Disclaimer: The characters of Dr. Who and Ace are property of BBC. The
character of Raina Vitreum and Callom MacLaren are property of me. My
characters mean now harm to the show. This is written out of enjoyment for
a creative show... and to preserve a good sf time travel saga!
A Growing Madness
Part 2:PLANET SIDE
Theresa E. Meyers
Written 1996, revised 1998 ***
Next, Callom recalled waking up. He saw floor rushing underneath him, and the walls around him jarring up and down. Someone was carrying him over their shoulder. Raina had him slung on her back like a sack of wheat.
"But why didn't they kill us?" Ace and the Doctor were running ahead of them. Callom tried to make sense of the sequence of events. Hadn't he just tried to save Raina? And here she was, perfectly alright, hauling him around.
"Och, ma head!" he exclaimed.
"Keep it down," snapped Raina's voice, muffled, yet distinct. "They'll hear us!"
"What happened?"
"We're in the Karakulian's city. We've got to get away," she said hastily.
"Wait, let me doon!"
"You're too weak to move on your own," she huffed, stumbling.
"Quick, let's stop here a minute," said the Doctor's voice. Something white waved in his left hand. Graphed lines and pieces of transparent plastic were taped to its surface. Was it some kind of map?
Callom felt himself being propped up against a wall. He could see Ace crouching next to the Doctor. All around them curved steel corridors, made of a grey dense substance. There was little light.
"Doctor, where are we?" murmured Callom, trying to see straight.
"Rest easy lad," urged the Doctor softly. "You only just teleported two times. We thought you'd never wake up."
"The alien ship! Did they capture us?"
"No," said the Doctor. "I recalled the TARDIS to materialize on board the bridge."
"We're na on it nau are we?" he asked.
"No. We're on a planet called Karakul."
"Karakul?" moaned Callom, holding his head. Raina massaged his temples.
"Since when did we get here?"
"Since a few hours ago, Callom. You saved my life. Thanks."
"Och, it was nothing, Raina. Ma head!"
"That's what happens with overextending oneself," scolded the Doctor. But his eyes shone.
"Here they come," hissed Ace, ducking from around a corner.
"Can you walk?"
"Aye. Jest ye watch me, Doctor. But what is after us?"
"Their collectors," the Doctor whispered. "Unfortunately the Karakulians remain inside their labs, using their machines to do their dirty work... their collectors are their hands and eyes... and we must take the ultimate care..."
All four Time Travelers scurried off into the corridors. Ace gripped her baseball bat, the Doctor his umbrella. Raina took good hold of an ice axe, hefting it in one hand. Such primitive objects were ludicrously inadequate to confront the creatures they now saw.
A whole string of machines coasted towards them, each approximately four feet tall. They hovered only a millimeter above the floor on circular bases. Their squared off tops contained many blinkign sensors, which the Doctor explained could track infrared as well as ultraviolet and heat emitting form their bodies. Together the mechanisms must have a good field of view. At about three feet from their base projected multiple robotic probe arms, including pincer arms, and a long gun nozzle, which crackled with the power of ten tazers. . One blast of blue sparks narrowly missed the Doctor as he skipped lightly out of the way.
Ace gritted her teeth as they retreated. "Wish I could fight them," she snapped to the Doctor.
"Would you like to stop and ask them to play fairly?" he retorted, clutching his straw hat down on his head as he ran after her.
"Hop aboard," ordered Raina, squatting, gesturing to Callom to stand behind her.
"I dinna understand! Did we jest escape, or what?" He wrapped his arms around her neck while she locked his ankles in her folded arms. Felt the floor dissapear as she stood up and ran. Not underestimating her strength he still gripped hold for dear life. By glancing over his shoulder he could see the squat mini-tanks shadowed on the corridor walls, only fifty feet behind them.
Raina trotted effortlessly with Callom piggyback. "Och, I ken run guid enau!" he protested.
"Cool it kid! I'm not letting you slip away this time!"
Callom felt as if he'd tuned into a soap opera without having watched for a week. It was so frustrating to be clinging to someone's back running for their lives without knowing why.
*Raina, why are we running away from these things. I ken they mean to kill us!
*They knew that ship had the Growth Accelerator. They wanted it."
*What wuild those wee tanks want with that? I dinna understand!"
*Neither do I, but the Doctor thinks they trapped passing spaceships with a new weapon. A weapon that can disable a ship by attacking its sub-space drive unit."
*If they have tha technology, they could build their ain gizmo growth Accelerator.
*That's what I can't understand why either... she admitted.
Ace stopped in her tracks, and pulled out a deodorant can. "No Ace, there isn't time!"
"Oh right, Professor," she shouted. "Like I want to be exterminated!"
"We need to conserve our resources."
"Well then, come on! Don't hang about!"
"May I suggest something?" asked Raina, as the Doctor pulled Ace along behind him. "Since we're only down the next level from the labs..."
"What?"
"See that doorway up ahead?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Looks like it leads to a room, a power area. If we could get in there, and blockade them out . . ."
"With two cans of weak explosives?" questioned the Doctor, huffing.
"With just one."
They reached the door. Quickly the Doctor smacked the switch with his umbrella. Swinging Callom off her back, Raina bustled everyone inside.
"Hurry up, get in!" shouted Ace. "They're almost on top of us!"
Callom saw Raina examining the cracks in the door frame. "Come on, Raina! They're coming."
"Okay." She let him pull her into the room, just before the door slid shut. Inside, Ace hunted for something to blockade the entrance with.
The room was filled with computer terminals and various electronic devices. It was anyones guess as to what its purpose. Bent over, the Doctor examined the closest console lining one wall. Light panels in the ceiling gave fluorescent illumination. "There are several struts placed at cross angles," Raina annouced. "A precise explosion would blow the whole shebang down . . ."
The Doctor made a rapid mental calculation. His fingers moved as if scribbling invisible equations on an invisible chalkboard. "Could work, I suppose." "Give me the explosive, Ace," Raina asked, holding out her frilly cuffed hand. She felt the cold metal aerosol can pressed into it.
Raina tapped places in the metal walls with her geological hammer. She scanned the wall struts around the metal hatch. "Hmm, not your typical alloy. Looks like a carbonized steel annealed with some lighter aluminum salt."
"Stop admiring the fixtures and do what you're gonna do..." cried Ace. The teenager's skin crawled as she watched the geologist whack the wall in one place. Distant blasts were getting steadily louder.
"The stress fractures indicate the material's weakest here," said Raina, turning to the Doctor. "Right? According to Moh's equations . . ."
"Exactly. Using the harmonic constant . . ." realized the Doctor. Absently he passed his map to Callom.
Raina placed the can in a crack tapped out with her hammer. Then gestured everyone to the far wall. Grabbing Callom's shoulder, the Doctor helped him to crouch on the floor.
"How many seconds?" asked Raina.
"Eight . . ."
"Uh oh . . ."
Bang!
Metal supports blew out of place. Both the Doctor and Callom huddled together, the Doctor clutching his hat more firmly on his head. The whole wall atop the girders slid down vertically in one sheet. Two or three struts clattered down on top.
"Mega!" cried Ace. She swatted Raina on the shoulder, laughing. "That oughtta shop n' make em think!"
"What a kick . . ."
"How'd you do it, Yank?"
"She knocked out the weld supports, instead of the metal. Caused the metal to fracture. But that's only bought us a few minutes," explained the Doctor. "We'd better find a way out of here."
"I'll scout ahead," offered Raina. She stopped momentarily to slip her geological hammer into a holster at her hip.
"Wait for me, Yank."
"It's a shame we can't weld these struts to the wall and seal them out permanently," muttered the Doctor. He hunted around for anything remotely resembling a torch or a melder.
Ace and Raina searched the chamber. The teenager clutched the map once held by the Doctor. Several huge turbines whirred in unison. "Funny,"
"What, Ace?"
"That these Karakulians should have a city running on electricity, instead of nuclear energy or something."
Raina bent over one of the generators. Took a quick look, and shook her head. "Could be using a nuclear fuel," she suggested. "There's some radiation present."
"Better get a move on, Yank."
Fzam! Both flinched as they heard the guns blazing away at the improvised barricade. "Those Collectors sound awful close."
"Anyway, can you find the power room on the map?" Ray asked.
"Not really."
"Where are the labs?"
"Looking on this here map, about a kilometer. Towards the northeast section of the City."
Raina dug through the pockets of her vest once more. Extracted a compass with a mirrored lid. On her flat palm she held it out at arm's length away from her body. "Correcting for the magnetic disturbances, this says north is behind this wall."
"But these generators are screwing up the compass aren't they?"
