Part 10 (2/2)

He opened his eyes. The girl was standing behind the tall man, in the doorway of the police box. 'All right,' said the man in a northern accent, looking round at everyone, 'We're the rescue party.'

And Robert smiled for real.

The room they'd landed in was totally grim, a bleak concrete sh.e.l.l. A group of people were huddled in one corner, staring at the Doctor and Rose: mainly adults, but a couple of kids too, one boy and one girl. They all had small metal discs stuck to their foreheads, like Mrs Hall and the lad they'd seen in the game.

'We're gonna take you home,' said Rose, stepping forward. There were disbelieving smiles from the crowd; one man threw himself on the ground and started weeping.

A moustached man pushed himself to the front of the group. 'Are you in charge here?' he said. 'I have a serious complaint to make!'

Next to him, bizarrely, an elderly woman began to sing, 'There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover...'

'Don't think you'll find any bluebirds in England, love,' said the Doctor. 'Now, blue boxes, on the other hand...' He gave an exaggerated, ringmaster's gesture towards the TARDIS. 'If I could trouble you all to walk this way...'

The door to the room thudded open, and two Quevvils stood in the doorway, with several more behind them. Their heads were down and their quills bristling.

'Inside, now!' barked the Doctor, but the instant they sprang towards the TARDIS, before the poor people in the corner had taken even a single step, a barrage of quills soared through the air, tinkling on to the concrete floor at their feet. A few stuck into the sides of the TARDIS.

'That was just a warning!' called the lead Quevvil, as they all froze on the spot.

The first two Quevvils slowly came into the room.

And with them was a human. A human Rose recognised. It was Darren Pye.

'What on Earth is he doing here?' she cried out to the Doctor. 'I thought he was dead!'

'No such luck,' said the Doctor. 'He's the one who was nicking the games and selling them on the Internet.'

And she realised the rest, wondered why she hadn't worked it out before. They'd heard someone outside, thought it was the person who'd nicked Mickey's telly. He'd have heard everything they said, about the games, about the holidays, about the aliens. And he went down the stairs and met Jackie and had taken her ticket and her phone. Wouldn't have used the ticket himself, not knowing what it represented. Sold it straight away, and before you could say Jack Robinson the poor guy who'd bought it had ended up dying here, on this planet.

'I thought I recognised the voice when he offered to send my unwanted old aunt a winning scratchcard for 500 quid,' said the Doctor. He raised his voice. 'Must have been a b.u.mmer when you found out how much you could get for them, when you'd already sold Jackie's ticket and the phone. What did you get that time? Twenty quid? Thirty?'

Darren Pye just scowled at them. But one of the kids, the boy, started forward. 'Johnny Deans,' he cried. 'He said he'd bought his ticket off someone down the pub for 30, and they threw in a mobile too. He was only here for five minutes before they took him.' The boy paused, and looked at his watch. 'That was about two and a half hours ago.'

'That'd be about right,' said Rose quietly. She'd known Johnny Deans from school, not properly or anything, but she knew who he was. Darren Pye used to beat him up, she remembered. Ultimate act of bullying, this. Johnny probably wondered why his old enemy was doing him a favour. Now she was thinking of those desperate, dying sounds on the telephone. Thinking of how she hadn't been able to feel sorry about the death. Now she knew it had been someone else dying, someone she'd no grudge against, her stomach suddenly flipped with guilt.

The remaining Quevvils had entered the room; there were now five in all, far too many for the Doctor or Rose to risk trying anything. The lead Quevvil pointed at Rose. 'Prepare the human,' it said. Which didn't sound good at all.

The Doctor jumped in front of her. 'You're not doing anything to her,' he said.

'You have no choice,' replied the Quevvil. He was smiling smugly at the Doctor. 'You will play the game for us and that human ' he indicated Rose 'will be your carrier. If you resist, we will kill that one, and one of these humans ' now he pointed at the cowering group in the corner 'will act as your carrier instead.'

'Just take her!' yelled someone from the group the young man who'd been sobbing on the floor. Rose developed an instant and overwhelming dislike for him. 'Leave us alone, please!'

The Doctor hadn't moved, but the Quevvils' quills were beginning to bristle again. Better to take her chance with being a 'carrier' than a pointed death here and now. Rose stepped forwards, trying not to look nervous. A young, hesitant voice called out, 'Don't worry. It doesn't really hurt.' She turned to see the boy who'd spoken before pointing at the metal disc in the middle of his forehead. So that's what they were going to do to her first. She gave the boy a smile, thanking him for the comfort, trying to show she wasn't afraid.

As she pa.s.sed the Doctor, he suddenly swept her into a great hug. For a moment it scared her: perhaps he really did think this was goodbye, perhaps he didn't think he could rescue her... But then she felt him pressing something into her hand, and she realised the over*the*top embrace was just a distraction. As the Quevvils shouted at them to stop, and the Doctor drew back from her, Rose hurriedly shoved the Doctor's sonic screwdriver up the left sleeve of her top.

