"I"m still sorry."
Adiel scrambled up, looked out through the dusty gla.s.s. Guwe"s jaw had dropped too but there was no skin left to catch it. Millipedes squirmed over the bare skull and there were gaps in its grin where the gold teeth had once been. She looked away, revolted, willing herself not to be sick.
"There was this mud-gun thing," Rose began awkwardly. Adiel nodded and pointed to where a couple of the red and white millipedes were wriggling under the door. "We"d better get out of here," she croaked, heading back towards the shabby dorm building, her mind turning in ten different dazed directions but feeling weirdly calm. An old boyfriend back in Moundou, one who"d seen action he"d told her that the more terrifying the situation, the less frightened you felt. There was just no time to be afraid. Now she was starting to understand what he"d meant.
"I thought you and Basel would still be safely out the way of all this in the lava tubes," she told Rose.
""Safely" didn"t come into it much," Rose replied coldly. "Solomon"s dead, the Doctor and Basel are being held by some alien thing with too many of everything who"s gonna take them to see these giant Wurms, who are blasting the h.e.l.l out of the golems with killer mud so they can pinch their art treasures." She stopped for a breath. "We"ve got to find a way of getting them out and "
But Adiel had burst into tears, eyes screwed up tight, fists clenched, trembling.
"Hey." Rose put her arms round the girl. "Look, it"s all right "
"I think Director Fynn has been using dead human bodies as part of his research here," Adiel sobbed. "My mum and dad among them."
"Oh. . . " Rose stared at her, flummoxed. "OK. Maybe it"s not all right."112.
Adiel stared at her through her tears, the sounds of the nightmare battle outside growing louder, harsher. "This could be my last night on Earth," she said, sniffing loudly. "So I need to find out fast. Don"t I?"
Slowly, Rose nodded and reached out for Adiel"s hand. "Um, yeah. Yeah, s"pose you do."
"I"m sorry, Adiel." Fynn"s voice made her spin round. "Life doesn"t always come with neat edges."
He was looking down at the floor, shamefaced and fearful. Flanking him were two of the giant earthworm monsters, rearing up like inflated king cobras. Their tapering, segmented heads peered round blindly beneath their silver helmets, and now she discovered how badly they stank inside their muddy armour. And at this range, Adiel could see that their stubby arms were encased in electronics, enhanced by robotic parts. Their cannons were somehow grafted on to the pale flesh; the combat helmet was almost a part of them.
"Techno-worms," Rose cringed. "Triffic."
One of the creatures reared up over them and Adiel recoiled in horror. "You are prisoners of war," it said in a strained monotone, shuffling forwards on its tail, or its belly, or whatever it was. "Ambulate ahead of us. Now."
Rose shrugged helplessly at Adiel. "At least they"re not shooting on sight."
"Attempt to escape and you will be eaten alive," the other Wurm informed them, wiggling its cannon.
Numb with fear, Adiel kept her eyes on Fynn, made him her focus as she and Rose were herded ahead of the slithering Wurms and back out into the stifling heat of the noisy night. Don"t let me die Don"t let me die, she prayed to the G.o.d she wished she still believed in, not yet. Not till I know for sure. Not till I know for sure.
Basel peeped out at the crazy world below through his fingers, as the crusty bubble floated high over the battlefield. This had to be the longest, nastiest night of his life. His senses were spinning from all that he"d seen and done; it was impossible to take in, like stumbling through some hideous nightmare.113.
The Doctor just sat there, grinning beside Faltato. "I"ve never flown by egg sac before," he confessed cheerily, peering out through the opaque sides. "How does it work, then?"
"I don"t know," yawned Faltato.
"I reckon it"s powered by breaking down bacteria in the lining to create a propulsion jet of gas," the Doctor went on. "What do you reckon, Basel?"
"Solomon is dead." Basel glared at him, ma.s.saging his bruised waist from where Faltato had tongue-lashed him. "He had two kids, and they"re gonna want to know what happened and I"m gonna have to tell them. . . what?" The Doctor said nothing, gazing out over the chaos down below. "You don"t even care, do you?"
