Doctor Who BBCN10 - The Nightmare of Black Island Page 15

  ‘We’re too old, Doctor, too weak,’ Morton sighed. ‘I still have some strength, but the others. . . ’

  ‘Besides,’ Peyne said, circling the Doctor slowly, ‘why stick to his old form when we could create something so much better? The children of this planet were perfect for our needs. It surprises me that the planet has survived so long. Do you know that they actively encourage their young to make war a game? Their culture is riddled with it.

  Toy pistols, toy rifles, toy grenades, war comics, action figures that hold knives and swords. Even when they avoid war, the young of this planet are exposed to horror comics, monsters under the bed, bogeymen, vampires and werewolves. Their nursery stories are full of demons and goblins and witches and kidnapped children. They enter the world screaming, and as soon as they can read or listen or learn they are made to scream again and again and again, before they finally realise that they have been lied to all their young lives. We didn’t need to influence the minds of these children at all, Doctor, we just needed to harvest their boundless imagination.’

  ‘Take them young, before they become tainted, is that it?’ The Doc-142

  tor spat the words.

  ‘Exactly! Have you listened to the adults of this planet, listened to the endless trivia they spout? Mindless, pointless, endless conversations about nothing. They lose everything that they have as children, ground down by the reality of the world they have created. But catch them young –’ Peyne turned to the creature, arms stretched wide –

  ‘and see what they are capable of creating.’

  ‘So you scour their dreams, sifting through their nightmares and taking the parts that suit your purpose. To create this. The ultimate body.’

  ‘Precisely. In a few hours we will have attained full solidity, a fully functioning creature. And when it is filled with the mind of Balor. . . ’

  Peyne stopped, her eyes shining with anticipation, before concluding triumphantly, ‘then you will see what nightmares are really about.’

  The Doctor grasped the arms of Morton’s chair. ‘Nathaniel, you must stop this. The Cynrog are using you. If they extract the creature from you and the others and put it inside this abomination, then nothing will stand in their way. They will be unstoppable.’

  ‘But I want to be free of this, Doctor. Don’t you see! I don’t want this thing inside my head any more. I want my life back.’

  ‘What life?’

  The Doctor shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry for you,

  Nathaniel, I really am, but your life has gone by. That’s unfair, that’s cruel, but it’s the truth. You and the others have suffered more than you should have done, but you must end this, for all of you, before it’s too late. You’re eighty years old. You can’t get your life back.’

  ‘But I can, Doctor, that’s the point. . . ’

  The Doctor stepped back from the wheelchair, eyes narrowing.

  ‘What has she promised you, Nathaniel?’

  ‘Renewal, Doctor. Not just for Balor, but for seven children whose lives he took. The life that was taken from us. That we deserve to have.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Not impossible, Doctor.’ Peyne was smiling unpleasantly. ‘Our machinery is capable of extracting more than just unconscious mental energy.’

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  ‘Your machinery is capable of doing lots of unpleasant things. You might be able to create an artificial life form with your psychomorphic generators, but you can’t renew living tissue with it.’

  ‘Very true.’

  ‘That can only be done by extracting the life force.’

  Peyne merely smiled.

  The Doctor turned back to Morton in disgust. ‘You can’t condone this. Killing all those children just to save your own life?’

  Morton stared, his jaw working silently, horror in his eyes.

  ‘Peyne. . . ’

  ‘You didn’t tell him, did you, Peyne?’ The Doctor was shaking with rage. ‘You didn’t bother to fill him in on that particular little detail, did you? The body you are creating for Balor can be constructed from the children’s imaginations, but renewing Morton and his friends, that can only be done by extracting the life force from the very same children.

  You can give him back his youth all right, but at the cost of the life of every child in this village!’

  Morton slumped back in his chair. ‘Dear God, no. . . ’ The Doctor lunged forward at Peyne, but the gun in her hand swung up, pointing straight at the Doctor’s face.