Giving the generators a wide berth, Raina rounded the corner into another chamber. Behind several drums there appeared to be a door. "C'mere, Ace. I see a door. North by northwest. About fifty degrees from north magnetically."
"But the wires . . ."
"I should be far enough away from them by now."
"Hey Doc!" Ace shouted. "Ray's found another door in back. Behind these turbines!"
"Our friends are having a time trying to get through," announced the Doctor. In his hands he clutched what looked like a gun with a short muzzle. Still he required two hands to hold it. "Luckily I scraped together this maser. Welded them out."
"Great, but how many minutes does that give us, Professor?"
"I'd estimate, about seven-point-six . . ."
"Doctor, I think they're getting thru!" cried Callom.
"That was an upper estimate. I should have guessed they'd have rolled in the heavy artillery."
"Hey, why aren't they coming in through the back door?" Ace suddenly shouted to Raina.
"I don't know. Perhaps there's something back here that doesn't lead to the outside corridor . . ."
"Can your maser cut through doors?" Raina asked the Doctor.
"What? What are you doing, Raina?"
"Trying to get out of here, Doctor."
"But that room, is the nuclear power center! That's why they're not coming through the door . . ."
Immediately Ace grabbed the Doctor's improvised weapon and fired at the other door. "We must do something now!" she cried.
"Wait, perhaps the Growth accelerator's power unit can boost the laser . . ."
"If the power for the turbines comes from the next room . . ." gasped Raina. "They've trapped us?"
"Looks like it."
"Radiation exposure might be lethal," said the Doctor. "I should have thought of that."
"It's no like the Karakulians would map out every section of their city," chimed in Callom. "If they are our enemy and all . . ."
"It was my idea," sighed Raina, guilty. She clamped her jaw tightly as she watched Ace burning through the lock on the radiation door. Small droplets of metal dripped off painfully slowly.
"Oh, don't be silly, Raina," sighed the Doctor. "It gives us some time. To think."
"But the radiation effects might only be temporary," said Raina. "If we run through the room. That is, if there's another door."
"The map doesn't say whether there is or not," shouted Ace.
"Not if it's a lead lined room. But wait. If these Karakulians live on this planet, they must be used to the ambient radiation. It wouldn't bother them much to have a nuclear room in their city. So they most likely wouldn't waste time putting in unnecessary shielding . . ." realized the Doctor.
BLAM! The barricade glowed red, then yellow. "Hurry Ace!" cried Callom.
"Move towards the door," urged the Doctor, pushing him towards Raina. He gripped the Growth Accelerator, still wrapped in its casing.
White hot fire grew from the center of the barricade. Equally white hot sparks burst from the maser. Before it overloaded, Ace tossed it to one side. "I won't take this!" cried Ace. "We're only a few meters away from the labs!"
"Move over Ace," said Raina. "It's done its work." The Martian born geologist shouldered her ice axe. With one mighty blow she smashed into the molten steel. Two mighty blows later she knocked out the remaining material. Hot material splattered into the next room.
Meanwhile the Doctor watched the first door glow luminescent. Spots of the corridor outside were showing through. He gestured the three of them to race through the opening cut by the maser with his handkerchief. Still he toted his improvised maser.
Huge vats of power stood in the new chamber. Instead of dynamos, large tanks with fuel rods stood at the same intervals. Gingerly the trio wormed around the units to the far door. Which was fastened by a combination lock. Ace went to work. The Doctor followed, trotting at top speed as he clutched his umbrella. "They're almost through!" he cried.
A blast knocked him on the floor. Raina raced to his side, jerking him to his feet with surprising strength.
"Professor, I need a hand with this!" Ace shouted.
"Where's the device?"
Ace gave him a horrified look. "I thought you had it!"
"I. . . must have dropped it," he realized.
"Work, Doctor! I'll get it!" decided Raina.
Desperately the Doctor stabbed keys. Raina raced for the door, and dashed through the still molten metal. Callom was close behind. Just inside lay the discarded object.
"HALT! HALT!" grated an electronically charged Karakulian voice. Raina froze. Callom climbed through the doorway that minute, to see Raina covered by a Karakulian gun.
*Callom! Get back!
Just inches from Raina lay the device. She pushed it back with her hand.
"Hey, over here!" shouted Callom. Swallowing his courage, he dove for the device.
A gun blazed. Callom's hands found the package.
"HALT. Decist specimines!" grated a second Karakulian, just gliding into the room. The young Scot threw his arm over his eyes.
"Push off! We're going nowhere!" shouted Ace defiantly. She stood in the burned entrance. Reaching into her backpack, she drew out a deodorant can. "Let `em go!"
"Analsis of container indicates highly unstable explosive!"
Holding the can in front of her, she moved towards Raina. "Back off now!" Slowly the squat metal shapes slid back. Callom raced across the room. Under his arm he carried the strangely shaped parcel. As if glued to his motion, the Karakulian's sensor pod swiveled. Raina raced after the Scots lad. "Look out everyone!" she shrilled. Backed against the wall were Doctor, Ace, and the frightened Callom folding into Ace's satin sleeved arms. The door was open now, as the trio tumbled backwards into safety.
"Commense specimine immobilization!"
"YEEARRGH!" came a blood curdling scream, almost inhuman in nature. Instantly, a whoosh and a blinding flash enveloped Raina. Her cheek and whole front smashed into bare cold metal. Searing pain drilled into her thigh. She could smell fabric and flesh sizzling.
Shoving Callom behind herself, Ace raced to Raina's side. "You bloody monsters . . ." she began, yet the words died in her throat as she trembled with horror and anger. Furiously she stared daggers at the cold metal shapes.
"What have you done?" thundered the Doctor.
"Subject has been immobilized. Inferior specimines will proceed to holding lab, or will be TERMINATED."
Raina groggily shook her head as Ace and the Doctor leaned over her. "Can't you see this person can hardly walk?" he snapped.
"You will assist. Move!" grated the Karakulian, gliding forwards.
Grimly the Doctor and Ace raised Raina to a vertical position. They draped her arms over their shoulders. Callom slowly shambled before the group. ***
PART FIVE
Mirror lined walls rose up all around them. Save on one side where a dancing field of lasers separated them from freedom. Callom hunched down into the corner of his cell, miserably fixing his eyes on Raina's huddled form. Ace tried her best to nurse the geologist's recent burn. Offering soothing words were all she could do to keep Raina quiet. Finally the pain forced her into dreamless unconsciousness. She lay there on her cloak so rigidly and still, hardly breathing. Callom hugged his knees, and said nothing. He was sure he could hear himself whimpering, to his shame. Someone's hand rested on his shoulder, reassurance in its very touch. "It wasn't your fault, lad," said the Doctor softly. A trace of Scots accent laced his voice. A reassuring burr that went straight to Callom's core. "If she hadna pushed me outta the way . . . she'd be all right," he replied shakily. "Friends are always making sacrifices for me, when I don't exactly expect them to," explained the Doctor, removing his hat. He pulled himself closer to Callom, and sat down very much the same. Like two schoolboys they perched side by side, hugging their knees and talking quietly. "But has one of yuir friends ever died savin ye?" "There were a few times . . . but mostly . . . " Silence choked off his reply for a moment. "But my companions always managed to come out safe and well, after I set them straight." The male arrogance made Callom smile, briefly. "It's jest that she almost died a few hours ago. Vitreum. And now Dr. MacLaren..." "I know. But if the Karakulians wanted her dead, they would have totally destroyed her. They simply stunned her... but unfortunately in so doing their almost broke her leg..." "Doctor..." "I will do what I can to help her. There is still a possibility that I can use that growth accelerator to push her leg to heal itself." "But you cant even get out of this cell," Callom sighed. "Did I ever tell you, when a Time Lord is injured, they slip into a protective coma. Many times I've fooled a friend or enemy into thinking I'm dead." "Oh, I betcha they love that," smiled Callom. "One of my friends in particular was fooled all the time. Her name was Sarah Jane Smith. She'd always believed I'd died, and be hunched over me, crying . . . and then I'd sit up perfectly fit . . . " "And she'd freak," finished Callom, shaking his head. "Ye gotta admit that was a dirty trick to play on her. But Dr. Mariner is no Time Lord." "I know, but I am quiet certain she will recover... given time..." "I hope yuir right." *** Meanwhile Raina stirred, and pushed up against a hard cold floor. Someone had spread her cloak out for her to lay upon. "Easy, now, don't move, yank. " "Ace, how long have I been out cold?" "Couldn't tell you. You crashed after you saw the burn . . . " "Why did you hide it from me. I can take being injured . . . " "The prof. was scared you'd do something crazy . . . " "What does he think