Night Of The Humans Page 14

  'Are you Manco?'

  The voice stirred him from his thoughts, and he saw one of Django's guards, sneering down at him. The air around them was choking up with dust and smoke. Manco nodded.

  'You're coming with us,' said the guard, grabbing Manco by the arm and pulling him to his feet.

  'But where are you taking me?' asked Manco.

  'To Django.' The guard replied, with murderous intent.

  First there was the noise: a harsh metallic grinding coming from somewhere deep inside the ship. Then a red light on the dashboard began to flash, and he heard the ship's voice, as nonchalant as ever.

  'Warning. Warning. Foreign object located in loading bay. Warning. Warning. Foreign object located in loading bay.'

  Activating the ship's automatic controls, Captain Jamal got up and ran from the cockpit down into the bowels of the Golden Bough. There, between stacked containers, he found a dark blue box with a white light flashing on its roof. The light stopped and the loading bay was silent once more.

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  Captain Jamal held his breath.

  The door opened, and through it, for just one moment, the Captain was sure he could see what looked like a cavernous control room. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

  Then he saw his son.

  Charlie stepped out of the blue box, looked at his father and smiled - an awkward grin, as if he wasn't sure what his father's reaction would be.

  Captain Jamal ran to him, and threw his arms around him, and held him as tightly as he could.

  'I thought I'd lost you,' he gasped. 'I thought I'd never see you again. What happened to Ahmed?'

  'He didn't make it,' said Charlie, solemnly. 'What about Dr Heeva? Where is she?'

  Captain Jamal shook his head.

  'Oh, Dad... I'm so sorry.'

  There were other people stepping out of the blue box now.

  First Amy, and then the stranger the Captain had seen with them on the salt plain, the Doctor, came out, pulling an unconscious Slipstream by his arms.

  'Somebody give me a hand with this?' said the Doctor. 'For a skinny bloke he's quite heavy.'

  Captain Jamal nodded, and helped the Doctor carry Slipstream to a corner of the loading bay, where they sat him up against one of the crates.

  'What happened?' asked the Captain.

  'Long story! the Doctor told him. 'In a nutshell, 211

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  Slipstream here's a bit of a bad egg.'

  'A bit?' said Amy. 'He tried to kill you.'

  'Well, yes... But he didn't. Thanks to you and Charlie.

  Splendid work. Both of you. Now, Captain... We have to get out of here. Like... Now.'

  Captain Jamal nodded urgently, and ran from the loading bay back to the cockpit with the Doctor following close behind.

  He took to the ship's controls, deactivated the automatic pilot, and hit the thrusters.

  The Golden Bough tilted back, the view from its windows turning from the sprawling grey landscape of the Gyre to the vast canopy of space. The engines roared, the whole ship shuddering, but something was wrong.

  'What is it?' asked the Doctor. 'What's happening?'

  'I don't know!' said Captain Jamal. 'Something's pulling us back. We're moving backwards.'

  'So put your foot down!'

  'I'm trying that, Doctor, but it's no use. We're going to crash.'

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  Slipstream was still out cold. Amy had tried shaking him gently to wake him, but it wasn't working. Even the jolting and shuddering of the ship had done nothing to bring him around.

  Eventually, losing patience, Charlie stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face.

  'Oh, that felt good,' he said.

  Slipstream stirred.

  'I swear... I was nowhere near the convent,' he mumbled drowsily. Then he opened his eyes suddenly and sat up straight. 'What? Where am I? What's happening?'

  He looked around the loading bay, and at the TARDIS.

  'We're here!' he said. 'We're on my ship? But 213

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  how did we—'

  'The Doctor! said Amy. 'He saved you. We could have left you back on the Gyre.'

  Slipstream glowered at her and then rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. As he lifted himself up, clinging on to a crate for balance, they heard the sound of clanking footsteps, and the Doctor came running down from the cockpit.

  'Slipstream!' he shouted.

