his teeth clenched in a

grimace.

If it had been anyone else, Jack might not have said

anything, but Simon was quiet, softly-spoken, generally

polite.

„You all right?" Jack asked.

Simon looked momentarily dazed, as though Jack had

sprung up from nowhere, then he blinked and nodded.

„I"ve got this rash. On my arms and across my chest. Itches

like mad."

„Me too," said Jack, and felt compelled to rub at his own

arms. „Must be the heat. These overalls. Make you sweat a

bit, don"t they?"

He offered an uncertain smile, which wavered when Simon

shook his head. „I don"t think it"s the overalls."

„Don"t you?"

„No. I think it"s this stuff."

Simon jabbed at the sand with the toe of one booted foot.

Jack looked down and saw a few stringy clots of the strange

deposit that the tide had been leaving behind for the past

week or two. It was like half-set jelly, though colourless and

transparent. It had been everywhere recently, each rolling

wave bringing more of it up on to the sand. Jack and his

team did their best to clear it from the beach, but they were

fighting a losing battle. Jack held up his gloved hands and

announced, „It can"t be that. If we"re careful it shouldn"t get

on our skin, whatever it is."

„I know that," continued Simon, his brows crinkling in a

frown, „but what if it"s giving out fumes or something and

we"re breathing it in? I mean, what is this stuff? It might be

some killer chemical; it could be nuclear waste for all we

know. I mean, there was that thing in the paper a couple of

weeks ago, wasn"t there, about that lighthouse keeper who

saw some weird light come down in the sea? Why hasn"t

anyone come out to investigate that? Why isn"t the

government doing anything? I mean, it might have been some

Russian secret weapon, mightn"t it? Maybe they"re planning

to poison us all by contaminating our water. I"ve read all

about that sort of stuff, chemical warfare and that." He came

to a sudden breathless stop, his cheeks red, eyes wildly

searching Jack"s face. Then, as though embarrassed, his gaze

flickered away, he turned his head and re-focused on the sea.

They stood in silence for a moment, then Jack murmured,

„Maybe I ought to report it. Just to be on the safe side. I could

even save some in a jar and take it to a laboratory or

something."

For a moment Simon didn"t respond, then he nodded.

Dreamily he said, „The sea"s such a big place, isn"t it? I bet

there"s stuff out there that no one"s ever seen."

Jack followed his gaze. His arms were itching. He shivered.

The sun was tearing itself from the water now, leaving

blood on the ocean.

As he walked up the steps to the front door of Ambrosia Villa,

Captain Mike Yates couldn"t help feeling guilty. Although his

little trip to Tayborough Sands wasn"t exactly a holiday, it felt

as though it was, as though he was having a jolly at the

taxpayer"s expense.

„Light duties," the Brigadier had called it, and then later,

registering Mike"s dismay, he"d amended that to, „Vital

intelligence work. I need someone I can trust, Yates," he"d

said, „someone with integrity. Someone with a clear head,

who can sort out the wheat from the chaff."

A clear head. That was a joke for a start. It was precisely

because of his inadequacy in that department that Mike had

been given this assignment. He couldn"t believe that almost

six months had passed since it had all begun. It seemed like

no time at all since he had been sitting behind the desk at

Global Chemicals in Llanfairfach, purporting to be the „Man

from the Ministry". As usual things had gone a bit haywire

before the Doctor had managed to sort it all out. Turned out

the company, which had been pumping lethal industrial

sludge into the village"s abandoned mine workings, was being

run by some sort of super computer which called itself BOSS

and which could scramble its employees" brains, turning

them into mindless zombies.

For a while Mike himself had fallen under its influence.

BOSS had dismantled his thoughts and put them back

together in a different order, had made him believe his

friends were his enemies. He"d nearly shot dead the two

people he trusted most in the world: it had seemed perfect

sense at the time, before the Doctor had shown him the error

of his ways with the aid of a blue crystal he"d picked up on

some far-flung planet or other.

After that, Mike had been fine for a while, had felt better

than he"d felt for a long time in fact. But then weird thoughts

and feelings had started to spring up, like weeds in a well-

ordered garden. He had begun to suffer odd bouts of

depression, feelings of futility. Despite the vital part he"d

played in repelling the many and various threats to Earth

over the years, he had started to convince himself that his life

was meaningless.

Eventually, inevitably, this emotional instability had

affected his work, and the Brigadier had ordered him to

undergo a course of pathological assessment and then to

take some compassionate leave. Perhaps if the Doctor and

his blue crystal had been around all of that might have been

avoided, but he had been distracted and irritable ever since

his assistant, Jo Grant, had quit UNIT after announcing her

intention to marry Llanfairfach"s resident eccentric, Professor

Clifford Jones. The Doctor had spent most of the past six

months going off for solitary jaunts in his TARDIS,

sometimes for several weeks at a stretch.

He had been absent when Mike"s problems had come to a

head three months ago, and was absent again now, having

slipped away in the night two weeks ago, much to the

Brigadier"s chagrin.

It had taken Mike a month or two to sort himself out, but

now he was back for good and itching to get down to some

proper soldiering. However, his return, and the Doctor"s

increasing absences, had coincided with a lull in the type of

incident UNIT usually dealt with. Perhaps that was a good

thing, Mike thought. Perhaps it was better to ease himself

back in gently rather than throwing himself head-first into

the fray.

It didn"t feel better, though; that was the thing. It felt to

Mike as if he was cheating. He set his jaw, gripped the handle

of his small suitcase more tightly and rapped sharply on the

lemon- yellow front door of the guest-house. „I am making a

difference," he whispered to himself as he waited for an

answer, and instantly felt a little better, as his psychologist,

Dr Cutler, had assured him he would.

As the door opened a pair of seagulls began squabbling

directly overhead, as if some flapping, screeching entity had

been released from the house. He quickly recovered his

composure and smiled at the woman who stood on the

threshold. Her birdlike face was austere, her lips pressed so

tightly together that they seemed bloodless. She looked

disapprovingly at Mike"s burgundy cords and brown suede

jacket.

„Mrs Macau?" he enquired, pronouncing it „Ma cow".

„Macau," she corrected, so sharply that he bit back the

response that sprang to mind: „Ah, like the exotic bird."

He covered his near faux pas with a smile and said

smoothly, „Of course. My name is Mike Yates. I understand

you"re expecting me?"

„I expect we are, Mr Yates," replied Mrs Macau coldly, and

turned into the house. „Please follow me."

After the brightness of the sun, the hallway seemed dingy,

the walls cluttered with clocks whose sombre, somehow

ominous symphony of clunks and ticks made him think of

little knives chopping away the seconds. Mrs Macau asked

him to sign the register, then gave him a perfunctory tour of

the guesthouse: the lounge where two old ladies sat knitting,

their faces rouged by the effect of the red flock wallpaper; the

dining room where breakfast was served between 7.30 a.m.

and 10 a.m. precisely (she scowled as if he had already

contravened this rule); the bathroom on the second floor,

with black pin-mould collecting in the corners and ever-

present condensation fragmenting the sunlight through the

stippled glass of the window; finally, his own room on the top

floor, which instantly became his favourite part of the house.

It was an attic room with a sloping ceiling, a brass-framed

bed and a small window in an alcove offering a seagull"s-eye

view of the fishing harbour.

„Thank you, Mrs Macau," he said, putting his suitcase on

the bed. „I"m sure I"ll be very comfortable here."

She started to list the rules of the house. No alcohol. No

pets. No visitors after 10 p.m. Mike listened patiently till the

end and replied, „That all sounds perfectly fine, Mrs Macau."

With a final suspicious glance she left him alone. Mike

pursed his lips and expelled a heartfelt sigh of relief, then

snapped open the catches of his small suitcase and lifted the

lid. Although he had been booked into the guest-house for

two nights with an option to stay longer if required, he was

hoping to be back on a train to London by tomorrow

afternoon, his business concluded.

Not that he would only do half a job, of course. No, Mike

was too thorough, too conscientious, for that. It was simply

that he expected nothing to come of this little investigation.

From his suitcase he took an army-issue toiletry bag, the

latest in a series of psychology textbooks he had been reading

recently (his immediate subordinate and good friend,

Sergeant John Benton, had picked this one up from his desk

a couple of days previously, flicked through a few pages and

then replaced it with a baffled, slightly troubled expression),

and a small selection of clothes, which had been

meticulously ironed and folded by his own fair hands.

He put the clothes and the toiletry bag away in the chest of

drawers that stood against the wall beside the door and

placed the book on his bedside cabinet. The suitcase now

contained only three further items - a file pertaining to his

assignment in an anonymous, buff-coloured document

wallet, a chunky two-way radio and a Colt .45 semi-

automatic handgun in a body holster.

He felt rather foolish bringing along a gun when all he was

required to do was chat to a local lighthouse keeper about a

strange light he had seen come down in the sea twelve days

ago, but the Brigadier had insisted, „Always be prepared,

Yates," he had said in that brash, rather pompous way of his.

„First rule of soldiering."

„I thought that was the boy scouts, sir," Mike had replied

with gentle good humour.

The Brigadier"s moustache had twitched. „Same principle,

Yates. You"ve worked for UNIT long enough to know that you

should always expect the unexpected."

Mike put the radio in the drawer beneath his underwear,

placed the gun on the bedside table next to the book, tossed

the document wallet on to the armchair beside the alcoved

window, then closed his suitcase and slid it under the bed.

He spent the next twenty minutes reading the

documentation, which didn"t amount to much: a local police

report comprising a short statement from the witness and a

photocopy of the story as portrayed by the local newspaper,

which treated the whole thing as a bit of a joke.

Mike sighed. Ninety-nine per cent of such incidents proved

to have no basis in fact, but UNIT were obliged to follow up

each and every one of them as a matter of course. Often it

was the Doctor (and, before her departure, Jo Grant) who

undertook such assignments; indeed, this was one of the

tasks which the Doctor performed only too willingly - largely,

Mike suspected, because it gave him the chance to distance

himself from the military activity at UNIT HQ and to whiz

about the countryside in Bessie, his little yellow car.

This particular arrangement worked out well for all

concerned, not least because the Doctor had an uncanny

knack of distinguishing between the genuine and the bogus,

a sixth sense when it came to detecting alien involvement or

even a serious home-grown threat to planetary stability.

Mike, however, suspected he would speak to Mr Elkins and

come away with nothing further to add to what he had just

read. Although his mother had always described him as „the

sensitive one" of her four boys, he was not adept at picking

up on the subtle, hidden clues that the Doctor seemed to

pluck from the air with ease. Indeed, watching the Doctor at

work, Mike often felt like a dull and plodding beat constable

confronted with the dazzling and enigmatic presence of

Sherlock Holmes.

It was raised voices from outside that plucked Mike from

his reverie. Putting the folder aside, he stood up and crossed

to the window. There seemed to be some commotion down by

the harbour, several uniformed policemen holding back a

crowd of curious onlookers. From his vantage point, Mike

could see that the object of their attention was a small,

battered-looking fishing trawler. Already other policemen

were in the process of erecting an exclusion barrier of

sawhorses and yellow tape around the trawler, effectively

closing off the jetty. From here Mike could see what he

suspected the crowd couldn"t. Scattered on the deck were a

number of red blankets, clearly covering some irregularly

shaped objects.

That could mean only one thing. Hastily he picked up his

holstered gun and strapped it to his body. Then, patting the

back pocket of his cords to ensure that he had his UNIT

pass, he hurried from the room.

„You mean we"ve actually arrived where you said we were

going to?" Tegan muttered scathingly.

The Doctor looked pained. „Well, of course." Then his voice

dropped as he hunched over a panel on the TARDIS"s

hexagonal control console. „Give or take a year or two."

Tegan shut her eyes briefly. „Don"t tell me. We"ve landed in

the Bronze Age."

Turlough, standing beside the Doctor like an attentive

pupil, the fingertips of his hands pressed together as if he

was about to lead them in prayer, tilted his head and gave

her a look of condescending disapproval. „Come on, Tegan, be

fair," he said mildly. „The Doctor"s doing his best."

Tegan grunted, meeting his pale blue gaze for only a

moment before looking away. Despite being thrown into a

series of life-threatening situations with the sallow-faced,

red-haired public schoolboy, the bond between them was not

particularly strong. Tegan was all too aware of her own

failings - her brashness, her quick temper - but at least she

was honest, at least people always knew where they stood

with her. Turlough, on the other hand, was devious,

underhand, duplicitous, and not only that but he was

smarmy with it. And a coward, too. Tegan suspected he"d sell

his grandmother if it meant saving his own skin (if he had a

grandmother, that was; he had always been as evasive about

his origins as he was about virtually everything else).

When he had first wriggled like a maggot into the core of

the TARDIS crew, he had been working for an entity called

the Black Guardian who wanted the Doctor destroyed.

Turlough had apparently seen the error of his ways at the

last minute but Tegan still didn"t trust him. The boy always

seemed to be working to his own, hidden agenda; always

seemed to be striving to divide and conquer, playing her and

the Doctor off against each other. And the thing was, he did

it so slyly, so subtly, that all too often Tegan didn"t see the

trap until she had fallen right into it.

It was maddening, even more so because the Doctor

seemed oblivious to his male companion"s mind games.

Indeed, the Doctor infuriated Tegan as much as Turlough

did, albeit for different reasons. In his fifth incarnation he

was a baffling mix of contrasting characteristics. He was

brilliant and feckless, knowledgeable and naive, resourceful

and disorganised, thoughtful and compulsive.

„How many years out are we?" she asked, addressing the

Doctor and making an effort not to sound exasperated.

He glanced up at her, narrowing his eyes as if to judge her

mood. „Oh, only a few. Ten or so. Twelve at the most."

„Forwards or backwards?"

„Backwards."

„Well, that"s OK then." She spread her arms to better

display the bright print dress she was wearing. „I"ll be a trend

setter."

„Hmm," said the Doctor non-committally and, straightening

up from the console, took a rolled-up object from the pocket

of his knee-length, cream-coloured coat. He gave a practised

flick of the wrist and was suddenly holding a white panama

hat in his hand which he placed on his head with a casually

stylish movement. „Everyone ready?" he asked, all at once full

of childlike eagerness.

Tegan couldn"t help but respond to his mood with a smile,

but Turlough merely raised his eyebrows and said with the

trace of an indulgent sigh, „Ready, Doctor."

The Doctor operated a lever and with a hum of power the

TARDIS"s double doors smoothly opened. Tegan turned to

face them, feeling a little quiver of excitement and

apprehension. She wondered what the Doctor"s surprise

would entail. He"d said they all needed cheering up after the

terrible events they had witnessed on Sea Base Four in the

Earth"s future. The Doctor had told his companions nothing

else except that the surprise would take place on Tegan"s

present-day Earth.

„Shall we?" the Doctor said cheerfully and swept out of the

TARDIS, the tails of his coat flapping behind him. Tegan

glanced at Turlough, saw the expression of complicity he was

offering her, and strode determinedly after the Doctor.

She emerged blinking into the sunlight that streamed into

her eyes. Sounds filled her ears - gaudy music, excited

chatter, delighted screams - and deliciously familiar smells

kicked her taste buds into instant life: candyfloss, frying

onions, fish and chips.

„It"s a fun-fair," she exclaimed delightedly as the glare of the

sun faded and was replaced by the bright, shifting primary

colours of revolving carousel horses and lurching dodgem

cars, stalls offering pink teddy bears as prizes, the House of

Fun with its unseen perils and pitfalls.

They had materialised between two quiet stalls, apparently

unseen, as if the TARDIS had deliberately picked its moment.

Even the grinding cacophony of the time machine"s ancient

engines appeared to have gone unheard, drowned out by the

sound of Slade blaring from a swooping, spinning ride in the

shape of a gigantic spider some twenty yards away.

The Doctor was standing with his hands stuffed into the

pockets of his striped trousers, beaming round at the scene

like a satisfied proprietor from beneath the brim of his

panama hat.

„It"s the seventies, all right," Tegan shouted, walking up to

him and gesturing at the long-haired men with their wide-

collared shirts and outrageously flared jeans, the girls with

their denim caps and platform shoes.

Unseen by Tegan, Turlough had sidled up behind her.

„What is this place, Doctor?" he shouted, making Tegan jump.

„Tayborough Sands pleasure beach," the Doctor replied. „As

I recall, there"s a particularly fine toffee-apple stall beside the

Waltzer."

„Pleasure beach?" echoed Turlough incredulously. „You

mean people come here to have fun?"

„Of course they do!" exclaimed Tegan. „And that"s exactly

what we"re going to do. Right, Doctor?"

The Doctor grinned in reply.

„But it"s so vulgar..." complained Turlough.

„Just go with it," replied Tegan and grabbed his arm. „Come

on, I"ve got some money. I"ll stand you a ride on the roller

coaster."

„Roller coaster?" said Turlough doubtfully. „What"s that?"

„You mean you don"t know?" She glanced at the Doctor, a

wicked glint in her eye, „Boy, are you in for a treat. Come on."

She dragged him, protesting, away. The Doctor turned back

to lock the TARDIS door, then headed after them. However,

he had taken no more than a couple of steps when his senses

were overwhelmed by a slew of images. It was as though a

black cloud had crossed the sun of his thoughts, nightmare

shapes twisting within the dense formations. He had an

impression of something alive yet in constant flux, of oozing,

jelly-like flesh from which claws sprang and eyes blinked and

mouths opened before dissolving back into the main mass

just as quickly.

Then the cloud passed and he was back in the fairground

again. Released, he staggered slightly, then steadied himself

with a hand on the TARDIS door. He looked around, half-

expecting his senses to be snagged by something untoward,

something not quite right. Sensing nothing, he took a deep

breath, and hurried to catch up with his companions.

„This looks nice," said Charlotte Maybury brightly,

momentarily resting her suitcase on the pavement. Her

father, Tony, glanced up at the yellow door and hanging

baskets of Ambrosia Villa without enthusiasm.

„It"d better be, the amount of money we"ve wasted on it."

Charlotte"s mother, Imogen, who had stoically maintained a

brittle good humour throughout the hot and tedious train

journey from Wolverhampton, suddenly snapped, „Wasted?

Don"t you think we deserve this holiday? Don"t you think we

need it?"

„It"s not a case of needing it, ifs a case of bloody affording

it," said Tony, aggressive with the alcohol he had consumed

on the train. „We"d have been better off buying a car."

„One of those old boneshakers you always throw our money

away on that fall to bits after three months, I suppose?"

„If I had a car I could get a job," retorted Tony.

„No, if you had some self-respect you could get a job. Look

at the state of you. Ifs not even lunchtime yet and you"re

plastered."

„I"m on holiday, woman. Or hadn"t you noticed?"

Before the argument could escalate into a full-scale

slanging match on the pavement, Charlotte said placatingly,

„Come on, Dad, don"t let"s row. Not on the first day of our

holiday."

„It"s not me who wants a row," Tony muttered, „I just want

to have a good time."

„Yes, at everyone else"s expense," Imogen said sourly.

„Mum," pleaded Charlotte.

„Sorry, love, it"s just your father."

Charlotte sighed. Her parents" arguments had been getting

more frequent and increasingly vituperative recently. With

each passing day she saw further cracks appearing in their

relationship. As far as she could recall it had started two

years ago when Dad had lost his job at the ironworks, though

their problems may well have been more deep-rooted than

that. Indeed, as she grew older Charlotte was not only

beginning to realise that her parents had been growing apart

for years but was also more willing to admit it to herself.

In many ways she was viewing this holiday as a make-or-

break period for all of them. Whatever happened between her

parents, it would certainly be a watershed of sorts. This time

next year she would be eighteen, and, if her suspicions were

borne out, the mother of a child. She wasn"t certain that she

was pregnant, but she intended to pluck up the courage to

take a test some time within the next few days. Here, away

from the stifling familiarity of everyday life, she had assured

herself that it would be easier to bear somehow. And if the

test proved positive, she would tell Mum and Dad and take it

from there.

She glanced at her brother, Chris, in the vain hope of a

little moral support, but he was being his usual moody self.

He had hardly strung two words together since they had

started out early this morning, and not for the first time

Charlotte found herself wondering whether it was their

parents" problems that were causing him to withdraw into

himself or whether his behaviour was simply that of a typical

acne-ridden, rebellious fourteen-year-old. Not so very long

ago she and Chris had been quite close, but these days he

was behaving as if she and their parents were the three

people on the planet he"d least like to be with.

„Come on," Charlotte said with mock cheerfulness, hefting

her suitcase, „let"s see what our rooms are like." She climbed

to the top of the steps and stretched out her hand to the

doorbell. Before she could press it, the door was yanked

open.

The tall, thin-faced man in his late twenties looked almost

as surprised as she must have done. He was hurrying out of

the house and had to stop dead to avoid barging straight into

her. They both apologised in unison, then laughed. „Are you

staying here too?" Charlotte asked, immediately blushing and

hoping she hadn"t made it sound as if she wished that he

was.

„Just for a night or two. Here on holiday?"

She nodded. „What"s it like?"

The man grinned. He had a pleasant smile, easy and

unselfconscious. Glancing behind him, then leaning a little

closer, he murmured, „Oh, it"s fine, just as long as you watch

out for the dragon."

The sun had climbed to its zenith, and even though sweat

rolled down Mike"s back as he hurried along, he couldn"t

afford to take off his suede jacket because of the gun he wore

strapped to his torso. The distance to the mouth of the

fishing harbour was further than it had appeared. By the

time he arrived at the edge of the police cordon, the crowd

had grown. The majority were rubber-necking tourists, but

there were also a number of locals, frustrated because they

couldn"t get to their boats.

He excused his way quietly and politely through the throng,

offering a conciliatory smile and an apology when people

scowled at him, not wishing to draw attention to himself. It

was ironic really; the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce

was a top-secret organisation, and yet the Doctor, who

usually undertook such investigations for them, did nothing

but draw attention to himself. Mike imagined how different

the scene would be if the Doctor and Jo Grant had been here.

The Doctor would no doubt have been elbowing his way

through the crowd, Jo in tow (and she alone was enough to

draw the attention of most men), proclaiming, „Do excuse me,

old chap," in that loud, theatrical manner of his. Then,

flouting authority, he would no doubt have ducked under the

police barrier without explanation, leaving Jo to root out their

UNIT passes to avoid arrest.

Mike smiled to himself. The Doctor"s showmanship and his

blatant disregard for protocol used to drive the Brigadier to

distraction, and sometimes still did. Still, at the end of the

day, the Brig was first to admit that if the Doctor came up

with the right result then a little unwanted attention was a

small price to pay. In some ways, Mike thought the Doctor"s

flamboyance worked to UNIT"s advantage. It caught people

off-guard, made them take the Doctor less than seriously,

which often proved to be their undoing.

He reached the barrier and leaned towards the uniformed

constable standing a few feet away. „Excuse me."

The constable ignored him, just as he was ignoring all the

other comments and questions being hurled in his direction.

Mike sighed, reached into his back pocket and produced his

UNIT pass. He held it out for the policeman"s inspection and

said with a little more urgency, „Excuse me, but would you

mind having a look at this, please?"

The policeman"s eyes flickered in his direction, focusing on

the pass. Mike gave him time to read it, then asked, „Would it

be possible to come through, do you think?"

The constable reached for the pass. „May I take this, sir? I

shall have to make an enquiry."

„Of course."

A couple of minutes later, the policeman was back. He

returned the pass to him, and lifted the tape barrier for him

to duck beneath. „If you"d care to follow me, sir?"

Mike heard a few comments behind him as he followed the

policeman along the jetty. Someone muttered something

about MI5 and several people laughed. A plain-clothes

detective was waiting for Mike on the jetty beside the trawler.

He had a square, pock-marked face and a C-shaped scar on

his chin. His green suit sagged on him as if he had been

wearing it for a long time without a break, and the top button

of his shirt was undone beneath the fat knot of his tie.

„Mr Yates," he said, offering Mike a strong but sweaty

handshake, „Detective Inspector Pickard."

„Inspector," said Mike. „Good of you to see me."

„Not at all. I"m a bit intrigued to be honest. I"d have thought

something like this would be well outside UNIT"s area of

interest."

Mike shrugged. „Perhaps it is. To tell you the truth, I"m only

here on a hunch. I saw some of what was going on from the

window of my boarding house."

„I see. So what really brings you to Tayborough Sands? Oh

no, don"t tell me. The so-called UFO that came down in the

sea?"

Mike smiled, a little embarrassed. „I don"t expect anything

to come of it, believe me, but UNIT is obliged to look into

such matters."

„Of course it is," said Pickard, struggling to conceal his

smirk. „But if you"re thinking what happened here is related

to your flying saucer, then I"m afraid you"re going to be

disappointed."

„And what did happen here?" asked Mike, hiding his

irritation behind a mask of breeziness.

„Murder," said Pickard bluntly. „Multiple murder to be

precise. Six-strong crew and not a single one left alive. Very

nasty. Bloke who did it must be a madman."

„Do you mind if I take a look?"

„Help yourself. Hope you"ve got a strong stomach, though,

Mr Yates."

„Cast iron," said Mike evenly.

Pickard raised his eyebrows and Mike followed him on to

the trawler. The deck was wet, oily. The stench of rotting fish

was almost overwhelming. Pickard said, „The stink was even

worse when we found the boat this morning It was reported

missing last night by the skipper"s wife and we spotted it at

first light, drifting on the sea. The murders must have

happened right after the catch was winched aboard. There

were dead fish all over the deck. We reckon there must have

been some sort of argument. It"s a bit early to say, but what

we think is that the killer may have been mortally wounded

by the last man left alive, who then died of his injuries."

„How did the men die?" asked Mike.

Pickard fixed him with a deadpan gaze. „Why don"t you take

a look for yourself."

Mike held his gaze for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

„Thanks." He moved to the nearest red blanket, noting the

thick runnels of now-dried blood that meandered from

beneath it and ran into the drainage gutters on both sides of

the deck. He had seen death before in many forms and lifted

the edge of the blanket without hesitation. He saw an arm

that looked like it had been torn from its socket, lying in a

pool of blood that had congealed to the consistency of black

glue. The arm was mottled blue, purple and black in the

places where the blood that was left inside had settled. On

the bicep were four small circular bruises that could have

been caused by the tight grip of a human hand.

Mike replaced the blanket and straightened up.

„What do you think?" said Pickard, in a challenging tone.

Mike had not been wholly unaffected by what he had seen -

he was aware of the quick pumping of his heart - but he was

calm enough for his response to sound clinical, considered.

„The arm wasn"t severed by a blade. It was torn off. Which

means that, unless I"m missing something, your killer had

incredible strength."

Pickard nodded as if in satisfaction and moved to the

second blanket. „What"s under here is even stranger," he said,

and lifted a comer of the blanket up for Mike to peer beneath.

It took Mike a few moments to work out what he was

looking at. Finally he said, „My God, that"s part of a ribcage,

isn"t it? And that... that must be a heart."

Pickard let the blanket fall back. „Ribcage, heart, lungs and

some surrounding tissue. They"re quite badly crushed, but

it"s as though -"

„- someone or something reached in and ripped them out of

the body with their bare hands?"

Pickard nodded. „Exactly."

„And you don"t think that"s at all unusual, Inspector?"

Pickard shifted uncomfortably. „Well, of course it"s unusual.

To tell the truth I"ve never seen anything like it. But crazy

people are capable of performing incredible feats of strength

you know, Mr Yates."

„Captain," said Mike quietly.

„Pardon?"

„I hold the rank of Captain." Then he smiled. „Not that it

matters. I"m just a bit of a stickler for detail, that"s all."

Pickard looked a little baffled.

„So is this all you have to show?" Mike continued briskly.

„Butcher"s leftovers? No complete bodies?"

„There"s one," said Pickard. „We haven"t had a formal ID yet,

but we think it"s the skipper"s son, Terry Robson."

„But the entire crew have been accounted for?" said Mike. „I

mean, among all these bits and pieces?"

Pickard shook his head. „It"s still too early for that. We

won"t know for sure what we"ve got here until later this

afternoon. Unofficially we reckon we"ve got the bits of at least

five bodies here."

„And the sixth crewmember?"

„Dead too, I"d guess."

„What makes you so sure?"

Pickard led the way across to a blanket beside the

wheelhouse. The bulge beneath this blanket was more

substantial than the others. Glancing back at the police line

at the end of the jetty - Mike guessed to ensure that the

public couldn"t see what he was about to reveal - Pickard

pulled the blanket back.

The man was lying on his back, eyes partially open and

glazed with death, head lolled on to his left shoulder. The

exposed side of his neck and throat was ripped and gouged

as if he had been attacked by a wild animal. His clothes and

the wooden deck of the boat beneath him were soaked with

blood. By his side, inches from his hand, was a stubby

handgun with a wide muzzle.

„Flare gun?" said Mike.

Pickard nodded. „I think Terry here fired it point-blank at

his attacker, who then either fell or was blown overboard."

„And Terry died later from loss of blood," murmured Mike.

Pickard let the blanket fall back over the corpse. Mike

straightened up.

„Well, thanks again for your help, Inspector. You will keep

me informed if there are any developments, won"t you?"

Pickard smiled thinly. „If that"s what you want. Though I

don"t think we"ll be arresting any little green men from Mars

for this."

Mike matched Pickard"s smile with a disarming one of his

own. „You never know, Inspector," he said. „You never know."

Guy Elkins woke up thinking about who in the world he

would most like to kill. Just lately his mind was refusing to

turn itself to any other subject. If his mates started talking

about football or motorbikes or girls they"d like to sleep with,

his thoughts would begin to slip and a strange buzzing would

start up in his brain, drowning out their words. The last time

he had been in the pub, four days ago, all he had been able

to think about was smashing his beer glass on the counter

and ramming the jagged edge into Carl Collier"s throat.

Carl was his best mate, they had known each other since

they were babies, but the thought of Carl"s blood spurting

out filled him with a shudder of excitement he could barely

control. He had felt sweat spring up on his brow, had

clenched his teeth and gripped his beer glass so hard it was a

wonder it hadn"t exploded in his fist. Carl had noticed the

state he was in, had frowned and asked Guy if he was feeling

all right. Guy had known what Carl was saying despite his

words being drowned out by a buzzing so loud it was like

having an electricity pylon in his head.

The only reason he hadn"t slashed his best friend"s throat

on that occasion was that he had forced himself, with a

mighty effort of will, to let go of the glass, shove Carl out of

the way and stagger out of the pub. He had set off for home

at a stumbling run and hadn"t stopped until he got there. He

had no idea whether Carl had come after him to find out

what was wrong. Certainly Guy hadn"t seen him since he"d

left him sitting bemusedly in a pool of beer on the pub floor.

Guy and Carl, both eighteen now, had been getting into

trouble together almost since they could walk. They"d been

done for affray, burglary, vandalism, shoplifting, stealing

cars. They knew each other"s strengths and limitations, knew

they could rely on one another in a crisis. At least, they did

until about ten days ago. It was then that Guy"s mind had

started to... change.

Guy, like Carl, had always enjoyed a good scrap. He

believed there was nothing better than hearing the crunch of

somebody"s nose breaking beneath his fist, of knocking

somebody to the ground, spilling somebody"s blood. Just

recently, though, the desire to inflict violence on other people

had grown into an obsession, an addiction. It was as if

something had taken him over, latched on to that desire

within him, and had begun to feed it. In turn, the desire had

responded, growing and flourishing like some rampant weed

in his brain, and in the process strangling all other thoughts

and needs. Today Guy didn"t just want to hurt people, he

wanted to kill them, wanted to rip them apart, bathe in their

blood. The sheer ferocity of his thoughts was terrifying and

exhilarating. Yet although his bloodlust had engulfed him to

the point where he could barely function on any social level,

he had never felt more alive.

All week he had been roaming the streets for stray animals

or raiding people"s gardens for their pets, bringing them back

to the house, torturing and killing them in his room. It

assuaged his desires a little, but it was not enough. Sooner

or later he knew he would have to move on to people. The

only thing that had held him back was the extra attention it

would bring, the fear of getting caught.

It was not prison that scared him, though; far from it. He

was simply terrified of being deprived of what he needed to

feed his addiction. The buzzing urge to kill was so

overwhelming that, were he to be denied the opportunity, he

honestly believed his body would be ripped apart by the

build-up of pressure inside him.

So, who to kill? Who would he most like to kill? His

drunken widower of a father who had never given a sod for

him? Mrs Raymond, the vicious old cow of a headmistress

who"d expelled him? Sergeant Weathers, who never got off his

case, even when he wasn"t up to anything? Or how about

that stupid bird, Janice Crooks, who had shrieked with

laughter when he"d asked her out in the pub a few months

ago?

Anyone would do, right now. If an opportunity were to

present itself where he knew he could kill Carl, his life-long

mate, and not get caught for it, he"d do it. He"d kill old

women, little kids, babies...

Through the buzzing cacophony of his thoughts he heard

the doorbell ring downstairs. Was this it? Was this what he"d

been waiting for? Had a victim come to his lair? He

scrambled out of bed and ran downstairs, only half-aware

that he"d been wearing the same crumpled T-shirt and jeans

for several days now, that in all that time he hadn"t washed

or brushed his teeth or combed the lank, shoulder-length

hair that he kidded himself made him look like Charlie

George.

He saw the man blink in shock and disgust as soon as he

opened the door, saw it in the split-second before he covered

it up. Guy was disappointed. The man looked lean and fit, as

though he"d be hard to kill if Guy decided to try it, as though

he wouldn"t go down without a fight.

The frustration gnawed inside him, seemed to awaken the

terrible itching that constantly simmered just beneath the

surface of his skin. He wanted to tear at his own chest and

arms with his fingernails. He gave an involuntary moan and

the man looked at him curiously.

„Are you all right?"

„I..." Guy"s voice was a croak; his face felt like a loose

rubber mask he was trying unsuccessfully to control. With a

gargantuan effort he pulled himself together, though his voice

sounded slurred and rasping. „What do you want?"

„My name is Mike Yates," the man said. „I"m looking for a Mr

Derek Elkins. We have an appointment."

As the information seeped slowly into his brain, Guy could

only stare at him.

„Er... I was told he lived at this address," the man added

helpfully. „Perhaps I was incorrectly informed?"

Guy knew some sort of reaction was called for. He stepped

back, dragging the door open as he did so. „No," he mumbled,

and nodded at the door on his right. „There."

„Thank you," the man said, stepping inside. He gave Guy an

encouraging smile. „Is it all right to go in?"

Guy could only grunt and nod. The itching was becoming

unbearable now. As the man stepped past him, Guy thought

about ramming a knife into his guts, slashing his throat. He

shuddered and moaned, his hand spasming.

The man gave him another curious look and went into the

room Guy had indicated. As soon as the door closed behind

him, Guy turned and staggered towards the stairs. He was

shaking, his head pounding, his body full of a desperate

need. The itching was so bad it was like his skin was being

torn by tiny hooks.

He was stumbling like a drunk by the time he reached his

room. He fell to his knees beside the bed and scrabbled

beneath it. His hand closed around the jar and he yanked it

out, almost salivating at the sight of the clear, jelly-like

substance inside. He unscrewed the lid, put the jar shakily

down on the floor and tore off his T-shirt.

His chest and arms were covered with tiny black quills that

had sprouted from his skin. He fingered them for a moment,

shivering at the ripples that coursed through his body. He

was fascinated and awed and oddly proud of the

transformation he was undergoing He picked up the jar with

his left hand and delved into it with his right, scooping out a

lump of the jelly. Without hesitation he smeared the stuff on

his arms and chest where the itching was most concentrated.

Instantly the gel acted like a balm, cooling and soothing his

inflamed skin. Guy crooned like an animal and sank to the

floor. Soon, when the itching had subsided as much as it was

going to, he would go out and find something to kill.

„There"s something he"s not telling us," said Tegan. „I just

know it."

„Feminine intuition?" Turlough smirked.

Tegan flashed him one of her dangerous looks. „Don"t make

fun of me, Turlough."

„I"m not," Turlough said contritely. „I just think you"re

reading something into the situation that isn"t there."

Tegan glanced anxiously across the hotel foyer at the

Doctor, who was standing at the reception desk booking

rooms for them all. „You don"t think he"s behaving strangely?"

„No stranger than usual."

„You don"t think he"s being… secretive? Evasive?"

Turlough sighed. „The Doctor"s always secretive. You might

as well face up to it, Tegan. You"re never going to be privy to

his innermost thoughts."

She glared at him. She still wasn"t sure whether Turlough

meant to belittle her when he spoke like this or whether it

was just his way. Whichever, his condescending manner was

like a flame to her all-too-short fuse. „Well, I"ve known him a

lot longer than you have," she snapped, „and I reckon he"s up

to something"

It had started in the fairground, this vague and distracted

manner of the Doctor"s, which Tegan felt certain meant there

was something rather substantial on his mind. It couldn"t

still be the events on Sea Base Four which were disturbing

him, could it? Tegan knew that the Doctor abhorred violence

and regarded violent death as a senseless waste, but he had

seen so many tragedies, so many atrocities in his long lives

that he tended to put them aside quickly, sometimes forgot

them within minutes of re-entering the TARDIS - or so it had

always seemed.

No, Tegan felt certain it wasn"t that. So, what was it?

Maybe Turlough was right. Was she simply looking for

trouble where there wasn"t any?

Her anger evaporated and she sighed as doubt crept in to

replace it. The thing was, travelling with the Doctor had made

her expect trouble wherever she went. If she hadn"t been

captured or shot at within ten minutes of arriving somewhere

she became suspicious. Which, to be honest, was no way to

be, was it? Perhaps she ought to think about getting out

before she became so battle-hardened that her encounters

with death became no more distressing than... than breaking

a fingernail or stubbing a toe.

The Doctor strode back across the hotel foyer, oblivious to

the strange looks he was attracting, and dangled room keys

in front of each of his companions" faces. Turlough took his,

but Tegan looked up at the Doctor with a frown and asked,

„Why are we staying here?"

The Doctor looked surprised. „You don"t like it?"

„It"s not a case of like or dislike. It"s..." She paused a

moment to collect her thoughts, which gave Turlough the

opportunity to insinuate himself silkily into the conversation.

„Tegan thinks you have a hidden agenda, Doctor."

She went puce with fury, but the Doctor simply looked

baffled. „Hidden agenda? Whatever do you mean?"

Turlough smirked in the face of Tegan"s anger and pressed

the fingertips of his hands together.

Speaking as though she was biting off each word and

spitting it out, Tegan said, „I just want to know what we"re

doing here, that"s all."

„Doing?" said the Doctor, still baffled, or feigning it. „We"re

having a holiday. I told you, I thought we could all do with

one."

Tegan was irritated by his presumption, but decided not to

pursue it; she was more concerned with the matter in hand.

„But why here? We"ve got our rooms in the TARDIS."

„What"s the point of going on holiday but staying at home?"

said the Doctor.

Tegan sighed again. She was getting nowhere fast. Maybe

there was nowhere to get. „All right, I"ll buy it," she said. „But

you would tell us if there was something wrong, wouldn"t

you, Doctor?"

„If I thought we had any cause to worry, I"d certainly inform

you of the circumstances," he assured her.

The key to the room he had booked for Tegan was still

looped over his forefinger. She took it and picked up the bag

he had told her to pack in the TARDIS after their afternoon at

the fun-fair.

As they waited for the lift, the Doctor rocked back on his

heels, hands in pockets, and commented on the architecture.

Turlough nodded but remained silent. Tegan merely grunted.

Their rooms were on the fourth floor. Tegan had 404,

Turlough 408 and the Doctor 418 at the end of the corridor.

„See you later," he said with a brisk smile outside the door

to Tegan"s room and turned to stride away.

„When later?" she called after him.

„Dinner at seven," he replied without turning back.

She made an exasperated face, which Turlough, fitting the

key into the door of his own room, responded to with what

might have been construed as a sympathetic raising of the

eyebrows. Tegan went into her room and shut the door.

Looking around, she huffed out a sigh, though in fact it was

a very pleasant room, spacious and airy with butter-yellow

walls and a deep-mattressed double bed. She dumped her

bag on the armchair beside the dressing table and strode

across to the large window flanked by flowery curtains on the

far wall. She opened the window wide and, sticking her head

out, closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.

Immediately, she felt calmer. The combination of warm

sunlight on her face and the salty tang of sea air filling her

lungs was a soothing panacea. The cries of gulls, though

raucous, were familiar and comforting, transporting her back

to a happy weekend she had spent in Brighton with Aunt

Vanessa not long after arriving in England, and to days

sailing off the south coast with her grandfather.

With a guilty start she remembered that the last time she

had seen her grandfather he had been about to move house

and she had promised to visit him just as soon as she

returned from Amsterdam. However it was in Amsterdam

that she had met up with the Doctor again. She wondered

now how her grandfather had taken her apparent

disappearance - he was bound to be worried about her.

She pulled her head back in through the window, then

blinked. Of course! The solution was so blindingly obvious

she was a dolt for not having thought of it straight away. All

she had to do was ask the Doctor to take her to visit her

grandfather before he had cause to wonder where she was.

Tegan had never been one to let the grass grow under her

feet. She believed in striking while the iron was hot, acting on

impulse. Of course, this attitude had got her into trouble

many times, but she knew she would never change.

She almost ran across the room and pulled open the door,

only remembering at the last moment to go back and snatch

up the key from the bed before yanking the door shut behind

her. She marched down the corridor and rapped on the

Doctor"s door. There was no answer. She knocked again, put

her ear to the door, and called out, „Doctor? Doctor, are you

in there?"

Still no reply. Was he sleeping or just ignoring her?

Frustrated, she pounded on the door with her fist and

shouted, „Doctor, will you please answer me? I need to talk to

you!"

A door further down the corridor opened and Turlough

popped his head out. „What"s the matter?"

„What does it look like? I want to talk to the Doctor, but he

won"t answer."

Turlough wandered up and put his ear to the door.

„Perhaps he"s not there."

„Well, where is he then?"

He raised his hands as if to protect himself from her anger.

„I only said perhaps. I don"t know any more than you do."

„This is ridiculous," she muttered, and marched down the

corridor and through the half-open door into Turlough"s

room. Polite applause from the cricket match on the TV

greeted her as she entered. The carpet bag that the Doctor

had lent Turlough was open on the bed, though he had not

yet removed any of its contents. Tegan snatched up the

phone on the bedside table and dialled the Doctor"s room

number. Receiving no reply, she banged down the phone,

then immediately picked it up again and dialled „10".

„Reception," said a woman"s voice.

„Hello, this is Tegan Jovanka from room 404. I"m trying to

get in touch with a friend of mine in room 418, but there"s no

reply."

„Dr John Smith?" said the woman.

„Er... yes, that"s right."

„Just a moment please, Miss Jovanka." There was a brief

pause, then „I"m sorry, Miss Jovanka, but Dr Smith left the

hotel about ten minutes ago."

„Left?" exclaimed Tegan, her previous suspicions

reawakening. „Did he say where he was going?"

„I"m afraid not, Miss Jovanka, but I believe he left you a

note... Ah yes, here it is."

„Could you read it please?"

„Certainly, Miss Jovanka." There was the sound of rustling

paper, then the woman said, „Dear Tegan and Turlough, I"ve

had to pop out for a while. Things to do. See you soon. The

Doctor."

„That"s all?"

„Yes, Miss Jovanka."

„Thank you," said Tegan, tight-lipped, and put the phone

down.

The Doctor sniffed the air like a bloodhound but could detect

nothing unusual. He appeared nonchalant as he strolled

along the promenade, hands in pockets, though in fact his

mind was attuned to the slightest trace of the telepathic link

he had briefly established earlier.

It was an alien mind he had made contact with, of that he

was certain. But as to where it had come from, he had no

idea. His gaze roamed along the rows of seafront shops and

hotels and boarding-houses; he peered up into the diamond-

blue sky and watched the gulls wheeling and screeching; he

scanned the busy stretch of dun-coloured beach where

people were sunbathing, playing football, flying kites,

building sandcastles, paddling in the shallows or bobbing

among the waves; he stared out to sea, which shifted and

rippled and swelled constantly, as if myriad pulses were

beating at random beneath its blue and glassy skin.

He ordered a „99" from an ice-cream van and asked the

heavily sideburned proprietor whether he had seen anything

unusual in the town recently.

„Only you, mate," said the man with a grin.

„Me?" said the Doctor, taken aback. Then he smiled and

touched the stick of celery attached to his lapel. „Ah. Yes, I

suppose my attire is a little anachronistic."

The man chuckled as if the Doctor had made a joke and

leaned forward, elbows resting on the counter of the van"s

serving hatch. „You"ll have heard about the palaver down by

the harbour earlier."

„Will I?"

„I thought everyone had."

„I"m new to town," said the Doctor, licking his ice-cream.

