|
|
  
‘Cy. Please stop this now,’ the Doctor pleaded. Vera was huddled with her head buried in the folds of his robes. ‘Oh yes, please do as he says Cy!’ she begged. ‘Can’t you see this is wrong? Why are you doing this? I thought you was a good boy!’ ‘Quiet you,’ Cy said, without even sparing her a glance. Nick was chained to the machine by the silver manacles, bare-chested and his head bowed down drowsily. ‘Nick wants to help us. He knows it’s the only way.’ ‘Why does he need your Nick anyway Doctor?’ Vera asked. She wiped a half-dry tear from her cheek. ‘I don’t know,’ the Doctor replied. ‘It would all be intensely interesting if it wasn’t so dangerous. Nick has very specialised latent mental powers, the extent of which even he doesn’t know about. I would guess that it is acting as a channel for the forces that these people are attempting to harness. That’s why he feels such an affinity with that monstrosity, and why he’s knocked for six whenever it contacts the rest of its kind.’ The Doctor jabbed a thumb at the tank, where the Protii bobbed silently. It peered back at them with its hypnotic green eyes from behind Nick. ‘Right Doctor,’ Cy said, his eyes beginning to blaze. ‘Right, right, right and right again. I can see you’re one clever guy. I think it’s about time we put all your smart theories to the test. What do you say?’ ‘No don’t!’ the Doctor warned. ‘I’m telling you for the last time… it isn’t only one of those creature’s you’re re-animating. You can’t control it like a pet! It will DEVOUR you!’ Cy reached for a multi-trussed metal switch on the side of the machine, but Vera marched forward, her distress now turned to rage. ‘Now listen you!’ she demanded. ‘You aren’t too old to be put over my knee you know! Now this is wrong! And you’re going to stop it all right now!’ She reached out to touch Cy but he grabbed her arm first and hurled her aside. She landed in a heap at his feet. ‘Oh Nan,’ he said, remorselessly. ‘How stupid you’ve been. You gave me the bones of a creature so ancient and powerful it will enable me to achieve everything I want to, and all the time you thought we were breeding tropical fish. Working away in that hostel, never even a clue that Endlemann and I were growing the means to control everything. You, this sodding planet, this whole galaxy!’ He threw the switch. An arc of light raced over Nick’s bare body and he was thrown back against the tank, down the side of which snaked a crack. ‘Get down!’ yelled the Doctor. From inside the tank, a thin webbed claw was thrust out the green fluid and over the side of the tank. It hooked itself round Nick’s neck. All around them, a single, finally uniformed voice could be heard, deep and powerful. ‘BORN OF ANGER! BORN OF EVIL!’ In the village, at the same moment, Alf covered her ears in pain. An eerie buzzing had filled the air. ‘Did you get the message through?’ she yelled to Humba. At that moment, as if the vibration in the end was as hot as a burning plate, the radio transmitter spontaneously exploded in a brief shower of sparks. ‘I bloody well hope so!’ he replied, surveying the blackened remains of the box on his desk. ‘I’m pretty sure I did. Old Cos will be on his way as we speak.’ ‘Good. Now I think we really ought to get out of here.’ Alf ran to the window. ‘Look!’ Humba cried from behind her. Outside, sitting on the dusty track, was one of the creatures, its wings folded nearly behind it and its mandibles rubbing together in fevered motion. ‘Are we safe in here?’ Humba trembled, somehow knowing the answer to his question before he had even asked it. ‘Come on,’ Alf said. ‘We’ve got to make a break for it. I’ll take this,’ she added determinedly, picking up the smooth bone-like object Humba had brought back from the casino. ‘I’m just about ready to batter something.’ With that, she hurled open the hut door and ran, dragging Humba after her. As they tore away from the hut, the Protii raised one of its claws to balance itself, leant back, and spat a bolt of crackling energy towards the run-down old building. A second later, there was nothing to prove that Humba's hut had ever stood on the dusty plains of Gidi at all. At the house, the Doctor emerged, coughing and choking from the top of the cellar stairs, with Vera in close pursuit. ‘Ooh Doctor, what is Cy doing to your poor Nick,’ she blustered. ‘Don’t worry Vera,’ the Doctor replied. ‘There might just be something we can do before that lad of yours brings devastation down upon us. We just have to think quickly that’s all.’ ‘Well I’ll try my best Doctor,’ Vera said. ‘It’s just so hot in here. And I’m so worried about Cy. Oh, I know he’s being wicked but he’s still family. Well sort of. And he isn’t all bad Doctor, believe me.’ ‘Well let’s go outside. You look like you need some fresh air.’ ‘Doctor I know I’m just a stupid old woman, but what was all that “born of anger, born of evil” stuff we could hear down there?’ The Doctor opened the kitchen door and led her outside. ‘You know I was wondering that for a moment myself too. Obviously it must be the Protii collective reaching out from the very depths of time to the creature in the cellar. They’re using Nick as a conduit.’ ‘It doesn’t sound good Doc, does it?’ ‘Chin up! We’ve not lost all hope yet Vera. If we can get Nick out of the cellar and away from the creature, we can at least stop the Protii collective communicating with the one lone specimen loose on this world.’ In the cellar, Cy stood in rapture before Nick. He could feel the power all around him, and he marvelled at how it seemed to almost be multiplying in intensity. He didn’t care where it was coming from, he believed in the unexplained science he had been spoon-fed. The Protii gradually grew in strength as Nick acted as a conduit drawn from places no human mind had ever dreamt of before. The Doctor took out a large silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘Vera. Was it my imagination or did Nick say you worked in a hostel?’ Vera looked at him oddly. ‘Yeah that’s right Doctor. A hostel on the other side of town.’ ‘But I’ve been on Gidi for the past two days,’ the Doctor said calmly. ‘And there isn’t a hostel here. You work in a casino.’ ‘No, no, no!’ Vera replied, shaking her mop of curls and sending at least one hair roller spinning forward to hit the Doctor in the face. ‘You’re getting confused Doctor. It must be all this heat.’ ‘Perhaps.’ The Doctor tapped his chin in thought. Just like with the doctor’s surgery. Somehow events were being changed on this world, and he really did not like the fact. ‘There’s never been a casino on Gidi,’ Vera went on. ‘I mean there’s only four people live here. It’s hardly likely is it.’ The Doctor looked grave. This really was getting out of control now. Four people? The planet had been full of people earlier. All right so it was not inhabited to the extent of others in this galaxy, but there had at least been several thousand people here. ‘Something’s very wrong,’ he muttered. ‘Are we just running scared or what?’ asked Alf, gasping for breath as Humba led her down behind a row of run-down old huts and into some bushes on the fringe of the forest. ‘There’s an old mill, about a mile from here,’ he replied. ‘Used to belong to my Father, Waterguard Humba the Third. We can hide there.’ ‘Why don’t we try and get back to the house?’ Alf begged. ‘It’s too risky. We’d have to cross the main road again, and I don’t fancy tangling with something with that could take on the whole of the waterguard contingent this side of the cosmos.’ ‘Well we can’t hide forever. I just hope the message we sent from your hut got through.’ ‘Hut?’ Humba echoed, as he pulled back some bracken to make a way through. ‘There’s a concealed path through here that takes us to the mill. It’s old and dark and I happen to have a few very useful things stashed away.’ Alf looked at him oddly. ‘Your hut,’ she was concerned by the blank look on Humba’s face. ‘How long have you lived there?’ ‘I don’t live in a hut!’ Humba replied. ‘What are you talking about miss? I live in the Waterguard Station we’ve just come from. Ah here we are.’ He crawled out of the pathway and pointed proudly. An enormous structure stood before them, tall and made entirely of wood. The windows had been boarded up years ago, and there were no sails on the mill. The door hung open on one hinge, revealing darkness beyond. ‘I should be able to knock up a portable homing beacon,’ Humba explained. ‘That’ll guide in Costa when he arrives.’ He strode forwards, but Alf grabbed his sleeve. ‘Wait!’ she said, listening. ‘I can hear it again! That sound!’ They waited, feeling the tension as if were hanging over them like a sonic shadow. ‘Alf, look out!’ Humba yelled, and she spun round. Behind her was a Protii, chittering and buzzing to itself, its beautiful translucent blue form shining and rippling like a mirage. She turned back, only to gasp in horror - two more of the creatures were standing behind Humba. They were surrounded. Alf darted for the door of the mill. She tried to edge round the two Protii blocking the way, because it was all she could do. The moment she began her sprint, however, the Protii that had been hovering behind her extended its wings to sit, framed for one beautiful moment fully spread against the night sky, before vanishing to almost instantaneously re-appear in front of the mill doorway. ‘How…?’ Alf was aghast. ‘Alf! They mind-read!’ Before she could react, he closed his eyes and forced a thought into his mind - the thought of running away from Alf and the mill. At the same time, he bolted for the mill door. It was a brilliant and resourceful idea. It didn’t work. All three Protii shimmered and materialised directly in front of him. Humba’s face contorted in terror. ‘Alf! Run!’ he shrieked. Alf froze, torn by indecision. She knew she didn’t stand a hope of saving him from three of the things, but she could not leave him either. Humba screamed, as the Protii closed in.
|
