Night Of The Humans Read online

  With a terrific whoosh, the Golden Bough rose up into the dark sky, and the Doctor, Amy, Charlie and Slipstream carried on running across the salt plain, towards the swamp's edge. As they neared it, they saw countless Sollogs, their bodies liquefying into a greenish ooze, lying in the salt.

  'What's happening to them?' Amy asked, still running.

  'It's the comet,' the Doctor replied. 'They're running scared, and they don't care where they're running.'

  'Kind of like us, then?' said Amy.

  The Doctor smiled at her. 'Well, I'm not scared. You scared?

  I'm not scared.'

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  'Yeah, pull the other one.'

  Twenty metres ahead of them, the ground burst open as yet another sliver of the comet slammed into the Gyre. Salt crystals and lumps of misshapen metal came raining down around them, but they didn't stop running.

  'OK,' said the Doctor. 'Maybe just a little bit.'

  They ran around the outer edge of the crater left by the last fragment, and Amy saw how it went down, deep below the surface of the salt plain, its centre filled with bubbling, molten metal. The thought that one of those things could hit any of them at any given moment, and that there was nothing they could do about it, filled her with terror, a terror that coursed through her veins and made her run even harder and faster than before.

  She looked at the Doctor, and wondered if he really did feel fear. If he did, it didn't show in his face. He looked like he had done this, or something like this, a thousand times before.

  Based on her experiences with him so far, she'd say he probably had, and this made her feel very suddenly that little bit safer.

  When they reached Bird, Charlie's helipod, Slipstream stopped running, struggling to catch his breath, and he braced himself on his knees.

  'That thing?' he said. 'We're flying in that contraption!'

  Charlie nodded.

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  'Are you insane, man? It's like a child's toy!'

  'I know! said Charlie. 'Two of us'll have to hold on to the outside.'

  He looked from Slipstream to the Doctor and back again.

  'Oh, I see! said Slipstream. 'So I take it I'm one of the two, then?'

  'Yes! Charlie replied bluntly. 'You are.'

  Without further hesitation, he opened up the helipod's hatch and climbed inside, inviting Amy to join him. Amy turned back to the Doctor.

  'You should get in! she said. 'Charlie can take us back to the TARDIS, but you're the only one who can fly it. You should be inside, where it's safer.'

  The Doctor looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite read. He looked surprised, sad and deeply moved, all at the same time.

  'No! he said. 'No. You get in. I'll be fine. Trust me.'

  Amy nodded and climbed into the helipod, and then Charlie closed the hatch behind them. Seconds later, the engines whirred into life, and the twin horizontal propellers behind the cabin began chopping at the air. The Doctor took up his position to one side of the craft, his feet balancing precariously on one of its runners, clinging by his fingertips to the cabin's roof. He looked at Slipstream. 'Are you coming?' he asked.

  Slipstream looked back across the salt plain; 197

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  at the smouldering craters that pockmarked its glistening surface and at the fires that had broken out in the human city.

  He sighed and closed his eyes, then he climbed onto the helipod. The Doctor slapped his hand twice on the cabin roof, and they took off.

  Inside the cabin, Amy and Charlie sat squeezed into a seat designed for one.

  'OK. Where are we going?' asked Charlie.

  'Take us to the TARDIS! Amy replied. 'Remember? Back where you found us?'

  Charlie nodded. He lifted a small receiver to his mouth, and twisted a dial on the dashboard.

  'Golden Bough, Golden Bough...' he said. 'This is Bird 1. Are you receiving me? Over.'

  There was a moment's near silence at the other end of the line, when all they could hear was the faint hiss of static, but then...

  'Hearing you loud and clear, Bird 1.' It was the voice of Captain Jamal. 'What is your location? Over.'

  'We're heading back to the copper valley, to the Doctor's ship. He can bring us to you. Over.'

  'Copy that, B ird 1.'

  Another pause, but Amy was sure she could hear the Captain breathing at the other end of the line.

  'I'm so glad you're OK... Charlie,' he said at last, his voice now trembling with emotion.

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  'Copy that, Dad,' said Charlie. 'Over and out.'

  They flew west, over the tangled black nest of plastic tubes and putrid green waters of the swamp. The helipod flew only a short distance above the tubes, the downdraft from its propellers striking a series of ghostly, atonal chords as they passed over them.

  The Doctor rapped his knuckles against the window three times.

  'What is it?' Amy asked.

  The Doctor pointed skywards.

  'Higher!' he mouthed. 'We need to go higher!'

  Amy turned to Charlie. 'He says we need to go higher.'

  'Well we can't,' Charlie replied. This thing isn't designed to carry this kind of weight.'

  Thunk-thunk-thunk. The Doctor was knocking at the window again, and still peering in at them both.

  'Higher!' he mouthed, pointing at the sky. 'Go! Higher!'

  Amy shrugged helplessly, and then she heard a heavy thud, and the back end of the helipod seemed to dip back, as if burdened with yet another passenger.

  'What was that?' she asked. 'Charlie... What was that?'

  Charlie leaned to one side, trying to see what had happened in one of the helipod's mirrors.

