Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition Read online

  K-9 whirred and raised his head. ‘Affirmative mistress. Current likelihood of Doctor master achieving a sufficient score in basic time travel proficiency test estimated at zero point one per cent.’

  ‘Pah!’ The Doctor circled the console. ‘Some of us don’t need fancy certificates, you know.’

  ‘Doctor,’ said Romana delicately. His lack of academic achievements was a sore subject with him, and typically he was trying to bluster his way out of the argument. ‘Without your time travel proficiency, you’re not qualified to operate the TARDIS. If you hadn’t failed the test at the academy…’

  ‘I did not fail.’ The Doctor bristled. ‘I didn’t take it.’

  ‘You didn’t turn up for it, you mean.’

  ‘Why should I turn up, what’s the point? I mean, what’s the point in turning up for something…’ The Doctor spluttered for a sufficiently weighty word. ‘… Pointless.’

  Romana took a slow breath. ‘You do realise your neurosis is the result of a deep-rooted inferiority complex, don’t you?’

  ‘Inferiority complex?’ The Doctor fixed her with a probing stare. ‘What could I possibly have to feel inferior about? Me? K-9, have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?’

  ‘Affirmative, master,’ replied K-9. ‘You have frequently made statements with greater nonsensical content.’

  ‘And when I want your opinion I’ll ask for it.’ The Doctor glared at the robot dog.

  ‘Taking the test might help you come to terms with your past failure,’ suggested Romana. ‘You obviously regret your wasted years at the academy.’

  ‘I don’t regret anything. Never look back, Romana. You can’t change your own past. It’s in that book of yours, second law of time travel.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s the first law.’ Romana whispered into his ear. ‘Doctor, unless you pass this test I will have no choice but to insist that I drive.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ The Doctor straightened his coat and rounded on the console. ‘Test me again. Let’s see who’s the neurotic one around here.’ He aimed the last remark at K-9.

  Romana smirked at the Doctor, and read aloud. ‘“Practical examination. When encountering causal instability, it may become necessary to relocate your time vehicle to a real-universe location of safety. It is important the ‘emergency materialisation’, as it is known, is performed as quickly and smoothly as possible.”’

  ‘Quickly and smoothly.’ The Doctor cleared his throat.

  ‘Right. When I slap the console, I want you to materialise the TARDIS. Ready?’

  The Doctor hunched over the controls. Romana outstretched her palm and slapped the console hard.

  In a flurry, the Doctor pulled levers and flipped switches, darting around the controls, his eyes raised towards the central column. He gently lowered the materialisation lever. The column revolved and sank and the familiar landing sounds trumpeted into life. The Doctor smoothed his brow and grinned.

  A hideous grinding, like gears crunching out of alignment, filled the air. The lights dimmed and the floor lurched away from beneath Romana’s feet, sending her spinning into the walls. She gripped the edges of a roundel, bracing herself as the room began to judder wildly out of control.

  The turbulence hurled K-9 across the floor and he crashed into the Doctor’s chair. The Doctor remained at the console, hands scrabbling across the controls.

  Romana craned forward, her hair whipping across her face. ‘Doctor! Activate the analogue osmosis dampener!’

  The Doctor looked back at her uncomprehendingly, the TARDIS instruments fizzling around him.

  Romana couldn’t help thinking he was never going to pass at this rate.

  The late summer sun dappled through the canopy, the beams cascading through the lazy spray of the waterfall. Nyanna felt the warm light play across her face, her delicate, transparent skin soaking in the vapour. The condensation rushed through her veins, refreshing and nourishing her, and her membranes rippled into a rich green. She inhaled the humid air and luxuriated in the stillness. It would be her last chance, for a while.

  The stream splashed into the canyon through the tangle of fronds and root leaves. The entrance to the canyon was a gash in the moss-drenched rock and Nyanna hesitated at the sight. She had rehearsed this scene in countless dreams, even down to the twinkle of the water and the forest aroma. Each dream had been identical, culminating in her being swallowed by the darkness and rushing to consciousness pursued by an overwhelming dread. But now there was no escape. The moment she had tried to push to the back of her mind for so long had arrived.

