Doctor Who - The Wheel of Ice Read online

  ‘A child,’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘It must have been. I saw it quite clearly. Only a little bigger than Casey here. And it was carrying something, like a bit of equipment. It was running. And it disappeared – into a doorway? Somewhere I couldn’t see. As if it was trying to hide.’

  Sonia and Jo glanced at each other, uncertain.

  But Phee shook her head. ‘You saw nothing. The light in here can be funny.’

  ‘Actually it appears to be a rather effective simulation of visible-spectrum sunlight—’

  ‘There was nothing to see.’

  Zoe was growing suspicious. They already knew there was something odd going on here, at this mine in the sky, she reminded herself; if not the TARDIS wouldn’t have brought them all here in the first place. And, given the way the TARDIS had reacted to Phee, there were already questions about her. Reluctantly she concluded this wasn’t a line of inquiry to follow, for now.

  But Casey, the little sister, gave her a gappy grin, and pointed, in the precise direction Zoe had seen the blue flash. Clearly, distinctly, unmistakeably, the child said, ‘Blue Doll!’

  7

  THEY WERE BROUGHT at last to a small cabin, metal-walled, no windows, that Jamie, who had been in plenty of English jails, had no hesitation in recognising as a cell.

  Here Phee and Jo had to leave them with Sonia Paley. Sonia said they were to be checked over by a medic, one at a time. The Doctor himself was the first to be taken off by Dr Omar, and he went cheerfully enough.

  Zoe and Jamie, shut in, left to themselves, explored the little cabin. It was brilliantly lit by roof panels. At first it seemed empty to Jamie, nothing but blank metal walls. But Zoe helped him find a tiny toilet hidden behind a seamless door and, when you pressed little catches in the walls, tables and chairs folded down. ‘This was how we had things on the Station,’ she said. ‘Everything packed away neatly when you didn’t need it.’

  There was a distant hooter, and an echoing voice. ‘Shift change. Shift change…’

  ‘Hmph,’ said Zoe. ‘It’s like one huge factory.’

  With a bit more exploring Jamie found a cupboard containing food packages and a water spigot, and ceramic cups. Both hungry, they gulped down the water and pulled open the packages. The food was disappointing, basically a kind of biscuit coated with green paste.

  Zoe ate this, pulling a face. ‘Probably a blue-green algae derivative from those hydroponics beds. The sooner the people of this era invent proper synthetic-food dispensers the better!’

  There were tiny little tomatoes, red and round and perfect, that were full of favour, and Jamie gobbled them like sweets. ‘No meat, then.’

  ‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so. No animals, not here! Much too inefficient in terms of protein production.’

  And Jamie pitied the children he’d glimpsed, growing up here, who must never have seen so much as a spring lamb.

  Before long the Doctor returned. ‘Ah, biscuits!’ He sat down and fell on the food, but chewed with more hunger than relish. ‘Not terribly joyful, our home from home, is it? Fits in with the character of the place as a whole, I suppose. I do like the little fold-down chairs and so on. Rather reminds me of a caravan holiday I once had in Wales—’

  ‘How was the medical exam?’ Zoe asked, forestalling the anecdote.

  The Doctor rubbed one upper arm. ‘Injection for a blood sample,’ he moaned. ‘Never was too fond of needles. Otherwise, much as usual when I go through these things. A lot of awkward questions and bluffing – you know the drill. Dr Omar’s a nice young chap.’

  ‘He looked it,’ Zoe murmured.

  ‘Don’t get yer hopes up, Zoe,’ Jamie said with a grin. ‘I heard Phee say, his partner’s called Max.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Jamie.’

  The Doctor said, ‘But I’m afraid my various readings confused him thoroughly. Says he’ll call me back. Not if I can help it! I believe I managed to distract him by praising his diagnostic machinery, even if he did think it was malfunctioning. Do you know, he had an electronic stethoscope I rather took a shine to.’

  ‘They’ll try to identify us,’ Zoe said.

  ‘Quite. He took swabs for DNA from my cheeks, for example. Well, those results from any one of us will make their computers blow a gasket, one way or another. One of us from the past, one from the future, and the other from somewhere else entirely! Nothing to be done about that, however.’