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  'Not sure! he replied. 'But it didn't sound good.'

  Something was happening outside the cabin. The Doctor was balancing with one foot on the runner, and frantically kicking at something out of Amy's view. Slipstream, meanwhile, edged his way towards the front of the helipod's cabin, as if he was backing away from something. The Doctor pulled himself back, and now both he and Slipstream were nearing the nose of the helipod, both still facing backwards, wide-eyed and almost paralysed with fear.

  There was a heavy but somehow soggy-sounding thump as something landed on the transparent ceiling of the cabin, and Amy looked up to see a single, suction-cup foot stuck to the glass.

  'Oh no! she said, and then again, 'Ohhh no.'

  Another slimy foot came down and attached itself to the cabin roof. Then another. And another.

  The Sollog crept its way out over the top of the helipod, so that it was almost blocking Charlie's view of the landscape ahead. Its eight feet hit the glass with a series of sickening plops as it drew closer to the Doctor and Slipstream.

  'Please let it eat Slipstream... please let it eat Slipstream...'

  said Charlie, and Amy looked at him, shocked though not necessarily appalled.

  'Do something!' she said.

  'Like what?'

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  'I don't know. Try jiggling it up and down.'

  'Jiggling it up and down? What does jiggling mean?'

  'You know... jiggling. Go up and down. Try shaking it off.'

  'Right. OK. Jiggling.'

  Charlie gripped the helipod's control column and began shaking it vigorously. The whole craft shuddered in mid air, its nose tipping suddenly towards the ground and then jolting back up again. The Doctor and Slipstream both stumbled back, barely managing to hold on, and the Sollog staggered clumsily from side to side.

  'Do it again!' Amy shouted.

  Charlie nodded, and once again the helipod jolted up and down. This time the Sollog lost its footing altogether, and was sent skidding back across the roof, emitting a monstrous, high-pitched scream as it fell. There was a sickening splatter and crunch as it was sucked into one
of the propellers, and a bright green gunk was sprayed out in all directions.

  Hit full force by the shower of slime, the Doctor and Slipstream fell from sight.

  'No!' Amy screamed, her hands pressed flat against the glass.

  She couldn't see either of them. All that was visible, through the film of green slime now drizzling down the window, were the smouldering

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  mounds of junk and the burning craters below them.

  Then, with a heavy thump, a single hand came up and grasped the helipod's nose. It was followed, seconds later, by another, and then she saw the Doctor, pulling himself up. He was covered in what looked all too much like snot, and was far from amused. Bracing himself against the winds and the jolting movements of the helipod, the Doctor leaned around the nose of the craft. Reaching out with his hand and straining with all his strength, he lifted Slipstream up to safety.

  'Did he have to do that?' said Charlie, shaking his head.

  'Yes,' Amy replied, and then, as if it were self-explanatory,

  'He's the Doctor.'

  A red light started flashing on the dashboard, and a loud repeated buzzing sound filled the cabin.

  'What's that?' asked Amy.

  Charlie took in a deep breath and winced.

  'We've lost engine one,' he said. 'We're going down.'

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  19

  The helipod clipped the razor-sharp ridge above the valley, and the jagged metal sliced through one of its runners like a hot knife through butter, narrowly missing the Doctor's foot.

  For just a fraction of a second, the craft seemed to recover, rising up above the valley, its single working engine howling with the effort, but then it plummeted again. The runners met the ground with a terrific screech, showers of bright orange sparks erupting in their wake.

  The Doctor looked at Slipstream across the nose of the helipod. Though only an hour or so earlier the man had tried to kill him, the Doctor took no pleasure in seeing him look quite this terrified.

  'Hold on tight!' he shouted.

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  With its runners still squealing against the embankment of scrap metal, the helipod raced down the hillside like a toboggan, every slight bump causing it to shudder violently.

  Inside the cabin, Amy and Charlie were helpless at the controls. There was nothing they could do now but wait for the moment when they would reach the bottom.

  That moment came a split second later, when the helipod came to a sudden, crashing halt. The Doctor and Slipstream were flung clear of the craft, tumbling end over end through the dust and the refuse.

  Landing awkwardly on his back, the Doctor coughed and spluttered and groaned with pain before getting to his feet. The dust and debris were beginning to settle, and he saw the helipod resting nose-first in a mound of scrap. Its hatch creaked open, and Amy and Charlie climbed out, both still dazed by the impact.

  'Where's Slipstream?' Amy asked, as she made her way toward the Doctor.

  Scanning the bottom of the valley, the Doctor saw Slipstream lying face down and spread-eagled. He ran to his side, and turned him over. He was still breathing, but his eyes were closed.

  'He's OK,' said the Doctor. 'Unconscious, but OK.'

  'That's a shame,' said Charlie. 'Can't we just 204

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  leave him here?'

  'No!' shouted the Doctor and Amy in unison.

  'Joke! It was a joke! Well... kind of.'

  Charlie shook his head. Leaning forward he lifted Slipstream from the ground with surprising strength and in one swift move hoisted him onto his shoulder.

