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The Dying Days - Chapter Eleven

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That Which Does Not Kill Us...

Staines tried to adjust the headgear that Xznaal had given him, but however much he twisted, it was still uncomfortable. It was like a smoke hood, but apparently it was an "automatic gill" that allowed humans to breathe the Martian atmosphere. Teddy was perfectly at home in his own hood, and didn't seem worried by the intense cold that had begun to nibble at their feet.

They had travelled up to the Martian ship, but this time they had ventured far further than just a reception chamber. Nothing in the Martian ship could be classed as 'small', but this was certainly cramped compared with the vast deserted corridors and echoing hangar-like chambers they had walked through to reach it. It was almost boxy, in fact.

'The C Cube,' Xznaal said. In his own atmosphere, his voice was perfectly normal, there wasn't any of that hissing and grunting.

'The what?' Staines asked, trying to sound intelligent.

'Command, control, communications,' Greyhaven explained patiently, 'the three things an army needs on the battlefield.'

Xznaal indicated his pleasure. 'From this room, I can conduct a campaign.' His claw rammed against a control.

The walls lit up with charts, maps, aerial photographs.

'We will be in Adisham in two and a half minutes.'

'We're moving?' Greyhaven was surprised. Staines was too, of course, but that almost went without saying. To see Teddy disconcerted was a rare thing indeed.

Xznaal hissed a laugh, and an image globe lit up in front of them. It showed the Kent countryside hurtling along underneath them. Staines steadied himself.

Xznaal punched another control. The image changed, showing what looked like an aircraft hangar. There were some odd-looking vehicles in the background: some looked like giant desk lamps, some like great camera tripods. What really grabbed Staines' attention were the pair of Martians in the foreground, both of whom were assembling something from tubes of metal and thick, canvas-like material.

'It looks like they're putting up a tent,' Staines declared.

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'Shut up, Home Secretary,' Greyhaven ordered.

But to his satisfaction, Staines saw that he was nearly right. As they completed the task with practised claws, he saw that they were assembling -

'Hang gliders?'

'That is right,' Xznaal said.

Greyhaven was a little taken aback at first. Staines watched the Acting-Prime Minister as he peered at the globe. 'I suppose that the technology is useful. Easily stored, no fuel requirement, radar-invisible, silent.'

The Martian pilots were strapping themselves into their harnesses.

'Lord Xznaal,' Staines began hesitantly, 'you seemed... uncomfortable at the Tower. Won't your men find it too hot for combat?'

'They will not be at full strength, but our scientists have increased the dosage of intravenous coolant. Their strength and constitution is still far greater than a mere human or Gallifreyan. We are here.'

'Why are you only sending two warriors?'

'Why waste more resources on such a simple matter?'

Xznaal touched another switch. At some unseen signal, both pilots began running along the hangar. The back wall opened as they arrived and they leapt into the darkness.

Benny half-filled the kettle and took it back over to the power point. The Doctor and the Brigadier were in one of the other rooms, and by the sound of it, Eve had finally turned up. Benny was not a vain woman, but out of basic courtesy she couldn't face visitors until she was a little better-presented. Benny flicked on the kettle and searched for the coffee jar, wondering when she'd reached the age when one vodka gave her a hangover.

The Ice Warrior on the patio suddenly seemed more important, somehow. He turned to face her.

'Doctor!' she screamed, diving behind the sink.

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The kitchen door pulsed and shattered, showering her with splinters of wood and shards of glass. The Ice Warrior was fumbling with the remains of the door frame, trying to get himself into the house.

Benny yanked the kettle off the counter, pulled the lid off and hurled the contents at the intruder's face.

It would have been enough to leave a human disfigured, probably blinded. The effect on a Martian was even more dramatic. It splashed across the warrior's forehead, steaming rivulets running down the ridges and grooves of his domed helmet. Water dripped over his chin and down the chinks in his neck.

The Martian screamed a terrible scream, massive lungs expelling every ounce of breath over jagged teeth. He sank to the floor, his claws flailing, unable to reach where the boiling water had hit him.

Benny watched him, not out of any sadistic desire, just the opposite. She hadn't killed him. Martians were stronger than that, but that just meant that his agony wouldn't be over for a very long time.

A claw flapped to the floor, shaking the room. Benny was about to move to help him, when he began hauling himself up, straightening his thick legs.

