Doctor Who BBCN05 - Only Human Read online

  Somebody’s interfering with time. The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack arrive on modern-day Earth to find the culprit – and discover a Neanderthal Man, twenty-eight thousand years after his race became extinct. Only a trip back to the primeval dawn of humanity can solve the mystery.

  Who are the mysterious humans from the distant future now living in that distant past? What hideous monsters are trying to escape from behind the Grey Door? Is Rose going to end up married to a caveman?

  Caught between three very different types of human being – past, present and future – the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack must learn the truth behind the Osterberg experiment before the monstrous Hy-Bractors escape to change humanity’s history forever. . .

  Featuring the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack as played by Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper and John Barrowman in the hit series from BBC

  Television.

  Only Human

  BY GARETH ROBERTS

  Published by BBC Books, BBC Worldwide Ltd,

  Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 0TT

  First published 2005

  Copyright c Gareth Roberts 2005

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Doctor Who logo c BBC 2004

  Original series broadcast on BBC television

  Format c BBC 1963

  ‘Doctor Who’, ‘TARDIS’ and the Doctor Who logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN 0 563 48639 2

  Commissioning Editors: Shirley Patton/Stuart Cooper Creative Director and Editor: Justin Richards Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC ONE

  Executive Producers: Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Mal Young Producer: Phil Collinson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Henry Steadman c BBC 2005

  Typeset in Albertina by Rocket Editorial, Aylesbury, Bucks Printed and bound in Germany by GGP Media GmbH

  For more information about this and other BBC books, please visit our website at www.bbcshop.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  ONE

  5

  TWO

  13

  THREE

  27

  FOUR

  35

  FIVE

  43

  SIX

  59

  SEVEN

  75

  EIGHT

  91

  NINE

  103

  TEN

  117

  ELEVEN

  129

  TWELVE

  137

  THIRTEEN

  143

  FOURTEEN

  155

  Acknowledgements

  165

  About the Author

  167

  My Weekend

  by Chantal Osterberg (aged 7)

  2 October AD 438,533

  On Saturday, our cat Dusty was giving the whole family too many wrong-feelings. She weed on the upholstery again. It’s nice to have pets to stroke, and we do love Dusty, but she has been too naughty recently. She gets in the way. Later a man over the road triped over her and broke his leg. That was inconvenient and the man needed a health-patch.

  That was when I took a long look at Dusty and decided she was very inefficient. Animals run about for no reason, and they must feel all sorts of odd sensations just like people used to. I thought it would be a good idea to improve Dusty so she would be happier and would understand not to be naughty.

  So I went to my room and got out my pen and paper. I had lots of ideas about improvements and I wrote them all down. Then I called Dusty into my room and set to work, using Mother’s cutters and things from her work-kit. First I took off her tail, which I consider to be a bit pointless in its present form, so I stretched it and made it scaly. Then I opened Dusty up and moved her organs about to make them more logical. Then I took her head off, pulled her brain out and studied it.

  It is very primitive, not really what you’d call a brain at all.

  1

  I got out one of Mother’s gene sprays and dialled it to make Dusty more ferocious at catching mice and better at breeding. I made it so she would never wee again. Then I put all her bits back together and took her downstairs to show to my parents.

  Unfortunately, the improved Dusty gave my parents wrong-feelings.

  They tried to catch her but she sped out of the door and I don’t think she’ll ever come back.

  All the mice are dead now. There was no need for mice, and eventually all cats will be like Dusty because of my cleverness. I like improving things.

  So that was my weekend.

  Bromley, 2005

  The young Roman examined himself in the mirror. He adjusted his purple robe and straightened the circlet of plastic laurel leaves on his head. He was very pleased with himself and how he looked, as usual.

  An astronaut walked in behind him, crossed over to the urinal and, with some difficulty, unzipped the flies of his silver space trousers.

  ‘Hey, Dean,’ he called over his shoulder to the Roman. ‘There’s a bloke here really giving Nicola the eye.’

  Dean felt a wave of anger rushing up inside him. Which was all right, because he liked feeling angry. Most of his Friday nights ended up like this. It didn’t take a lot.

  The astronaut finished and did up his flies.

  Dean came right up to him. ‘What bloke?’ he asked.

  ‘The caveman.’

  A few moments later, out by the bar, Nicola, who was dressed as a chicken, looked up at Dean through her beak. Oh no, not another scene, not another fight. She shouted to make herself heard over the thudding music. ‘Dean, it doesn’t matter!’

  Dean’s mate the astronaut was intent on firing him up. ‘He won’t leave her alone. Kept eyeing her up while you were in there. I told him she’s seeing you. . . ’

  2

  Dean looked around the club, over the crowded dance floor. He searched for a caveman among the clowns, schoolgirls, vicars and punks. ‘I’m gonna sort it,’ he said, feeling the energy crackle through his powerful body. He strode away into the crowd.

  Nicola jumped down from her stool and, clutching her golden egg, hopped after him in her three-clawed felt slippers. ‘Dean, leave it. It doesn’t matter! Dean, not again!’