I am, stupid?" grumbled Raina, pushing herself up onto one bent elbow. "I'm perfectly capable of mitigating any of my own emotional responses . . . " "You were so shaken up after . . . the experiment . . . " "What's with you all anyway? Don't you trust me?" "Of course we do, Tryn . . . " "Have I changed that much? Must've. I no longer talk like a dictionary, " she muttered. "I wouldn't know how you were like . . . only just met you after that freaking Ranee." "Callom, are you all right? " she asked across the separation. "I'm fine," he replied, trying to sound brave. "I'm sorry I got you all into this mess. You should have tried to escape while you could." "We couldn't just leave you . . . " snapped Ace. "That's not our style . . . " "Don't be ridiculous, Vitreum," said the Doctor. "You saved our lives, remember." "How can you be so sure that the Rani's experiment didn't include some other more sinister manipulation? She could have subconsciously reprogrammed me with her experiment . . . " Callom and the Doctor exchanged glances. "I checked yuir mind," said the Scots boy. "It's about . . . the same as before." "After all, aren't you and the lad psychically bonded?" pointed out the Doctor. "The way my powers have been failing me lately, no one can be sure . . . " "I should know ye by nau . . . " began Callom. "No lad, she's got you there," said the Doctor. "We cannot be sure that the experiment didn't alter her powers. After all, her DNA structure has been reconfigured." Raina again felt the searing pain afflicting her thigh. Already her body struggled to heal the injury, but it was working overtime. Blackness seeped over her vision once again. Her friend's voices receded into the distance. The last few days had been some of the most physically traumatic for Raina. Most of the time she weaved in and out of a comatose state, like a swimmer resurfacing from beneath a smothering sea. She didn't want to wake from the strange half dreams and snug darkness that felt so comfortable. Half dreams separated out as her mind paged through the memories. Even the memories themselves seemed mostly fictional. Memories of intense physical and mental pain mingled with images of Callom's frightened face begging her to live. Visions of the Rani's smiling austere triumph as she extracted the very blueprints of Raina's life. And tried to warp them to her reality. Yet had she really succeeded? Hadn't Callom seized the formula at the last moment, teleporting to safety? How had he escaped her biological snares? The Time Lord called the Doctor must have helped Callom. The Doctor and his companion Ace. Showing up in the nick of time by some inexplicable coincidence. Horrible pain wracked her body again after she felt the radiation of the Time Wind penetration. Radiation riddling every cell of her body. Nevertheless, she'd been brought back from the brink of nonexistence in the physical sense. Horrible pain spread across each bone and muscle, once torn apart and re-knitted into a new blueprint. A blueprint chosen at random from a seemingly endless universe of possibilities.
"Raina!"
A voice seemed such a long way off to the geologist, as if she were atop a high mountain. Yet now it felt as if she were at the floor of a huge subterranean cistern, pitch black.
"C'mon girl! Wake up... you're got to wake up!"
"Please Raina... wake up!" pleaded a much higher voice.
"Callom," she answered weakly. Her eyes opened to a sterilely lit room. Two blurred shapes sat at the far wall behind dancing lines of light. "Did they hurt you?" she croaked.
"Steady now, Yank," muttered Ace, who supported her shoulders with her hands. At least she was on the same side of the dancing beams as Raina.
"Doctor, what's going on?" demanded Raina as she struggled to rise.
"Don't try to get up," he responded.
"What do you mean..." she began, until a jarring shaft seemed to pierce her leg as she shifted it. "Aa!" she cried. "What's happened to my legs? Why does it hurt to move them?"
"Please, dinnae look!" begged Callom.
Raina did look, in spite of herself. Fighting the protesting Ace, she whipped aside the cloth that covered her leg. A long black mark ran down her right thigh and calf, near the knee. Charred cloth was melted into the burned flesh, quite near the muscle itself. "By the Author," she choked. "They stole my leg! Those accursed misbegotten monsters stole my leg!"
"I'm sorry," began Ace.
"No, don't feel sorry," snapped Raina. "At least I have two legs to stand on... if I ever stand again."
"Dinna say that!" cried Callom. Raina's mind whirled with all the memories. At last she'd straightened out the sequence. Now she rested with her head propped up on one hand, elbow resting on the floor.
"So how do we get out of here?" asked Ace to the Doctor in the cell across from theirs.
"Sh, I'm thinking," he hissed.
"Better think a wee bit faster then, Doctor," cautioned Callom. "That mechanical salt shaker's coming back."
"Doctor, how precisely do the Karakulians move? Those machines" asked Raina from her position on the floor.
"Electromagetic levitation," muttered the Time Lord.
"If only we can disrupt that power," she whispered.
"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed the Doctor, leaping off his haunches. Excitedly he popped his hat back upon his head. "I've got it!"
"Come on Professor, let's have it now," insisted Ace.
"Callom, can you use your special powers to make a Karakulian think I'm outside the bars and not inside?"
"Yes, but what good will my power work on a machine?"
"The Karakulian Collector isn't a mere machine. It's a cybernetic organism. A fusion of flesh and fabricated circuits."
"I get it," said Callom. "I can affect something that has a mind."
"You or I will be ready to blind the Karakulian when we convince it to open the electron repulsor bars. Then one of us grabs it from behind..."
Hurriedly the quartet settled down when they saw the Karakulian glide into the hallway. Once between their two cells it stopped and leveled its eye stalk at the incapacitated Raina on the floor. It electronically requested, "Remain clear of the bars, female inferiors..."
This was not quite the Doctor's plan, with the practical Karakulian totally ignoring him and Callom. Yet Raina said, "Well, I can't walk. You'll have to come in and get me out yourself."
With a pressure of its claw, the Karakulian touched the force beam control. Silently the Doctor noticed how it did this.
"Hey!" shouted a voice behind it. It seemed that Callom was outside the dancing beams of light!
In confusion the Karakulian collector bleeped. Just long enough for Ace to grab the casing without being seen. Raina tossed her cloak over the top of the Karakulian.
"I can't hold this wretched thing!" shouted Ace. The Doctor helplessly stared as the Karakulian fired wildly, blue sparks flying.
Desperately, Raina grabbed the base of the machine, holding her knife in her other hand. . Anger and hatred exploded inside her brain. Raina could only touch the baseplate, yet all her new found hatred and anger flowed through her fingers. She had sought to prise open teh panel,and rip the wires apart to short out the electromagnetic repulsor unit drive... but why did she suddenly feel the energy pass from her to it? It was as if her own body's em field suddenly spiked, then flared into a supernova of power.
"Move-ment . . . ii-mm-parrd," droned the Karakulian, its voice slowing to a grunt.
Ace shuddered as the Karakulian stopped dead. Small screachings were the only sound it now made. "All right, Yank!" she cried, slapping Raina's hand in a high-five.
"I . . . I don't know what I did," stammered Raina. Astonished, she stared at her palms.
"Whatever you did, Yank . . . thanks."
"Ace, turn that control to the left," instructed the Doctor when it was all over. Callom rushed over to Raina and hugged her tight. Wearily she patted his head and assured him she'd be all right.
"That's done it," declared the Doctor, bringing both palms together in a single smack. "Now. Let's get it open."
Callom shrank back. "Och! Ye sure the creature isn't jest deceiving us? Like playing possum?"
"Can I borrow a knife?"
Reluctantly, Callom reached into his sock and pulled out his skeindu. Taking the shortened dirk, the Doctor gingerly pried into the crack between the domed top and the grating. Raina helped swing up the lid, and they saw the fused bits of biological cells merged together with circuitry.
Corners of her mouth drawing down, Raina shuddered. "So that's what a Karakulian looks like."
"Yes," the Doctor sighed. "A living brain fused to modern circuitry. Which gives me an idea. Help me get this out of here... and we can make use of a tried and true method..." he whispered, voice low. Using Raina's cloak, they reached into the casing and bundled the squirming mass out. Quickly she wrapped a cord round its top.
"You mean there's a wee beastie inside that machine?" asked Callom from behind. "Like some sort of a brain or a gremlin?" All he and Ace had seen was the Time Lord and the geologist hefting a small bundle out of the Karakulian. Bits of electronics flew out, Ace and Rayna working hard to clear the inner workings of the mechanism out.
Turning to everyone, the Doctor announced, "Step one of my plan is accomplished. Now for the next play. One of us lucky souls must get inside the casing and play dress-up."
"Raina could get inside," suggested Ace. "Then we could push her."
"Och, can I?" asked Callom, sensing Raina's emotions of loathing repulsion at the very thought. "I'm the wee lad remember?"
