Longest Day by Michael Collier

Author:Michael Collier [Collier, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563405818
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 1998-04-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The Sky Could Fall In

The newly revived Kusks shambled and ambled down the corridors of the base. The clean metal of the walls, floor and ceiling of the areas appropriated by Temporal Commercial Concerns – were already beginning to show signs of the brown deposits that caked all Kusk vessels.

Each of these recently thawed Kusks wore the yellow sash of combat duty, and each six-fingered hand held a tiny, delicate weapon. They kept up their loping march all the way into the control chamber.

The Leader stared at his troops with large, proud eyes. The information assimilated from the humanoid ruling here showed the habitable areas of Hirath to be occupied by puny creatures. Old people, the sick, the insane.

Easy targets.

His troops would not distinguish between the humanoids. Humanoids were all the same.

The first Kusk in line saluted with both arms and stepped eagerly into the pale luminescence of the modified matter transmitter.

Having recovered from the shock of the violence in the rocky plain, Anstaar was brimming with questions. The Doctor walked a little way ahead of her, but the deepening mystery seemed almost to be a stimulus to his good humour, so she decided to play on it.

‘So you think those people were mad? Insane?’

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, sadly. ‘I think so.’

‘Well, it’s more than possible there’s an area set aside for psychotically insane criminals from some race I’ve never heard of, if it’s any help.’

‘That’s very helpful, Anstaar,’ said the Doctor, solemnly.

‘But was that man a self-made lunatic or were the implants responsible?’

The Doctor looked at her as if to ask her to show more respect. She remembered the way he had cradled the dying man. The same way she’d seen her father cradle her as a newborn on her mother’s holovids.

‘I would say the implant came after. The laughing fellow, did you get a good look at his back? His backbone looked like it had been strengthened by some kind of alloy. And the scar left behind looked comparatively recent.’

He thrust his hands deep in his pockets. ‘A good supply of uncomprehending guinea pigs, handily isolated from prying eyes. It’s obscene.’

‘You think whoever put these people here sees them as nothing but test subjects for new technology?’

‘I have that most unpleasant thought in my mind, yes.’

‘So what we really need to prove your hypothesis,’ said Anstaar, pulling a face, ‘is another violently insane psychotic.’

‘Wait,’ said the Doctor abruptly, pushing her against a wall. She felt its soft surface sliding against her weight. ‘I think we might have found one.’

Ahead, through the mist on a turn in the narrow mountain path they were on, was a figure. The Doctor peered at it intently. ‘Another man, I think,’ he muttered.

‘Well, off you go then. Put your theory to the test.’

‘All right.’ The Doctor smiled a little nervously, then walked up to the vague figure in the haze.

The platform in the pink cave suddenly flared with a brilliant white light. As it faded to a milky glow, the huge brute shape of a Kusk gained corporeal form.

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