  She advanced into the canyon. The path milled downwards through the boulders and shadow-dwelling orchids, the walls on either side were wet with vines. The heat was unrelenting and the thick, coiling foliage obscured the sunlight.

  The canyon twisted open and Nyanna emerged into baking sunlight. Far above her, the giant mothertrees yawned through the clouds, their thick stems stretching endless miles before blossoming into vast balconies on the edge of Arboreta’s stratosphere. And, beyond the mothertrees, the glimmering blue sphere that dominated half the sky. It consisted of one giant ocean and it was possible to distinguish the contours of crashing waves, the mist that would soon rain down on Arboreta, and even the shadows of the leviathans that flitted beneath the surface.

  Nyanna savoured the vision. It was so beautiful that it was tinged with unreality. The view was so clear she could almost reach out and touch it.

  ‘Early, Nyanna. As always, early.’ The elder interrupted Nyanna’s thoughts. He was a short, bumbling figure, his neck fan curled up like a dried-out root leaf. His words creaked like branches in the breeze. ‘It seems a lifetime since last we met, and yet, not so long at all.’

  ‘Gallura? Is he born?’ asked Nyanna anxiously.

  ‘Gallura?’ the elder said, running the name over his lips. ‘Is not yet born. His egg remains, approaching the moment.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Hours. The birthsayers believe it will be within the day, within the day.’ He led Nyanna towards the distant mothertrees, following a well-worn path. ‘As always, early.’

  The ceiling curved in from one side of the metal floor to the other. Boxes, computer parts and other junk were heaped against one wall, covered in a snowfall of grey dust. The other wall was filled by a bulkhead door. Oversized iron hooks were fixed along the length of the ceiling, rusty and covered in trailing cobwebs.

  The blue police-box exterior of the TARDIS began to form in one corner. For a brief while it seemed to be slipping in and out of existence, the chipped wood panelling becoming first solid and then ethereal, until, with a final, resounding crump, the TARDIS materialised.

  ‘Obviously that wasn’t completely perfect,’ said the Doctor, wafting his floppy brown hat over the smoking console. The control room was in disarray; the hat stand had fallen over, the Doctor’s chair was upturned and K-9 was lying on his side, ears waggling.

  Romana brushed down her claret-coloured velvet jacket. She felt as though her hearts and her stomach had changed places.

  ‘Not completely perfect?’

  The Doctor blew on a smouldering control panel. ‘You may have noticed a slight bump at the end there.’ He coughed for several seconds.

  ‘Slight?’ Romana collected The Continuum Code from where it had flapped on to the ground, pocketed it, and lifted K-9 into an upright position. ‘How are you, K-9?’

  ‘All systems functioning normally,’ K-9 said. ‘Suggestion: in future, mistress should drive.’

  The Doctor snorted, bashed the door control and the doors hummed open. He jammed his hat hard on to his head, the brim covering his eyes, and shrugged his oatmeal-coloured coat into place. ‘Right. That’s it. I’m going outside, I may be some time. Romana, you can come with me if you want. K-9, stay here.’

  ‘Master?’

  ‘We won’t be very long,’ said Romana, tidying her frilly cuffs. She tapped K-9 on the nose. ‘Humour him. Taking your basic
time travel proficiency can be very stressful.’

  K-9 whirred up to the Doctor. ‘Master. Statistical analysis of previous excursions suggest a ninety per cent likelihood that my assistance will be required to facilitate liberation from incarceration.’

  ‘What?’ said a voice from somewhere under the Doctor’s hat.

  ‘You will need me to rescue you.’ K-9’s rear antennae, which resembled a tail, waggled.

  ‘Oh. Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘So how can you come and rescue us if you’re already with us, hmm? Do try to be logical. Come on, Romana.’

  ‘Goodbye, K-9.’ Romana patted the side of the computer dog’s head and followed the Doctor outside.

  *

  The Doctor switched on a torch and ran the circle of light over the surroundings. Spiders scuttled across their webs. The beam settled on the bulkhead door, and the Doctor pulled a triumphant sonic screwdriver from the depths of his pockets.

  Romana locked the police-box door behind her. ‘Where do you think we are?’

  ‘Quickly and smoothly, she says,’ muttered the Doctor under his breath, running the screwdriver over the bulkhead lock.