"No way, shrimp," said Ace.
"I don't see a problem," said Raina. "He'll be safest inside there if the Karakulians fire upon us. Besides, he can manipulate the controls. I mean you did jury rig it..."
"Yes," the doctor muttered, twisting wires and circuits together. "I removed the prime brain and control unit. Now this connection here will work like a makeshift joystick Callom. You just twist this toggle here to go left, and this to go right. The pedal on teh floor controls speed..."
"Okay Professor," sighed Ace. "Whatever you say."
"Time to try for size," announced the Doctor. He made a stirrup with his hands to boost the young Scot inside. Holding Raina's hand, he slid into the seat.
"Och, this is strange," he exclaimed from inside. The curved walls of the Karakulian casing rose around him. Eerily it felt the right size for him. He sat on the bottom, holding the improvised control unit the Doctor handed down to him. A small screen flared into life, and the doctor explained it could show was was immediately otuside the small tank.
"We're closing the lid now," said Raina. Callom's world became dark temporarily, only illuminated by the doctor's improvised LCD screen before his frace.
"Kind of like a tank in here," he shouted. Callom grasped the control box, twiddlign with the tiny control rods. Slowly the casing slid forwards, toward the door. "We may have to push him from the back," said Ace, sliding around behind the travel machine and pushing it out the door. Helping Raina to walk, the Doctor followed.
"See anything?" asked Ace.
"No," came the reply, in her mind.
"Here, Ace. Raina and I will walk ahead of you two, like we're prisoners."
Ace halted Callom, letting the Doctor and Raina pass. Hand under Raina's right arm, the Doctor and the explorers moved out into the corridor. Callom managed to move the travel casing as Ace pushed from behind.
The real test came when a Karakulian rolled down the corridor toward them. "You don't have to push, you infernal machine!" shouted the Doctor.
"Query, moving experiment subjects is not authorized?" asked the new Karakulian.
"New authorization," grated Callom, swirlign his mind into an illusion, and hurling it into the cybernetic brain cells of the Karakulian Collector.
"Perfect," muttered Ace behind him. *** PART SIX: SUDDEN GROWTH
A haze fogged his brain. He woke up running, ripping the sleeves of a shirt that had suddenly grown too tight. All Callom remembered at that second was the impulse to run like crazy. Strangely, the passages he ran through were silent. Not a threat in sight. Gleaming metal seemed to stretch for miles like some sectioned human gerbil tube. Rounding one section bend, Callom spotted a familiar blue box. Staggering, Callom slid in the isomorphic key pressed into his hand an eternity ago. It took him forever to cross the brightly illuminated flight -deck to reach the lounge. Wearily he collapsed onto a chair.
Safe for the moment, in the humming sterile atmosphere and soft white lights, he relaxed. Then, feeling the bind of his clothes, that seemed strangely tight, he tottered to his feet. Someone approached from the side. Just on the edge of his vision there was the doorway. Who could be in here with him? Startled, he backed away. As suddenly as the face appeared, it vanished. Stealthily, Callom crept towards the "doorway." Heart pounding in the silence, he lunged forward.
Instantly the strange figure leapt into view again. Torn clothing and long hair were smudged with dirt. Its chest rose and fell with each labored breath. Callom wondered who this man was, strangely dressed in a half torn shirt and inadequately short kilt.
"Nae! It canna be . . ." denied a tenor voice.
The character was none other than Callom himself.
Frightened, he froze there, gaping at his unfamiliar reflection. Long wavy hair came to his shoulders. No more were his cheeks rotund from baby fat. Now they'd stretched into the hard lines and angles of a man's. With shaking fingers he traced his firm strong jaw and nose. Taken aback he studied his enlarged strong hands. "It--it's jest na possible! How, by all the veterans a Culloden?"
Only images of a curious ray fired at him gave him any possible explanation. Didn't Raina say something about a Growth Accelerator back on the stolen ship they landed here in? This seemed the only logical explanation.
Remembering his captured friends, Callom snapped out of shock. It seemed best to accept his situation, and benefit from his unnatural growth spurt. How many years did the machine add to his age? Carefully he contemplated his body, now rounded with muscle. Judging from the height of the door, which he guessed was two and a half meters, Callom approximated his present height was 190 centimeters. His head was twelve centimeters shy of the mirror's top.
"That biology book, said something about hormones," he muttered, summoning up the chapters of the book Raina had given him on earth months ago. "Testosterone making the muscles grow and the bones shoot up like a weed. Gotta be at least seven years tacked on t' ma age! Na, that's crazy!""
"But what do I do nau?" he asked himself. What indeed? There were few options. He asked himself what his friends would do. Then threw out the answers. Strange thoughts filled his imagination, as he suddenly fantasized himself dashing off to the rescue like a hero in an epic poem.
"Wait!" he stopped himself. "What can I do? I may be stronger, but I dinna ken if strength is enau . . ."
Growth spurts. That chapter in the biology text flashed through his clearing mind. If his body had matured, could his brain have along with it? Did his powers increase in strength as well?
"Whatever I do, I canna verra well go about get up like this," he decided, clicking his tongue at his reflection with distaste. "I look a sight. Na' worthy of a McLaren."
"Now where is that chamber Raina mentioned? Somewhere . . . ow!"
He winced, and grabbed his hip. He'd bruised it running in his grayout. And starved from the last few hours, just when had he last eaten? "Ugh. Have nae the strength to get there."
Slowly he squeezed his eyes shut. Wished he could get there in an instant. His mind wandered as he thought about the passages he'd have to pass through to get there...
A wave of nausea made him reel, and he blinked open his eyes. Then rubbed them. "Begorra!" he exclaimed. All around him rose racks and racks of clothes.
He had teleported. Without a booster module! Within the confines of the TARDIS. Before it had been so difficult to travel even a few feet. Callom stared a few meters ahead of himself, and concentrated. As if a switch fell, he felt the same nausea and reality blinked to the new scene around him. "Amazin! Ha, ha! This'll be just th' thing!"
Each time the nausea grew less. "Must be like flexing a muscle. Gets easier each time."
Slipping out his knife, he cut away the remains of his outfit. Reached for a long sleeved shirt. Pulled the loose garment over his head and shoulder. It was one of those puffy sleeved ones with an open neck that showed his well muscled chest. Oh well, he'd have to make do. His eyes fell on several strips of tartan hanging out of a cabinet drawer. Unfortunately the tartan he saw was not McLaren, but MacLaren. Something inside him compelled him to wear tartans. It would inspire him to courage. A connection with the past that would not be severed.
A few minutes search yielded a long bolt of Black watch plaid. Callom consulted his memory. "Da was in the Scot's guard. I'd be too. Suppose I'm entitled t' wear regimental Tartan. I'm no exactly civilian if I'm goin' into battle nau."
"Guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way," he sighed. Intently he wrapped the swath around his waist. It was the only tartan he could find that would fit in such a hurry. Around and around his waist, then tucked in under one shoulder. Over his chest he flipped the end, and fastened it there with his clansmen pin. Just like he remembered some Highlanders did in history. Finally he slipped on a beautiful thick leather belt he scrounged up, with an ornate silver buckle.
The ends of his now long hair fell into his eyes. Grunting, he twisted some of it into small braids. Some fibers drawn from the plaid he used to tie off the braids out of his way. Further digging yielded leather boots and grey socks.
Surveying himself in the mirror he nodded. Then trotted off to look for some sort of weapons. One shortened highland dirk was woefully inadequate to tackle Karakulians. Rummaging through cabinets he found an eighteenth century cutlass, several fencing rapiers, and even two mighty claymores. No doubt all were obtained from some past journey. In the cabinet there were also several antiquated pistols, minus ammunition.
"Great snakes, ye'd think this Doctor wuild have somthin better than pirate stuff," he complained, holstering a full sized dirk at his hip. Finding a second leather belt, he slung it across his chest to carry the better of the two claymores.
He 'ported to the chemistry lab. There he found Ace's kit. He wasn't much up on chemistry, but he'd recalled seeing her cook up Nitro 9. Several canisters were stacked, ready for fill. "Ah, tha's guid enau fer me!" he laughed, stacking them into his shoulder bag.
*** Ace despairingly glanced towards the lab. She had tucked herself into an alcove between a counter and a large cabinet just inside. The lab was an enormous space, dingy and dark with cold metal walls and floors. All that illuminated the darkness were the blinking lights on squat Karakulians and the instrument panels. Raina lay stunned, fixed in the sites of a Karakulian extermination gun. If Ace dared reveal herself by attacking, they'd shoot Raina. In the few short hours Ace had begun to grow fond of this erratic scientist with remarkable compassion.