Benny realised that she hadn't killed him, she'd only made him angry.

She spun on her heels and fled into the house, hoping to get to another exit.

It was around then that she heard the front door being wrenched off its hinges.

The image was infrared. Five bright light sources were scattered at various points in the house, all of them moving at great speed. Two dimmer shapes were lumbering inevitably towards them.

'Wait!' Greyhaven called. 'Do they have orders not to attack Eve and her friend?'

Xznaal grunted. 'They have.'

'And can they distinguish between individual humans, at night, in combat conditions?'

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Xznaal chuckled. 'We shall see, won't we?'

The Doctor and Brigadier were almost at the front door when the Ice Warrior came crashing through it. It moved slowly, deliberately, breaking down the wooden panels with slicing claw-blows.

The Doctor stepped forwards, his arms held out. 'I only wish to talk,' he said softly.

The Ice Warrior lunged for him. The Doctor side-stepped, and flicked the light switch. The Martian reeled, dazzled by the 60 watt bulb.

The Brigadier had time to aim and fire twice before it had even reacted. Both shots glanced harmlessly off its shoulder blade.

'Why did I know that was going to happen?' the Brigadier asked wearily.

The Doctor grabbed his sleeve. 'Come on! We have to find Bernice.'

They ran back through the drawing room, turning on every light they could find a switch for. The Martian charged after them like a bull elephant. There was no sign of Eve or Alan. 'We almost had them convinced,' the Doctor shouted after the Brigadier.

'That's as may be, Doctor,\x92 the Brigadier panted, \x91But she's also the woman who betrayed us.'

They reached the French windows, opened them and ran out.

Only then did they see the Martian ship hovering above them.

'You have them in your sights,' Xztaynz exclaimed. 'Fire that ray thing of yours.'

'No! It might be Eve.' Gerayhayvun shouted.

In infra-red the humans were brilliant white against the dark background of the foliage.

Xznaal turned to them both. 'To use the sonic cannon would be most unsporting.' He pointed a claw at the house, which showed the dimmer shape of the warrior moving relentlessly towards them. 'Besides, my warrior has found them.'

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Xztaynz was peering at another part of the display. \x91Your other chap has someone else cornered.\x92

The wall in front of Benny pulsed and the plaster and picture frames shattered and showered to the floor. She dived left and began leaping up the stairs. The steps creaked underneath her feet as she pounded up them.

The Martian below her was still groaning in pain. He lashed his claw, knocking out the banisters and almost taking off her feet. She was more nimble than the warrior, but he was quite capable of climbing stairs. Sure enough, he began plodding up after her.

She was gaining valuable time, but he was going to be able to corner her in the end. If they had waited a couple of years there would be no problem - Ace had spent a lot of time here in the early twenty-first century. Her bedroom combined the ambience of a student room with the sheer practicality of the Royal Armouries, filled as it was with posters of pop bands and nasty-looking military hardware. There would be all sorts of big guns Benny could have used. Ten years before all that, and the room-that-would-be-Ace's contained nothing but a wardrobe full of fur coats and the most dangerous thing in there was the dead bluebottle on the window sill.

Benny kept running upstairs, hoping to think of a plan before she ran out of floors.

The Ice Warrior was advancing across the patio towards them, pushing aside the garden furniture. It moved around the pool of light from the kitchen window. Its eyes burned red in the shadows. The Brigadier and the Doctor backed away from it. Every so often, Lethbridge-Stewart would fire off a shot at it, in the vain hope of slowing it down or hitting a vital spot. The Martian spacecraft hovered over them like a vulture, its gunports gaping open.

The Brigadier looked across to the Doctor for guidance. His friend was playing around with the sonic screwdriver.

'I thought that thing was a tool, not a weapon?'

The Doctor looked up. 'If you'd ever been hit over the head with a wrench, you'd know that the one can often be the other.'

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He held the screwdriver aloft.

'Halt!' he ordered the Ice Warrior. To the Brigadier's amazement it did. A moment later he realised why: there was a gun of some sort on its wrist and now, for the first time, it had a clear line of sight.

'Listen to me,' the Doctor insisted, squeezing the sonic screwdriver. An ultrasonic whine filled the air. 'Your weapon fires waves of sonic energy. This device works on the same principle. Not only will it counteract your shots, it will return them to their source. You.'

