Doctor Who: Transit

  There were more shooting sounds from behind and a police drone whined overhead. The people ahead were beginning to look anxious, the psychological wavefront of panic outstripping Zambia's best speed. She realized that running to get ahead of the inevitable surge for the exits was going to be more important than outdistancing the cake monsters.

  A stuttering sound that she recognized from the riots as a police-drone's minigun broke through the screaming. It was answered by more shots from the cake monsters. People were beginning to run now and Zamina tried to push her legs faster.

  A wave of intense heat rolled over her back. She felt the hair on the back of her head crisping. Terrified that it might catch fire, she raised her hands to beat out any flames.

  The blast wave flung her ten metres and she skidded another twenty on her front. There was a terrible pain in her breasts as the implants were squashed violently against her ribs.

  Please God, she thought, don't let them burst. She'd heard somewhere that the silicon could leak out and give you cancer.

  Cancer, she thought. You wish.

  They were jammed solid at the escalator bank but at least the shooting had stopped. Zamina had to climb over a man to get on the central reservoir between the escalators. A hand grabbed at her ankle and she lashed out with her foot until it let go. She got friction burns on the palms of her hands sliding down. Contorted faces and struggling bodies on the escalator, either side.

  At the bottom in the booking hall she found she was ahead of the crowd again.

  She made the mistake of looking back. A single cake monster was coming down one of the escalators, either smashing aside or trampling the people in its way.

  Someone, probably a computer, had the sense at least to lock the ticket gates open. Zamina ran through them, checking the train indicators. She saw one marked 'Train at Platform'. The destination was unimportant, any destination was away from the cake monsters.

  Passengers coming towards her swerved out of her way. Crazy woman, they were thinking. Wait until they get a load of what's coming after her.

  A commuter train was standing at the platform, four carriages strung together with squat little pushme-pullyous at either end. Zamina dived through the doors just as they were closing. The surviving cake monster came in through the door window and got stuck two thirds in.

  Zamina's breath came in short burning gasps. Her legs were too heavy to move. She just hung on the handstrap and watched the monster thrashing silently in the window frame. She wondered why it was so quiet until she saw a passenger screaming and realized that she'd gone deaf.

  The cake monster kicked violently and managed to buckle the door enough to flop on to the carriage floor. A red light began to blink rapidly above the doorframe. Zamina noted with some satisfaction that the cake monster had to struggle to its feet. She could see its nostrils flaring and its chest heaving just like hers. The cake monster shook its head in a distressingly human way. Blue eyes regarded her from under ridges of bone.

  Zamina realized what the red light signified but it was too late. The cake monster raised its hand - the gun muzzle ran smoothly out.

  Zamina stared into its face. She didn't have enough energy left to tense up.

  When she didn't die, it was a bit of a disappointment. She'd been looking forward to the rest. Instead the cake monster was irritably shaking its arm up and down. It looked at Zamina and shrugged. Decimetre claws extended from its hands. It took a step towards her.

  The carriage hit the gateway interface.

  Buckling the door had seriously degraded the carriage's shield efficiency. The flashing red light was the warning signal. By rights the train should never have pulled out of the station with a red light showing but Zamina guessed that safety standards had slipped a bit recently.

  The cake monster looked over as the buckled door dissolved in a burst of psychedelic light. It looked back at Zamina through the heat-haze shimmer of an emergency containment field.

  'I win,' whispered Zamina, 'you die.'

  The rear section of the carriage disintegrated.

  Arsia Mons

  The eyes were wrong, the Doctor explained. They looked pretty bloodshot to Kadiatu but explosive decompression will do that. It messed up the face too yet it looked like Benny to her. The colour patterns in the irises, said the Doctor, didn't match his memory of the real Bernice's. He examined the gun barrels protruding from the palms of her hands.

  'Very neat,' he said. 'The flap of skin overlaps the hole, the musculature is all in the heel of the hand so that the flexing motion allows the barrel to extend into firing position. I wonder if that's intentional?'

