Doctor Who: The Devil Goblins From Neptune (13 page)

Gavin Hyde seemed to find this the funniest thing that had ever been said by anyone in the history of the world, but no one else was laughing. Fay stared at the crazy-eyed philosophy lecturer angrily. 'What you got, Tony? Speedballs?

Twenty-Five?'

Leman fished in his pocket and pulled out a small red and yellow capsule which he held up to the light. 'Dymoxyl Lybegen Amphetamine-Sulphate. "909" to the trade.

Synthetic, odourless, colourless, tasteless...'

'What's it do?' asked Fay.

'Do? It does your bloody head in, that's what it does.'

John reached out for the capsule but Leman snatched his hand away.

'Careful, sonny. This isn't weed. It's a possible cure for cancer, but it's said to really open the mind. I'm talking floodgates, baby. I'm talking about other realities. Turn on, tune in, freak out'

'Yeah?' said Fay, quickly. 'I'll have some of that'

Leman shook his head. 'It's twenty times stronger than anything you'll have ever had before'

'Big deal.' said Fay, and grabbed the drug from Leman's upturned palm. 'Reality's boring. I try to avoid it whenever possible'

Fay looked down at the pill. It didn't seem anything special. 'Careful.' warned John.

Fay ignored him. He was probably just annoyed that she had got the drug instead of him, but she detected a more genuine concern in Leman's eyes. 'Think hard about this,' he said quietly.

Fay slipped the drug between her teeth, swallowing it with a mouthful of wine.

The room was as silent as a midnight church. Fay stood up, pacing the room. She noticed absently the first flickerings of dawn through the dark window panes.

'Well?' asked Gavin.

'Give it time,' said Leman quickly.

Fay glanced around the room. Familiar patterns and shapes. 'Nothing,' she said, slumping in disappointment next to Leman. 'You're a frigging rat, Tony. Tell me the truth.' this is a bloody antihistamine or something, isn't it?'

'No,' said Leman. 'No, it isn't. It'll happen,' he said, almost sadly.

Fay took him at his word, and looked around the room again. No change. Then she became aware of her own breathing, the blood pouring through her veins, the scratch of fabric on every inch of her skin. She forced her eyes open -

she hadn't even noticed them close - and felt reality bend.

Leman was saying something, but his voice came towards her in a wave. It was as if four thousand Zen Buddhist monks on a hillside were chanting at her and she was the Dalai Lama.

She swallowed hard. Darkness shrouded the periphery of her sight, then it blossomed blindingly in every direction, like a switch from tunnel vision to Cinemascope. She felt like she was a hundred feet tall. 'Oh,' she heard herself saying. 'I think...'

And then, rather than looking at the room, she looked inside herself, at the world contained within, at the snake wrapped around its apple-green purity, at the gaping mouth beginning to open, spilling dark shapes.

Somewhere, a world away, she could hear herself screaming.

* * *

She screamed again, ranting incoherently as her astonished friends sat motionless around her. Finally, John dragged himself out of his stupor and grabbed hold of Fay's flailing arms, taking a whack in the face for his trouble. 'Help me, for Christ's sake,' he said angrily.

Slowly, Gavin and Chris pulled themselves together and shuffled over to his side.

'Fay,' said John urgently, 'Fay. Listen to me. It's all right.

You're with friends. Fay. Calm down'

'No!' screamed the banshee he was holding. 'Don't let it open its mouth! The snake's opening its mouth'

'What can you see, Fay?' asked Gavin, pinning her right arm to the ground. 'Can you hear me?'

It's the snake,' she cried. 'The serpent. It's... It's so big.

It's as big as the world' Then she threw herself up from the floor with an astonishing strength that hurled the others across the room. Her eyes were wide and she stared malevolently at Tony Leman, who sat cowering in the corner.

'They're out,' she said simply. 'They're out and there's nothing you can do to stop them. They're going to kill you all'

'Who?' asked a terrified Chris.

Fay turned to him, her eyes as black as the pits of hell.

Screaming laughter bubbled from the back of her throat.

'They're everywhere'

'Who are, Fay?'

