Doctor Who: Combat Rock (27 page)

‘Playtime!’ Pan picked up one of the large stakes and with a shocking show of strength, rammed the sharpened end through Agus’s abdomen, until the end stood out a good foot from the officer’s back. Saw yukked as blood emptied over him. Then, his huge arms betraying the fact that they contained an awful lot of muscle rather than just fat, he shoved the stake down into one of the holes especially dug earlier.

Twisting the stake into a firm position, the bloodied Goliath stood back to admire his handiwork.

Victoria hadn’t seen any of it. But she heard it. She had twisted her head around, closing her eyes. Pan let her be sick, doubled over in the grass beside him. He kept one hand around her trailing hair just in case. Now, with the grisly human

‘toffee apple’ secured in place, he yanked on her hair and bellowed at her to open her eyes.

As she did so, screaming and throwing up dry heaves of nothing, he briefly pondered what she’d be like. Nah, too pure.

Prim as a clothes-horse. No matter how pretty she was, she just wasn’t no whore.

No use to him then.

He would have killed her if Sabit hadn’t wanted her brought back alive. And they still had to find her friends as well.

So much to do, so little time to go whoring.

The rest of the Dogs concentrated on erecting more of the gruesome stakes in the centre of the clearing. Pan forced Victoria to watch each one go up, holding her hair with his right hand and prying open her eyes with the fingers of his left. She made plenty of noises, and did a lot of crying, and finally got around to making conversation, which was all right by him.

‘Why... why are you
doing
this?’ It was a sobbed expression of horror more than a rational question, but it would do.

‘So the world will open up its eyes, baby. Just like you are now. See the barbarity the OPG revel in. No Alliance Government in the system or beyond will criticise Sabit’s policies then.’

‘But...’ she coughed and spluttered away the last of her nausea, still on her knees. ‘You’re not Indoni. Why are
you
doing this?’

Pan pushed her away with an exaggerated laugh. ‘Why if that ain’t the dumbest question!’ He watched Pretty Boy and Bass levering a stake bearing its Indoni trophy into place in the ground and clapped his hands. Grave was filming the impaled corpses with a tiny hand recorder, and even leaving a broken bow next to the grisly tableaux just for added authenticity. That was it then. All done. Time to fly. And here was Twist, right on cue, the tree tops wavering under the retro blasts kicked out by the lowering cruiser.

‘Are you ready, milady?’ he asked mockingly, gesturing towards the fuel burn-streaked cruiser. ‘Your chariot awaits.’

She rose shakily to her feet. Pretty Boy even gallantly offered to help but she shook him off.

‘Tell me...’ Pan said, catching a glimpse of portions of her backside through the rents in her skirt as she climbed into the port. ‘You ever consider becoming a whore?’

The rising whine of the engines drowned her answer.

The Doctor promptly spat the piece of growth onto the floor.

‘Taste that bad, huh?’ Drew said, jumping up from his mat, as if curious.

‘It’s not the taste I don’t like,’ the Doctor said darkly. He gave Tigus a piercing glare. Before he could say anything else, Drew was interrupting, insisting he needed to excrete. Tigus pulled a strained face, then grumpily ordered one of his men to follow the hostage at a safe distance to the makeshift toilet outside and behind the temple. The man chosen didn’t look overjoyed by his nomination for the task.

The Doctor wasn’t finished. ‘That growth contains highly concentrated proactive encephalo-tissue stimulants, if I’m not mistaken.’

Tigus looked none the wiser. Kepennis and Wemus were watching him curiously. Wina was asleep.

‘What you say?’ Tigus asked gutturally, annoyed at not understanding the Doctor’s words.

But the Doctor was really talking to himself, deliberating the possibilities he’d uncovered aloud. ‘The motor neurons and muscles would certainly be excited, even those preserved in an atrophied state of mummification, if only in a limited way and for a brief period. But certainly long enough to simulate life. Yes!’ He beamed almost happily at Tigus. ‘That would explain your hyperactive Mumis returning from the dead!’

