Doctor Who: Transit (4 page)

'My fellow citizens,' said the President.

At that moment Verhoevan noticed that the attractor spin rate was accelerating above the initiation parameters.

'My fellow citizens,' said the President again, as the crowd fell silent. 'We are assembled here to witness one of the most remarkable engineering projects of our times.'

Verhoevan considered it might be a power surge but the input rates remained stable. Planned initiation was in ten minutes, a carefully calculated climax to the President's speech, but the tunnel seemed to have other ideas. If the power wasn't coming from this end of the Stunnel where was it coming from?

'An engineering project that will provide opportunities for new industries, new growth and above all new employment for the nation.'

Verhoevan looked over the heads of the professionally intent crowd. The gateway seemed placid enough, but behind it the attractors whirled out of control, skidding into a new configuration. The figures piled up on the inside of his eye, crowding his sight, he was caught up in a sudden painful terror.

'It is a project that only one nation, in a galaxy crowded with nations, one nation that would have the expertise, the courage and in bald truth the audacity to conceive of. This day will become a piece of history.'

The flags suspended from the ceiling rustled in a sudden breeze, a scrap of paper by the gateway controls whirled into the air. Verhoevan lurched to his feet.

'Shut it down,' he screamed at his staff, 'shut it down.'

But it was too late.

Kings Cross (Central Line)

It was the blue box that did for Kadiatu. It had no reason to be on the Central Line platform and perhaps that's why she ran straight into it.

The inspector had almost caught her moments before when she made a break for the surface, waiting for her in front of the exit lifts as she raced out of a connecting passageway. Kadiatu had a good look at him as she tried to translate her forward momentum into a turn. Thin lips under a black visor, the yellow and black sigil on the chest plate of his armour, ancient logo of the KGB, the world's oldest security turn. With the ticket drone behind her Kadiatu was forced on to the empty platform.

Exhaustion, thought Kadiatu, exhaustion made me stupid.

She tried to get to her feet but the platform felt too comfortable. From where she lay the box looked enormous. It seemed to lean over her and she was suddenly scared that it might topple over and crush her underneath. Down the platform she could hear a pair of heavy boots crunching towards her.

Wind whispered through the station.

2: Crazy Paving Man

Kings Cross (Central Line)

Bernice decided that the Doctor had a cavalier attitude to first steps. In her experience the first step into a new environment could kill you faster than a bad-tempered Dalek. You were supposed to be cautious. The explorers' manual had a check list: check the atmosphere, check for bugs, animals, subsidence, solar radiation, check that the goddam landing ramp had extended properly. It went on for fifteen pages.

Not the Doctor, though, Bernice thought. A quick look round with the TARDIS scanner, he puts on his hat, opens the door, and out he goes.

It was the Doctor's assumption of invulnerability that worried Bernice. She hoped it applied to her as well.

When she followed him out of the door, it was with the guilty assumption that anything nasty would have to go through him first.

And that was her first mistake.

STS Central - Olympus Mons

The security feeds went down in a blaze of static.

'What the hell was that?' yelled Ming.

She switched a monitor over to English 37 and
The Bad News Show,
Yak Harris caught between slots, frozen solid with his mouth open. There was a sudden pixel flicker and Yak's suit changed colour.

I'll be damned, thought Ming, he really is a computer program.

'Well,' said Yak Hams, jerking into life. 'Well, we seem to be having some technical problems from the Acturus Terminus.'

You and me both, thought Ming. Up on the status boards a silver line pierced into the station's heart. 'Give me an op-stat on the stellar tunnel.'

'It's down,' said a controller.

'Down?'

'Just the carrier wave.'

'Can't be down,' Ming checked the status board again. 'We pumped twenty-two gigawatts into the bloody thing.' Enough to fry a small town. 'Any contact with the terminal?'

'Nope.'

'Why not?'

'Break down at the terminal end.'

'Hardware or software?'

'Your guess is as good as mine.'

'Get maintenance for me,' said Ming, 'and the KGB.'

The master console in her office chimed for her attention. Threat analysis catching up with the real world displaying an options panel on the screen. The computer wanted Ming to choose between a technical malfunction or external threat. She glared at the screen.

Not yet, she thought, not until I know what's going on.

A timecode at the top of the screen counted down from thirty minutes. When it reached zero the computer would make up its own mind. Ming wanted to know what moron had thought of that.

It was three minutes since the Stunnel was supposed to have opened, four minutes since they lost contact with Acturus Terminal. Ming's instincts were to boot the problem upstairs but the senior management had all been attending the opening ceremony.

She was on her own.

She tore the comer of her last packet of zap and dumped one in a cup full of dead coffee. It started to fizz. She ordered the controllers to isolate the terminal and start pulling the trains out of the depots and whack them back into the tunnels.

The President was at the opening ceremony too. Which meant she should have heard from the security services by now, from Event Horizon at the very least.

On the media feed Yak Harris was talking to a panel of experts. A good sign that the media didn't know what had happened either. Ming wondered whether the pundits were computer-generated as well.

