Part 28 (2/2)

'But the spider...' we hear the Doctor say, over the whine of the bolt as it is loosed and the lash of the cable.

Gila is a marvellous shot. It hits.

With a final howl of complaint the walrus explodes. In a ghastly, colourful instant its body is torn to shreds. Even if we run back and rewind this film now, it all happens too fast for video to quite pick up the intricacies of this onslaught. There is a flash, rolling plumes of filthy smoke and then...

a shower of b.l.o.o.d.y, vast gobbets of flesh on the clean snow. Closest to us, closest to the bus and the camera, falls the ruined head of the behemoth. Its tusks have splintered into pieces. There is a hail of already clotting blood.

And, in the heart of the smoke and noise, we see the Spider d.u.c.h.ess crack into shards. Her legs are split and they tumble like straws. Her body, the thorax gashed and bursting apart like silver fruit, is flung clear.

All that can be heard aboard the bus is shouting.

Gila turns snarling to the camera. His face fills all our screen. His eyes are livid green. All trace of humanity appears to be gone.

The picture vanishes.

'If this was sent by the Scarlet Empress,' said Sam, 'won't she send something else after us?'

They were standing in the still-smoking, partially torn and bleeding sides of blubber.

'I'm sure she will,' said the Doctor tersely.

It had started to snow. The day was ending, it seemed. The dense sky was lowering in.

A few yards away the Spider d.u.c.h.ess was tending to her own wounds, which still blazed and sparked away. Gila and the Bearded Lady scooped up snow to put out the little flames and cool down her metal skin. She wasn't speaking yet.

Major Angela said,'You've wrecked her. You've blown her to pieces. I'm glad I couldn't see what you did.'

'Shut it,' Gila snarled, bending over the Spider d.u.c.h.ess's vast torso. He peered with expert care at the workings inside the gash in her flesh.

'She's going to survive this.'

'You blew most of her legs off. How can she move?'

The Spider d.u.c.h.ess spoke then, in a fractured voice that was much more identifiably a composite of two separate beings than before. 'I cannot move. I cannot move.'

The fizzing stumps of her once elegant silver legs waggled and thrashed in the chilling air. Her mandibles clattered with a kind of animatronic despair.

”We can't just leave her here,' said Sam, coming up to see.

'We must,' said Gila.

Major Angela started to argue, but the Spider d.u.c.h.ess interrupted her.

'Leave me here in the snow. Soon the Scarlet Empress will send her guard, to see how and why we destroyed her sea beast. I will be here to deal with them and prevent them from following you. You have to go on.'

'What will you do?' the Doctor asked.

'I will deal with them,' said the Spider d.u.c.h.ess. 'I will recover my strength and lie in wait in the snow. If the guards come to get you and drag you back to Hyspero, I shall put them off the scent. You all have to be able to return there under your own steam. The way you want. I will stop them for you.'

”Thank you,' said the Doctor.

'I wish I could come with you.'

'We'll come back for you,' the Bearded Lady promised. 'When it's all over.'

Then they walked back to the bus.

Iris's bus and Iris herself were relieved when they could drive free of the ice. A hundred miles or so on they found themselves back on frozen ground, and free of the risk of cracking the ice beneath them and plunging into the depths. Now they were close to the coast, and frosty, scrubby gra.s.s provided the only obstacle as they drove into the oncoming night. Major Angela listened to them describe the harsh landscape about them and she declared they were now very close to the sea.

They toiled up a hard-going hummock of land and there, beyond, was the flat dark sash of the sea, widening out before them. The stars looked brilliant. Iris gave a great sigh of happiness at the change in the view.

'Now I really feel we're getting somewhere,' she said, still at the wheel.

The Doctor was at her elbow. He nodded out to sea.'Look at that s.h.i.+p.'

His eyes were narrowed. She was used to his eagle eyes by now and struggled to follow his gaze. True enough, just out to sea, in roughly the stretch of beach for which they were heading, was a tiny, toy-like, distant vessel. Its silver sails bulged out in the moonlight and soon all the bus pa.s.sengers were staring at it.

'Transport's been laid on for us, it seems,' said his.

'We've got someone to find, first,' said Angela.

The Spider d.u.c.h.ess began her slow, slow, infinitely slow drag towards home. Her blasted legs, like errant children, came twitching and sliding on the ice towards her.

And when they drove down to the s.h.i.+ngle beaches the next morning, they found him.

A restless night had been spent aboard the bus, with everyone apart from the moody, s.h.i.+fty Gila, sitting close for comfort and warmth, wrapped inside their furs from the Kestheven bears. In the night Iris had sat a little while alone, watching the vast churn and s.h.i.+mmer of the dark sea. She opened the doors and went out for a cigarette, bracing herself against the side of the bus and hugging herself for warmth. Perhaps she was feeling a little better. She stamped her feet on the rutted, frozen road.

And then, out of nowhere seemingly, a cat slunk past her. She saw its eyes first, lit up in the night, flat pale discs of green. Then she looked and the cat stared back. It had one tattered ear, as though it had been brawling. It looked altogether tatty and aloof. It came slinking out from under her bus, looked at her briefly, then padded off into the stiff white stalks of the gra.s.s, and vanished. She shrugged and stamped on her cigarette b.u.t.t.

That had been last night. In the morning they were busy again, rolling along by the seaside, looking for Major Angela's elusive fourth member.

To Sam, this whole place looked benighted and empty. As if there had never been a living soul on this beach. Then, suddenly, Gila barked out in surprise and made Iris pull over.

He led them out of the bus, and across the s.h.i.+ngled beach. They ran, crunching the gravel and pebbles and sh.e.l.ls underfoot.

Right where the sea was caressing the rocks of the sh.o.r.e, there was a plinth set into a kind of protected bay. The plinth was streaked white with salt, partially eroded and whittled into a stunted, grotesque form. Atop the plinth there was a block of ice, about the size of a grown man. It was ice like gla.s.s, faceted and brilliant, cut to perfection, but twisted and uneven in shape. As they approached it looked to Sam like a shrine.

Within the ice she could now see a dim shape trapped within.

The Doctor came last, huffing and pus.h.i.+ng Iris over the s.h.i.+fting stones in her wheelchair. The small wheels ground arthritically on the s.h.i.+ngle, cracking delicate purple sh.e.l.ls. He heaved and hauled her over banks and tatters of leathery brown seaweed.

By the time Iris and the Doctor reached the plinth and the ice, the others were staring upward at it with satisfaction.

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