Night Of The Humans Page 15

  He was marching towards the Doctor, still brandishing the gun, but then he pushed the Doctor

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  out of his way and carried on stomping towards the swamp.

  'Slipstream... Don't!' the Doctor cried. 'Even if you do find it, what will you do then? You can't escape from this place with the Mymon Key.'

  'I'll find a way!' Slipstream roared, without looking back.

  'Dirk Slipstream always finds a way!'

  Amy ran to the Doctor's side, pulling gently on his arm.

  'Doctor... We have to stop him... Those things are in there.'

  But Slipstream had already begun wading his way into the swamp, the green water rising up past his ankles and his knees, until he was waist-deep in it.

  'Slipstream!' the Doctor cried, running towards the swamp's edge. 'Come back! You'll never make it!'

  'Won't I, Doctor?' yelled Slipstream, pushing aside the tightly packed plastic tubes, moving further and further away from them. 'Just watch me!'

  He had disappeared now, lost in the forest of melting black plastic, and then the Doctor and Amy heard a familiar screech: the sound of the Sollogs. The swamp was lit up with the flare of Slipstream's blaster, and the sound of each shot rang out, for a moment drowning out even the noise of the Gyre's destruction.

  From somewhere deep inside the

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  swamp, Slipstream screamed, still firing his gun, and then the gunshots and the screaming came to an abrupt end.

  The Doctor looked away, his eyes closed. He put his arm around Amy's shoulder.

  'Come on,' he said. 'Let's go.'

  They ran across the salt plain to the TARDIS, neither of them speaking. The Doctor slammed the door behind them before leaping across the room to the console. Even with the doors shut, they could still hear the Gyre being smashed apart in its final, calamitous moments.

  The glowing column began to rise and fall, and the room was filled with the sound of its metallic yawn, intertwined with a single, shrill tone that rose in pitch. The Doctor looked at Amy across the console and saw her expression of relief.

  There were no words that could properly express how glad he was to have her safe, and that they'd both got away from the Gyre in one piece. All he could do was smile at her, and Amy smiled back.

  The sounds of the TARDIS died down, and they stepped out through its narrow door into the loading bay of the Golden Bough.

  'You know, that still freaks me out a little bit,' said Amy.

  'What does?'

  'Well... The doors close and you're in one place. And then you open them again, and you're

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  somewhere completely different.'

  'A bit like an elevator, then?'

  'No. It's nothing like an elevator. I mean, at least with an elevator you're in the same place, you're just on a different floor. With this... You're on a different planet. Or in a different year.'

  'Yes. Well... that's kind of what the TARDIS does.'

  'I know that... But it's still weird.'

  They left the loading bay and climbed up its staircase to the cockpit, where Captain Jamal and Charlie were waiting for them. When he saw Amy, Charlie beamed and let out a long sigh of relief.

  'You're OK!' he said.

  Amy nodded.

  'And Slipstream?'

  The Doctor shook his head.

  'Good work, Doctor,' said Captain Jamal, and then, a little sarcastically. 'So do I have your permission to get us out of here?'

  'Yes you do,' said the Doctor. 'You really do.'

  'Ah, Wordslinger...' Django purred as his guards dragged Manco into the dungeon.

  With the palace destroyed, Manco had been taken deep under the city, back to the dungeon where, until only a few hours ago, he had been a prisoner. It felt strangely appropriate that it should end there.

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  Django was sitting on his throne next to the Sittuun's bomb.

  Manco glared at his leader with resentment and anger, but he bit his lip and remained silent.

  'Do you know what this is?' asked Django, placing one bony, almost skeletal hand on the bomb's outer casing.

  Manco nodded. 'It's the bomb,' he said quietly.

  'That's right,' said Django. 'It is the bomb. It is the work of the Bad. There are words on the bomb, Manco. Words written in the language of the Olden Ones. Instructions.'

  Manco looked down to where Django was stroking the bomb, as if it were some kind of pet. He saw the words

  'DEACTIVATION PROCEDURE' written in blood-red print, and next to those words a small clock, on which he saw the numbers counting down.

  00:01:20...

  00:01:19...

  00:01:18...

  'You must disarm the bomb, Manco. Disarm the bomb and we shall all be saved from this world. Gobo is coming.'

  Manco shook his head. 'It's not true,' he said. 'None of it is true. If we deactivate that bomb the star... the Star with the Green Tail... it'll hit our world, and destroy so many others.'

  Django's eyes grew wide and his lips curled 229

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  back from his greying, jagged teeth.

  'There are no other worlds!' he roared. 'There is only the Earth, the creation of Gobo!'

  'That's not true! said Manco, softly. 'The man, the Doctor...

  He told me so. He told me I was right. We aren't from here, Django. We never were.'

  'I have no time for this heresy. Disarm the bomb, Manco.'

  One of the guards now stood at Manco's side, a sword against his throat, but Manco shook his head.

  'No,' he said. 'Because I saw what the Doctor tried to do.

  He tried to save us. He stood there, in the Chamber of Stories, and he told people the truth, but they wouldn't listen. He is a good man, better than any of us, and it broke his heart. There were children in that room, Django. Our children. And your words, and your lies... You've condemned them all to death.