"I care about a lot of things," the Doctor informed him. "And I"ve got a lot of questions I want answered. Like, who"s in charge round here, Faltato?"
"King Ottak presides over this clew of Wurms," said Faltato, "with the a.s.sistance of his Knight-Major, Korr."
The bubble suddenly changed course, dropped sharply from the sky. Basel"s heart sank in sympathy. He realised that they were now directly over the Wurm ship. The ship"s hull was gently pulsating, almost as if it was breathing. Somehow the bubble seemed to pa.s.s straight through the hull and sank down into a transparent tube. Then suddenly the skin shrank back, like a gum-bubble punctured. The tube melted away and Faltato shoved the Doctor and Basel forwards with his mean little pincers. They were standing in a messy wreck of a control room. The floor was packed with earth; it felt warm through his shoes, gently quivering. Banks of soil were heaped here and there around controls, which looked like vast, bristling tree roots. Maggoty things squirmed in the piles, wrapping themselves round levers and switches. In place of the sort of sci-fi scanners and monitors Basel had expected, cobwebbed sacs wobbled on mounds of mud here and there; some showed ghostly black-and-white images of the carnage outside, others showed nothing but interference patterns. Basel gulped. "This thing was really built by aliens?"114.
"Nah. Adapted from living organisms. A technological powerhouse built using nature"s bounty. . . " The Doctor paused. "I"ve always been able to take or leave Bounties. Prefer Double Deckers. D"you have Double Deckers in Africa, Basel?"
"Prisoners will be silent," announced a thin, m.u.f.fled voice from ground level. Basel jumped and swore, while the Doctor stared, fascinated, as two of the huge, white Wurms pushed up from out of the ground in front of them, coiling and flexing like enormous tubes of flesh. Clumps of wet, white earth clung to their segmented bodies like uniform or armour and were crawling with insect life. The bigger of the two creatures sported a tangle of thick green creepers on top of his glistening, featureless head, like a crown.
"Flex your ambulatory limbs and point downwards!" said the smaller of the two Wurms, his voice clearer now he was above ground. Basel stared at the creatures in disgust. "Do what?"
"Kneel," the Doctor translated.
"At once!" roared the Wurm.
"Do as the Knight-Major orders," said Faltato, and Basel quickly obeyed.
"Cor!" cried the Doctor. "It"s Korr! And judging by the niff, that"s Korr as in "rotten to the. . . ""
"Abase yourselves at the belly of King Ottak!" Korr said gruffly. The Doctor waved a hand in front of his nose, put on his gla.s.ses and studied the creature closely. "Which bit is the royal belly?"
Korr squirted a dark fluid into the Doctor"s face, so hard it knocked his gla.s.ses off his nose. The liquid was rank and salty, and it splashed over Basel"s face too, stung his eyes. Quickly the Doctor joined Basel on his knees.
"That is better," said the crowned Wurm, his voice boomy and ba.s.sy, as if it was distorting through an overloaded speaker.
"Stick these bipeds in the cages," growled Korr. "They are valueless."
"The spirited one is not of this world, Majesty," said Faltato. "I believe he is a rival art scout, here to make his own a.s.sessment of the haul."
"I"m not," the Doctor declared, sticking his dripping gla.s.ses back in his pocket. "As it is, I"m just travelling through. But I"d take very good 115 care of me very, very, very very good care and you know why?" He stood back up. "Because you"re going to need me." good care and you know why?" He stood back up. "Because you"re going to need me."
"We need no one and nothing," boomed King Ottak, writhing in anger like a fat, blind serpent. "Faltato, have you located the deactivation plaque?"
"I have, Your Majesty," Faltato replied graciously, five eyelids fluttering. "It was well hidden, as ever. But alas, deactivation will not be straightforward. It lies buried beneath a rock-fall."
"You have the coordinates?"