The man nodded wisely, then winked and glanced right and

left as if about to impart confidential information that he

didn"t want overheard. „Aye, well, they sealed the whole place

off."

„Who did?"

„The police."

„Really? Any idea why?"

„They reckon there was a fishing boat found this morning,

just floating out at sea. Everyone on board dead. Murdered,

they reckon."

The Doctor stared at the man for a moment, then thrust

the half-eaten „99" into his hand. „Thank you, you"ve been

most helpful," he said as he spun away.

„Oi!"

The Doctor halted in mid-spin. „Hmm?"

„Are you going to pay for this or what?"

„Yes, of course." The Doctor rammed his hand into his coat

pocket and produced a dozen or so glittering purple shells

which he scattered across the small counter in front of the

man. The man gaped at them in astonishment, then

spluttered, „Hey, wait a minute."

But the Doctor was already half-way down the road,

hurrying in the direction of the harbour. „It"s all right, keep

the change," he called back over his shoulder.

The earlier excitement had died down by the time the

Doctor reached the police barrier. There was a smattering of

curious onlookers, though with nothing much to see. On the

jetty, a couple of hundred yards beyond the makeshift cordon

of yellow tape, a lone uniformed policeman stood guard

beside a trawler whose deck was covered by several

tarpaulins.

„Excuse me," the Doctor shouted, raising a hand in an

attempt to snag the policeman"s attention. Unsuccessful, he

cried out more loudly, „Ahoy there!", but again the policeman

either didn"t hear or chose to ignore him.

The Doctor sighed in exasperation, ducked beneath the

barrier and strolled nonchalantly towards the boat. The

policeman stepped into action. He hurried forward to

intercept the Doctor, his face red with exertion and anger.

„What the hell do you think you"re doing? I could have you

arrested for crossing a police line."

„Good afternoon," said the Doctor, offering his most winning

smile. „I don"t want to cause any trouble. I"d simply like to

speak to whoever3s in charge."

„You would, would you? And which backstreet rag do you

represent then?"

„Oh, I"m not a journalist. I work for UNIT. In an advisory

capacity, of course. I have a pass here somewhere." The

Doctor rummaged frantically through his pockets, then all at

once his face cleared and he grinned. He removed his

panama hat to reveal a square of laminated card perched on

the top of his head. He nodded and the card fell neatly into

his palm.

He held it out to the policeman, his forefinger concealing

the photograph of his third incarnation, then replaced it

deftly in his pocket. „I understand you have something of a

mystery here," he said, striding towards the trawler.

„Aye, but then your friend will have told you all about that."

The Doctor stopped and turned so abruptly that the

policeman almost walked into the back of him. „Friend?"

„The other UNIT feller."

„Yes, of course. You didn"t happen to catch his name by any

chance?"

The policeman frowned. „Aye. The DI called him... Bates, I

think it was."

„Mike Yates?" supplied the Doctor.

„Aye, that"s it. How many of you people are here then?"

„Oh, several," said the Doctor vaguely, then clapped the

policeman on the arm. „Tell you what," he said as if it had

suddenly occurred to him to do this man a great favour, „why

don"t you tell me exactly what happened here?"

„Your friend not fill you in then?" said the policeman drily.

„Different departments," bluffed the Doctor. „Mike Yates is

the military liaison officer, I"m in the scientific research team.

Our paths don"t cross all that often. Besides, I"ve always been

a great believer in getting the facts from the horse"s mouth,

so to speak."

The policeman raised his eyebrows, but seemed convinced

enough of the Doctor"s credentials to fill him in on the fate of

the Papillon’s crew. The Doctor listened hard, then gestured

towards the boat. „May I?"

The policeman shrugged. „Be my guest. Not much to see

now, though, bar a few bloodstains. All the remains were

taken for forensic examination a couple of hours ago."

The Doctor jumped nimbly down to the deck of the trawler

and hauled the first of the heavy tarpaulins aside. He spent

several minutes examining the boat, alternately squatting on

his haunches and jumping up to range about as if searching

for something specific.

Finally he leaped back up on to the jetty. „Thank you,

Constable, he said. „Most enlightening" He swivelled on his

heels, briefly scanning the holidaymakers toing and froing on

the promenade. „Tell me, have there been any strange

occurrences in the town recently? Anything at all out of the

ordinary?"

„Well, no, not really, sir. Oh, apart from Elkins"s light, of

course."

„Elkins"s light?"

„Yes, sir. I thought you knew about all that."

„Remind me."

The constable gave him a curious look, but dutifully

recounted the story.

„Very interesting," said the Doctor, staring distractedly into

the middle distance. Abruptly he snapped out of his semi-

trance and said, „Anything else?"

„No, sir, not really. There"s been a higher level of violent

incident than is usual for even this time of year around the

Sands these past couple of weeks, but that"s most likely a

sign of the times than anything."

„Most likely," echoed the Doctor. „Well, thank you for your

help, Constable."

„Not at all, sir."

The Doctor half-turned away, then something seemed to

occur to him and he smiled. „Oh, one final thing. I don"t

suppose Mr Yates left a contact address by any chance?"

The first day of Charlotte Maybury"s holiday had not been a

good one. Despite the sunshine and the change of scenery,

her parents had continued to bicker and her brother to

mooch sullenly along in their wake.

By 6 p.m. Charlotte was exhausted, her stoically cheerful

veneer close to cracking. She felt as if she had spent the day

holding at bay two combatants who were determined to rip

chunks out of each other. Her various suggestions - Sea Life

Centre, crazy golf, beach - had been met with a distinct lack

of enthusiasm from her mum and dad and a sort of

contemptuous indifference from Chris. In the end they had

simply shuffled aimlessly from one location to another,

forcing down ice-creams and fizzy drinks and cups of tea at

regular intervals merely because it seemed the thing to do.

Now they were meandering back to the boarding house and

Charlotte was looking forward to a warm bath and a bit of

peace and quiet in the privacy of her room.

They were walking past a fish and chip restaurant called

The Happy Plaice when her dad, Tony, halted. „Who fancies

haddock and chips?" he said.

Imogen shot him a disdainful look. „Don"t you ever say

anything sensible?"

Tony rolled his eyes. „What"s your problem now, woman?"

„Apart from you, you mean?" She sighed and as if speaking

to a child said, „We"ll be having an evening meal at the B „n

B."

„Says who?"

„What do you mean, says who? We"ve paid for it, you stupid

sod."

„So what? We"re on holiday, aren"t we? We can splash out a

bit."

„Oh yeah? What with?"

„Don"t start going on about that again. For God"s sake,

woman, a plate of fish and chips is hardly going to break the

bank, is it?"

Imogen thrust out her jaw and said through gritted teeth,

„But I don"t want fish and chips."

„Well, I do,’ sneered Tony, thrusting his face close to hers.

Charlotte felt the familiar tension squeezing her lungs. She

was so exhausted by their arguing that she felt like

screaming at them to stop, felt like grabbing each of them by

the scruffs of their necks and banging their heads together.

But she knew that anger on her part would do no good. It

was her lot to be the conciliator.

Wearily, all thoughts of a warm bath slipping away from

her, she said, Why don"t we just pop in for a cup of tea?

We"ve still got plenty of time before dinner."

Chris snorted and looked away as if he thought her

attempts at arbitration pathetic.

Her dad rounded on her. „I don"t want a cup of tea. I want

fish and chips."

„Well, you have fish and chips," she said reasonably. „Mum

and I can have a cup of tea and Chris can have... whatever he

wants."

Her brother mumbled something. Imogen snapped her

head towards him. „If you"ve got something to say, just say it."

Suddenly Chris was glaring at her, the cheekbones of his

spotty face flaring with colour. „I said what I want is to get

away from this bloody family. I don"t know why I had to come

on this stupid holiday, anyway. I wish you"d all just get

stuffed and leave me alone."

Charlotte looked around. They were starting to attract the

attention of passers-by.

Imogen stepped towards him. „Don"t you dare speak to me

like that!"

„Oh yeah, or what will you do? Smack my bum?"

‘She might not, but I will," growled Tony.

Chris took a step back, but his stance was aggressive,

defiant. „I"d like to see you try."

„Right," said Tony and lunged forward, face red, eyes

bulging. Chris hopped sideways and threw a clumsy punch,

which connected with his father"s face more by luck than

judgement.

Quite a crowd was gathering now. Charlotte rushed

forward to position herself between Chris and Tony, her

composure crumbling. „Stop it! Stop it!" she shouted. She

tried to grab her dad"s arm to pull him back, but he swung

out to shrug her off and his hand struck the side of her face,

sending her reeling. She stumbled off the kerb and her legs

gave way beneath her, dumping her unceremoniously on the

ground.

‘You bloody animal!’ Imogen screamed at Tony, but Tony

ignored her, advancing on Chris.

„Come here, you little sod!" he roared, but Chris darted into

the crowd of onlookers, which parted before him.

When he was a safe distance away, he shouted, „I hate the

lot of you. I wish you"d all just bloody drop dead." Then he

turned and loped away. A group of lads, who had been

watching what was going on with grins all over their faces,

cheered and clapped.

„And you lot can bloody shut up," Tony roared, stomping

towards them.

The lads ran off, laughing and making V-signs as they

retreated.

Tony clumped to a halt. He was red and sweating, the side

of his face already purple where Chris had hit him. His eyes

bulged and there was froth at the comers of his mouth. For a

moment he looked confused, as if he had no idea what to do

next, then he swung towards the restaurant. „I"m off for some

fish and chips," he muttered, „You two can do what you like."

Charlotte, still sitting in the gutter, aware that she was

being stared at like some curious exhibit in a museum,

allowed her head to sink into her trembling hands to hide the

tears that were running down her face.

„Right," said Tegan as soon as she had put the phone down,

„I"m going out."

„To find the Doctor?"

She gave Turlough a withering look. „You really think I"m

that desperate?"

He shrugged. „Do you want me to come with you?"

„No, thank you."

„Well... where are you going?"

„For a walk. To get some fresh air."

Turlough raised his eyebrows dismissively. „Right... well, I"ll

see you later."

„Much later," snapped Tegan and marched out.

For a while she stomped through the streets of the town,

the exasperation inside her blinding her to her surroundings.

Eventually, she calmed down, and moving into the town

centre, away from the seafront, spent a pleasant hour

window-shopping. She grimaced at the seventies" fashions,

wondering how she could ever have found such clothes

trendy in her teenage years, and marvelled at how cheap

everything was. Thinking of money made her remember how

the Doctor had insisted on vetting the cash in the little

shoulder bag she"d packed - and which she was now carrying

with her - to ensure she wasn"t about to hand over coins that

were yet to be minted. Her throat and stomach tightened

again. The Doctor was her friend, she trusted him implicitly,

but if he treated her more like an adult she wouldn"t have

cause to fly off the handle so often, would she?

She spotted a pub, The Captain Cook, and decided to pop

in for a drink. She couldn"t remember the last time she had

sat quietly by herself on her own planet in (more or less) her

own time while life drifted by around her. Since Amsterdam,

her life had been a whirlwind of exotic locations and life-

shattering - sometimes planet-shattering- events. „Strictly no

aliens allowed," she murmured to herself as she pushed open

the pub door and entered.

Predictably, the landlord of The Captain Cook had opted to

give his pub a nautical theme. The dark-wood walls were

decorated with framed photographs of fishing trawlers and

their crews, and with various sea-faring paraphernalia: a

ship"s wheel, a barometer, an anchor. Above the bar was a

huge stuffed marlin in a glass case.

Tegan stood beneath the marlin as she ordered a glass of

dry white wine. The barman, whose stringy hair was

plastered carefully over his balding scalp, tried to engage her

in conversation, but she rebuffed him as politely as she could

and took her drink to a table in the comer.

It was still early evening, only just opening time, and Tegan

was The Captain Cook"s first customer. Within minutes,

however, the door banged open and a group of men in their

early twenties bustled loudly in. They wore tight T-shirts and

jeans so flared they flapped like sails as they walked. Each

and every one of them had a helmet-like mop of shoulder-

length hair. One of the men spotted her and nudged his

companions and they turned with leering smiles.

„All right, darling," said one.

„Drinking alone, love? Why don"t you come and join us?"

invited another.

Tegan sighed. „No thanks," she replied curtly.

„What"s the matter, love? Don"t you fancy us?" asked a man

with a pockmarked face and a scrubby blond moustache.

„Not much, no."

„Ooh, too good for us, are you?"

„Here," said a man, whose thick dark fringe almost covered

his eyes, „where you from? You an Aussie, are you?"

Tegan looked the man squarely in the eye and said, „Look, I

just came in for a quiet drink, so I"d appreciate it if you"d all

go away and leave me alone."

Her words were met with a barrage of comments:

„Playing hard to get, are we, darling?"

„Tie me kangaroo down, sport."

„Hey, you know what they say about Aussie birds."

The blond man with the moustache and the pock-marked

face leaned forward, resting his knuckled fists on the edge of

Tegan"s table. In a voice that was quieter and more

threatening than his friends" he said, „We only want to buy

you a drink, lady. We"re only trying to be polite."

Tegan"s temper flared. She couldn"t help it. „No, you"re not,"

she snapped. „You"re a bunch of annoying little boys, all

trying to act the big macho man in front of your mates."

She saw the blond-haired man"s face change, a strange

blankness come into his eyes, his lips curl aggressively.

Astonished, she watched as he drew his arm back, his hand

closing into a fist. She had no doubt that he intended to

punch her in the face.

At that moment she was aware of someone barging through

the crowd of youths, and a split second later the blond man"s

head jerked up and he was yelping in pain. The man who had

grabbed her would-be assailant"s wrist and twisted it behind

his back ignored the threats from around him, and leaned

over the blond man"s shoulder so that his mouth was

positioned directly beside his ear.

„Get off on attacking women, do you, sonny?" he said. „That

about your level, is it?"

„Let me go," the blond man cried through the pain.

„Or what?" said the newcomer. „Will you tell your mummy?"

„I"ll tell the police you attacked me. I"ve got witnesses here

to back me up."

„I am the police," said the man, thrusting an ID card into

the blond man"s face.

The way the others melted away from the scene, some of

them sidling over to the pool table on the far side of the pub,

a couple even sneaking out through the door, almost made

Tegan smile.

The last vestiges of defiance drained from the blond man"s

voice and he became whiny, craven. „I didn"t do anything," he

said. „We were just messing about."

„Well, I don"t think the lady found it very funny. Do you?"

„Er... n-no, probably not."

„So what do you say?"

„Er..."

„I think an apology is called for, don"t you?"

„Oh. Oh yeah. Sorry, officer."

„Not to me, you moron, to the young lady."

„Oh... er... yeah. Sorry... er, miss."

Tegan snorted and rolled her eyes.

The policeman said reflectively, „Now, what shall we do with

you? I think a night in the cells might make you think twice

about throwing your puny weight around, don"t you?"

The blond man quailed. „No... no, don"t, please. I mean,

I"ve... I"ve learned my lesson. I"ve never been in trouble before,

honest. I won"t do it again."

The policeman was silent for a moment, making the blond

man sweat. Finally he said, „You know, I really can"t decide

what to do, so I think I"ll ask the young lady here. Miss,

would you like to press charges against this... er...

gentleman?"

Again, Tegan had to fight hard not to smile. She stared

coldly at the blond man, who gazed back at her pleadingly.

After a leisurely sip of her wine she gave a dismissive shake

of the head. „He"s not worth it."

The policeman abruptly released his captive, who sprawled

across her table, his legs splaying in a way that reminded

Tegan of Bambi on the ice. Wincing from the pain in his arm,

he pushed himself groggily to his feet. When he turned he

found himself almost nose to nose with the thicker-set

policeman, who grinned and said, „It"s just lucky for you that

this lady has such a generous nature and that I"m off-duty.

Now make yourself scarce."

The blond man looked for a moment as though he wanted

to say something, but didn"t have the courage. Finally he

gave a short nod and stumbled away. Rather than joining his

friends over by the pool table, he headed straight for the door

and lunged outside, his cheeks burning with humiliation.

The policeman watched him go, then turned to Tegan. „Are

you OK?"

„Fine," said Tegan. „I might not have been, though, if you

hadn"t showed up. I really think he intended to punch my

lights out."

„Can I get you a drink?" he said. „Calm your nerves? I just

popped in for a quiet one myself, believe it or not."

„Sure," she said and held up her glass. „Same again,

thanks."

„Coming up." He walked over to the bar.

Tegan watched him ordering the drinks. He was attractive

in a seventies" sort of way. He was around thirty and,

perhaps like many policemen of his era, obviously modelled

himself on George Carter from The Sweeney. Certainly his

hair was the same style, albeit darker, as were his clothes:

kipper tie worn loosely, cuffs of his shirt turned up in a way

that she always thought looked faintly ridiculous when she

watched re-runs. He was not as rugged as Carter, though;

his face was boyish, pleasant-looking, seemingly never far

from a smile. He was broader-shouldered too, stocky but

certainly not fat. He came back with another glass of wine for

her and a pint of bitter already half-drunk for himself. „There

you go," he said.

„Thanks." She drained the remains of her first glass and

picked up her second. „Cheers."

„Cheers," he responded. They chinked glasses and drank.

After a few moments he said, „Perhaps we"d better introduce

ourselves. My name"s Andy Weathers."

„Is that PC or..."

„Sergeant," he said with a grin.

„Tegan Jovanka," said Tegan, thrusting out her hand for

him to shake. He looked faintly surprised at the gesture, but

shook anyway.

Nodding at the group by the pool table, he said, „So, do you

know that crowd?"

„Do I look as though I"d hang around with creeps like that?"

She smiled to soften her indignation. „No, I was just sitting

here when they came in and started giving me hassle. When I

told them where to go, Prince Charming decided to thump

me."

He shook his head. „Toerags. I ought to arrest the lot of

them."

„I"m OK. I"ve handled a lot worse than them, believe me."

„So what brings you to the Sands?"

She smiled teasingly, „How do you know I"m not a local?"

„If you are, that"s a very convincing Australian accent

you"ve got there. So, come on, what brings you to this part of

the world? Are you here on holiday?"

„Got it in one."

„So which part of Australia are you from?"

„Brisbane. But I don"t live there at the moment."

„No? Whereabouts do you live?"

„So many questions!" she said. No wonder you became a

policeman."

He took another sip from his glass and leaned back with a

smile. „Sorry. Just making conversation. I don"t want you to

think I"m coming on too strong."

„No, that"s OK," she said. „I"m enjoying just sitting here,

talking. I can"t remember the last time I did this with

anyone."

„Really?" he said, visibly brightening, and leaned towards

her again. „Why"s that?"

„I guess because my life"s so hectic."

„Why? What do you do?"

„I used to be an air hostess, but now I just... travel."

„Seeing a bit of the world, eh?"

„Something like that."

„Isn"t it a bit dangerous," he said, „a girl travelling around on

her own?"

Tegan realised she was going to have to tread warily here.

She didn"t want to get embroiled in a tangle of lies, but

neither could she tell Andy exactly what her life entailed. „Oh,

I"m not alone," she said. „I travel with a couple of friends."

„And where are they tonight?" he asked.

„One decided to stay back at the hotel and the other one"s

gone off on his own somewhere."

„“His”?" said Andy casually. „They"re not both girls then?"

Tegan knew where this was leading, but found that she

didn"t mind. Equally casually she said, „No. As a matter of

fact they"re both blokes."

„Really?" he said, raising his eyebrows. „Sounds like an

interesting arrangement."

„It"s not what you think. They"re just friends," she said, and

added teasingly, „Not that it"s any concern of yours anyway."

„Course not," he said innocently, swiftly draining the last of

his pint. „Fancy another?"

Tegan laughed. „Are you trying to get me drunk?"

„Course I am. Get the tourists drunk and have our evil way

with them. That"s what we do in this town."

When he returned from the bar, Tegan asked him to tell her

about himself. Andy grimaced and said there wasn"t much to

tell. He"d been born and brought up in Tayborough Sands,

and came from a long line of fishermen. „I decided to break

tradition and become a copper," he said. „There"s no future in

fishing any more for little family businesses like ours. The big

factory trawlers are taking over."

„How does that make you feel?" asked Tegan. „Pretty bitter, I

bet."

He shrugged. „Not so much bitter. A bit sad, maybe. But it"s

progress, isn"t it? Time moves on. You can"t do anything to

stop it."

„No," Tegan said, „you can"t. So what"s it like being a

policeman in a place like this ?"

„Seasonal. Quiet in the winter, hell in the summer."

„I bet you hate tourists, don"t you?"

„Some of them." He smiled. „To tell you the truth, I don"t

mind being busy. These last few weeks, though -" he frowned

and shook his head - „the whole place has gone crazy."

„Really? In what way?"

„Well, what happened to you tonight was a good example. I

mean, this time of year we get a lot of incidents relating to

alcohol - fights in discos, people pulled in for drunk and

disorderly, criminal damage, that sort of thing. But this year

violent incidents have doubled, if not trebled."

„What do you think"s causing it?" asked Tegan.

„I don"t know. The heat maybe? It has been hotter than

usual this year. And violence, when it starts, tends to

spread."

Tegan sipped her wine and said reflectively, „That guy

tonight... just before he drew his arm back to hit me, his eyes

went sort of blank. It was weird."

Andy nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. „Anyway... Look,

you"re here on holiday. I shouldn"t be sitting here telling you

what a terrible place this is. The last thing I want is to scare

you off."

„Oh, you won"t scare me off," said Tegan. „I"m a pretty tough

cookie."

„All the same, I hope you"ll let me walk you back to your

hotel."

„Course I will. But let"s have another drink first, eh? My

round."

In fact, they had two more drinks. Tegan didn"t realise how

much the alcohol had affected her until she stood up. Her

head started to spin and she had to concentrate hard to stop

herself from stumbling.

„Oh, rabbits," she murmured.

„Are you all right?" asked Andy, concerned.

„A bit woozy," she admitted. „I can"t remember the last time I

had this much to drink."

„Come on, take my arm," he said. „A bit of fresh air will do

you good."

The pub had filled up with people and smoke since Tegan

had entered a couple of hours ago. They manoeuvred their

way to the door, Tegan holding on to Andy"s arm, and went

outside.

At first the fresh breeze blowing through the narrow streets

made her head spin even more. She staggered as if the breeze

was strong as a hurricane. Andy slipped his arm around her

waist to steady her.

„Whoops," she said. „I bet you didn"t bank on being

lumbered with a drunken Aussie."

„I"ve got no complaints about the company." He grinned.

„Can you walk in a straight line?"

It was a beautiful night, the air warm, the sky clear and

pinpricked with stars. Despite the violent picture Andy had

painted, the streets of Tayborough Sands were quiet. They

walked down to the seafront, Tegan still holding on to Andy

for support. To anyone else they must have looked like lovers

sharing a romantic stroll after dinner. They listened to the

rushing, gravelly roar of the sea as it swarmed triumphantly

over the shore before retreating with a sigh. There were no

lights on the beach, and the only way they could distinguish

sand from water was by the glittering shards of the moon"s

twin bobbing on the sea"s black surface.

As they meandered along the pavement to the Lombard

Hotel, Andy said, „Can I see you again?"

Tegan felt a slow smile stretching her lips, but she tried to

keep her voice casual. „If you like."

He hesitated, then plunged in. „How about tomorrow? We

could spend the day together. I"m not on duty till six."

Tegan found herself wondering briefly what the Doctor"s

plans for the next day were, then immediately quashed the

thought. „Sounds great."

„Ok, I"ll pick you up from Reception about... nine?"

„I"ll be there."

They lingered at the hotel steps, unsure how to end it.

„Well... goodnight," Tegan said at last, and abruptly thrust her

hand out again. „Thanks for being my knight in shining

armour."

„My pleasure." He took the hand, but this time instead of

shaking it he kissed the back of it gently. „Until tomorrow," he

said softly.

„Until tomorrow," Tegan repeated, trying desperately not to

blush.

Several hours earlier Mike Yates had opened the door of his

attic room to find a complete stranger standing there. The

stranger was wearing odd clothes: a cricketing jumper and a

long cream coat with a stick of celery attached to the lapel

and funny striped trousers. Despite the heat the man looked

cool and fresh. As soon as he saw Mike, a huge and delighted

grin spread over his face.

„Mike Yates!" he exclaimed. „How wonderful to see you

again!"

Mike frowned, puzzled and a little wary. „Have we met

before?"

„Oh, many times," said the stranger as if he was enjoying

himself hugely, „though not since I regenerated."

„Regenerated? You don"t mean... You"re not the Doctor?"

„Yes!" cried the man as if Mike was a rather dim pupil who

had just grasped a basic mathematical formula.

Both the Doctor and the Brigadier had explained the

fundamentals of regeneration to him, but Mike had not

realised how drastic the change could be. „But you"re... so

different," he said weakly.

„Oh, I"m still the same old Doctor underneath," the Doctor

said airily. „May I come in?"

Mike was about to step back and pull the door wide when

he paused. „How do I know you"re the Doctor? How do I know

you"re not trying to trick me?"

The Doctor blinked. „Why would I want to do that?"

„I don"t know. Maybe you want to get to the real Doctor

through me. You could be the Master for all I know."

The Doctor flinched and his voice became a little high-

pitched with indignation. „Please! I"ve never been so insulted."

„I"m sorry," said Mike, „It"s just... you"re so different. You

don"t seem as..."

„Arrogant? Overbearing?"

Mike shrugged embarrassedly. „You said it."

„Yes, well," said the Doctor, nonplussed, „when one

matures, one irons out these little foibles."

„Matures?" said Mike. „But you look so much younger!"

„Appearances can be deceptive, you know."

„My point exactly," said Mike triumphantly.

The Doctor sighed. „The thing about regeneration is that it"s

something of a lottery. But whatever I look like, I"m still

fundamentally the same underneath. How can I convince you

of that?"

Before Mike could reply, the Doctor"s eyes widened. „What

date is it?" he asked.

Puzzled, Mike told him.

The Doctor gazed into the middle distance as if looking

back through time. „So you"ve not been back on active duty

for long. You"ve been recovering from the events at

Llanfairfach."

Mike frowned. „Go on."

The Doctor snapped out of his semi-trance. „How are you

feeling now, Mike?"

„Fine."

„No ill-effects?"

„No, I don"t think so."

The Doctor looked at him strangely, reached out and patted

him on the forearm. „You"re a good man, Mike. I"ve always

thought so."

„Thanks, but I don"t -"

Breathlessly the Doctor said, „BOSS took you over. I

brought you back with a blue crystal from Metebelis Three. I

sent the crystal to Jo for a wedding present." His hand dipped

into his pocket and he produced a small card which he

handed to Mike. „My UNIT pass. Now I wouldn"t let this fall

into the wrong hands, would I? The Brigadier would have my

guts for garters."

Mike took the card and looked at it perfunctorily before

handing it back. Smiling he said, „All right, Doctor, let"s say I

believe you."

The Doctor grinned. „Splendid. Then we can get down to

business."

Mike ushered the Doctor in, then crossed to the bed and

sat down. The Doctor wandered around the small room as if

restless, hands in the pockets of his striped trousers. „So

what caused you to regenerate?" Mike asked.

The Doctor swung round from his contemplation of a rather

poorly-executed print of a sailing yacht hanging above the

dressing table. „Hmm?"

Mike repeated his question.

„Ah," said the Doctor, and crossed the room to sit in the

armchair beneath the alcoved window. „It"s rather

complicated. You see, since you last saw me I"ve regenerated

twice. But that doesn"t mean you"ve seen the last of the me

that you know. I"m just popping in while I"m away, so to

speak. The next me to arrive will be the old me with no

knowledge of the new me - presuming that none of the other

mes drop in in the meantime, of course."

Mike looked at the Doctor deadpan for a moment, and then

said, „Thank you. That makes everything perfectly clear."

His ironic tone seemed lost on the Doctor, who looked at

him keenly. „Tell me about the light that Mr Elkins saw."

„You know about that?" said Mike.

„I"ve been doing some investigating."

Mike pulled a dismissive face. „Load of rubbish, if you ask

me. The man"s an old soak. Probably fell asleep and dreamt

the whole thing."

„Hmmm," said the Doctor thoughtfully. „You saw the bodies

on the fishing boat?"

„Yes."

„I understand their injuries were rather severe?"

Mike raised his eyebrows. „That"s putting it mildly. Apart

from one chap who looked as if he"d had half his throat torn

out, there were only bits left behind."

„Indeed," said the Doctor thoughtfully. „And what could

cause that degree of damage, do you think? An aquatic

mammal, perhaps ?"

„Well... I don"t know. The police seem to think one of the

men went berserk and killed the others."

„Is that possible? Given the injuries you saw?"

Mike looked dubious, but paused before replying. „Those

men were torn apart, Doctor. Not cut or chopped. Torn. If one

of the crew did kill the others, he did it with his bare hands."

„Interesting," said the Doctor. „In which case a much more

likely supposition would be that the men were killed by

whatever came out of the vessel that Mr Elkins saw land in

the sea. Wouldn"t you agree?"

Mike pulled a face. „The thought had crossed my mind. But

old Elkins seems such an unreliable witness I"m reluctant to

involve the Brigadier until I"ve got more evidence. I don"t want

to haul half of UNIT up here only for them to find they"re

faced with nothing but an old drunk and a local squabble.

You know, first day back on the job and all that."

The Doctor nodded his understanding and said slyly, „Is it

really necessary to involve UNIT at all? I"ve never been

overkeen on the military marching about, upsetting everyone.

I"m sure if we put our heads together the two of us could sort

this matter out without any fuss."

„I"m sorry, Doctor," said Mike, „but I"m answerable to the

Brigadier. I have to inform him about what"s going on."

For a moment the Doctor looked like a little boy who has

been refused a packet of sweets. „Well, if you must, you

must," he said. He thought of the alien mind he had briefly

touched earlier that day, and sighed.

„Is something the matter?" asked Mike.

„I think I just might have the extra evidence you need," the

Doctor said.

Tegan didn"t realise she was still angry until the Doctor

popped his head out of the door of his room as she was

unlocking hers.

„You missed dinner," he said, the note of indignation in his

voice immediately causing her to bridle.

„I wasn"t hungry," she replied tersely, determined that he

wouldn"t spoil what had turned out to be a lovely evening.

He wandered along the corridor towards her. „Turlough and

I were concerned. We missed your company."

„I"ll bet," she muttered.

„Have you eaten?" he asked.

She swung round on him, still feeling a little dizzy from the

alcohol. „Since when have you cared about my welfare?"

He looked taken aback, hurt. „I care a great deal!"

Realising she had overstepped the mark, but too proud to

apologise, she mumbled, „Anyway, who are you to ask me

where I’ve been? Where did you disappear off to this

afternoon?"

All at once he looked evasive. „Catching up on an old

friend."

„What old friend? Doctor, what"s going on?"

He sighed, „Nothing"s going on."

„Yes it is. As a Time Lord you may have strange and

unusual powers, but you"re a rotten liar. Tell me, Doctor."

He raised his eyes heavenward. „All right." He told her about

the light in the sky; the trawler; the alien mind that had

briefly touched his upon their arrival.

Tegan saw her holiday evaporating before her eyes. „Why

didn"t you tell me all this earlier?"

„I didn"t know about most of it earlier. Besides, you and

Turlough are supposed to be on holiday, recuperating from

recent traumas."

„So are you!"

„My powers of recuperation are considerably greater than

yours."

„So you keep us in the dark, treat us like children!" she

snapped.

„Only because you often behave like one," retorted the

Doctor.

She glared at him for a moment, then abruptly turned and

walked away down the corridor, back towards the lifts.

„Tegan!" he called.

„Drop dead!" she shouted.

The Doctor spun on his heels in exasperation - and came

face to face with Turlough, who had been standing silently in

the doorway of his room, watching the exchange.

Turlough raised his eyebrows in apparent sympathy and

said, „Shall I go after her?"

„You do what you like," the Doctor muttered, and stalked

back to his room.

Perhaps if she hurried she could catch up with Andy, though

what would follow from there she really had no idea. She

wouldn"t want him to think she was throwing hers elf at him,

and however much she liked him she knew that there was no

future in their relationship. She supposed she just wanted

someone to talk to, someone neutral, normal, sympathetic -

though how she could explain what was on her mind without

telling him about the kind of life she led was anybody"s

guess.

When the lift doors opened on to the reception area she

half-expected to see the Doctor standing there, waiting for

her, having beaten her to the ground floor via the stairs.

When he wasn"t she felt a strange mixture of disappointment

and relief. She hurried across to the main doors and out into

the night.

Andy was nowhere to be seen, but maybe that was a good

thing, after all. Tegan had enjoyed the sheer normality of the

evening they"d spent together, but perhaps what she really

needed right now was time to think, time to sort out the

confusion in her mind.

Should she leave the Doctor and try to pick up the threads

of her life again? Rather than simply taking a holiday, or

visiting her grandfather, should she break her ties with him

once and for all? There was a part of her that craved the kind

of normal human interaction she had experienced tonight,

and a part that told her she should grasp her once-in-a-

lifetime experience of life aboard the TARDIS with both hands

and wring from it what she could. She was travelling around

the universe in a time machine, for Christ"s sake! She was

seeing and experiencing things that the vast majority of

people could only dream about! In that respect she was mad

for even contemplating giving it all up. But wherever they

went they found trouble, danger, death...

She walked along the promenade until she came to a flight

of stone steps that led down to the beach. She descended

carefully, holding on to the metal railing at her side, the

roaring of the sea increasing like some vast animal excited at

her approach. She knew she had reached the bottom only

when her feet met a surface that was softer, more giving,

than stone. Despite the fat yellow moon and the craning,

pumpkin-orange light of the street lamps on the prom above,

it was too dark to discern where the sand ended and the sea

began.

The wind ruffled her hair as she began to walk and made

her shiver slightly. It was chilly, but at least it might help

clear the remnants of the alcohol which still befuddled her

thoughts. It was unwise to make any decisions about her

future now; she would sleep on it, think about it again in the

morning One conclusion she did come to, though, was that

whatever was happening here, she would let the Doctor deal

with it on his own. She had no intention of breaking her date

with Andy tomorrow.

She came to a halt, wondering whether she ought to head

back to the hotel. How long had she been gone? Ten

minutes? It wasn"t much of a statement, was it? About five

hundred yards away, moonlight was washing across a set of

caves, their yawning mouths pooled with shadow. She would

walk as far as the caves and then slowly back, she decided.

Her ears filled with nothing but the foaming rush of the

sea, she trudged unhurriedly towards them.

Deep in the shadows at the back of the largest cave,

something stirred. Its spiny flesh rasped the stone wall it had

been slumped against as it emerged from its fevered sleep.

The smell that had roused it - coppery, pungent, and oh so

deliriously, unbearably sweet - made it salivate, tremble and

jerk with excitement. It hauled itself forward to the cave

mouth, its stertorous breathing audible only to itself beneath

the constant frothing hiss of the waves, and peered out.

A woman was approaching along the sand, the wind

plucking at her hair and clothes, her outline backlit by the

moon. It was her blood that the creature could smell; it was

beating off her in waves. As she drew closer, so the smell

intensified, until the creature was almost crazed by it. Slowly

it levered its body up on its eight legs, tensing itself for the

kill...

Part Two

Breaking Out

Turlough shouted her name again, but Tegan didn"t respond.

Either she was wilfully ignoring him or she couldn"t hear him

above the crashing of the waves. He made an exasperated

sound and resumed his shambling run. He had always hated

physical exercise; if you had to exert yourself to get

something you wanted, then it probably wasn"t worth getting

in the first place.

He shouted her name a third time, and on this occasion, to

his relief, she stopped and turned round.

„What do you want?" she asked discouragingly as he drew

near.

He thumped to a halt and bent double, hands on his knees,

out of breath. After a moment he gasped, „I came... to see... if

you were all right."

„Did the Doctor send you?" she asked suspiciously.

„No. But I do think you ought to come back and talk to him.

Clear the air."

Obstinately she folded her arms. „Why?"

„Well, because... because you and the Doctor are the only

friends I"ve got. I don"t like ill-will between any of us."

She snorted. „That"s rich, coming from someone who was

trying to kill him not so very long ago."

He looked shame-faced, hurt. „You know I was tricked by

the Black Guardian. Besides, that"s all in the past now. I"m

doing my best to make amends."

„Is that so?"

„Yes! Look, I don"t suppose I can blame you for not trusting

me, but we got each other out of Sea Base Four alive, didn"t

we? There"ll be no more lies, I promise."

„We"ll see," said Tegan, though her voice was softer now.

Turlough extended a tentative hand towards her. „ Please

come back to the hotel."

Tegan sighed and glanced towards the Lombard. She could

see the lights in its windows glowing some distance away, up

beyond the promenade.

„He treats us like children," she said. He doesn"t tell us

what"s going on."

„He"s not like that all the time," said Turlough.

Tegan gave him a sharp look. „Why are you defending him?"

„I"m not. It"s just..." He sighed. „I think you"re being a little

hard on him, Tegan. He just wanted us to have a holiday, to

relax after what happened on the Sea Base."

Now it was her turn to sigh. „I know. I don"t like him

making decisions for me, that"s all. I"m old enough to make

my own."

Turlough smiled wryly. „Not in his eyes. Though if you

manage to live for the next four or five hundred years, you

just might get a little respect."

She laughed and took the hand he was still holding out

towards her. „All right; she said resignedly, let"s go back."

„And you"ll talk to the Doctor?" said Turlough.

„I"ll try. But I can"t guarantee it"ll be a civilised

conversation."

As the two figures turned and walked away, the creature in

the cave snarled and writhed in frustration. The smell of their

blood, carried on the wind like musk, was sending it wild

with the urge to tear and rend and devour. But just when its

feast was almost within reach, it seemed it was to be cruelly

denied it. Desperately, the creature moved forward to the

cave entrance, but as soon as the moonlight touched it, it

shrank back.

Despite its craving, an overriding instinct compelled it to

remain in the shadows. Very soon it would not matter, but

for now it was important that the creature not draw attention

to itself. Blood-lust pounded through its veins; a desire so

powerful that the creature"s eight legs twitched and jerked in

involuntary spasms, scraping against the walls and gouging

out great ruts and scars of stone.

After saying goodnight to Tegan, Andy Weathers decided to

call in at one of his favourite haunts, The Blue Falcon, for a

nightcap. He was feeling good, still buzzing from Tegan"s

company, and he didn"t feel like heading home just yet. One

or two of the lads might be in the Falcon - it was a favourite

police haunt - but it wouldn"t bother Andy unduly if he had

to drink alone. Besides, it would give him the chance to plan

his day with Tegan tomorrow.

The first thing he noticed when he pushed open the door

was that there was a rowdier than usual crowd in tonight.

The lads from the force could get a bit loud, especially on a

Friday when the landlord employed a couple of strippers to

bolster trade, but this lot was different: young lads and

lasses, holidaymakers probably. As he made his way to the

bar, Andy realised that the atmosphere was not merely

rowdy, it was downright threatening. He glanced quickly

around, but the hostility did not seem to be directed at him

in particular. It was simply there, as thick as the cigarette

smoke that curled around the room in swirling grey patterns.

The landlord, Bob Walker, moved down the bar to serve

him, and immediately Andy saw the tension on his face.

„Evening, Bob," Andy said.

Walker gave a brief nod. „Andy."

„Something going down tonight, is there?"

Walker"s gaze flickered nervously around the room. „So you

feel it too, do you? It"s been like this all week," he said quietly.

„Any trouble?"

„Nothing serious so far, but I have this horrible feeling that

it"s only a matter of time."

„Same mob every day is it?"

„No, that"s the odd thing. There are some of the same faces,

but nearly everyone who comes in looks as if they"re spoiling

for a fight. Even -" he faltered.

„Even what?" Andy said.

Walker looked uncomfortable, embarrassed. He lowered his

voice even more. „Now, don"t take this the wrong way, Andy. I

don"t mean to be insulting or anything. But I"ve even noticed

it in some of your lot."

Andy frowned. Walker"s words had served to crystallise

some of his own recent concerns. „I"ve noticed it too," he

admitted. „For a week or two now I"ve had this feeling that...

that we"re sitting on a powder keg."

Walker pulled a pint of bitter without being asked and

placed it on the bar. „Any idea what"s causing it?"

Andy shrugged. „Not really. The hot weather maybe."

He paid for his beer and went to sit down. As he drank he

glanced around, covertly watching the pub"s customers. The

majority, he noticed, were scowling, standing with their fists

clenched, turning to stare at strangers as if inviting

confrontation. At the bar, people were barging through

without care or apology, causing a number of heated

exchanges, and several snapped threats.

He had been in the pub for ten minutes when, seemingly

apropos of nothing, a pint glass flew across the room, beer

arcing from it, spattering the crowd.

The glass smashed against the bar, spraying a woman with

crystal splinters. She screamed, her hands flying up to her

lacerated face. The man beside her turned, enraged, and

launched himself at the nearest target, an elderly,

bespectacled man who was standing with his wife, sipping

whisky. He bore the man to the ground, punched him in the

face, smashing his spectacles. The elderly man"s wife

slammed a wine glass on to her husband"s assailant"s head,

cutting her hand, and then, astonishingly, spun like a

dervish and began to viciously pummel the young man in the

leather jacket who was standing next to her. The young man

retaliated, kicking and bludgeoning the woman to the

ground. As if the sudden flurry of violence had snapped their

own fragile threads of inhibition, other people abruptly

turned to launch unprovoked attacks on those standing close

to them. These tinders of violence escalated into a forest fire

with such astonishing speed that within half a minute of the

catalyst of the exploding glass the entire room was in uproar.

The chain of events was so swift that Andy, like many

others, could only gape at first, his beer glass clutched

almost forgotten in his hand. He had been involved in violent

situations before and quickly realised that what was

happening here did not conform to the usual patterns.

Brawls and riots generally looked more frightening than they

actually were, most of those involved content simply to make

up the numbers, to get caught up in the excitement whilst

staying out of trouble. Here, though, things were different.

Here, the majority rather than the minority seemed eager to

get in on the action.

Women were screeching and clawing and kicking; men

were punching, head-butting, picking up whatever they could

find to use as weapons. The violence was intense, random,

senseless, frenzied. People were simply inflicting pain on

others for the sheer crazed joy of it, fighting with whoever

was closest to hand, regardless of age or gender.

Andy had only a second or two to take this in before a big

guy with a thick moustache and a look of glazed madness in

his eyes lunged towards him. Andy jumped up from his seat

and instinctively threw his beer in the man"s face. As the

man blundered on, momentarily blinded, Andy dropped his

beer glass and in one movement stepped forward and

punched the man right in the centre of his face, poleaxing

him. Before anyone else could zero in on him, Andy ran

across to the door at the back of the bar, shot through it and

slammed it behind him.

The corridor behind the bar, at the end of which was a

staircase leading up to the living quarters, was deserted. To

Andy"s immediate right was a fire exit door, which he

slammed through without hesitation. He found himself in a

cobbled back yard that narrowed to an alleyway that ran

along the side of the building. The noises coming from inside

the pub made it sound as if a wild party was taking place in

there. Andy took out his walkie-talkie and put a call through

to the station. By the time the police arrived, three minutes

later, the violence had spilled out into the street.

Andy stayed out of sight at the end of the alleyway until he

heard the sirens and saw the flashing lights of four panda

cars and a Black Maria. When he emerged into the glass,

debris and body-strewn street, the doors of the police

vehicles were opening and uniforms were piling out. Though

he was grateful for the back-up, Andy still couldn"t help

feeling uneasy. A good number of his colleagues looked as

itchy for a fight as most of the people in the pub had been,

and Andy didn"t think their eager, yet oddly blank

expressions could simply be put down to adrenalin.

As the uniformed PCs and the pub combatants clashed,

Reg Stafford, a fellow sergeant and a friend of Andy"s, got out

of the front passenger seat of the leading panda car and

hurried across. „What the hell"s been going on here, Andy?"

he said.

„All hell broke loose in there, and I don"t just mean a few

blokes throwing punches," Andy said. „Someone chucked a

glass, and next thing I knew everyone was going at it hammer

and tongs - men, women..." He tailed off, shaking his head.

„Right," Reg said, and even his eyes were glittering a little,

„I"ll follow my boys in, see what the damage is. You coming?"

„Wouldn"t miss it for the world," Andy said without

enthusiasm.

Reg and Andy followed the uniforms through the open

double doors. Inside the pub, which had been

comprehensively wrecked, PCs had drawn their truncheons

and were setting about their task of breaking heads. Andy

tried to avoid watching them too closely, not because he was

squeamish, but because he didn"t want to see how

undisciplined his colleagues had become; didn"t want to see

the glee on their faces as they brought their truncheons

cracking down on skulls. Instead he concentrated on tending

to those who had been bludgeoned and beaten out of the

fight.

