Doctor Who BBCN13 - Sting of the Zygons Read online

  said Ian.

  ‘Must be a weapon, then,’ Victor reasoned, ‘or else why hold on to it while attacking a moving carriage?’

  ‘Maybe it pulled this thing out of the carriage,’ said Martha slowly.

  ‘Before the crash threw it clear!’

  Ian nodded. ‘You could be right!’

  ‘But. . . Zygons stealing from other Zygons?’ Martha frowned. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Victor. ‘But if that carriage came from here, our friend outside may be very keen to get back its property. Perhaps we can trade this thing for our freedom?’

  ‘And the Doctor’s,’ said Martha. She crossed to the door and banged on it. ‘Oi, Zygon!’ she shouted. ‘We want to talk. We’ve got something to show you.’

  Silence.

  ‘Maybe if it gets a whiff of the stuff,’ Ian suggested, passing her the root. ‘You could squeeze a drop under the door. . . ’

  ‘Worth a go,’ Martha agreed, jamming the root into the gap between door and floorboards.

  The clunk of the key turning a second later was the only warning Martha got. She grabbed the root and scrambled backwards across the floor as the door was kicked open. The Zygon filled the doorway like a hideous demon, hissing like a rattlesnake. Ian and Victor scrambled over the bed to get some distance from it.

  ‘Where is the ration?’ the creature snarled, salivating as it lumbered into the darkened room. ‘Give it to me.’

  Martha spied a crack in the floorboards beside her. ‘Stay back!’ she warned the Zygon, holding the root over the split. ‘Or I’ll empty this and you won’t get a drop.’ The creature froze, while its shadow raged around the walls in the flickering lamplight. ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘Your. . . your carriage crashed,’ Ian stammered. ‘It was attacked by your own people.’

  ‘No. You stole it.’ The Zygon took a threatening step closer to Martha. ‘And I must feed.’

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  ‘Got it,’ said Martha. ‘This stuffs Skarasen milk, isn’t it? The Doctor said you all need its lactic fluid to survive.’

  ‘Give me the ration,’ the Zygon hissed.

  ‘Why is it being rationed?’ Martha rose shakily to her feet. ‘Because one of your Skarasens is dead, is that it? And the other one isn’t making enough to go round?’

  A hideous blocked-drain sound came retching from the Zygon’s throat as it broke into a stumbling run, arms reaching out towards Martha.

  ‘Fetch!’ she yelled, hurling the root into the far corner of the room.

  The Zygon turned clumsily towards the precious ration. Then Victor shoulder-charged the creature, knocking it onto the bed. ‘Everybody run!’ he shouted.

  Martha led the rush for the door. Victor followed first, and then Ian, who slammed the door shut and turned the key, locking the Zygon inside. ‘It wasn’t bothered with us,’ he panted, ‘it went after that milk stuff.’

  ‘It acted like it was half-starved,’ Martha agreed. ‘If the Zygons are that desperate for lactic fluid, it could explain why they attacked the carriage to get their fix of the stuff.’ She gasped. ‘And if we got our hands on it, we could maybe bargain it for the Doctor’s release!’

  Someone groaned behind them, as if taking issue. Nanny Flock was recovering. ‘I’d managed to forget about her.’ Martha crossed quickly to help her up. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘My head hurts,’ she mumbled.

  Martha examined it. ‘You’ve got a nasty lump but the skin’s not broken.’

  Nanny Flock pulled crossly away, felt her head for herself. ‘What happened?’

  A loud banging started up behind the downstairs bedroom door.

  ‘ That did,’ said Ian nervously.

  ‘We’ll explain on the way,’ said Victor, helping the bony woman to her feet.

  ‘I can manage, thank you,’ she informed him primly.

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  Then the bedroom door was smashed off its hinges. The heavy oak flew across the hall and crashed into Nanny Flock, slamming her to the floor.

  Martha winced. ‘Not her day, is it?’ She grabbed hold of Ian’s hand and they backed away as the Zygon strode out into the hall, blocking the way to the front door.

  ‘A quick feed seems to have done it a deal of good.’ Victor observed, running to join them.

  ‘Out the back way.’ cried Martha, hurrying towards the kitchen.