"Naturally I do, sire."
"Deactivation plaque?" the Doctor wondered. "Suppose the Valnaxi would want to get back in some day and pick up their valuables if they"d won, of course."
"Do not speak such blasphemy in my presence!" King Ottak roared, squirming over with alarming speed, like a snake on steroids. "The Valnaxi could never win. We are the conquerors of s.p.a.ce, the destroyers of worlds. And Earth will soon rank among them."
The Doctor looked up at him coolly. "Oh?"
"We shall wipe out the Valnaxi guardians, seize their artworks, lay waste to their shrines and devastate this entire planet. Every last stinking spore of the Valnaxi must be wiped from the biosphere."
"And why d"you wanna do that, then?"
"To avenge our dead."
"Oh. Right." The Doctor pulled a face. "Just a thought d"you think the dead will take much notice?"
Korr reared up and lashed out at the Doctor with his tapering head, sending him sprawling into one of the control mounds in a shower of mud. "Insolent biped," he wheezed.
"Call me all the names you like." The Doctor glared up at him. "I won"t let you do this."
"Ten-toed sc.u.m, you cannot stop us! We shall wring from your world what nutrients we can, then leave it barren and dead, a final monument to the art of destruction."
Basel looked at the Doctor. "He"s mad," he whispered. 116 King Ottak shivered with what might have been rage or laughter, agitating the insects in his stinking soil.117.
[image]
Anewdaywaspokingout.i.tsnosefromnight"sblanket. Rosewished the light away, wished the dawn light would darken till she could see nothing at all.
She felt like she was being marched through h.e.l.l. Once outside the main complex, the stench, the heat and the sights and sounds of battle fixed every step with horror. Corpses, chewed up and charred, lay scattered all about, yet still the golems kept coming bats and birds, even gleaming, mutated Wurms and still the dull wet splats of the mud guns echoed on. For a few moments she had been grateful for the stinking smoke drifting across the concourse that hid the worst from view until she realised it was ash from roasted bones, and she was breathing it in.
Adiel"s hand found her own and Rose gripped hold of it. Fynn was walking ahead of them, leading the way as if he needed to act the big Director even now. The Wurms were lumbering along behind them. Rose could hear the sickening squelching of their bodies as they bunched up and stretched out, propelling themselves along the churned-up ground, felt their shadows falling over her. Heard a vengeful, highpitched humming noise sweep towards her.
"Pause," one of the Wurms hissed wetly in her ear. 119 Rose saw a shimmering cloud of golden smoke pull itself from out of the wind-blown ash.
"Mosquitoes," Fynn shouted. "More guardians!"
The Wurms curled down behind her and Adiel, and suddenly she realised they weren"t just being marched ahead of their captors. They were human shields. Rose stood dead still, but before she could even start to think of what to do, the cloud of mosquitoes parted like a gauzy curtain around them and moved on.
Adiel was almost breaking Rose"s hand she was squeezing so tight.
"How come they didn"t attack us?"
Next second, Rose felt sticky wet flesh slapped up against her cheek as one of the Wurms pressed against her. The words seeped into her ear, accusingly. "You ally yourselves with the Valnaxi creatures?"
"Look out!" Adiel shouted, as a livid gold blur beat a path through the smog, an eagle or something, snapping at the Wurms. Fluid jetted over Rose"s shoulder as her guard"s flesh was torn by beak or claw. The Wurm holding her gave a gurgling roar of anger and coiled itself about her, soggy segments contracting against her skin as it writhed upwards, lifted her kicking and screaming into the path of the golem. It"ll rip me to pieces It"ll rip me to pieces, she thought.
But the misshapen eagle gave a screech of anger and backed off. The other Wurm grabbed Adiel in much the same way, held her up like she was a living crucifix seeing off a swooping vampire. The eagle-thing soon gave up and went away.
Rose caught Adiel"s eye; they connected in baffled expressions: I dunno what happened either I dunno what happened either.