Tigus frowned, as if the Doctor had gone mad. He looked at the piece of fungus on the floor that the Doctor had tasted, and began to wonder. Agat. Mass headhunting among normally passive locals. Now this raving alien. Cogs began to whir and click. Tigus was far from being a stupid man, but he was an uninformed one in this particular field. He usually kept a safe distance from the fungus, knowing full well they could have some odd, mind-altering side affects. But the Krallik’s instructions had been unequivocal: the guerrillas were to eat them on occasion too, presumably for nutritional reasons. And Tigus didn’t mind selling them to his fellow Papuls in Agat and along the river stations, because he was sure they were not fatal, and were definitely looked upon as a bit of a delicacy.

But the Doctor was still rambling, and he tried to concentrate on his excited words.

‘That’s not all, though, is it?’ He was looking at Tigus, as if the man could answer him. Then he turned his back on the leader, deep in his own thoughts, and began roaming around the centre of the room, looking at the slumped guerrillas forming a curious audience without seeing them. ‘This fungus also contains depressants. A bit like an extreme form of alcohol. If they were to be consumed regularly enough, all mental and moral barriers would crumble. The minds of consumers would be susceptible to any influence. In this instance that of the Krallik, perhaps?’ He whirled to confront Tigus again.

‘You know all this from one bite?’ The Doctor searched for the speaker, and it was Kepennis, a look of wonder on his dark face.

The Doctor smiled. He raised his right hand for the guide to see. It was twitching noticeably. ‘It’s entered my system already,’ he said gravely.

‘Always like that when eat fungus,’ Tigus said defensively, a look of concern on his face nevertheless. ‘Gives body much energy.’ His voice carried a noticeable lack of conviction.

‘Curious...’ the Doctor said, ignoring Tigus for the moment. He lifted his head and frowned.

‘What is?’ asked Wemus.

‘That mind-controlling influence I mentioned: I can feel it now even as I speak, working through the digested juices from the fungus in my system, tapping into my brain. Someone or something is... ah, yes...’ He smiled broadly like a child delighted with a gift, and looked straight into Tigus’s eyes.

‘The Krallik, where is he?’

Tigus looked puzzled by this sudden question and was momentarily at a loss how to answer it.

‘I should dearly like to speak to him,’ the Doctor continued. ‘It’s just so much more satisfying face to face, rather than conversing telepathically, don’t you think?’

Tigus’s eyes were huge. ‘You hear voice of Krallik too?’

Then he paused, as if listening, his head cocked to one side.

There was a note of awe in his voice when he spoke again.

‘You honoured. You will be first man Krallik ever ask to meet.’

‘Indeed?’ The Doctor had a silly grin on his face as if well pleased with his own cleverness. Then he frowned, and trepidation replaced the grin. ‘Oh dear. I hope he’s in a good mood.’ He looked about somewhat helplessly as Tigus snapped his fingers and one of the guerrillas herded him towards the ladder in the centre of the room. Nobody offered to come to his assistance. Wina was still asleep, and Wemus looked decidedly timid. Kepennis shrugged at him and commenced rolling a cigarette.

This was it then. He was on his own. ‘All right, all right,’

he said grumpily to the guerrilla who was prodding him forward. He placed one foot on the lowest rung, heaved his body up, then lowered his foot back onto the floor, turning with an apologetic, simple look on his face.

‘I’m really not dressed for the occasion,’ he twittered.

‘Perhaps we ought to call it off in favour of a more suitable time. After tea, perhaps.’ A prod in the backside from a spearhead persuaded him to cease his babbling. He skipped forward, letting out some almighty, indignant bellows.

‘Well, there’s no need to be so rude about it, is there?’ He cried, trying to retain some dignity, while straightening his jacket and puffing his cheeks in and out. He peered up the ladder to the hatch above. ‘Oh well, nothing ventured...’ he said cheerfully, and put his foot back on the ladder.

Sex with a stranger was always better than committing.

You taught me that, didn’t you?

That commitment meant nothing when it came down to it.

You and me, baby. We had it all. And you burned it. As if
smearing some rude biker was such a bad thing to do? The
look of horror and fear on your face said it all, though, baby.

You remember how I tried to reach out, and take you back, to
promise you that this didn’t matter and nothing had changed
and I wasn’t no psycho killer but just a man with a short
temper.

Didn’t listen. Didn’t try.

Just the screaming. And you knew how I felt about that.