  'Oh, hello, Doctor. Seems I owe you a debt of gratitude, or some such nonsense.'

  'The Mymon Key! said the Doctor. 'Where is it?'

  Slipstream frowned at him. 'I'm sorry, old chap. Have you lost your marbles? We left it on the Gyre. Don't you remember?'

  'The real Mymon Key! the Doctor snapped. 'You still have it.

  Where is it?'

  Amy and Charlie looked at one another in shock, before turning back to Slipstream.

  'What?' said Amy. 'But we... he... I mean... we saw it... and he gave it to Manco... What's happening?'

  Slipstream closed his eyes and groaned. 'You know something, Doctor? You must be the most infuriatingly astute man I have ever had the displeasure to meet.'

  'So you do have it?' said the Doctor.

  'Well what if I do? I'd say it was small reward for 214

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  all I've had to endure in that dreadful place.'

  'We're crashing, Slipstream. The Mymon Key is pulling us back to the Gyre. That is why we had to leave it there. We can't take it with us.'

  Slipstream was backing away from them now, shaking his head.

  'Oh, no... I'm not falling for that one. You just want to keep it for yourself, don't you? No... I don't think so, somehow.'

  He had stepped back no further than three paces when he found himself staring down the barrel of Charlie's blaster.

  'Give it to him,' said Charlie. 'Give it to him, or I'll redecorate this ship with bits of your head. How does that sound?'

  Slipstream groaned, his whole body practically vibrating with anger. Begrudgingly he reached into his pocket and produced the shining, golden orb.

  'You can't say my copy wasn't a spot-on replica, though,' he said, holding it in the palm of his hand. 'Six months in the prison workshop, that took me. Damn you, Doctor.'

  The Doctor snatched the Mymon Key from Slipstream's grasp.

  'Right,' he said. 'Only one thing for it. I'm going back to the Gyre.'

  'What?' gasped Amy.

  'I have to,' said the Doctor. 'If we just jettison it, there's no way of guaranteeing it'll go back to

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  the Gyre. It could just hover in space, and then all this... the Gyre, the shipwrecks... would start all over again. I have to take it back myself. I have to finish this.'

  'Are you mad?' said Charlie. 'The bomb detonates in less than fifteen minutes. You'll never make it.'

  The Doctor looked at them, his drawn expression of quiet contemplation turning rapidly into a smile.

  'Really?' he said. 'Just watch me.'

  They dragged him, holding him by the arms, through the ruins of the city, past smouldering lumps of debris and the burnt-out shells of houses like rotten, hollow teeth. Some streets were impassable, choked up with thick black smoke, and every building engulfed in flames. Others were filled with people, many of them screaming helplessly at the sky as everything around them burned.

  It was the end of the world.

  Even Django's palace was no longer there. Most of it had been pulverised when the tower collapsed. At least a quarter of the city had been destroyed in an instant, and the fires were beginning to spread. Flickering orange tongues of flame, some of them hundreds of feet tall, arced up over the ramshackle dwellings, scorching everything in their path. Pieces of the shattered tower were still falling away

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  from wha
t was left of it. Manco watched as a panel perhaps fifteen metres across buckled from the heat of the flames, its rivets popping out of their fixtures like bullets, and then the panel came falling down, tumbling towards the streets and landing with a deafening clang.

  They entered a dark runnel that led into the heart of the city's oldest depths, passing through the Chamber of Stories on their way. The audience still sat before the screen, which was blank now, the projector having been smashed into pieces by the Elder, or perhaps one of his assistants.

  'Be not afraid! said the Elder, his stentorian voice booming out across the chamber. 'For the Star is almost with us. Gobo the Great, creator of us all, is coming...'

  In the fleeting seconds before they dragged him on into another tunnel, Manco looked out at the congregation, and saw the expressions of fear and hope on their faces. It was almost a relief to be taken away from that place, so he wouldn't have to see them again.

  'What is it? What's wrong?'