"Warn-ing!" grated the gold Karakulian suddenly. "Heat patterns detected in proximity to laboratory."
"Suspect AL-I-en female in vicinity . . . "
She swallowed hard, and searched for her Nitro-9. Yet there was no more. Raina still lay on a rubberized mat, her hands pressed flat as she tried to push herself up. Anger burned in her eyes as she glared up at the Karakulian scientist. However, she was unable to rise because of the restraining clamps.
Clutching the handle of her baseball bat, she gritted her determination. One last shot at them. She didn't know how yet. Many times Ace had rescued the Doctor. The stakes had now doubled, for he and the Earthling were both captives.
Where had their plan gone wrong?
***
They had reached the labs of the Karakulians, only to have to split up. One way went the males, and the other the females. Callom and the Doctor'd been discovered, and immobilized. Far away in some lab they were taken. It seemed the best escapes had been exhausted. Now Ace struggled desperately to avoid capture, and free her friends. To do what? Get recaptured?
Slowly she made a move forward. They weren't scanning, just now. Again she glanced at the Karakulian covering Raina. Intently it set it probes for another scan. "Now or never," she whispered to herself.
Immediately a brawny hand covered her mouth. Reality blinked out of existence. She struggled against a strong captor. It felt humanoid. Reflexively she jabbed her elbow backwards to hit solid flesh. Whoever it was, she knocked the wind out of them. Then ran like crazy in the opposite direction.
Mind racing, she suddenly realized. Who on earth here was human? Didn't the Karakulians capture everyone on the space ship?
"Wait there, lass!" hissed a voice in her ear, gripping her arm.
"Let me go," she almost cried aloud, dashing down the hallways.
Just in front of her, out of nowhere, appeared a figure. Six feet, wrapped in a green and black toga. Long blond hair hung around his shoulders, and he clutched a long-sword. "Ace! Wait. It's me," he whispered, clutching his stomach in pain.
"Who the blazes are you?" she demanded, backing away.
"It's me I tell ye! Callom McLaren."
"H-Callom? No way," she gasped, still keeping her distance. Sickness twisted her stomach. Somehow she'd become nauseous. "How? "
"That growth accelerator. They fired that device at me, and I grew. I swear t' ye . . . "
"A-lien de-tect-ed! Pur-sue, pur-sue!"
"Och, ye gotta believe me!" The stranger grabbed her wrist with lightening speed, and pulled her along behind him. "C'mon, lass! We gotta get otta here!"
"What, and leave the Doc and Tryn? Are you crazy?"
"I've gotta plan!"
Ace couldn't help but dash behind the man. Sure he was humanoid. But how in the name of Time and Space could he be who he claimed? Callom was a thirteen-year-old boy, and this person was at least twenty. Nevertheless, his tenor voice had the same thick accent. Also, the clothes he was wearing were sure not futuristic, like any Thal from Skaro would wear. Not even twentieth century. He looked like Duncan MacLeod or someone straight out of the movie Highlander, with his loose peasant shirt and the tartan swath wrapped around his waist and over his shoulder. A sturdy thick leather belt was fastened around his waist, with a second strap going across his shoulder like a pirate's sword belt. Metal pins gleamed in the scant lighting of the corridor. She recalled they looked exactly like Callom's McLaren clansmen pins he wore on his kilt. But why was he wearing Black Watch?
They ducked behind a low panel. Just how had they come here?
"Rest easy," he whispered, propping her up against the wall.
"I just don't get it," she muttered. "How did I get here? Out of that lab?"
"I'm sorry if ye feel sick. I guess mebbe tha's a side effect of 'porting. Should go way in a few minnits."
"Ugh! I feel like I wanna hurl."
"Jest dinna hurl on ma tartan," he joked. She saw him reach into a leather shoulder bag, and produce a canteen. "Try and get some of this doon ye. It may help."
"I was just about to rescue them when you botched it," she snapped, between sips.
"I saved yuir life, lass. How inna name of St. Brigid were ye goin t' save em without the right weapons?"
"Okay. You gotta point." Grimly she shook her head. "If I only had some Nitro-9 about now. . ."
"Is this what yuir lookin for?" he asked, opening his shoulder bag. Several deodorant cans were stacked inside.
"Oh brill," she sighed, feeling better for the first time in hours. "You're okay after all, Callom . . ."
"So I take it you believe me?"
"Who else would know where to get my Nitro-9?" Nevertheless, he still sensed she was not totally convinced.
"Where's the Doctor hid? I saw Raina in there, right enau. But I didnae see him."
"He's in another lab," she breathed, trying valiantly not to throw up.
"I managed to get this away from them," he said, pulling out the Doctor's map.
"Before they nicked him?"
"It was sitting in a Karakulian lab. I dinna ken how to read it though. Still, I figured out the scale."
Ace took it from him, glanced at it. Then leaned her head back agaisnt the wall. "Uh, the room's still spinning," she muttered. Still she was a little shaky.
"What do ye suppose they're doing to em?"
"Heard those creeps saying that they wanted to drain his brain or something."
"If the Doctor's a deadly enemy, won't they jest kill him?"
"Eventually, they'll off him, I guess."
"But what about Raina? I saw her pinned down under some ray."
"They think that she's a good specimen. I think from what they were saying, that she's gonna be dissected or something."
"Och! No while I'm around, they don't!"
"I think that's what they did to the crew of the ship. They must have them down here somewhere, as guinea pigs for their experiments."
"Didn't the Doctor say these Karakulians conquered other planets?"
"Yes. But these Karakulians here have been left behind as a kind of . . . Blast, what's the word?"
"Rear guard."
"Thanks."
"I wonder. Were those Karakulians the ones that made that ray gun in the first place?"
"What ray gun?"
"I mean that weapon that stopped the Cerise, and the TARDIS. Raina said that the ship reported flashing lights at one time. Before the madness started."
"Great, but if it's the same weapon, why didn't we get paranoid?"
He ignored her question. "Why they're wasting time with that Growth Accelerator when they could build one of their own wi' their know-how?"
"Beats me."
"I was jest thinking, lass."
"What about?"
"That crew. D'ye suppose that they all died? Or some may have survived an been brought here, mebbe?"
"Cripes!" she exclaimed. "How can you sit there and ask naff questions while Prof and your friend are in it deep?"
"It might help us figure out what they're doin t' the Doctor. For all we know the answer could come from it."
"You and your stupid daydreaming!"
"At least I'm thinkin about this . . . "
"Like I'm not? Look kid, there's times for asking questions, and time for acting! This isn't the time to be sittin on our butts chatterin!"
"Raina was alway teaching me to ask questions, an make observations!" argued Callom. "Tha's what a good scientist does."
"You ain't no Einstein, squirt."
"Neither are ye, lass. Don't ye want t' get to the bottom o' this mystery?"
"We can do that after the Professor and your friend are free, if we can get them away from those Karakulians."
"Oh, all right," he grumbled. "But I still think..."
"Look, I'm still older than you. And I know what I'm doing. We'll get the Professor to brainstorm later. Clear?"
"Ye may be older, but can ye teleport?" he asked her. "I ken see what ye wanna do. Jest barge in there wi explosives blazin . . ."
"Have you got a better idea?"
"As a matter of fact I gotta plan. That is, if ye want to listen to a kid like me."
"Okay, let's hear your brilliant plan then,"
"I was thinking, we cuild use some strategy. Wi ma teleportin and yuir nitro-9."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I cuild read yuir mind, telepath that I am, but tha's no proper."
"Oh dry up," she said, grabbing his shoulder. Her fingers felt the soft tartan swath draped over it. It was still hard to believe he was Callom McLaren, but their verbal sparring was starting to convince her. That same wisecracking he had. "What's on your mind?"
"If I create a diversion, ye can get in and free Raina."
"How are you doing that?"
"By ma teleportin."
"I thought that knocked you silly. That's why we had to carry you before . . ."
"No anymore. Ma powers have increased. I can teleport guid enau wi'out tiring. At least not so fast. Those Karakulians won' know what him em."
***
Raina writhed. Just the slightest movement sent pain into her leg. Still the burn had not yet healed. Even with her quick healing abilities it could take days for such a severe burn to begin to mend. Pieces of her tissues had been sampled and placed into culture dishes. A few blasts from the Growth Accelerator were applied, and the tissue slowly grew.
Raina wished they'd test it on her burn. At least to facilitate the healing process. But they were instead testing her response to pain. Needles were inserted into her leg, near her nerve endings. Each time she'd flinch, the pain would register in a computer database. So she remained still. Escaping was out of the question too, if she tried to run, the Karakulian gun would exterminate her. And with a lame leg, there was little chance even with her quick reflexes, that she could escape alive this time.
