Doctor Who BBCN13 - Sting of the Zygons Read online

He had known Edward Lunn a long time – an upstanding business-man, a loyal friend, a caring husband and father. And now Lunn lay a broken man, while the thing that had broken him – a mockery among God’s creatures – was at large, somewhere out there.

  He thought of the monster’s corpse at Templewell.

  The dead chime of its steel flesh when struck by the saw, like a death knell sounding. Not of Earthly origin, that Doctor had said.

  And now there was something in Lunn’s eyes that spoke of hell.

  43

  A part of Haleston wanted to crawl into bed and hide under the covers in the safe, soft darkness. But he stood sentinel at the window, knowing the hour to act was ticking closer.

  He blinked. There was a speck of colour beside the rill that threaded down the eastern slope of Eskine’s peak. It looked like. . . a tiny figure.

  Haleston hesitated for a moment, filled with a nameless dread.

  Then he raised his binoculars to see.

  It was a young girl, her solemn face framed by long, golden curls shining in the sun. Her skinny arm pointed to Wolvenlath Mere. Her eyes seemed fixed on him, as if she knew he was watching her.

  Chewing his lip, Haleston lowered the binoculars and rubbed his eyes. ‘Ridiculous,’ he breathed. ‘You can’t be seeing things now. A clear gaze, that’s what’s needed.’

  When he raised the glasses again he noticed two things. Firstly, that the girl had gone.

  Secondly, that his hands would not stop shaking.

  Martha woke groggily at eight that morning. But she soon came round as the whiff of burning food reached her nostrils. Dressing quickly, she went downstairs and found Monsieur Romand picking at blackened bacon and runny eggs in the dining room.

  ‘Good morning, dear lady,’ he said to her.

  ‘Not so far it isn’t.’ Martha yawned and stretched. ‘Have you seen the Doctor?’

  ‘He went out at first light,’ said Mrs Unswick, standing in the doorway. The poor woman had been disturbed twice in the night by their going and coming, and her haggard face showed it. ‘He said you weren’t to worry, and he’d be back later this morning if all was well.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Martha, frowning.

  ‘It seems you have been abandoned, my dear, no?’ Romand gestured to the seat opposite. ‘Perhaps I might entertain you.’

  ‘Happen she’ll be more entertained by a good breakfast,’ said Mrs Unswick. ‘Bacon and eggs do you,

  Miss Jones?’

  ‘Er, do you have any toast?’ she asked.

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  Mrs U shook her head. ‘No bread. Only bacon and eggs, dearie.’

  ‘Then. . . that’d be great. Thank you.’

  The woman bustled away, and Romand lowered his voice confidentially. ‘They are not good, but I do not think she can cook anything else at all!’

  Martha smiled and sat down opposite. ‘So, what have you got planned today?’

  ‘As ever, I search for the story.’ He patted his lips with his napkin, smoothing a finger over his trimmed moustache. ‘I thought perhaps I might join a hunting expedition with my movie camera, yes? Then, while the plucky Englishmen hunt down their monster, the Frenchman can do some shooting of his own. Who knows! Perhaps I might even capture on film a famous – what is the word – phantom of these parts.’

  ‘Like little Molly, you mean?’ Sitting here now in streaming sunlight, Martha found it hard to imagine how spooked she had been last night.

  ‘Probably just a girl out playing.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The Frenchman leaned forward over the remains of his breakfast and lowered his voice. ‘According to Mrs Unswick, in the village of Beetham there roams a headless hound. It is said he proph-esies death for anyone he follows.’

  ‘If he’s got no head, how does he know who he’s following?’ Martha pointed out. But mention of a hound had put her in mind of Teazel last night, and her thoughts strayed to his master with the cracked head. We really should get Mr Lunn’s head X-rayed, she thought idly, whatever he says. She remembered the injured man’s point-blank refusal. . .

  And then she jumped up from the table.

  Romand started in surprise. ‘Dear lady, are you unwell?’

  ‘Would you settle for completely stupid?’ Realisation was banging her round the head now. The Doctor said that these Zygons could take human form. In which case, Lunn’s run-in with them might really have left him a changed man. Would alien bones show up on an x-ray? Martha had no idea, but she knew that if she were being hunted and a master of disguise, then tricking her way into the company of influential human beings with plenty of guns would be a 45

  pretty good bet. But if Lunn was a Zygon, how long was he planning to stay undercover? What was he up to there – and how safe were the people around him?