Most of them had relatively minor injuries - scratches,

bites, broken noses, missing teeth, black eyes. Others were

injured more seriously: there were broken limbs and ribs and

gashes to the head, some of which were quite deep.

Almost every one of those who had been too badly injured

to continue fighting seemed dazed, confused, as if they had

emerged from a hypnotic trance. Several of them asked Andy

what was happening; one or two even seemed to have

difficulty remembering where or who they were.

Andy made as many of them as comfortable as he could,

assured them that ambulances were on their way, then

moved deeper into the melee. The police were getting on top

of the situation now, hauling people outside. Some battlers

still struggled furiously as they were dragged away, whereas

others became quiescent, the blank-eyed fury on their faces

giving way to a sleepy bewilderment. Glass crunched beneath

Andy"s feet and the floor was strewn with debris. A large

wooden table-top, cracked and splintered, was lying on the

ground, the legs smashed off it, no doubt used as weapons.

Andy lifted the table- top aside, intending to prop it against

the wall, help to clear the way for his colleagues. As he did so

he froze. Beneath the table was a man lying in a very large

and still spreading pool of blood.

„Over here!" Andy shouted, shoving the table-top aside and

dropping to his knees. He grabbed the man"s wrist and felt

for a pulse. It was there, but it was flickering, erratic. He saw

almost immediately what had happened. The man had been

stabbed several times in the stomach and chest. The points

of entry were ragged as though something other than a knife

- a broken glass perhaps? - had been used. Andy hoped that

this meant the wounds were not too deep, though the

amount of blood that was still gushing from them seemed to

suggest otherwise.

Andy and two uniformed constables tried to stem the

bleeding as much as they could, first with beer towels taken

from the bar and then, after Bob Walker had risen dazedly

from his hiding-place, with bigger, thicker towels from the

airing cupboard upstairs. It was not long, however, before the

towels were saturated and the men"s hands and clothes

covered in blood.

It seemed to take an age for the ambulances to arrive, but

eventually two paramedics in yellow jackets were there beside

Andy.

„He"s been stabbed several times," Andy said, moving aside

for them. „His pulse is very weak."

„All right, let"s take a look," said one of them, a balding man

with a darkly stubbled chin, who exuded an air of calm

efficiency.

He produced a small scalpel, which he used to slice open

the front of the man"s blood-soaked shirt. Pulling the shirt

open, he instantly recoiled. „Jesus, what the hell"s that?" he

exclaimed.

His colleague, Andy and the two policeman stared in horror

and disbelief at what had been revealed. All over the man"s

chest, shoulders and upper arms were masses of small, black

quills.

Through her open window came the susurrating rhythm of

the sea stroking the shore. Her eyes closed, curled up on her

bed, Charlotte wondered whether this was what it was like in

the womb. How nice it must be, she thought, to be in the

warmth and the dark, soothed by the sound of a mother"s

internal tide - the pumping of a heart, the ebb-and-flow of

life-giving blood. How wonderful to have no cares, no fears,

no thoughts. She would have found it easier to relax into the

idea if her own cares had not been eating her up inside,

denying her sleep.

She sighed, rolled over and opened her eyes. As she sat up,

the weight of her anxieties sank like ballast inside her. Mum

had gone to bed two hours ago, exhausted with weeping, but

Charlotte had lain sleepless ever since. It felt as though her

life was coming apart. What had she done to deserve it? Why

was she being punished in this way?

She looked at her clock. It was five past two in the

morning. For almost five hours her mother had wailed and

clung to her, declaring that her life was over. Charlotte had

done her best to console her, even though she too had felt

like weeping. They had had no dinner, but even now

Charlotte felt too sick to eat.

The evening had been punctuated by emergency sirens

whooping outside, police cars and ambulances racing by.

Soon after, round about 11.30 p.m., they had heard Dad

come back. He had been drunk, stumbling and muttering,

making so much noise as he tripped up the stairs that

Charlotte felt sure it would bring Mrs Macau swooping down

on him like a vampire bat. It was the only time that night

when her mother had stopped crying. She and Charlotte had

clung to each other, staring fearfully at the closed door.

Thankfully he had blundered past, opening and then

slamming the door of the room he was supposed to be

sharing with Mum. After that they had heard nothing. He

had probably collapsed on to the bed and instantly fallen into

an alcohol-induced sleep.

At midnight, Mum had announced that she too was going

to bed. Before turning in she had tearfully wondered about

calling the police to report the fact that Chris still wasn"t

home. Charlotte, though, had managed to dissuade her.

„Don"t worry, Mum, he"ll come back when he"s ready."

„But he"s only a baby," Imogen wailed.

„Don"t let him hear you say that," Charlotte said, trying to

keep her voice light.

Mum clutched her hand and looked imploringly into her

eyes. „He will be all right, won"t he?"

„Course he will."

„Promise me."

Charlotte licked her lips uneasily. „I promise."

Mum had seemed pacified by that, had kissed Charlotte

goodnight and gone to bed. Charlotte had offered to let her

have her bed and to sleep on the floor, but Mum had waved

the offer away.

„ I’ll be all right. Your dad"s too drunk to argue and I"m too

tired."

„Well, if you want anything I"ll be here," Charlotte had told

her.

Mum"s eyes had filled with tears. „I know you will, love. I

don"t know what I"d do without you. Goodnight."

That had been two hours ago and it had not been a good

night. It had not been a good night at all.

As far as she was aware, Chris had still not returned to the

boarding house. She got out of bed and went to the window,

sticking her face between the gap in the curtains. She

couldn"t see much. Aside from the nimbus of orange light

emanating from each street lamp and pooling on the ground

beneath it, the tarmacked road and stone-flagged pavements,

and even the beach, looked not only black but composed of

the same substance. Only the sea looked different, the

shards of white moonlight on the waves giving it the

appearance of rippling black plastic.

She shivered, despite the warm night air, and left the

window. She crossed to her suitcase, which was sitting open

on the floor beside the wardrobe, only partially unpacked.

Delving beneath her clothes she found a cardboard box,

similar in size and shape to that which might contain a

toothpaste tube.

She sat down on the bed, cross-legged, her back supported

by a pillow jammed against the headboard, and stared at the

words in blue on the box"s white surface: PREGNANCY

TESTING KIT. Her hands were shaking. She wondered

whether she ought to put the kit back and wait for a better

time. But the house was quiet and everyone was asleep.

What better time could there be? If she didn"t do it now then

she probably never would.

Opening the box, she tipped its contents on to the

bedclothes. The equipment for this potentially life-changing

event was singularly unimpressive. A strip of plastic with a

window of white paper in the centre. Even though she knew

how to use it, she studied the instructions again, buying

herself a little time. Finally, with a sigh of annoyance, she

snatched up the plastic strip. Her stomach performing slow,

queasy somersaults, she tiptoed along the creaking corridor

to the bathroom at the far end.

Two minutes later she was back in her room, waiting for

the results. If a blue line appeared, bisecting the square of

paper, the test was positive; if it remained white, it was

negative.

The few minutes she had to wait were excruciating. Unable

to bear holding the strip of plastic in her hand, she placed it

on top of the chest of drawers and sat on her bed, watching

the clock.

Finally it was time. Despite the warmth of the summer

night she felt cold inside. She picked up the strip of plastic,

looked at it.

She exhaled, making a low sound somewhere between a

sigh and a groan, there was a bright blue line bisecting the

square of white paper.

Within minutes of lying down on the beach, Chris began to

shiver with cold. It was a balmy night, but the chill seemed to

seep up from the sand, into his bones. He sat up, hugging

himself, his head whirling so much that he felt he was still

sitting on the Spinning Spider at the fun-fair. He felt sick

from drinking the six cans of Special Brew he had asked an

older kid to buy for him from an offy on the seafront, and

every time he tried to walk it seemed as if the ground was

pitching and tossing like the deck of a boat on a stormy sea.

He had run straight to the fun-fair after his fight with Dad,

and had stayed there until the place closed down for the

night at 10 p.m. He had gone on tons of rides - all the big

stuff of course, none of the little kids" rubbish - and had

eaten so many hot dogs that by the end of the evening the

smell of them made him want to puke.

Yet although he had had a good time, his family and their

stupid problems had always been there, lurking at the back

of his mind. He hated the way his mum and dad argued all

the time; it made him feel as though his head was being

squeezed in a vice. Charlotte was OK, but she got on his

nerves by not standing up to them, not saying or doing

anything to stop their rows. She just tried to be nicey-nicey,

to pretend nothing was happening, but it didn"t work. It was

just pathetic.

Chris was sick of it all. He wished he never had to see any

of them ever again. He had even asked a couple of blokes

who were working on the rides if there were any jobs going on

the fair, but they had just looked at him and laughed as if he

was some stupid little kid.

Fed up, he had finally wandered down to the promenade

and drunk himself into near-oblivion. All he wanted to do

now was sleep, but he needed somewhere warmer than the

beach. He had a warm bed at the guesthouse, but he would

rather freeze to death than go back there tonight.

All the same he had to find somewhere. He rose unsteadily

to his feet and stood swaying for a moment, taking deep

breaths in the hope that fresh air would rid the urge to throw

up. He looked around, moving his head slowly. There were

bus shelters on the promenade, but he would feel too

vulnerable there.

His gaze drifted further, finally alighting on a block of

craggy darkness at the far end of the beach. Chris vaguely

remembered seeing the caves that afternoon and wondered

whether they would be warm enough. They ought to be. It

wasn"t as if it was a cold night, after all. It was only the

breeze coming off the sea that was making him chilly and the

caves would provide shelter.

He weaved along the beach. As he blinked at the gaping

caves they seemed curiously insubstantial. Their blackness

seemed to divide and sub-divide, to spin like a vortex,

increasing his nausea. Abruptly he stopped, leaned forward

and vomited hot dogs and beer all over the sand. His

stomach spasmed and he threw up again, so violently that

tears were squeezed from his eyes. After that he felt a little

better. He stumbled the last two hundred yards almost

blindly, desperate to sleep.

The largest of the cave mouths seemed to suck him in. As

he stepped into the cave, lulling darkness wrapped around

him.

The solid walls muted the gnashing of the sea and provided a

barrier against the snapping sea-breeze. Chris sighed, half-

way to sleep, though not too far gone to notice a curious

smell in here. It was strong and fishy, like spoiled crab-meat,

but also... musky, hot, animal-like. Horse-sweat and

cowsheds and the lion enclosure at the zoo.

He moved deeper into the cave... and started at a stealthy

scraping from the murk in front of him. It sounded like

someone dragging a sharp, metal implement across granite.

He imagined a ragged figure with wild hair and wild eyes

lurking in the darkness, clutching a meat cleaver. He tried to

lick his lips, but they were gummed together with curd-thick

saliva. He instinctively took a step backwards.

And something flew at him from the darkness, its

reverberating screech transfixing him with utter terror,

echoing at crazy angles from the cave walls.

Chris caught a brief, terrifying impression of black, spider-

like eyes, and jointed, chitinous, razor-edged legs. Then

unbelievable pain ripped through him and turned his world a

brilliant, scorching red.

„Good lord," said the Brigadier wearily.

The Doctor grinned. „Lethbridge-Stewart, my dear fellow.

How are you?"

„Same as ever, Doctor. Unlike yourself."

„Didn"t Mike explain?" the Doctor asked, glancing at the

Brigadier"s number two, who was standing between his

commanding officer and the burly frame of Sergeant Benton,

still wearing his civvies.

„Well, er, I tried," Mike said with a grimace of apology

„I"m sure you did a sterling job," said the Doctor breezily,

turning to address him before swinging to face the Brigadier

again. Suddenly sombre, he said, „Now, where"s this body you

called me in to see?"

„Through here," the Brigadier said, indicating with his

swagger stick. He led them through a small, scrupulously

clean anteroom containing a set of lockers, two large sinks

and various items of medical equipment, to a set of double

doors at the far end, which he pushed open.

The mortuary was a large well-lit room whose main wall

was composed of rows of big square metal drawers, each of

them numbered. A small, balding, white-coated man with a

scrubby moustache and thick spectacles scurried forward to

meet them. „Brigadier Stewart?" he enquired.

„Lethbridge-Stewart," corrected the Brigadier severely.

The little man quailed and glanced at the clipboard he

clutched in his hand. „Ah yes, of course. You"ve come to view

number thirty-two, I understand?"

„If that"s the stab victim who was brought in last night,

then yes we have," said the Brigadier.

„Of course," said the man again. „This way." He led them

over to the wall of metal drawers and tugged at the handle of

drawer 32. It rolled open with a metallic rumble.

Mike Yates gasped involuntarily. Sergeant Benton

murmured, „Blimey."

The Brigadier regarded the body grimly for a moment, then

glanced up. „What do you make of it, Doctor?"

The Doctor was already leaning over the body, a

concentrated frown on his face. After a few seconds he looked

up at the little man, who was hovering on the periphery of

the group. „Do you have any surgical gloves, Mr..."

„Booth," said the man, „Yes, sir, I"ll just get you some."

He scuttled away and returned moments later. The Doctor

thanked him, pulled on the gloves and began to examine the

dead man more closely, touching the spines on his chest and

arms, prodding the surrounding flesh. „I understand the man

died of blood loss due to his injuries?"

„Yes, sir. He was stabbed four times." Booth indicated the

now bloodless purple-black slits in the man"s abdomen.

„Hmm. Was anyone else involved in this incident treated for

injuries at this hospital?"

„Yes, sir. Several people."

„And did they exhibit similar... afflictions?"

„I"m not sure, sir. I could find out for you."

„I"d be grateful if you would," said the Doctor and

straightened up, looking down at the corpse curiously. „He

seems to be lying rather awkwardly."

„Yes, sir," said Booth. Tie"s a hunchback."

„Do you mind if we have a look?"

„No, sir. I"ll give you a hand."

They heaved the corpse over on to its side. Now they could

all see the peculiar double-hump, almost like vestigial wings,

on the man"s back.

„Interesting," breathed the Doctor.

„Well, Doctor?" said the Brigadier. What do you think?"

The Doctor looked round at the three UNIT men.

„Metamorphosis," he said.

„Meta-what?" said Benton.

„The people of Tayborough Sands are changing, Sergeant,"

the Doctor replied. Then he looked thoughtful and his voice

dropped an octave. „The question is - into what?"

The ringing of the telephone jerked Edith Perry from a dream

about her long-dead husband Harold and his pigeons. The

pigeons had been changing into little trains with wings, and

Harold had been waving his fists in the air and ranting, „It"s

that boy what"s done this. Where is he? I"ll tan him, I will."

The ringing made her heart flutter like a dying bird in her

paper-thin chest. She swung her legs slowly from the bed,

confused and alarmed, wondering who could possibly be

calling at such an hour.

Then she glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost 7

a.m. What was going on? Why hadn"t Jack brought her her

early morning cup of tea before slipping out to work? Surely

he hadn"t overslept for the first time in his life?

The sultry night had given way to an already muggy

morning, but she shivered as she crossed the room to the

dressing-gown hung on the back of her door. In the past five

years or so she had become prone to an inner chill that only

old people seemed afflicted by. It made her wake each

morning with stiff limbs, made her feel as though her blood

had congealed to cold jelly in the night.

She pulled her dressing-gown around her bony shoulders,

rubbed her aching, arthritic wrists and moved sluggishly out

on to the landing. The ringing of the phone went on and on,

setting her teeth on edge. „All right, all right," she croaked,

„I"m coming"

She wondered why Jack hadn"t been roused by the noise as

she picked up the receiver and pressed it to her ear.

„Hello?" she said a little suspiciously.

„Mrs Perry?"

„Yes."

„Good morning, Mrs Perry. My name"s Gordon Cleeve. I"m

Jack"s boss. I was just calling to find out what"s happened to

him this morning."

„Happened to him?" said Edith.

„Yes. I mean, he didn"t turn up for work."

„Didn"t he?"

„No, he didn"t." There was a pause, then Cleeve asked

cautiously, „I take it that Jack"s not there with you then?"

„He"s not with me at this moment, no," said Edith, „but I

can"t say for certain that he isn"t in the house. I haven"t had

the chance to look yet, you see. Your phone call woke me up."

„Oh, I"m sorry."

„No, no, that"s quite all right. I"m usually a much earlier

bird than this. I don"t sleep well, you know. Haven"t done

since my husband died."

It was evident that Cleeve didn"t quite know how to respond

to this. „Um... sorry to hear that," he mumbled. Was it... was

it recent? Your husband"s death, I mean?"

„Good lord, no! 1959 it was. A stroke, you know."

„Ah," said Cleeve. Well, if you could get Jack to call me at

his earliest convenience, Mrs Perry?"

„I"ll go up straight away and see if he"s here. Find out

what"s ailing him. To be honest he has seemed a little off-

colour this week. Perhaps he"s got a touch of summer flu."

„I"m sure you"re right, Mrs Perry. Goodbye."

„Goodbye," Edith said.

She put the phone down and shuffled to the bottom of the

stairs. „Jack," she called up, her voice high and splintery.

„Jack, are you there?"

There was no reply. Edith frowned and tried to recall the

last time she had seen her son. Her short-term memory was

terrible these days. She could remember events from ten,

twenty, even fifty years ago with crystal clarity, but

attempting to place recent events into some semblance of

order never failed to get her into a dreadful muddle.

Had she seen him yesterday? Hadn"t they sat down

together to a supper of baked salmon and broad beans? They

usually ate together, so surely she would have remembered if

they hadn"t? Wasn"t it yesterday that he had been quiet,

almost surly? Hadn"t he left his food untouched, then

stumped upstairs without a word?

She began to climb the stairs, slowed down by her aching

joints. She hoped he wasn"t in trouble. Though what sort of

trouble could he be in? He never saw anyone, never went

anywhere, except for the railway station on a Sunday to help

out. He was a good boy, Jack. He had always looked after

her. Not that she had asked him to, of course; everything

he"d done had always been his own decision.

She reached the top landing, breath wheezing thinly in her

throat. Jack"s door was closed. She moved across to it and

tapped lightly.

„Jack, love, are you all right?"

Silence.

She grasped the handle in both hands and pushed it down.

The door opened with a grinding clunk. She stepped into the

room - and instantly recoiled. The smell in here was terrible.

It was like the fish market on a Friday, but somehow darker,

heavier.

She looked towards the bed, across which lay a bar of

sunlight from a gap in the curtains. The bed was clearly not

empty, but she could not see its occupant. Something was

moving beneath the brown sheet which was all Jack had

been sleeping under since the nights had turned humid. The

movements were slow, almost sinuous, making her think of

coiling snakes. Wrinkling her nose against the awful smell,

she took another step into the room.

„Jack?" she said uncertainly. „Jack, is that you?"

The figure in the bed stopped moving, but it neither

responded nor emerged from beneath the sheet.

Edith felt a little tic start up at the side of her eye and a

nervous curling in her stomach. She wanted to retreat from

the room, but a part of her was concerned for her son.

„Jack, please come out from under there," she pleaded.

Still no response.

„Right," she muttered, and with a flash of irritation she

hobbled across the room, grasped the bed sheet and yanked

it away.

Jack was sitting, naked, cross-legged, eyes closed, hands

dangling loosely in his lap. Yet despite his apparently relaxed

stance there was something terribly wrong with him. His

fleshy, usually hairless chest, chubby arms and rounded

shoulders were covered in tiny black spines which made him

look like a human cactus. Even more alarming were the

humps on his back, which were moving, as if something was

alive in there.

„Oh Jack," Edith said, her voice little more than a whisper.

He opened his eyes. They were as black as tar.

Edith tried to scream, but could manage nothing more than

a squeak. She stumbled backwards, nearly fell. Jack turned

his head and hissed at her.

The hump on his back surged and abruptly, with a wet

tearing sound, it split open. Before Edith"s horrified gaze, six

large, long, jointed, crab-like legs unfurled themselves. They

probed blindly at the air for a moment before finding

purchase on the walls and bed. Pain flared in Edith"s chest;

she was finding it hard to breathe. Jack gave a savage grin

and, using his newly-hatched limbs, scuttled across the room

towards her.

The Doctor wanted something to thump, but the lab benches

were smothered with a complex array of delicate scientific

equipment, so he had to be content with spinning on his

heels and smiting his brow in frustration. Three hours ago he

had thought that analysing the cell samples taken from the

dead man in the hospital mortuary would be a relatively

simple task; he had even been blithely confident of coming

up with an antidote to the metamorphic processes

unleashing themselves on Tayborough Sands"s inhabitants.

But the cell samples, despite his best efforts, were stubbornly

refusing to identify themselves. He"d tried everything he could

think of, using the technology of countless civilisations.

Now, temporarily defeated, he glared at the eclectic jumble

of equipment beeping and whirring around him, and hoped

that his more long-term endeavours would provide the

breakthrough he was looking for. He perfunctorily checked a

multi-rack of test tubes in which samples of the infected

man"s blood had been mixed with a variety of potential

neutralising agents, and a row of petri dishes in which

various cultures were growing, then he trudged out of the

laboratory and out of the TARDIS, and remained lost in

thought and almost oblivious to his surroundings until he

reached the Lombard Hotel.

„Where"ve you been?" Turlough asked a little plaintively,

throwing open his door before the Doctor had finished

knocking on it.

„Here and there," said the Doctor briskly. „Where"s Tegan?

She didn"t answer my knock."

„She"s gone out, again," said Turlough, as if he disapproved.

„Out? Out where?"

„She said she had a date."

The Doctor stared at Turlough as if searching for signs of

duplicity. Turlough shrugged, looking sulky, „Someone she

met last night apparently. She said she"d be back later."

„I see," murmured the Doctor, looking concerned. „I do hope

she"ll be careful."

Turlough raised his eyebrows. „I"m sure Tegan is quite

capable of looking after herself, Doctor."

„Oh, I"m sure she is, in the normal run of things," the

Doctor said, „but there are some dangers that are not

immediately apparent." Abruptly he bustled past Turlough

and into his room. Crossing to the dressing table, he pulled

open the top left-hand drawer and began rooting through it.

Turlough looked indignant and, despite himself, somewhat

guilty, „What are you looking for?"

„Nothing incriminating," said the Doctor pointedly. „Ah!"

Turlough was still blushing at the oblique reference to his

past as the Doctor pulled out a sheet of writing paper and a

pen, both emblazoned with the hotel"s name. His hand moved

in a blur as he applied pen to paper. Even as Turlough was

opening his mouth to ask, „What are you doing?", the Doctor

was folding the sheet neatly in half and striding back to the

door.

„Come along, Turlough," he said before his companion could

speak.

Turlough spluttered a little, then his voice became plaintive

again. „Where are we going?"

„I"ve an appointment with some old friends of mine." The

Doctor offered a disarming grin. „One of them"s an old friend

of yours too."

Turlough hated these manic bursts of energy that gripped

the Doctor sometimes. All he could do was scurry along in

his wake, wishing he knew what was going on. By the time he

had reached the ground floor - the Doctor having bounded

down the stairs ahead of him, of course, too impatient to wait

for the lift - Turlough was wheezing and gasping like an

asthmatic.

In the reception area, the Doctor"s straight, blond hair

whipped about his face as he looked quickly around. Seconds

later he was striding towards a trio of payphones in an alcove

beside the main doors. As the Doctor made a call, Turlough

took the opportunity to recover his breath. He dabbed at the

sweat on his forehead with a white handkerchief as he

watched the Doctor speak rapidly into the phone, put it

down, cross to the reception desk and hand the receptionist

the folded sheet of paper before re-joining him.

„Why all the subterfuge, Doctor?" Turlough protested.

The Doctor looked puzzled. „Subterfuge?"

„Why won"t you tell me what"s going on?"

„No time for explanations, the Doctor said. „If we"re to

prevent an epidemic we need to make good use of every

available second."

„An epidemic?" said Turlough, baffled. „An epidemic of

what?"

„I don"t know yet," the Doctor admitted sombrely, then

abruptly perked up again. „Come along, we"ll wait outside."

Turlough gave a groan of exasperation as the Doctor strode

off once more, heading for the main doors. He descended the

wide stone steps to the pavement two at a time, then prowled

back and forth in front of the hotel like a caged tiger,

scrutinising the oncoming traffic.

Turlough sat down on the low wall outside the hotel and

folded his arms. He watched the Doctor for a couple of

minutes, then said, „So what exactly are we waiting for now?"

„Transport."

„Transport to where?’

The exasperated plea in his voice prompted the Doctor to

halt, and join Turlough on the wall. „Have I ever mentioned

my days with UNIT?"

„The Brigadier and all that," said Turlough, nodding. „Yes,

once or twice."

„Hmm. Well, that"s who we"re going to see now. In this time

zone the Brigadier is still UNIT"s commanding officer."

Turlough looked at him. „Isn"t that going to be rather

awkward?"

„In what way?"

„Oh, just that in a few years" time, I"m going to turn up as a

pupil at the school where he teaches maths. Which rather

raises the question: why didn"t he recognise me when I

arrived?"

The Doctor squinted up at the sky where gulls wheeled and

soared as though engaged in some arcane ritualistic dance. „I

wouldn"t worry about it," he said vaguely. „Time has a way of

dealing with these things."

Turlough raised his eyebrows. „I don"t see how it can.

Though I suppose I could always wear a hat and some dark

glasses."

„There"ll be no need," said the Doctor with a grin. „You"ll

see."

Turlough regarded him thoughtfully. „And you"re absolutely

certain of this, are you?"

„One should never be certain of anything," said the Doctor

and abruptly jumped up. Here"s our car."

A blue Ford Escort was pulling up in front of the hotel. The

Doctor returned the cheery wave that Mike Yates gave him.

Mike leaned across and pushed open the passenger door.

„Hop in quick, Doctor."

The Doctor climbed into the passenger seat, Turlough got

in the back and the car sped away.

Mike Yates drove the Escort, which had been seconded to

him from the army car pool, the same way he drove his own

red Spitfire - fast but skilfully. The Doctor seemed

unperturbed, but Turlough clutched the seat, his face pale,

tight-lipped. He hadn"t been in a car since he had crashed

the Brigadier"s beloved Humber Tourer and he had no wish to

repeat the experience. When the Doctor introduced him, he

could manage no more than a stiff nod and a curt „Hello."

Their destination was UNIT"s temporary HQ at the local

naval base five miles down the coast. Some four dozen UNIT

troops had been billeted there, having arrived late last night.

„It won"t be long before the Brigadier will have them

performing manoeuvres on the beach - re-enacting the D-Day

landings I shouldn"t wonder," the Doctor said, tempering his

rather caustic humour with a grin.

Mike gave a vague smile, tactfully avoiding being drawn

into the fun that the Doctor was poking at his commanding

officer. A little reproachfully he said, „It"s always been UNIT"s

policy to keep a low profile until circumstances dictate

otherwise, Doctor. You know that."

„Do I?" said the Doctor, still grinning. „Must have slipped my

mind."

The naval base, HMS Bilford, was made up of a complex of

grey blocks surrounded by high chain-link fences topped

with barbed wire. Mike drove up to the main gates and

showed his UNIT pass to an armed Naval rating, who stared

suspiciously at the Doctor and Turlough for a moment before

Mike told him that their presence here could be vouched for

personally by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Naval rating

retreated to his sentry box to make a phone call, reappearing

a few moments later and grudgingly waving them in. Mike

parked the car. „This way," he said, heading across a

quadrangle to a long low blockhouse that annexed the main

building.

Just like school, Turlough thought, as Mike pushed open

several sets of reinforced glass doors and led them along a

number of featureless corridors. Eventually they stopped

outside a door numbered 106. Mike tapped on it smartly and

the unmistakable voice of the Brigadier called, „Come in"

The room they entered was indeed a classroom, complete

with desks and chairs and a blackboard at one end. There

were two men drinking coffee - a burly man in a green army

sweater, combat trousers, boots and a beret, and of course

the Brigadier, albeit a younger, trimmer version than

Turlough was used to.

The Doctor made the introductions with a twinkle in his

eye, then he and Turlough helped Mike Yates to stack a

couple of rows of desks at the side of the room, creating a

space in the centre of the floor. When Benton had provided

them all with fresh coffee, they sat down, facing each other

on a rough circle of chairs.

Never one for unnecessary preamble, the Brigadier said,

„Any new theories on the situation, Doctor?"

„Yes. I believe the answer lies in whatever Mr Elkins saw

land in the sea."

„In what way, Doctor?" Mike asked.

„Well, my theory is that the object is causing some kind of

water-borne contamination."

„Chemical warfare?" suggested Benton.

„Perhaps. Or maybe the object is simply a piece of space

debris whose impact with the earth cracked it open, releasing

an alien pollutant."

„Charming thought," said the Brigadier. „As if we haven"t got

the effects of our own pollution to worry about."

„Quite so," said the Doctor.

„So you reckon the only people affected will be those who"ve

been in contact with the water?" Benton asked.

„Not necessarily. Anyone who has eaten fish or seafood

since the object came down could be at risk too."

„Then we may have a problem," said the Brigadier. „The

Royal Navy kindly laid on a rather splendid fish supper for us

all when we arrived last night."

The Doctor raised his eyes heavenwards. „Marvellous. And

how about you, Mike? Have you eaten fish too?"

„As a matter of fact, no I haven"t." Mike gave a tight smile.

„Pity. I was looking forward to a nice bit of haddock tonight."

Sunning herself on the beach, Tegan wondered what would

happen if she stayed here with Andy. She"d carry on getting

older, whilst in several years" time a younger version of

herself would blunder into a police box on the Barnet bypass.

Eventually the Doctor would bring her here, where she would

meet Andy and the whole cycle would begin again. It made

Tegan"s head spin thinking about how tangled up in time you

could become if you really put your mind to it.

She would never be able to travel to London to meet

herself, of course, because as the Doctor was always telling

her, there were rules against that sort of thing. So if she did

stay here, she wouldn"t be able to save Aunt Vanessa from

being murdered by the Master in a few years" time. That

alone - aside from the practical limitations -was reason

enough why she couldn’t stay.

„You OK?" asked Andy, lying on the towel beside her.

Tegan opened her eyes. Everything looked bleached, not

quite real. „Fine," she said. „Why?"

„You looked fed up all of a sudden. I just wondered if

something was wrong."

She turned and smiled at him. „I was just wishing I could

stay here for ever - but I can"t."

„Why not?" he asked casually.

She sat up, drawing her knees towards her and wrapping

her arms around them. „I just can"t. In a few days or a few

weeks I"ll have to move on. You wouldn"t understand."

„Thanks," said Andy.

„No, I didn"t mean it like that. It"s complicated."

„Wanderlust," said Andy.

„Pardon?"

„You"ve got wanderlust. I understand that all right. You"re a

free spirit. You don"t like to be tied down."

She laughed. „If only it were that simple."

„Well, if it isn"t wanderlust, what is it?" He paused, „You"re

not on the run, are you?"

She laughed even harder. „You"ve got it! I"m a desperate

fugitive. That"s why I"m spending my day with a policeman."

He smiled. „Maybe you like to live dangerously."

Tegan looked out over the ocean and said, almost to

herself, „I do that all right."

Andy looked perplexed. „You know, I"ve never met anyone

quite like you."

„Isn"t that a bit of a cliché?"

He shrugged. „Maybe. It"s true, though."

They lapsed into silence, both of them watching the sea

charging at the shore, kids playing, dogs barking as they

frolicked at the water"s edge. If she was going to enjoy her

day with Andy, Tegan knew she would have to stop dropping

subtle clues that there was more to her than met the eye.

She didn"t mean to do it, but she couldn"t help it somehow. It

was as if a part of her wanted him to find out who she was,

where she came from. Maybe, rather than her staying here,

Andy could come with them in the TARDIS. Then the Doctor

could hop forward, say, eight years and they could both

simply pick up their lives again...

No, what was she thinking of? She hardly knew the bloke,

for goodness sake! Why couldn"t she just concentrate on

enjoying the day ahead? Morning on the beach, lunch in a

nice pub, a walk in the countryside - why look beyond that?

„Are you sure you"re OK?" Andy asked, breaking her out of

her reverie.

„Yes, I"m fine. I was just thinking."

„You don"t want to do that, you know," he told her. „Makes

your brain hurt." He leaned closer to her, propping himself on

one elbow. Tegan could smell the suntan lotion on his

shoulders and chest. His voice became softer, more serious.

„Look, Tegan, I just want us to have a nice day together. I

reckon if you"ve got stuff to tell me, you"ll tell me in your own

time. I don"t want to come over all heavy on you. My

philosophy is, enjoy life while you can. You might not be here

tomorrow."

„Very comforting," said Tegan.

He grinned, „Come on, let"s go for a swim. Get rid of some of

those cobwebs."

He jumped to his feet and held out his hand to her. Tegan

laughed, „You"re not going to get me in there."

„Why not? Can"t you swim?"

„Course I can swim. But the sea back home is like a warm

bath compared to that!" She nodded disdainfully at the grey

water.

Still grinning, he grabbed her hand and hauled her to her

feet. „Bracing is what it is. Come on, Tegan."

She put up only token resistance as he dragged her,

laughing, down to the water"s edge.

„Urgh, what"s this stuff?" she said, side-stepping what

looked like a lump of colourless jelly that had been carried in

by the tide.

He shrugged, unconcerned. „A melted jellyfish? Maybe the

heat of the sun was too much for it."

„It"s all over the beach," she exclaimed, noticing mounds of

it scattered along the shoreline.

„Don"t worry about it. As long as you don"t step in it, you"ll

be all right."

Ten yards from the water, he let go of her hand, ran at full-

pelt down to the sea and plunged in. Tegan saw a wave crash

over him and then a few seconds later he surfaced, coughing

and spluttering.

„You"re mad!" she shouted.

„Come on in," he replied. „It"s lovely."

„Not likely," she said, though she walked down to the

water"s edge and allowed the tide to swirl in around her feet.

She was right. Despite the heat of the day, the water was

freezing. Within a minute her feet were aching with cold right

through to the bone.

Andy stood up and waded towards her. Tegan couldn"t help

thinking how great he looked in his tight blue trunks, water

trickling through the wiry hair on his chest, dappling his

broad shoulders. Suddenly, five feet from her, he leaned

forward, scooped up two great handfuls of water and

drenched her.

She leaped back, gasping. „You beast!" she shrieked when

she managed to get her breath back. She kicked water at

him, but it was no more than a token gesture. Andy was

laughing so much that he fell backwards into the water

anyway.

At HMS Bilford the Brigadier"s brainstorming session was

continuing apace.

„Could this infection be transmitted from person to person,

Doctor?" Turlough asked.

„It"s possible," the Doctor said. „I"ll know more once I"ve

pinpointed its exact nature. So far it"s proving impervious to

analysis."

„We could set up a lab for you here, Doctor, if that TARDIS

of yours doesn"t carry the necessary equipment," the

Brigadier said with the trace of a smile.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. „Thank you, Brigadier, but

I don"t think that will be necessary."

„It"s not a bad invasion plan... if it is an invasion plan,"

Benton said, then reddened when everyone looked at him.

„What I mean is, well it"s sneaky, isn"t it? Coming in by the

back door, so to speak. And somewhere like this, well it"s the

obvious place. Lots of people coming and going all the time.

You could pick up the infection here, then go back to, say,

London or Glasgow or Birmingham and spread it on there. It

could be all over the country in no time."

„It is a feasible scenario, sir," Mike Yates said.

„Alarmingly so," the Brigadier agreed. „How long before this

infection begins to take effect, Doctor?"

„A matter of days, it seems, though I suspect it rather

depends on the individual and the level of contact. Our young

friend in the mortuary had been in the town only four days,

you say?"

Mike nodded. „He arrived last Wednesday."

„Hmm. Then a solution must be found quickly."

„I"ll leave that up to you if I may, Doctor, whilst I

concentrate on containing the problem," said the Brigadier.

„Contain how?" asked Turlough.

„First of all by attempting to get the necessary authority to

quarantine the town, close down the beach and ban the sale

and consumption of seafood."

Mike pulled a face. „With all due respect, sir, I think that

might prove difficult. This is the height of the season, after

all. There"s bound to be a huge amount of opposition to your

proposal, both locally and nationally."

The Brigadier was silent for a moment, then he nodded

thoughtfully. „Yes, I do take your point, Yates. I"ll just have to

convince the chaps at Whitehall that we"re facing a national

emergency, won"t I?"

„Yes, sir. But I still don"t think it"ll be easy. So far the only

evidence we"ve got that there"s anything amiss is the chap in

the mortuary, and he alone hardly constitutes the beginnings

of an epidemic."

„What about the other people given hospital treatment after

last night"s incident?" asked the Doctor. „Did none of them

exhibit similar symptoms to the dead man?"

„Not as far as we"re aware, Doctor," said Mike.

„Perhaps they went out of their way to keep themselves

covered up," suggested Benton.

„Hmm," said the Doctor. Abruptly he slapped his hands

down on his knees. „Well, whilst you concentrate on

containment, Brigadier, Turlough and I will attempt to get to

the heart of the matter."

„How?" Benton asked.

„By setting the TARDIS co-ordinates for the area in which

Mr Elkins saw the object come down."

„Won"t that be rather dangerous?" Turlough asked, trying to

conceal his alarm.

„Not at all," said the Doctor airily. „The TARDIS has an in-

built ability to seek out the nearest safe landing spot - which

is why she never materialises inside solid objects or

underwater. If there is a solid, hollow object - a spacecraft,

for instance - on the ocean bed, you can rest assured the

TARDIS will find it."

Charlotte had never had a harder night to get through. She

had finally drifted off around 5 a.m., just as it was getting

light. When she had seen the result of the test she had begun

to shake - not just her hands or her arms, but her whole

body, as if someone had started a powerful motor chugging

inside her belly.

Dropping the strip of plastic she had rushed to the toilet

and thrown up. So violent had the reflex been that she had

been terrified the foetus might be harmed, and yet there was

a part of her that thought that losing the baby at this early

stage would maybe not be such a bad thing. She had thrown

up twice more, and each time she had felt certain that if it

happened again it would turn her inside out. When the urge

finally subsided, she sank to the toilet floor, trembling and

weeping.

How long she sat there she wasn"t sure. She might have

been there all night if it wasn"t for the thought that Mum - or

even worse, Dad - might wake up at any time, needing the

loo. Though she felt drained of energy, she pushed herself to

her feet, flushed the toilet and stumbled back to her room.

She flopped on to her bed, curled into the foetal position, and

dragged her bedclothes over her legs.

She lay like that for a long time, her mind full of rushing

thoughts. Before she had known she was pregnant, she had

decided that she was going to keep the baby, but now she

didn"t really know what to do. She felt sick and lost and

frightened.

Finally, around dawn, exhaustion overtook her and she

slipped into a sleep that was ragged and fitful with half-

remembered dreams. It was the sound of someone banging

on the door that dragged her out of sleep.

She opened her mouth to shout „Hang on", but the sound

that emerged was, „Nu-arrm."

„Charlotte, it"s Mum. Are you up?"

Her mother"s voice crystallised her thoughts, cut through

the last clinging threads of sleep. Sitting up, she called in a

cracked voice, „Hang on a minute, Mum."

She took several deep breaths in an attempt to rouse

herself and tried to rub the tiredness from her eyes before

realising it was deeply ingrained in her body. She was

halfway across the room when something on the carpet

tugged at the edge of her vision. She looked down and saw

the pregnancy testing kit. She scooped it up and shoved it

into her suitcase, beneath her underwear. When she opened

the door seconds later her smile belied her crashing heart.

„Hi, Mum," she said, speaking quickly to hide what she felt

sure was a guilty expression. „Are you OK?"

Though she nodded, Imogen didn"t look OK. She looked

drawn, haggard.

„Not too bad," she said. „I was so exhausted I slept like a log

at any rate. How about you?"

„Oh...I didn"t sleep so well. I had too much stuff on my

mind. You know?"

Imogen gave a tight but sympathetic smile and reached out

to touch her daughter"s cheek. „I"m sorry to burden you with

all our problems - mine and Dad"s, I mean. We should sort

ourselves out, shouldn"t we? Not heap it all on you."

Charlotte shrugged and tried to make a joke of it. „You need

someone to sort you out." Then she asked tentatively, „How is

dad this morning?"

„Still snoring. I"ve left him to it. He"ll have a killer of a

hangover when he comes round, I shouldn"t wonder, and it"ll

serve him right."

Charlotte"s legs felt wobbly. She crossed back to the bed

and sat down. „What time is it?"

„Gone half ten. We"ve missed breakfast, I"m afraid." Imogen

gave a watery smile. „We"re not really getting our money"s

worth out of this holiday so far, are we?"

Charlotte yawned. Her eyelids felt full of grit. „It"s OK. I"m

not really hungry anyway."

„Me neither. I could murder a coffee, though." Imogen

paused, then said, „Chris didn"t come back last night."

„Didn"t he?" said Charlotte neutrally.

„No. I think maybe I should call the police."

„I"m sure he"ll be OK, Mum," Charlotte said. „He"s probably

staying away to punish us."

„All the same, it would set my mind at rest if the police at

least knew he was..."

A peculiar expression, somewhere between distress and

confusion, crossed her face, and Charlotte knew her mum

had balked at the word „missing". She understood why

immediately. It sounded too ominous, too final.

„I"ll come with you," she said quickly. We"ll go downstairs,

ring the police, then we"ll go out somewhere and treat

ourselves to a really nice breakfast. Just give me ten minutes

to get ready, OK?"

„OK. You don"t mind if I wait here for you, do you?"

„No problem. I won"t be long."

Though all Charlotte really wanted was to sink back on to

her bed, close her eyes and blot out the world, she spent the

next ten minutes making herself presentable. She had a

wash and brushed her teeth, promising herself that tonight,

without fail, she would have that lovely warm bath she"d

been so looking forward to. She scraped her hair back into a

ponytail. She dressed in shorts and a pink sleeveless top,

wondering how long it would be before her bump started to

show.

She was desperate to tell Mum about the baby, but she

knew this wasn"t the right time. She"d know when the

moment arrived, she told herself. Everything would come

together and she would just know.

She was about to announce that she was ready when there

came three sharp raps on the door. Charlotte and Imogen

looked at each other, Imogen"s face a mixture of alarm and

hope. Charlotte crossed to the door and opened it. The slight,

vulture-like figure of Mrs Macau stood there.

„There are two gentlemen to see you downstairs," she

announced before Charlotte could say anything. She was

already turning away when Imogen, still sitting on the

unmade bed, stammered, What... who... who are they?"

„Police officers," Mrs Macau said, the disapproval evident in

her voice.

Imogen paled. „Police officers?"

„Did they say what they wanted?" Charlotte asked quickly.

„I didn"t enquire," Mrs Macau looked as if she was about to

turn away again, then paused. „I don"t put up with trouble on

my premises."

Charlotte felt her face flush with indignation, but the words

that emerged from her mouth sounded like an apology. „We"re

not going to cause any trouble."

„I do hope not," said Mrs Macau. „Good day."

Charlotte turned to her mum. Imogen"s eyes were wide and

fearful.

„It"ll be nothing," Charlotte said reassuringly, though her

insides were fluttering like a moth. „They probably just found

Chris asleep on a park bench. They"ll want us to go down to

the station to pick him up."

Imogen nodded eagerly, but said nothing, and the two of

them went downstairs. Charlotte expected the policemen to

be uniformed, but they weren"t. They were waiting in the

hallway, looking hot and uncomfortable in their grey suits

and ties despite their unbuttoned shirt collars.

They straightened up when the two women appeared, like

army privates in the presence of a commanding officer. „Mrs

Maybury?" said the foremost of the two men. Charlotte was

about to defer to her mum when Imogen stepped forward,

anxiety making her movements and voice jerky.

„Yes, that"s me. What"s happened?"

„Is there somewhere more... comfortable we can talk?"

Why? What is it you"ve come to tell us?" Imogen snapped.

„There"s the lounge," said Charlotte, slipping into the

familiar role of arbitrator. „We can go in there."

Dusty sunlight streamed through the tall bay windows,

enlivening the red flock wallpaper, but seeming to bleach and

age the lumpy sofa and pale brown carpet. The sofa rustled

when the women sat down on it as though its misshapen

cushions were filled not with foam padding but with straw.

The senior officer perched on the edge of an armchair facing

them, elbows on knees, trousers riding up to reveal fluffy

green socks. His colleague, a younger man with fuzzy

sideburns and wiry eyebrows that clashed in a tangle above

the bridge of his nose, leaned against the wall, arms folded.

„I"m Detective Inspector Worthington," the seated officer

said, and there was something about the urgent compassion

in his voice that increased the fluttering dread in Charlotte"s

belly. „I"m afraid you"re going to have to brace yourself for

some distressing news."

„What is it?" Imogen whispered, and Charlotte could feel her

mum trembling beside her. „What"s happened?"

Gently DI Worthington said, „This morning a body was

washed up on the shore several miles from here. We believe it

to be that of your son, Christopher."