  ‘Come on!’

  With a rasping, gurgling hiss, the Zygon strode after them.

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  IntheweirdlylitgrottooftheZygonlaboratory,theDoctorhadbeen working on the activator for over an hour. Now and then, Felic would stop to query a procedure or advise on the crystal calibration.

  But the Zygon was being annoyingly evasive when it came to the real questions on the Doctor’s mind.

  Even so, there was no harm in trying.

  ‘To be going to all this trouble to gain control over a rogue Skarasen,’ he said, ‘presumably you’ve either got lots and lots of them and you can see the problem arising again. . . Or else you’ve got very few. Maybe even just one.’

  ‘This matter does not concern you,’ hissed Felic.

  ‘It concerns me a lot,’ the Doctor snapped, pulling off his glasses. ‘I know what just one of your pets can do. And I guess it must concern someone else pretty badly too, or else why would they kill the first Skarasen?’

  Felic remained impassive. ‘Continue the work.’

  ‘I saw the state of the Skarasen corpse on the lakeshore,’ the Doctor persisted. ‘Who did it? Why are they after you?’

  ‘We destroyed the Skarasen adult,’ the Zygon said quietly.

  The Doctor stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘What?’

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  ‘The stellar catastrophe that damaged our ship also affected the brain-computer interfaces of our Skarasens.’

  ‘Supercharged particle emission?’

  Felic looked away. ‘We did not realise the problem until the two beasts were fully reared beneath the waters here. The brain tissue became inflamed. Our creatures became. . . deranged. Attempts at diastellic therapy in the adult only aggravated the inflammation. The feedback swamped the control cortex and caused. . . ’

  ‘Yeah.’ The Doctor pictured the blackened remains of the Skarasen’s steel skull. ‘Yeah, I saw what it caused.’

  ‘We tried to recall the juvenile here –’

  ‘Where it ran amok through the village.’

  ‘Its brain is shutting down. This is why it lies stupefied in the lake.’

  Felic hissed heavily. ‘It must be removed and secured long enough to carry out the correct therapies. Or else it too will die.’

  ‘Only you don’t have the strength to secure it yourselves, now, do you?’ The Doctor watched him closely. ‘You’ve tried, you just get mauled. Your little outpost here is dying, just as Taro said. No food, no strength, no protection. And if this Skarasen dies now, so will you.

  Which is why you’ve manipulated the humans into capturing it for you.’

  ‘Proceed with the work,’ said Felic.

  ‘You know, I thought at first some alien hunter was after you and your Skarasens.’ The Doctor gave a mock laugh. ‘How wrong was I?

  There’s no one after you, no danger of innocent humans being caught in the crossfire of some alien vendetta. Nah, it’s just you Zygons –killing people, stealing away their loved ones and replacing them with your kind. . . ’

  ‘Work!’ the Zygon demanded.

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘You’ve tricked these people, goaded them into the hunt, let your creation kill and destroy so they have no choice but to go after it. You’ve pointed out its hiding places to them, because you know that if they leave it alone it’ll die, and you with it. Their troubles would be over.’ He looked coldly into the black pits of the Zygon’s eyes. ‘Yeah. Clever con. That’s the real sting of the 104

  Zygons.’

  ‘Humans are an inferior species,’ Felic argued calmly. ‘But we are few
and they are many. If we sought their help openly, they would destroy us.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ the Doctor argued.

  ‘Brelarn knows.’ said Felic. ‘He has proclaimed it. That is enough.’

  He resumed his dispassionate study of the Doctor’s circuits. ‘To such as us, the humans are as easy to mimic as they are to provoke. The events we have set in motion will lead not only to our assured survival, but to the triumph of the Zygons over all the Earth.’

  With the angry rasping of the Zygon not far behind, Martha pelted through into Mrs U’s kitchen with Ian and Victor. She practically hurled herself against the door leading to the garden – then cursed under her breath. It was locked, and the key was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Is Nanny dead?’ asked Ian, white-faced.

  ‘I’m pretty sure she was still breathing.’ said Martha, searching desperately for the key on the kitchen table. ‘We’ll get help and come back for her.’