  ‘You think I care for the lives of a few primitive children? Yes, it amuses me to give Morton his pitiful life back. He will have precious little time to come to terms with the cost of that new life before Balor destroys his world.’

  A masked Cynrog technician appeared at the doorway of the library.

  ‘Priest Commander, Technician Hadron reports that the machine is recalibrated and ready to activate on your command.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Peyne’s smile widened. ‘Now, Doctor, we shall finish this. The nightmares of a Time Lord will be added to those of the children and our creature will be complete. Balor has lain dormant for too long in the minds of these ungrateful savages. Our holy war still rages, and with Balor the Destroyer at our head once more victory is certain. Tonight Balor will awaken and the Cynrog will be triumphant!’

  144

  Rose pushed open the door of the ramshackle beach hut and looked cautiously around the dark and cluttered room.

  ‘Miss Ceredig? Bronwyn?’

  There was a sniff from the gloom.

  ‘What is it? What do you want?’

  ‘The Doctor sent me. We need your help.’

  A dim light snapped on and Bronwyn’s dishevelled head poked out from behind a battered old armchair. It looked to Rose as though she had been crying.

  Ali peered from around the back of Rose’s legs.

  ‘Is that a duck?’

  Before Rose could stop her, Ali had crossed to the sofa, perched herself on the arm and reached out a tentative hand to the imperious-looking mallard that sat there.

  Bronwyn’s face softened. ‘His name is Butch.’

  ‘Butch?’ Ali gave her a curious look. ‘That’s a funny name for a duck.’

  ‘He’s a guard duck. Looks after my house when I’m out feeding the seals.’

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  Rose crossed to her side. ‘I’m sorry to barge in, but the Doctor said you’d be able to help us.’

  Bronwyn shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Don’t know what help I can be.

  Old woman like me. . . ’

  ‘We’ve been seeing things, me and the Doctor. Not just creatures, but a little boy.’

  ‘Please, I don’t know. . . ’

  ‘This little boy –’ Rose took the picture from her pocket – ‘is his name Jimmy?’

  As Bronwyn took the picture, tears started to roll down her cheeks.

  ‘Yes. My Jimmy. . . ’

  ‘Your son?’

  Bronwyn nodded.

  Rose squeezed the old woman’s arm. ‘It’s all right. You can trust me. We want to help.’

  ‘It was my fault. I didn’t want them to take him. But they made me give him up. I couldn’t stop them. . . ’

  ‘Who took him? Where?’

  ‘The child protection people. They thought I was no good for him.’

  Bronwyn was shaking with anger and fear. ‘They took him away from me once and now he’s come back.’ She looked at Rose with despair in her eyes. ‘Nathaniel is making him come back.’

  ‘Ow!’

  The Doctor winced as the Cynrog technician pulled the straps tight around his arms. ‘Careful. I’m delicate, you know.’

  The technician snarled at him and scurried away.

  The Doctor

  slumped back on to the hard bed. All around him the Cynrog were in a flurry of activity. They had abandoned their human disguises now, leaving a pile of human faces on a table. Peyne had been whipping them into a frenzy and they knew that their m
ission was nearly over.

  It was making them excitable and it was making them vicious.

  They had dragged the Doctor and Morton from the library, carrying the old man bodily down the stairs and strapping him to one of the empty beds in the ward. The Doctor had had his coat and jacket 146

  removed and had been put in the bed next to him. Cynrog medical devices were strapped to both their foreheads and an intravenous drip had been thrust cruelly into the Doctor’s arm. Two technicians were fussing with the connections from Morton’s headset, while the old man struggled weakly.

  The Doctor felt a pang of sorrow for the man. He had been strung along for years by Peyne and her colleagues, promised a new life for him and his friends, and now he was just a commodity, his use to the Cynrog nearly over.

  The Doctor took a deep breath, preparing himself for the ordeal that was about to come. He hoped that his reasoning was correct with regard to the nature of the Cynrog machines. If he was wrong. . .