"Studied in-dicate that female's response to pain is lower than first hu- manoid spec-i-mine."
"Psi-scans in-dicate negative. Fe-male is psi-null."
"Scans on Doc-tor indicate index of 5 on psi-scale. Pro-ceed-ing to total drain of rel-e-vant know-elge."
However, back in the cell she had somehow crippled the Karakulian. She had stunned it into submission. That wasn't a psycho blast. A psycho blast utilized psionic energy to send an overload into its system. Channeling her anger and hatred, Raina had grabbed the baseplate. Reflexively she'd been attempting to psi-blast the Karakulians mind. Then the Karakulian simply stopped moving.
What had she done? If the Rani had done some genetic engineering, what was the affect of it? It seemed as if her instincts were awakened, and she could sense things few otehrs could. Her body seemed to be healing at a phenomenal rate now, far and above what these injuries woul dnormal take to heal. What new powers existed with this body? She was able to communicate with Callom. It could just be a psionic bond with him. Change had limited her sensitivity, similar to deafening someone's hearing. When she could use her telepathic powers, she had none. Some Earthlings were psionic. The Rani had said that hundreds of years after her generation, the previous species had psychic abilities. They communicated solely through chemical transmitted messages through the atmosphere. In fact, many Earthlings, the more primitive types, could actually absorb psychic energies and dampen them in the centuries to come.
By the twety fourth century, the Rani had said that Earthling civilization encompassed many star systems. System by system they had colonized a stellar cluster. In some of those systems, the government set up special preserves. Planets on which members of previous evolutions were kept, as a genetic race-bank. A living library set to represent the past, so the ruling species would not forget from whence they came. Was Raina now a psycho damper? No longer just a normal Earthling? Karakulians moved with Psycho kinetic power. She somehow must have jammed the Karakulian's ability to move, back in the cell. Slowly she reached out with her mind. To reach out to Callom. Through the courtyard of her mind she felt his presence, somewhere close by.
*Raina . . .
*Callom! Are you all right?
*Aye. Ace 'n me r coming to save you 'n the Doctor.
*If you try and come in, they'll shoot me. I've got some sort of booby trap attached . . .
*Ace says she'll try and deal with it. I'll be creatin a distraction. You'll have to slip away with her. . . .
*Where are you now?
*Safe 'n well.
"Where did you say those labs were?"
"I thought you knew, sport," she said, hands on her hips. He streaked past her in a blur of black and green, almost sliding like a runner into home plate. "Come back here."
"I dinna remember the coordinates," he admitted.
Ace sighed. Shook her head. "It's that way."
Callom narrowed his eyes. Stopped still. "Sh. I hear something. One of them Karakulians is coming our way."
"Come on, man, don't hang about!" she cried, grabbing his arm, and pulling him along for a change.
Begorra, could she run fast! This eighteen-year-old gal tugged a Highland Scot after her down a bare metal corridor. Her Doc Martins pounded faster and faster, followed by the thump of his rough leather shoes and argyle socks. In the backpack slung over her shoulder rattled the cans of Nitro-9 he had brought her.
Shadows slid down the wall ahead of them. Ace threw her arm back, pressing him against the wall next to her. Five tense minutes they pressed close together, listening for the eerie soundless gliding of the mini-tanks.
"Nearly had us there," she whispered. "Good going, kid."
"Feels like they dinna ken we're here."
"They have an infrared scanning device," said Ace. "I saw it in the lab. They'll catch us sooner or later."
"How much further to the labs?"
"About fifty meters," she said, glancing at the plastic map.
Now and then Callom would catch himself looking at her. A funny hot flush would rise in his cheeks. That type of looking where he found himself watching the sway of her hips as she ran. Or how her breasts curved under her T-shirt. How her thighs smoothly filled out her spandex leggings. Physically she was really nice to look at. What he'd call, bonnie. He was uncomfortable with these thoughts. Yet he realized somehow they must be part of the pushed maturation. An overwhelming instinctual attraction to the opposite sex.
He sensed from her thoughts that she was looking at him similarly. Such thoughts were difficult to screen out. They were so loud underneath her conscious ones, despite the urgency of their situation. Here they were, trying to save two people's lives, and they were thinking of how attractive the other looked. Using her as a mirror, he caught a visual image of how she saw him. Peculiar. Mirrors can lie, but a person's perception told him volumes. Callom looked great in those tartans. She thought the way his kilt swirled around him as he walked was . . . well, sensual. In her decade, men with long hair were common. He'd pulled his back into a braid like Johnny Tremain.
Callom was impressed. She actually had read that book. The same lass who didn't bother reading old stuff, off a scholastic list. In contrast, he devoured every classic he could lay hands on.
Scolding himself, he struggled to block out the pictures he was receiving. As a side effect, his telepathic discernment was increased. What his culture referred as the scrying ability or discernment.
"Hey, kid! Wake up!"
"Sorry. Where's the Doctor bein held?"
"In a lab near Raina's. . ." ***
A Growing Madness
Part 2:PLANET SIDE
Theresa E. Meyers
Written 1996, revised 1998 ***
Next, Callom recalled waking up. He saw floor rushing underneath him, and the walls around him jarring up and down. Someone was carrying him over their shoulder. Raina had him slung on her back like a sack of wheat.
"But why didn't they kill us?" Ace and the Doctor were running ahead of them. Callom tried to make sense of the sequence of events. Hadn't he just tried to save Raina? And here she was, perfectly alright, hauling him around.
"Och, ma head!" he exclaimed.
"Keep it down," snapped Raina's voice, muffled, yet distinct. "They'll hear us!"
"What happened?"
"We're in the Karakulian's city. We've got to get away," she said hastily.
"Wait, let me doon!"
"You're too weak to move on your own," she huffed, stumbling.
"Quick, let's stop here a minute," said the Doctor's voice. Something white waved in his left hand. Graphed lines and pieces of transparent plastic were taped to its surface. Was it some kind of map?
Callom felt himself being propped up against a wall. He could see Ace crouching next to the Doctor. All around them curved steel corridors, made of a grey dense substance. There was little light.
"Doctor, where are we?" murmured Callom, trying to see straight.
"Rest easy lad," urged the Doctor softly. "You only just teleported two times. We thought you'd never wake up."
"The alien ship! Did they capture us?"
"No," said the Doctor. "I recalled the TARDIS to materialize on board the bridge."
"We're na on it nau are we?" he asked.
"No. We're on a planet called Karakul."
"Karakul?" moaned Callom, holding his head. Raina massaged his temples.
"Since when did we get here?"
"Since a few hours ago, Callom. You saved my life. Thanks."
"Och, it was nothing, Raina. Ma head!"
"That's what happens with overextending oneself," scolded the Doctor. But his eyes shone.
"Here they come," hissed Ace, ducking from around a corner.
"Can you walk?"
"Aye. Jest ye watch me, Doctor. But what is after us?"
"Their collectors," the Doctor whispered. "Unfortunately the Karakulians remain inside their labs, using their machines to do their dirty work... their collectors are their hands and eyes... and we must take the ultimate care..."
All four Time Travelers scurried off into the corridors. Ace gripped her baseball bat, the Doctor his umbrella. Raina took good hold of an ice axe, hefting it in one hand. Such primitive objects were ludicrously inadequate to confront the creatures they now saw.
A whole string of machines coasted towards them, each approximately four feet tall. They hovered only a millimeter above the floor on circular bases. Their squared off tops contained many blinkign sensors, which the Doctor explained could track infrared as well as ultraviolet and heat emitting form their bodies. Together the mechanisms must have a good field of view. At about three feet from their base projected multiple robotic probe arms, including pincer arms, and a long gun nozzle, which crackled with the power of ten tazers. . One blast of blue sparks narrowly missed the Doctor as he skipped lightly out of the way.
Ace gritted her teeth as they retreated. "Wish I could fight them," she snapped to the Doctor.
"Would you like to stop and ask them to play fairly?" he retorted, clutching his straw hat down on his head as he ran after her.
"Hop aboard," ordered Raina, squatting, gesturing to Callom to stand behind her.
"I dinna understand! Did we jest escape, or what?" He wrapped his arms around her neck while she locked his ankles in her folded arms. Felt the floor dissapear as she stood up and ran. Not underestimating her strength he still gripped hold for dear life. By glancing over his shoulder he could see the squat mini-tanks shadowed on the corridor walls, only fifty feet behind them.
Raina trotted effortlessly with Callom piggyback. "Och, I ken run guid enau!" he protested.