  'What is?'

  'Know any palmistry?'

  'Not really.'

  'The flap follows the life line almost exactly,' said the Doctor 'If it's intentional then we 're dealing with some very sick minds indeed.' He straightened up and looked around the chamber. 'I think we should leave here. Now.'

  'What about that?' asked Kadiatu pointing at the body.

  'Leave it,' said the Doctor. 'They'll take care of it.'

  'Who's they?'

  'The inhabitants of this nest.'

  'Males with scales?' said Kadiatu. 'Nxi?'

  'Dormant nest,' said the Doctor. 'Don't worry, it'll take them at least two weeks to revive.

  'Shouldn't we tell someone?'

  'That's up to you,' said the Doctor, 'but we have more pressing matters.'

  They started the long trek back up the path of easy virtue.

  'It's definitely easier going in than going out,' said Kadiatu when they reached the surface. 'What now?'

  'Benny went to a lot of trouble to send us on a wild goose chase,' said the Doctor, 'which means while we're here, we should be somewhere else.'

  They climbed back up through the wrecked dustkart. Standing on the rear section Kadiatu boosted the Doctor up on to the rim. He turned, gripped her wrists and pulled her up in turn. He made a production of it, grunting loudly as she cleared the edge. Kadiatu wasn't fooled.

  'We're at least two hours from Achebe Gorge,' said Kadiatu, 'and six hours from Olympus Mons.'

  'Let's walk over there,' said the Doctor, 'to that clear patch.'

  'The faster we mount up . ..' began Kadiatu.

  'I have the situation under control,' said the Doctor. 'Trust me.' He walked towards a level section of ground about the size of a football pitch twenty metres from the pit. When the Doctor reached its centre he kicked at the soft dust, there was a harder surface underneath. 'Ferroconcrete,' he said. 'Excellent. '

  Kadiatu didn't ask, it was obvious who had built a concealed landing pad next to the nest. The Martians were supposed to be good with vibrations. Was one awake by now and listening to them walking around?

  The Doctor took three white cylinders from his suit's kangaroo pocket. He twisted the end of the first one and a spike tripod sprang from the end. The Doctor pushed the tripod into the dust. The Doctor planted the other cylinders in a rough triangle around the landing pad.

  'Light the blue touch paper,' said the Doctor, walking back to join Kadiatu, 'and retire to a safe distance.'

  A plume of burning white light burst from the top of the three upright cylinders. Magnesium distress flares.

  'Since we've got a few moments,' said the Doctor, 'why don't you tell me about great-grandfather Alistair.'

  'What do you want to know?'

  'How he met your great-grandmother would do for a start.'

  Mariatu was the third daughter of the youngest wife of the Chief Yembe of Rokoye village and a source of endless discomfort to him. Although at sixteen she was well past marriageable age she had refused all proposals, arranged or otherwise. This would have been almost acceptable to Chief Yembe; after all, a compound needs young women, to fetch water and firewood, to cook and clean, except that Mariatu did none of these womanly things. Instead she did as she pleased and ran wild in the forest like a boy.

  Chief Yembe's senior wife, sensing her husband's dis
satisfaction, spoke to Mariatu's mother, punctuating each point by banging her walking stick against the wall of the hut. Mariatu's mother fearing for the stability of her home sent for her daughter.

  'Why do you run in the forest?' demanded the senior wife. 'Are you not afraid of spirits or wild animals?'

  'Why should I be afraid?' answered Mariatu. 'I am faster than any spirit and wild animals only attack if you scare them.'

  'Why do you not fetch water for your mother?'

  'Why should I fetch water when the stream is so close? If I am thirsty I go there and drink. Others should do likewise.'

  And so it went, with each quick question came an equally quick reply until the senior wife was so tired she had to lie down in the shade.

  Mariatu's mother gave her a basket and a sharp iron machete

  'Since you love the forest so much,' said her mother, 'why don't you go there and collect fruit? In that way at least you will be of benefit to your family.'