The Ice Warrior moved its arm a little, adjusting its aim.

'If you fire that weapon the only thing you'll destroy is yourself,' the Doctor warned.

The Martian must have heard him, but it gave no indication that it had done so. Instead the tube on the Martian's wrist lit up, and the air was filled with a hissing noise like air escaping from a burst tyre.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then the Martian contorted as if it was its own reflection in a fairground mirror. It tried to grab its head, but couldn't control its limbs. Finally there was a great crack, and the Martian's shell burst open in a single line from shoulder to pelvis. It fell to the floor, all the light gone from its eyes. Martian blood and tissue was gushing from the wound.

'Well done, Doctor!' the Brigadier congratulated him. 'Now we can rescue Bernice.'

The Doctor nodded, horrified by what he had done. 'I can't guarantee that the power supply will deflect another blast,' he said absent-mindedly.

'Still,' the Brigadier said, 'it will give the gunners up in that ship pause for thought before they loose off any shots.'

There was silence in the C Cube.

'What happened?' Greyhaven asked.

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'The Time Lord is operating a sonic jamming field. Our energy weapons will be reflected if we use them.'

'And one of your warriors has just been killed?' Staines whimpered.

'Yes. The Doctor will die for that action.'

Benny had ended up in her room, right at the top of the house. There was nothing up here but memories and alcohol.

She closed the door, and tiptoed across the room trying not to make a sound. She'd managed to lose the Ice Warrior for the moment: she could hear him crashing around on the floor below, looking for her in the bathroom. It wouldn't take him long to work out where she had gone.

The attic room. "The honeymoon suite". She and Jason had taken this room, made it their own on the few times they'd stayed here. The Doctor had left them alone as she and her husband moved the stuff up here from her old room on the floor below.

She picked up the box of matches sitting on the little fireplace and remembered a dozen mornings squatting by the fire with a match trying to get the damn strips of newspaper in the hearth to light. Meanwhile Jason lay under the duvet pretending to be asleep while he was watching her out the corner of his eye. She'd light the fire, then scurry back to the bed and he'd pull the duvet open and let her in.

And now the room was empty. Just her, a crate of vodka and a bed that was too big for one person.

The Ice Warrior was coming up the short flight of stairs.

Benny pulled one of the unopened bottles from the box and unscrewed the top. Supermarket vodka this, nothing special. The Doctor, of course, was a bit of a connoisseur and wouldn't touch anything that didn't smell of Red Army engine oil. She wasn't fussy.

Benny just had time to take a swig as the Ice Warrior crashed through the door. He had to bend down almost to a crouch to get in, and seemed to fill the room.

She stood, a little awkwardly.

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'Hello,' she said weakly, holding up a lit match. 'Beware the power of my mighty weapon. Sorry, it's the best I can do.'

Like all Martians, he was instinctively nervous around fire, but he wasn't going to stay scared for long. He had scars all along one side of his head where the water had splashed it. Nasty green weals hadn't quite finished forming.

Benny winced as her match burnt down to her finger. She dropped it and lit another.

'Look, I hate all this fighting,' she said in his native tongue. The sentiment was actually quite difficult to get across in the Martian language, their love of all things Thanatotic meant that it was pretty close to doublethink: 'good things are bad' and all that. 'Couldn't we just sit down over a bottle of voddy and talk it through?' She held up the bottle by way of demonstration.

'No,' the Martian replied. 'This must be to the death.' He used an unapologetic form.

Benny threw the bottle at him. He caught it, snapped it in half between his pincers. Almost a litre of perfectly good vodka splashed over his claw and massive forearm.

'You must die now. I will not prolong your agony.' the warrior said. His breath wafted over her, cold as the draught under the door on a winter\x92s day. He was being charitable in the circumstances, considering the pain he must be in. Then again, the scars gave him something to brag about. No doubt in a couple of years there would be legends among the Argyre clan about how he'd ventured to the lair of the Summerfield, bitchqueen of Earth, a mighty twelve-armed, six-breasted harpy and how he had slain her in single unarmed combat.

'Please,' Benny pleaded, 'I don't want to kill you.'

He grunted a laugh and extended his claw, which still dripped with Smirnoff.

Benny dropped the lit match onto it and jumped past him out of the door.