  No more should have to die because of us, because of what we've become, what you and those before you turned us into. It ends here and now, Django. You can threaten me with weapons all you like. I'm unarmed. I'm not a warrior... I'm the Wordslinger. My only weapon is a word, and that word is

  "No".'

  Django rose up from his throne; his eyes bulging with impotent rage, the tendons and veins in his scrawny neck sticking out like the grooves in an ancient tree trunk, and spittle foaming in the

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  corners of his mouth.

  'I command you to disarm the bomb!' he howled.

  Manco laughed.

  'And what are you going to do, Django? Kill me? You can't hurt me any more than you already have. We're dead already, and we have been for a very long time.'

  Manco looked once more to the bomb, and the numbers counting down on its display.

  00:00:04...

  00:00:03...

  Django let out a terrifying, angry roar, and leapt towards Manco with his arms flailing wildly, but Manco just closed his eyes and smiled.

  00:00:02...

  00:00:01...

  She had expected a noise; a tremendous bang that would deafen her and shake every bone in her body, but there was nothing. There wasn't even a flash of light, or a mushroom cloud, or anything else Amy might have expected from a bomb.

  The explosion, if it could be called that, was silenced by their distance, and by the vacuum of space, and instead of a flash or an inferno all she saw was a darkness; a great gaping darkness that opened up like an aperture in the heart of the Gyre. In only a few seconds this darkness spread 231

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  its way out across the bleak, metallic landscape, devouring everything in its wake. Mountain ranges disappeared in the time it took her to blink. The salt plains, the canyon, the desert of glass, all vanished in a fraction of a second.

 
As the Gyre evaporated before their eyes, all that was left, barely visible against the infinite black canvas of space, was a vague haze, as translucent as a fine mist. The comet, Schuler-Khan, travelling at fifty kilometres a second, punched through the haze, causing it to swirl and spiral in its wake, but nothing more.

  Captain Jamal and Charlie let out a triumphant cheer, the Captain patting his son on the back, and putting his arm around his shoulder.

  'We did it, Charlie! he said. 'We actually did it.'

  The Doctor was quiet. He had taken the co-pilot's seat but hadn't watched the Gyre's destruction with the others. It made Amy feel almost guilty for watching it herself. After all, it wasn't a firework display. They had just watched a whole world being destroyed.

  As she looked at the Time Lord, her expression crumpled into a sympathetic frown, and she placed her hand on his shoulder.

  'Hey... are you OK?' she asked.

  The Doctor looked up at her, as if snapping out of a daydream.

  'What's that?'

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  'I said, "Are you OK?"'

  He thought about this for a moment, his eyebrows bunching together, and then he looked at her again.

  'Are you OK?' he asked.

  'Yeah. I'm OK,' replied Amy.

  'Then yes... I'm OK.'

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  22

  The Doctor looked out from the windows of the Golden Bough at nothing but the twinkling stars, the nearest sun, and a handful of shining planets, all of them millions of miles away. With the destruction of the Gyre not one, but two civilisations had been erased from the pages of history, for ever. The descendants of the Herald of Nanking's crew, who had survived for hundreds of thousands of years on that remote and barren world, were gone, as was the Mymon Key. Soon enough they would all be forgotten and never spoken of or thought about again. This was the rhythm of the universe, as predictable as a metronome.

  Civilisations, great and small, come and go; some are remembered for a while, but all of them forgotten in time.

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  The Doctor was joined eventually by Captain Jamal, who stepped into the cockpit and took to the pilot's seat.

  'Well, Doctor... I don't think I can even begin to tell you how grateful I am.'

  The Doctor frowned at him. 'Really?' he said. 'Why?'

  'Well... Everything you did back there. We'd never have made it without you.'

  The Doctor sighed. 'Do you think so?' he said. 'You should be thanking your son. He got me out of quite a scrape back there. And he was the one who flew us back to the TARDIS. I can't say I did a great deal, to tell you the truth.'

  'Nonsense,' said the Captain, smiling softly. 'Neither Charlie nor I had even heard of the Mymon Key. Without you it would have stayed on the ship, with Slipstream, and we would have crashed. I lost enough crew on this mission. I couldn't bear losing my son too.'

  The Doctor nodded, but his expression was still morose.

  Captain Jamal scrutinised him, as if trying to read his thoughts.

  'You're thinking about the humans, aren't you?' he asked.

  'Yes! replied the Doctor. 'There were so many of them. And there was nothing I could do.'

  The Captain nodded sympathetically and sighed.

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  'While we were on the Gyre! he said, 'I told myself the humans were just savages. They certainly acted like savages. Most of them, anyway. And I told myself they were savages because it made my job easier. When they turned down our offer of help I knew that there were only two ways it could end. We could detonate the bomb and destroy the Gyre, or the Gyre would be hit by a comet, and pieces of it would be flung out across this entire system.'

  He pointed out through the window, at one of the distant, shining planets: a tiny speck in the distance which looked a pale shade of blue.

  'See that planet? That's our home world. There are a billion Sittuun there. My family, my friends... they are all there.