  'Right!' said the Doctor, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. 'The TARDIS!'

  They ran through the valley, away from the upturned, buckled wreckage of the helipod. All they could hear now was the heavy, thunder-like boom of the comet's fragments slamming into the Gyre; a distant, monstrous drumbeat that rumbled and echoed through the night.

  It crossed the Doctor's mind, for just one terrifying moment, that when they got to the TARDIS they would find it smashed into a million pieces at the bottom of a gaping crater.

  Nothing was certain any more. His mind was plagued with the image of the humans in their makeshift theatre, watching ancient films on a sagging canvas screen. He replayed that moment over and over again in his mind, trying to think of something else he could have said or done, something that would have convinced them to join him.

  But then what would he have done? Would a hundred of them have made it across the swamp full of Sollogs? Would even two more have been

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  able to cling to the helipod? As much as it pained him, he had to face the fact that there was little he could have done.

  At least, he told himself, Amy was OK. More than OK, in fact.

  The little girl from Leadworth with the monster in her wall, the little girl who had waited so patiently for his return, was running across this terrifying alien landscape with a confidence that took him almost by surprise. If leaving the other humans here to meet their fate was a loss, then having Amy beside him took some of the pain out of losing.

  And the TARDIS was exactly where they had left it, and in one piece.

  When it first appeared around the corner, Amy turned to the Doctor, beaming, and he smiled back, and together they ran the rest of the journey, even faster than before. The Doctor stood before the TARDIS, placing his hands on its bright blue wooden exterior. He laughed with relief, and then he opened the door and ran inside, and Amy followed.

  'Home again, home again!' said the Doctor, gazing up at the ceiling of the control room. 'Did you miss me? I missed you...'

  'Er... you do know that you're talking to it?' said Amy, standing at his side.

  'Oh yes. And she can hear every word.'

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  through the open door. When he was only a little way in, he dropped him to the ground and gasped.

  'It's... it's...'

  Amy and the Doctor spoke as one: 'Bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?'

  Charlie nodded, and the Doctor and Amy gave each other a

  'high five'. The Doctor turned to Amy and frowned.

  'I'm not sure about that.'

  'About what?'

  'The high five.'

  'Are you not?'

  'No. Are you?'

  'Hmm. Not really, no.'

  'Right. I just thought I'd try it out for size, but now... No.

  I'm not so sure.'

  'OK. Well let's not do it again.'

  'OK.'

  'Right.' The Doctor turned to Charlie. 'Charlie... shut the door. Amy... see if you can wake up Sleeping Beauty over there. And let's get out of here.'

  'Aye aye, captain! said Charlie, offering a mock salute and slamming the door shut.

  The Doctor rubbed his hands together and began operating the controls of the TARDIS, pressing buttons and pulling levers. The columns in its central console rose and fell, glowing with

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  an otherworldly brilliance, and the room was filled with a metallic roar, the sound of time and space itself being folded as easily as a child might fold a piece of paper.

  In the valley of ancient scrap metal, and in a blaze of white light and crackling bolts of electricity, the TARDIS vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  Seconds later, in an eruption of fire and debris, the valley itself was destroyed by another hurtling fragment from the comet Schuler-Khan.

  Manco sat at the base of the tower which had once been the Herald of Nanking, and he looked up at the grinning, cartoon face of Gobo. He thought about the Doctor, and his friends, and even Slipstream, and he wondered if they had made it.

  All around him, his people cowered before the tower on their hands and knees and begged Gobo to sa
ve them. He couldn't bring himself to tell them it was all a lie. They wouldn't listen and, besides, what comfort would that bring them?

  Better, he decided, to leave them clinging on to hope. After all, for all the knowledge he now had, what hope had it given him? As scared as those around him might be, he was the only one who understood how truly desperate the situation was.

  He thought now about the three Sittuun who had come to their city, and told them about the 'comet'. He remembered how desperate they had

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  sounded, when they explained their mission and what would happen if it failed. They had talked of a dozen neighbouring worlds, places the humans had never heard of. Billions of lives.

  It was a figure Manco had never even considered. Django had simply laughed at them before passing his sentence, condemning them to death.

  And now Django was out there, somewhere, doing everything he could to stop the Sittuun, mindless of what would happen to all those other worlds, and all those other people.

  Manco was lost in these thoughts when all around him the people began screaming. He looked around and saw them gazing up, still wailing, and pointing at yet another blazing fireball as it tore across the sky.

  It smashed into the tower, straight into the colossal face of Gobo, punching a hole straight through the enormous metal structure and erupting from the other side in a great big ball of fire and tumbling debris. The image of Gobo was no more, a gaping, smouldering cavern all that was left. Shards of metal rained down into the city's streets. With an echoing metallic groan, the back end of the Herald of Nanking began to collapse, falling away from the rest of the structure and crashing down onto the city.

  Its scale was so vast that it seemed to move quite slowly. It hit the ground with a deafening

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  crunch, tons of metal caving in and disintegrating on impact, and a volcanic plume of dust was flung up into the air.

  Manco could only look on in awe, while those around him ran screaming from the dust cloud.