In the silence that followed it seemed as though time was

coming to a slow, soupy halt. Distantly Charlotte heard a

door open and it seemed to give her the momentum to ask,

„Why do you think it"s Chris?"

„He was carrying a rail card with his name and address on

it," DI Worthington said. „Our enquiries led us here. We were

given this address by a neighbour of yours."

„Mrs Ramirez," said Charlotte dreamily. „She"s looking after

our house while we"re away."

DI Worthington nodded. „I understand what a terrible

shock this is for you, but I"m afraid the body must be

formally identified, and as quickly as possible. Christopher

may have died in suspicious circumstances. We need to carry

out a post mortem immediately to ascertain exactly how."

Charlotte felt light-headed, not quite rooted in reality. She

stared at DI Worthington with tunnel vision, oblivious to

everything else around her. „What do you mean, “suspicious

circumstances”?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. „There was

extensive... damage to the body. It may have been caused by

rocks, but then again..." He clasped his hands together and

gave a grimace of apology, sympathy, discomfort.

All at once Charlotte was jolted back to reality by her

mother"s scream. It was a terrible scream, like an animal in

intense pain. Charlotte jumped, then sank back, shaking, as

her mum dissolved into tears beside her.

The grief was frightening in its intensity, emotion so raw it

seemed to possess an awful destructive power that Charlotte

felt sure would tear around the room like a hurricane if

unleashed. Suddenly everything seemed too stark, too real.

Charlotte saw DI Worthington cross the room and drop to his

knees in front of her mum, trying vainly to comfort her. She

saw the tall man she"d bumped into on the doorstep

yesterday enter the lounge, to be immediately confronted by

Worthington"s colleague, who peeled himself from the wall

and held up his hands as if to physically repel the man back

into the corridor.

„I"m Captain Mike Yates from UNIT," she heard the man say,

raising his voice above Mum"s hysterical wailing. „I"m afraid I

couldn"t help overhearing what your colleague said, and I

think it might have some bearing-"

Charlotte lowered her head, squeezed her eyes tight shut

and pressed her hands over her ears. She didn"t care what

the men were talking about; she didn"t care about anything.

Chris was dead, and there was an unwanted baby growing

inside her, and Mum and Dad hated each other, and her

whole world was falling apart. At that moment, she realised,

she envied her brother more than she grieved for him. She

wished with all of her heart that she could be dead too.

The Brigadier slammed the phone down in frustration. Surely

those idiots in Whitehall ought to realise by now that he

asked them for aid and co-operation only when absolutely

necessary? He"d saved them from getting a considerable

amount of egg on their faces over that Global Chemicals

business, and how did they repay him? By continuing to put

barriers in his way.

He hadn"t even managed to get through to the Prime

Minister this time; no doubt the fellow was too embarrassed

to speak to him following his misjudgement over the

Llanfairfach incident. He had left it to one of his minions to

inform the Brigadier that quarantining the town would be

tantamount to martial law and therefore out of the question.

Martial law! Did the fellow have no inkling of how UNIT

operated, of how many times the planet had been saved from

invasion or annihilation by the Brigadier"s small but highly

trained force? Given UNITs track record they ought to be

allowed carte blanche to take whatever steps they deemed

appropriate in any situation.

But no. Still the Brigadier had to put up with government

fat cats droning on about „public interest" and „civil

responsibility", knowing all the while that the only

responsibility they felt was to themselves and to the retention

of their parliamentary seats. Actually they were less like cats

and more like turtles, retreating into their shells, unwilling to

stick their necks out, refusing to acknowledge that if they

continued to decline to untie the Brigadier"s hands every time

he asked for a little leeway, then sooner or later their gutless

reaction might well lead to some hostile alien force or

devastating home-grown threat reducing them and their

precious parliament to so much turtle soup.

The Brigadier opened his clenched fists in an effort to

release his rage, but it didn"t work. He tried to focus on the

positive aspects of the discussion he had just had, which

were pitifully few, but better than nothing. The oily-voiced

cretin had promised him that the government would „look

into" the alleged connection between seafood and illness and

that they would encourage - though not order - the local

authorities to put up signs warning people that there was a

danger of pollution along the coastline and that bathing was

inadvisable.

Unless something happened that required a military

response - and no one wanted that because it would mean

that things were getting quickly out of hand - the Brigadier

was therefore stuck in the familiar situation of twiddling his

thumbs and waiting for the Doctor to come up with

something. He thought about the fish he and his men had

eaten last night and hoped that this new fellow was up to the

job. If not, then before very long they might all be in a great

deal of trouble.

„Nothing," said the Doctor dejectedly, his eyes scanning the

results scrolling down the screen in front of him. „Nothing at

all."

„You can"t find an antidote?" said Turlough, hovering at the

Doctor"s shoulder.

The Doctor spun round. „Worse than that. I can"t even

identify the infection."

„But I thought you said you had some of the most

sophisticated equipment in the Universe in here?" Turlough

reminded him.

„Oh, I do. But the infection is continuing to prove

impervious to analysis. It appears to have no physical

characteristics whatsoever."

Turlough looked irritable, as if the Doctor was being

deliberately obtuse. „But that"s impossible."

„Yes," said the Doctor thoughtfully. He pivoted slowly on his

heels, eyes roving around the vast laboratory as if searching

for something specific. „I wonder."

„What -" Turlough began, but the Doctor was already off,

striding along the aisles between the cluttered benches,

cream coat flying behind him. Turlough caught up with him

beside a pair of double doors, which he had assumed led

deeper into the TARDIS. They were made of some heavy dark

wood, each one carved with the stylised representation of a

shaggy tusked beast rearing up on its hind legs. The Doctor

threw the doors open with such force that Turlough had to

jump back to avoid being hit in the face.

When he recovered he saw not the expected corridor, but a

large cupboard. Though Turlough had never seen spiders in

the TARDIS, the jumble of scientific equipment heaped

haphazardly on the shelves was festooned with cobwebs.

„Aha!" the Doctor cried, and dropping on all fours crawled

into the cupboard, dipping his head to duck beneath the

bottom shelf. He reached in and grabbed something, then

backed out, hauling the object with him.

It was a green metal cabinet with a panel of buttons on the

front and a small screen inset at an angle into the top. The

cabinet was on castors and the Doctor pushed it gently in

Turlough"s direction. „Look after this for a moment, would

you?" he said, then plunged back into the cupboard again.

Turlough stopped the trundling cabinet with his hand,

grimacing at the sticky dust that adhered to his fingers. The

screen was cracked and there was a mess of multi-coloured

wires hanging out of an open panel at the back.

The Doctor back-shuffled out of the cupboard again, this

time dragging what appeared to be a large green hair-dryer

on a tall metal stand. It was only when he had pulled the

object fully out into the light that Turlough realised it was a

rather more sophisticated piece of equipment than he had

first thought. The exterior of the cone-shaped helmet was

studded with lights that were evidently linked to a maze of

circuitry within the helmet itself. Like the cabinet, the „hair-

dryer" was covered in dust and cobwebs - as indeed, by this

point, was the Doctor himself.

„What is this thing?" Turlough asked, prodding at the

cabinet with his foot, sending it trundling a few inches across

the floor on its squeaky castors.

„It"s an Image Reproduction Integrating System - IRIS

machine for short. It translates thoughts into pictures."

„Does it work?" Turlough asked.

„Oh yes. But the only time I used it, someone died. I haven"t

tried it since."

Turlough looked dubiously at the two pieces of equipment,

battered and covered in grime like so much scrap. „Will it still

work?"

„I don"t see why not," said the Doctor, plucking threads of

cobweb from his hair. „All it needs is a bit of spit and polish.

Come on."

He bent and picked up the „hair-dryer" and carried it - its

jointed metal stand scraping the floor behind it - over to his

main area of operations. Turlough followed, pushing the

cabinet on its squealing castors. The Doctor placed the „hair-

dryer" on a clutter-free work bench, took a large maroon

handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the worst of

the grime. He handed the handkerchief to Turlough, then

pored over the interior of the cone, prodding connections,

hmm"ing and „hah"ing as he worked. Turlough half-heartedly

wiped dust from the cabinet, grimacing all the while as if the

task was beneath him. He had almost finished when he

heard a familiar sound.

„Doctor, listen."

The Doctor looked up, strands of cobweb still clinging to

his fringe. Hmm?"

„We"re materialising"

The Doctor"s face cleared, „So we are. I wonder where."

Leaving the IRIS machine for later, he hurried out of the

lab, Turlough scurrying behind him. They crossed a

courtyard with a white marble fountain in the shape of a

cherub, and strode along a narrow cobbled street reminiscent

of Victorian England, complete with what appeared to be a

starry night sky overhead, before finally emerging in one of

the TARDIS"s innumerable, identical corridors. The Doctor

halted, raised a finger as if to point right, then abruptly spun

to the left. Several twists and turns later they reached the

console room.

The Doctor dashed inside and began to scamper around

the console, making all the necessary checks. Turlough stood

to one side, arms folded, but turned his head when the

Doctor operated the scanner to see what awaited them

outside.

It looked neither encouraging nor welcoming. They saw

metal support girders, covered in rust, trickling with

moisture. Part of a wall, part of a bulkhead, the whole thing

soaked in brownish, penumbral light. That was all.

„Are we inside what landed in the sea?" Turlough asked

doubtfully.

The Doctor continued to stare at the screen for a moment

as if he could see something that Turlough couldn"t. Then he

said, „Let"s find out, shall we?" and operated the door lever.

Two things struck Turlough as soon as they stepped

outside: the cold and the smell. The chill was motionless and

permanent, like the inside of a refrigerator. The smell was

worse than the cold, though. It was like too many bad things

all rolled into one. Rotting fish, rancid meat, large sweaty

animals, the dankness of decaying vegetation.

He took a fresh handkerchief from his pocket and held it

over his nose and mouth. He glanced at the Doctor, who

seemed unaffected by the stench. The Doctor was looking

around the vast, high-ceilinged area, which appeared to be

some kind of cargo bay (or perhaps shuttle bay, although

there were no shuttles to be seen) with a mixture of caution

and keen interest. Turlough said, „What is that awful smell?"

The Doctor sniffed the air as if he couldn"t detect it

otherwise. „It smells like putrefaction," he said matter-of-

factly, „but I don"t think it is. I suspect it"s some kind of

musk."

„Musk?" said Turlough, looking around nervously. „You

mean there are animals down here?"

„Or were," said the Doctor. He moved across to a bulkhead

door on the far side of the room, some two hundred yards

away, his feet reverberating hollowly on the metal floor.

Rusty water dripped from above. When a spot landed on

the Doctor"s head, he stopped, glanced up ruefully, then

unfolded his hat from his pocket and put it on. Reluctant

though he was to leave the protective confines of the TARDIS,

Turlough stuffed the handkerchief into his pocket and

followed, glancing around nervously, all but wringing his

hands. He kept thinking he glimpsed movement in the clotted

brown areas of shadow, but each time he turned to look there

was never anything there.

He caught up with the Doctor by the bulkhead door. The

Doctor had perched a pair of half-moon spectacles on the end

of his nose and was engrossed in an examination of the

control panel beside it. Half-turning, he said, „What do you

make of this?"

Turlough looked, though without much enthusiasm. The

panel was a mess; the cover had been prised off and a mass

of trailing wires linked the unit to a greenish component that

looked more like a spiny shell than a piece of technology.

This in turn was linked to what appeared to be some kind of

circuit board, which had various other bits and pieces

attached to it.

„It"s a bit of a mishmash," Turlough said, shrugging. „So

what?"

The Doctor looked at him, a little pained by his lack of

interest. „What if I were to tell you that there are at least...

oh, seven separate technologies evident here?"

Turlough feigned interest and asked, „Is that significant?"

„It means that whoever these visitors are, they"re very

resourceful," said the Doctor. He paused for a moment, then

added, „I don"t think they crashed. I think they landed here

deliberately."

„So their intentions are hostile?"

„Not necessarily. They may be quite unaware of the effect

their presence is having on the indigenous population."

„Some kind of chemical leak?" suggested Turlough.

„Possibly. Let"s find out, shall we?"

The Doctor ran his fingers deftly over the various

component parts of the panel and, despite its haphazard

appearance, the bulkhead door slid smoothly open.

„Technology assimilation," he said. „It may not look pretty but

it certainly works."

As they passed through the door, Turlough asked, „Have

you any idea what kind of ship this is, Doctor?"

„Morok battle cruiser," the Doctor replied without

hesitation, and indicated a row of embossed metal symbols

running along the length of one wall. Turlough couldn"t

decide whether the symbols were intended to be ornamental,

instructional or functional. The Doctor"s voice became

thoughtful as he added, „However, somehow I don"t think the

Moroks are in charge any more."

„What makes you say that?"

„The Moroks are a very proud race. They certainly wouldn"t

use alien technology to improve, or even patch up, their

existing systems. They"d rather die than admit that any

technology is superior to their own."

„So who are we dealing with then, Doctor?" Turlough asked,

his voice quavering with nerves.

The Doctor pressed his lips together in contemplation, as if

Turlough had posed nothing more than an intellectual

question. „A crew of mercenaries recruited from the far-flung

comers of the galaxy?"

„Oh, is that all?" replied Turlough heavily. „And I thought I

had cause to be worried."

„I could be wrong," the Doctor admitted. „A man who is

never wrong is rarely right." He smiled cheerfully and strode

on. „In my experience, people are usually friendly enough if

you show them you mean them no harm."

Turlough gave him an incredulous look and followed. Over

the course of the next ten minutes the two of them passed

through a vast air filtration and water treatment plant, the

systems humming and chugging efficiently away despite their

apparently decrepit state; a food-producing area where the

plants had withered and the fruit and vegetables had been

allowed to bloat and rot in their artificial environments

(leading the Doctor to comment that the dietary requirements

of whoever had taken over the ship were evidently very

different from those of the Moroks"); and finally a derelict

recreation area whose facilities suggested that the emphasis

was not so much on pleasure as on physical fitness.

Leading off from the recreation area in one direction were

the mess hall and kitchens. In the other direction, like

spokes protruding from a vast wheel, were numerous

corridors inset with evenly-spaced doors, a different symbol -

which Turlough took to be either names or numbers -

emblazoned on each.

„Crew quarters," the Doctor said, and selecting a door at

random began to tap in a sequence on the control panel

beside it. He stopped almost immediately, however, fingers

poised in midair. „No power."

„This place is falling apart," commented Turlough.

„On the contrary. Essential systems appear to be running

at maximum efficiency. This area is obviously superfluous to

requirements." The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets

and rocked back on his heels. „What happened to the crew, I

wonder."

„I"d rather not think about it," Turlough said.

„Hmm," mused the Doctor, then abruptly he slapped

Turlough on the arm. „Oh well, onward and upward."

They moved deeper into the ship, the smell growing

stronger as they neared what the Doctor said was the

command centre. Turlough produced his handkerchief again,

covered his mouth and nose with it and tied it at the back of

his head. He felt miserable, cold, sick and scared, and barely

listened to the Doctor, who had started jabbering away like a

tour guide about the austerity of Morokian architecture, its

lack of colour, its over-reliance on dense metals.

Suddenly the Doctor stopped in mid-sentence. His eyes

widened and he delicately pressed the fingertips of his right

hand to his forehead. Then all at once his face creased in

pain and he staggered, dropping to his knees as if he had

been shoved hard in the back.

Turlough watched in horror, then glanced quickly around

in an effort to ascertain where the attack had come from.

Seeing nothing, he squatted beside the Doctor and called his

name. The Doctor groaned; his eyelids flickered. Terrified of

the prospect of the Doctor passing out and leaving him alone

to face whatever had taken up residence on the ship,

Turlough shook his friend roughly by the shoulders and

shouted into his face, „Come on, Doctor! Please wake up!"

To his relief the Doctor"s eyes opened. They were a muddy

blue, their vacancy matching the Doctor"s slack,

expressionless face.

„Are you all right, Doctor?" Turlough said desperately.

„ Please be all right."

The Doctor"s eyes focused suddenly. He closed his mouth

and Turlough saw his throat move as he swallowed.

„We have to get back to the TARDIS," he said, his voice

thick.

„What?" said Turlough. „I... I don"t understand. What

happened?"

The Doctor tried to climb to his feet. Turlough helped him,

then held on to his arm to keep him steady.

„I made contact," the Doctor said. „They know we"re here."

„This doesn"t sound encouraging," Turlough said bleakly.

„Go on."

„I sensed... hostility. Raw and savage. Beyond reason." He

looked at Turlough earnestly, and with not even the faintest

trace of fear in his voice he said, „If they find us, they"ll tear

us apart."

Turlough"s ice-chip eyes widened, his face drained of what

little colour it had. He plucked at the Doctor"s sleeve with

trembling fingers, and in a voice wavering up and down the

scale, he pleaded, „Please, Doctor, let"s hurry."

They did. Back through the crew quarters and the

recreation area. Back through the agricultural section with

its slimy rot. All the time they were running, Turlough

fancied he could hear sounds around them: scurrying,

scuttling, clattering sounds, as if there were giant insects

moving behind the walls.

Happily they reached the cargo bay without incident and

burst through the bulkhead doors to see the dark, shadowed

block of the TARDIS waiting for them two hundred yards

away - stoical, dependable, reassuring. Turlough"s breath

was rattling in his chest and he felt as though his head was

pulsing with a hot, juicy rhythm in tandem with his heart. All

the same he was making ready to sprint across to the

TARDIS when the Doctor stayed him with a hand on the arm.

„Listen."

Turlough listened. He could hear nothing except the drip of

water and the muffled thumping of blood in his ears, and told

the Doctor so.

„That"s just my point," the Doctor explained. „The sounds in

the walls have stopped."

Turlough looked at him, appalled. „You mean you heard

them too?"

„Of course," said the Doctor, looking surprised.

„I thought I was imagining them," Turlough murmured

miserably, then corrected himself. „I hoped I was imagining

them."

„Brave heart," the Doctor said, patting Turlough on the arm.

„Come on, we"ll keep together and take it slowly."

They began to creep towards the TARDIS, Turlough"s eyes

darting everywhere, his imagination making him believe that

each dense patch of shadow was a hiding place for something

that would come whirling and screeching towards them. His

footfalls, and those of the Doctor"s, were the faintest of clangs

on the metal floor, yet Turlough gritted his teeth in agony

with each step, his senses so heightened that he felt as

though they might as well be continually banging a gong to

announce their presence.

They got half-way there, then three-quarters, then

suddenly they had no more than twenty paces to go. It was

still quiet, the coldness welcome now on Turlough"s hot skin,

his face running with sweat beneath the handkerchief that

he wore over his mouth and nose. They came to a momentary

halt, a natural pause before the final push for home. The

Doctor took the TARDIS key from his pocket, gave Turlough a

brief nod and they stepped forward again.

A shadow loomed from behind the TARDIS. Turlough

faltered, gripping the Doctor"s arm, but the Doctor merely

patted him absently on the hand and took another step

forward.

And then all at once, away to their left, a section of metal

wall, some twenty feet square, crashed down like a

drawbridge.

Turlough"s heart gave such a lurch that he thought he was

going to drop dead on the spot. He all but leaped into the

Doctor"s arms, who himself swung round, instantly alert.

Dust was spiralling up from the section of collapsed wall.

Beyond, there was only blackness.

The shadow behind the TARDIS bulged again, and

suddenly something was emerging from it. Turlough couldn"t

help it - he screamed. The creature now scuttling into the

semi-darkness of the cargo bay was like something from his

worst nightmare. Its torso was roughly the size and shape of

a bull"s - powerful and huge-shouldered, packed with muscle.

However it moved on eight jointed, black, crab-like legs, and

from the tip of its hind-quarters a massive scorpion-like tail

curled upwards into the air like a giant black question-mark.

Its face, bristling with the quills that covered the rest of its

body, was studded with bulging black eyes like those of a

spider. As it moved forward with a hideous balletic grace to

position itself between the two time travellers and the

TARDIS, Turlough became aware that more of the gigantic

arachnids were scurrying from the square of blackness where

the section of wall had fallen down, moving forward to

surround himself and the Doctor. Turlough was petrified, but

the Doctor calmly doffed his hat and said, „Good morning."

The creature that had emerged from behind the TARDIS

raised itself up on its legs so that its face was a good eight

feet above the ground, opened a flap-like mouth beneath its

myriad eyes and made a furious hissing sound, like water

dumped on a pan of hot fat.

Part Three

Falling Prey

The creatures advanced slowly, tightening the circle around

the two time travellers. As they moved, the bristles that

covered their bodies rustled like wind through dry leaves,

and their ‘feet’ clicked on the metal floor like tap shoes. The

hot, musky stench of them was almost overwhelming.

Turlough, already light-headed with fear, felt certain he was

going to pass out. He only managed to avoid it by clutching

tightly to the Doctor’s arm. He glanced at the Doctor and saw

that his eyes were closed, his face serene. What did that

mean? Had he already accepted his fate and put himself into

some kind of self-induced trance - perhaps so that when the

creatures began to tear them apart he wouldn’t feel a thing?

If so, it was grossly unfair. Why should Turlough have to

suffer alone?

He squeezed the Doctor’s arm as hard as he could. Then,

when that didn’t work, he shook him. He tried to speak the

Doctor’s name, but his saliva had thickened to a gum that

glued his tongue to the floor of his mouth. He tried to close

his eyes, to blot everything out as the Doctor had done, but

terrible though it was, he couldn’t not watch what was going

to happen. Any moment now, he expected the creatures to

rush forward, making that awful hissing sound. The only

thing he felt he could hope for was that his demise would be

mercifully quick.

All at once the legs of the creature that had first appeared,

the one blocking the way to the TARDIS, seemed to buckle

slightly. The creature staggered sideways as if drunk, its legs

scraping and clattering on the ground as it tried to right

itself. It cocked its head in a curiously dog-like way and this

time its hissing sounded like an expression of bewilderment.

Turlough stared at the creature, dumbfounded, then

gradually became aware that the others were behaving the

same way. They were blundering against one another like

cattle in the dark, hissing confusedly. One, at the outermost

edge of the circle, was barged by its tottering fellows with

such force that it crashed sideways to the ground, black legs

pedalling frantically at the air.

The Doctor’s eyes popped open so suddenly that it seemed

to snap his head back. For a moment he stared straight

ahead as if hypnotised, then he blinked and his features

relaxed. He looked around him with an expression of mild

curiosity. ‘Interesting reaction,’ he murmured.

Turlough, his mouth still too dry to speak, gripped the

Doctor’s arm even tighter. The Doctor winced and looked at

him. ‘Would you mind not doing that.’

With a gargantuan effort, Turlough tore his lips apart and

tried to speak. The pressure made him feel as though his

head was about to burst, but he managed to croak out the

word, ‘TARDIS.’

His companion’s lack of urgency made Turlough want to

shake him. The Doctor glanced around once more, then

nodded slowly. ‘In the circumstances, that might be the most

prudent course of action.’

He walked unhesitatingly forward towards the giant

arachnid, which looked utterly disorientated now, stumbling

around in a drunken circle, as if chasing its huge, swaying

tail. The Doctor gave the creature a wide berth, Turlough

cringing behind him, clutching the sleeve of his coat like a

small child hanging on to its mother’s skirts. Calmly the

Doctor fitted the key into the lock and opened the door. As

Turlough plunged gratefully inside, the Doctor turned back

briefly, raised his hat and said, ‘Sorry, must dash.’ Then he

followed Turlough inside.

Once inside the console room, Turlough tore the sweaty

handkerchief from his face, slumped against the wall, then

sank to the floor in a quivering heap, roundels pressing

uncomfortably into his back. Shudders of reaction flowed

through his body as the Doctor pottered around the console

like an old man in his garden shed, making minor

adjustments with little nods and grunts of self-satisfaction.

Turlough allowed his head to droop into his cupped hands

and for a while he simply sat there, eyes closed, waiting for

the reaction to run its course. At last he opened his eyes and

raised his head, and saw the Doctor standing with his hands

in his pockets, regarding him patiently. Feeling that the onus

was on him to speak, Turlough swallowed and said, thickly,

‘Those things out there... what were they?’

The Doctor removed his hands from his pockets and put

them on the edge of the console, leaning forward like a

speaker at a lectern. ‘I haven’t encountered them before,’ he

said, ‘but I’m almost certain they were Xaranti. They’re a

species of intergalactic scavengers with no particular

technological or cultural identity of their own. They move

through space in the hijacked vessels of other species,

perpetuating their own race by subjecting the crews of the

ships they capture, and the populations of the planets they

invade, to an infection so aggressive that it forces their

victims’ bodies to transform. As they absorb other species

physically, so they absorb their knowledge too.’

‘They’re parasites, in other words,’ Turlough said.

‘Precisely.’

Turlough shuddered. ‘Those things didn’t look capable of

piloting ships. They seemed so... savage.’

Oh, there’s far more to the Xaranti than those creatures

out there. They’re simply the hunter-gatherers. The brains

behind the operation will be at the heart of the community,

well hidden and well protected. When a member of a

particular species becomes a Xaranti, they don’t so much

lose their knowledge and their memories as store them. In

effect, their new bodies become processing plants for the

information they store, and once processed the Xaranti

secrete this information as a kind of... colourless gloop.

These various secretions, which are quite literally knowledge

and memory given physical form, merge to form a separate

living, thinking entity, a controlling intelligence for the

creatures who spawned it.’

Turlough was frowning, struggling to grasp all this. ‘So

you’re saying these creatures create their own queen?’

‘Exactly!’ the Doctor cried with an air of triumph, as if

Turlough had finally grasped a concept that had been eluding

him. The Xaranti warriors are not themselves designed to use

the knowledge they absorb, so instead they create a giant,

communal mind which assimilates all the information fed to

it and which controls and directs their actions. It’s a perfect

symbiotic relationship.’ He beamed, as if he himself was the

one responsible for such an extraordinary genetic feat.

Turlough shook his head in wonderment. ‘It’s very clever,

‘he said.

‘Clever?’ said the Doctor indignantly. ‘It’s staggering!’

‘I suppose so,’ said Turlough dryly, beginning to regain a

little of his composure, ‘though what the Xaranti do is only

the biological equivalent of other species building computers

to solve problems that they’re unable to solve themselves.’

‘Not at all. Any old fool can build a computer. This is more

like mentally-deficient parents purposely creating a super-

intelligent child to take charge of their lives.’

Turlough raised his eyebrows as if he couldn’t be bothered

to argue, and nodded towards the doors. ‘So what happened

to those creatures out there?’

‘I was only trying to communicate with them,’ said the

Doctor, as if he was being accused of something. ‘I think my

message must have interfered with their instructions and

confused them.’

Turlough pushed himself to his feet, approached the

console, and after a moment’s hesitation turned on the

scanner screen. The Xaranti were still milling about outside,

though looked to be getting themselves back together again

now, their movements more co-ordinated. He shuddered at

the sight of their spiny bodies, and the legs - like huge

inverted black Vs - that supported them, and switched it off

again. ‘Where are they from, Doctor?’ he asked, trying to

sound brisk, business-like.

‘Originally from an unnamed planet in the Tau Ceti system,

but that was destroyed several centuries ago in their war

with the Zygons. Both races are nomadic now, but no doubt

the conflict will continue until one or both of them have been

wiped out.’

He shook his head sadly. Turlough said, ‘The Xaranti are

on a recruitment drive then?’

‘Perpetually,’ said the Doctor.

‘Then I suppose we’ll have to stop them, won’t we?’

The Doctor looked at Turlough, his face giving nothing

away. ‘What do you suggest?’

Turlough tried to look confident. ‘From what you’ve told

me, they must be vulnerable through their queen. Couldn’t

you pilot the TARDIS directly into the queen’s lair and

destroy it?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘She’ll be heavily protected, and

she won’t allow her warriors to be caught out telepathically a

second time.’

‘Well... why not simply blow the ship up then? Humans

have got nuclear technology, haven’t they?’

‘We’re inside a Morok battle cruiser,’ the Doctor pointed

out.

‘So?’

‘It has reflective melganite shielding. A nuclear warhead

would not even so much as dent it.’

Turlough scowled, irritated. ‘Well, if there’s nothing we can

do, we might as well just get out of here and leave the

Xaranti to it.’

The Doctor blinked at him in astonishment. ‘Who says

there’s nothing we can do?’

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Mike asked gently.

For almost half a minute Charlotte didn’t answer. She sat

in the front passenger seat, staring unseeingly at her

sandaled feet, hands resting slackly in her lap. Mike waited

patiently, and at last she slowly raised her head. She was a

pretty girl, but even the first time he had met her, Mike had

noticed tell-tale signs of strain around her mouth and eyes.

Now she looked haunted. The skin around her eyes looked

bruised, the eyes themselves like bore-holes into her

wounded soul. The wound was fresh now, and though Mike

knew that in time it would heal, he knew also that the scar of

it would always be with her.

‘Yes,’ she whispered as though it was required of her.

‘What would you like to do now?’ Mike asked, and

immediately thought how inappropriate his question

sounded. He imagined Imogen Maybury, Charlotte’s mother,

leaning forward from the back seat and snapping, ‘What do

you suggest? The fun-fair? The beach? Or perhaps we should

take in a show?’

Mike glanced at Imogen, and although she showed no sign

of doing or saying anything of the sort, he felt an urge to

modify his question. Almost stumbling over his words he

said, ‘Would you like me to take you back to the... the

boarding house?’

Charlotte paused, then gave a single nod. It looked as

though it was taking her a great deal of effort even to

communicate and Mike felt ashamed for imposing on her. He

should be taking charge, not putting the onus on her to

make decisions. She was what... seventeen, eighteen? And

yet Mike had observed that between mother and daughter, it

was Charlotte and not Imogen who took on the natural role of

protector. It was Charlotte who had - eventually - spoken to

the policemen and to Mike; she who had accepted Mike’s

offer of support; she who had put her arm around her

mother’s shoulders and walked with her to the car.

It was Charlotte, too, who had walked across the car park

with Mike to the ominous, antiseptic environment of the

police mortuary and identified her brother’s body. Mike had

seen many victims of violent death in his military career, but

Charlotte’s presence had made this experience one of his

worst. The morticians had done their best to hide the

gruesome nature of Chris Maybury’s injuries, but the way

they had pulled the white sheet almost primly up to his nose

so as to hide the fact that his bottom jaw had been all but

ripped from his skull, made it worse, somehow, than seeing

the full extent of what had been done to him.

When Mike looked at Charlotte to see how she was coping

with it all, he saw that her face was almost as white as her

brother’s. Crossing her arms tightly beneath her breasts as if

for protection, she edged right up to the viewing window and

gazed with vacant eyes into what they could see of Chris’s

dead face.

A man wearing a surgeon’s gown and cap, his mask resting

on his chest like a small bib, was standing in the white-tiled

room beside the trolley. He watched Charlotte’s impassive

face through the glass for a little while, then stepped forward

and bent towards a microphone.

‘Miss Maybury,’ he said gently, ‘can you confirm that this is

the body of your brother, Christopher John Maybury?’

Charlotte gave no sign of having heard the police surgeon.

Mike reached out and touched her bare arm.

‘Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Is it Chris?’

Apart from her lips, no part of her body moved. ‘It doesn’t

look like him,’ she said bleakly.

‘So it’s not Chris -’ began Mike.

Her head snapped round and the expression on her face

was awful to see. Part anger, part confusion, part horror, but

all of it for the moment mostly repressed, crushed down by

numbing shock. ‘No,’ she said, her voice rough and

exhausted as if she was close to breaking, ‘it is him. It just...

doesn’t... look like him.’

Her face crumpled and she bowed her head. She looked to

be weeping tearlessly and soundlessly. Mike reached out

again and this time put his hand on her back. Feeling her

bra strap beneath her pink top he withdrew it immediately,

flushing with embarrassment.

Annoyed at himself, he glanced at the police surgeon,

nodded and raised his eyebrows, silently asking the question:

Is that all you need? Can we go now? The police surgeon

nodded back and Mike said, ‘Come on, Charlotte, let’s get out

of here.’

Charlotte blinked up at him, then looked blearily at her

dead brother through the glass once again. ‘What will they do

with him?’ she asked plaintively.

‘Nothing,’ said Mike, caught off guard by the question.

‘Will they look after him?’

‘Of course they will. Come on.’

Charlotte had to sign a couple of forms and then they were

outside, blinking in the sunshine. As Mike drove her and her

mother back to the boarding house, he had to fight down a

constant urge to apologise for all the people they could see

enjoying themselves. There were kids eating ice-creams;

couples walking hand in hand on the promenade; shrieks of

delight accompanying the blare of music from the fun-fair;

groups of rowdy young men sitting outside pubs, drinking

beer.

By the time they pulled up in front of Ambrosia Villa, Mike

felt as if he was sweating not from the heat but the silence.

He cut the engine and looked at Charlotte, who had either

fallen asleep or merely closed her eyes to blot everything out

for a while. Glancing into his rear-view mirror, he saw

Imogen sitting stiffly in her seat, staring into the distance.

‘Mrs Maybury?’ Mike said quietly. When there was no

response he raised his voice a little. ‘Mrs Maybury, we’re

here. Would you like me to come with you while you speak to

your husband?’

Imogen’s eyes flickered as if with fear. ‘I can’t,’ she

whispered.

Mike was considering how to respond when Charlotte

murmured, ‘I’ll do it.’

Mike looked at her. She hadn’t moved, but her eyes were

open. ‘Charlotte, you’ve done enough,’ he said gently.

‘I’ll do it,’ she said more fiercely. ‘I’ll do it now.’

Mike was naturally mild-mannered, but he couldn’t help

feeling a flash of irritation towards Imogen Maybury. He

understood how utterly devastated she must feel, but all the

same surely she should not continue to allow the full burden

of responsibility to fall on the shoulders of her teenage

daughter. He glanced again at Imogen in the rear-view

mirror, but she failed or refused to meet his eye.

‘Look, Charlotte, are you sure you want to go through with

this?’ he asked after a moment.

She nodded, her face set, giving nothing away. ‘I’m sure.’

‘All right,’ Mike said. ‘I’ll come with you then - that’s if you

want me to, of course.’

The smile she gave him was stiff, but full of gratitude. ‘I

would,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d better just tell the

Brigadier what’s going on first or he’ll be wondering where I

am. Is that OK?’

Charlotte did her utmost to look brave, grown-up, mature.

‘Of course,’ she said.

* * *

It was only when the Brigadier switched off the RT that he

realised he had hardly taken in a word that Mike Yates had

said. He had conducted the conversation on autopilot, had

presumably made all the correct responses - but to what

information he had no idea. His mind felt like a landscape

wreathed in fog, grey and vague and difficult to negotiate. He

forced himself to concentrate hard, pressed his fingertips into

his forehead and closed his eyes until eventually a phrase

swam up through the murk. Just before putting the phone

down, he remembered himself saying, ‘All right, Yates, I’ll get

the Doctor on to it straight away.’

But on to what exactly? What was it Yates had told him?

Something about... about... No, it was no good. He could

recall the sound of Yates’s voice, but his Captain might as

well have been talking in double Dutch for all the sense it

had made.

The Brigadier was appalled. He prided himself on his

decisiveness, on being able to think quickly in tough

situations. Healthy body, healthy mind and all that. Perhaps

he was simply tired. Overwork. But he had never allowed it to

affect him like this before. No, this one went on till he

dropped. Hundred per cent commitment. Always been the

case, always would be. There was something... something at

the back of his mind. Oh, damn it! What was it now? Think,

man, think!

Something. Something the Doctor had said. Something

about fish?

Absently the Brigadier rubbed at his shoulder, which had

begun to itch and prickle.

‘Are you all right?’ Tegan asked.

Andy blinked and puffed out a deep breath, shook his head

quickly like a character in an old black and white comedy

who has been bopped with a frying pan. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he

said.

‘Just feeling a bit woozy all of a sudden.’

‘Too much sun,’ Tegan said decisively. ‘Do you want to sit

down?’

‘No, honestly, I’ll be all right in a minute.’

They were by the meat counter in Asda, shopping for the

picnic they planned to eat up in the hills behind the town

Just as Tegan had been asking him what he wanted in his

sandwiches, Andy had staggered as if he’d had one too many,

and had put his hand out to the glass counter to steady

himself.

‘You don’t look too well,’ said Tegan. ‘You look a bit peaky.’

Suddenly he frowned and abruptly snapped, I said I’m fine,

all right? Stop fussing.’

Tegan was too taken aback to get angry herself, besides

which as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Andy was

apologising for them.

‘Sorry, that was uncalled for. I don’t know what came over

me.’

‘That’s all right,’ Tegan said guardedly. Then, not wishing

to sour the lovely morning they had had, her voice became

playful. ‘Just don’t do it again, all right? I’m enough of a

hothead for both of us.’

He grinned, though Tegan couldn’t help but detect a

certain weariness in his expression. I hope he isn’t getting

bored with me, she thought before she could help it. ‘Are you

sure you still want to go on this picnic? We don’t have to if

you don’t feel like it:

He looked genuinely alarmed at the thought of not going,

which reassured her. ‘No, of course I want to go,’ he said.

‘Don’t you?’

‘ I want to.’

‘Well, then, let’s get on with it.’

They bought some corned beef and ham at the meat

counter and moved on to the bread aisle. Although this was

less than ten years before the time she had last left ‘her’

Earth with the Doctor, she was amazed at the lack of choice

available and had to bite her lip to keep from saying so.

There was no vegetarian section, very few speciality or ethnic

foods, no vegetables that couldn’t be grown in the British

Isles, no New World wines, and only a tiny amount of brown

bread amongst the loaves of Nimble and Slimcea and

Mother’s Pride.

Tegan chose some crusty white and Andy grabbed a packet

of jam tarts. They were at the checkout, a thin-faced girl with

freckles and lank red hair grumpily running their purchases

through, when Andy groaned and slumped forward as if he

was about to be sick.

Everyone nearby stopped what they were doing and stared

as he stumbled backwards, clutched at the edge of the

checkout, missed, and thumped gracelessly down on to his

backside. Some people tittered, others stared at him

aggressively, as if they thought that by drawing attention to

himself he was challenging them in some way. The checkout

girl barely suppressed a snigger as she raised herself to peer

over the end of the checkout desk; it was clearly the most fun

she’d had all day. Tegan would have bitten her head off if she

hadn’t been both discomfited by the all-pervasive atmosphere

of hostility and concerned for Andy. She crouched down and

placed a supporting hand on Andy’s back.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked for the second time in the

past ten minutes.

Andy looked at her, but seemed to be having trouble

focusing. ‘Feel so weird,’ he said muzzily. ‘Dizzy and sick.’

Behind the checkout a narrow aisle led to the exit, plastic

chairs for pensioners and the footsore lined up along the

wall. ‘Come on,’ said Tegan, ‘let’s get you on to one of these.’

With Andy helping as much as he could, she hauled him to

his feet and dumped him on one of the chairs.

‘Is your husband all right, madam?’ said a voice from

behind her. Tegan turned and saw a balding, fussy-looking

man in a blue suit and flowery tie, his expression hovering

somewhere between professional concern and disapproval.

‘He’s -’ Tegan was about to say ‘not my husband’, but

decided she couldn’t be bothered to add fuel to the man’s

prissy little fire – ‘got some sort of virus. Sunstroke maybe.

Would you mind bringing him a glass of water?’

Mr Prudom - his name written on the rectangular badge

affixed to his breast pocket above the words STORE

MANAGER - looked slightly put out by her request, but

nodded. ‘Certainly, madam.’ He turned and clicked his

fingers at the gawping checkout girl. ‘Janice, bring this

gentleman a drink of water, would you please?’

Janice looked disgusted, but muttered, ‘Yes, Mr Prudom,’

and wandered off on her errand.

‘And would you mind calling us a cab?’ Tegan asked.

Mr Prudom glanced around, but the other checkout girls

were all busy. He looked momentarily trapped by his inability

to delegate, then his shoulders slumped. ‘Certainly, madam,’

he said again. ‘I’ll see to it myself.’

The water arrived and Tegan made Andy drink it. ‘I feel

such an idiot,’ he said. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened

to me before.’

‘You must have picked up a bug,’ Tegan said. ‘I’m going to

take you back home to bed.’

‘Sounds promising,’ he said, managing a tired grin.

‘Don’t push your luck,’ Tegan replied, but she was smiling

too. ‘I’m going to tuck you in, then I’m going to head back to

my hotel. We’ll go on our picnic another day.’

He sighed. ‘Sorry about this.’

She rubbed his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s not

your fault.’

A few minutes later the cab arrived. ‘Can you walk?’ Tegan

asked.

‘I think so.’ Andy stood up, then immediately had to clutch

at her for support. ‘Whoa, my head’s spinning.’

‘Just hold on to me,’ Tegan said. ‘We’ll take it slowly.’

They were heading out of the door when Mr Prudom

scuttled up behind them. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘your shopping.’

Tegan glanced back. Half of what they were going to buy for

their picnic had been stuffed into a plastic bag, half was

clustered at the bottom of the checkout conveyor belt.

With a wicked sense of glee which she did her best to

conceal, Tegan said, ‘You might as well put it all back. We

won’t be needing it now.’

Prudom’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. ‘Yes,

madam,’ he said.

As soon as he saw Tegan framed in the opening lift doors the

Doctor hastily said his goodbyes to the Brigadier and put

down the phone. He hurried across the hotel foyer with a grin

on his face, calling out her name as if she was the person he

most wanted to see in the entire universe.

Then he noted how unhappy she looked, saw how tightly

she was clutching his message in her hand, and his face fell.

‘Oh dear,’ he murmured, managing to inject such gravity into

his voice that Turlough, who was behind him playing catch-

up as usual, felt his heart sink.

Tegan held up the note, looking at the Doctor almost

accusingly. ‘Alien contamination?’ she said. ‘What kind of

alien contamination?

‘Turlough, would you be so kind as to order some tea?’ the

Doctor asked. He took Tegan’s arm gently and drew her

aside. ‘Let’s sit down, shall we?’

At first Tegan looked as though she might protest, but then

she nodded glumly and allowed herself to be led. The Doctor

escorted her over to where he had been sitting, a seating area

bordered by tall, white pillars. The seats were all black

squishy leather with chrome frameworks, the coffee tables

low and glass-topped. Harry Nillson was piping from the

speakers, lamenting that he couldn’t live if living was without

you. Didn’t that guy know any other songs? Tegan thought

irritably.

They sat, the Doctor leaning forward to rest his elbows on

his knees, his legs slightly splayed, white-booted feet turned

inward. To Tegan he looked like a little kid who’d been told to

sit quietly, but who really wanted to run off and play.

His eyes, however, were alert, full of wisdom, windows to

the awesome complexity of his thoughts.

‘Which was it?’ he asked gently.

‘What?’

‘Did you swim in the sea or eat the fish?’

‘Oh. I swam in the sea. Or at least I paddled. What’s going

on, Doctor?’

The Doctor sighed, and as Turlough meandered across to

join them, began to tell her exactly what was going on. He

had just finished when their tea arrived.

‘Ah, tea!’ the Doctor exclaimed as if it was the answer to all

their problems. As the waiter departed the Doctor reached for

the teapot. ‘Shall I be mother?’

‘What’s going to happen to me?’ said Tegan miserably. ‘Am

I going to turn into one of these Xaranti things?’

The Doctor glanced at Turlough as if urging him to remain

silent. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ he said reassuringly.

She didn’t look convinced. ‘First the Mara, now this. I’m

sick of being taken over by aliens.’

‘Yes, the novelty does wear off after a while,’ the Doctor

remarked dryly.

Tegan glared at him. ‘Are you making fun of me?’

‘Of course he isn’t,’ said Turlough.

Tegan thought that one day she ought to tell Turlough that

being nice didn’t suit him. Whenever he tried it, he simply

ended up sounding oily and insincere. ‘Isn’t he?’ she said

curtly.

‘Of course not. In fact, he’s working on a cure even as we

speak.’

‘No he’s not,’ said Tegan. ‘He’s eating chocolate bourbons.’

The Doctor popped the remainder of his biscuit into his

mouth a little guiltily and reached into the inside pocket of

his coat. He withdrew a square, grey object that resembled a

powder compact, though when he flipped open the lid with

his thumb, Tegan saw that it looked more like a miniature

laptop. ‘There are various diagnostic programmes running in

the TARDIS,’ he told her. ‘I can analyse the data on this. It

gives me up-to-the-minute reports.’

He demonstrated by pressing a pinhead-sized button and

producing a scroll of figures and symbols across the screen.

Tegan held up a hand. ‘All right, all right, I believe you.’

Suddenly the look of irritation on her face changed to one of

dawning horror. ‘Oh my God!’

‘What is it?’ asked Turlough.