  There was a knock at the door, then Sonia Paley’s efficient voice. ‘Ms Heriot next please.’

  Stiffly, evidently reluctantly, Zoe got up, brushed her hands free of crumbs, and followed Sonia out of the room.

  The Doctor asked, around a mouthful of biscuit, ‘So how’s Jamie? You haven’t eaten much. Not like you, my lad.’

  ‘Och, it’s just… I never liked prisons.’

  ‘Of course,’ the Doctor said gently.

  ‘And I’m even more confused than usual, Doctor.’

  ‘Well, I don’t blame you.’

  ‘Where are we? Nothing out there made a blitherin’ bit o’ sense tae me.’

  ‘I’m not surprised… Jamie, the big gassy world out there is the planet Saturn. You know that. It’s much bigger than the Earth. Sixth planet of the solar system – well, it used to be the seventh, but that’s another story. Saturn is the furthest planet visible to a human eye on Earth. But not long after your time, Jamie, another planet would be discovered, by an Englishman—’

  ‘Och, it would be.’

  ‘It ended up being called Uranus, after the Greek god of heaven. But the Englishman who discovered it wanted to call it after King George!’

  ‘What! That usurpin’ Hanoverian! I cannae believe it—’

  ‘Not your King George. His grandson, I think. Oh, do sit down, Jamie. Anyhow, the name didn’t stick… For centuries people observed Saturn’s rings – well, you’ve seen them up close now – and wondered what they were made of. And now people have come here to mine them for the minerals, which, it seems, they may contain. Odd, though. They’re mining bernalium, apparently. But bernalium is rare in this solar system. I wonder…’ Just as he seemed to be losing himself in thought, he turned to Jamie again. ‘And you. What do you make of this place, this Wheel of Ice?’

  Jamie sniffed, smelling metal. ‘It has its pretty bits. The farms. Great view, if you like big lumps of ice flying around everywhere. But it’s all shut in. People all wearing the same colours. Doors that lock everywhere. Like a prison, and I’ve seen enough o’ them.’

  ‘I know what you mean. The doors are there for safety, I’m sure, so a loss of pressure in one compartment won’t affect the whole Wheel. But they would serve to confine the people as well.’

  As they spoke, there was a loud click, as if an immense switch had been thrown. The lights dimmed, the big roof panels darkening and giving way to smaller glowing spheres.

  The Doctor grunted. ‘Thus evening falls, on the Wheel of Ice.’

  ‘Aye, lights-out in this jail. And then there’s Zoe.’

  ‘Ah.’ In the shade, the Doctor’s eyes were deep, gentle.

  ‘What’s troublin’ her, Doctor? Ye said this is close to her ain time. Ye’d think she’d like it here. Familiar, like. But here she is, and it’s not makin’ her happy.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, is it? I hope she’ll adjust. But you have to remember, Jamie, that Zoe’s upbringing was somewhat unusual. Her education was dedicated and focused, nothing much but logic and memory training. It’s not that she was told that history was unimportant. It was more that she was encouraged to think it didn’t exist at all. As if her own age, of the great Stations in space, was all that ever was, all that ever had been.’

  ‘Aye. And then we showed up.’ Jamie couldn’t help grinning at the memory.

  ‘Yes. Us and the Cybermen. Well, we helped wake her curiosity, didn’t we? And so she stowed away on the TARDIS, and came with us.’

  ‘Well, good fer her. She got what she wanted. Here we are. But—’

  ‘But she�
�s unhappy. I know, Jamie. I think it’s just a little too close to home. This isn’t just history. This is her history. The history that was always hidden from her. Here are these people struggling, and I daresay dying, in order to build the world in which she grew up, tucked away in her school like, like one of these delicious tomatoes in a greenhouse. I suspect she feels resentment. Guilt, perhaps. One forgets how very young she is, sometimes.

  ‘But she’ll see the longer perspective, in time. After all, this is only the beginning. Even in this age humans are definitely on their way, leapfrogging across space with their clever little eyes already fixed on the stars. And here, too, the solar system will be transformed. One day there’ll be flower gardens in the clouds of Saturn, you know. And in the very far future, people will even be able to live on far Pluto, the furthest planet, in the warmth and the light.’