  ‘You do realise it is a terribly dangerous thing to do, materialising without an analogue osmosis dampener. We could have skipped over our own time paths,’ Romana said. ‘Anyway, we’re here now. Wherever it is.’ She brushed aside a shivering cobweb and ran a finger over one of the oversized hooks. ‘Not the most salubrious of…’

  The Doctor swiped the screwdriver and the bulkhead jerked apart. ‘Aha! Where would I be without my sonic screwdriver!’

  ‘Still locked in a cellar in Paris, presumably,’ said Romana.

  The bulkhead opened on to a cramped cockpit, and stale air gasped in, fluttering the cobwebs. Inside the cockpit, the instrument panels were filled with numerous displays and indicators, all unlit. The viewscreens were covered by two huge, corrugated shutters.

  Stooping, the Doctor flashed his torch over the control panels and oscilloscopes. All the dials read zero.

  Romana crouched beside him. It was chilly in here, and her breath frosted in the air. An identification plaque above the airlock door caught her attention. ‘The Montressor. A Class D security transporter.’

  ‘Nothing seems to be working.’ The Doctorjabbed experimentally at a few switches and turned to Romana, his eyes pondering. ‘I wonder what happened to the crew.’

  ‘Try manually opening the shutters. We may as well see where we are.’

  The Doctor gripped the bottom of one of the shutters and tugged. The shutter rattled upwards and light blanketed the cockpit.

  ‘Good grief.’

  Opening the shutter had revealed a whirling void. It was as though they were floating in a blurred, ever-changing ocean of colour. It was serenely, hypnotically beautiful.

  ‘A hyperspace tunnel,’ said Romana. ‘Only you could miss the entirety of the real universe and land us in hyperspace.’ She estimated the tunnel to be two miles wide; a cylinder of calm, like the eye of a hurricane.

  The Doctor rubbed his lips. ‘Over there.’

  Romana peered out. From the corner of the window she could see that their ship was connected via a short access tube to… well, Romana wasn’t sure what it was. It seemed to be a vast city. A space station bolted together at random by someone with no idea about design, or architectural viability, and who wasn’t particularly good at bolting things together. ‘A space station?’

  ‘Look closer.’

  The city was constructed from the remains of spaceships. Over one hundred craft, of every conceivable type, all jammed together and interconnected into a mesh. At the centre of the construction was an interplanetary leisure-cruiser. Its rear bulk, the only part visible, was a patchwork of decay, its skeletal structure half-exposed. Smaller craft encrusted the wreck like limpets; their ship, the Montressor, was one of these. Other ships on the outskirts of the city were in better condition and were parked at specially constructed docking ports.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked the Doctor. He moved away from the screens, hands deep in his pockets. ‘I’m not sure whether to be impressed or not. It’s certainly very big.’

  ‘A graveyard of ships in space…’ Romana corrected herself. ‘In hyperspace. But why?’

  The Doctor took out his bag of jelly babies, selected one, and munched it. ‘Do you know, I think we should find out. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck curling. Which can mean only one thing.’

  ‘Which is?’ Romana asked. Now the Doctor mentioned it, there was an eeriness in the air. Like a temporal detachment. Or a ghost walking over her grave. She stopped herself; she refused to be drawn into another of the Doctor’s incorrigible flights of fancy.

  ‘Time to get a haircut.’ A grin enveloped the Doctor’s face and he moved towards the airlock.

  Lamp fittings were either cracked or empty, the panelling was warped, and the carpet was threadbare. The smashed limbs of statues lay strewn across the hall. The interior of the leisure cruiser had seen better days.

  Romana and the Doctor walked carefully through the derelict ship. The airlock had opened on to an access tube, which had brought them aboard the cruiser through an airlock duct. Romana noted that the walls were scarred with holes blasted into the woodwork by some sort of energy weapon.

  ‘Signs of a struggle,’ she remarked, pulling her jacket around her. ‘Quite a battle by the look of it. Do you think there’s anyone left alive?’