"Cool it kid! I'm not letting you slip away this time!"
Callom felt as if he'd tuned into a soap opera without having watched for a week. It was so frustrating to be clinging to someone's back running for their lives without knowing why.
*Raina, why are we running away from these things. I ken they mean to kill us!
*They knew that ship had the Growth Accelerator. They wanted it."
*What wuild those wee tanks want with that? I dinna understand!"
*Neither do I, but the Doctor thinks they trapped passing spaceships with a new weapon. A weapon that can disable a ship by attacking its sub-space drive unit."
*If they have tha technology, they could build their ain gizmo growth Accelerator.
*That's what I can't understand why either... she admitted.
Ace stopped in her tracks, and pulled out a deodorant can. "No Ace, there isn't time!"
"Oh right, Professor," she shouted. "Like I want to be exterminated!"
"We need to conserve our resources."
"Well then, come on! Don't hang about!"
"May I suggest something?" asked Raina, as the Doctor pulled Ace along behind him. "Since we're only down the next level from the labs..."
"What?"
"See that doorway up ahead?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Looks like it leads to a room, a power area. If we could get in there, and blockade them out . . ."
"With two cans of weak explosives?" questioned the Doctor, huffing.
"With just one."
They reached the door. Quickly the Doctor smacked the switch with his umbrella. Swinging Callom off her back, Raina bustled everyone inside.
"Hurry up, get in!" shouted Ace. "They're almost on top of us!"
Callom saw Raina examining the cracks in the door frame. "Come on, Raina! They're coming."
"Okay." She let him pull her into the room, just before the door slid shut. Inside, Ace hunted for something to blockade the entrance with.
The room was filled with computer terminals and various electronic devices. It was anyones guess as to what its purpose. Bent over, the Doctor examined the closest console lining one wall. Light panels in the ceiling gave fluorescent illumination. "There are several struts placed at cross angles," Raina annouced. "A precise explosion would blow the whole shebang down . . ."
The Doctor made a rapid mental calculation. His fingers moved as if scribbling invisible equations on an invisible chalkboard. "Could work, I suppose." "Give me the explosive, Ace," Raina asked, holding out her frilly cuffed hand. She felt the cold metal aerosol can pressed into it.
Raina tapped places in the metal walls with her geological hammer. She scanned the wall struts around the metal hatch. "Hmm, not your typical alloy. Looks like a carbonized steel annealed with some lighter aluminum salt."
"Stop admiring the fixtures and do what you're gonna do..." cried Ace. The teenager's skin crawled as she watched the geologist whack the wall in one place. Distant blasts were getting steadily louder.
"The stress fractures indicate the material's weakest here," said Raina, turning to the Doctor. "Right? According to Moh's equations . . ."
"Exactly. Using the harmonic constant . . ." realized the Doctor. Absently he passed his map to Callom.
Raina placed the can in a crack tapped out with her hammer. Then gestured everyone to the far wall. Grabbing Callom's shoulder, the Doctor helped him to crouch on the floor.
"How many seconds?" asked Raina.
"Eight . . ."
"Uh oh . . ."
Bang!
Metal supports blew out of place. Both the Doctor and Callom huddled together, the Doctor clutching his hat more firmly on his head. The whole wall atop the girders slid down vertically in one sheet. Two or three struts clattered down on top.
"Mega!" cried Ace. She swatted Raina on the shoulder, laughing. "That oughtta shop n' make em think!"
"What a kick . . ."
"How'd you do it, Yank?"
"She knocked out the weld supports, instead of the metal. Caused the metal to fracture. But that's only bought us a few minutes," explained the Doctor. "We'd better find a way out of here."
"I'll scout ahead," offered Raina. She stopped momentarily to slip her geological hammer into a holster at her hip.
"Wait for me, Yank."
"It's a shame we can't weld these struts to the wall and seal them out permanently," muttered the Doctor. He hunted around for anything remotely resembling a torch or a melder.
Ace and Raina searched the chamber. The teenager clutched the map once held by the Doctor. Several huge turbines whirred in unison. "Funny,"
"What, Ace?"
"That these Karakulians should have a city running on electricity, instead of nuclear energy or something."
Raina bent over one of the generators. Took a quick look, and shook her head. "Could be using a nuclear fuel," she suggested. "There's some radiation present."
"Better get a move on, Yank."
Fzam! Both flinched as they heard the guns blazing away at the improvised barricade. "Those Collectors sound awful close."
"Anyway, can you find the power room on the map?" Ray asked.
"Not really."
"Where are the labs?"
"Looking on this here map, about a kilometer. Towards the northeast section of the City."
Raina dug through the pockets of her vest once more. Extracted a compass with a mirrored lid. On her flat palm she held it out at arm's length away from her body. "Correcting for the magnetic disturbances, this says north is behind this wall."
"But these generators are screwing up the compass aren't they?"
Giving the generators a wide berth, Raina rounded the corner into another chamber. Behind several drums there appeared to be a door. "C'mere, Ace. I see a door. North by northwest. About fifty degrees from north magnetically."
"But the wires . . ."
"I should be far enough away from them by now."
"Hey Doc!" Ace shouted. "Ray's found another door in back. Behind these turbines!"
"Our friends are having a time trying to get through," announced the Doctor. In his hands he clutched what looked like a gun with a short muzzle. Still he required two hands to hold it. "Luckily I scraped together this maser. Welded them out."
"Great, but how many minutes does that give us, Professor?"
"I'd estimate, about seven-point-six . . ."
"Doctor, I think they're getting thru!" cried Callom.
"That was an upper estimate. I should have guessed they'd have rolled in the heavy artillery."
"Hey, why aren't they coming in through the back door?" Ace suddenly shouted to Raina.
"I don't know. Perhaps there's something back here that doesn't lead to the outside corridor . . ."
"Can your maser cut through doors?" Raina asked the Doctor.
"What? What are you doing, Raina?"
"Trying to get out of here, Doctor."
"But that room, is the nuclear power center! That's why they're not coming through the door . . ."
Immediately Ace grabbed the Doctor's improvised weapon and fired at the other door. "We must do something now!" she cried.
"Wait, perhaps the Growth accelerator's power unit can boost the laser . . ."
"If the power for the turbines comes from the next room . . ." gasped Raina. "They've trapped us?"
"Looks like it."
"Radiation exposure might be lethal," said the Doctor. "I should have thought of that."
"It's no like the Karakulians would map out every section of their city," chimed in Callom. "If they are our enemy and all . . ."
"It was my idea," sighed Raina, guilty. She clamped her jaw tightly as she watched Ace burning through the lock on the radiation door. Small droplets of metal dripped off painfully slowly.
"Oh, don't be silly, Raina," sighed the Doctor. "It gives us some time. To think."
"But the radiation effects might only be temporary," said Raina. "If we run through the room. That is, if there's another door."
"The map doesn't say whether there is or not," shouted Ace.
"Not if it's a lead lined room. But wait. If these Karakulians live on this planet, they must be used to the ambient radiation. It wouldn't bother them much to have a nuclear room in their city. So they most likely wouldn't waste time putting in unnecessary shielding . . ." realized the Doctor.
BLAM! The barricade glowed red, then yellow. "Hurry Ace!" cried Callom.
"Move towards the door," urged the Doctor, pushing him towards Raina. He gripped the Growth Accelerator, still wrapped in its casing.
White hot fire grew from the center of the barricade. Equally white hot sparks burst from the maser. Before it overloaded, Ace tossed it to one side. "I won't take this!" cried Ace. "We're only a few meters away from the labs!"
"Move over Ace," said Raina. "It's done its work." The Martian born geologist shouldered her ice axe. With one mighty blow she smashed into the molten steel. Two mighty blows later she knocked out the remaining material. Hot material splattered into the next room.
Meanwhile the Doctor watched the first door glow luminescent. Spots of the corridor outside were showing through. He gestured the three of them to race through the opening cut by the maser with his handkerchief. Still he toted his improvised maser.
Huge vats of power stood in the new chamber. Instead of dynamos, large tanks with fuel rods stood at the same intervals. Gingerly the trio wormed around the units to the far door. Which was fastened by a combination lock. Ace went to work. The Doctor followed, trotting at top speed as he clutched his umbrella. "They're almost through!" he cried.
A blast knocked him on the floor. Raina raced to his side, jerking him to his feet with surprising strength.
"Professor, I need a hand with this!" Ace shouted.
"Where's the device?"
Ace gave him a horrified look. "I thought you had it!"
"I. . . must have dropped it," he realized.
"Work, Doctor! I'll get it!" decided Raina.