'The devil goblins from Neptune,' she answered.

I, SPY

Liz stepped down on to the tarmac, nervously pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders. A harsh wind ripped across the runway and surrounding flat grassland. The few buildings that dotted the airfield were indistinct against the watery sky and dimly glowing sun.

Liz turned to see the Doctor joining her under the belly of the Antonov An-26 tactical transport that had brought them to East Germany. She raised her voice against the whining turboprops. 'Not quite what I had in mind when the Brigadier told me to pack for a trip across Europe.'

The Doctor smiled. 'We're not here for the sightseeing, Liz.' He surveyed their surroundings. 'And that's probably just as well'

The airfield seemed almost entirely deserted, the buildings dilapidated and crumbling. Even the tarmac of the runway was cracked, tufts of grass poking up in search of the weak sunlight. There was only one other plane, an enormous Tupolev Tu-126 in silver and red-starred PVO Strany livery.

On the back of the plane, between the sweeping wings and the tail section, towered the enormous rotating saucer shape that housed the radar. The four engines were coughing into life, the eight-bladed contraprops whirling.

'Impressive, no?' Captain Shuskin came alongside them, watching the mechanics making the final pre-flight checks.

'I've never seen one up close,' said the Doctor.

'The basic design dates back almost twenty years. The wingspan of this AWACS version is over fifty metres.'

The Doctor nodded. 'The Soviet Union has never lacked firepower and technology. It makes the disappearance of the soldiers in Siberia all the more disturbing.'

Shuskin nodded. 'Come, let us board.

They walked across to the other runway in silence. The wind, even stronger away from the protection offered by the first aircraft, whistled shrilly despite the bassy drone of the Tupolev's engines.

The Doctor helped Liz up the steps of the plane. One end of the cavernous interior was given over to rows of radar screens and communication equipment; the other had been hastily filled with seats and a projector and now resembled a miniature lecture theatre.

Shuskin indicated that the Doctor and Liz should sit, which they did, grateful to be out of the cold. One or two of the chairs were already occupied.' Shuskin made no attempt to introduce the men, and neither did they seek eye contact with the new arrivals.

The huge door slammed shut. A calm Russian voice crackled over the intercom, and then the engines began screaming. It was clear that the plane was taxiing into position.

Liz turned to the Doctor. 'Shouldn't we strap in or something?' The Doctor shook his head. 'Don't worry, the take-off will be quite smooth'

There were few windows in the plane, and it was difficult to tell at what point the massive craft finally lumbered into the air, but a few minutes later the interior lights dimmed still further and the briefing session began. The slide projector hummed gently, and Shuskin began to speak.

'In early March of this year our spy satellites uncovered evidence of what appeared to be a massive mining complex in Siberia.'

The screen glowed to show the garish colours of an artificially enhanced photograph. Twisting blue rivers arced around a region of green, like the outline of hands holding a precious jewel. Right in the centre was a rust-coloured circle, surrounded by tiny ruler-straight lines of black, like a spider's web of fracture marks.

'This uninhabited region is just to the north of the Central Siberian Plateau, well inside the Arctic Circle.'

A second photograph showed the area in more detail, the site resembling a cleaned bullet wound. The dark lines now seemed to be criss-crossing roads, extending some distance into the dark coniferous forests and then stopping dead.

'We dispatched a Yakovlev-26 high-altitude reconnaissance craft. Contact was lost immediately over the area in question, although the pilot confirmed that both construction and mining seemed to be taking place' Shuskin paused. 'You are familiar, Doctor, with the Mikoyan MiG-25?'

The Doctor turned slightly. 'Yes. The prototypes broke numerous closed-circuit speed, payload-to-height and rate-of climb records'

'There is no better plane in the world,' said Shuskin proudly. 'We are already flying with impunity over Israel and Iran on reconnaissance missions. The MiG-25 is simply too fast for your F-4 Phantoms'

'Madam, please don't equate me with any army or national government,' the Doctor pointed out sharply.

'It is of little importance, Doctor. We sent in three MiG-25s. We

barely had time to monitor the battle in which all were lost' 'Do you have any idea what shot them down?' asked Liz.