  Mariatu, knowing a bargain when she heard one, took the basket and the iron machete and went into the forest Determined to eat at least as much wild fruit as she brought back.

  Now on that day a young British lieutenant named Alistair Gorden Lethbridge-Stewart was also in the forest. Far more in the forest than he wanted to be. This was only his first week in the country and having left his Land Rover to collect some soil samples, he had got himself lost. As he rested in the shade of the tree, Alistair saw a pretty native girl coming down the path towards him with a basket of fruit balanced on her head.

  'Why are you sitting in the forest?' asked Mariatu when she-saw him there. The stranger did not understand her but stood up. He was very tall and his skin was pale, all except his face which was a strange red colour. Mariatu took his hand and rubbed at the skin but the white stuff didn't come off. This, then, she thought, must be an oporto, one of the white men that her father was always speaking of.

  'Have you seen a Land Rover around here?' Alistair asked the native girl. 'A car, around here?' He turned an imaginary steering wheel and made brmm brmm noises. The girl just stared, making him feel bloody stupid. He wished that she was wearing more clothes. He put his hand against his forehead and mimed looking around.

  The girl reached up and took the basket from her head and handed it to him. From the basket she removed a nasty-looking black machete. Alistair instinctively took a step backwards. She grinned at him showing perfect white teeth and balanced the machete on her head. She beckoned and walked away.

  Alistair hefted the basket into a more comfortable position and followed her down the path. The basket was awkward to carry in his arms so he tried putting it on his head as the girl had done. He had to keep one hand on it for balance. After a while his arm ached, and so did his neck and back. Watching the way the girl walked he was reminded of the deportment classes that girls back home did. Learning to walk properly with books balanced on their heads.

  They ought to come down here, he thought, and see how it's really done.

  He tried to keep his mind off how well shaped the girl's legs were and the way her hips swayed when she walked. The British army frowned on serving officers fraternizing with native women, especially up-country and this close to independence. He was extremely pleased when they reached the village. The local headman was pleasant enough, one of his sons spoke a little English and soon several natives had been packed off to find his Land Rover.

  The headman kept apologizing through his son for the deplorable behaviour of his daughter. Alistair said it was nothing, forget about it, which was pretty gracious considering his arms were threatening to drop off his shoulders. From behind the hut he could hear a long harangue going on in the native lingo. A woman, properly dressed thank God, brought him some water. From behind the hut the harangue ended in the unmistakeable sound of the flat of someone's hand hitting bare flesh.

  There was a pause, then another, louder slap, followed by a howl of outrage. The headman's eyes practically glazed over with embarrassment. The girl came stalking round to the front of the flat. She pointed at Alistair, said something very fast and low in her own language, then she put her hands on her hips and waited. Alistair noticed that she was still holding the machete.

  The headman said something to the son who could speak some English and the son translated. It took quite a long time to explain.

  As they walked back to the Land Rover, located two hundred yards from where he had been sitting under the tree, Alistair asked himself once again how he managed to get himself talked into things like this. It wasn't as if he needed a houseboy, let alone a houseboy who didn't speak any English, or a houseboy who was a girl. He didn't even have a house; he lived in three rooms above a Lebanese trader on Wilberforce Street.

  The girl put her machete on the dashboard and climbed into the passenger seat, as if she'd been riding in Land Rovers all her life. When she saw Alistair grasp the steering wheel she laughed and mimicked the action. 'A-car-around-here,' she said. He fished in his kit for his spare uniform shirt and gave it to her.

  As they drove away down the trail that led to the road thai led to Freetown the girl grabbed her machete and standing on the seat waved it over her head.

  Eight years passed in the village with no word from Mariatu. Then one day, a year after independence, a strange woman came to the village. She arrived in a Land Rover piled with goods. Beside her sat a fair-skinned boy with green eyes.