  ‘Really? Will they be happy?’

  ‘Aye, there’s the rub, Jamie.’

  ‘So ye think she’ll get over it?’

  ‘Without a doubt. You know Zoe.’

  The talk had made Jamie feel more cheerful. ‘She ought tae take a lesson or two from us Scots. We haven’t forgotten our history. We revel in it.’

  ‘Quite right too. Jamie, the Scots have achieved marvellous things – I suspect, given the accents we’ve heard, that this very Wheel is one example—’

  The door clanged open, and Zoe half-fell into the room. ‘All right, you don’t have to push!’ The door closed behind her.

  The others stood. ‘Zoe?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  Zoe looked more angry than flustered. ‘Not really. Marshal Paley brought the news while I was in with Dr Omar.’ She smiled, unexpectedly. ‘Who is very nice, by the way.’

  The Doctor said sternly, ‘Zoe, focus! What news?’

  ‘That there’s been some kind of trouble on this station. Sabotage, some say. Components of various machines stolen. Wiring, circuitry. Mirrors, from optical equipment and lasers.’

  ‘How very odd.’

  ‘And we’re suddenly the prime suspects.’

  Jamie had an unerring instinct in such situations. He hurled himself at the door, but he was too late. There was no mistaking the sound of the lock firmly closing.

  Zoe cried, ‘We’re under arrest!’

  8

  AFTER THE INCIDENT with the refugees and the Blue Dolls, Phee was determined to get home before her mother. As it happened, Jo had appointments elsewhere, so she let Phee take Casey, who slept in Phee’s arms as she dashed through the Residential Three sector to the family home.

  And as soon as she got home, Phee collared her brother Sam.

  Nineteen years old, tall and lanky, Sam was sitting in the kitchen in his sunglasses, working his way through a stack of pancakes. He was defiantly wearing C-grade green coveralls, as if proud.

  Phee put Casey to bed. Then she went back to the kitchen and told Sam in a rush about the strange new refugees, and how they had seen blue creatures immediately they were brought to the Wheel.

  Sam snorted. He wasn’t interested in the refugees. Sometimes he didn’t seem interested in anything at all. ‘Clever people, to see something that only kids can see. To share in our “mass delusion”.’

  ‘But they’re not like other adults.’ Phee frowned, thinking of what she’d glimpsed of the TARDIS, the travellers’ strange escape module. It had been like a door in space, into that brightly lit room… ‘There’s something odd about them.’

  Sam grinned. ‘Odd?’

  She’d had an impression of otherness. How can you say that to your big brother without having him laugh in your face? ‘Maybe they see a bit more widely than most adults. And I think they saw a Doll.’

  ‘Adults see what they want to see.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. You’re nineteen years old. You’re an adult, Sam, whether you like it or not.’

  He challenged her, ‘Have you ever seen a Doll?’

  ‘No. I haven’t. But then I don’t hang around with you and your loser friends.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, we’re all losers, us rubbish C-grades. Whereas an A like you, you’re the strong one who faces the grim reality, are you?’ He turned away, arrogant, bored.

  She sat down opposite Sam. She wouldn’t let him wriggle out of answering her questions. When Jamie and Zoe had seen the Doll, some instinct had made Phee cover it up, even though she didn’t understand what was going on herself. But then Casey had pointed at the Doll, without fear. She had recognised it. ‘What’s all this got to do with Casey, Sam?’

  For a moment there was silence. She could hear the soft breathing of the sleeping Casey in the next room.

  He wouldn’t answer.

  ‘What have you done, Sam?’

  When he still wouldn’t answer, she marched into Casey’s room.

  Sam hurried after her. ‘Don’t wake her. Mum will kill us.’ He was whispering now.

  They stood together over Casey’s bed, blankets piled up in a big ceramic cot, bright pink. Casey lay on her side with her half-curled fist by her face, a relic of how she used to suck her thumb when she was even smaller. There were a few battered, cherished toys piled up in the cot. Mister Rabbit. Teddy No-Ears. And –

  And a blue hand, delicate, almost child-sized, sticking out from under a blanket. Blue.