  ‘An English penny for your thoughts.’ Romand offered.

  ‘I’ll give you some grub for them!’ Mrs Unswick announced as she came into the room with a plate of breakfast.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs U.’ said Martha. The eggs looked almost raw, and the bacon was charred. She grabbed a rasher anyway and shoved it in her mouth. ‘Victor mentioned your garden joins onto the Goldspur estate.’ she said with her mouth full. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Very nearly.’ Mrs Unswick looked at her uncertainly. ‘Though the estate’s still a good half-mile distant.’

  ‘I think I should look in on my patient.’ she said. She pinched the other bit of bacon to show willing, and smiled. ‘Can you point me in the right direction?’

  It was a beautiful, clear, crisp morning. The sunlight shimmered on the surface of the lakes, and made even the stubbly remains of the wheat fields glow gold.

  The Doctor was hitching a lift in the back of a milk cart, pulled by a sturdy black mare. The milkman was on his way back home now, and passed only a mile or two from the field the TARDIS stood in.

  ‘I’m glad of the company,’ he called, and something in his voice told the Doctor he wasn’t just being polite. ‘Twice this morning I’ve seen the fetch of poor little Molly Melton. Just standing there in the fields. . . ’

  ‘Oh yes?’ The Doctor dangled his legs happily from the back of the cart as it trundled along the rutted lane. ‘Pointing, was she?’

  ‘You’ve seen her too, then. Many folks about here have.’ The milkman lowered his voice. ‘They say wherever she points is struck by disaster. She’s warning souls away. Saving the lives of others now her own’s been taken.’ He flicked the reins and clicked his tongue, and the mare quickened her step. ‘They say she comes to the hunters most of all. Warning them away from the Beast of Westmorland. Urging 46

  them to flee while they’ve got their lives.’ He sighed. ‘Not that any of them do, of course.’

  The Doctor nodded, absently. He was enjoying the clopping of the horse and the squeak of the carriage, the scratchy calls of the larks and terns overhead – and the whirr of his sonic screwdriver. But best of all was the weird, intermittent chitter coming from the decaying lump in his other hand.

  ‘There’s life in the old thing yet,’ he murmured happily to himself.

  ‘Dangerous. ‘Verrrrrrry dangerous.’

  As if heeding the warning, the control went dead. The Doctor carried on tinkering.

  Think Martha told herself as she marched through the Lodge’s over-grown gardens. You can’t just charge in and accuse an invalid of being an alien. But maybe you can find out if the patient’s been up to anything unusual in the night, and let the Doctor know when he gets back from wherever he’s gone.

  She reached the fence, hitched up her skirt and climbed over into the green slope of the meadow. The grass was long and still wet with the dew despite the sunshine. A few cows watched her warily as she ploughed onward.

  The walk took some time. Over the brow of the gentle hill, she could see a high brick wall that signalled the boundary of Goldspur.

  Martha was just wondering how she might scale it when the face of a young boy popped into sight at the top of it. He was pale an
d freckled, with red hair swept back from his forehead. With his aquiline features, he bore a striking resemblance to Edward Lunn. She recognised him at once as the boy she’d seen last night.

  ‘Hello,’ he called.

  Martha grinned. This could be just the break she’d been hoping for.

  ‘Out playing?’

  ‘Exploring,’ the boy corrected her in upper-class tones. ‘Old Haleston’s grounds are fertile territory.’

  ‘I’m sure they are. You’re Ian, aren’t you?’

  47

  ‘And you’re Miss Martha Jones.’ Ian swung himself onto the top of the wall and regarded her. ‘I think I shall like you. You helped my father.’

  Martha smiled back. ‘I’d like to help him some more. How is he this morning?’

  ‘The doctor came to see him. . . ’ He must have noticed her reaction.

  ‘Not your Doctor, silly. Dr Fenchurch. Though I much prefer yours.’

  ‘What did Dr Fenchurch say?’

  ‘Not a lot – Father sent him away and gave the tablets he left to Mother. . . ’ A cloud crossed Ian’s face. ‘I think perhaps he hoped they might stop her crying.’