  Victor grabbed a rolling pin and smashed open the window, grinding the wood against the frame to clear the jagged fragments remaining. At the same time, Ian and Martha shoved the table over to block the door.

  She caught a glimpse of blood-orange striding through the shadows towards them.

  ‘Come on, urchin!’ Victor called, clambering carefully through the window.

  Martha helped Ian climb after him and started to follow. She heard the Zygon hiss and the table screech against slate tiles as it was shoved violently aside. Ian and Victor helped her struggle uninjured through the window into the courtyard. The bright sunshine and blue sky made it hard to imagine the nightmare creature inside could be real.

  The angry, inhuman bellow suddenly made it a lot easier.

  ‘We’ve got to get to your car,’ gasped Martha, setting off at a run around the side of the house. ‘Put some distance between us and that 105

  thing.’

  ‘It will hear me trying to start the engine up,’ Victor told her, slowing to a halt. ‘It could just stroll out and get us.’

  Oh, for electric ignition, thought Martha.

  ‘We could get back to Goldspur on foot,’ Ian suggested.

  ‘Lot of open countryside between here and there.’ said Victor, ‘and if the Zygon’s got pals abroad. . . ’

  ‘Then we hide,’ Martha declared, getting her bearings and setting off again. ‘We try to make it think we’ve run for it. Come on – the stables.’

  ‘Why the stables?’ Ian wondered.

  ‘Because they stink,’ she said. ‘You saw how quickly the Zygon smelt its dinner-maybe all the muck in there will mask the smell of us.’

  It didn’t take long to reach the now empty stables. Ian and Victor followed Martha inside, right to the back. Their footsteps through the wet straw sounded like pistol cracks in her ears, but she couldn’t hear the Zygon. Trying not to imagine what she must be stepping in, and trying harder not to gag at the stench, she settled down in the thickest shadows of the stall, Ian and Victor crouching beside her. Flies buzzed around them.

  ‘It smells like something crawled in here and died.’ hissed Ian, speaking through his shirtsleeve.

  Martha nodded. There was something hard beneath the straw.

  Something they could use to defend themselves? She felt with her fingers.

  And touched someone else’s.

  For a moment, Martha didn’t dare look down. The fingers were hard and cold. She felt a lacy cuff on a wrist, snatched her fingers away. Saw a silver bracelet with a charm in the shape of a ‘C’.

  ‘What is it?’ Victor whispered.

  Martha moved some of the damp straw away to reveal a woman’s arm, a white apron-string loose at the shoulder.

  ‘ Always sticking her beak into other people’s business, was Clara, ’ Mrs Unswick had said, smiling in her sitting room.

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  ‘Oh my god. . . ’ Martha said quietly. Steeling herself, she looked down and saw the gleam of a knife protruding through the straw, wedged squarely in the maid’s back.

  ‘ She made off in the night with some of my best silver! ’

  ‘Martha?’ Victor asked again.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Martha, mindful of Ian beside her. ‘I just –’

  ‘Shh!’ Ian whispered.

  Over the thrum of her heart, Martha could hear padding footsteps outside. The Zygon had stolen Mrs Unswick’s body and killed Clara, presumably because she’d seen too much. The clothes Martha had found in the wardrobe, they hadn’t been left for her at all – only left behind. Now, for certain, she knew the creature would not hesitate to butcher them in cold blood.

  She held her breath, covered her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her cardigan, shuddered as she realised it belonged to this corpse. She felt Ian press his face against her shoulder, heard the ragged breathing of the thing outside, and wondered if their scent would carry over the wet straw, horsehair and filth. And if so, would it put the human stench down to poor Clara, or would it know that they. . .

  No. At last, the Zygon moved away, its sticky footsteps slapping down in a hurry over the cobbles.

  ‘All right,’ Victor whispered. ‘We’ll stay here for a few minutes, check the coast is clear, get the motor started, check on Miss Flock and push off sharpish.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Martha shakily. Ian and Victor both got up, but she lingered for a moment longer to place her hand on the dead girl’s shoulder. I’m wearing your clothes, she thought. But I’m not going to end up in your shoes. Me and the Doctor, we’ll get those things that killed you, and. . .

  Oh, Doctor, where the hell are you?

  ‘Come on,’ Ian whispered.