  Priest Commander Peyne strode across to his bedside. She was now dressed in battle fatigues, her disrupter slung at her side.

  ‘Ah, Miss Peyne!’

  The Doctor raised his head from the pillow.

  ‘Slipped into something a bit more uncomfortable, I see. Eager to rejoin the war, I suppose.’

  ‘The fleet is awaiting our signal. As soon as Balor has taken control of his body, we shall conduct our first battlefield test. . . ’

  ‘You can’t unleash him on this planet, Peyne.’

  She shrugged. ‘An unworthy target, I agree, but it will have to serve.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. There are billions of people here. . . ’

  ‘Then billions will die! The last of the Time Lords among them.’ She leaned close, teeth bared. ‘I hope that thought gives you nightmares, Doctor.’ Then she straightened up and crossed to her technicians.

  ‘Activate the transmitters. Full power.’

  Cynrog hunched over their consoles, hands dancing over the controls. A low hum of power started to build in pitch. The Doctor felt the bands around his head crackle with power.

  ‘Peyne, it’s not too late,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘But it is, Doctor. Far too late.’

  Her hand slammed down on the controls.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  147

  The Doctor felt himself lift from the body strapped to the bed. Images from his past threatened to overwhelm him, memories he had fought to keep buried, memories of the time war; of the peoples he had sworn to protect. He struggled to maintain control over his thoughts and dreams, focusing his mind. The Cynrog machinery was operating on a similar frequency to the TARDIS telepathic circuits; the fact that Rose’s dreams had been affected while they were still in flight proved that. His own link to the TARDIS meant that he should be able to use that power, channel it, turn it back on itself. . .

  Blackness swirled around him, dark shapes flitting through the shadows, nightmares from his distant childhood. He forced himself to ignore them. There were other minds in the ether with him, belonging to Morton and the six sleepers. He could feel the human parts of them struggling to be free of the powerful influence of Balor, sense their relief as the alien that had inhabited their minds for so long was slowly drawn out.

  Balor was terrifyingly strong. The Doctor could sense the ancient force that the Cynrog sought to harvest. But something was not right.

  The creature was savage, primal, but unfinished somehow, unfocused, as if some part of it was missing, some controlling part that would bring order to the whole.

  The Doctor could feel the Cynrog machines probing at his memories, trying to force their way into the darkest fears. He shut down sections of his mind, erecting psychic barriers that would keep the Cynrog out. He hoped. . .

  The power started to increase and he struggled to retain control.

  ‘Hello.’

  The voice was shocking and loud. The Doctor could hear it all around him.

  A small child stood next to him, staring down at the body that lay on the bed. It was the child the Doctor had seen earlier in the woods and on the island. The child Rose had seen in her dream.

  ‘Hello. It’s Jimmy, isn’t it?’

  The boy nodded, a frown on his small face. ‘I think so. I used to be.

  I think I might be something else now. I’m how she remembers me, 148

  before they took her away from me.’

  The Doctor winced at the child’s directness.

  ‘They took you away?’

  ‘They said she was a bad mother. That she couldn’t look after me properly. The monster made her different. The monster in her head.

  I can feel it in my head too. It’s not very nice.’

  The Doctor’s mind raced. ‘This monster,’ he asked, ‘has it been in her head a long time?’

  The boy nodded again. ‘She saw it when she was small. She was hiding from the others and she saw it. It hid a bit of itself in her head.

  It made her do bad things.’

  ‘Can you show me, show me that memory?’

  ‘I think so. Mummy’s memories are so muddled these days.’

  The little boy took his hand and the Doctor felt a jolt of surprise at the solidness of the touch. He now knew where the controlling part of Balor’s mind was, the intelligence, the dangerous heart.

  They swept through a dizzying array of images and thoughts, searching for one tiny memory, the shared memory of that terrible day when Balor’s crippled spacecraft had roared over the sea and crashed at Ynys Du.