The Stop

The air was the colour of dust and there was no memory of a warning, no precognition, no transition, just a sudden birth into this confusion of falling stone. Instinct and training dragged her forward towards a rectangular patch of light ahead. Left hand clamped over her mouth, shallow breathing through her fingers, forcing herself to stay upright, smoke rises but dust falls.

She had a sense of a heavy mass shirting above her and she stumbled faster. Shadows crashed down behind her, shock waves billowed through the dust, streaming around her and into the light. For an instant she saw the figure of a woman framed in the rectangle ahead. An image of herself, hunched and stumbling.

No warning, like an orbital strike, like a missile in terminal phase, sprinting ahead of its sound wave. Not even a whisper before it hits and strips the houses down to their bare bones.

From in front, she thought as she met the impossible shadow face to face, the light is coming from the front. Then she knew, even before the dust veil lifted to reveal the face.

'Mother,' she wailed, hands groping forward, grasping and meeting nothing. Dust filled her throat and eyes, stopping up the tears. Left her blindly struggling forward. 'Mother,' she tried to call out but the dust choked off the sound. Blindly she fought to get further but it felt as if the dust was piling up around her, drifts creeping up her thighs and back. Her mind became filled with the heavy thud of her heartbeat, her chest filling up with an awfui vacuum, as if some membrane had torn as she fell forward into space and clear air.

Terminal phase, the final fail to ground zero.

Impact.

Stale air blew out of her lungs, saliva and dust spewing upwards in an arc. A stripe of numbness crashed down her side and arm. She heard her bones breaking and in that moment she remembered her name.

Kings Cross (Central Line)

Kadiatu remembered another rescue like this. Thrashing useless limbs, swallowing water, watching the sunlight recede as she sank down into the stream. Under the water her friends' voices became shrill and distant. When she bashed her head against the side of the boat it was like a wooden gong, a deep profundo boom which intermingled with the pain until she couldn't tell them apart. Her father saved her that time, yanked her from the river by the hair, his big fist knotted in her braids. That's why your mother plaits your hair, he told her later, to give me something to grab hold of.

Something had come through the station.

Something that howled out of the tunnel and filled the wind with knives and the stink of ozone. The Inspector had been lifted from his feet and hung shaking before her. There was a sharp crack as his visor shattered and Kadiatu glimpsed a pale contorted face. Then he vanished in an expanding cloud of blue vapour that was in turn shredded by the wind and blown away.

That was when somebody grabbed Kadiatu's hair and pulled her to safety. Except she wasn't a child any more, wasn't drowning in the washing stream on a bright Makeni morning to the shrill screams of her friends. It was not her father's hand that was knotted in her hair, yanking her up and away from the platform edge. Whoever it was they were strong, lifting her easily to her feet as if she still were that child and not the seventy-two kilos of bone and muscle she had become.

'Not again,' said a voice by her ear.

Acturus Terminal (Stunnel Terminus)

Old Sam was moving, really moving, way beyond the normal human range. As they moved up on the galleria he was almost too fast for the eye to catch.

'Jesus, Sam,' hissed Dogface, 'slow down, will you?'

Old Sam came to a sudden halt by the entrance and stood rock still. 'Slow enough?' There was a manic edge to his voice.

'Are you wired?' asked Lambada.

'Just some Doberman,' said Old Sam.

Blondie heard Lambada swearing under her breath. Ahead galleria was in darkness, the entrance a pitch black rectangle. Blondie didn't think it was a good place for Old Sam, not with him cranked up on Doberman.

'Don't worry,' said Old Sam, 'it's good stuff.'

'It's not the bloody quality I'm worried about,' said Lambada. 'Where's it from?'

'I scored it off Blondie's girlfriend,' Old Sam grinned at Blondie, 'didn't I?'

They all turned to stare at Blondie who blushed.

'Never mind that,' said Dogface to Old Sam. 'How are you feeling?'

'Fast and mean!' said Old Sam.

'You can go first then,' said Lambada.

'OK,' said Old Sam and vanished into the darkness.

Lambada glared at Blondie.

'How was I supposed to know?' said Blondie.

'He'll be all right,' said Dogface.

'It's not him I'm worried about,' said Lambada, 'it's us. What if he has a flashback?'

'I haven't had a flashback in ten years,' said Old Sam from just behind them. Lambada jerked round and grabbed Sam by his lapels.

'Don't do that!'

'Sorry,' said Old Sam and Lambada let go.

'Well?' asked Dogface.

'The galleria's clear of targets,' reported Old Sam. 'I haven't been into the station yet.'

'No people?' asked Lambada.

'That's what I said,' said Old Sam.

'You said targets.'

'People, targets.' Old Sam shrugged. 'What's the difference?'

Dogface linked with Credit Card back at the Olympus West and told him to put on the emergency lights.

'Up in thirty seconds,' said Credit Card.

Ming broke into the link. 'Well?'