‘I’ve just realised what might be wrong with Andy.’

‘Andy?’ enquired the Doctor.

‘Someone I met. My date. I’ve got to make a phone call.’

She leaped up and ran to the pay phones beside the main

doors. The Doctor watched her with an intent expression as if

he was trying to read her lips.

Two minutes later she was back, looking anxious.

‘What’s wrong?’ Turlough asked.

‘It’s Andy. He’s not answering his phone. You don’t think…’

She couldn’t go on.

The house seemed empty, though somewhere a radio was

playing so faintly that Mike couldn’t make out the song. The

Mayburys’ accommodation was on the landing below Mike’s

attic room. He and Charlotte passed the room that Chris

Maybury had never even slept in, and on to the one at the

end of the landing that Charlotte’s parents shared.

Before knocking, Mike offered Charlotte a brief, reassuring

smile. She twitched her lips back at him, though her eyes

still retained that haunted, sunken look. He turned and

rapped authoritatively on the door.

‘Mr Maybury,’ he said, ‘Mr Maybury, are you in there?’

There might have been a groan, a vague movement. Mike

imagined Charlotte’s hungover father turning over in bed.

‘Mr Maybury,’ he repeated, raising his voice, ‘my name is

Captain Mike Yates of the United Nations Intelligence

Taskforce. I have your daughter, Charlotte, here with me. We

have something very important to tell you.’

This time there was a definite series of groans, though Mike

got the impression that they were being made regardless of,

not in response to, him. He turned again to Charlotte. ‘I think

we’d better go in.’ Charlotte nodded and Mike pushed the

door open.

He recoiled immediately. The smell was worse than the

army changing rooms at the end of the annual rugger

tournament. He looked around for its source, but could see

nothing. Behind him Charlotte gagged and Mike said, ‘I’ll

open a window.’ Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the

room.

As he threw open the curtains and fumbled with the

window catch, he was only peripherally aware of Tony

Maybury as a hunched shape beneath crumpled, twisted

covers, tossing from side to side in his bed. The man was

moaning as if in pain, and it occurred to Mike, as the catch

came free and the bottom section of the casement window

rattled upwards, that Charlotte’s father may have more

wrong with him than a simple hangover.

Gratefully Mike gulped in several lungfuls of air that

seemed as fresh as any he had ever tasted, then turned back

into the room. From outside came the ubiquitous cries of

gulls and the distant jingle of an ice-cream van.

‘Dad,’ Charlotte said uncertainly, taking a step forward,

‘Dad, are you OK?’

Tony gave no indication that he was even aware of their

presence. Charlotte glanced pleadingly at Mike, and he strode

forward from the window to the head of the bed.

All he could see of Tony Maybury was his hair, a dark,

sweaty clump poking out from beneath the sheets. Mike

leaned forward. ‘Mr Maybury,’ he said loudly and clearly, ‘can

you hear me?’

Still no reply. Mike raised his eyebrows at Charlotte, who

was standing at the foot of the bed, watching her father’s

writhing form with a mixture of deep concern and anxiety.

Then he reached forward and started to pull the sheet from

the upper half of the man’s body.

It did not come easily. It seemed to snag on the man’s skin,

and as Mike tugged harder he actually felt it tear in several

places. Remembering the man in the mortuary, Mike

suddenly knew what he was going to see before he saw it. He

allowed the sheet to fall back over Tony and turned to

Charlotte. ‘Perhaps it might be better if -’

He got no further. At that moment the figure in the bed

sprang to its feet with an agility that seemed unnatural. It

whipped the sheet from its body and hurled it aside. As the

sheet fluttered to the floor, Charlotte screamed.

Tony Maybury had transformed to such an extent that he

looked terrifying, despite the ridiculous pale blue Y-fronts he

was wearing. His entire body, including his face, was covered

with quills identical to the ones Mike had seen on the man in

the mortuary. Although he moved with the quick, predatory

movements of a striking spider, Maybury was hunched over,

two large, grotesquely shifting growths bulging on his back

between his shoulder blades. His eyes were no longer human,

but completely black, his eyelids peeling back from them,

making his eyes look as if they were in danger of popping

from their sockets.

Mike did not even have time to reach for his gun before the

creature was upon him. It sprang at him, clamping lingers

that had elongated to taloned claws around his throat. Hit by

its full weight, Mike stumbled and fell backwards, banging

his head on the floor. A white burst of light and pain

exploded behind his eyes, and for a moment he felt as if he

was sinking into a treacly black liquid, unable to do anything

but wave his arms in feeble protest as the creature straddled

his chest and rammed fingers like knife blades into his

Adam’s apple.

At first the creature’s dead-fish smell was pungent in his

nostrils, its slavering, hissing breath and the rustle of its

quills echoing in his head. But as consciousness ebbed away,

so Mike’s senses seemed to recede, leaving only blackness to

fill the gaps.

Mike’s first conscious thought when he came round was that

there was no longer a weight on his chest. His throat felt

thick and dry, but when he tried to swallow, sharp, hot pain

lanced up into his head and down his gullet, hitting his

breastbone and fanning out across his chest like heartburn.

At least the pain brought him back to life. He sat bolt

upright, and saw the creature writhing on the floor beside

him, growling and holding its head. Standing above it was

Charlotte, looking shell-shocked and clutching a hefty-

looking standard lamp in both hands.

Mike had barely registered this before the creature twisted,

rose in one fluid motion and smashed the lamp from her

hands. It flew across the room, shattering against the corner

of the dressing table. Before Charlotte had time to react, the

thing was upon her, hands clamping around her neck,

bearing her effortlessly to the ground.

Horrified, Mike leapt to his feet, reaching for the gun in its

holster beneath his jacket. ‘Leave her alone or I’ll fire,’ he

yelled - or tried to; pain sawed through his vocal cords like a

rusty blade and his voice emerged as a croak. The creature

that had been Tony Maybury either didn’t hear him or chose

not to. Hissing like an enraged snake, it bore down savagely

on Charlotte’s throat, as if he was trying to crush the fine

bones in her neck.

Mike aimed at one of its outstretched legs and fired. As the

bullet struck, bone and flesh parted in an eruption of evil-

smelling blood so dark it was almost black. The creature

threw back its head and howled in rage and agony, then its

head whipped round with a look of pure hatred. Mike braced

himself for the attack, but after glaring at him for a second or

two - marking him - the creature turned back to Charlotte.

Charlotte had neither made a sound nor moved. She lay

pinioned, arms and legs splayed and limp. Either she was

dead, or unconscious, or simply too traumatised to fight

back.

‘Let her go!’ Mike croaked again, but the creature ignored

him.

Calmly Mike raised his gun for the second time and shot

Tony Maybury through the back of the head.

Black lumpy stuff flew in all directions, spattering the bed,

the carpet, the wall, the mirror of the dressing table. The

corpse toppled forward on to Charlotte’s prone body with the

floppy gracelessness of a tailor’s dummy.

Immediately Charlotte began to make breathy little

screaming sounds, her arms and legs pistoning frantically as

she tried to push her father’s corpse off her body. Black

ichor-like fluid from its shattered cranium drooled on to her

white skin and stained her pink top like melted liquorice.

Mike crouched down and shoved the corpse to one side. It

rolled slowly over on to its back, quills rattling and rustling.

Charlotte scrambled out from beneath it, eyes bulging, her

mouth a quivering moue of panic. She looked like an animal,

terrified almost to the point of insensibility.

Mike grabbed her and held her tightly. ‘Everything’s all

right now,’ he whispered over and over, and gradually he felt

her shaking subside. Cautiously he relaxed his grip a little

and was about to say, Let’s get out of here, when all at once

she doubled over in pain as if someone had punched her in

the stomach.

‘What’s wrong?’ Mike asked in astonishment.

Charlotte looked at him with frightened eyes, her face

suddenly deathly pale, almost grey. ‘My baby,’ she whispered.

‘Help me please...’

Then she passed out in Mike’s arms.

It was nice to get a break from the kids, but ever since

arriving here on Friday June Goldsmith had felt nervous.

There was a funny atmosphere in the town; everywhere she

looked people seemed unaccountably aggressive. It was the

way they stood, the way they stared at you - as if you’d done

something to offend them. And it wasn’t just her imagination

either - she had witnessed a fight between two men in a

restaurant, had watched people (both male and female)

squaring up to each other on the beach. There’d been some

sort of incident on a fishing boat out in the bay as well; no

details had been released, but the rumour was that everyone

on board had died in mysterious circumstances. And last

night there had apparently been a riot in a town-centre pub

in which one man had been stabbed to death.

The kids - Freddie, who was nearly five, and Dana, two and

a half - ran her ragged, but secretly June would be pleased

when the weekend was over and she and Terry were in the

car, heading back to Sheffield. Terry had done his best to

reassure her, to convince her that whatever weird thing was

going on in the town had nothing to do with them, but June

could tell the tension was getting to him, too; he’d become

more irritable as the weekend had progressed, and had

developed a rash on his upper arms which he kept

scratching, much to her own irritation.

They were walking hand in hand along the beach now. A

last stroll along the sand, Terry had suggested, before

heading back to the hotel to pack. June had wanted to pack

straight after lunch and reach her mother’s in time to give

the kids their tea and put them to bed, but she didn’t want to

get Terry’s back up again this weekend so she had smiled

and said, yes, that would be lovely.

Only it wasn’t lovely, was it? It was every bit the ordeal she

had been expecting. She gripped Terry’s hand tightly, avoided

eye contact with each person staring at her as she walked

past, and concentrated on putting one foot firmly in front of

the other.

Making a conscious effort to appear casual, June looked at

Terry, who was walking closest to the water’s edge, gazing

out to sea. They had met ten years ago when they were both

twenty-six, in a disco in Sheffield. It had been her best friend

Millicent’s hen night, and June had been very drunk. The

following morning she had not been able to remember much

about Terry, even though it had been the start of a

relationship leading eventually to marriage, to their own

house, to two beautiful children.

Ten years on, and looking at Terry now, June realised that

she had never once regretted writing her phone number on a

beer mat and thrusting it into his hand at the end of that

riotous evening. Too many business lunches had thickened

his girth and doubled his chin, and the thick dark hair that

had once grown on his head now seemed to have chosen to

sprout from his nose and ears instead, but none of that

altered the fact that she loved him as much now - if not more

- as she ever had.

She squeezed his hand, and when he didn’t respond she

murmured her pet name for him: ‘Terribubble.’

He looked round, face slack.

‘Hmm,’ he said, managing to sound like the village idiot on

a go-slow.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said playfully, ‘was I keeping you up?’

‘I was just... just... just thinking,’ he slurred. Then a slight

frown crinkled his forehead. ‘What do you want?’

Part of her wanted to snap, ‘Oh, never mind!’, but it would

be a shame to end the weekend on a sour note. I just wanted

to tell you I love you,’ she said.

There was a pause as if he was waiting for more. Then he

said, ‘Thanks. I love you too.’

She sighed, though not loud enough for him to hear, and

they walked on. A couple of minutes later she said, ‘Do you

know what’s strange?’

Again that slow reaction: ‘Hmm? What?’

‘It’s a boiling hot day and yet most of the people on this

beach are covering themselves up. I wonder why.’

He shrugged as if he couldn’t see what she was getting at.

A few moments later he answered, ‘Maybe they don’t want to

get sunburned.’

‘No, I don’t think it’s that.’ She frowned for a moment, lips

pursed, then raised her eyebrows in a facial shrug. ‘Oh, what

does it really matter? We’ll be home soon. This is just a

peculiar place, that’s all.’

They were near the end of the beach now, most of the

holidaymakers behind them. June began to relax a little,

even though they would have to run the gauntlet again on

their way back. A little further along the sand gave way to

jutting rocks, seaweed-slimy rock pools and the silently

howling mouths of cliff caves. There were few people around

here. The whispering of the tide sounded like a secret that

the sea would reveal only to them.

June stopped and looked out at the water, fascinated and

soothed by the shifting mosaic of green, blue and grey, coins

of golden sunlight bobbing and sparkling on the waves. Terry

let his hand slip from hers and moved on slowly. He

clambered up over the first of the rocks, stepped carefully

around a few pools with his flip-flopped feet, and ambled

aimlessly towards the nearest cave, a dark, vertical gash in

the sun-drenched cliff.

June watched him go, then turned back to the sea,

enjoying her moment of communion with it. If she hadn’t felt

so nervous of her fellow human beings, she could have sat on

a rock and gazed at it for hours, intermittently dozing,

allowing the rhythmic liquid breath of the tide to transport

her to another place.

Despite her state, the sea managed to weave its

mesmerising magic. June was certain she had remained

conscious as the sea’s never-ending patterns kaleidoscoped

in front of her eyes, yet suddenly she was jerking not so

much awake as aware, with no idea how long she had been

standing there. She looked around, hoping to catch sight of

Terry pottering among the rock-pools, but there was no sign

of him. She almost called out but didn’t want to attract

attention to herself.

He couldn’t be too far away. If she didn’t see him when she

climbed up on to the rocks, she’d no doubt find him poking

about in one of the caves, looking for interesting stuff that

had been washed ashore by the tide. She sidestepped a great

swathe of clear jelly at the base of the rocks and headed

towards the caves.

The rocks were relatively dry, though the mossy seaweed

that provided them with a furry green coat was still damp

and slippery underfoot. As she stepped down from a jagged

crest of rocks on to a relatively flat area, the nearby entrance

to the first of the cliff caves gushed with light.

It was sunlight, of course. She must have looked at the

cave at the exact moment that the sun inched far enough

across the sky to flood the entrance and drown the shadows

inside.

Not that the shadows had been hiding anything interesting.

The sand in the cave, still damp from the lack of sunlight to

bake it dry, was strewn with bladderwrack, an old blue

fishing net, pop bottles, driftwood and more blobs of the jelly-

like stuff that the sea seemed to have coughed up like

phlegm.

She walked past the cave and stopped outside the next one.

The entrance was four feet high at its apex and she had to

crouch down to peer inside. There was nothing to see. The

interior was no bigger than a tepee. On to the next one, and

still no sign of Terry. She glanced back the way she had

come. Surely she was now for enough away from the people

on the beach to be out of earshot? She walked towards the

next entrance, calling her husband’s name - and was

rewarded almost immediately by what sounded like a rustle

of movement.

She smiled and all but skipped the last few steps to the

mouth of the cave. She was immediately struck by an

unpleasant smell - like dead fish and rotten vegetables - but

she took a step inside. Instantly the stench wrapped itself

around her like a winding sheet, making her gag. She

clamped her hands over her mouth and nose and took a

hasty step backwards. The stench was pungent as ammonia;

her eyes began to water, her surroundings dissolving into a

blur of watery shadows. Something must have died in here,

she thought. There was no way that Terry would have

lingered here.

Without any warning a figure stepped into view from

behind a shelf of rock in front of her, making her jump. In

the dim light its head was a bleached skull, its hands held

out before it, palms up. As it moved towards her June’s heart

skipped a beat and then she gasped as she realised that it

was indeed Terry, after all. His sunglasses and her blurred

vision had made his eyes look like nothing more than dark,

empty sockets. She blinked to clear her vision, and was only

partially successful. Terry’s outstretched hands looked dirty,

but as he stepped forward into the sunlight she saw that they

were not black, but red.

‘Blood,’ he said before she could speak.

There was a beat of silence as she took this in, then, ‘My

God, what have you done to yourself?’

He frowned as if he didn’t understand the question, and

shook his head. ‘Not mine. It’s all over the wall.’

She glanced behind him, fighting off the smell. ‘My God,’

she breathed. ‘Terry, we’ve got to tell someone.’

Then the interior of the cave erupted.

June’s first thought was that a bomb had gone off. All at

once sand was geysering up and out of the cave in a great

plume, covering them both. June felt it blasting through her

hair, stinging her eyes, crunching grittily between her teeth.

She was thrown backwards, on to her knees, swiping at her

face as if she was being attacked by bees. She coughed,

sneezed and spluttered, her eyes streaming.

She straightened bolt upright, however, when she heard

Terry begin to scream.

The first, a terrible, wrenching scream of mortal agony, was

rapidly followed by a succession of others. June felt every

muscle clench at the sound, felt a bolt of coldness tear

through her stomach. Despite the stinging pinpricks of sand

in her eyes she forced herself to open them. When she saw

why Terry was screaming, she forgot her own discomfort in

an instant. Her eyes widened in terror and disbelief.

The thing that had erupted from beneath the sand was an

impossibility. Part bull, part spider, part scorpion, it was

massive, its jointed, spiny legs at least eight feet long. Even

its bristling, multi-eyed head, which looked tiny in relation to

its muscle-packed abdomen, was substantially bigger than

June’s. It was tearing apart the figure pinned to the ground

between its two front legs. Blood was gushing out over the

sand as it feasted, trickling down the rocks, swirling around

June’s feet like a sticky incoming tide.

Within seconds Terry had stopped screaming. His body

jerked spasmodically. His mouth was open and full of blood.

His sunglasses had fallen off and his eyes had rolled up into

his head.

The scene was so appalling, so unbelievable, that June was

numbed almost to the point of inertia. But acting with an

odd, distant composure, she stepped out of her flip-flops,

turned from the scene and walked away. She moved carefully

as she picked her way across the rocks, taking pains not to

slip. It was only when she reached the edge of the formation

and she had jumped over the blobs of jelly nestled in the

crook between rocks and sand that she began to run,

heading back the way she had come.

She had progressed no more than a dozen yards when she

heard a scuffle-clatter of movement behind her. Breathing

hard, she glanced back over her shoulder. The creature had

evidently finished with Terry and was now scurrying

unevenly across the rocks towards her.

In an instant the fragile veneer that had shielded June

from her emotions shattered. Gut-wrenching terror surged

through her like an electric shock. Her legs took up the

challenge, doubling their pace, and as she ran she let out a

piercing scream that seemed to tear her throat, releasing the

taste of blood into her mouth.

Now she didn’t care that the people on the beach were

looking at her. Rather, it urged her to cry out for help, her

voice raw and ragged. However, no one came to her aid. The

people either stood transfixed - some of them with gleaming,

hungry eyes - or screamed and turned tail.

Seconds later the stink of dead things overwhelmed her

and she fell, struck from behind. It was only when she saw

her own blood spilling on to the sand that she realised she’d

been sliced open. She tried to roll over, to get back to her

feet, but it was no use. She tried to crawl but her limbs

wouldn’t let her.

Then it was upon her and there was only the scuttling,

stinking blackness of its body. Her last thought was of her

children, miles away in Sheffield, excitedly awaiting their

parents’ return.

The Brigadier took off his cap and leaned forward in his chair

until his forehead was touching the desk. The hard surface

was cool, comforting. Not for the first time that day he closed

his eyes and allowed himself to drift.

It was proving increasingly difficult to hold on to his

thoughts. He remembered speaking to Yates on the RT and

arranging a UNIT clean-up team to deal with... with some

sort of incident at the guest-house where Yates was staying.

And more recently he had spoken to the Doctor, hadn’t he?

But not his Doctor. The younger chap he’d met earlier, the

one in the cream coat. What was it this new Doctor had told

him? It was something about the threat that was facing

them. He’d said a word - Xaranti - that, even though the

Brigadier was sure he’d never heard it before, nevertheless

seemed to resound in his head like some newly-roused

memory.

He was not too far gone to realise that whatever was wrong

with him was something rather more serious than mere

stress-fatigue or overwork. Perhaps he ought to relinquish

his post, declare himself unfit for duty, hand over the mantle

of command to Mike Yates. To do so, to admit to any kind of

weakness, was anathema to him, but he was nothing if not a

realist. He knew he couldn’t go on like this. For the first time

in his military career he simply had no idea what to do next.

And if he couldn’t make proper, informed decisions then he

might very well end up endangering the lives of his men - not

to mention putting the country, or even the entire planet, at

risk.

He raised his head wearily from the desk and was reaching

for the RT - first of all pausing to scratch the infernal itching

that had started on his shoulder and was now spreading

down his arm and across his chest - when the door opened

and Benton blundered breathlessly in.

The Brigadier jerked upright as if he had been caught

napping and for a moment his mind cleared. ‘Benton,’ he

snapped, ‘don’t you know to knock before entering a superior

officer’s... er... office?’

If Benton noticed the Brigadier’s moment of confusion he

didn’t let on. In fact, he looked a little confused himself.

‘Sorry, sir. It’s just that... well, there’s a monster on the

beach, sir.’

‘A monster?’ repeated the Brigadier scathingly. ‘Can’t you

be a little more precise, Benton?’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Benton looked as if he was concentrating hard.

‘The local police have just rung in. They say there’s a large,

insect-like creature running amok on Tayborough Sands

beach. Quite a few fatalities already it seems, sir.’

‘Right, Benton,’ said the Brigadier, not quite with relish,

but certainly galvanised - however temporarily - by the

prospect of action. ‘Get the men ready to move out in force.

And try to get hold of the Doctor, let him know what’s going

on.’

‘He probably knows already, sir. His hotel is right on the

seafront.’

‘Is it, by George?’ said the Brigadier, wondering whether he

already knew this. ‘Well, try and get hold of him anyway. Tell

him not to go near this dratted creature until we get there.’

‘I’ll tell him, sir...’ Benton said, clearly implying that if the

Doctor was set on a separate course of action, then nothing

Benton could do or say would make a blind bit of difference.

The Brigadier flapped a hand, acknowledging the fact that

the Doctor was a law unto himself. ‘Just do your best,

Benton. I’ll put a call through to Captain Yates, get him to

meet us down there.’ The Brigadier again reached for his RT

and glanced up at Benton, who was hovering by the desk, as

if waiting to be dismissed. ‘Well, jump to it, man. Chop chop.’

White bonnets and yellow faces. Flowers. Daisies. She was

surrounded by daisies. Lovely. But there was something

wrong with them. They were all identical. And they were in

rows. Regiments. Hovering in mid-air. And mid-air was pale

green.

Charlotte’s eyes focused on the curtain. It was attached to

a rail, which, if she wished, she could pull all the way round

her bed to conceal herself from the outside world. What that

consisted of was a bit of a mystery. Noise, certainly. There

were people talking. Footsteps moving rapidly to and fro.

Things clanking.

‘Charlotte,’ said a voice.

Her eyes flickered in the direction of the voice and she saw

a man with a look of concern on his thin face, sitting at the

side of her bed. Remembering that his name was Mike Yates

brought all her memories rushing back. Like a wave, they

filled her mouth and throat like sludgy water, and she found

herself gasping for breath, struggling to sit up. A band of

pain clamped across her stomach and she fell back, head

pounding.

‘Hey,’ said Mike gently, ‘take it easy. You’re safe now.’ He

covered her hot hand with his cool one.

The suffocating effect of the memories subsided, but the

pain of them did not diminish. ‘My dad,’ she whispered. ‘He’s

dead. You killed him.’

It was not an accusation, merely a statement of fact. Mike

nodded. ‘I had to. If I hadn’t killed him, he would have killed

you.’

She remembered the spines on her father’s body, his black,

bulging eyes. She shuddered. ‘What’s happening?’ she

pleaded, her voice cracking, tears not far away. ‘Mike, what’s

happening?’

‘There’s some sort of... contamination,’ he said carefully.

‘It’s affecting people. Making them change.’

‘Contamination? What do you mean?’

He raised his hands, looked apologetic. ‘We don’t know yet.

That’s what we’re trying to find out.’

Charlotte’s head was buzzing. Her thoughts hurt. There

was a dislocated, unreal feeling to all of this. She shifted

position in bed slightly, and was once again aware of the pain

in her stomach, like a big bruise. Fearful, she said, ‘My baby.

Is my baby...?’

‘It’s fine.’ Mike smiled back, squeezing her hand to reassure

her. ‘The doctors say your baby’s going to be fine. You just

need to rest. You went into shock after the attack.’

Momentary relief washed over her, but then she thought of

Chris and her dad again. ‘Does Mum know?’ she asked.

‘About the baby, I mean. I hadn’t told her, you see.’

‘Not yet. She’s under sedation in another ward. Do you

want me to tell the doctors not to tell her?’

Charlotte nodded weakly. ‘I want to tell her myself.’

‘Of course you do,’ Mike said.

There was a sudden crackle of static from his jacket pocket

and a tinny voice said, ‘Greyhound One to Greyhound Three.

Are you there, Greyhound Three? Over.’

Everyone in the ward turned their heads to look at Mike.

He raised his eyebrows in self-conscious apology and took

the RT from his pocket.

‘This is Greyhound Three. Would you mind hanging on a

minute, sir? I need to find somewhere a little more discreet.’

He put the RT back in his pocket and flashed Charlotte

another quick smile. ‘Won’t be a minute,’ he told her, then

stood up and walked briskly out of the ward.

A few minutes later he was back, his face grim. ‘I’m going

to have to go,’ he said. ‘There have been one or two

developments.’

Charlotte reached out and grasped his hand. ‘You will come

back and see me, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will. Just as soon as I can.’ He leaned down

and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Now you get some rest, and

I’ll be back before you know it.’

The seafront was in chaos, police and holidaymakers milling

around in confusion. A crowd was standing in the road like

sheep, immobilised by shock. Several times the Brigadier had

to lean on his horn to encourage the crowd to part enough to

allow the UNIT convoy to edge through. On the promenade a

dozen or more empty emergency vehicles were parked

haphazardly, lights flashing.

The whole situation had a feeling of aftermath to it, which

the Brigadier recognised only too well. He knew that the

emergency vehicles were empty because their crews were

tending to the wounded. This, coupled with the fact that

there was no panic among the crowds, merely a sense of

stunned incomprehension, was evidence enough that the

creature was no longer running loose nearby, but had moved

on to pastures new. UNIT’S job was to track it and, if possible,

contain it. Seeing the Lombard Hotel looming large on his

right, he reached for the RT on the passenger seat.

‘Greyhound One to...’ the Brigadier began, confidently

enough, then floundered. Good lord, what was Benton’s call

sign? Angrily he barked, ‘Benton, are you there? Over.’

Benton’s voice came back, the caution in it evident despite

the tinny reception. ‘Er... here, sir. Is everything all right?

Over.’

‘No, Benton, it is not all right. The police operation is a

shambles. I’m stopping off here to pick up the Doctor. I want

this area evacuated and cordoned off, and I want to know

where that damned creature’s got to. Over.’

‘Leave it to me, sir. I’ll get on to it right away. Over and out.’

The Brigadier nodded in satisfaction and tossed the RT

back on to the passenger seat. There was nothing like a bit of

direct action to get the adrenaline going, focus the mind. He

ignored the fact that he was still battling to concentrate on

the matter in hand. His mind kept wandering, but the

Brigadier was determined to keep on top of things even if it

killed him.

He parked on the double yellows outside the hotel and

marched up the steps into Reception. There was another

crowd in the lobby, the air buzzing with speculation,

strangers united by the need to share their experiences of

that afternoon’s astonishing events.

As soon as he spotted the skinny, copper-haired young

man with the peculiar eyebrows, the Brigadier recognised

him. Had it been yesterday or this morning when they had

met? He pushed the thought aside, irritated by his inability

to remember, and strode across. He was aware of the looks

his uniformed presence was attracting, and deliberately

focused on the young man (whose name - Turlough - popped

suddenly into his mind). Turlough was sitting with his hands

between his knees, looking nervous and uncomfortable, like a

schoolboy summoned to his headmaster’s study to explain

some misdemeanour. Beside him, standing with her arms

folded, was an attractive young woman in a brightly coloured

summer dress, whom the Brigadier barely glanced at until

she hailed him by name.

He looked at her, startled. ‘I’m sorry, miss, do I know you?’

The young woman looked non-plussed. ‘Well, of course you

do! I’m... no, hang on a minute. You haven’t met me yet, have

you? Tegan Jovanka,’ she announced, holding out her hand.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Tegan Jovanka. That’s my name. I travel with the Doctor.’

‘I see,’ said the Brigadier. ‘And where is the Doctor?’

‘Down on the beach,’ said Turlough.

‘On the beach? I gave specific instructions -’

‘The creature’s gone,’ Turlough interjected, his quiet voice

cutting through the Brigadier’s bluster. ‘It had gone before we

even heard about it.’

‘We told the Doctor we’d wait here for you,’ said Tegan, a

little shame-faced. She glanced at Turlough as if for support.

‘Neither of us much fancied going down on to the beach.’

‘It’s like a battlefield down there,’ Turlough said by way of

explanation. ‘Bodies everywhere.’

‘I see,’ said the Brigadier, scratching absent-mindedly at

his itchy arm before noticing the curious looks of the Doctor’s

two companions. ‘And where is this creature now?’

Turlough shrugged.

‘Maybe the Doctor’s found out,’ suggested Tegan helpfully.

‘Hmm,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Ah well. That creature has got

to be found before it does any more damage.’

Tegan hesitated, before announcing decisively, ‘If you’re

going down to the beach I’ll come with you.’

Turlough nodded, though he looked unenthusiastic. ‘Me

too.’

They left the hotel and crossed the road where the crowds

were being dispersed by a combined force of UNIT troops and

policemen. They weaved through the phalanx of ambulances,

army trucks and police cars and headed towards the nearest

set of steps down to the beach. The armed UNIT sentry whom

Benton had stationed at the top of the steps exchanged nods

with the Brigadier and the three of them descended on to

what Turlough had termed the battlefield.

It was an apt description. Perhaps three-dozen bodies were

strewn on the sand in spatters and trails of blood. So frenzied

had the creature’s attack been that the dead had had to be

left to bake in the sun for the time being so that all efforts

could be directed towards preserving the lives of the

wounded. As the Brigadier led Tegan and Turlough across

the battlefield, Turlough tried not to look too closely at the

decimation around him and concentrated instead on the

Brigadier’s back. On the periphery of his vision soldiers,

policemen and paramedics bustled about their business,

trying to impose some kind of order on to the chaos.

As two ambulance men cut across their path, bearing a

stretcher, the Brigadier stopped and barred their way with an

outstretched arm. A young semi-conscious woman was

groaning in pain, the bottom half of her face flecked with

blood. Nearby, the burly sergeant whom Turlough recognised

from that morning’s meeting was issuing orders, directing

operations. Standing at his shoulder was a glum-looking man

with a pock-marked face, hands thrust into the trouser

pockets of his baggy blue suit.

The sergeant saluted when he saw the Brigadier.

‘What’s the situation, Benton?’ the Brigadier asked without

preamble.

‘It seems the creature came out of the caves at the far end

of the beach, sir. Fourteen people are confirmed dead,

twenty-five injured. Most of the injured have deep puncture-

wounds. Eye-witnesses say the creature’s got a dirty great

sting in its tail, like a scorpion, which it kept jabbing in to

people. The Doctor reckons it was injecting them with a more

concentrated form of the stuff that we might have been

infected by.’

Of course! The fish! The alien contamination! The Brigadier

suddenly remembered with a jolt what the Doctor had told

him that morning, and which had been eluding him all day.

For a moment his head swam; he imagined strange poisons

working their way through his system, clouding his mind.

With an effort he pulled himself together and asked, ‘Where’s

the Doctor now? And more importantly, where’s this damn

creature?’

‘Well, there’s the Doctor,’ Tegan said.

The Brigadier followed her pointing finger. The Doctor was

crouched by the shoreline as if deeply engrossed in

something he had found washed up on the beach. The tails of

his cream coat trailed in the sand. His white hat with its red

band was jammed on top of his head.

‘What’s he doing?’ the Brigadier said, irritated. ‘Collecting

seashells?’

Benton shrugged with the air of one who had long ago

stopped trying to work out the Doctor’s motives for anything.

‘He said he was just going to take a look around, sir.’

The Brigadier pursed his lips in disapproval, his moustache

bristling. ‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘And the creature?’

‘It was last seen heading towards the fairground, sir. I’ve

sent some of the lads after it. I’ve given them orders to report

back if they find it, and to keep it under observation. The

Doctor did ask us to avoid harming it if we could.’

The man in the baggy blue suit spoke at last: ‘Some of my

boys should already be down there, clearing the area. They’ve

got orders to keep away from the thing itself, though. I’m

leaving this one up to you lot.’

‘And you are?’ said the Brigadier.

‘Detective Inspector Pickard. I’m officially in charge of the

investigation into the massacre on the Papillon - though now

it looks as if one of these creatures was responsible for that.’

He looked rueful. ‘What are these things, anyway? Monsters

from outer space?’

‘Yes,’ Turlough said. ‘They’re called Xaranti.’

Once again the word seemed to echo like a long-forgotten

memory in the Brigadier’s head. He looked again at the

Doctor, who was straightening up now, and absently began

to scratch his chest. When he realised what he was doing, he

immediately tried to make it look as though he was brushing

imaginary dirt from the lapel of his uniform. To cover up his

awkwardness he said to Pickard, ‘Can I leave the clearing-up

operation in your hands now, Inspector? I’ll leave some of my

men behind to help, of course, but the rest of us really ought

to try and stop this creature causing any more mayhem.’

Pickard nodded, trying not to look as if he was out of his

depth. ‘You can leave it to me. I’ll keep everything running

smoothly here, don’t you worry.’

‘Good man,’ said the Brigadier absently and turned to

Benton. ‘Any idea where Captain Yates has got to, Benton?’

‘He’s on his way, sir. I spoke to him a few minutes ago.’

‘Right, well bring him up to speed, would you, and tell him

to meet us at the fairground. And warn him to be careful.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Benton, already raising the RT to his mouth

to relay the message.

The Doctor had seen them now and hurried up the beach,

his lolloping stride deceptively swift. ‘Here at last, are you,

Brigadier?’ he said briskly. ‘We’ve been waiting for you. How

are you feeling?’

‘Never better,’ the Brigadier said quickly.

‘Are you quite sure? You’ll have to have your wits about

you, you know. Even a lone Xaranti can be extremely

dangerous.’

‘Don’t you worry, Doctor. I doubt it can cope with our

firepower.’

The Doctor looked pained. ‘We’re not going to shoot it,

Brigadier. We’re going to communicate with it. Or at least I’m

going to try.’

Surprised, Turlough said, ‘Surely you’ve already tried that

on the Xaranti ship? You just ended up confusing them.’

‘That was different,’ the Doctor said. ‘I think what we’re

dealing with here is a recently transformed human. In which

case it may be vulnerable, its thoughts not yet fully

integrated into the communal Xaranti mind.’

‘You mean it’s not quite absorbed, so it may let something

vital slip?’ said Tegan.

The Doctor looked almost defensive, as if Tegan was

questioning his judgement. ‘Or I may be able to use it as a

mental conduit to the queen, slip in via the back door, so to

speak.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not saying it’ll work, but I think it’s

worth a try.’

‘In that case, what are we waiting for?’ said the Brigadier.

‘Come on, Doctor, Turlough, Miss Jovanka, we’ll use my car.

Benton, get two dozen of the men together and follow us

down.’

They hurried back across the sands and up the steps to the

promenade. As they crossed the road to the Lombard Hotel,

the Doctor indicated the double yellows on which the

Brigadier’s car was parked and chided gently, ‘Really,

Brigadier, I’m shocked. You might have got a ticket.’

The Brigadier ‘hmphed’, though not without humour, and

unlocked the driver’s door. Once all his passengers were

inside, he glanced into his wing mirror and pulled out. The

roads were almost clear now, the seafront having effectively

been cleared and sealed off. The fairground was a two-minute

drive away. From here it looked like a cluster of towers and

minarets jabbing up into the summer sky around the curve

of the bay, just beyond the harbour. Tegan, sitting in the

back behind the passenger seat, noticed that the traffic lights

were red and wondered why the Brigadier was not slowing

down.

Then the ambulance cut across them like a white metal

wall and a number of events happened in quick succession.

Tegan saw the Brigadier slumping over his wheel as if in a

faint, eyes closed. There was noise: the screech of the

ambulance’s tyres and the blare of its horn, mingled with her

own scream of ‘Look out!’ as the car shot through the lights

and bore down on the vehicle. There was a blur of movement

from the front seat of the car and suddenly, impossibly, the

Doctor was in the driver’s position, the Brigadier slumped

semi-conscious and muttering in the passenger seat beside

him. Tegan’s yell as the Doctor twisted the steering wheel to

the left was abruptly cut off as she was slammed against the

door, the impact jarring her ribs and knocking the breath out

of her. For a split-second the side of the ambulance filled

their windscreen, then abruptly it was gone. The Doctor

guided the car to the side of the road and cut the engine.

He turned to the Brigadier sitting beside him. ‘Brigadier,’

he said urgently. ‘Alistair, can you hear me?’

The Brigadier groaned, then his eyelids fluttered open. ‘Eh,

what? What’s going on?’

‘You passed out, Brigadier,’ the Doctor said, regarding him

earnestly.

The Brigadier’s eyes widened, the outrageousness of the

suggestion far more effective than any amount of smelling

salts. ‘Passed out! Don’t be ridiculous. I have never heard

such... such...’ His voice tailed off and he looked around in

confusion.

‘How are you feeling, Alistair?’ the Doctor asked gently.

‘Feeling? Well, fine. I told you.’

The Doctor closed his eyes in brief, quiet exasperation. ‘I

need you to tell me the truth. This is important.’

The Brigadier looked at him for a moment, pride battling

with honesty. Then his shoulders slumped a little and he

sighed. ‘Yes, well, I suppose I have been feeling a bit woozy,’

he mumbled. ‘And I’ve got this... this rash.’ He ran a hand

across his chest, over his shoulder and down his arm to

show the Doctor the extent of it.

‘May I see?’ asked the Doctor gently.

The Brigadier, clearly embarrassed, said, ‘Is it really

necessary?’

‘You know it is,’ the Doctor said.

The Brigadier’s sigh was deeper this time. Reluctantly he

unbuttoned the jacket of his uniform, loosened his tie and

unbuttoned his shirt.

The Doctor eased the shirt apart and his face tightened. At

this the Brigadier looked down at himself. ‘Good grief!’ he

said.

All across his chest, the black, tell-tale nubs of Xaranti

quills were beginning to poke through his skin.

* * *

A UNIT jeep cruised to a stop beside them. As Benton jumped

out of the passenger side, the Brigadier hastily rebuttoned

his shirt.

Benton poked his head through the open window beside

the Brigadier. ‘I thought you were all goners for a moment

there,’ he said. ‘What happened? Is everyone OK?’

‘Everyone’s perfectly fine, thank you, Benton,’ said the

Brigadier brusquely.

‘A slight miscalculation on my part, I’m afraid,’ said the

Doctor, giving Benton a meaningful look. ‘I overshot the red

light. Careless of me.’

‘I see,’ said Benton hesitantly. ‘Well, if you’re sure you’re all

right...’

‘Never better,’ snapped the Brigadier. ‘Now, if there’s

nothing else, Benton, I suggest we go and tackle this creature

before it dies of old age.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Benton, jumping almost to attention in

response to the Brigadier’s tone.

As he left, the Doctor said, ‘I think a quiet word with

Sergeant Benton might be in order.’

‘Going to tell him about my funny turn, are you?’ said the

Brigadier.

‘Not at all,’ said the Doctor, though he looked guilty. ‘In

view of the circumstances, I think it might be wise to assess

the current state of the troops.’

The Brigadier regarded him shrewdly for a moment, then

gave a concessionary nod. ‘Yes, good idea.’

Offering a brief smile, the Doctor got out of the car and

went round to the passenger side of the jeep. ‘Do you think I

might have a private word with you, Sergeant?’ he asked.

Benton looked surprised. He regarded the Doctor as a good

friend, but it was not often the Time Lord confided in him.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said and got out of the jeep. ‘Is everything

all right, Doctor?’

The Doctor led him a few yards away from the jeep and

regarded him gravely. ‘How are you feeling, Sergeant?’

Benton frowned. ‘You mean since eating the fish yesterday?

This infection thing?’

‘Precisely.’

Benton considered for a moment. ‘Not too bad. I’ve been

having one or two odd thoughts, but I think I’m holding

things together pretty well.’

‘Good man. And the troops? How are they?’

‘A bit edgy. I’m having to give them constant pep-talks to

stop them losing concentration.’ He shrugged. ‘Some are

worse than others, mind you. Around a dozen or so have had

to be confined to sick bay.’

The Doctor patted Benton on the arm. ‘Keep fighting it,

Sergeant. You’re doing a splendid job.’ His voice dropped,

even though they were out of earshot of both the jeep and the

Brigadier’s car. ‘The Brigadier’s not too good, I’m afraid. I’m

not sure how much longer he can keep going.’

Benton puffed out his chest. ‘I’ll try and keep an eye on

things for you at this end, Doctor. You just find a way to beat

these things.’

They returned to their respective vehicles, and reached the

fairground without further incident. UNIT and the local police

had done their job well. The place was deserted, the rides

silent. As the car approached the gates, where a lone UNIT

sentry stood guard with his rifle clutched in his hands, the

Doctor said wistfully, ‘There’s nothing quite so sad as an

empty fairground.’

‘Or so eerie,’ said Tegan from the back.

They stopped beside the sentry. Tegan noticed that the

Brigadier, who had been slumped in his seat for the last

couple of minutes, was making a concerted effort to pull

himself together. She had liked him the first time she had

met him, had sensed a kind heart beating beneath his stern

exterior, but now she felt a surge of real affection. He was

trying so hard to be the leader his men expected him to be.

Winding down his window the Brigadier leaned out. ‘What’s

the situation, Corporal Manning?’ he asked, sounding as

strong and alert as ever.

Manning blinked groggily at the Brigadier and swayed

slightly as if he was about to pass out. ‘Corporal Manning!’

the Brigadier snapped. ‘Pull yourself together, man!’

Immediately Manning jerked to attention. Flustered he

said, ‘Sorry, sir. The... erm... creature’s taken refuge in the

Ghost Train, sir. Some of the lads have got the place

surrounded. It can’t escape.’

‘Excellent,’ said the Brigadier. His voice softening just a

touch, he added, ‘Make sure you keep your wits about you,

Corporal.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Manning said. ‘I will, sir.’

‘Good man. Now where’s this Ghost Train?’

‘It’s all right. I know,’ said the Doctor.

The walkways between the rides and stalls were wide

enough for the Brigadier’s car to lead the UNIT convoy in

single file. They passed the Waltzer and the Log Flume, the

Klondike Gold Mine and a looping construction of white

tubes that bore the legend: THE TOBOGGAN RUN. The Ghost

Train was situated between the Wall of Death and the Viking

Longship, and was housed in a tall rectangular building

made to look like it was covered in dripping green goo. Its

flbreglass, bas-relief surface was further enhanced by a giant

rotting-fingered mummy, a witch leaning over a bubbling

cauldron, a dayglo-yellow skeleton with a single eyeball

hanging from its socket, and a spiky-haired werewolf baying

at a cheesy sliver of moon.

A trio of UNIT marksmen was standing guard outside the

Ghost Train, one training his gun on the entrance, one on the

exit and one hovering in between, ready to give assistance

wherever needed. The two access points were marked by

black double-doors, each painted with the huge, grinning

head of a snake-haired woman. Three cars in the shape of

giant skulls stood bumper to bumper outside the entrance.

The marksman in the middle turned as the UNIT convoy

approached. The Brigadier’s car drew up, and in the time it

took for Tegan to reach gingerly for the door handle (her ribs

still aching from being slammed into the door during their

near-crash), the Doctor had leaped out. As the Brigadier,

Tegan and Turlough joined him he finished speaking to the

UNIT marksman and turned back towards them.

‘Do you have any torches, Brigadier?’ he asked, breathless

with the nervous urgency that always radiated from him at

the prospect of action.

The Brigadier seemed momentarily thrown by the question.

‘Um... Benton!’

‘Yes, sir?’ said Benton, hurrying over.

‘Do we have any torches?’

‘Yes, sir. We should have.’

‘Distribute them among the men, would you, Sergeant?’ the

Doctor said. ‘Then organise them into two groups for a two-

pronged attack. I suggest that you lead one of the groups and

the Brigadier and I will lead the other.’

‘Couldn’t we just ask someone to turn the lights on in

there?’ suggested Tegan.

‘We could if our Xaranti friend hadn’t disabled the power

supply,’ said the Doctor. ‘He seems to prefer the darkness.’

‘Terrific,’ Tegan muttered.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,’ the Doctor

said, ‘particularly as you and Turlough will be waiting for us

out here.’

‘I don’t think so,’ responded Tegan hotly, ignoring

Turlough’s expression of relief.

‘Tegan, there isn’t time to argue,’ said the Doctor bluntly.

‘There’s no point in you and Turlough putting yourselves at

risk for no reason.’

‘We didn’t come all this way just to sit this out!’ she

protested.

‘Tegan, the Doctor’s right,’ said Turlough placatingly,

taking her arm. ‘We’d only be in the way.’

Tegan shot him a look of contempt, and was about to

respond when the Brigadier said firmly, ‘Besides, Miss

Jovanka, may I remind you that this is a military operation

under my command, and as such I forbid the involvement of

civilians.’