  The TARDIS shook forcefully, and the Doctor struggled to stay upright, clinging onto the console with all his strength. The glowing columns rose and fell, but with jerking, unsteady movements and the familiar, ancient groan of its drive sounded 217

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  choppy and distorted. Little wonder, the Doctor thought, that ships had crashed on the Gyre and been unable to leave. And it was all thanks to the Mymon Key.

  When it finally came to a halt, things were far from still. The ground was shaking, and from beyond the TARDIS's doors he heard the thump thump thump of Schuler-Khan's fragments slamming into the Gyre, more frequently than before. There was now barely a second between each impact.

  He ran from the console, opened the door, and stepped out onto the edge of the salt plain. What had once been a pristine lake of glistening white crystals was now a blackened landscape of burning craters, billowing pillars of smoke rising up into the sky; the clouds above were lit up orange by the flames.

  And there, only a few metres from where he stood, was the swamp. There were fires there, too, and the corrugated plastic tubes were melting from the heat. Somewhere in amongst the inferno, the Doctor could hear the sound of screaming Sollogs.

  The Doctor took the Mymon Key from his pocket, and he looked down at its gleaming, polished surface. Once, the Hexion Geldmongers had been a great species, their empire spanning whole galaxies. Now, their civilisation was no more than a footnote in history, and this tiny golden orb was all that remained of them; the last memento of

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  an entire race.

  All that power. There were so many things he could do with something as powerful as the Mymon Key. So many things he could put right. With an object that powerful he would be invincible. Nobody would dare challenge him. He could take the TARDIS through black holes, crossing into parallel dimensions without worry. As small and inanimate as it was, the Mymon Key was the key to the universe itself.

  No. The Mymon Key was too powerful for anyone to own, even the Doctor. He had to place it somewhere beyond temptation.

  He closed his eyes and held his breath, and then, in one swift move, he hurled it into the swamp.

  'He's done what?'

  Captain Jamal stood from the controls of the Golden Bough, pacing back and forth and shaking his head in disbelief.

  'We have to wait for him,' said Amy. 'He's coming back.'

  'Oh, you think so?' said the Captain. 'That world is being smashed into pieces by the comet. The Nanobomb detonates in ten minutes. He's insane. We can fly out of here now. The ship's working fine now that he's taken that... that key, or whatever it is, away.'

  'Exactly. And that's why we have to wait for 219

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  him. It's only because of him that we can fly out of here.'

  Captain Jamal looked from Amy to his son, who stood near the stairs leading down into the loading bay.

  'Dad! said Charlie. 'Please...'

  Captain Jamal sighed. 'Very well! he said. 'He's got eight minutes. If he isn't back by then we're leaving.'

  Amy closed her eyes, breathing out slowly. "Thank you.'

  She about-turned, and made her way past Charlie, back down the stairs into the loading bay. There was no way she was leaving without the Doctor. Not now, not after all that had happened to them that day. She had waited a very long time for him to come back to her - fourteen years in all - and while his timekeeping might leave a lot to be desired, she was pretty sure he would not have left without her.

  Their escape from the Gyre, and from this distant future, was so close she could practically taste it. No... She had made up her mind. She wasn't going without him, and so she would wait in the loading bay for the TARDIS to return.

  When she got there she found it empty. She hadn't expected the TARDIS to be back so soon, but she had expected to see Slipstream. Where had he gone?

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  Tiptoeing silently across the room, she glanced behind each stack of containers, and was about to call for Charlie when she felt an arm around her throat, and the cold metal of a gun against the side of her head.

  'You stupid people never learn,' Slipstream whispered in her ear. 'Never leave the prisoner unattended, and for pity's sake don't leave him in the place where he keeps all his guns.'

  Before she could scream, he clasped his hand over her mouth, and began dragging her back across the loading bay.

  In the far corner, near the ship's rear, was a small circular hatch, and Slipstream pressed his foot down onto a lever at its side. The hatch opened with a hiss, and then with one violent shove he pushed Amy down through the porthole.