  On the edge of his consciousness he could feel something building, something powerful and vast. Balor, waking from his rest, aware of this child by his side. He concentrated, pushing past the monsters of the children, forcing his way into the minds of Morton and the others, willing them to remember.

  There! The memory he searched for flickered into life: frightened children clustered around a burning spacecraft, terrified and exhilarated at the same time. The Doctor felt their fear as Balor crawled his way out of the pit, a mass of flames and fury, felt their pain and confusion as his mind seared into theirs. . .

  The cold touch of death swept over him and, with a chill, the Doctor realised that he was experiencing Balor’s fractured memory too. He felt the rage and anger of the creature, its unmitigated hatred, its thrill when a world was crushed in its grasp, its final desperate fight to cling to existence, reaching out to whatever lifeline it could find. . .

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  ‘There she is.’

  Jimmy was pointing at the hidden observer who crouched on the far side of the crater, unseen by the children but noticed by Balor.

  The Doctor stared at the eighth child as she watched the creature’s fiery death, a child whose face he’d seen in photographs earlier in the day. Bronwyn. Her auburn hair and silver-grey eyes were unmistakable. From the other side of crater, she watched in horror as the creature burned, clutching at her head as it poured its mind into her.

  The residual psychic echo that the Cynrog had detected wasn’t from the crash site. It was from Bronwyn.

  Which meant that the Cynrog didn’t have all the pieces of Balor’s psyche. Bronwyn still held the vital missing fragment.

  In the pub Beth was looking round in horror as children started to drop where they stood. Frantic parents were desperately trying to shake them awake again, but it was hopeless. The youngest were going first, falling into a deep, deep sleep.

  Outside the roaring of monsters started again. Beth clamped her hands over her ears.

  ‘He’s failed. The Doctor’s failed!’

  ‘Rose!’

  ‘Doctor?’

  Rose sprang to her feet, looking around Bronwyn’s ramshackle house, surprised by the Doctor’s voice. Apart from Bronwyn, Ali and Butch the room was empty. She turned in a slow circle, puzzled.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Strapped to a bed in the rectory. Don’t ask stupid questions!’

  Realisation dawn
ed on Rose. ‘Are you in my head? Are you poking around inside my head with telepathy or something?’

  ‘Yes! Now listen.’

  ‘I don’t believe this! Aren’t you meant to ask or anything before you come barging in?’

  ‘Rose, I really don’t have too much time! The Cynrog got inside your dreams because their machinery operates on the same frequency that 150

  the TARDIS uses to translate languages in your head. I’m hitching a ride on the same frequencies because they’ve wired me into their system. They’re occupied at the moment and I’m cleverer than they are, but it’s taking a lot of effort and I don’t have much time so I need you to shut up and listen.’

  Rose sat down hard, aware of the curious looks she was getting from the others. Presumably they were only hearing one side of the conversation.

  ‘OK, I’m listening,’ she whispered.

  ‘Right. And don’t talk, just think. Think the words.’ Rose gritted her teeth and concentrated on forming the words in her head. ‘All right.’

  ‘Good. I know what the connection between Bronwyn and the boy is.’

  ‘Yeah. He’s her son. And you were right, his name’s Jimmy.’

  ‘I’m having a chat with him now. At least, I’m with something that looks like him, something that has his memories, but it probably has a good part of something else too.’

  ‘Hang about. . . You’re with him? But they sent him away. He got adopted. It nearly finished her. Ended her marriage. It was when he was small, but that was years ago. She doesn’t even know if he’s still alive.’

  ‘Yeah, well, this one is still about six.’

  ‘OK, this is getting seriously creepy.’

  She realised that she had said this out loud when Ali gave her a puzzled look. Smiling embarrassedly, she forced herself to concentrate on her thoughts again. ‘She blames herself. Says she was a bad mother.

  That she’s been keeping something secret all these years, in her head.

  I think that’s what’s made her a bit, you know. . . odd.’

  ‘Yes, well, she’s got a fair chunk of an alien lodged in her brain, and not a nice one either. Must have been affecting her for years.’