‘But the Doctor’s going in with you!’ Tegan said stridently.

‘The Doctor still holds the position of UNIT’S scientific

adviser.’

‘No he doesn’t!’

The Brigadier closed his eyes briefly. Then he said, ‘May I

also remind you, Miss Jovanka, that it is within my

jurisdiction to remove all civilians from the immediate area

for their own safety.’

Tegan glared round at the trio of faces regarding her. ‘Oh,

you... you... you men!’ she shouted.

Less than a minute after the two groups had entered the

Ghost Train a blue Ford Escort screeched to a halt behind

the Brigadier’s staff car and Mike Yates jumped out. Tegan,

who had been sitting in tense silence with Turlough in the

open-topped back of a UNIT jeep, glanced at him in disgust

and muttered, ‘Boy racer.’

Mike ran up to them. ‘Turlough,’ he cried. ‘What’s going

on? Is the creature still in there?’

Turlough nodded. ‘As far as we know. They’re all inside.’

‘How long since they went in?’

He shrugged. ‘No more than a minute.’

Mike glanced at the entrance and exit. ‘Pincer movement.

Am I right?’

‘Right,’ said Tegan before Turlough could answer. She

jumped down and walked towards him, absently scratching

at her arm. ‘Are you going in?’

Mike reached under the suede jacket he was wearing

despite the heat and drew out a handgun, the barrel of which

he kept pointed up at the sky. ‘Yes I am.’

‘Then I’m coming with you.’

Mike looked at her almost with amusement. ‘I don’t think

so, miss.’

‘You haven’t got time to stand here arguing about it,’ said

Tegan. ‘And the only way you’ll stop me following you is to

shoot me.’

The amusement on Mike’s face turned to exasperation.

‘Come on then. But stay close behind me and don’t do

anything stupid.’ Turning to Turlough he said, ‘I suppose you

want to come too?’

Turlough looked both alarmed at the prospect and a little

shame-faced as he shook his head. ‘No, thank you,’ he said.

‘I’m quite happy to wait here.’

‘At least one of you’s sensible,’ Mike said to Tegan, leading

the way.

‘An abject coward, more like,’ Tegan said, not bothering to

lower her voice.

Something touched the Doctor’s face, and he flinched before

realising it was one of several threads of wool hanging from

the ceiling. No doubt it was supposed to feel like cobwebs or

a ghostly caress. He smiled sheepishly.

The Ghost Train was a man-sized rabbit warren, full of

twists and turns, which made progress tortuously slow as

they crept onwards. The passageways were narrow and

littered with corners around any of which the Xaranti could

have been waiting to pounce. The men were already edgy and

aggressive, because of the infection rampaging through their

systems, and this situation did nothing but compound that.

The creature, it seemed, had chosen this hideout with

cunning deliberation. Each time a torch-beam struck the

luminous paint of a green zombie or a bright yellow ghost, it

induced a scuffle of panic, a raising and aiming of rifles.

Beside the Doctor the Brigadier, handgun drawn, was

struggling. He was doing his best to hide it from his men, but

up close the Doctor could see the strain on his sweating face.

It was deeply worrying. The usually well-drilled UNIT soldiers

were falling far short of the kind of discipline needed here. If

the Doctor didn’t judge this situation exactly right, then

things quickly could turn very nasty indeed.

All at once the Brigadier stumbled, the beam of his torch

zigzagging wildly. With lightning reflexes the Doctor turned

and caught him before he hit the ground.

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ the Brigadier breathed.

The Doctor glanced back to see what effect the Brigadier’s

near-fall had had on the men. Each appeared to be fighting

his own internal battle. In the reflected torch-light, their eyes

looked glassy, their faces shiny with sweat. The Doctor

sighed, and turning to his old friend, whispered ‘How are you

feeling, Brigadier? Truthfully.’

The Brigadier swallowed. ‘I feel a sort of... tugging in my

mind. As if... as if something is calling to me with a powerful

voice. I can’t... hear what it’s saying, but... but I feel as

though I should... go to it.’ His eyelids fluttered and then his

head snapped back and he muttered furiously, ‘No. I am

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. I am a soldier

in Her Majesty’s... Her Majesty’s... I will not...’ His face

twisted in anguish. ‘There’s something in my head,

something... scrabbling in my memories. I can’t stop it...’ All

at once his face slackened, his shoulders slumped and he

stumbled to a halt.

‘Come on, Brigadier,’ urged the Doctor, glancing again at

the men. ‘Best foot forward.’ Ahead of them was another twist

in the route, a glowing orange skeleton pointing the way.

He placed a hand in the small of the Brigadier’s back, and

eased him forward a little. Suddenly, urgently the Brigadier

rasped again, ‘They know you’re here. They know who you

are.’

‘Let’s worry about that when we come to it, shall we?’

replied the Doctor, alert for any sound or movement from

around the corner ahead. He slowed down, signalling the

men to do the same, and reached down to take the

Brigadier’s torch from his limp hand.

In an uncharacteristic blurt of emotion, the Brigadier

suddenly said, ‘I’m so sorry, Doctor. This is all my fault.

Unforgiveable... Absolutely unforgiveable.’

The Doctor patted the Brigadier’s arm affectionately. ‘There,

there, old chap. Don’t concern yourself.’

He edged around the corner, the torch beam dancing

ahead. A huge spider in a glowing yellow web sprang out and

confronted them. Hastily the Doctor raised his hand and

whispered, ‘Nothing to worry about. Come on.’

They moved slowly forward again. All at once the

Brigadier’s head slumped forward and he whispered

despairingly, ‘I can’t go on, Doctor...’

‘Nine times seven,’ the Doctor responded.

‘What...?’

‘Quickly, Brigadier. Work it out. Nine times seven.’

‘Um... er... sixty-three.’

‘Fourteen times eleven.’

‘Er... er... I can’t...’

‘You can. Fourteen times eleven.’

‘One hundred... one hundred and fifty four.’

‘Three thousand, seven hundred and eight minus one

thousand, six hundred and forty.’ Slowly, the Doctor firing

maths questions at the Brigadier, they moved on.

Approaching from the other end, Benton too could feel the

mental tugging. In his case, it was still feeble, half-hearted, a

sensation he was able to shrug off by barking out orders to

his men, urging them to concentrate. Some of them were

bearing up well, but others seemed less able to cope with the

Xaranti infection, pointing their guns at every glowing

phantom and cheesily grinning skeleton.

Benton wondered what would happen if and when they did

find the Xaranti. Given the state of the men, he doubted that

the Doctor would get much of a chance to communicate with

it. It was ironic really: the creature was likely to die at the

hands of its own infected prey.

‘Go steady there!’ he hissed as the men jostled for position

behind him, growling bad-temperedly at one another. ‘Let’s

stay in line, stop arguing, and keep an eye out for the real

enemy, shall we?’

His words continued to have a placatory effect for now, but

how long would it last?

All at once the corridor widened a little, and the track

gleaming in the dim torchlight ahead of them cornered

sharply to the left. Just before the bend stood a troll-like

creature with glowing orange eyes, brandishing a luminous

placard announcing: TURN BACK - SWAMP AHEAD. No

sooner had Benton taken this in than he heard a commotion

behind him. He half-turned, opening his mouth to deliver a

few choice words - and someone blundered into the back of

him, jabbering incoherently.

Benton was so surprised that he was caught off-balance

and careered into the wall with such force that it jarred his

shoulder and propelled him on to his knees. His torch went

flying, landing with a crack, its beam remaining mercifully

intact. Shuffling toward him was Corporal Burke, one of the

youngest of his platoon, eyes wide and staring, a mumbled,

incoherent stream of words trickling from his slack mouth.

He was dragging his rifle along the floor behind him. His right

hand was scratching his chest and left shoulder so vigorously

that he was probably drawing blood.

‘Corporal Burke,’ Benton grated, rising to his feet and

stretching out an arm to steady the young soldier. ‘Corporal

Burke, back into line this minute.’

Abruptly the young man’s face contorted with rage, he

released a gurgling, animal-like cry and suddenly he was

lunging at Benton’s face with his rifle-butt.

Benton swiftly twisted aside and the butt glanced off his

already-bruised shoulder, re-igniting a white flash-fire of pain

inside him.

Burke dropped his rifle with a clatter and ran past him as if

he intended to engage the troll ahead in physical combat. He

was almost there when something black and huge, moving

with scuttling, breath-taking speed, appeared as if from

nowhere and plucked the man off his feet like a spider

snatching a fly.

The young corporal looked up into a face full of bristles and

black spider-eyes and screamed. The creature’s tail whipped

up over its back in a great arc and its scorpion-like sting

speared through the back of the man’s neck, killing him

instantly.

Benton gaped at the creature for a moment, unable to say

or do anything, then recovering his wits, he shouted, ‘Fire!’

Instantly the small, confined space became filled with the

shattering din of gunfire and a lethal, horizontal rain of

bullets.

The scream was a jagged blade of sound, tearing through the

very fabric of the walls. Tegan jumped out of her skin and

grabbed the back of Mike Yates’s jacket. As the din was

abruptly cut off, she said, ‘Please tell me that was just a

sound effect.’

Before Mike could answer the air was filled with the

cacophony of a hundred small explosions. Instinctively the

two of them ducked, then almost immediately Mike raised his

head. ‘Come on!’ he shouted and began to run towards the

sound.

Until the shooting started, Turlough had begun to feel like

the only person left in the world. He sat on the padded bench

in the back of the jeep, gazing at the Ghost Train building

until the images on its frontage blurred. The only sound to

break the silence was the plaintive cries of seagulls. He

stretched and wondered idly whether he ought to find some

shade.

He yawned and tried to put aside the guilt he felt at sitting

out here whilst the rest of his friends were monster-hunting

inside. He was only following the Doctor’s orders, he told

himself, and he had accompanied the Doctor into the heart of

the Xaranti spaceship, so he was hardly a coward. He just

didn’t throw himself recklessly into situations like Tegan did,

that was all. He was more thoughtful, had a greater sense of

self-preservation. That didn’t make him selfish, which was

what Tegan had called him on several occasions, merely...

careful.

The scream from inside the Ghost Train shattered his

thoughts. Turlough sat bolt upright in his seat, half-

expecting the doors to burst open and disgorge either a

fleeing line of terrified soldiers or the Xaranti creature itself.

It struck him that if the creature did appear ahead of anyone

else, he would be its only possible target. With this in mind,

he stood up, intending to shift into the driver’s seat for a

quick getaway if necessary.

As he stood, two things happened simultaneously. He

registered slight movement some distance behind him and a

sudden eruption of gunfire exploded from within the

building, of such duration and ferocity that it sounded like

one long, unbroken roar.

Turlough hunched his shoulders and glanced in that

direction. As yet there was nothing to see. He turned and

looked behind him. What he saw made his stomach clench,

his throat tighten and his legs turn to water.

About twenty Xaranti hybrids, in various stages of

transformation, were shuffling towards him. At their head he

recognised the UNIT sentry - Corporal Manning - who had

been on the gate. He was still in the early stages of

transformation, his eyes staring, his expression zombie-like.

Behind him was a policeman in uniform, his eyes black and

starting to bulge. A young man in a pair of denim shorts

displayed a chest and shoulders covered in Xaranti spines; a

girl of no more than thirteen had a hump on her back

swelling and squirming beneath a pink Osmonds T-shirt.

They were all moving slowly as if in a trance. It was if they

were being summoned, drawn towards the Ghost Train like

metal filings towards a magnet. They seemed oblivious to

their surroundings, which Turlough hoped meant they would

be oblivious of him too.

Part of Turlough wanted to stay still in the hope that the

hybrids would not notice him. However, the greater part - the

cowardly part, Tegan would have said - wanted to put as

much distance between himself and these... these things as

possible. He took a deep breath and jumped to the ground,

little clouds of dust puffing up around his feet. The instant

he moved, the hybrids reacted, as he had feared they might.

The girl in the pink T-shirt hissed, her head darting to follow

his progress with an almost snake-like swiftness. Her back

bulged more intensely, and then, with a ripping of cloth and

a wet tearing of flesh, burst open, to release a thrashing,

bloody mass of glistening crab-like legs.

Turlough made an involuntary whimpering noise in the

back of his throat. He didn’t want to see any more. Panic

made his movements jerky as he ran to the driver’s side of

the jeep and wrenched open the door. He threw himself

inside, the smell of hot leather mingling with his fear to make

him feel sick. For an awful moment it struck him that the

driver of this vehicle might have taken the keys with him, but

no, there they were, dangling from the ignition. He leaned

over, grabbed the handle, slammed the door shut and locked

it. He turned the ignition key and the engine revved into life.

Only now did he look up through the windscreen. He had

had a vague idea that he could escape down the route dead

ahead, but his heart sank as he saw a crowd of hybrids

approaching from that direction.

His stomach turned over and his mouth went dry.

Desperately he looked to his left, praying that the aisle

directly opposite would be clear.

It was not. The leading hybrid approaching from this

direction, no more than twenty yards from the back of the

truck, had black, thorn-like bristles sprouting from his face,

and was already hunched over and propelling himself

grotesquely along on his newly-sprouted Xaranti limbs.

Again, Turlough’s panic seemed to intensify the hot

claustrophobic stink of leather inside the driver’s cab,

making him feel faint and nauseous. If he didn’t want to be

either ripped apart or infected with the Xaranti virus, he had

no alternative but to drive forward and hope that the hybrids

would move out of his way. He couldn’t be half-hearted about

it either. If he drove too slowly the creatures would merely

scramble up on to the back of the jeep; either that or smash

his windows and drag him out.

‘Get out of the way! I’m coming through!’ he shouted, his

words emerging as a hysterical, screaming croak. He

slammed the truck into first, released the handbrake, then

floored the accelerator.

With a squeal of tyres, which kicked up a billowing wake of

dust, the truck lurched forward. Turlough gritted his teeth

and tried to thread the vehicle between the leading hybrid

shuffling towards him up the centre of the aisle and a ‘Hook-

a-Duck’ stall on the right.

The lead hybrid, a bushy-haired, bearded man in a white

shirt and jeans so flared they covered his feet, raised his

hands not in a self-protective gesture but a threatening one.

Before Turlough could take evasive action, the hybrid (whose

black, bulging eyes could have been mistaken for large,

round shades at a distance) leapt at the truck.

He hit it with a loud thud and immediately rebounded,

cartwheeling spectacularly through the air, a red streamer of

blood arcing after him. The truck slewed, but Turlough -

through a combination of terror and luck - managed to bring

it under control, and tore out of the fairground at seventy

miles an hour as the hybrids launched themselves after him

in vain pursuit.

As soon as the shooting started, the Doctor left the Brigadier

and his men without a word and ran towards the commotion.

He bypassed witches and warlocks, ghouls and demons,

flapped aside limp-winged rubber bats that ambushed him as

he skidded round one corner after another.

He did not exhibit any caution until he was almost upon

the scene itself. He paused then to listen, trying to work out

the position of Benton and his troops, and more importantly

the direction in which they were shooting.

One thing he was able to deduce from the din was that

beyond the next corner was some kind of open area - not

exactly cavernous but with room to move around. This must

be where the Xaranti had made its lair after squeezing

through the narrow corridors of the Ghost Train. The Doctor

took a deep breath, then crouching low to make himself as

small a target as possible, crept round the corner.

The roar of bullets struck his ears, the careering torch

beams and the tiny but myriad white flashes of gunfire

reduced the scene to a rapid, confusing interplay of light and

shadow. The Doctor tried to look beyond that, tried to adjust

his vision to phase out the distractions.

This area must be the heart of the Ghost Train, the piece de

resistance of the ride. It had been designed to resemble

swampland, complete with a black, drooping tangle of

fibreglass trees and vines which arched over the thread of

track. To his right, against the far wall, the ‘ground’ had been

built up to form a bank, beyond which lurked a mechanical

serpent-like creature that was designed to rear up out of the

swamp.

The serpent was probably effective as part of the ride, but

compared to the Xaranti crouching behind it, legs drawn in

like a spider under threat, it looked pitiful. The knot of UNIT

soldiers on the other side of the room were blasting away at

the Xaranti - or rather at the fibre-glass ‘nest’ in which it was

huddled. The creature had been hit; as the Doctor’s eyes

adjusted he saw some dark fluid - blood or ichor - leaking

from several wounds in what he could see of its body. But

most of the bullets were going astray, some hitting the walls

and sending chunks of plaster flying in all directions, others

reducing the sculpted trees to a debris of shattered fibre-

glass. Shards rained down on the mangled body of the soldier

sprawled across the track like a man hit by a train.

The Doctor tried to attune his mind to the Xaranti thought-

patterns and received a tumbling confusion of intense,

savage emotions: delirium; abandonment; the desire to inflict

pain, to kill. He soon realised these feelings came not from

the Xaranti, but from the UNIT troops. Their trigger-happy

attack on a creature into which they were gradually

transforming must have pushed them over the edge. The

Doctor wondered whether in fact the Xaranti as a species had

planned this little episode from the outset, had been willing

to sacrifice one of their number in order to hasten the

recruitment of many more.

Recalling how his attempt to communicate with the Xaranti

in their own craft had effectively thrown a spanner into their

mental works, the Doctor summoned all his willpower. He

took a deep breath and stepped boldly out, not exactly into

the line of fire, but certainly into full view.

‘Stop!’ he shouted, raising his hands and instantaneously

transmitting an intense telepathic command to the same

effect. The result was startling; the firing ceased abruptly. For

a few moments the only sound that could be heard was the

stertorous breathing of the wounded Xaranti. The Doctor

looked at the troops, who gazed back at him, their eyes

glittering in the half-light.

He shifted his attention to the Xaranti, turning his head

slowly like a man in the midst of dangerous animals who had

been instructed not to make any sudden moves.

Concentrating hard he adjusted the message to envelop the

creature in a soothing balm of comforting, reassuring

thought-waves. Several moments later he sensed the creature

relaxing slightly and sent a feathery tendril of enquiry

probing deeper into its brain. He gained access with such

disconcerting ease that he could only conclude the Xaranti

mind operated on similar frequencies to his own. At last he

touched upon a few vestiges of human thought and emotion,

struggling feebly like a fly ensnared in the sticky secretions of

a carnivorous plant. He sensed confusion and fear, plucked

out a name: Guy Elkins. Even as he accessed this

information he could sense it dissolving, melting down into

the substance destined for the controlling mind of the

Xaranti queen.

The Doctor moved slowly towards the creature, shards of

fibre-glass crunching underfoot. Slowly, shakily, the Xaranti

unfolded its legs and raised itself up. The Doctor sensed that

the gesture was not a threatening one, but was a display

almost of trust, of wary greeting. He continued to sluice the

creature in a steady, soothing telepathic tide, speaking gently

to it as he did so, like a vet trying to calm an injured dog.

‘Hello, Guy. It is Guy, isn’t it? Now don’t be afraid. I’m here

to help you if I can...’

Vaguely he became aware of some kind of kerfuffle behind

him in the ranks, but tried not to let it distract him. He

would have to rely on Sergeant Benton to sort it out - if he

still had enough presence of mind to do so, that was.

Next moment, however, he heard rapid footsteps behind

him, accompanied by a warning shout: ‘Get down, Doctor!’

His concentration all but broken, the Doctor half-turned

and saw Mike Yates skidding to a halt a few feet behind him,

levelling his gun at the Xaranti.

‘No!’ shouted the Doctor, but it was too late.

Two shots rang out. The first hit the Xaranti in the

abdomen, fluid spurting out of the wound to spatter on the

floor. The second glanced off one of its legs and ricocheted

away into the darkness.

The Doctor felt the delicate telepathic link he had

established with the Xaranti snap like frayed elastic. The

creature opened a flap-like mouth and bellowed like a bull

elephant in rage and pain. It reared up into a fighting stance,

its legs rigid, back arched. Then, so fast it was almost a blur,

it whipped its tail over its head in a huge arc and buried its

sting deep into the soft flesh above the Doctor’s collar-bone.

Part Four

Changing Times

The thickening fog in the Brigadier’s mind was closing in on

all sides, obliterating the landscape of his thoughts. The

barrage of mathematical questions which the Doctor had

been bombarding him with, and his responses to them, had

been like a torch beam lighting his way, preventing him from

straying off the path.

Even with the Doctor’s help, however, the torch batteries

had been steadily failing, the light growing weaker the closer

they came to the heart of darkness. The Brigadier might well

have succumbed completely if it hadn’t been for the gunfire.

Although not as swiftly as the Doctor, the Brigadier had

been able to do nothing but react to it. To him the sound

denoted action and danger, but most especially duty. Duty to

his men, to his country, to his world.

The fog receded a little. Now that the Doctor was gone, duty

was the Brigadier’s torch, lighting his way. Hoping that the

light would stay with him for as long as he needed it, he set

off at a shambling lurch, ignoring limbs that felt stiff and

awkward. His heart was heavy as a rock in his chest, and

within seconds he was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath.

However, he forced himself on through sheer, bloody-minded

willpower.

And then the shooting stopped.

The sudden silence threw the Brigadier into a momentary

state of exhausted confusion that almost caused him to

blunder off the path, straight into the fog. He thumped to a

halt, heart labouring, head pounding.

Then, faintly and hesitantly at first, he heard a voice in his

mind, and he realised that his sense of duty; his driving

force, had not deserted him, after all.

There might be men dead or injured, the voice told him;

men who needed his help, his guidance. He couldn’t abandon

his duty; he had to lead by example, had to be seen to be

counted.

‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘yes.’ He set off again, duty lighting his

way once more. When he was almost at his goal he slowed

down, allowed his soldier’s instincts to take over. His semi-

automatic clutched in his hand, he crept along, his back to

the wall, towards the place where the track took an abrupt

left turn. He wanted a vantage point where he could recce the

situation, but before he could do that two further shots rang

out, followed by a vast inhuman bellow of rage and pain.

It provoked a deep, almost primeval response in him. For a

moment the fog swirled and eddied around him again,

threatening to extinguish the light...

Then the enraged roar faded and another sound replaced it

- a further cry of pain, from a smaller pair of lungs, but no

less agonized.

‘Doctor!’ the Brigadier yelled. He ran around the corner,

gun raised.

The scene before him had frozen into a kind of tableau, lit

by a spotlight of torch-beams. Taking centre-stage was a

creature from a nightmare, a hideous, giganticised

conglomeration of bull, spider, crab and scorpion. Standing

rigid before this creature, skewered by its great, ridged arc of

a tail, was the Doctor, blood shockingly red on his cream

coat, face twisted in agony. Between the Brigadier and the

Doctor stood Mike Yates, frozen with horror, mouth agape,

gun forgotten in his hand.

Without hesitation, the Brigadier marched forward, barged

Yates out of the way and fired six shots point-blank into the

creature’s face.

Its head disintegrated, spattering the Brigadier with warm,

brown fluid. The Xaranti’s legs gave way beneath it and its

body slumped like a deflating hot-air balloon. Its tail drooped

aside as it collapsed, dragging the Doctor over with it. The

creature’s body twitched and jittered for a few seconds with

involuntary muscle spasms and then became still. For a

moment all was silent.

Then the Brigadier began to sob.

He couldn’t help it. He had killed before, many times, but

this time, even as he had pulled the trigger to fire his final

shot, an overwhelming wave of horror, revulsion, shame and,

yes, even grief, had swept through him, sapping his strength,

forcing him to his knees. He couldn’t remember the last time

he had cried, but now he couldn’t stop. A few feet away from

him the Doctor was lying unconscious, the Xaranti sting still

buried in his flesh.

Then someone moved into the Brigadier’s line of sight and

crouched over the Doctor. Mike Yates. Yates glanced at him,

and in a split second, even through his tears, the Brigadier

was able to read so much in his captain’s face. He saw

Yates’s shock and confusion at his superior officer’s display

of emotion. And he saw Yates’s own mental anguish at

having failed to take action, even though one of his friends

and colleagues was in deadly peril. Then Yates looked away

and turned his attention to the Doctor once more. He

grabbed the base of the dead Xaranti’s tail, and, with an

angry gesture, he wrenched the sting from the Doctor’s

shoulder.

For a while after that things became a little blurred. The

Brigadier remained kneeling on the floor, head bowed, trying

to pull his emotions back on to an even keel while everything

happened around him. He was vaguely aware of Yates taking

charge, organising the men. At one point he saw the Doctor

being carried out on a makeshift stretcher, his face waxy and

composed, some kind of padding - a jacket perhaps - bound

tightly against his shoulder to stem the bleeding. He heard

Yates barking orders at Benton; heard the voice of the

Australian girl too, but rather than words he heard only her

emotions - the brashness of her anger, the strain of her

shock, the muted tones of her concern.

It was she who finally came to him, crouching beside him,

putting one hand on his arm as if feeling his biceps, the other

on his back. The Brigadier had never been much of a one for

physical contact, but now he felt absurdly grateful for the

consideration she was showing him.

‘Are you all right, Brigadier?’ she asked gently, warily.

The tears had mostly run their course, but the Brigadier

felt entirely drained of energy. It was as if he was viewing the

world through thick gauze; he felt as if great areas of his

mind were no longer his, but merely empty chambers waiting

to be filled by whatever had cleared out his thoughts.

He nodded, however, and murmured, ‘There’s life in the old

dog yet.’

She smiled and patted him on the back. ‘Come on then, old

dog,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you out of here. Can you walk?’

The Brigadier would have found it too much of an indignity

to say no, so he nodded again and forced himself to his feet.

He tried to convince himself that he was escorting her as

much as she was supporting him as they shuffled out of the

building. The fog was closing in again and he had to channel

all his efforts, all his concentration, into remembering who

and where he was, into putting one foot in front of the other.

After a while he felt his chest and shoulders itching again,

but this time it was a pleasant itch; it seemed to send ripples

of sensation, like pure energy, coursing through his body.

‘Xaranti,’ he murmured, lovingly.

‘What?’ asked Tegan.

The Brigadier felt a flash of irritation. ‘We are Xaranti,’ he

told her.

The girl looked at him anxiously, and suddenly in his eyes

she seemed so puny, hateful, pathetic. ‘No. You’re Brigadier

Lethbridge-Stewart. You work for UNIT, remember?’

For a brief moment he was confused, felt as if his mind was

struggling with itself, then the delicious itch flowed through

him again, imbuing him with strength and confidence. ‘We

are Xaranti,’ he repeated, snatching his arm from her grip.

‘And you...’ He stepped closer as if to strike her, then

stopped. He sensed... sensed... yes. ‘You are Xaranti too.

The girl looked shocked. ‘No!’ she said, backing away from

him.

He laughed. ‘Soon we will all be Xaranti.’

‘No!’ the girl said again, more venomously this time.

He was about to reply when he felt something in his mind:

a tickle, a voice, an instinct, an idea, a compulsion. It was all

of these and more, but wherever it had come from - and the

Brigadier felt as though it had come as much from inside

him, from his memories and knowledge, as from outside - the

message was clear.

‘The Doctor,’ he murmured.

‘What?’

‘We must -’ He stopped abruptly; he was telling her too

much. The human influence in her was still too strong. He

pressed his teeth together in a tight grin. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide, searching.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to have the Doctor. He’s

the only one who can help you.’

She turned and ran into the darkness. The Brigadier hissed

his displeasure and followed. But his new-found energy

burned off quickly, and after a minute or so he was panting

again, sweat pouring off him. He struggled along, hands

slapping the wall to maintain his balance, but the girl drew

so far ahead that soon he could not even hear her footsteps.

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t get away. He was linked to

the group mind now and he knew that there were Xaranti

waiting on the outside for her too.

Sooner than he had expected, he burst through a set of

double doors and into the light. He stood swaying for a

moment, blinking and disorientated. He could hear people

shouting, hear his own kind hissing at those who were still

transforming. As his eyes adapted he took in the scene before

him at a glance.

The UNIT soldiers, many of whom were clinging to their

humanity only by the thinnest of threads, were fighting a

rearguard action against those of his kind whose

transformations were more advanced than his own. If it

hadn’t been for the man, Yates (backed up by Benton)

marshalling them, shouting out orders, pulling them back

from the brink, the Brigadier felt sure that most of them

would have succumbed by now. At Yates’s behest, the

soldiers had encircled an army truck, in the back of which

lay the Doctor, still unconscious. Crouched beside the Doctor

and facing the conflict wild-eyed with fear was the Australian

girl. The hybrids were prowling the perimeter of the human

circle, looking for a way in. Those who ventured too close

were driven back by blows from rifle-butts. The Brigadier

knew that they had not yet attacked in force, overwhelming

the humans by sheer numbers, because they needed the

Doctor in one piece.

The Doctor was important to them. His mind would make

an invaluable contribution to their cause. Indeed, it was not

an exaggeration to say that the sum of his knowledge could

turn the Xaranti into the most powerful race in the universe.

It was imperative, then, that the humans were not pushed to

firing their weapons. Consumed by blood-lust they would be

unable to differentiate between friend and enemy. Under

such circumstances the Doctor might be damaged beyond

repair.

More subtle methods had to be employed, therefore. The

current stand-off needed to be brought to a swift and

bloodless conclusion. The one major unpredictable element

in this situation was the Doctor himself. Who knew what

kind of influence he might be able to exert if, or when, he

regained consciousness?

Suddenly, as if the idea had come fully-formed into his

mind, the Brigadier knew what he had to do. He drew his gun

and stepped towards the small pay-booth at the front of the

Ghost Train. From there, keeping low and hiding behind the

screen of hybrids, he crept around the perimeter of the circle

until he was opposite Mike Yates. Yates was standing in line

with his men, gun drawn, still shouting out orders and

encouragement, occasionally checking with Sergeant Benton

on the far side of the truck to keep the circle tight.

The Brigadier suddenly stood up behind the hybrids and

proceeded to barge through them, brandishing his gun,

pointing it into the faces of those that made a show of

lunging at him, hissing. He even clubbed a couple for good

measure to make it look convincing.

‘Sir!’ Yates shouted, seeing the commotion, and despatched

two of his men from the circle as a rescue party.

They were back within seconds, the Brigadier staggering

between them, the hybrids making a show of surging forward

then falling back as the soldiers swung their rifles this way

and that.

‘Sir,’ Yates said again, ‘are you OK?’

‘Fine, Captain Yates,’ said the Brigadier heartily. ‘I see our

little problem has increased somewhat.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Yates. ‘As you can see, we’re in a bit of a

spot. This lot are hanging back for the moment, but they’ve

got us surrounded. Thing is, I don’t want to give the order to

fire if I can help it, because... well, because whatever they

look like, they’re still people, sir. To be honest, I’m damned if

I know what to do next. I keep hoping the Doctor’ll wake up

and come up with something.’

A cry came from behind them, raucous and vehement.

‘Don’t trust him!’

It was the Australian girl, standing up in the back of the

truck, pointing a rigid finger at the Brigadier.

‘Miss Jovanka -’ he began, speaking her name before he

was even aware he’d remembered it.

‘He’s changing into one of those things,’ Tegan shouted. ‘He

might not look like it yet, but he is.’

‘As are we all, Miss Jovanka,’ replied the Brigadier, then

turned to Yates with a cold smile. ‘Except for you, Captain, of

course.’

Suddenly he pressed his gun barrel against Mike Yates’s

temple. ‘I suggest the best thing would be to hand the Doctor

over to us,’ he hissed.

For a moment Yates looked almost comically incredulous.

Then an expression of sad resignation appeared on his face

and he said, ‘You know I can’t do that, sir.’

‘You have no choice, Captain Yates,’ the Brigadier said

briskly. ‘You can’t fight us. You are the only true human left

here. We are all Xaranti.’

At that moment something slammed into the Brigadier’s

back, expelling the air from his lungs and knocking him to

the ground with such force that he cracked his forehead on

the concrete. A weight landed on his back and a voice

muttered, ‘Not yet we’re not.’

The Brigadier didn’t realise he was still holding his gun

until it was twisted from his grip. The voice, which the

Brigadier quickly recognised as belonging to Sergeant

Benton, said, ‘Sorry about this, sir, but it’s for your own

good. We can’t let them take the Doctor.’ Pinning the

Brigadier’s arms and legs to the floor, Benton lifted his head

and spoke to Yates. ‘Get in the truck and go, sir. Take the

Doctor with you. Take him somewhere safe.’

Yates’s voice: ‘I can’t just leave you all.’

‘Yes you can, sir. The Brigadier’s right. Soon we’ll all be

changing into these bloody things. And then it’ll be too late.

Just go, sir. Go now.’

A pause, then Yates said, ‘We’ll never get through.’

‘Yes you will, sir.’ Benton raised his voice. ‘listen to me,

men. Captain Yates is our last chance. If he doesn’t get out of

here with the Doctor, we’re finished. Do you get me? We’ll all

end up like these poor sods, and eventually like that... that

thing in there. So if anyone or anything tries to stop the

Captain from getting through, I want you to shoot them. You

hear me? If you don’t we’ll all be dead anyway.’

There was a rumble of assent from the men, the Xaranti

aggression within them lending the sound an eagerness, an

excitement at the prospect of killing. But as the Brigadier,

still pinned face-down on the ground, heard the truck’s

engine start up, he knew that the Xaranti would not attack.

The Doctor might be escaping now, but already Xaranti

energy from the sting was surging through his body,

attacking his cells. Soon the Doctor would succumb, and the

meagre threat that he posed would be at an end. There was

no escape for any of them.

It was evident that the Xaranti felt their influence was now

well-established enough for them to have no further need for

secrecy. In the half-hour or so since the Brigadier had picked

up the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough in his car, Tayborough

Sands had dissolved into chaos. The seafront streets may

have been cleared in the wake of the Xaranti attack on the

beach, but there had still been a great many infected,

transforming humans holed up in hotel rooms, boarding-

houses and B&Bs. As if responding to some internal signal,

these hybrids had now emerged and were roaming the streets

in groups of anything from three to thirty, hunting down,

infecting or killing the minority of unaffected humans who

had been foolish enough to venture back out into the open.

Turlough’s hope that his nightmare had ended with his

escape from the fun-fair was short-lived. As he drove back to

the hotel, unable to think of anywhere else to go, the delayed

shock of his narrow escape from the fairground was further

intensified by the sights around him. There were bodies lying

in pools of blood, crashed cars, and even makeshift

roadblocks, constructed of anything that the hybrids had

been able to get their hands on - furniture, chunks of timber,

electrical equipment. Though there was barely any traffic on

the roads, discouraged by the diversions presumably set up

by the army or the police to prevent people heading into

town, several vehicles had still come to grief at these

obstructions, including a police car and an ambulance which

had been pushed over on to its side.

It was like driving through a war-zone where the

indigenous population was hostile and savage but thankfully

unarmed. Several times hybrids had run at the jeep; some

even throwing themselves at it, their fledgling Xaranti legs

scraping the paintwork as they scrabbled for purchase.

Spurred by terror and desperation, Turlough had driven

round them, or through them, or slewed from side to side to

shake them off. Eventually, after smashing through a

roadblock and taking a circuitous route through a number of

quiet back-streets to avoid two more, Turlough drew up in

front of the hotel. Thankfully there were no hybrids in sight

and he sat for a moment trying to regain at least a modicum

of composure, his hands aching from gripping the steering

wheel so hard, his breathing rapid and ragged.

For a moment he honestly didn’t think he would be able to

make himself get out of the jeep. Though vulnerable, the

driver’s cab seemed like sanctuary. He wished the Doctor had

entrusted him with a TARDIS key. If he got ripped to pieces

between here and his hotel room, it would be all the Doctor’s

fault.

Even when he did finally gather the resolve to make a move,

Turlough looked up and down the road a dozen times first to

ensure it was still deserted. Reassured, he opened the

driver’s door, and winced at the meaty ‘chunk’ it made, half-

expecting a screeching horde of Xaranti to emerge from all

sides like the Zulu warriors in that ridiculous film he had

watched with Hippo one wet Sunday afternoon. Though he

had hated his time at Brendon, he wished he could be there

now.

To his surprise, the ratcheting din of the opening door went

uninvestigated, and so he slid out of the jeep and on to the

pavement. It was only three paces to the bottom of the stone

steps, and another eight up into the hotel, but Turlough felt

exposed for an appallingly long time as he dashed across and

up, stooped over like an old man.

The foyer sucked him into its coolness, eliciting a gasp from

him as if he had just emerged from deep water. Relief

mingled with apprehension. Though buildings seemed safer

than the streets outside, there was no reason why they

should be. Indeed, as his eyes adjusted to the dim light he

saw the bodies. He flinched from the startling redness of

blood and its profusion, but he had seen enough to know

that the victims, two women and a man, had not died

painlessly.

He scurried across to the lifts, hoping that his trembling

body and crumbling nerves would survive long enough for

him to reach his room. He jabbed at the lift button, then

decided he didn’t like the idea of standing around, waiting,

and turned towards the stairs. The staircase was wide and

carpeted. Turlough had ascended no more than half a dozen

steps when the lift announced its arrival with a ‘ping’.

His foot hovered above the next step as he dithered over

whether or not to run back for it. Then he heard something

catapult out of the lift and into the foyer. He turned and saw

what had once been a tall, balding man wearing a grey suit.

Now, though, the back of the suit had burst open to

accommodate a wavering, clicking mass of Xaranti legs.

Turlough neither moved nor made a sound, but the hybrid

seemed to sense his presence. It spun round, hands

outstretched and fingers arched like claws. Its bulging eyes

gleamed like tar, and spines sprouting from its sallow face

scraped together like bone as it opened its mouth in a

snarling hiss. With terrifying agility it sprang towards the

stairs, its obvious intention propelling Turlough up them.

His back felt wide and vulnerable, and though he was

leaping three steps at a time, his breath ragged with panic,

he felt he was wading through water. On the first landing the

red cylinder of a fire extinguisher stood stoutly in the corner,

Turlough lunged towards it, almost sprawling headlong, but

managing with a pinwheeling of his arms to remain upright.

He grabbed the extinguisher and spun round.

The hybrid was only four steps below him. One good leap

and it would bring him down. Turlough had been planning to

use the fire extinguisher as a weapon, but he was so shocked

by the creature’s proximity that he actually threw the heavy

red cylinder at it.

It was a lucky shot. The extinguisher struck the creature

full in the face and caught it off balance. The hybrid fell

backwards, arms spread out like a high diver. It looked

almost graceful until it hit the steps about half way down,

and then it became a spinning mass of arms and legs and

thrashing Xaranti limbs. Its head met the floor at the bottom

of the staircase with a sickening thump and a halo of brown

fluid began to form around it. Turlough didn’t hang around.

He turned and lurched up the rest of the stairs.

He reached the fifth floor without further incident and

hurried along the landing to his room. He fumbled the keys

out of his pocket and pushed the largest into the lock. It

wasn’t until he was in his room with the door locked behind

him that he began to shake with reaction. Trying to ignore it,

he shoved his bed against the door, then piled every item of

furniture in the room on top of it. At last, for want of a better

weapon, he grabbed a coat hanger from the wardrobe and sat

in the corner of the room, facing the barricaded door.

Wishing desperately that he could make himself invisible, he

pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could and

drew his knees up under his chin.

‘You see now?’ the Brigadier said.

Benton nodded. ‘Yes.’

The Brigadier put his hand on Benton’s shoulder. Benton

winced as the itching beneath his skin intensified. A wave of

sensation that was part pleasure, part pain rippled through

his body.

Benton could no longer understand why he had allowed the

human, Yates, to take the Doctor away. He only wished he

had had his eyes opened in time to prevent it. Human

motivation seemed so petty, so pointless, so alien to him now.

He looked around and saw soldiers and hybrids standing

shoulder to shoulder, united in a common cause. It felt good.

It felt right. And although for the moment he was still aware of

who he was, still retained his human identity, he understood

and embraced the fact that individuality was no longer

important, that it was a human characteristic, divisive and

inefficient. Soon there would be no need for it, would no

longer even be any further need for speech. For the time

being, though, it would remain a useful marshalling device.

‘Let’s move out,’ Benton shouted, and moving across to the

nearest army vehicle he slid behind the wheel.

Obediently everyone followed suit, clambering up into the

vehicles, squeezing themselves in as tightly as they could.

When the vehicles were full to bursting point, Benton started

the engine of his jeep and they all filed out, a grotesque slow-

moving convoy. There was no need to discuss a plan of

attack, no need to issue orders; they were all working as one

now, all knew exactly what they had to do. Their immediate

objective was clear to them all. They would search tirelessly

until they had recovered the Doctor.

At that moment the Doctor was several miles away, still

unconscious in the back of a UNIT truck. Tegan was

crouched beside him, clinging for dear life to truck’s metal

framework. She felt not unlike a gazelle being driven through

a lion enclosure. At least she had the advantage of being

armed, she reminded herself, clutching Mike Yates’s Colt .45

in her free hand - though in truth the gun made her feel

more nervous than secure.

The journey had been perilous to say the least, but, as they

had travelled north, the amount of death and devastation

they had seen around them had steadily decreased. They had

been pursued frequently by hybrids, and had even been

ambushed at one point, a trio of the creatures dropping down

on to the truck from above as they had negotiated one of the

narrow residential streets that climbed away from the

seafront and out of the town centre. One of them had landed

on the roof of the driver’s cab, the legs that had sprouted

from its back clacking against the windscreen like long,

jointed, sticks; another had hit the side of the truck and

bounced off it on to the pavement, where it had lain,

mewling, one of its human legs twisted at a grotesque angle;

and the third had landed beside Tegan in the back of the

truck, stumbling at first because of the truck’s movement,

but quickly regaining its balance and springing upright into

an attack stance.

It was evident that not so very long ago this particular

hybrid had been an attractive young woman with long blonde

hair and honey-coloured skin. Now these attributes merely

emphasised the extent and hideousness of her trans-

formation. Her arms and long legs, exposed by the sleeveless

yellow T-shirt and denim shorts she wore, were as hackled

with Xaranti spines as her fine-boned face. Her eyes were

black and bulging and her back had split open to produce

the usual bristling mass of Xaranti legs. Moreover, she was

hunched over as if her spine was arching, and her shoulders

were large and knuckly with excess muscle. When she

opened her mouth to hiss, Tegan noticed she was still

wearing lipstick.

‘Hang on! ‘ Mike Yates yelled and slammed on his brakes.

The hybrid scrambling for purchase on the roof catapulted

off, landing on the road in a tangle of human and alien limbs.

The one which was standing above Tegan, swiftly getting its

bearings and readying itself to spring, actually fell forwards

towards her. Tegan, still crouched beside the oblivious

Doctor, still clinging to one of the truck’s metal ribs,

screamed and closed her eyes as she twisted her head aside,

the gun in her hand forgotten. She sensed the hybrid’s

presence above her, smelled its dark, rotten-fish smell, then

something banged painfully into her outstretched leg. Next

instant she was aware of the wind of something swooping

past her, followed almost simultaneously by the thump of a

heavy and relatively soft object impacting with a hard

surface.

She opened her eyes. Although the rotten-fish smell still

lingered, the Xaranti hybrid was gone. Tegan looked over the

side of the truck and saw it sprawled in the road, already

struggling to stand. Before it could do so, the truck moved

forward again, picking up speed as quickly as it was able,

and Tegan looked away, concentrating instead on holding on.

Within seconds the hybrids were too far behind them to

launch a further assault, leaving Tegan with a lasting

impression of the female hybrid’s striking blonde hair

streaming behind it, flashing white in the sun, as it climbed

to its feet.

The hospital was some five miles away from the

concentration of streets which crammed themselves as close

as possible to the sea. In these more salubrious

surroundings, the presence of Xaranti seemed non-existent.

Nevertheless their influence was clearly felt; it was obvious

they had been here and moved on, drawn like lemmings,

perhaps, to the sea. Every so often Tegan would see a body

sprawled on a road or pavement, or perhaps lying on a

neatly-clipped front lawn or gravelled driveway. At one point

she saw a man lying on the ground, still gripping the lead of

his dead Alsatian; both owner and dog had been eviscerated.

The eerie silence that accompanied these appalling sights

seemed more sinister than the presence of the Xaranti

themselves. Tegan clutched Mike Yates’s gun nervously, once

or twice even found herself using it to scratch absently at the

worsening itch across her chest and shoulders.

It had been Mike’s idea to take the Doctor to the hospital

where Charlotte and her mother were under observation. He

had thought it would be a safe haven for the time being, well

away from the point of conflict, but the extent of the hybrids’

sudden and violent emergence had taken them both by

surprise. Now they were sticking to their original plan simply

for want of a better one. If when they got there the hospital

seemed too dangerous, Tegan supposed they would move yet

further afield, to a place where the Doctor’s condition could

be assessed and perhaps treated, where he might be given

time to recover.