  Phee reached for the blanket.

  ‘Don’t,’ Sam whispered, pleading.

  Phee took the blanket, peeled it back delicately so she wouldn’t wake Casey.

  And she revealed a doll, life-sized, about as big as Casey. It had no clothes, but its flesh was seamless, all but featureless – no genitals, no nipples, no navel. And it was a rich royal blue.

  A blue doll.

  Hastily Sam covered it over.

  ‘What was that, Sam?’

  ‘Not here. Come on.’ He took her arm and led her out of the sleeping child’s room. ‘Mum’s seen it, but she’s not suspicious about it. I told her I made it as a gift for Casey, when I did a training shift on the matter printers in Utilities.’

  ‘But that was a lie.’

  ‘Yeah. Look – OK, I’ll tell you. But you’ve got to swear not to tell Mum, or anybody else.’

  ‘I’m not swearing anything. She’s my little sister. Just tell me, Sam.’

  ‘All right, all right. I’ve taken her to the moon sometimes. Casey. Down to the mines. We smuggled her down, me and Dai and Sanjay and the lads.’

  ‘What? You don’t get taken down there until you’re seven years old, for the familiarisation classes.’

  ‘I know, I know. We just did it for a laugh.’

  ‘A laugh.’ Phee thought it over. ‘Tell me the truth, Sam. When I’m away on a course, and Mum’s working shifts, she leaves you in charge of Casey. You’re supposed to arrange a babysitter—’

  ‘All right! What are you, the ISC? I pocketed the money – no babysitter – and I took the kid down the mine with us instead. Look, it’s safe! I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘A three-year-old down a mine, dug into a moon of Saturn? Sure it’s safe. So what about the doll?’

  ‘It began a few months ago. We had a break period. We bunked off. There are places to hide, Phee. Unopened shafts, dug by the machines and pressurised, but not yet checked out by the miners. We try to set records – you know, to be the deepest anybody’s ever gone inside Mnemosyne. You never know what you might find.’

  Phee said heavily, ‘So you took Casey down an unexplored shaft.’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t leave her behind! So this one time – well, we saw something.’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Deep in the shaft – deeper than we’d penetrated before. There was a side shaft. And at the end of it—’ He frowned. ‘Hard to describe. A kind of curtain. It was a pale blue, like you get with very old ice. Patterns in the light, like interference fringes maybe.’

  ‘Something intelligent,’ she guessed wildly. ‘Deep down inside Mnemosyne.’

  ‘I don’t know. You tel
l me. And then something came rolling through the curtain.’ He shuddered. ‘Like an eye, on a tripod.’

  ‘Like a what?’

  ‘I only know what I saw, and I don’t even understand that. We were spooked, I’ll tell you. We scrambled back to the main shaft, to get out. All of us except—’

  ‘Casey.’

  ‘Yeah. She wasn’t scared. Maybe you have to learn to be afraid of strangeness. She got away from me.’

  ‘She got away?’

  ‘All right! She went crawling to the eye. It sort of reflected her, like a mirror, but all in blue, and she laughed. That was all I saw before I dashed in and got her.’

  ‘So what then?’

  He shrugged. ‘I went back once more, with Dai and a couple of others. Just to see, you know? We dared each other. Without Casey this time. But by this time the incidents had started.’

  ‘The sabotage.’

  ‘Yes. The early, minor stuff. Gremlins, they put it down to at first. But we wondered if we had somehow triggered it all by going down there – deeper than anybody else, remember. And then the gossip started about sightings of blue critters – blue, a deep blue, like the blue we’d seen in the shaft. So we went back to see if it was connected.’

  ‘And you found the blue doll.’

  ‘Yeah. Just lying there. I brought it back, I meant to hide it somewhere, but as soon as Casey saw it she grabbed it and ran to Mum to show her the new toy. All I could do was cover.’

  ‘And that lame story about the matter printer was the best you could do.’

  ‘All right, A-grade.’

  ‘And it’s in Casey’s bed right now. This thing you found in the middle of the moon.’

  ‘It’s not doing any harm, is it?’

  Phee closed her eyes, and visualised the doll. ‘Sam – doesn’t it seem to you – that doll’s face—’