'We're going in as soon as the lights are on,' said Dogface. 'Any word from the KGB?'

'Nothing from them or Viking Security.'

'Lights are up,' said Credit Card.

'Call you back, Ming,' said Dogface.

Old Sam led them across the empty galleria. Dogface and Blondie in the middle with Lambada bringing up the rear. Dogface kept his fingers in contact with the portable link box.

'What's that smell?' asked Lambada.

It came from the Kwik-Kurry franchise. A ten-litre pot of curried goat was beginning to bum. Lambada turned off the stove, 'No one here.'

Dogface stuck his finger into the pot and tasted it. 'Maybe they didn't like the goat.'

'Come off it,' said Lambada, 'everyone loves goat.'

'Goat Flavouring,' said Dogface.

'Whatever,' said Lambada.

'Did you check the concourse?' Dogface asked Old Sam.

'Nothing.'

'Credit Card,' said Dogface.

'Yo.'

'Tell Ming we're going in now.'

Kings Cross (Central Line)

'Where does that tunnel go?' said the voice at Kadiatu's ear.

'Let go,' said Kadiatu and the fingers relaxed their grip on her hair. In her mind Kadiatu had constructed a huge man with oiled biceps capable of lifting her one-handed, but when she turned his hat was level with her shoulders.

'Who are you?'

The man ignored her and gazed down to the far end of the station and the tunnel gateway. The tip of his red-handled umbrella tapped insistently on the platform. 'That tunnel,' he said, 'where does it go?'

Blue paint was splattered in a long irregular line down the length of the platform. Kadiatu squatted down and reached out a hand to touch it. Her hand was trembling.

'Don't,' said the man.

The paint was wet and sticky, roughened by the thin layer of grit that covered the formed concrete of the platform. She picked up a small lump between her thumb and forefinger. It felt like a hardened composite, the edges had run like wax. It was a chunk of the inspector's body armour.

Kadiatu stood up fast, the lump falling from her hand on to the trackway below to sizzle for a moment on the friction field. Her shoulders jerked backwards as if trying to distance her body from the stain on her fingers. Bile clawed its way up her throat as her body began to shake itself to pieces.

The slap was hard enough to snap her head sideways,

'Better?' asked the man.

Kadiatu nodded. Her cheek was stinging, there was a hint of blood in her mouth. 'Who are you?'

'I'm the Doctor,' said the man.

He was shorter than her but Kadiatu felt that he looked down on her from a greater height. In the flat station lights she couldn't tell what colour his eyes were.

'Doctor of what?'

'Everything,' said the Doctor.

She could see his eyes now, they were a vivid angry brown. They seemed to track across her face, as palpable as a rastascan. 'What are you staring at?'

'Nothing,' said the Doctor. 'Where does that tunnel lead?'

'Eventually?'

'That would do for a start.'

'Pluto.'

'How do I get there?'

'Wait for the next train,' said Kadiatu.

The Doctor looked back at the tunnel gateway. 'Next time I'm going to find a better place to park.'

'What?'

'Well,' said the Doctor. 'I've kept you long enough, I'm sure you have things to do, people to see.' He pulled out a gold watch on a fob chain and checked the time. He glanced idly down the platform again before looking down to examine his shoes. The umbrella restarted its tattoo on the grimy concrete.

'Why are you still here?' he said after a moment.

'I'm waiting for the train,' said Kadiatu. She risked a glance sideways at the Doctor. He was scowling at the wall opposite. He nodded in an abstracted fashion.

You saved my life, thought Kadiatu, and now you're pretending I don't exist.

'Sorry,' said the Doctor without looking round, 'It was an accident.'

'What do you mean, an accident?'

'It's a reflex of mine,' said the Doctor. 'I see someone in danger and I try to save them. I can't help myself.'

Kadiatu nodded at the blue splatter along the platform. 'What about him?'

For an instant a spasm of real pain crossed the Doctor's face 'You were closer,' he said. 'When's the next train?'

Kadiatu glanced at the indicator holo. It said 'Check Destination on Front of Train' - not a good sign.

'Don't hold your breath,' she told him.

'I'll try not to.'

'I need a drink,' said Kadiatu suddenly. 'How about you?'

Acturus Terminal (Stunnel Terminus)

The station had been swept clean of people. Blondie's shoes stuck with every step in the sticky blue stuff that covered the floor and splattered the walls. The Stunnel gateway was a spinning copper gong nailed to the far wall.

Dogface had his arm around Old Sam's shoulders. The veteran was shaking badly, there was a weasel madness in his slotted eyes. Dogface was talking low and fast, trying to get Old Sam off whichever memory shore he'd beached on Lambada was assembling an industrial calibre hypo, her face fixed into a concentrated grin as she clipped it together. When the device was complete she walked up behind Old Sam, placed its blunt head against his thigh and squeezed the trigger. The hiss went on for a long time, and when it finished Old Sam toppled over with a look of intense happiness fixed on his face.