Two of the Quevvils came with her, and led her down a depressingly grey corridor. She made no effort to get away hard to run from creatures who could spray needle*sharp quills down the length of the corridor, and anyway, where would she run to?

At the end of the corridor was a door, and the Quevvils took her into a room.

The first thing she noticed was the window. She'd known that Toop was a desert planet, and she'd seen bits of it on the screen via Death to Mantodeans Death to Mantodeans, but it was still a shock to come face to face with it. Somehow she'd expected a desert to resemble an enormous version of Southend, only with fewer ice*cream sellers and more oases, but it was nothing like.

The sky... the sky wasn't a glorious holiday blue, it was a dull blue, a grey*blue, so pale as to be almost colourless. The sun was harshly white: glaringly bright, but lifeless. And even the ground disappointed, she could tell it wasn't deep, soft sand, the sort you'd make castles out of or even ride a camel across it was more like dead ground: dusty and yellow and parched. And it was bleak. All she could see in the distance was a single structure, a dull ochre mound that did actually look a bit like someone had upturned a bucket of sand and produced a truncated cone with one tap of their spade. She reckoned that must be the Mantodean place. Only a few kilometres away. A local war.

The Quevvil holding her snarled, and she started. But it was snarling at the view. 'A world blighted by Mantodeans,' it said. 'But not for much longer...'

'Have you ever thought of, you know, just trying to be friends?' said Rose. The Quevvils ignored that, and the second one grabbed hold of her arm. 'Ow!' she said. 'Or you could just put up curtains so they don't spoil your view...' They took no notice of that, either.

There were several workbenches in the room, and one Quevvil led dragged her over to one on the far side, away from the window. It kept hold of her, as the other picked up a metal disc, and held it to Rose's head. She instinctively tried to back away, but only succeeded in standing on the foot of the Quevvil holding her. It pushed her forward impatiently, and the second Quevvil then slammed the disc against her forehead.

The disc had little claws sticking out of it on one side, and to her horror it didn't stick on to her forehead like she'd expected, it stuck into into her forehead. She could feel the claws grab hold, push their way into the flesh, and then clench up, as if they were making a fist. It was a horrible experience, but to her surprise the boy had been right, it didn't really hurt; just a short, sharp shock like having your ears pierced, then a nagging unpleasantness, but no actual lingering pain. her forehead. She could feel the claws grab hold, push their way into the flesh, and then clench up, as if they were making a fist. It was a horrible experience, but to her surprise the boy had been right, it didn't really hurt; just a short, sharp shock like having your ears pierced, then a nagging unpleasantness, but no actual lingering pain.

Then one of the Quevvils pressed a b.u.t.ton on a small silver box, and the pain began.

Or maybe it wasn't pain. But it was the most unpleasant sensation. Something was happening inside her. The feeling started at the disc on her forehead and slowly spread throughout her body. It was as if tiny wires were threading themselves along every nerve. Worst of all, she couldn't react: couldn't shout or back way; couldn't move a single muscle.

The Quevvil then picked up a small metal cube. Rose realised what it was doing this was like the beginning of the game, only she wasn't in a t.i.tle sequence, they were preparing her to play for real.

The cube was on a thick metal wire, and the Quevvil hung it around her neck, twisting it so the wire encircled her like a noose. Two more wires, taken under her arms, were attached behind Rose's back. Without cutting the wire or removing her head it would be impossible to get rid of the cube.

She watched the Quevvil who had been holding her go over to a device on the wall, just like one she'd seen on the wall of their underground lair back in London. It spoke into it: 'Is the controller ready?'

'The controller is ready,' a voice confirmed. 'You will dispatch the carrier.'

'Understood.'

The Quevvil did something at the control panel. Rose had a split second to register the tang in the air that spoke to her of the Quevvils' teleportation devices. And then she was somewhere else.

FOURTEEN.

The man had let the wonderful girl be taken by the porcupines. Robert couldn't believe it. He'd only just met her, and she was being taken from him already.

Mind you, the man really didn't seem happy about it. He wasn't doing anything now, but from the way he looked, Robert was pretty sure he wasn't just going to accept the situation.

The tall man turned to the nearest porcupine. 'I was planning on just rescuing everyone and, you know, maybe destroying your technology so you wouldn't do it again,' he said conversationally, acting totally coolly about it all. 'If she gets hurt, though, this planet's dust. Just thought I'd mention it.'

Yeah, thought Robert. Dust. If they hurt her, he'd be there helping this man smash it all up.

The other man, the ugly one who had come in with the porcupines, snorted with laughter. 'You and whose army?'

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