His screams followed her down two flights of stairs and along the hall.

The room at the top of the house was a giant, flaring mass.

'What's going on?' Xztaynz was shouting.

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'You've lost the other one as well?' Gerayhayvun said.

'Be silent!' Xznaal ordered. 'Respect the fallen warriors.'

'They've killed both Martians?' Gerayhayvun said, respect in his voice.

'They have,' Xznaal confirmed. 'The Gallifreyan is a threat to our operation. He must be destroyed.'

'You must deploy more warriors,' Gerayhayvun insisted.

'And watch them die? I respect life, Lord Gerayhayvun.'

'You seemed unconcerned when it was Eve that was at risk,' the human argued.

Xznaal grabbed Gerayhayvun's neck in his claw and pulled him off the floor. The human weighed less than his arm and was easier to lift. 'Terran life,' Xznaal roared, 'is of no concern. Earth crawls with animals. Remember that, my Lord.' He dropped Gerayhayvun to the deck. 'We must use another method.' He tugged at a control. 'Vrgnur, meet me in the Dispersion Chamber. Helmsman, increase altitude to ten thousand metres.'

Bernice clambered over the remains of the front door.

The Doctor ran over to her and gave her a hug.

'Fire,' she cried. 'Bedroom on fire.'

The Doctor pulled back from her, and pointed up to her window. It was dark up there.

'But I... '

'The house can look after itself,' he assured her. 'Are you all right?'

She nodded. 'I killed him,' she sobbed.

'We had a spot of success down here, too,' the Brigadier said cheerfully. He indicated the warrior's body.

'His disruptor backfired,' Bernice shuddered, her hand over her mouth.

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'We can fight the Martians, but not the police,' Lethbridge-Stewart said. 'The warship might have got here first, but the police and army won't be far behind. Now let's get Bessie out of the garage and move out.'

Xznaal had been silent as he led them through the ship to the Dispersion Chamber. Even the name of the place made Staines nervous. He wondered what was going to be dispersed.

A huge hatch rumbled open. Xznaal stepped in, with Greyhaven close behind. Staines could think of nothing better to do than follow.

The room was large, lined with vast metal drums and cylinders. They looked like grain silos, or huge gas bottles.

A hatch at the other end of the room rattled open. Another Martian stomped in, a metal tube the size of a pillar box cradled in its arms. Staines realised that this was only the second Martian he had seen up close. Although an impressive sight, it was slightly smaller and slimmer than Xznaal. Its shell was a lighter shade of green.

'This is my scientist, Vrgnur,' Xznaal barked.

Vrgnur laid the tube on the deck and beat his claw against his chest - a salute, rather like the ancient Roman style. That formality completed, the Martian began connecting the metal cylinder up to a network of thick plastic tubes.

Greyhaven leant towards the cylinder.

'What is this?' he asked.

'See for yourself.'

Vrgnur pulled at a hatch about halfway along the tube, which slid open. Greyhaven smiled at Staines and stepped up to the cylinder.

He peered in.

'Nothing,' he informed Staines.

He took another look.

A red claw slammed against the glass. Involuntarily, he started and fell back.

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Xznaal caught him and gave a low, throaty chuckle.

There was a haze hovering in the middle of the tube. It looked like a column of steam from a kettle, but was the colour of ros\xE9 wine.

'What is it?' Staines asked, genuinely interested.

Xznaal was also regarding the phenomenon with fascination. 'We call it the Red Death. It is an assassination weapon, a sentient poison mist. In the Martian atmosphere it is invisible.'

'A cloud with a will of its own?' Staines asked incredulously.

'If you like.'

'How does it work?' Greyhaven asked.

'A simple technique combining molecular re-engineering and artificial intelligence etherware. It has merely an animal intellect.'

'But you can program it to kill?'

'Yes. This specimen has been programmed with the Doctor's DNA profile. Traces of his blood were discovered in the reception chamber, when he was cut by falling glass. The Red Death will hunt him down and kill him.'

'Will it know where to look?'

Vrgnur lurched to a control panel. 'We will unleash the Death here, at an altitude of ten kilometres. The mist will disperse throughout the immediate area. When it locates the Doctor it will gather and feed. Once the Doctor is dead, the Red Death will instantly decompose into its natural elements.'

Xznaal twisted a great wheel, and the mist hissed out of the chamber, out of the warship.