  Leaving Clara behind in the fetid straw and darkness, Martha crept away after him.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  107

  The harsh swipe of a door sliding upwards made both Felic and the Doctor turn. A familiar golden-haired child stood swaying in the mouth of the Zygon laboratory.

  ‘Well, well, here’s our friendly ghost.’ The Doctor watched as the little girl shuffled inside the lab, blank-faced – and with an identical twin following just behind her. ‘Hang on, who’s that, then? The real Molly Melton?’

  But that theory was blown out of the water as Mollies three and four came into the lab. Then the first began to glow red, her childish features began to twist and distort. . .

  Suddenly the Doctor was looking at a small, underdeveloped creature with pale, maggoty skin, stumpy limbs and dark shining eyes.

  Nodules stuck out from the head and chest like wet mouths in the flesh. And now the other three Mollies were changing too, warping through the crimson haze into near-identical creatures.

  ‘Children.’ breathed the Doctor. ‘It’s your children you’re using.’

  One of the pale figures sank to its knees, and he stooped to examine it. But Felic pulled him back with a warning rattle.

  Then Brelarn strode into the laboratory, holding another of the pale, slimy children in his arms. The synchron response in these hatchlings is failing.’ he announced. ‘They must return to the amber.’

  ‘So this is how Molly Melton makes her spooky visitations to hunters all over the Lakes.’ said the Doctor, a sneer in his voice. ‘Child labour.

  You really are desperate, aren’t you, Brelarn?’

  ‘In war, all must play their part.’ came the harsh whisper. Brelarn set down the twitching figure in his arms on the floor and marched over to the Doctor. ‘The hatchlings are not yet mature. They are mute, with only limited intelligence, and scant feeling for strategy. But they cover the ground swiftly, and body-print compatibility is –’

  They’re kids!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘Look at them! Half-starved and worked to the point of exhaustion.’

  Brelarn gripped the Doctor’s cheeks hard between fingers and thumb. ‘They are my hatchlings.’ he whispered. ‘They are proud to serve me.’

  ‘Well, you did say they had limited intelligence.’ The Doctor felt 108

  sharp, prickling points pressi
ng at his skin, but he was too angry to let things go. ‘If your own hatchlings are starving, how bad must your soldiers have it? Who are they impersonating in the human world?

  Can’t be anyone too taxing – no wonder “Mrs Unswick" had to have a lie down today, no wonder the trooper I met on the moor this morning was so feeble.’ He flashed a small, squashed but defiant smile. ‘And no wonder you need me so badly to fix the situation for you.’

  With a low growl, Brelarn pushed the Doctor to the floor. Then he turned to Felic. ‘Prepare the hatchlings for the amber.’

  Felic was already scraping a fine, dark powder from the sides of an orifice in the glowing wall. ‘Yes, Brelarn.’

  The warlord left the room, and the door whooshed down behind him.

  ‘What is the amber, Felic?’ the Doctor asked, jumping back up to his feet. ‘Some sort of suspended animation?’

  The Zygon grunted. ‘This powder will hold them stable in the long sleep until nourishment can be given.’ He lifted one of the hatchlings and placed it on a kind of sticky cradle of red sponge growing out of the wall. But the effort seemed to leave him exhausted, and he had to wait a few moments before turning to scoop up the next. ‘Return to the work,’ he wheezed. ‘Your friend will die if you delay.’

  ‘Who’s delaying?’ The Doctor picked up the third infant from the ground and passed it to Felic with a winning smile. ‘I think this little lash-up is about ready to try.’ He pulled a face. ‘Of course, if the juvenile Skarasen’s brain is impaired, we may still have some problems maintaining control. That’s not a problem in the device, it’s a problem in your Skarasen’s head – so if anything goes wrong, you can’t hurt my friend, got it?’

  ‘You are a prisoner.’ Felic placed the last of the infants in a cradle and wiped black powder about its lips. ‘You cannot dictate terms.’

  ‘Oh? That’s a pity.’ The smile crept back onto his face as he waggled the device and his sonic screwdriver in front of Felic. ‘Because since these are my toys and no one can work them better than me, I reckon that makes me best qualified to put the Skarasen under the ‘fluence so you can work those cyborg synapses.’