  Or else human tranquilisers might affect aliens totally differently, thought Martha.

  ‘Father’s very cross he can’t remember more about what happened,’

  Ian went on. ‘He shouted at Mother and me when we brought him breakfast. . . he only calmed down when Lord Haleston left to hunt down whatever he saw at Wolvenlath.’

  Martha came to a decision. ‘Ian, I think it might be helpful if I paid your father another visit.’

  ‘I’m sure Mother wouldn’t mind,’ said Ian eagerly. ‘But it’s too far to walk round. Why not climb the wall? You’ll see some of the bricks have been chipped at. Did the job myself last summer, they make perfect footholds.’

  ‘Resourceful,’ she commended him, and started to climb.

  The Doctor was striding over field and vale, quoting Wordsworth to cattle at the top of his lungs.

  The view was startling from the hillside. Grey crags and bald tors scraped the clouds that dusted the deep blue sky. That blue was reflected in the meres and waters that lay on the land like shards of some great mirror. Fields of grass and rape and barley sat slotted together in green and yellow and copper squares. A charred patch here and there marked the stale seedbeds burned off ready for wheat to be sown.

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  Heavy footsteps made the Doctor turn. A nearby cow was ambling over, watching him with brown, soulful eyes. It nudged against the side of his leg, pushing at the coat pocket that held the Skarasen control.

  ‘I’m sorry, Daisy, is my alien gadget bothering you?’ The Doctor pulled out the Zygon device and shook it. ‘Signal keeps stopping and starting. Decomposition in the crystal lattice, most likely. . . ’

  Suddenly a thundering, bestial cry sounded in the distance behind him. The cow bolted, and the Doctor turned in time to catch the dark, sleek shape of a Skarasen rise up from a forest in a distant valley. The two humps of its back cleared the treeline, and its head bobbed about on its immensely long neck.

  ‘So you’re real, all right,’ breathed the Doctor in wonder. ‘A second Skarasen, not far from Wolvenlath. Right where Molly Melton said danger would be.’

  The Skarasen turned to stare in his direction, and for a chilling moment the Doctor felt the creature could actually see him, even all the way over there.

  ‘Can you hear it calling?’ He waved the signal device in the air. ‘Is it a pied piper’s flute you have to follow, or a racket you have to shut up before it drives you mad?’

  Abruptly, the Skarasen’s head ducked back down beneath the treeline. The Doctor frowned at the lump of fungal flesh in his hand, held it to his ear and shook it. ‘Stopped again! We need to get you working properly. . . ’ He looked over at two more cows, huddled nervously together. ‘You know, the thing about organic crystallography is that its atomic structure is quite receptive to sonic vibrations. So if I can find a compatible resonance to heal the transmitter cells. . . ’

  He frowned as the cows turned suddenly and ran away.

  ‘Only thinking aloud!’ the Doctor called after them. A throaty, gurgling moan sounded close behind. And the Doctor turned to find a Zygon bearing down on him, its squashed-up features twisted in rage as its stinging claws reached for his face.

  49

  TheDoctorrecoiled,stuffedthesignallingdevicebackinhispocket.

  Then he grabbed one of the Zygon s wrists with both hands and twisted it hard. The alien hissed with pain, lashed out with its free hand. But the Doctor had staggered back into a fresh-laid cowpat, slippery as a banana skin. Glutinous, claw-like fingers flashed past his eyes as his foot slid from under him, and with a yelp he fell down flat on his back.

  ‘Saved by the bell.’ the Doctor panted. ‘Well, it sounds like a bell, doesn’t it? DUNNGGG!’

  The Zygon tried to hurl itself on top of him but he lashed out with his slimy foot, catching it a glancing blow to the chest, enough to deflect its fall to the ground beside him.

  ‘What, didn’t grasp that little joke?’ The Doctor performed two backward rolls to get himself out of the Zygon’s range. ‘Bit of word-play, that’s very human. You lot should have lessons – idiosyncratic use of language, help you fit in better with the locals. Maybe I could hold a seminar. . . ?’

  ‘You will die,’ the Zygon gurgled.