'Now we will watch and wait.'

Birds were falling from the sky. Owls and sparrows, gulls and thrushes. They were dropping like stones.

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The Doctor stopped the car.

There was hail too, or so Benny thought at first. They she realised that the droplets were dead insects of every kind.

'Everything's dying,' the Doctor was muttering.

'It's some sort of poison gas,' Lethbridge-Stewart said, staring up into the dark sky.

Benny looked up, holding her hand up to shelter her face from the steady pelting of tiny bug carcasses. There was a storm cloud above them, growing larger with every instant.

'It's descending.'

'We can't hang around,' the Brigadier said.

The cloud was drifting over the rooftops of Adisham like thick smoke. It was almost invisible in the darkness, but in the pools of light underneath the street lamps it billowed like volcanic ash.

'All those people,' the Doctor cried out. 'All those poor people.' He jumped from of the car and began running back down the road towards the village.

'Doctor! What are you doing?' Benny screamed.

He whirled around, now he was jogging backwards. 'I have to save them if I can. Whatever you do, don't follow me. Alistair, get Bernice to safety.'

'Doctor!' Benny screamed, 'Come back! You'll be killed.'

'Goodbye!' the Doctor called.

The Brigadier grabbed her arm, prevented her from leaving the car. 'You heard what he said.'

'Do you agree with him?'

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'No,' he admitted grimly as he slid across to the driver's seat. 'But I trust him. Come on!'

As Bessie sped away up the hill, Benny turned back, watching the Doctor recede into the distance. The thick cloud was engulfing the buildings now. The screaming had started.

'Vrgnur, report!'

The scientist was hunched over his instruments. 'My Lord, the Red Death is reacting with the increased levels of oxygen and biological activity in the Terran atmosphere. It has entered a feeding frenzy and is multiplying at an astonishing rate.'

Gerayhayvun was on his feet. 'It's attacking that village. Can't you control it?' he squealed in his own language.

Xznaal narrowed his eyes. The Death was a thick fog now, billowing down the hillside.

'It is operating on instinct, sir, I can't restrain it.'

'Show me what it sees.'

The hologlobe switched its image, showing a disjointed view of the human settlement. It was like a compound eye: hundreds of circles, each containing a different viewpoint. Every single one was filled by images of humans and their animals running in the streets, terrified. Xznaal watched as the cloud picked them off, swirling around their heads, grasping their nostrils, forcing itself into their mouths and lungs.

'This is horrible,' Xztaynz was crying.

'It is unavoidable,' Xznaal said calmly.

He ran down over the village green, past the Bull's Head, keeping control of his breathing. The red mist was everywhere: hanging around the police station, wafting over the cottages on Donkey Lane and around the roof of Mrs Darling's corner shop. The Doctor shooed the ducks from the duckpond as he hurried past them.

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A car had smashed into a row of cottages. The Doctor ran over, but the driver had died of suffocation long before the crash. Through the windows of every cottage the Doctor could see men and women, their dead faces lit by the flickering of their television screens. All around him he could hear the screams of men and women, the cries of children, the barking of dogs. From the direction of Pond Hill, humans were calling out for help, mourning their loved ones or simply cursing the thing that had brought death to their little village. The cloud was picking them off one by one, not even letting them finish their lament.

Adisham was almost silent.

What could he do?

The Doctor stood there, listening to a whole town die. He stared up at the sky, at the red fog and the dark shape of the Martian warship far above them. Tendrils of vapour curled around walls, licked around the ground, searching with bloodhound devotion. It was a sentient gas, programmed for one purpose.

Hunting him.

It was meant for him and wouldn't stop its killing until he was dead.

That meant that there was only one thing he could do to stop it.

'There's the Doctor,' Greyhaven announced, clearly affected by the carnage he was watching.

'Where?' Xznaal snapped hungrily.

Greyhaven pointed out one of the images.

The picture rippled, filling with an aerial view of the Doctor half-running, half-stumbling along a main street littered with human corpses. He was running towards the cloud, waving his arms.

The Red Death was getting nearer and nearer.

'It's almost as though he wants to be found,' Staines observed.

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Xznaal leant forward, almost dipping his head into the hologram. 'You can feel its hatred of him,' he hissed, his pincers clattering together in anticipation. 'Kill him!' he shouted, 'Kill the Doctor!'