  Dean found the caveman next to the cigarette machine. He was a short-arse, with a dirty black wig and what could have been someone’s old carpet wrapped round him. Dean came up behind him, taking long, powerful strides, and tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Oi, Captain Caveman!’ he shouted. ‘You wanna be careful what you’re hunting!’

  The caveman whipped round, and Dean had a moment to register two things about him: the costume was really good and he stank like a sad old brown pond. Before Dean could notice or do anything else, the caveman let out a terrifying high-pitched wail, bent like an animal and charged him in the middle.

  Dean went over backwards, crashing into a table.

  He heard

  screams, shouts, the smash of shattering glass. The music stopped mid-thud. Dean sprang back up and launched himself at the caveman, delivering his most powerful punch into his guts. The caveman staggered and then flung himself at Dean, jabbing with his strangely small fists. Dean shielded his face a
s he was driven back, the world spinning around him. Then he felt his legs kicked out from under him.

  He was twisted round and forced to his knees, and a muscular, hairy arm locked itself around his neck, squeezing with savage strength.

  Dean had the sudden feeling the caveman was going to kill him.

  Then the bouncers piled in, three heavy men in bomber jackets pulling the caveman off. Dean sank back, clutching at his throat, gasping for air, the iron tang of blood in his mouth. He looked up.

  The caveman was struggling with the bouncers, yelping again like a screaming child. He was uncontrollable. Two of the bouncers held him steady, the third smacked him in the jaw. He gave a final squawk 3

  and his head sagged forward.

  Dean was dragged to his feet by one of the bouncers, his head swimming. ‘I didn’t start it,’ he heard himself protesting. ‘He went mental.’

  Nicola’s face peered at him from inside the chicken’s beak. ‘That’s it! You are chucked!’

  Dean pointed feebly at the caveman, who was being dragged to a chair by the bouncers. The lights came on. ‘He just went mental,’ he repeated.

  The astronaut, Tony, stared at the caveman. ‘Not him,’ he said. ‘ Hi.’

  He pointed across the club to the mass of startled partygoers on the other side of the dance floor. A puny-looking guy stood there in a torn leopard skin, a comedy dinosaur bone hanging by his side.

  Nicola sighed. ‘I’m going.’ Then she cried out to a friend, ‘Cheryl, get us a taxi!’ and stalked off.

  Dean looked between the two cavemen. He nodded to the one he’d fought. ‘Who’s that, then?’

  Tony shrugged. He looked more closely at the unconscious caveman’s face. Under the mop of dirty black hair his bearded features were lumpy, with huge misshapen brows and cheekbones. ‘Dunno, but I think Notre-Dame’s missing a bell-ringer.’

  Dean felt himself being dragged out. Tony tagged along as usual.

  They headed for the kebab shop. A lot of their Friday nights ended up like this.

  It wasn’t surprising Tony didn’t recognise Dean’s opponent. After all, nobody in Bromley had seen a Neanderthal man for 28,000 years.

  4

  ‘You are gonna love this, Rose,’ enthused the Doctor as he leaped from panel to panel of the TARDIS console, his eyes alight with childish optimism in the reflected green glow of the grinding central column.

  As always, Rose felt the Doctor’s enthusiasm building the same an-ticipation and excitement in her. She grabbed the edge of the console as the TARDIS gave one of its customary lurches and smiled over at him. ‘Tell me more.’

  The Doctor spun a dial and threw a lever. ‘Kegron Pluva,’ he announced grandly.

  ‘OK,’ mused Rose. ‘That a person or a place? Or some sod of oven spray?’

  ‘Planet.’ The Doctor beamed. ‘It’s got the maddest ecosystem in the universe.’ He flung his arms about, demonstrating. ‘You’ve got six moons going one way, three moons going the other way, and a sun that onl orbits the planet! Forty-three seasons in one year. The top life form, it’s a kind of dog-plant-fungus thing. . . ’

  ‘Top dog-plant-fungus,’ laughed Rose.

  5

  ‘Yeah.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘Plus the water’s solid and everyone eats a kind of metal plum. . . ’

  Rose held up a hand. ‘Enough spoilers. Just let me see it.’ She was tingling with pleasure, goosebumps coming up on her arms at the prospect of stepping out from the TARDIS onto this bizarre alien world.

  ‘I’m really gonna regret pointing this out,’ said a third voice, ‘but. . .

  does that mean what I think it means?’

  Rose and the Doctor looked up to see Captain Jack, who had joined them in the control room and was pointing to one of the instruments built into the base of the console, a small black box which was emit-ting a steady flashing red light. He knelt down and fiddled with some buttons on the box.

  The Doctor joined him and slapped his hand playfully. ‘You’re still here, then,’ he said, shaking his head mock-ruefully. ‘I’ve gotta remember, put the parental control on.’

  Rose looked the captain over. He had obviously been plundering the Doctor’s incredibly extensive wardrobe in the depths of the TARDIS

  and was wearing an old-fashioned Merchant Navy outfit in blue serge with white piping.

  ‘Hello, sailor,’ she said, joining him and the Doctor under the console.

  Captain Jack smiled. ‘I wondered which one of you was gonna say that first.’

  Rose winced. ‘Could those trousers be any tighter?’