  The Doctor pulled a face. ‘Whatever happened, it was a long, long time ago.’ He prodded a finger at a tapestry. The material crumbled to charcoal in his hands. ‘So much for art alone enduring. And what’s this?’ The Doctor slapped his hands clean and pulled aside a heavy curtain to reveal a doorway. It opened on to a stairwell that spiralled into the level beneath. The Doctor motioned Romana inside.

  This level of the cruiser had been recently inhabited; the cabins had been converted into shops, the ceiling covered with coloured sheets. The impression was of a narrow street bazaar. The shops, for the most part, were offering souvenirs, jewellery, clothing. Or, at least, the remnants of them. Everywhere, there was devastation.

  Behind their smashed windows the shops were blackened husks. Leaflets, food containers and abandoned goods littered the corridor. The overhead public-address speakers hissed and the Chinese lanterns hanging in each doorway flickered, filling the corridor with an unearthly twilight.

  ‘“The Beautiful Death”.’ Romana examined a bill poster, crinkled on to a nearby wall. The poster advertised the forthcoming event in bold, swirly lettering. Beneath the words an angel smiled, arms outstretched in rapture. The angel had the face of a skull.

  ‘“Midnight. The Great Hall”.’

  The Doctor peered at the poster. ‘“Turn On, Tune In, And Drop Dead.” How peculiar.’

  ‘This place looks like a bomb hit it,’ commented Romana.

  ‘If we’d only arrived earlier. Story of my life.’ The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. He seemed troubled. ‘You know, I have a very nasty feeling that –’

  In the distance, there was a cry for help.

  The Doctor hightailed down the corridor in the direction of the sound, his scarf flapping in his wake. Treading over the litter, Romana picked her way after him.

  The corridor opened on to a high-ceilinged deck, a once-elegant staircase sweeping down from an upper gallery. The staircase was littered with corpses. They had hideous wounds, their skin and clothes forming a roasted glue. The stench of death clung to the air.

  Hand over her mouth, Romana drew nearer. Most of the bodies were human, although there were some other races: translucent, milky creatures with bulbous eyes, and two short, humanoid lizards. The corpses were dressed in colourful clothes: kaftans, duffle coats, capes and tie-dye T-shirts. Though it was hard to tell where the tie-dye ended and the blood began.

  ‘Over here, Romana.’ The Doctor squatted beside a figure lying huddled against one wall.

  The figure was wear
ing body-length black robes, but what took Romana’s breath away was its face. It was a mask, an horrific caricature of a skull. The skull was covered in grooves representing facial muscles, and appeared to be screaming in agony.

  ‘Help me get this mask off,’ the Doctor said. ‘Quick!’ Romana knelt beside him and together they unfastened the straps fixing it in place. Romana lifted the mask off and placed it to one side.

  It was a man in his early thirties. Perspiration streamed off his forehead. He looked up at Romana and the Doctor, and raised a grateful smile, his jaw trembling. ‘They came for us…’

  ‘Who came for you?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘The…’ The man stuttered. ‘They hunted out the living…’ His eyes bulged. ‘They are the walking dead!’

  ‘Don’t try to speak,’ said Romana, smoothing his hair. The man’s eyelids drooped, he mumbled to himself and lost consciousness.

  ‘The walking dead,’ said the Doctor. ‘I knew it would have to be something like that.’

  ‘He’s sustained burns to neck and chest. He needs painkillers, disinfectant. Dressings.’

  The Doctor agreed. ‘We can’t leave him here. I think we’d better –’ He put a protective arm on Romana’s shoulder and led her to one side.

  Two medics were approaching, both dressed in turquoise uniforms. One of them, a young woman, scanned a life-detector across the bodies. The detector hummed when pointed at the man in black robes. ‘That one there. He’s still alive.’ Reading from the datascreen, she spoke with wooden efficiency. ‘Minor burns and trauma. He’ll survive.’

  The Doctor dashed over to assist the medics. ‘Hello. My name’s –’

  ‘Are you injured at all?’ asked the other medic.

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘Right. You can carry him.’

  ‘Carry him?’ said Romana.

  ‘To the medical bay. Down there.’ The medic indicated another of the corridors.

  ‘Right. Of course, the medical bay.’ The Doctor tucked his arms under the robed man and eased him upwards. The man groaned as his head fell back, but he remained unconscious.