So...

Back to the loneliness.

Back to the whores.

Whores had no claims. Whores had no feelings. You used

‘em and you tossed ‘em.

They couldn’t see into your heart, and they couldn’t touch
you where you were really naked.

Bless ’em. Love ’em.

Whores had no feelings, you see. That’s why be loved ’em
so...

Pan was about to break into song when the signal came through. It would have been a cynical song of course, not a joyful parading of the soul. But the rest of the Dogs were spared it anyway, because the monitor light was flashing on the instrument bank.

‘Looks like our man has located the target at looo-oong last,’ he contented himself with crooning instead. He reached over and patted Victoria’s knee.

She was sitting rigidly next to him, tired and afraid of these bad, bad men. One of them – the big fat one with a beard and the dislocated eye – had already tried interfering with her, but the evil brute with the tattoos had stopped him. He seemed to hold a little power over the others, although why he had spared her the indignity of being molested she wasn’t sure.

However, she was absolutely convinced it had nothing to do with any finer qualities he might have. She was quite, quite sure he didn’t have any of those.

‘Let’s go, boys’

Twist let his fingers dance over the control keys and the cruiser lurched, vibrated worryingly and then shook itself like a dog before steadying itself into relatively smooth flight again.

Twist hunched over the monitor, triangulating the signal source.

Pan got up and moved to a large screen set in a bank on the starboard bulkhead of the cruiser. Victoria watched him.

He moved like a panther, all stealth and easy violence, his lithe frame alive with antisocial energy. He was activating the screen now, and an image was fading in from snow.

‘Let’s talk to the Rabbit,’ Pan said good-naturedly.

The image cleared, and the sound channels connected.

‘Hello and good afternoon, most esteemed President,’ Pan said, smiling cheekily into the monitor.

Sabit peered back at him expectantly, ignoring the irony.

‘Well?’ His thin face was piqued and sallow, as if he were on a bad diet.

‘The locator has located,’ Pan said in a sing-song voice,

‘And the terminators are grooving in to terminate.’

Victoria had heard the word ‘president’ and was up on her feet. She stepped up behind Pan and before he could say anything, was addressing the face on the monitor.

‘Are these men under your employ?’ she demanded.

Sabit gave her a gracious, if rather impatient smile. ‘I hope they are treating you with every courtesy.’

‘You sacrificed your own men, didn’t you? You let them be killed for your own wicked political ends!’

‘Oh please... you are making me blush. Would you rather talk about this in the luxury of my personal palace? I shall instruct the... men...to bring you here as soon as they have carried out their duties.’

‘You will tell your men to return me to Batu.
After
they have found my companions,’ she said bravely and with a good enough imitation of severity for Pan to laugh delightedly.

‘Of course,’ Sabit agreed. ‘Your companions must be found. If only to secure your co-operation, my dear.’

Pan was folding his arms, following the conversation with some enjoyment. The other Dogs seemed bored, and a little restless. Perhaps sensing their mission was nearing completion, they were wondering what the hell they would do next. Killing was easy. Recreation wasn’t.

‘What do you mean?’ Victoria asked apprehensively.

‘Well, of course, I mean that I need you to provide the Earth Alliance with a highly detailed account of what happened to my soldiers. You remember: when they were ambushed by OPG savages in the jungle and murdered in the most horrific and barbaric ways imaginable. It’ll provide a great voice-over for the video, don’t you think?’

‘I will tell them what really happened. I will –’

‘No. You won’t.’ Sabit was quite adamant about that. ‘Not if you want to see your companions alive again.’

‘You’re disgusting!’ she spat. ‘What you’ve done is obscene.’

‘That’s politics,’ he said with a wink. ‘But actually I’m merely securing harmony in a troubled province. Someone has to fuel the fires of offworld condemnation of Papul savagery.

That person happens to be you. It’s all the means to a glorious end, my dear. Think of it that way, and then I’m sure you can create a wonderful report. But as to obscene... don’t you think sometimes we must all muddy our toes somewhat?’

‘You call murdering your own soldiers – men who were fiercely loyal to you – and impaling them on stakes

“muddying your toes”?’ She had never felt so angry, and so powerless in all her life. This man was worse than the Daleks.