  ‘And that’s before I’ve even told you my fee.’ The Doctor feinted back from the stinging claws. ‘Killing me is pointless. Not just point-51

  less, it’s stupid. I mean, here you are, a bunch of Zygons stranded on Earth, ignoring the hand of friendship.’ He waggled his left hand in the air. ‘Here it is! “Hello!" it says. “Be my friend, Zygons!" it says.

  And are you listening?’

  The Zygon hesitated, wheezing for breath. ‘You know of my people.’

  The Doctor nodded, his hand still raised. ‘And I know that something nasty around here is hurting you and your livestock. It’s already killed one of your Skarasens, and last night it mauled one of you to death.’ He lowered his hands, held them out imploringly. ‘You’re vul-nerable here. Bullets can stop you. Humans can stop you. But I can help you.’

  The Zygon stared at him, something like wonder in its eyes.

  Then the hatred stole back in.

  The Doctor threw himself aside as his attacker lunged forwards, sticky orange fingers clawing for his skin.

  ‘You will give me the trilanic activator,’ hissed the Zygon.

  ‘Trilanic activator?’ The Doctor looked about for cover, but aside from a few gorse bushes there was only open ground. ‘Oh, you mean your little Skarasen signalling device.’ He produced it from his pocket, tossed it in the air and caught it again. ‘What’s up, worried I’m gonna take control of your mobile food supply? You should be.’

  ‘Return the activator to me,’ the Zygon demanded, its voice rasping deeper.

  ‘Nope.’ The Doctor backed away, holding the activator up in the air, out of reach. ‘Not until you say please.’

  The creature glared at him. Then it looked down at the grass.

  ‘Please,’ it said.

  Lowering his arm, the Doctor stared in disbelief.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Please.’ The Zygon raised its huge, misshapen head. There was something raw, almost desperate in its feral eyes.

  ‘Oh.’ The Doctor felt a twinge of guilt for getting its hopes up. ‘Well, that’s sweet of you to use manners, but no. Like I said, if I can fix this, I might just be able to take control of your Skarasen.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘What are you lot up to – roaming around the place, trying 52

  to kill people like Edward Lunn and his dog. . . I mean, what’s that all about?’ The Zygon did not respond, staring back at the ground.

  ‘Or am I wrong? Was it something else that attacked him – the same thing that killed your Skarasen? Is it an alien hunter. . . ?’

  The Zygon’s onl
y answer was to raise its head and charge at him.

  The Doctor turned and ran in the direction of the TARDIS, and this time he kept running.

  The last of the carriages pulled up outside the woods that bordered Wolvenlath Mere. Lord Haleston looked around with grave satisfaction as his guests and friends loaded their guns, and his grounds keeper led the gun dogs from their baskets. Morale was high. A large, dinosaur-like beast had been spotted in the area just this morning – and it hadn’t been seen to leave. Already, many of the men were talking keenly of the medals the King would bestow upon whoever bagged the beast.

  Haleston sighed. He recalled a happier time, years ago, when the King had hosted a shoot. Just ten of them had killed over 1,300 birds.

  It had been a glorious day’s sport.

  There would be no grouse or pheasant in their sights today. This was business, not pleasure. Haleston had squared it with the local authorities and the landowner had given his full cooperation. There were other hunters in the area, and word had it that more were on the way. But Haleston wasn’t about to waste time telling them to clear out and leave the job to his party. He was happy to have all hands to the pump. The hunt for the Beast of Westmorland was ready to begin in earnest.

  ‘Whatever’s out there, Edward, we’ll get it.’ Haleston muttered.

  He wondered if any of those men had been pointed to Wolvenlath by a lost-looking girl with long, golden hair. He glanced round quickly; half afraid he would glimpse her again. Instead he saw Victor, striding up to him, brandishing his antique blunderbuss.

  ‘What’s our plan, old boy?’ Victor wondered. ‘Give the dogs their head? Fan out and track together to find its lair, or split into smaller parties?’

  53

  Haleston regarded him. ‘It’s most likely that the beast is hiding in the lake. We must fire into the water, attempt to drive it out.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Your friend the Doctor was right.’ Haleston said slowly. ‘The skin of the beast was tougher than steel. If we’re to strike this monster down, we must aim for softer parts – the eyes, perhaps.’