  Everything and everyone I've ever known. Our projections showed a ninety eight per cent chance of it being hit, should Schuler-Khan impact with the Gyre. The loss of life would have been catastrophic. But even with that in mind, and even after I'd learned to think of the humans as savages, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I sat there, with the bomb, but I couldn't set it.

  Tell me something, Doctor... We saw a signal, in Morse code, from the human city. Was that you?'

  The Doctor nodded.

  'I thought so,' said Captain Jamal, smiling. 'Well that signal probably saved our lives. Most of our lives, anyway. You know something, Doctor? For one who looks so young, you have an air about

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  you. Like a man who's seen the universe several times over.

  I can't quite describe it. You've done this sort of thing before?'

  'Yes. I suppose so.'

  'And do things always go to plan?'

  'Sometimes. Not always.'

  'And this time?'

  The Doctor shrugged and shook his head.

  'Then I'd suggest, Doctor, that you think about it this way.

  Today you saved three lives several times over. Because of your warning, the bomb was activated and the Gyre destroyed.

  One world has been destroyed, but another twelve in this system are safe. The most important choices that we make in life are never the easiest. You're a good man, Doctor, and you did everything you could. We all did.'

  'So I suppose you'll be going soon?' said Charlie.

  He and Amy were in the loading bay, sat on crates either side of the TARDIS. Amy hadn't spoken in some time, and the silence was beginning to feel awkward.

  'Yeah,' she replied. 'Soon.'

  'Right. And this thing really can travel in time?'

  Amy nodded.

  'So you could go anywhere?'

  'Yeah. Just about. Although I'll have to go home sooner or later. I can't keep putting that off.

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  I've got such a big day tomorrow. If you can call it tomorrow.

  I mean... It's not really tomorrow. It's a day two hundred and fifty thousand years ago. And between you and me, I'm having such a hard time getting my head around this stuff. It's like jetlag. But really, really bad jetlag. Like, when you get jetlag your body thinks it's nine o'clock in the morning, but it's three o'clock and everyone else is still asleep. Right now my brain thinks it's the twenty-first century. I've run around a spaceship in my nightie. How weird is that?'

  Charlie laughed. 'Yeah. That is kind of weird. So... Have you got anyone back home?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well... Like, a boyfriend or anything?'

  'It's a bit more complicated than that,' she told him, chewing her lip anxiously.

  'Oh. I see. Only... You know, if you and the Doctor were planning on hanging around for a little while, maybe coming back to our planet for a bit, I thought, maybe...'

  'Were you about to ask me out on a date?'

  Charlie looked down at the ground, his cheeks turning a funny shade of turquoise. He could feel himself blushing, but was unable to stop it.

  'Oh my God! You were!' said Amy. 'You were asking me out on a date! But... you're an alien!

  'Er... so are you,' said Charlie. 'From my perspective, I mean. I'm sorry. Forget I said

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  anything. I understand. It's the no-nose thing, isn't it? Lots of Earth girls freak out with the no-nose thing. And that's fine. To be honest, I find eyebrows a little bit weird. I mean... It looks like your eyes are wearing tiny little wigs or something.'

  Amy started to laugh and couldn't stop. She laughed until there were tears rolling down her cheeks, doubled over and hugging herself and almost falling from the crate. Charlie felt himself blushing again.

  'What?' said Charlie. 'Well they do. I'm sorry.'

&nbs
p; Tiny little wigs.. .'Amy laughed. That's... that's hilarious.'

  She wiped the tears from her eyes and took a deep breath, trying her best to compose herself.

  'Oh, this is still so weird. I haven't laughed that hard in quite a while. I wasn't sure I still could... after that place.'

  And now the smile faded from her face, and she looked thoughtful and pensive once more.

  'I just keep thinking about the people who were there,' she said. 'I mean... I'm a human, and they were humans, but they seemed so different, when we first saw them. And then I started noticing things, when we were in their city. Familiar things. The things they were saying and doing. And I thought, hang on... they're not that different. They're not that different at all. I mean... All the wars and things that happen back on Earth. All

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  the violence. How are we any better? And is that all we're really good at, at the end of the day? Just being horrible to each other?

  Certainly seems like it sometimes.'

  Suddenly, Amy looked very sad and troubled, but Charlie knew exactly what to do. He got up from the crate, and crossed the loading bay to the far corner, where the Sittuun's possessions and supplies were stacked. He opened up what looked like a silver briefcase and took out a small white plastic cube. Placing the cube on top of the crate next to Amy's, he hit a button, and seconds later the loading bay was filled with the sound of an old, 1940s big band and then a woman's voice, singing: 'Let's build a stairway to the stars...'

  'What's that?' asked Amy, scrunching up her nose.

  'That...' said Charlie, 'is Ella Fitzgerald. And she was human.

  Brilliant, isn't it?'

  'Well... It's not really my kind of music. It's like the kind of thing somebody's grandmother would listen to. But... yeah... I suppose it's all right.'

  'All right? All right? It's beautiful. We don't have anything like this back home. We don't have songs. We don't even have music. When I think about humans, Amy... I don't think about wars or anything like that. I think about this. This is what you lot are capable of. This and so much more. And it's beautiful.'