He was at the corner of the main street. The red cloud was surging towards him like a tidal wave, breaking over the roof of Mrs Darling's little shop. It had gathered itself together, and now it was lit from within. Tiny lightning flashes revealed billowing crenellations and blossoming stegosaur spines built up from layer after layer of blood-red fumes.

There was a crashing from inside the building. There was someone in the shop, directly in the path of the cloud. Some instinct within the gas knew it too. It paused and began scuttling across the roof. It had clearly decided that it could have some sport with whoever was in the building, and then be able to return to its primary target. The Doctor jogged ahead and peered in through the window.

The door was locked, but that didn't pose a barrier to someone with a sonic screwdriver. Once inside, the Doctor closed the door behind him and switched on the light.

There was a plaintive miaow from underneath a collapsed row of shelving.

The cat had probably brought the shelves down on himself - he was a heavy old thing. It was Stevie, the big white moggie that Mrs Darling had owned for as long as the Doctor could remember, which was a very long time indeed. He was blocked in on all sides by shelves weighed down by heavy tin cans. The Doctor moved a couple of tins aside, and cleared a way through. Stevie looked dopily up at him, as though he'd been planning to bury himself alive and wouldn't tolerate such interference in his sleep patterns.

The fog was thickening outside, enveloping the building. The Doctor didn't have long.

He prompted Stevie, trying to tempt him out of the hole by smacking his lips and rubbing his fingers together. He'd never worked out why, but universally cats seemed to recognise that as meaning "come here". The cat struggled to comply, but still couldn't move. The Doctor tried to ease the shelving unit back, but it was wedged against the wall.

A sickly red mist crept past the shop window, pausing there.

If there was a chance that the Doctor could save a life, then he would always try.

He had to work around the cat, to dislodge one shelf rather than the whole unit. He began removing tins.

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The Doctor could end wars, repel invasions, track the villain to his lair, expose master plans and wipe out evil across the universe of time and space, he could do all that before breakfast.

A tendril of cloud slapped against the window pane with surprising strength, but not enough to crack the glass.

The cat looked up, its eyes wide, its ears swept back. "Get out," it was warning him, "Save yourself".

But if the Doctor couldn't use his unique abilities and special powers to save the life of one little cat, then what was the point of having them?

The cat looked at him, cocking his head to one side, acknowledging the Doctor's help for the first time.

'I won't leave you,' the Doctor assured him.

Because when it comes down to it, doctors save lives and any life is worth saving.

Death came drifting through the cracks in the doorframe.

The Doctor eased the shelf up, opening an escape route. Almost before he had finished, the cat had scurried away, over the counter. For an instant it paused, granting his saviour one of the rarest things in the universe: feline gratitude. And then he had gone, out through the catflap in the back door.

The Doctor grinned.

There was a crackling, popping sound like bacon under a grill.

The Doctor stood, brushing a cat hair from his frock coat.

It was forming and reforming the whole time, but there was a central mass there, a writhing, sulphurous thing with a hundred eyes, all watching him.

Tendrils of crimson vapour wafted towards him, sensing a trap.

It smelt of cigarettes, of exhaust fumes, of week-old dustbins. It smelt of decay. It smelt of Death.

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The Doctor straightened, his hands behind his back.

Time Lords have many lives and that means that they die many times. That didn't mean it was ever easy.

Death moved tentatively, finding no fear from its prey. It instinctively knew that in killing him it would kill itself.

The Doctor knew now that someone else would liberate Britain from the Martians, someone else would confront the traitors, organise the rebels and destroy the monsters. He had no regrets, why would he? For twelve hundred years and in every corner of time and space he had helped others to hold back death, he'd helped them to go forward in all their beliefs. Then by their own achievements, their own heroism, their own sacrifices, his companions - his friends - had proved his actions right. He could wish for no better epitaph.

The Doctor prepared himself.

Death drew itself into a red circle around him, filling the whole of the shop, hissing all the time.

'Hello,' the Doctor said softly, holding out a paper bag. 'Would you like a jelly baby?'

It was steeling itself to pounce, savouring the moment. It began tensing panther muscles made of smoke. A carnivore mouth was forming, vaporous jaws and hazy fangs.

The Doctor smiled, and welcomed Death as it swept over him.

NEXT WEEK: ...