'No,' said Shuskin. 'They reported multiple enemy targets, flying in close formation - then nothing.'

Shuskin clicked a button, and the projected image changed to a photograph of what seemed to be a road running through the taiga. Instead of concrete or tarmac, the surface was smooth and silvered, like a long line of mercury.

The trees had been harshly but precisely cut away to make way for the road, creating a monotonous edging of green and brown.

'We tried approaching the site by foot, an entire regiment of the Red Army. One soldier was ordered to return to base with these photographs of the road long before the site was reached.' The picture changed again and again, showing numerous different versions of the road, its smooth-metal surface, and the surrounding area.

'He is the only survivor. If anyone else was sent back with further evidence, they never arrived. And we must presume that the rest of the soldiers died in battle'

'And you think that alien life forms are behind the construction and all these deaths?' asked Liz.

'Late last year our radar systems reported multiple targets approaching the area'

The Doctor turned to look at Shuskin, a silhouette against the white light of the projector. 'Multiple targets?

Originally one mass, breaking up during the descent?'

'Indeed. This sounds familiar to you?'

'I'm rather afraid it does,' said the Doctor.

'Business or pleasure, sir?' the man at Geneva airport had asked. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had been lost for a reply.

The ensuing ride through Geneva was lifeless and silent.

Normally, with the practised eye of a combat veteran, Lethbridge-Stewart would have been constantly alert, looking around him for potential ambush sites. But now he just slumped in the back of the car, grunting occasionally in response to the young Swiss UNIT captain who was driving him. They passed the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire and the captain tried to start up a conversation, but after three failed attempts he gave up and drove the grateful Brigadier in silence to the meeting place.

The alfresco Royamune café, overlooked by the old League of Nations building, was a regular spot for 'informal chats'. UNIT's structure was such that, because officers often felt unable to go through official government channels, they would, instead, fly to Geneva on leave and 'look up an old friend'. It was a tried and tested method of passing on information without the need to fill in forms, answer awkward questions or, possibly, compromise sources. Lethbridge-Stewart had used it before and knew its effectiveness. Hence, his message to Major-General Augustus 'Tubby' Hayes.

Lethbridge-Stewart and Hayes went back a long way.

They had served together at Suez, and then in Aden, where Lethbridge-Stewart's reputation as a superb leader of men had been made. The newspapers called 1967 the 'Summer of Love'. All Lethbridge-Stewart could remember about the year was being a young colonel, fresh from his first close encounter with alien beings, shooting a machine gun at Arabs. Hayes was his commander then, and both had been seconded to UNIT soon afterward. Hayes, the initial government liaison officer to Lethbridge-Stewart as the nominal head of British UNIT, soon climbed the promotion ladder, and was now within the top echelon of the United Nations hierarchy.

Hayes was waiting for him when the Brigadier arrived and stood to greet his old protégé with a friendly handshake and bland questions about shared acquaintances. They sat and began to talk about Aden, and the Yetis in the Underground. Then Hayes snapped his head around to check that they weren't being observed.

'What's it all about, then?' he asked quickly.

'I have concerns. I'm worried about UNIT's internal security.'

'Aren't we all, old man?'

Strangely, despite their many years together, the Brigadier felt unable to entirely confide in Hayes. But vague questions were only going to get vague answers, so he plunged in with both feet. 'Some... information has come into my possession that leads me to, well, perhaps "suspect" is too strong a word...'

'Spit it out, man,' said Hayes harshly.

'Very well. I have specific reason to believe that Geneva HQ has been compromised.

Lethbridge-Stewart sat back, a huge weight having lifted from his shoulders. He waited for the expected reply from Hayes that this was a ridiculous suggestion and, anyway, what evidence did this jumped-up junior officer have to cast aspersions on the integrity of the dedicated men and women of UNIT? But it didn't come.

'We all run the risk of cuckoos in the nest, don't we, Alistair?' said Hayes, standing and picking up his gloves. 'I expect we shall have cause to speak of this again. Enjoy your holiday, old man'