  She landed with a thump in a tiny, cramped space, like the inside of a ball. There were two small chairs, and a panel of controls, along with a tiny circular window through which she saw the burning landscape of the Gyre far below. Slipstream jumped in after her, still brandishing his gun, and he quickly set about flicking switches. The lights on the miniature dashboard flickered into life, and the hatch door closed behind them with a bang.

  'What are you doing?' Amy shouted.

  'That Key was mine, damn it!' hissed Slipstream, still punching keys. 'Do you have any idea how

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  long I've planned this? Do you? I'm not letting some time-travelling do-gooder and his silly little girlfriend ruin everything. Not today.'

  'I'm not his girlfriend, actually! snapped Amy, but then her voice was drowned out by the sound of a familiar and listless pre-recorded voice. 'Initiating escape sequence. Please authorise.' Slipstream slammed his fist down on a bright red button, and all at once Amy felt her stomach lurch. Then they were falling, away from the hull of the Golden Bough, rumbling through the air, end over end, and hurtling back towards the surface of the Gyre.

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  Shielding his eyes against the heat and the light of the flames, the Doctor watched as the Mymon Key sank down into the green waters of the swamp. In the last few seconds before it vanished, its polished gold surface shone out from the murky sludge, and then it was gone. Satisfied that it was done, that it was finished, the Doctor turned his back on the swamp and started running back towards the TARDIS.

  He felt the ground beneath his feet tremble as, somewhere in the distance, another ball of rock hit the Gyre, but still he ran, and he was almost through the door and back inside the TARDIS

  when he saw something falling from the sky. For once, it was not a fragment of the comet but something small and 223

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  man-made, and it descended towards the Gyre suspended from a parachute. As it got closer, the Doctor realised what it was.

  It was an escape pod.

  It only took another second or two for him to work out what that meant. There was only one person crazy - or greedy - enough to come back to this place.

  The pod landed on the salt plain with a heavy thump, the
parachute stretched out behind it on lengths of rope, bouncing and rippling in the wind. All around it the surface of the salt plain was being torn up by falling embers, their sudden, fast descent marked by a scream, like the sound of rockets being fired. Pieces of shrapnel, torn up from the Gyre's surface, were flying in all directions, making the Doctor's journey all the more perilous. As he ran towards the pod, he shielded his eyes against the flying shards of metal and rock, and the stinging spray of salt crystals. But still he ran.

  The pod's hatch opened with a hiss, and he saw Amy climbing out. She landed a little awkwardly on her knees, and looked back over her shoulder as Slipstream clambered out after her, a blaster in his hand.

  'Slipstream!' shouted the Doctor, struggling to be heard above the howling winds and the vociferous rumbling of the comet fragments as they fell. When Slipstream saw him, he smiled callously

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  and grabbed Amy, his arm around her neck and the blaster pointed at her head.

  'Don't try anything, Doctor,' he said. 'Just give me the key.'

  'I'm afraid I can't do that, Slipstream.'

  'Oh, really? Well that is a shame. Doesn't do my reputation much good... shooting young girls. Gives a chap an awful lot of bad press. Just give me the key, Doctor...'

  'I can't. I don't have it.'

  Slipstream seethed, his eyes bulging with agitation.

  'Don't... have it?' he snarled. 'What do you mean, you don't have it?'

  'I mean I don't have it,' said the Doctor, rolling up his sleeves and turned his pockets inside-out, one by one. The only thing he had to show was the sonic screwdriver. 'I've thrown it away. See?'

  Slipstream rolled his eyes and gasped for air, his anger now reaching a level of hysteria. He pushed Amy away with a violent shove and aimed his gun at the Doctor.

  'You did what?’ he screamed.

  'I threw it into the swamp.'

  'Oh, well, wasn't that grown-up of you, Doctor? Poor little Time Lord can't have it, so no one else can.'