  Chief Yembe waited on his verandah to see who this important-looking woman was. A government official perhaps? Her face was difficult to make out; the Chiefs eyes were not as good as they once were. He waited patiently, for he was the Chief and she must come to him.

  When the woman came closer Chief Yembe saw it was his daughter.

  'And that's what happened?'

  'That's the way my father told it,' said Kadiatu. 'Her son grew up and became a soldier. He had a son, also a soldier, and a daughter who became a historian. I'm named after the daughter.'

  The Doctor's faceplate was black in the last light of the small Martian sun: his face hidden. 'I'm beginning to see a pattern, he said. 'I asked you before if you believed in fate, didn 't I, and you said something flippant.'

  'I was in shock at the time.'

  'There's no such thing as fate,' said the Doctor. 'But there are patterns. Patterns and shadows.'

  'What patterns?' asked Kadiatu.

  The Doctor didn't answer. Instead he looked up at the sky. With the fading sun even the dimmer stars were becoming visible.

  'Taxi's here,' he said.

  Three stars in a triangular pattern fell towards them; out of the violet sky.

  Kadiatu recognized the jet as it landed between the flares. The same matt black wedge of variable-geometry carbon fibre. The same archaic blue and white icons on its wings and tail assembly. The vertical thrusters burned a darker shade of blue, tailored self-oxidizing fuel for the Martian environment.

  The canopy remained closed this time, Francine staying sealed up inside the cockpit.

  The side hatch opened and the stirrup ladder unfolded. The Doctor gave Kadiatu a mocking little bow and waved her forward.

  'A good rule in this business,' he said, 'is that when you make a plan, plan in depth.'

  Olympus Mons West

  Benny found herself slapping her pockets in the lift down to the concourse, discovering again that the book was gone. The book was important, she knew that, but the complex code had defeated her interpretation. Now she'd lost it to the Doctor. He was in possession of its secrets.

  The impulse that led her to give Zimmy the book was unclear. The deception plan had been of her own devising; even if it didn't understand the danger posed by the Doctor, she had no illusions. Forcing the Doctor out of position had been her priority, not its. Yet the instinct that had propelled the action had come from somewhere outside, like her lapse in the cavern. It had just seemed vital to the deception that the Doctor was shown the book.

  That implied that the Doctor kn
ew about the book already.

  Benny wished that she had deciphered the book first.

  She wished she could stop thinking about it, it was giving her a migraine.

  The interior of the lift interested her. Its technology was archaic, not just from her twenty-sixth century perspective but in terms of this century as well. They had force-field elevators elsewhere in the system, so why build a clumsy mechanical device like this? Technology plateaux were a well-known concept amongst historians and archaeologists, even those that had forged their accreditation. Over the millennia a wheel remained a round thing that spun on an axle, the materials with which it was constructed largely irrelevant.

  On Terra she could understand it. On Terra the future built over, around and beneath the past. The Kremlin walls still stood in Moskva even in her time, albeit under a geodesic dome. Settlement on Mars couldn't be more than ten, twenty year-old. The lift with its bronze mirror with dragons engraved around the edges belonged to another time.

  It was a conscious anachronism.

  There was a tendency amongst academics to ignore the pre-expansionist period of terrestrial history. Sandwiched between the nuclear age and the first diaspora. It was a transitional period, difficult to study and so overlooked.

  Archaeologists think in centuries, history to them is the slow accretion of dead things in the ground. The rise and fall of civilizations written in the strata of broken pottery. When one design of pot gives way to another the archaeologist says to herself, 'Transitional period,' and starts looking for contemporaneous earthquakes or invasions.

  I'm in a transitional phase, thought Benny, and I'm doing things to history. I must remember to take notes.

  There was a stab of pain in her left temple.

  The doors opened and Benny stepped out on to the concourse. Two of the lifts to the left of her gaped open, the floor in from covered with streaks of crash foam. Air exposure had turned the foam a dirty white colour; here and there the foam showed splashes of pinky red.