  ‘Is that a request?’ he asked with raised eyebrows, before returning his attention to the flashing light. ‘So, isn’t that a temporal distortion alert?’

  The Doctor pressed some buttons on the box and then he stood up.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve linked the relay to the screen so we can trace the distortion to its point of origin.’

  Rose and the captain stood up and looked over the Doctor’s shoulder as he hammered away at the keyboard under the TARDIS’s computer screen. A maze of graphics, in the incomprehensible alien script the Doctor always worked in, flickered across it, changing shape every 6

  time he pressed the return key.

  ‘Should be able to narrow it down in a bit,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Temporal distortion’s a bad thing, then?’ Rose surmised. ‘I don’t suppose it’s coming from Kegron Pluva?’

  The Doctor performed a final flourish on the keyboard and a row of alien symbols appeared on the screen with a satisfied beep. ‘No such luck,’ he said dismissively, gesturing to the screen. ‘Nobody on Kegron Pluva would be as stupid as. . . ’ He left the sentence unfinished, looking slightly awkwardly across at Rose.

  Rose recognised the tone of voice the Doctor reserved for dissing humans. ‘Oh, right, it’s coming from Earth,’ she said. ‘Interesting year?’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said the Doctor, and rattled at the keyboard again. Another row of symbols appeared. ‘Yeah,’ he said, intrigued.

  ‘Pretty interesting.’

  The captain read the display and turned to Rose. ‘Interesting, cos why the hell is someone using a dirty rip engine to travel to you time?’

  The Doctor performed another manoeuvre on the keyboard and got another result. ‘To visit Bromley,’ he added, mystified. He started adjusting the controls on the console, obviously changing course to the source of the distortion.

  Rose shrugged. ‘Ah, well. Kegron Pluva, Bromley. . . probably both about as weird.’

  Afternoon sunshine beamed down on Bromley’s library gardens. A solitary pensioner sat on a bench dedicated to some long-forgotten council dignitary, scattering crumbs from a paper bag to some excited pigeons and missing his poor dead wife. The regular boom of bass drifted over from the high street, where members of a local evangel-ical church were hoping to rap the Saturday shoppers into turning to the arms of Jesus. A lost dog sniffed around the flower beds wishing it had some canine company, unaware of the posters put up by its heartbroken owners.

  Then, in the far corner of the gardens, between a notice board and a dustbin, there came the rasping and grating sound of ancient un-7

  earthly engines. A light began to flash illogically in mid-air. Seconds later, the police box shell of the TARDIS had faded up from trans-parency. The pigeons scattered, the dog looked over curiously, but the pensioner, who was as good as deaf, didn’t notice at all.

  Rose was first out of the doors. She looked about and wondered why she wasn’t depressed by the familiarity, the utter ordinariness, of the scene. Then she remembered. Nowhere in the universe could be dull when the Doctor was at your side.

  ‘OK, boys,’ she called back through the doors. ‘Give me the technical stuff. Dirty rip engine?’

  The Doctor and Captain Jack emerged. ‘Really primitive, nasty way to time travel,’ said the Doctor. He nodded to the captain. ‘Even worse than his. Rip engines, they just punch a big hole in time. It gets mes
sy.’ He frowned for a second, looking round the gardens, and then his face burst out into one of its sudden dazzling smiles. ‘I’ve been here before. Used to be a brass band over there, every Sunday without fail. Everybody came down after church for a stroll. Lots of copping off, in an Edwardian way. You know, going as far as holding hands.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ asked Rose. ‘And whose hand were you holding?’

  ‘No one’s,’ said the Doctor casually.

  ‘Surprise,’ Jack commented ironically.

  The Doctor bit his lip. ‘I can’t remember the exact details of what happened that day. . . but I think nearly everyone survived.’

  Rose brought him back to the present. ‘And we care about this engine, because. . . ’ she prompted.

  The captain answered for him. ‘They blow up. That’s when people say, “Oh, so rip engines are a really primitive, nasty way to time-travel, let’s stop using them.” If they get the time before they’re atomised.’

  ‘We’ve gotta find whoever’s come here and stop ’em using it again to go back,’ said the Doctor, striding across the gardens towards the noise of traffic and people from the high street. ‘Or it could be “Goodbye, Bromley”, “Adios, Beckenham”, “Sayonara, Swanley”, “Thank you and goodnight, Orpington”.’

  Rose and the captain followed him.

  8

  ‘So it isn’t the whole universe in danger this time, just the whole of north Kent?’

  The Doctor shot her a gently reprimanding look.

  ‘OK, OK, I care,’ said Rose.

  They turned past the library into the high street. Rose knew the place very vaguely, but it had the usual homogenised look of all the town centres of her time, with the logos of familiar brands stretching up and down the shops on either side of the pedestrianised road. It was packed with shoppers and she could tell it was a Saturday by the numbers of children and teenagers. She saw the captain looking up and down and waited for his verdict.

  ‘So this is the home turf?’ he said at last.

  ‘Not really, but near enough.’

  A small knot of people about Rose’s age passed by and the captain nodded. ‘And some of them are as pretty as you.’