"Continue your ambulation," Adiel"s Wurm told Fynn.
"Gonna put me down?" Rose said as casually as she could.
"No," the Wurm replied, a deep gouge in its face the only visible feature as it turned to its comrade. "Hurry. We must report to the king. The guardians do not attack the human bipeds."
"Since when?"
said Adiel, gasping as the Wurms set off again.
"What"s changed?"
120.
Basel wiped sweat from his face, longing for a line of pa.s.sive pills and a cold drink of water to wash them down with. He watched King Ottak squirming about the control room, peering at each of the crackling muddy monitor screens in turn, conferring with Korr. They were getting reports from the field, Basel supposed at least it was taking the heat off him and the Doctor, sat deep in thought beside him.
Then suddenly Korr steamed over, raining dollops of smelly white soil down all around, and the heat was turned back up to baking.
"Explain the nature of your people"s alliance with the Valnaxi."
"We haven"t got one!" Basel protested.
"But I can see why you might think so," said the Doctor, getting slowly back up to his feet, staring past Basel at one of the monitors. It showed an aerial view of Adiel and Rose in the grip of two Wurrns, Fynn in front of them, being herded across the ruined concourse.
"They"ve caught everyone," Basel breathed. Then he realised that gathered all around were golems. Insects, birds, dogs a writhing mutated Wurm too moving along like a grisly escort, matching them pace for pace. "What"s that lot doing? Waiting for the moment to strike?"
"Or to step in and try to save them," the Doctor murmured. He raised his voice, turning to the king. "I hope you treat your prisoners well."
"Afraid for yourself, Doctor?" Faltato sneered.
"Afraid for all of you," he said simply, no trace of humour in his voice now, "because if anything bad happens to Rose and I think it"s your fault. . . "
"I have never observed such behaviour in the guardian drones," said Korr, ignoring him. "None have acted this way in any of the other warrens."
"It is as if they have been programmed not to attack human bipeds,"
mused the king. "And yet we have seen converted humans in the ranks of our enemies."
"No doubt the deactivation plaque was damaged in the rock-fall,"
said Faltato. "It is malfunctioning."
Ottak nodded. "Perhaps."121.
"It"s interesting." The Doctor was smiling. "Don"t you think that"s interesting, Basel? I told King Ottak he"d need me. Didn"t I tell him!"
Ottak shuffled slowly towards them, his voice quiet and dangerous.
"What a.s.sistance can you offer us?"
"Well, for a start. . . " The Doctor pointed to a static-filled screen, unfazed. "The Valnaxi know your bio-tech, right? They can detect your scan frequencies and block them so you can"t see inside that mountain." He held up the dataget. "I can."
"Irrelevant," Korr said, though still he stretched out his segmented body towards them, straining obscenely to see. "We have Faltato"s intelligence on the warren."
" Limited Limited intelligence." The Doctor winked at Faltato. "He can give you coordinates for the deactivation panel. Well, whoop-de-doo!" He patted the dataget. This baby can show you the entire layout of the Valnaxi warren at a glance, allow you to pinpoint every guardian in the place. You can have a butcher"s at their defences, plan how to strike at the heart of their stronghold." intelligence." The Doctor winked at Faltato. "He can give you coordinates for the deactivation panel. Well, whoop-de-doo!" He patted the dataget. This baby can show you the entire layout of the Valnaxi warren at a glance, allow you to pinpoint every guardian in the place. You can have a butcher"s at their defences, plan how to strike at the heart of their stronghold."
"Don"t trust him, Knight-Major," Faltato twittered.
"Oh, shut your slit," the Doctor taunted him. "Got you going, haven"t I? Eh? Touched a nerve or what! Just "cause you didn"t think to make one."
A mechanical probe-arm whirred out from a stump of raw flesh growing from Korr"s torso and took hold of the dataget. He presented it to his king.
"Think they"ll buy it?" Basel asked.
The Doctor nodded. "Think they"ll try and take take it." it."