As usual, their reliance on the Doctor to sort things out

made Tegan nervous. One day - even today, perhaps - he

might not be there for them to rely on and then what would

they do?

Once again, she found herself scratching the rash that was

now inching down her arm. She was all too aware what it

signified and its creeping progress both angered and

frightened her. More frightening still, was the way the

infection was invading her thought-processes. Her mind kept

phasing out like an unstable radio signal for a few seconds at

a time, and she knew all too well that as the hours wore on,

the tighter the Xaranti hold on her would become.

It was after re-emerging from one such period of blankness

that Tegan looked wildly around her and realised she

recognised the neighbourhood they were travelling through.

Gripped by a sense of urgency, she rapped on the back of the

driver’s cab.

Mike leaned his head part-way out of the side window.

‘Hello.’

‘Mike,’ she said, ‘can I ask you a favour?’

‘Ask away,’ he replied magnanimously.

‘I have a friend who lives near here. No more than a couple

of streets away. He was taken ill earlier today. Do you think

we could check up on him?’

There was a pause, then Mike said doubtfully, ‘I’m not sure

that’s wise, Tegan.’

Tegan felt a flash of anger, the result of the Xaranti

infection inside her, which she managed to suppress. ‘Please,

Mike, I’m really worried about him. He...’ She had been about

to say, He means a lot to me, but was afraid that giving voice

to such a level of commitment might make her more

vulnerable than she wanted to be. ‘He lives on his own,’ she

said after a pause. ‘He doesn’t have anyone to look after him.’

She heard Mike sigh, then reluctantly say, ‘All right, we’ll

have a quick look. You’d better tell me where to go.’

Soon they were pulling up in front of Andy Weathers’s

pleasant suburban house. The leafy street was quiet, the red-

brick semis drowsing in the summer sunshine. Mike waited a

moment before turning off the engine. Another pause before

he got out of the driver’s cab and walked round to lean on the

side of the truck.

‘I’ll go in,’ he said. ‘You sit behind the wheel. If you see

anything you don’t like the look of, anything at all, drive

away, don’t worry about me.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’d better

take my gun. What’s your friend’s name?’

‘Andy,’ said Tegan, ‘Andy Weathers. He’s a policeman.’ She

gave Mike the gun that she’d been clutching for so long that

her hand felt cold and strange without it.

‘OK,’ said Mike, ‘I’ll be three minutes at the most.

Remember, if you see anything at all that makes you

suspicious -’

‘I know,’ Tegan tried not to snap, ‘drive away. Don’t wait.’

Mike gave her a brief, reassuring smile, then turned and

walked up the short driveway. It wasn’t until he was reaching

out for the doorknob that he realised the door was slightly

ajar. Caution tightened his grip on his gun and he listened at

the door for a moment.

Before he could open it, Mike heard a shrill scream of

terror, abruptly cut off. It came from next door, beyond a low

wooden fence. Mike glanced up and noticed out of the corner

of his eye that Tegan had opened the door of the truck and

extended one foot to the pavement.

‘Stay with the Doctor!’ he snapped and jumped over the

fence.

This front door was closed and locked, but four savage

kicks encouraged it to yield with a splintering of wood. The

right hand side of the hallway in front of Mike as he entered

became a staircase; the left hand wall contained two closed

doors. A third door stood open at the end of the corridor to

reveal a split level kitchen made ethereal by a white glare of

sunlight filling the window above the sink. Levelling his gun

at face height, Mike pushed open the first door with his foot

and entered swiftly.

There were bookcases full of Reader’s Digest publications, a

long dining table stacked with knitting patterns, and a piano.

Mike’s gaze swept the room and he retreated.

He entered the next room just as quickly and found himself

in a lounge with a draylon suite and French windows. Just

beyond the oblong of light flooding in through the windows

was what he was looking for. A Xaranti hybrid, its back

bulging and squirming, was pinning a middle-aged woman to

the floor by her throat. The hybrid, a man close to his own

age, was grinning and drooling, evidently taking great

pleasure in choking the life out of its victim. The woman’s

tongue and eyes were bulging out of her purpling face and

she was scrabbling ineffectually at the hand clamped around

her windpipe. Her feet drummed on the carpet as her oxygen-

starved limbs spasmed.

Without hesitation, Mike aimed his gun and fired. Just as

he squeezed the trigger, the hybrid sprang towards him,

swooping low as it did so. The bullet passed over its shoulder

and smashed a hole through the French windows. The hybrid

collided with Mike’s legs, sending him staggering back

against the wall.

Mike knew how important it was to stay on his feet. As he

bounced back from the wall, the hybrid was rolling over. It

was too close now for him to use his gun, it would spring to

its feet and close the distance between them before he could

even get the weapon levelled. Deciding, therefore, that

discretion was the better part of valour, Mike turned and fled.

The hybrid came after him, which was what Mike had

expected and wanted. If it had got back to finish off the

woman, he would have felt honour-bound to turn and

confront it again. All the same, being pursued by a ravening

psychotic predator was not a pleasant experience. Mike ran

as he had never run before, expecting to feel the weight of the

creature slam into his back with each pounding step.

‘Start the engine!’ he screamed at Tegan, seeing her peering

out of the truck at him as soon as he burst out of the house.

He saw her face change from surprise to shock as she

recognised the thing chasing him - or at least who it had

once been. ‘Do it now!’ he yelled.

She started the engine. ‘Drive!’ Mike shouted. ‘Drive! Drive!’

If she hesitated they would probably all be dead. He was

thankful, therefore, to see the truck pull away from the kerb

almost immediately. Mike leaped off the kerb and pounded

after it. The truck was doing maybe ten miles an hour when

he launched himself at the tailgate. He grabbed it with both

hands, ignored a splinter that slid into the ball of his thumb,

and hauled himself up and over.

He was lying in a sprawl next to the Doctor’s feet, gasping

and congratulating himself on his timing, when he heard

something thump against the tailgate. Looking up, he saw

two hands curled over the top of the wooden flap, a face with

tar-black eyes and mouth twisted in a bestial snarl rising

between them.

With frightening speed and agility, the hybrid slid its upper

body over the tailgate and grabbed Mike’s ankle. Its grip was

brutally strong, and instantly Mike read its intentions from

the glee of anticipation on its face. It meant to twist his foot

and break his ankle, and Mike had no doubt that it could do

it too. Imbued with the savage strength of the Xaranti,

Tegan’s former friend could snap his bones as easily as he

could have snapped the stick of celery pinned to the Doctor’s

lapel.

Instinctively Mike whipped up his gun and pulled the

trigger. This time the bullet didn’t miss. It struck the top of

the hybrid’s head, sheared it off and scattered it across the

road in the truck’s wake.

For one terrible moment the hybrid still clung to Mike’s

foot. Then the grip slackened and the creature tumbled back

into the road, arms spread like a horizontal crucifixion.

Tegan stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road and

Mike heard her sobbing bitterly. He jumped down from the

back of the truck and opened the driver’s cab door. She was

slumped with her face in her hands as if trying to prevent her

near-hysteria from seeping out.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mike, ‘I didn’t want to kill him. I wouldn’t

have if it hadn’t been him or me.’

Tegan didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge him. At least

not until he touched her arm, whereupon she wrenched her

hands away from her face and snarled, ‘Don’t you dare!’

The sea boiled and churned, waves crashing on to the

deserted beach as if heralding a storm. A hundred feet from

the shore, a dark patch appeared on the blue skin of the sea,

like a shadow beneath the surface. The patch inched closer

to the shore, growing larger and darker as it came. When it

had halved the distance between the place it had first

appeared and the blood-stained sand it broke the surface.

The Morok battle cruiser, its rusty, barnacled hull rearing

up from the waves, was an eminently adaptable ship. It was

designed to transform itself to suit whatever planetary

conditions presented themselves. It was thanks largely to

ships like this that the Moroks would eventually extend their

seven-hundred year empire across the nine galaxies. This

particular vessel, however, would no longer form any part of

their battle fleet, its crew having long since transformed to

swell the ranks of its Xaranti invaders.

When the battle cruiser had reached shallow enough

waters, it retracted its long submarine-like snout, which had

streamlined it to allow easier access through the deeps, drew

in its powerful propellers, and extended tank-like caterpillar

tracks, which gripped the sea bed and hauled it clanking and

roaring on to the sand. On dry land it sat for a while, like

some vast behemoth acclimatising itself to its new

surroundings. Water streamed from its battle-scarred hull;

its prow - if such a shapeless, ugly-looking craft as this could

be said to have a prow - peeked over the sea-wall at the

promenade.

Suddenly there was a tumultuous grating sound, and a

number of doors at ground level slid slowly open, extending

ramps that clanged down on to the sand. For a moment the

openings contained only darkness, and then the black,

bristling bodies of fully-grown Xaranti began to emerge into

the light, like ants from a nest.

‘It looks deserted,’ Mike said.

It was the first time either of them had spoken since Tegan

had spurned his attempts to console her after the death of

Andy Weathers. She had moved across to the passenger seat

and turned her back on him, using her hand as a cushion

between her face and the window. Her shoulders had heaved

as she sobbed silently It was clear she was no longer in any

fit state to drive. Mike had hesitated over suggesting that she

sit in the back with the Doctor again, and in the end had

decided that the Doctor would be OK. Around here they’d see

trouble coming from far enough away for Mike to provide him

with any protection he might need. Besides, Tegan with a

gun in her hand while in this state of mind was not a good

idea, especially now that he’d noticed she was beginning to

scratch her shoulders and arms more and more.

Tegan did not respond to his comment, merely stared dully

through the windscreen, her eyes pink as if stained by their

red rims. The hospital car park was three-quarters full, but

there was no sign of life either out here or at any of the

building’s many windows.

Mike stopped outside the open gates and glanced at Tegan.

‘I didn’t want to kill your friend, you know, Tegan,’ he said

again, ‘but I had to. If I hadn’t he would have killed me, and

then the Doctor, and then probably you too.’

Tegan said in a low, bitter voice, ‘Don’t you think I know

that?’

‘I don’t know. Do you?’

She swung round suddenly, glaring at him. ‘Of course I do.

I’m not stupid!’

‘I never suggested you were,’ he said gently. ‘It’s just that...

well, if we’re going to get through this, we’ve got to work

together. We’ve got to know we can rely on one another.’

She gave a snort too mirthless to be termed laughter. ‘You

can’t rely on me. I’m changing into one of those things.

Haven’t you noticed?’

‘Yes, I have noticed. But you’re still in the early stages.

You’ll be OK for a while yet, won’t you?’

She shrugged. ‘I think so. I hope so. I keep having these...

these funny thoughts.’

‘Funny thoughts?’ he prompted.

‘Insights, I guess you’d call them. I seem to know things

without knowing how I know them. It’s like... like I’m tapping

into their minds... into its mind.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s

horrible.’

‘What kinds of things?’ Mike asked.

‘Well, for instance... I know that... that multiplying and

expanding is all important to them.’

‘You make them sound like fat maths teachers,’ said Mike,

then saw her face. ‘Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood.’

‘I know that a mature Xaranti would always infect you

rather than kill you - unless you were unusable, of course.’

‘Unusable?’

‘Old, crippled, infirm,’ said Tegan, her face deadpan, hand

straying to the itch on her shoulder again.

‘A lot of the dead people we’ve seen today weren’t old or

crippled or infirm,’ Mike pointed out.

‘They weren’t killed by mature Xaranti.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Inferior races in the mid-stage of transformation can’t cope

with all the Xaranti energy rushing through them, so they

need an outlet for their aggression.’

‘Inferior?’ Mike exclaimed.

Tegan looked glassy-eyed, as if she’d been awake too long

or was under the effect of a strong sedative. ‘What?’

‘You said inferior.’

‘Did I?’ She looked confused. ‘I meant...’ Then she seemed

to snap out of it. ‘Oh God, it’s getting worse.’

‘Are you all right?’ Mike asked diffidently.

Her eyes flashed. ‘Of course I’m not bloody all right!’ Then,

abruptly, her face crumbled, anger sliding into fear. ‘I’m so

scared.’

Cautiously he reached for her, and this time she leaned

into him, allowed him to hold her. She felt hot, as if she had

a fever.

‘Hey,’ Mike said gently, ‘come on. Don’t give up hope yet.

Any minute now the Doctor’ll pop awake and come up with

some brilliant solution. You’ll see.’

The smile he had hoped his words might raise from her

failed to appear. Instead, her voice barely a whisper, she said,

‘A while ago, there was this... this creature called the Mara. It

took over my mind, made me do evil things. It filled my head

with rage and hate. It was awful. I don’t think I could ever go

through anything like that again.’

‘You won’t have to,’ Mike replied.

She said nothing for a moment, then unfolded herself from

his embrace and sat up. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere, is

it?’ she said, ‘I ought to tell you what else I know while I still

can. It might come in useful later.’

He ignored the doubt in her voice and said lightly,

‘Forewarned is forearmed. Fire away.’

‘The Xaranti affect different people in different ways, like

any normal disease. Some show the symptoms quickly, some

hold out for a lot longer. Except that in the last few hours,

the whole process has been speeded up. It’s as if... as if a

switch has been thrown.’

‘What kind of switch?’ asked Mike.

Tegan thought for a moment. ‘A telepathic one.’

‘You mean... you mean someone is controlling this infection

by thought?’

‘Not someone,’ said Tegan.

‘Something then ?’

Tegan’s face creased with the effort of trying to express in

words the half-formed impressions that flashed sporadically

into her mind. ‘The Xaranti creatures have no name for it. It

controls them. It is the Xaranti. The creatures are its... its

limbs. Its weapons.’

‘How long have we got?’ asked Mike. ‘How long before

everyone in this country is either dead or has turned into one

of those things?’

Almost casually Tegan said, ‘A week.’

‘And what about you? And the Brigadier? And the Doctor?’

Again, that glassy-eyed stare, that dead-pan expression. ‘A

few hours.’

Mike sighed. A few hours. Which meant that every minute

that ticked by was another nail banged into the coffin of the

planet. And what was he doing about it? Driving around

aimlessly, hoping that the unconscious man in the back

would suddenly spring to life and come up with something

that would get them out of this unholy mess.

He had never felt so useless. For a while now he had been

asking tough questions of himself and his life, had been

wondering whether in fact he made any difference at all. His

whole existence had been centred around weapons and

violence for so long that the real, fundamental issues had

been lost somewhere along the way. He believed in peace, had

believed - or at least had managed to convince himself - that

UNIT was in essence a peace-keeping force. But how could

you possibly maintain peace with guns and tanks and

bombs? All right, so Daleks and Autons and the like wouldn’t

give a hoot about petitions and marches and protest songs,

but surely there must be some other way, some other option

to consider?

‘We - they - want the Doctor,’ Tegan said suddenly.

‘What?’

Her eyes were wide as if she’d been struck by a sudden

realisation. ‘It’s their overriding imperative. They know all

about him from looking into the minds of his friends. They

know everything he’s done from the Brigadier and Sergeant

Benton and anyone else from UNIT who’s had contact with

him.’ She looked momentarily afraid to go on. ‘Soon they’ll

find him through me. I’ll lead them to him. I won’t be able to

help it.’

‘We’d better move quickly then, hadn’t we?’ Mike replied

decisively. ‘Get him into hiding.’

‘Maybe you should just leave me behind,’ Tegan said.

Mike shook his head. ‘No chance. You’re coming with us.

I’m not leaving you out here to fend for yourself.’

‘Promise me one thing then,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘If I get... uncontrollable... promise me you’ll shoot me.’

Mike said nothing for a moment, then he smiled stiffly and

squeezed her hand. ‘I promise I’ll do whatever I have to.’ He

put the truck into gear and rolled down into the car park.

There was an ambulance parked askew by the main doors.

It was only when they got closer that they saw the driver’s

side window had been smashed and that the top half of a fat

man in a paramedic’s uniform was hanging out of it, arms

dangling and hands outstretched as if trying to reclaim the

blood that had run down the side of the vehicle in rivulets

and pooled on the tarmac below.

‘Cancer,’ Tegan said bluntly.

‘Pardon?’

‘He was killed because he was no use. He had cancer of the

colon. We can sense it by -’ She stopped abruptly, suddenly

aware of what she was saying. Looking at Mike fearfully she

wailed, ‘I don’t want to know these things! I don’t want them

in my head!’

Mike raised his hands to calm her. ‘Just keep fighting it,

Tegan. It’s all you can do.’ He gave her a moment to calm

down, then continued, ‘I’m going to have to go in there. Do

you feel able to cope with sitting behind the wheel again?’

She scratched at a point just below her collarbone, then

made herself stop. A small shudder passed through her

before she nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Ok. I’ll only be a few minutes. I just want to see how the

land lies before we take the Doctor in.’ He paused for a

moment. ‘You know what to do -’

‘I’ll drive away if I see anything suspicious.’

‘Good. Oh, and honk your horn too if you can. At least it’ll

let me know there’s something going on.’

He got out of the truck and Tegan moved across to take his

place behind the wheel. He walked up to the hospital’s main

double doors, gun poised. The sun was hurling reflections of

itself back at him from the glass panels, masking what lay

beyond them until he shoved them open and entered

Reception. There was a semi-circular desk to his left, rows of

chairs back-to-back, as if someone had set them up for a

game of Musical Chairs, to his right. There were bodies on

the floor - Mike counted seven of them - all of them lying in

pools of blood. Despite the terrible violence that had taken

place here, the building was silent now. Either the Xaranti

had moved on, or they were lying in wait somewhere.

Going by what Tegan had said, could the hybrids really be

that cunning, that restrained? Perhaps if they knew he had

the Doctor with him they could be. Perhaps they were

receiving orders from on high that were overriding their

natural tendencies. He stood for a moment, undecided,

though in truth his options were simple. Either he could get

back in the truck and drive yet further afield, which meant

the loss of more precious time and more ground to cover by

returning if the Doctor woke up and could somehow set

matters straight; or he could risk bringing the Doctor in here

and try to find someone who could treat his wounds or have

a go at doing so himself.

‘No contest,’ Mike murmured, and crossed to the body of an

elderly man who had been bludgeoned to death with a desk

lamp. The man had been sitting in a wheelchair, which had

been tipped over as he had been knocked sideways. He was

now lying on the floor, the lamp beside his shattered head

caked with blood and hair.

Mike holstered his gun and lifted up the wheelchair,

grimacing at the schlupp sound it made as it disengaged itself

from the pool of partly congealed blood in which it had been

lying. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to

wipe off as much of the blood as he could.

Tegan was peering out through the windscreen when he

wheeled the chair outside. As he passed her window he

noticed that she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly

that her knuckles were white as bone. Her gaze followed his

progress and she licked her lips, but her face was otherwise

expressionless. Smiling to compensate for the fact that she

wasn’t, Mike said, ‘Tegan, would you mind giving me a hand

with the Doctor?’

She blinked and nodded. Her voice sounded strained as

she said, ‘Of course.’

The Doctor didn’t stir as Tegan lifted up his legs and Mike

sat him up then grabbed him beneath the armpits. Mike kept

a look out as they transferred him into the chair, acutely

aware that for the few minutes his hands were full the three

of them were extremely vulnerable. Finally, the Doctor was

installed, his head lolling, blond fringe flopping over his face.

Mike drew out his gun with relief as Tegan wheeled the

Doctor towards the main doors.

‘It’s not very pretty in there,’ he warned her as he pushed

the doors open. ‘There are bodies.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve seen bodies before.’

He hesitated a moment longer. ‘Are you quite sure you

want to go through with this?’

The indifference on her face worried him, but at least there

was still a residue of bitterness in her voice. ‘Do we have a

choice?’

Neither of them said anything as they wheeled the Doctor

through the slaughterhouse that had been the hospital’s

reception area. They proceeded slowly, cautiously, listening

hard for the slightest indication of habitation. Everywhere

was the same: bodies lay in the corridors in grotesquely

twisted positions, most of them exhibiting appalling injuries.

There was blood on the floor and up the walls - but

thankfully there was no sign of the perpetrators of this

violence.

The wards were the worst. Many of the patients had been

slaughtered in their beds, the juxtaposition of bright red

blood and pristine white sheets like a blow to the system.

Mike had seen many people die in his time with UNIT, and to

some extent had become inured to the physical shock of it,

but the way in which the old and the frail and the sick had

been systematically massacred here disgusted and enraged

him.

He glanced at Tegan to see how she was taking it all, and

was both relieved and disturbed to see the expression, or lack

of it, on her face. It was as if a shutter had clanged down

behind her eyes. Mike couldn’t be sure whether this was

because the shock had been too much for her and her mind

had decided to draw a veil over itself for a while, or whether

the Xaranti infection galloping through her system was

deadening her emotions.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked her, and for a moment thought she

hadn’t heard him.

Then her eyes flickered in his direction and she said, ‘These

subjects were unsuitable for Xaranti impregnation. Others

have been taken, but these were... unsuitable.’

Her voice trailed off. Mike looked at her for a moment. ‘Yes,

I gathered that.’ He allowed his gaze to roam once more

around the ward. If all the beds had been occupied, around

half of the patients were missing. He pictured those patients

rising from their beds, Xaranti spines and legs erupting from

their bodies even as they murdered their fellow patients. He

thought of Charlotte up on the fifth floor, and of the foetus

which had been clinging to life inside her. A sharp,

unyielding block of ice seemed to have taken up residence in

his stomach. Instinct made him want to rush out to the lift

and jab the fifth floor button to find out the truth as quickly

as possible, but he knew he had to do this thing properly,

methodically, systematically.

The second and third floors were the same as the first, but

the fourth floor delivered a surprise. The wards here were

empty, and had been abandoned in a hurry, judging by the

way books, meals and personal belongings had been

discarded. Perhaps more tellingly, leads had been left

dangling from various machines that had evidently been

disconnected from patients’ bodies.

‘What’s happened here?’ he said, more to himself than to

Tegan. But she answered, her voice a mumble, her eyes

gazing into the middle distance.

‘We took them by surprise. There was so much anger in us.

We needed to kill. It was good. Made us feel so good. But we

didn’t kill them all. We... we wouldn’t let ourselves kill them

all. We took some. They became us. But the killing. It

stopped us hurting. For a little while.’

The block of ice in his stomach extended tendrils along his

limbs and up his back. His instinct was to shake Tegan out

of her fugue, but his rationale urged him to use the situation

to his advantage, to glean as much information as he could.

‘Who are we?’ he asked gently.

‘We are Xaranti,’ she replied.

‘What happened to the other people in the hospital? The

ones who escaped. Where did they go?’

Her eyes widened a little. ‘They went up. They got away

from us. We couldn’t catch them.’

‘Up?’ Mike said. ‘Up where?’

‘To the top.’

‘The top of the building?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s up there?’

Her face remained deadpan and he thought she’d switched

off. Then she said, ‘We couldn’t get through. There were

barriers.’

Mike pondered for a moment. It seemed his initial theory

that half the patients had been killed by the others had been

wrong. Perhaps part of the Xaranti plan had been to keep

those infected out of hospital - and indeed away from other

environments and situations where their affliction may have

been discovered - until a stranglehold had been established

on the town. Which meant that the missing patients had

been infected during, not before, the Xaranti attack.

‘Tegan,’ he said now, his voice quiet but intense, ‘Tegan,

can you hear me?’

She stared at him, a tiny frown appearing, her eyes swirling

with confusion.

‘You are Tegan Jovanka,’ Mike said firmly. ‘You are Tegan

Jovanka and an alien force is trying to take over your mind.

But you’re strong, Tegan. You can fight it. Fight it, Tegan.’

The frown became a wince of pain. Tegan snatched her

hands from the wheelchair grips as if they had become hot

and rubbed at her forehead as though trying to erase a stain

from her skin - or from beneath it.

‘I am... we are... no, I am Tegan,’ she gasped. Her eyes

crinkled into slits and her mouth stretched wide to reveal her

clenched teeth. She gave a little scream and fell forward.

Mike caught her smartly. She opened her eyes and looked at

him, her face etched with fear and dismay.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked softly.

Her face crumpled and she began to sob, clutching at him.

‘So scared,’ she whimpered. ‘I don’t want... this to... happen

to me again.’

‘I know,’ Mike said, ‘I know.’ He held her until her sobs had

subsided. At last he said, ‘Are you ready to go on?’

‘Where?’

‘To the top of the building. That’s where everyone is.’

‘How do you know?’

‘You told me. When you were... when you had your funny

turn. It’s like you’d clicked in to their thinking again for a

minute.’

She was silent, finding the information unpalatable. Finally

she said, ‘I’m still useful for something then, at least.’

He wasn’t sure how to reply, so he gave her a squeeze

instead. They wheeled the Doctor out of the ward and across

to the lifts. The topmost button was 12, which Mike pressed.

As the lift approached their destination he raised his gun,

pointing it at the opening doors.

The corridor ahead was as featureless as the rest they had

seen. It was silent and deserted, too. Mike stepped out first,

checking around, then motioned for Tegan to follow with the

Doctor. To their left, at the end of the corridor, were the

stairs that led down to each of the lower floors. To their right,

the corridor was foreshortened by a huge pair of vault-like

doors. In large red stencilled letters on the doors were the

words:

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT UNIT

STRICTLY LIMITED ACCESS

AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY

Beside the door was a touch-button panel, with numbers

from 0 to 9.

‘Pretty snazzy for the seventies,’ Tegan said, back to her old

self for the time being, although she sounded tired.

Mike moved forward and banged on the metal doors with

the butt of his gun. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Hey, is anyone in

there?’

There was no reply. Mike continued to thump the door and

shout for the next half-minute. Tegan watched him anxiously

and scratched at her arms. The Doctor slept on despite the

noise.

At last a voice on the other side, sounding no more than

the thickness of the doors away, said, ‘Who are you?’

Mike raised his eyebrows at Tegan with an expression not

quite of triumph and shouted, ‘My name is Captain Michael

Yates. I’m an army officer who has been called in to deal with

the current crisis. I’m accompanied by two civilians, one of

whom is severely injured and in need of medical attention.’

There was a pause, then the voice said fearfully, ‘How did

you know we were here?’

‘We worked it out,’ Mike replied slickly. ‘After seeing the

carnage on the first three floors we realised that the only way

you could have gone to escape was up. It didn’t need a genius

to see that this was the only viable option.’

There was an even longer pause this time, then the voice

said, ‘Stand back. I want to see you on the cameras.’

Mike glanced up and saw two cameras affixed to the ceiling

above his head. He stepped back so he was looking directly

into their lenses and smiled.

‘You don’t look like a soldier,’ the voice said suspiciously.

‘I was employed as an advance guard, to check out the

terrain. That’s why I’m in civvies,’ Mike explained.

‘Have you got any proof?’ the voice asked.

Mike reached into the back pocket of his cords and located

his UNIT pass, which he held up to the right-hand camera.

‘UNIT? What’s that?’

‘United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Special peace-

keeping force. Affiliated to the British Army. All the

information’s there if you want to read it.’

The pause was so long this time that Mike thought his

credentials had been rejected. Then the voice was back, and

saying reluctantly, ‘All right, you can come in.’

Turlough was not sure how long he had been sitting against

the bedroom wall when he heard the sound outside in the

corridor. He stiffened, clutching his coathanger to him,

drawing his knees up tighter under his chin.

The sound had been like the scuff of movement that

someone who was trying to be stealthy might make. Turlough

tilted his head a little as if that might enable him to hear

better - and almost leaped out of his skin when someone

rapped loudly on his door.

He cringed, praying that whoever was out there was

banging on doors at random and would move on if he failed

to respond. There was silence for a moment, then a voice he

recognised said, ‘We know you’re in there, son.’

It was the voice of the big, burly soldier, the Doctor’s friend:

Sergeant Benton. Still Turlough said nothing, but looked

around panic-stricken, wondering where he could hide, how

he could possibly escape.

A second voice replaced the first, this one more clipped,

authoritative; the voice of the Brigadier.

‘Be reasonable, lad,’ he said, sounding nothing but

reasonable himself. ‘It’s not you we want, it’s the Doctor. We

just want you to take us to his TARDIS.’

They must have missed it at the fun-fair, Turlough realised.

If his plight hadn’t been so desperate he would have found

that funny. He wondered fleetingly whether he might be able

to speak to the Brigadier, reason with him. The man might be

infected, but he didn’t sound too far gone - though it might

well have been the Xaranti themselves who were allowing the

Brigadier to sound reasonable.

Yes, perhaps that was it. Perhaps the present approach

was simply a ploy to lull him into a false sense of security. Or

even to get him to give himself away, because, after all, they

couldn’t know for certain he was in here. They could only be

guessing that he was. They had probably been looking for

him all over the place. If he stayed quiet they would probably

go away.

Then the Brigadier said, ‘All right, young man, be it on your

own head.’

There was a loud bang, and before Turlough realised what

was happening a chunk of wall exploded, not two feet from

his left ear. He stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded, then

glanced back through the barricade of furniture piled atop

his bed and spotted a ragged hole in the door, beside the

lock.

They were shooting their way in - and they weren’t too

worried who was on the other side. Discarding the coat

hanger, Turlough scrambled to his feet and ran to the

window. He looked out and to his horror saw two fully-grown

Xaranti patrolling the streets below.

He ducked instinctively as a second shot blasted through

the door and reduced part of the barricade to flying

matchwood. Frantically he loosened the catch on the window,

flung it open and stuck his head out. There was no way

down, but if he could climb up on to the roof he might be

able to make his way across it to the building next door.

As a third gun-blast turned more of his barricade to

splinters, Turlough grasped the sides of the window frame

and stepped up on to the sill.

* * *

Walking through the vault-like doors, Mike and Tegan found

themselves in a small vestibule furnished with a semi-

circular desk like the one in Reception. On brackets on either

side of the doors were a pair of small black-and-white TV

screens depicting the now-empty corridor outside.

Waiting for them just inside was a large black man dressed

in the blue-grey uniform of a hospital orderly. His face was

shiny with sweat and his eyes were wide and wary. As soon

as they were inside, he heaved the doors shut again and

locked them with bolts and a metal locking-bar as thick as a

man’s wrist.

‘Thanks for this,’ Mike said, holstering his gun. ‘It’s pretty

hairy out there.’

‘Don’t I know it?’ said the man and squinted at them

suspiciously. ‘How did you manage to get through all them...

all them things?’

‘There are none out there now,’ said Mike. ‘I think they

must have all headed down to the sea. We’ve got a truck, and

I’ve got a gun. We had a few bad moments, but we managed

to make it through OK.’

‘What’s wrong with your friend?’ the black man asked,

looking at the Doctor slumped in the wheelchair.

‘That was one of our bad moments,’ said Mike. ‘We were

attacked. He was wounded. I’m Mike Yates by the way, this is

Tegan Jovanka, and the chap having a snooze there is the

Doctor.’

He thrust out a hand, which the man cautiously shook.

‘Doctors are something we’re not short of here,’ the man

said. ‘I’m Max Butler.’

‘So what happened here, Max?’ asked Mike. ‘You were

attacked, I take it?’

‘From all sides. I’ve never seen anything like it. Those

freaks had taken out two floors before we even knew what

was happening. A bunch of us managed to round up the

patients from the fourth floor and bring them here.’ He shook

his head, sending droplets of sweat flying in all directions.

‘We’re safe enough. Not even a tank could get through those

doors. But it’s a bad situation. A lot of the patients need

special care - medication and stuff. We’ve got mothers with

new-born babies here. The babies that were in the incubation

unit we had to leave. One of the nurses stayed with ‘em. The

doors there aren’t as strong as they are here, but at least

they can be locked. I just hope to God those freaks didn’t

break in there and find ‘em all.’

‘We saw no evidence of it,’ said Mike. ‘And as I said, it’s

quiet out there now. You’d be safe going down to check on

things and to get what you need. I’ll go with you if you like.’

Max nodded. ‘Thanks. But let’s sort your friend out first.’

He flipped a thumb at the doors. ‘Any idea where those

things out there came from?’

Mike glanced meaningfully at Tegan, hoping she would still

have enough of her wits about her to realise that they would

have to be careful what they said here. ‘They’re just people,’

he said casually. ‘They’re carrying an infection which alters

them physically and mentally.’

Max looked dubious. ‘It’s not like any infection I’ve ever

seen before.’

‘It’s a new strain,’ Mike said vaguely. ‘We’ve got experts

working on a cure for it right now.’

Max looked at him for a moment longer, then shrugged. ‘If

you say so. Come on, let’s see to your friend.’

He led them out of the vestibule and into a corridor whose

widely-spaced doors were linked by viewing windows. The

windows looked into medical research laboratories, most of

which contained equipment and apparatus whose purpose

Mike could only guess at.

‘How many people have you got up here?’ Mike asked.

Max raised his eyebrows as he thought about it. ‘I’d say

around two hundred.’

Mike whistled as Max turned right at the end of the

corridor and pointed ahead. ‘There’s a kitchen and dormitory

along here. A real home from home. It’s where the doctors

sleep when they haven’t got time to go home, when they’ve

got experiments and stuff they need to keep an eye on. That’s

where everybody is.’

A murmur of conversation drifted to meet them as they

drew closer. They passed several more labs, these ones full of

people. Most of them were patients in dressing-gowns, who

were standing or sitting around - talking, reading books and

newspapers, playing cards, drinking tea. There was a kind of

Blitz spirit in evidence, a sense of pulling together, of

cheerfulness in adversity. If Mike had been wearing his

uniform rather than his civvies, he had little doubt that many

of the older men would have been saluting him as he passed

by.

Max led them into the dormitory area, containing around a

dozen beds, all of which were occupied by the more serious

cases. Most of these patients were asleep, though several

were groaning in pain. Some patients were lying on the floor

between the beds, draped with spare blankets, heads

propped by ‘pillows’ of bundled-up dressing-gowns and other

articles of clothing. Others were sitting with their backs to

the walls and their knees drawn up, looking dazed or shell-

shocked.

Doctors, nurses and some of the more able patients were

moving between the beds, offering care and comfort where

they could. Mike spotted Charlotte sitting beside a

cadaverous old man who was lying on the floor like a bundle

of sticks wrapped in blue and white pyjamas. With one hand

she was supporting his head as he raised it, and with the

other she was holding a transparent plastic cup, from which

he was taking small sips of water.

Mike wanted to call to her, but thought it inappropriate.

Instead he turned to Max and Tegan and held up a finger.

‘One moment. I’ve just seen a friend of mine.’

He crossed to her and waited until the old man had

finished drinking and Charlotte had lowered his head

carefully back down to the floor. Then he said, ‘Hello,

Charlotte.’

She looked up, startled, and her face broke into a grin.

‘Mike!’ she exclaimed. What are you doing here?’

He gestured across to the Doctor slumped in the

wheelchair, behind which stood Tegan looking tense. ‘I’ve

brought an injured friend here for treatment. The whole town

is under attack.’

The grin slipped from her face. ‘I know. What’s happening

to everyone, Mike? What’s making them change like this?

Like my dad did?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Mike said, and quickly changed the

subject to avoid having to tell it. ‘How’s the baby?’

Charlotte touched her stomach and glanced quickly

around, evidently not wishing her pregnancy to become

public knowledge. ‘Fine, as far as I know.’

‘And your mum? How’s she?’

‘Well, she’s alive at least. She’s over there.’

Mike looked across to where she was pointing and saw a

woman sitting against the wall with her face in her hands, so

still that he was not sure whether she was awake or asleep.

‘Is she -’ he began, but was interrupted by a blurted word

from Max:

‘Jesus!’

Mike turned and saw that whilst he had been talking to

Charlotte a little group had gathered around the Doctor. As

well as Tegan and Max, there was a doctor who looked young

enough to be fresh out of med school and a nurse who looked

old enough to be the young doctor’s mother. It was

immediately evident what had caused Max to react so

vehemently. The young doctor had begun to remove the

makeshift dressing around the Doctor’s wound in order to

take a look at the damage, when the Doctor had abruptly

woken up. His eyelids had parted to reveal eyes that were

completely black.

Mike caught only a glimpse of them before the Doctor

closed them again in a slow blink. When he re-opened them a

moment later they had returned to normal. The damage had

been done, however. Stumbling back a few paces, Max

pointed a fat, rigid finger at the Doctor. Fresh sweat bursting

from his cheeks, making them shine like mahogany, he cried,

‘He’s one of them!’

Before Max could say anything else, Mike strode forward

and grabbed his arm, screening the Doctor from the others in

the room.

‘Keep your voice down. Do you want to upset everyone?’ he

hissed.

Max turned on him, furiously. ‘You knew he was turning

into one of them things! You knew it and you still brought

him in here. You’ve put us all in danger.’

‘This is probably the only man in the entire world who can

help us get out of this mess,’ Mike said calmly.

‘But he’s not a man any more. He’s one of those freaks!’

‘No, he isn’t.’

‘Don’t pull my cord, man!’ Max said. ‘I saw his eyes. We all

did.’

‘Look at his eyes now,’ Mike replied reasonably. ‘They’re

fine. He’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with him.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid there is,’ the Doctor muttered.

Max and Mike stopped and stared at the Doctor as if he

was a chimpanzee who had just displayed an astounding

aptitude for human speech.

It was Mike who found his voice first. ‘Are you... all right,

Doctor?’ he asked.

‘Not entirely,’ said the Doctor, and raised a hand in Max’s

direction. ‘The gentleman here is right. I’m metamorphosing.’

‘See!’ Max said, thrusting his chin aggressively at Mike.

‘The guy admits it. We should never have let you in.’

Before Mike could respond, the Doctor said almost heartily

‘Quite right. In fact, I suggest you let me out of here before I

lose control and kill you all.’

Tegan, who had not spoken a word since they had entered

the R and D unit, suddenly said in an anguished voice, ‘You

can’t go, Doctor. We need you. You re our last hope.’

The Doctor flashed her a reassuring smile. ‘Believe me, I’ll

serve you better on the outside.’

‘They’ll find you,’ Mike said. ‘There’s too many of them.

They’ll use what’s in your head and turn you into one of

them.’

‘That’ll happen anyway if I stay here,’ the Doctor said, and

suddenly, to Mike’s astonishment, he was holding Mike’s gun

in his hand, pointing it at his own head. ‘Now,’ he said

almost cheerfully, ‘are you going to let me out or do I have to

kill myself so that I don’t kill you all later?’

For every second of the three minutes it took Turlough to

climb up on to the hotel roof, he was petrified. Petrified of

being shot at; petrified of the hotel’s old but stout metal

drainpipe giving way; petrified that one of the fully grown

Xaranti patrolling the streets below would spot him and

scuttle up the wall after him like a spider.

The ledge below his window, along which he had shuffled to

the drainpipe, had been just about wide enough, but old and

a little crumbly. He side-stepped along it with his back to the

sun-baked wall of the hotel, trying not to look down, trying

not to rush, trying not to panic, and in the event probably

doing all three.

When he reached the drainpipe, he swivelled at the hips,

taking care to keep his feet firmly planted on the ledge, and

grasped it gratefully with both hands. He would have liked to

have rested there for a few moments, but he was afraid that if

he stopped he might never start again. He was grateful that

the drainpipe was sturdy and not one of the flimsy plastic

variety that humans seemed to favour on their buildings in

this time period. It was attached to the wall by stolid, chunky

brackets which would serve as precarious foot-and hand-

holds.

Turlough manoeuvred himself carefully round, his heart

pumping fast as his left leg swung out over empty space

before clanging against the pipe. He looked up to see how far

he had to go, and immediately felt dizzy. The wisps of white

cloud slipping beneath the horizon of the hotel roof gave him

the impression that the building was toppling over. Turlough

gripped the pipe even harder and squeezed his eyes tight

shut for a moment, though he had seen enough to know that

he had a distance of around twenty feet to climb.

It took him no more than half a minute, but it seemed like

an eternity. When he finally reached the overhanging lip of

the flat roof, his arms and legs were trembling and his body

was drenched in sweat. This time he did have to rest in order

to summon up the energy to haul himself over the ledge.

Finally, first with one hand and then the other, he reached

up, grasped the edge of the roof and pulled himself up.

There was an awful moment when he didn’t think he was

going to have the strength to do it, when his feet pedalled at

empty air and his arms began to tremble with the effort.

Somehow, though, simply through fear of what would

happen if his strength did give way, he managed to scramble

up and over.

For long seconds he lay there like a beached fish, gasping

for air, relief washing through him. Sooner than he would

have liked he scrambled to his feet and staggered across to

the ledge that ran along the top of the side wall of the hotel.

The building next door was a Chinese restaurant called

King Prawn. The narrow alleyway ran between the two

buildings, whose roofs were separated by a gap of no more

than five feet. Ordinarily, this would have been a simple leap,

but at this height, and given Turlough’s current state, the

task seemed altogether more daunting. All kinds of possible

scenarios ran through his mind as he backed up in

preparation for his runup. He imagined himself slipping as

he was about to leap and plunging head-first to the ground

below; imagined himself falling short on the far side,

scrabbling desperately for a handhold and clutching only

empty air. Vertigo swept over him in a dizzying wave, and he

had to squat down for a moment, squeeze his eyes shut and

make himself take slow, deep breaths to calm his pounding

heart. At length he opened his eyes again and slowly stood

up. The day seemed piercingly bright and almost

preternaturally quiet, with not even a gull’s cry to puncture

it. By contrast, the gap between the buildings looked as black

as the deepest abyss.

Turlough knew that the longer he thought about it the less

likely he was to make the jump, so he did the only thing

possible: he began to run. The air slid past him, warm and

somehow slick; he moved so swiftly that his feet seemed to

skim across the roofs surface like a stone over water. He

gritted his teeth as he neared the edge, his stomach coiling in

on itself. Every instinct screamed at him to slow down, to

stop, but he simply made himself run faster, knowing that if

he gave in to his fear he was lost.

As he launched himself through the air, the gap between

the buildings yawned like a vast black mouth. For an instant

he felt like a piece of plankton caught in the downdraft of a

fish’s maw - then he was sprawling on the roof of the

restaurant, having cleared the gap by a good three feet. His

palms slid across the roof’s gritty surface, but Turlough’s

relief far outweighed the sting of his skinned hands. He

scrambled to his feet and ran towards what he had spotted

from the roof of the Lombard - a raised skylight, the glass

cloudy with grime.

The skylight had been locked with bolts from the inside,

but the wooden frame was rotten with age. It took Turlough

no more than fifteen seconds and three good kicks to break

in. Lifting the skylight he saw a short drop on to a small,

landing and a set of stairs leading down. A minute later he

was at street level and hesitating about which way to go.

Straight ahead would take him through the main part of

the restaurant and out the front door on to the main street.

The opposite way would take him through what he assumed

must be the kitchen, where he would hope to find a back

door into somewhere narrower and quieter.

It was no contest. He headed towards the back of the

building, and opened the door into the kitchen he expected to

find. It was large, its stainless steel surfaces gleaming,

though no amount of scrubbing could have masked the smell

of rice and fish and cooking oil. The back door was green,

heavily bolted and padlocked. Beside it and above a large

sink was a window covered inside and out with wire mesh.

Turlough selected a large two-pronged implement normally

used for skewering meat and set to work on the mesh.

Constantly expecting to hear the thump of booted feet on the

floors above, he worked feverishly. Several minutes of

hacking and twisting later he tugged the mesh away from the

frame. That done, he picked up a three-legged stool and

smashed the glass of the window, wincing at the noise it

made as it rebounded from the outer mesh and shattered

into the sink below.

Using the skewer on the outer mesh was tricky as he had

to push rather than pull it away from the frame. In the end

he climbed into the sink, glass crunching beneath his feet,

and kicked the mesh into submission. When he had created

a large enough gap, he squeezed through, wincing at the

jagged shards of glass still jutting from the window frame

that scraped against his skin. He all but fell into the narrow

street that the building backed on to, almost landing on the

two-pronged skewer that he had decided to bring with him.

He climbed groggily to his feet, bleeding from a dozen

stinging scratches, and looked around. There was no sign of

either UNIT soldiers or Xaranti, which, only made him think

that they were probably lying in wait somewhere. He had to

find a place to hide until it was safe to emerge - if it ever

would be.

Left would take him back down towards the promenade, so

he decided to go right, despite the fact that it was the street

in that direction, that bisected this one, that his hotel room

overlooked. He only hoped that the two fully-grown Xaranti

he had spotted prowling this street had moved on now;

certainly they had been moving purposefully enough to have

done so.

He moved forward cautiously, keeping close to the wall,

shrinking back from the golden thread of sunlight that lay on

the road and lapped over the edge of the pavement on his

side. When he reached the intersection he poked his head

round the corner and looked right and left, ready to turn tail

and flee at the slightest movement. However the street, wider

and more prominent than this one, was empty. As a right

turn on this occasion would again have taken him down to

the promenade, Turlough crossed the road, wincing as he

stepped through the band of sunlight, and moved to the left.

