Part 17 (1/2)

'And instead you've been stuck here for 2,000.' The Doctor whistled. 'I'm sorry. I really am. No offence, but as scientists and master planners you lot make very good artists.'

'It is for our art we have done this,' came the dry old voice. 'Our planet is home to a binding force, an energy the wellspring of our creativity.'

'Yes, I know.'

'And away from the homelands, we cannot create,' the voice went on. 'We have no art. No function, no purpose. Our most ancient and valuable masterworks are hidden away in vaults here, and we wait with them. Until the day we can return to create new and better works.'

'Return?' The Doctor stared at the bodies on their thrones. 'So. You wanted to look like Wurms so you could fit in back home. . . '

'They infest our world but cannot destroy the binding force. It waits there for us. It calls to us.' A pause. 'We are so little without it. We fought so hard and for so long to preserve it. Now, if the only way we are able to commune with it is to live among our conquerors in secret, then so be it.'

'Only it's all gone wrong, hasn't it?' said the Doctor.

''Cause here you are, all arms and legs. After all those centuries, the Wurms didn't make it to the bogus deactivation plaque first, did they?'

He shook his head sadly at the gleaming, stylised figures. 'Solomon did!'

As she stared down the barrels of two dozen cannons, Adiel knew she should have been terrified. But there were too many questions crowding her head. How had her parents felt, looking back at the end of their lives? How afraid had they been? What had even happened to them? She'd spent so long clinging to the same questions, and with all she'd found out she was still no nearer an answer. And now, as she faced the taking of her own life, she realised that it didn't matter. The 164 answers to those questions would change nothing. She would never stop missing her mum and dad, never stop loving them, never stop wanting to make them proud.

And as the guns finished clicking into position, fear finally bit at her. And in its teeth came the certainty that her mum and dad would have fought to stay alive, done anything, tried tried anything. She would fight too. anything. She would fight too.

'Any last words, Faltato?' the Wurm king enquired mockingly.

'None come to mind,' said Faltato faintly. 'Oh, hang on. . . '

Adiel realised something was digging into her back. Something in Faltato's breast pocket that Basel must have overlooked. A little jolt of hope went through her and she twisted in Faltato's grip. 'Don't make me look at them!' she wailed, pressing herself up against him and dipping into the pocket. Her fingers closed on a slim tube.

'King Ottak,' said Faltato wretchedly, 'allow me to speak to my fellows at the Hadropilatic Fellows.h.i.+p. Let them double-check my findings and prove to you '

Discreetly she pulled out the tube, reached over and pressed it into Basel's hand. He started, looked at her. Grinned and nodded. Ottak hissed like an air brake. 'I tire of your final words, Faltato.'

('Can you work it?' Adiel asked Basel.) 'Let us revel in your final screams instead!'

('I can die trying,' he whispered.) Faltato's nerve finally broke and he launched into a desperate stumbling run, dragging his human s.h.i.+eld with him.

'Aim your weapons!' Ottak roared to his troops.

Basel raised the thin little tube. A blue glow of power buzzed from its tip. Adiel waited, breath baited.

But all that happened was the Wurm on the stretcher yelped as his floating stretcher whizzed off as if jerked on a string and smashed into the cavern wall, before capsizing over the patient.

'Korr!' Ottak hissed. 'Biped sc.u.m, your blood shall enrich my soil for this!'

Basel looked at Adiel helplessly then Faltato slipped and collapsed, 165 dragging them down with him. Adiel cringed as her face fell against his it was like nuzzling a big rotten vegetable.

'Destroy them all!' roared Ottak.

But then Adiel blinked as a skein of golden smoke drifted into sight right in front of them. Two gleaming figures began to form there.

'Golems!' shouted Basel.

Adiel closed her eyes. The Wurms opened fire.

The Doctor stared half-disgusted, half-pityingly at the blank faces of the Valnaxi-humans. 'What a cods-up,' he said. 'Lying dormant all this time, you didn't realise the humans had developed, that they'd been digging out the volcano and weakened the caverns exposing the plaque too soon. Solomon found it, touched it and your systems took his DNA, life essence and psychic energy. . . ' He nodded, growing excited. 'Maybe that's why you didn't see him as a threat till he brought the roof cras.h.i.+ng down on the plaque and smashed it! And so now you can't steal the Wurms' ident.i.ties. They're gonna loot the place and push off and torch the whole planet, and while you may survive way down here, you're stuck as humans and ohhhhh boy are you ever gonna stand out like sore thumbs on your home world looking like that that. . . '

He tailed off, expecting confirmation, or angry denial something something. But the throne room stayed silent. The smoke hung in an almost solid curtain just ahead of him. The male and the female watched him closely.

'Um, it's good of you to tell me all this by the way,' he said quickly.

'But call me paranoid, I'm suddenly wondering why. Why?'

The silence, the watching, went on. Then suddenly the magma guardian blazed threateningly into the throne room.

'Oh, I get it,' said the Doctor. 'You've been waiting for my cells to revert, haven't you? So you can make me into one of your golems.'

The female looked at him almost sadly. 'Yes.'

He pulled a face. 'And. . . I'm guessing my immunity's worn off?'

The male nodded.

'Whoops,' said the Doctor, as the magma form surged towards him. 166 [image]

Eyes tight shut, Adiel listened to the squelch of the Wurm cannons, blast after blast, and wondered how come she was still alive. But only when she felt human hands gripping her own did she open her eyes.

Solomon was crouching protectively over her, no longer golden, just the same as he had always been.

'I I thought you were dead,' she stammered.

'There's still time,' he said grimly, dragging her up. 'Come on. Move.'

Adiel saw in a moment that Faltato was no longer prime target, with or without his human s.h.i.+eld. The Wurms had opened fire on the storm of bats and vultures that had soundlessly swooped into the chamber to attack, and the packs of misshapen dogs and hyenas that now came snapping and howling to join the fray. The Wurm guarding the jagged entrance to the next chamber had left his post to take part in the fighting, and Adiel realised that Rose was leading Basel to shelter there. Faltato was already disappearing through the slit in the stone.

'Where did you appear from?' Adiel shouted over another deafening volley of shots as they pushed through into the next chamber. 167 'Out of thin air, I think,' said Rose. She looked pale and woozy, trying to hold Basel upright while holding it together herself. Adiel took him off her hands and they all collapsed behind an enormous Valnaxi sculpture where Faltato was waiting.

'Out of thin air, indeed.' Faltato sniffed. 'You were sent through a matter transporter.'

'It was amazing,' said Basel, kissing Rose before throwing his arms round Solomon. 'They came through this smoky yellow light, all gold and golem-y then it just wore off and they were normal.'

'We weren't regular golems,' said Rose, eyes closed, fingers pressing against her face. 'We were, like, golems deluxe.'

'They wanted something else from us,' Solomon agreed. 'And I guess they must have taken it.'

Faltato clearly wasn't impressed. 'From the timing, I'd say they sent you through to distract Ottak's forces while their guardian drones attacked from the rear. Though I don't see why the drones were playing dead. . . '

'Something the Doctor did,' said Rose. 'He was down there, blocking their golem control.'

The alien groaned. 'I might have known he'd be behind it.'

'I could see you all,' said Solomon distantly. 'The moment I was taken, it was like I was part of some greater mind. . . Like that mind was listening to me me. I did my best to keep those golden creatures away from you. But when I knew whatever was holding me needed a female for study, I. . . ' He looked between Adiel and Rose, awkward and shamefaced. 'I couldn't let Adiel. . . '