He crept along from shop doorway to shop doorway,

wondering whether he ought to duck into one of them and

keep low or try to get as far away from Xaranti Central as he

could. But how far away was that? How far did the aliens’

influence extend? Was the ship that arrived in Tayborough

Sands an isolated one or part of an invasion fleet?

He was still trying to decide what to do when he heard a

scuttle of movement from the end of the street ahead of him.

He glimpsed two fully-grown Xaranti turning the corner and

heading in his direction a split-second before throwing

himself out of sight behind a parked car. Praying that they

hadn’t seen him and that the scraping, scuttling, clicking of

their own bodies would mask his movements, Turlough

dropped onto his stomach and crawled beneath the car.

Gripping the meat skewer like a talisman, he drew in his legs

and lay there in the shade, willing the Xaranti to pass by. If

he got out of this one, he told himself, he would take no more

risks, would duck into the next shop he could find that

contained food and remain there until it was safe to come

out.

He could see the Xaranti’s spiny crablike legs rising and

falling as they stalked closer to his hiding place. When they

were almost parallel with the car, they separated, moving to

flank the vehicle. Turlough prayed desperately that there was

nothing sinister in the manoeuvre - and then the sweat on

his body turned cold.

In unison, positioned one either side of the car, the Xaranti

came to a halt.

At the entrance to the R and D unit the Doctor had

exchanged the gun for the keys to the truck. He knew Mike

could have tried to stop him them, or insisted on coming with

him despite his protestations, but he didn’t. He simply looked

the Doctor in the eye, wished him luck and shook his hand.

The Doctor was grateful for Mike’s intelligence, glad that it

was not the Brigadier he was dealing with. Not that the

Brigadier was stupid - on the contrary, he possessed a sharp

mind and a quick, dry wit. However his old friend was

ingrained with the gung-ho single-mindedness of many of the

top military men the Doctor had encountered in his lives.

Often the subtle approach advocated by the Doctor baffled

and infuriated him, seemed to him to undermine everything

he stood for.

Mike was different. He was a good soldier - brave and loyal,

dependable and efficient and cool under pressure - but also

sensitive and sensible, far-thinking but impressionable too.

The Doctor focused on the matter in hand: he needed to

find a way of halting the Xaranti infection before it laid waste

to the entire population of the planet.

As he stood in the lift which carried him down through the

hospital, the Doctor wondered whether he had done the right

thing in leaving Tegan behind. She was infected too, of

course - though it would be some time yet before she actually

became a danger to those in the R and D unit. The Doctor

was hoping to have solved the Xaranti problem long before

that moment arrived, though if he failed in his mission he

would at least be consoled by the thought that Mike had his

gun with which to both safeguard the uninfected and provide

Tegan with a merciful release. Despite his guilt, the Doctor

knew that taking Tegan with him would have been a bad

idea. She - or anyone else for that matter - would have been

more of a hindrance than a help.

He took out the square, grey object which was his remote

link with the diagnostic programmes he had left running in

the TARDIS and flipped open the lid. He pressed a button,

then perused the columns of numbers and figures and

formulaic symbols scrolling down the tiny screen.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured, then

snapped the lid shut and tucked it into his trouser pocket as

the lift arrived at its destination.

He rocked backwards and forwards on his heels, hands

clasped behind his back, as the doors opened. Despite

appearances he was alert for the slightest sound or

movement. However, the only sound was the buzzing of flies

which had found their way into the hospital, attracted by the

sprawled corpses in Reception. The Doctor set his face grimly

as he strode through them to the main doors.

He could feel the infection inside him, tingling across his

shoulders and chest and back, trying to gain a foothold in his

mind. His shoulder wound ached intolerably, but at least it

had been treated and properly dressed. That was one thing

Mike Yates had insisted upon, and quite a crowd had

gathered to watch the man who was pointing a gun at his

own head being patched up by a young and nervous doctor.

After selecting a few items from his coat pockets and

transferring them into his trousers, the Doctor had left his

ruined coat and sweater behind in the R and D unit

(remarking to Tegan that if he didn’t have spares in the

TARDIS he would be writing a strongly-worded letter of

complaint to the Xaranti government) and had strode to the

exit, wearing his torn and blood-stained shirt, still holding

Mike’s gun to his head.

Outside he climbed into the UNIT truck and drove away

from the hospital. As he passed through deserted streets he

switched to automatic pilot, allowing the Xaranti part of him

to lead him to where it wanted to go. Up until now his mind

had withstood the siege that the infection had been

conducting against it, but suddenly the Doctor lowered the

drawbridge, withdrew his defences. The infection swept in,

aggressive and triumphant, filling his mind with Xaranti

thoughts.

The first phase of the Xaranti recruitment drive was

complete, creating a wave of new Xaranti that had broken

through and asserted their dominance. Now the infection was

speeding up and the second wave would not be long in

coming. The Doctor knew that the first wave had taken the

unaffected population by surprise, that the new Xaranti had

swept through them, killing and infecting, slaking their

blood-lust whilst leaving no stone unturned in their search

for new recruits. People had been taken in their homes, in

their gardens, on the streets. High population centres -

hospitals, supermarkets, factories - had been targeted and

attacked en masse. In other areas of the country the attacks

had been swift and invidious, creating ever-expanding

clusters of new Xaranti. There was now a lull before the next

storm, the streets (around here, at least) quiet because the

newly infected, driven by their strange, new alien instincts,

had retreated into darkness and solitude to gestate,

metamorphosise.

Half a mile from the promenade the Doctor stopped the

truck and got out. The new Xaranti, their work done for the

time being, had congregated in this area, having felt an

instinctive urge to be close to the force controlling their

minds. To their queen. To Xaranti Prime. To the brains of the

operation. There was no Xaranti word for it, only inadequate

human equivalents. Understanding their instinct, the Doctor

slipped through the streets, keeping close to the walls,

hugging whatever shadows he could. He ducked from one

shop doorway to the next, crouching behind parked cars and

litter bins, listening and watching not only with his eyes and

ears, but also with his mind.

His internal radar - ironically a gift from the Xaranti

themselves - allowed him to remain undetected for some

considerable time, but at last his luck ran out. The problem

was that he was able to detect the presence of other Xaranti

only at close-quarters - half a street away at most - which

gave him little time to find a hiding place. On this occasion

he sensed several Xaranti in the street to his right, heading

his way, and so turned to run back the way he had come. As

he ran, he realised - too late - that there were more Xaranti

approaching from the other end of the street. He skidded to a

halt just as this second group came around the corner and

saw him.

There were four of them, three males and a female, all

relatively young. They were in the mid-stage of

transformation, their eyes black, their faces changing shape

and bristling with spines, their Xaranti legs and altering

musculature causing them to hunch over. Despite this, they

moved swiftly, their leader - a shaggy-haired man in a now-

ragged denim shirt - actually dropping on all fours to

approach the Doctor. The Doctor took a step back, then

thought better of it and drew himself up to his full height.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said.

The denim-shirted hybrid hissed at him, which prompted

the others to do the same. All four moved in threateningly.

The Doctor stood his ground, looked at them as imperiously

as he could, and said, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’

As he asked the question, he mentally gathered up a

sample of the Xaranti thought-patterns that were still

roaming through his mind, mixed them with his own, and

telepathically threw the whole bundle towards them. The

leader flinched and blinked and the Doctor knew that the

message had stuck.

The hybrid’s mouth opened and in a slurred, guttural voice

it said, ‘Doctor.’

That’s right,’ said the Doctor gently as if speaking to a

nervous but potentially dangerous animal. ‘I’m the Doctor

and I’m one of you now. We are all Xaranti.’

Though he could feel the infection making inroads into his

system, for the moment the Doctor was able to control it, to

use it. He made his eyes go black simply by letting go, giving

in to it for a moment. ‘We are all Xaranti,’ he repeated softly,

‘and I’m on a very important mission. I’m going to see the

queen.’

The four hybrids looked mesmerised for a moment, then

the denim-shirted one shook his head like a dog with a flea in

its ear.

‘No,’ he growled, the effort of talking apparently difficult for

him. ‘You... come... with... us...’

‘I can’t do that,’ said the Doctor firmly. ‘I’m going to see the

queen. I’ve been told to see the queen. If you try to stop me, it

will be bad for you.’

The Doctor could sense the hybrids’ confusion. They

understood that he was indeed Xaranti, and that the Xaranti

were all one. However they were unaware of the orders he

claimed to be following, knew only that their instructions

were to find and capture him. The Doctor knew he was

fortunate that he had run into this group and not into one

which was more fully integrated into the Xaranti communal

mind. Not only would those in a more advanced metamorphic

state have been aware that he was lying, but they would also

have been able to send a telepathic message to every other

hybrid and fully-fledged Xaranti in the vicinity, detailing his

whereabouts.

‘You’re confused,’ the Doctor said gently, allowing a

soothing telepathic pulse to accompany his words. ‘Your

minds are still clouded. You are not yet fully Xaranti. You

still speak in a human voice.’

The Doctor was taking a gamble that the scintilla of human

reason that remained in the hybrid’s mind was still active

enough to enable the creatures to understand his words, but

no longer analytical enough to think them through. If it was,

it would show the hybrids the loopholes in his argument - the

fact that he himself was still in the very early stages of

infection, for example, and thus presumably even more prone

to confusion and misinterpretation than they were. He

needn’t have worried. Almost immediately he sensed the

hybrids struggling with his arguments. He stepped forward

and spread his arms, pressing home his advantage. ‘The

queen wants to see me. I’m going to her now. The only way

you’ll stop me is to kill me. So if you’re not sure, kill me now,

and face the consequences later.’

The female drew herself in and glanced nervously at her

companions, her pink - still very human - tongue darting out

to lick her lips. The other hybrids hung back, their minds a

stew of conflicting thoughts and emotions. The Doctor looked

at the leader, keeping his face impassive, trying to project an

air of authority not only with his demeanour and his

unblinking stare, but also with the steady, uncluttered

thought-waves he projected towards them.

The leader groaned and rose from all fours to his feet; it no

longer seemed his natural state. He stretched out an arm,

the hand blackening, gnarling, and he pointed towards the

sea.

‘You... go...’ he said.

Hybrids, both military and civilian, spread out into the

streets around the Lombard Hotel, looking for Turlough. The

Brigadier, scratching his chest, feeling the Xaranti spines

rasp against his clothing, walked beside Benton. Benton had

taken a long time to succumb, but now that the infection had

taken hold it was rampaging through his system. His face

was red and mottled where the spines were lurking beneath

the surface of his skin, preparing to break through, and even

his back was a little more hunched than the Brigadier’s, who

himself had begun to feel a pleasurable tingling between his

shoulder blades.

The Brigadier could not now understand why he had

resisted the call of the Xaranti for so long. Trying to hang on

to the disparate mess of his human thoughts had led only to

fatigue and confusion. Finally allowing the Xaranti access

had been like seeing the light, admitting a new and

astonishing clarity into his life. He was born anew, felt a

fresh and glorious future rising from the ashes of his past.

He was Xaranti. They were all Xaranti. They were all one.

Despite their failure to apprehend the boy, and the fact

that the Doctor was still at large, the Brigadier felt that their

plans were moving inexorably forward, coming to fruition.

The boy would be apprehended soon enough and he would

lead them to the Doctor, or at least to the Doctor’s TARDIS.

With that in their possession it would only be a matter of

time before the Doctor succumbed. And when that happened

the Xaranti would be invincible. They would spread out

across the stars, engulfing planets and populations. They

would assimilate the Zygons into their number and any other

species that dared to oppose them. And those races

impervious to assimilation - the Daleks, the Cybermen, the

Movellans - would be wiped out by the awesome, devastating

forces at their disposal, forces that the Doctor would give

them knowledge of and access to.

Without so much as a qualm, the Brigadier and Benton

walked past the smashed remains of the soldier who had

fallen from the ledge above. When they had entered the boy’s

room and discovered his escape across the roof, the man had

gone after him, but the human detritus that still cluttered his

mind had resulted in a lack of concentration and he had

plunged to his death. It didn’t matter. Individuals were of

little importance; the man was simply a tiny part of the

Xaranti, the equivalent of a human cell, thousands of which

died and were constantly renewed. The Brigadier, who at this

juncture was still exercising the human convention of

individual hierarchy, decided that their efforts would be best

served searching for the boy at ground level, that if he hadn’t

already made his way down on to the streets, he would have

to do so eventually.

Suddenly the Brigadier and his fellow hybrids within the

immediate vicinity stopped dead, their faces blanking over.

As one they turned slowly to face an adjacent street before

blinking and swaying as though roused from a trance. There

was no need for speech, no need for confirmation; the

message each of them had received was clear and

unequivocal. Without hesitation, the Brigadier, Benton and

their motley crew of infected soldiers and civilian hybrids

converged to swarm towards their target.

* * *

Sweat rolled down Turlough’s face and dripped on the tarmac

beneath the car. He was shaking as if with fever. The two

Xaranti were motionless, their spiny legs so close that

Turlough could have reached out from his hiding place and

jabbed the meat skewer in to one of them. Surely the

creatures knew he was here. Why else would they have

stopped?

But if they did know, why hadn’t they attempted to root

him out? In some ways he wished they would just get it over

with. Maybe they wanted him to make a break for it so they

could pursue him, hunt him down. He heard movement at

the end of the street and twisted his head to look.

Dozens of feet, many of them wearing black boots into

which were tucked green army fatigues, were approaching

his hiding place. They did not hurry, had no need to do so.

Turlough knew that all was lost, but still he couldn’t bring

himself to crawl out from under the car and give himself up.

He wished he could sink into the ground. His stomach

cramped with dread. A pair of boots broke off from the rest

and approached the car. They stopped in front of the vehicle.

The owner of the boots dropped down on to one knee and

peered under the car. Turlough found himself face to face

with the Doctor’s friend, Sergeant Benton. Benton’s face

looked red and blotchy as if he had been out in the sun too

long. There was a cloudy darkness, like the reflection of

storm clouds, swimming in his eyes.

Benton grinned and saliva gleamed on his blocky white

teeth.

‘Boo,’ he said in a rasping voice.

Since entering the R and D unit Tegan had barely said a

word. Mike, keeping a surreptitious eye on her, had noticed

her clenched, troubled expression. He had noticed the way

she moved too, slowly and tentatively, like someone in pain

who was determined not to show it. Several times he had

asked her if she was OK, and had received a brief nod and a

preoccupied, ‘Fine.’ Now she was sitting against the wall in

the dormitory area, staring into space and taking deep

breaths as though resting after an exhausting journey.

‘Is your friend all right?’ Charlotte asked, glancing across

the room. ‘She looks very pale.’

Mike had been helping the medical staff tend to those

patients most in need of care and attention. He started to

nod, then glanced around and drew Charlotte aside.

Speaking quietly, he said, ‘Well, actually, no she’s not. She’s

been infected by this... this virus or whatever it is.’

Charlotte looked alarmed. You mean she’s changing into

one of those things? Like my Dad did?’

Mike pulled a face. ‘Keep your voice down. We don’t want to

start a panic.’

‘Sorry,’ whispered Charlotte. ‘But what’s going to happen

when she becomes... uncontrollable?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ said Mike. ‘For

the moment she’s harmless enough.’

Tegan chose that precise moment to give a loud groan and

slump sideways in a dead faint. Mike rushed to her,

Charlotte close behind him. Placing his hand gently beneath

Tegan’s head he lifted her back up into a sitting position.

‘Tegan,’ he said, quietly but urgently, ‘Tegan, can you hear

me?’

Her lips moved soundlessly for a moment, then in a thick,

clotted voice, she said, ‘We are Xaranti.’ Her eyelids fluttered,

then parted. The eyes beneath were completely black.

Mike didn’t realise they had drawn an audience until he

heard the collective gasp from behind him. He turned to see

the doctor and nurse who had tended the Doctor’s wounds,

plus several curious patients, stepping back, shocked

expressions on their faces. Next moment Max Butler barged

through the crowd, looking harassed. ‘What’s going on here?’

he demanded - then he caught a glimpse of Tegan’s eyes a

split-second before she closed them again.

‘Oh my God,’ he breathed.

‘She’s fine,’ Mike said hastily. ‘She just needs to rest.’

‘Rest?’ Max said, eyes wide with incredulity. ‘She’s got the

plague, man! You’ve got to get her out of here!’

‘There is no plague,’ scoffed Mike. ‘This is a water-borne

infection. It can’t be passed from person to person.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’ Max demanded.

‘I just do, that’s all.’

Max shook his head. ‘No. You’ve got to get her out of here.

We can’t take the risk.’

There was another collective gasp as Mike unholstered his

gun and pointed it at the ceiling. ‘We can and we will. Tegan

is my personal responsibility. And I assure you, Max, that if

she tries to harm anyone here, I’ll shoot her. Is that good

enough for you?’

Turlough sat on the sand with his back against the TARDIS

door, the faint tingling vibration from the time machine like

an echo of the trembling dread in his stomach. He had had

no choice but to lead the Brigadier, Benton and four UNIT

troops back to the fun-fair, where the TARDIS stood like a

curio between two stalls. The hybrids had loaded the TARDIS

on to the back of an army truck and driven it down to the

beach, where it now stood, dwarfed on the outside at least,

beside the vast dripping hulk of the usurped Morok craft.

Turlough and the TARDIS were bait for the Doctor - or at

least insurance against his departure.

Once again Turlough glanced fearfully at the guns that the

quartet of soldiers were pointing at his head. The soldiers’

metamorphosis was continuing apace; their eyes now

contained a swirling blackness that came and went, like

storm clouds scudding across the moon. Turlough tried to

avoid eye contact with any of his captors for fear of

antagonising them. He knew how violent and unpredictable

those infected by the Xaranti virus could become and didn’t

want to give them any kind of an excuse to blow his head off.

They had been waiting for twenty minutes and now

Turlough was growing increasingly jittery. He wondered how

long the Brigadier was prepared to hang around, what would

happen if the Doctor didn’t show up at all.

At first, when the tingling in his back increased, Turlough

thought it was due to the fact that he had been sitting in the

same position for too long. Then the tingling became a

shuddering, and an instant later was accompanied by the

trumpeting bellow of the TARDIS’s engines. Irrespective of the

guns that were being levelled at him, Turlough scrambled

away from the TARDIS and twisted round just in time to see

it fade and disappear, dragging the cacophonous din of its

de-materialisation with it.

‘Doctor!’ Turlough called in indignance and despair, but it

was too late.

The TARDIS was gone.

For a few moments Turlough stared at the place where the

TARDIS had stood, unable to believe his eyes. He realised

that the Doctor must have reached it before they had, must

have been inside it all the time it was being transported down

to the beach. His disbelief, however, was more due to the fact

that his friend had left him at the mercy of this bunch of

gun-toting lunatics. Surely it wouldn’t have taken much for

the Doctor to have snatched the door open and dragged him

inside? He could have done it before the soldiers were even

aware of what was going on.

He turned his attention once more to his captors, whose

expressions of shock were almost comical. Then blackness

swarmed into the Brigadier’s eyes as he turned them on

Turlough and the surprise was replaced with cold, hard fury.

Like a chain reaction, the same expression spread through

the soldiers and, as if responding to some unspoken

command, they each tilted their heads to regard him.

Turlough, on his knees in the sand, cried out in terror as

they threw down their weapons and rushed towards him.

The TARDIS had barely travelled any distance at all. The

Doctor had merely allowed the pull of the Xaranti queen to

guide his movements and had set the co-ordinates

accordingly. As the TARDIS re-materialised, he patted the

pockets of the spare jacket he had procured from the TARDIS

wardrobe then pulled a lever on the console. When the doors

opened with a faint hum, he drew himself to his full height

and stepped determinedly out into Hell.

He was surrounded by Xaranti, by the stink of them, their

bodies pressed together so tightly that it was like standing on

a tiny island in a sea of dark, spiny flesh. Xaranti scuttled

over one another, their legs pistoning the air; they clung to

the walls like scorpions; hung from the metal roof-supports

high above his head.

As he took a step forward, they regarded him balefully with

their black, unblinking eyes, but they did not attack. Indeed,

they edged backwards on either side as he slowly advanced,

creating a narrow channel through which he could walk,

increasing the crush of their already tightly packed bodies.

Perhaps they had orders from their queen to let the Doctor

through, or perhaps they simply recognised him as one of

their own. Certainly, his physical transformation was

advancing rapidly. His eyes were swimming with blackness,

the buds of spines were visible on the backs of his hands and

on his neck, and the space between his shoulder blades was

already starting to bulge.

The room in which the TARDIS had materialised was large

and functional, evidently some sort of security clearance

chamber ahead of the energy core that was the ship’s heart.

Several hundred yards away, at the end of the channel that

the Xaranti had created for him, the Doctor could see a door

of dull metal, emblazoned with Morok symbols. Beside it was

what had evidently once been some sort of security access

panel, now a cannibalised jumble of wildly contrasting

technologies. On the metal wall above the door was a large

embossed symbol that resembled a flaming star, depicted in

vivid purple.

The Doctor did not recognise the literal significance of the

symbol, but he did recognise a danger sign when he saw one.

Nevertheless he strode forward calmly, confidently, almost

regally, head held high, back as straight as the hump

between his shoulder blades would allow, hands clasped

loosely behind him. When he reached the door he examined

the access panel and traced its meanderings to a bulbous

metallic nodule that he guessed might have been Kraal in

origin. He twisted it and the door slid open.

The corridor beyond was little more than a metal tube with

a grilled walkway along its centre. At the far end was another

door and another cannibalised control panel. Ignoring yet

another star symbol - this one larger and situated right in the

centre of the door - the Doctor again operated the access

panel. This door, too, slid open and the Doctor stepped

through.

The energy core that powered the ship’s engines was

enclosed in a heavily shielded metal tube, like a vast central

pillar, which ascended through a circular shaft in the floor

and stretched up to the high ceiling. The grumbling throb of

the engines themselves, ticking over somewhere below, made

the floor vibrate beneath his feet. Dominating the wall-space

of this huge room was a densely packed mass of control

panels, again stretching from floor to ceiling, which were

accessible via a series of ladders and gantries set at regular

intervals.

Intertwined with all this technology, smothering it,

communing with it, becoming it, was what the Doctor had

come to think of as the Xaranti queen.

It was not a quantifiable life-form as such, but a vast

formless entity, an accumulation of the thoughts and

emotions and memories of myriad races made flesh. The stuff

it was made from was not solid, but free-flowing like liquid

glass, iridescent patterns constantly swirling within it. It

oozed and curled above and in front of the Doctor, aspects of

the many different races whose minds it had absorbed over

the years forming briefly within the malleable stuff of its

being, as if attempting to break free, before sinking back into

the flux. The Doctor saw eyes and claws and mouths; the

suggestion of a fur-covered limb; a patch of warty flesh. The

impressions were too swift and too vague for him to recognise

any of the species depicted, but each and every one of them

looked briefly familiar.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said as the ‘queen’ coiled and rippled.

‘Any chance of a chat?’

The stuff quivered and then bulged in front of him, a vast

bubble forming on its surface. The Doctor imagined it

bursting and spattering him with goo, but he stood his

ground.

The bubble elongated, formed into a gluey tentacle which

probed almost hesitantly towards his face. It halted a few feet

away from him and almost immediately the tip began to

thicken and swell, as if the tentacle were a hollow tube and

more of the stuff was being pumped through it.

Slowly, at the end of the tentacle, a shape began to form.

The effect was like an impressive display of glass-blowing.

The shape started as a blob, which eventually extended limbs

of its own before beginning to acquire definition. Within

minutes a perfect but featureless humanoid form stood in

front of the Doctor, though, like a new-born, remained

attached to the main body of the ‘queen’ via a clear gel-like

umbilicus.

The figure could have been constructed from clear glass

and filled with colourless, constantly moving oil if it wasn’t

for the facial features which drifted haphazardly within it,

incessantly forming and fading and re-forming, as if

attempting to settle on the correct location. Eyes of many

different shapes and hues, as many as a dozen at a time,

blinked lazily from the flux of the creature’s being. Several

mouths suddenly opened in the figure’s limbs and torso, and

one even opened in its head, albeit from the area where its

left eye would normally be.

The mouths spoke in unison, though each used a different

voice. There was a gruff male voice; a lilting female one;

another that was sexless and sibilant. ‘I trust that this form

meets with your approval, Doctor?’ the figure said.

The Doctor shrugged. ‘I never judge by appearances.’

The mouths smiled. ‘Then that is something we have in

common. To we Xaranti, all forms, all species, have

something to offer us. We celebrate the great variety of life

forms in the Universe.’

The Doctor’s face hardened. ‘That’s not the same thing at

all. You don’t appreciate variety for its own sake. You

celebrate it only because of what it adds to yourselves. By

recreating other species in your own image, you’re making

mockery of life, denigrating the essence that makes each race

unique.’

‘We liberate other species, Doctor,’ the figure said. ‘We do

not destroy them. They grow stronger through us.’

‘No,’ the Doctor snapped, his face flushing with anger. ‘You

don’t liberate, you enslave. You absorb their individuality into

this great repository of yours and turn them into mindless

drones, creatures driven by nothing more than negative

rudimentary emotions and a basic hive mentality. Conquest

through absorption. It’s what the Cybermen do, and the

Wirrrn. It’s the most heinous crime in the universe.’

‘Soon you will become part of us, Doctor,’ the figure said,

its voices imbued with smugness. ‘Soon you will celebrate the

fact that all life exists within us just as we celebrate it.’

‘I don’t think so,’ the Doctor replied quietly.

‘You have no choice, Doctor. You are becoming us.’

‘I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong,’ the Doctor

countered. ‘I’ll never become you. I’ll never join you. I’ll never

see life through your eyes. In fact, I’m here to offer you the

chance to withdraw the infection you’ve set in motion on this

planet and leave before I get cross. Rather sporting of me, I

think you’ll agree.’

‘Withdraw the infection?’ The voices chuckled. ‘It is already

too late, Doctor.’

‘There’s an old Earth saying - it’s never too late. But then

you probably already know that.’ Steel entered the Doctor’s

voice. ‘You know as well as I do how you can withdraw the

contagion.’

‘Do we?’ the voices said innocently.

‘Yes. You can think it back.’

The Xaranti queen did not respond immediately and the

Doctor smiled and nodded. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? There are no

toxins, no germs, no bacteria involved in this infection of

yours. It’s psychological warfare, a thought-plague. You

simply release this gloop of yours into the water where it’s

ingested or absorbed, firstly by marine and then by animal

life. The gloop contains telepathic suggestions encoded at a

molecular level, which then persuade the host body that it is

metamorphosising. It’s an impressive feat, I’ll give you that,

making people change physically simply by planting the

belief that they’re going to do so inside their heads, but it’s

ultimately flawed. Because when it comes down to it, it’s

simply a question of mind over matter. All it takes is a

stronger mind than your own to expose the whole process for

the sham it is.’

The Xaranti queen spoke, and just for an instant its many

voices seemed to coalesce into something deep and

melodious, before splitting once again into its constituent

parts. ‘You are a clever man, Doctor. How did you come by

your discovery?’

‘Oh, process of elimination,’ said the Doctor airily. ‘There

was nothing very clever about it really. I ran some of the

infected material through an exhaustive programme of

analysis in the TARDIS, but could find no physical reason

why the infection was taking place. In desperation I dug out

an old lash-up of mine which reproduces thoughts as images,

and decided that if I couldn’t read the stuff physically I’d try

reading it mentally.’ He smiled. ‘The results were extremely

interesting, as I’m sure you can imagine. Improvisation has

always been my watchword.’

If the figure had been human it might have shaken its head

in dismissal. ‘Your discovery is not important,’ it said.

‘Nothing has changed.’

‘Oh, it has,’ the Doctor insisted, and, reaching into his

jacket pocket, drew out a flask of clear liquid and held it up.

Did the eyes opening and closing lazily within the

iridescent flux widen a little in alarm, or was that simply the

Doctor’s imagination? Certainly its many voices sounded

wary. ‘What is that?’

‘Antidote,’ said the Doctor brightly. ‘I threw it together in

the TARDIS.’ He unstoppered the flask and drank the

contents in three gulps.

The effects were almost instantaneous. The cloud of

Xaranti infection faded from the Doctor’s eyes, the spines on

his hands and neck withered and shrank until there was no

evidence that they had ever been there, and the hump on his

back deflated, enabling him to draw himself once more to his

full height.

‘You see?’ he said, holding the flask up. ‘Mind over matter.’

‘There is no mind that can combat ours, and therefore

there is no antidote,’ the figure said angrily. ‘It is a trick.’

‘You can’t deny the evidence of your own eyes,’ the Doctor

retorted. ‘I believed that this was an antidote and therefore it

became one. It destroyed your infection just as I can make

you believe it will destroy you.’

The mouths and eyes were forming and fading more rapidly

now, the flux quivering as if in agitation. ‘Your mind is no

match for ours, Time Lord,’ the figure said, its voice now

sounding like the hiss of its own creatures.

‘Isn’t it?’ said the Doctor mildly, and withdrew a second

flask from his other pocket. ‘Why don’t you take some of your

own medicine and find out?’

He hurled the flask at the metal column that contained the

ship’s energy core. The glass shattered against it, spraying

the figure with clear liquid that only the Doctor knew was tap

water from the TARDIS. Instantly the strange, shimmering

substance of the figure’s flesh began to blister and liquefy, to

blacken and steam. The Xaranti queen’s mouths opened in

unison and released a single, fractured, ear-splitting scream.

Words formed within the scream, high and undulating.

‘ Releeeease usssss...’

‘I’ll release you when you release this planet!’ the Doctor

shouted, and his voice became almost pleading. ‘Go now

before it’s too late!’

Without waiting for a reply he turned on his heels and

strode from the room.

Tegan opened her eyes and looked around. She saw a sea of

faces regarding her with wary alarm. She recognised none of

them; nor did she recognise the thin-faced young man who

was crouching beside her. She thought his eyes looked kind,

and relaxed slightly - then she noticed he was holding a gun.

‘Where am I?’ she demanded. She glared at the young man.

‘Who are you?’

‘Tegan,’ the young man said, surprising her with her name,

‘are you all right?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Uncertainty was making her angry.

Her glance swept across the group of people, many in

pyjamas and dressing gowns, still watching her as if she was

a wild animal they had cornered in the woods.

‘Her eyes look fine now,’ one old man said.

A large black man with a sweaty face who was wearing

some sort of grey-blue uniform that made Tegan think of

hospitals replied, ‘It could be a trick. I mean, she’s still got

those things all over her.’

Tegan looked down at her hands and bare arms and saw

black thorns jutting from her flesh. Her voice grew shrill with

panic. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening to me?’

‘It’s OK,’ the young man said gently, soothingly. ‘How much

do you remember?’

Tegan tried to think. ‘I remember... I remember leaving Sea

Base Four with the Doctor and Turlough. After that, it’s all a

blur.’

‘Look!’ a woman said suddenly, pointing at Tegan. ‘Look at

her arms!’

Tegan looked just as everyone else did, dreading what she

might see this time. But the thorns poking through her flesh

were beginning to shrivel, to shrink. In less than a minute

they had disappeared, the bloodless wounds they had made

closing up, leaving not so much as a blemish on her skin.

‘She’s beaten it,’ the woman who had pointed at her arms

gasped in awe.

‘I still think it’s a trick,’ the black man muttered.

The young man crouching beside her rounded on him. ‘Of

course it’s not a trick, Max. Don’t be so paranoid.’ He

holstered his gun, turned back to Tegan and took her hands.

Smiling, looking into her eyes, he said, ‘No, I really think

she’s cured.’

Turlough’s lungs were bursting. If his limbs were not being

held in a vice-like grip he would have been thrashing with

panic. The urge to breathe was almost overwhelming; he

wouldn’t be able to fight it for much longer, even though he

knew that sucking in a breath would fill him with nothing

but sea water. Sergeant Benton’s hand on the back of his

head was like a massive weight bearing down on his skull.

Turlough didn’t know whether the soldiers were trying to

drown him or infect him, and at that moment he didn’t much

care. All he wanted was to be allowed to breathe.

As soon as the TARDIS had de-materialised the soldiers

had moved in and grabbed him and carried him down to the

sea. Turlough had protested, but they had been wordless,

robotic. They had waded in almost to their waists before

dunking him under. It seemed a long, long time ago now

since he had last drawn breath, though it couldn’t have been

more than a minute or so.

I’m going to die! he thought, and the words were like

screams in his head. I’m going to die on this horrible planet in

this horrible century and it’s all the Doctor’s fault! He had

heard it said that drowning was a not unpleasant death, but

this was worse than any nightmare he had ever had. All at

once something clenched inside him, some instinctive

muscular contraction caused him to inhale, and suddenly

sea water was rushing up his nose and down his throat.

This time panic surged through him so powerfully that his

body jerked and spasmed in the soldiers’ hands. Then he was

floating, weightless, and he thought: This is it. This is death.

It took him a moment to realise that his limbs were free and

that there was no longer a hand gripping the back of his

skull, holding his head underwater. Turlough thrashed and

flapped, kicking down with his legs, trying to find solid

ground beneath him. He was disorientated, his lungs were as

painful as open wounds, and his heart was a thick, heavy

pulse that seemed to be squeezing his thoughts smaller and

smaller. The sea felt stronger than he was, the inexorable

suck of its tide upending him, dragging him along the sea

bed. Just as the crushing weight of unconsciousness

threatened to engulf him completely, his head broke the

surface of the water.

The sun was a hot, bright slap across his eyes. Turlough

desperately wanted to suck in air, but he emerged coughing

and retching, seawater rushing back up out of his mouth and

nose, tasting like blood. Finally the water stopped coming

and Turlough took a deep, gulping breath, then immediately

winced; his lungs felt bruised, as if he had been kicked

repeatedly in the ribs. He was still floundering in the water,

barely holding his head above the surface. Steadying himself,

he planted his feet firmly on the ground and stood up.

He was surprised to find that the sea only came up to his

thighs. He blinked, swiping water from his face, and saw that

he was facing the shore. The Brigadier, Sergeant Benton and

the four UNIT soldiers who had been holding him under were

behaving very curiously indeed. They were convulsing, their

faces twisted in anguish, as if a powerful electrical charge

was being passed through them. As Turlough watched,

astounded, the six men collapsed one by one, the Brigadier

on the beach, the others in the shallows as the froth of dying

waves fizzed around them. Up on the promenade, Xaranti

hybrids which Turlough had glimpsed patrolling to and fro

like border guards, were convulsing and collapsing in a

similar manner.

What was happening? Could it be something to do with the

Doctor? As if thinking about his friend had willed him to

return, Turlough heard the familiar grinding roar of the

TARDIS’s engines. Next moment, by the sea’s edge, a faint

blue outline shimmered into view and quickly solidified. The

door opened just as an extra-large wave surged up the beach

and slapped over the rim of the TARDIS, drenching the

emerging Doctor’s white cricket boots. He looked down at his

soaked footwear ruefully. ‘Slight miscalculation,’ he said.

Then, as the wave receded, he leaped out of the TARDIS and

ran across the wet sand towards the unconscious Brigadier.

‘Help me get these men inside,’ he shouted to Turlough,

heaving the Brigadier expertly on to his shoulders in a

fireman’s lift and jogging with him towards the TARDIS.

Turlough, dripping wet, waded towards the shore. He had

an entire skeleton of bones to pick with the Doctor. ‘You

abandoned me!’ he exclaimed, hearing the wheedling quality

in his voice that Tegan always commented upon, and hating

it. ‘I could have been drowned.’

‘Yes, yes, we’ll talk about that later,’ the Doctor said

briskly. ‘Now come on, we haven’t got much time.’

‘Before what?’ Turlough said.

The Doctor nodded up at the vast, drab bulk of the Morok

ship towering above them. ‘Before that thing takes off and

gives us all a tan we’ll never recover from.’

He disappeared into the TARDIS with the Brigadier and

emerged again almost immediately. Turlough sighed. He

could see now why Tegan always got so frustrated. She

simply never had time to sit down with the Doctor and

properly air her many grievances; there was always

something more urgent to do. He splashed through the

shallows and lifted Sergeant Benton’s legs while the Doctor

grabbed him under the armpits. ‘Where’s Tegan?’ Turlough

asked as they carried Benton’s solid bulk, made even heavier

by his wet clothes, into the TARDIS.

‘Safe,’ the Doctor said, lowering Benton’s dripping,

unconscious form to the floor of the console room, beside the

Brigadier.

As they carried the third soldier into the TARDIS, Turlough

exclaimed, ‘Doctor!’

‘What is it?’

‘The Xaranti infection. It’s vanished.’

It was true. With everything that had happened in the last

few minutes it was only now that Turlough had noticed the

spines on the men’s skin and the growing humps on each of

their backs had disappeared.

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, grinning. ‘Miraculous, isn’t it?’ He

laid the man next to his colleagues and ran out for the next

one, leaving any further explanations still-born.

Less than a minute later, the Doctor and Turlough were

hurrying towards the TARDIS with the last soldier. A few

steps from the open door, Turlough heard a dry, scuttling

sound and looked up. ‘Doctor!’ he called.

The incoming tide had perhaps another hundred yards of

sand to cover before it came up against the sea wall.

Swarming over that wall now, and dropping down on to the

beach thirty feet below, were dozens, perhaps hundreds of

mature Xaranti. They were moving strangely, lop-sidedly, like

injured crabs, scuttling and scrambling over one another in

their cluttering, high-pitched panic. They were moving in one

direction only, towards their mother-ship, which meant that

in another ten or fifteen seconds they would be swarming

over and around the TARDIS.

‘Inside, quickly!’ the Doctor said. He and Turlough covered

the gap to the TARDIS at a run, carrying the soldier between

them. They laid the man down, then the Doctor leaped across

to the console and yanked back the lever that closed the

TARDIS doors. Turlough, meanwhile, switched on the

scanner and watched as the bristling mass of Xaranti rushed

past them. Their purloined ship had extended ramps like

lolling tongues, which lapped up the Xaranti and gulped

them into the craft’s interior.

‘Time to go,’ the Doctor said from the console where he had

been setting co-ordinates. Turlough was unsure whether he

was referring to themselves or the Xaranti. The Doctor pulled

the lever that would propel the TARDIS into the Space/Time

vortex and then frowned.

‘Turlough,’ he said sternly, ‘you’re dripping on my floor.’

* * *

For two minutes after the TARDIS had de-materialised, the

Xaranti continued to pour into the Morok ship. At last they

were all aboard and the ramps that had extended to admit

them were retracted before the doors slid closed. Immediately

six portals, evenly-spaced around the body of the ship,

opened like eyes, and a cannon-like tube extended smoothly

from each one. These tubes extended so far, then bent

downwards in the middle at a forty-five degree angle, quickly

becoming jointed, telescopic supporting struts. As soon as

their tips had embedded themselves in the sand, there was a

deep rumbling sound and two large cavities opened at the

base of the Morok craft, one on each side. The gigantic

caterpillar tracks that had been used to trundle across the

sea-bed and up on to the beach lifted up from the sand,

tipped slowly sideways with a growling of powerful machinery

and folded themselves neatly into the belly of the ship.

Once the cavities had rumbled closed, sealing the

caterpillar tracks inside, the Morok ship looked less like the

kind of tank that could flatten houses and more like a

conventional space craft. There was a pause, then the ship

began to growl and shake as if building itself into a rage.

Slowly the growling increased in volume and pitch and the

shaking grew more intense until suddenly four columns of

fire - pink and orange threads twisting like agonised spirits in

the blinding whiteness - gouted from the massive thrusters at

the base of the ship, accompanied by black, boiling plumes of

smoke which sullied the pristine blue of the sky.

The supporting struts snapped back into the ship’s interior

as the columns of flame struggled to lift the Morok craft from

the expanding pool of boiling clinker it was bequeathing the

Earth. The ship seemed to groan, its engines screamed - and

then it was free, and lumbering skywards. It rose and rose

until it was nothing but a black speck trailing fire, and then

finally less than that - the merest glint of flame.

The tide rushed over the glowing pool of molten rock that

the ship’s departure had created, turning instantly to a

furiously hissing cloud of steam.

Mike and Charlotte had just finished filling Tegan in on the

events of the past two days when the materialising TARDIS

swept panic through the R and D unit. Charlotte scrambled

clear of the howling roar of the engines and ducked behind

the nearest bed. Max Butler took several steps backwards

before tripping over his own feet and plumping

unceremoniously on to his backside.

‘What the hell is that?’ Max cried, clearly at the end of his

tether.

‘The TARDIS, of course,’ Tegan said as if it was obvious.

Mike jumped up, raising his hands placatingly, as the craft

solidified and the roar of its engines faded. ‘There’s no need

to panic,’ he shouted, feeling like Corporal Jones in Dad’s

Army. ‘This is a friend. He’s come to help us.’

I hope, he thought, crossing his fingers, remembering that

the last time he had seen the Doctor he had been infected by

the virus. He tensed, his hand moving instinctively to the

butt of his holstered gun, as the TARDIS doors opened.

The Doctor stuck his head out and smiled. His eyes were

clear and normal, his skin unblemished. ‘Good afternoon,’ he

said expansively.

‘Are you OK, Doctor?’ Tegan asked.

He strode out, a dripping Turlough, rubbing his head

ruefully with a towel, in tow, and patted her on the shoulder.

‘Never better.’

‘What’s the situation, Doctor?’ Mike asked.

The Doctor turned to him. ‘The Xaranti have gone. I

managed to persuade them that humanity was a bit too

gristly for their tastes.’

‘And this infection of theirs?’ Charlotte asked, rising from

behind the bed.

‘I asked them if they wouldn’t mind taking their litter home

with them. They were only too happy to oblige.’

Mike’s hand dropped to his side again. ‘So everyone’s

cured?’

Suddenly the Doctor looked sombre. ‘Those who weren’t too

badly affected should recover relatively quickly. But there’ll

be a great many casualties. A large number of people won’t

recover from the injuries that the Xaranti persuaded them to

inflict on themselves.’

‘On themselves?’ Mike said. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

‘The catalyst for the infection was not viral or bacterial, but

mental, which was why it resisted conventional analysis. It

was caused by an incredibly powerful telepathic suggestion.

Pure thought in physical form.’ He looked around at the

roomful of blank faces and said hastily, ‘Yes, well, best not to

get caught up in idle chit-chat. I’ve got a console room full of

battle-weary soldiers in need of urgent medical attention.

Mike, if you would be so kind...?’

Several minutes later, the Brigadier, Sergeant Benton and

the four soldiers were laid out on the dormitory floor between

the two rows of beds, being attended to by the medical staff.

‘Will they be all right, Doctor?’ Mike asked, trying not to

sound anxious.

‘Good as new,’ the Doctor said encouragingly. ‘Their

systems have had a bit of a shake-up, that’s all.’

Max sidled up, regarding the Doctor a little suspiciously. ‘Is

it safe to leave this place yet?’ he asked.

‘Perfectly,’ said the Doctor, but stopped him as he turned

away, with a hand on the arm. ‘But there are some nasty

sights out there. Many of the people here will find them

distressing.’

Max met the Doctor’s eyes for a moment, then gave a brief

nod. ‘I’ll get on to it.’

‘Good man,’ said the Doctor. As Max left, he turned back to

Mike and thrust out his hand. ‘Well, we’d better be off.

Goodbye, Mike.’

Mike looked taken aback by the Doctor’s abruptness.

‘Aren’t you going to wait until the Brigadier wakes up?’

‘Best not, eh? That way we can avoid unnecessary

explanations.’

‘If his memory’s anything like mine,’ said Tegan, who had

risen to her feet and was now standing at the Doctor’s

shoulder, ‘he’s not going to know who we are. We’re going to

have to introduce ourselves all over again.’

‘Just so,’ said the Doctor.

‘All the same -’ Mike began to protest.

Turlough sneezed loudly.

The Doctor turned and patted his companion on the

shoulder, his hand splatting on sodden material. ‘Into the

TARDIS,’ he said. ‘Have a hot shower and put some dry

clothes on. I’ll make us all some cocoa.’

Tegan and Turlough entered the TARDIS. The Doctor

stepped after them. Just as he was about to disappear into

the strange eye-defying darkness beyond the doors, Mike

stepped forward and took hold of his arm. ‘Doctor?’

The Doctor looked back, blond hair swishing. ‘Yes?’

Mike suddenly realised he wasn’t sure what to say. ‘I just...

thanks for your help, Doctor.’

‘Thanks for yours,’ the Doctor said. An odd, unreadable

expression flitted across his eyes, and just for a moment

Mike had the impression that he was about to say something

momentous or significant. Then abruptly the Doctor said,

‘Goodbye,’ and, before Mike could respond, stepped smartly

in to the TARDIS, slamming the door behind him.

Document Outline

Front Cover

Back Cover

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four