Desperately the Doctor stabbed keys. Raina raced for the door, and dashed through the still molten metal. Callom was close behind. Just inside lay the discarded object.
"HALT! HALT!" grated an electronically charged Karakulian voice. Raina froze. Callom climbed through the doorway that minute, to see Raina covered by a Karakulian gun.
*Callom! Get back!
Just inches from Raina lay the device. She pushed it back with her hand.
"Hey, over here!" shouted Callom. Swallowing his courage, he dove for the device.
A gun blazed. Callom's hands found the package.
"HALT. Decist specimines!" grated a second Karakulian, just gliding into the room. The young Scot threw his arm over his eyes.
"Push off! We're going nowhere!" shouted Ace defiantly. She stood in the burned entrance. Reaching into her backpack, she drew out a deodorant can. "Let `em go!"
"Analsis of container indicates highly unstable explosive!"
Holding the can in front of her, she moved towards Raina. "Back off now!" Slowly the squat metal shapes slid back. Callom raced across the room. Under his arm he carried the strangely shaped parcel. As if glued to his motion, the Karakulian's sensor pod swiveled. Raina raced after the Scots lad. "Look out everyone!" she shrilled. Backed against the wall were Doctor, Ace, and the frightened Callom folding into Ace's satin sleeved arms. The door was open now, as the trio tumbled backwards into safety.
"Commense specimine immobilization!"
"YEEARRGH!" came a blood curdling scream, almost inhuman in nature. Instantly, a whoosh and a blinding flash enveloped Raina. Her cheek and whole front smashed into bare cold metal. Searing pain drilled into her thigh. She could smell fabric and flesh sizzling.
Shoving Callom behind herself, Ace raced to Raina's side. "You bloody monsters . . ." she began, yet the words died in her throat as she trembled with horror and anger. Furiously she stared daggers at the cold metal shapes.
"What have you done?" thundered the Doctor.
"Subject has been immobilized. Inferior specimines will proceed to holding lab, or will be TERMINATED."
Raina groggily shook her head as Ace and the Doctor leaned over her. "Can't you see this person can hardly walk?" he snapped.
"You will assist. Move!" grated the Karakulian, gliding forwards.
Grimly the Doctor and Ace raised Raina to a vertical position. They draped her arms over their shoulders. Callom slowly shambled before the group. ***
PART FIVE
Mirror lined walls rose up all around them. Save on one side where a dancing field of lasers separated them from freedom. Callom hunched down into the corner of his cell, miserably fixing his eyes on Raina's huddled form. Ace tried her best to nurse the geologist's recent burn. Offering soothing words were all she could do to keep Raina quiet. Finally the pain forced her into dreamless unconsciousness. She lay there on her cloak so rigidly and still, hardly breathing. Callom hugged his knees, and said nothing. He was sure he could hear himself whimpering, to his shame. Someone's hand rested on his shoulder, reassurance in its very touch. "It wasn't your fault, lad," said the Doctor softly. A trace of Scots accent laced his voice. A reassuring burr that went straight to Callom's core. "If she hadna pushed me outta the way . . . she'd be all right," he replied shakily. "Friends are always making sacrifices for me, when I don't exactly expect them to," explained the Doctor, removing his hat. He pulled himself closer to Callom, and sat down very much the same. Like two schoolboys they perched side by side, hugging their knees and talking quietly. "But has one of yuir friends ever died savin ye?" "There were a few times . . . but mostly . . . " Silence choked off his reply for a moment. "But my companions always managed to come out safe and well, after I set them straight." The male arrogance made Callom smile, briefly. "It's jest that she almost died a few hours ago. Vitreum. And now Dr. MacLaren..." "I know. But if the Karakulians wanted her dead, they would have totally destroyed her. They simply stunned her... but unfortunately in so doing their almost broke her leg..." "Doctor..." "I will do what I can to help her. There is still a possibility that I can use that growth accelerator to push her leg to heal itself." "But you cant even get out of this cell," Callom sighed. "Did I ever tell you, when a Time Lord is injured, they slip into a protective coma. Many times I've fooled a friend or enemy into thinking I'm dead." "Oh, I betcha they love that," smiled Callom. "One of my friends in particular was fooled all the time. Her name was Sarah Jane Smith. She'd always believed I'd died, and be hunched over me, crying . . . and then I'd sit up perfectly fit . . . " "And she'd freak," finished Callom, shaking his head. "Ye gotta admit that was a dirty trick to play on her. But Dr. Mariner is no Time Lord." "I know, but I am quiet certain she will recover... given time..." "I hope yuir right." *** Meanwhile Raina stirred, and pushed up against a hard cold floor. Someone had spread her cloak out for her to lay upon. "Easy, now, don't move, yank. " "Ace, how long have I been out cold?" "Couldn't tell you. You crashed after you saw the burn . . . " "Why did you hide it from me. I can take being injured . . . " "The prof. was scared you'd do something crazy . . . " "What does he think I am, stupid?" grumbled Raina, pushing herself up onto one bent elbow. "I'm perfectly capable of mitigating any of my own emotional responses . . . " "You were so shaken up after . . . the experiment . . . " "What's with you all anyway? Don't you trust me?" "Of course we do, Tryn . . . " "Have I changed that much? Must've. I no longer talk like a dictionary, " she muttered. "I wouldn't know how you were like . . . only just met you after that freaking Ranee." "Callom, are you all right? " she asked across the separation. "I'm fine," he replied, trying to sound brave. "I'm sorry I got you all into this mess. You should have tried to escape while you could." "We couldn't just leave you . . . " snapped Ace. "That's not our style . . . " "Don't be ridiculous, Vitreum," said the Doctor. "You saved our lives, remember." "How can you be so sure that the Rani's experiment didn't include some other more sinister manipulation? She could have subconsciously reprogrammed me with her experiment . . . " Callom and the Doctor exchanged glances. "I checked yuir mind," said the Scots boy. "It's about . . . the same as before." "After all, aren't you and the lad psychically bonded?" pointed out the Doctor. "The way my powers have been failing me lately, no one can be sure . . . " "I should know ye by nau . . . " began Callom. "No lad, she's got you there," said the Doctor. "We cannot be sure that the experiment didn't alter her powers. After all, her DNA structure has been reconfigured." Raina again felt the searing pain afflicting her thigh. Already her body struggled to heal the injury, but it was working overtime. Blackness seeped over her vision once again. Her friend's voices receded into the distance. The last few days had been some of the most physically traumatic for Raina. Most of the time she weaved in and out of a comatose state, like a swimmer resurfacing from beneath a smothering sea. She didn't want to wake from the strange half dreams and snug darkness that felt so comfortable. Half dreams separated out as her mind paged through the memories. Even the memories themselves seemed mostly fictional. Memories of intense physical and mental pain mingled with images of Callom's frightened face begging her to live. Visions of the Rani's smiling austere triumph as she extracted the very blueprints of Raina's life. And tried to warp them to her reality. Yet had she really succeeded? Hadn't Callom seized the formula at the last moment, teleporting to safety? How had he escaped her biological snares? The Time Lord called the Doctor must have helped Callom. The Doctor and his companion Ace. Showing up in the nick of time by some inexplicable coincidence. Horrible pain wracked her body again after she felt the radiation of the Time Wind penetration. Radiation riddling every cell of her body. Nevertheless, she'd been brought back from the brink of nonexistence in the physical sense. Horrible pain spread across each bone and muscle, once torn apart and re-knitted into a new blueprint. A blueprint chosen at random from a seemingly endless universe of possibilities.
"Raina!"
A voice seemed such a long way off to the geologist, as if she were atop a high mountain. Yet now it felt as if she were at the floor of a huge subterranean cistern, pitch black.
"C'mon girl! Wake up... you're got to wake up!"
"Please Raina... wake up!" pleaded a much higher voice.
"Callom," she answered weakly. Her eyes opened to a sterilely lit room. Two blurred shapes sat at the far wall behind dancing lines of light. "Did they hurt you?" she croaked.
"Steady now, Yank," muttered Ace, who supported her shoulders with her hands. At least she was on the same side of the dancing beams as Raina.
"Doctor, what's going on?" demanded Raina as she struggled to rise.
"Don't try to get up," he responded.
"What do you mean..." she began, until a jarring shaft seemed to pierce her leg as she shifted it. "Aa!" she cried. "What's happened to my legs? Why does it hurt to move them?"
"Please, dinnae look!" begged Callom.
Raina did look, in spite of herself. Fighting the protesting Ace, she whipped aside the cloth that covered her leg. A long black mark ran down her right thigh and calf, near the knee. Charred cloth was melted into the burned flesh, quite near the muscle itself. "By the Author," she choked. "They stole my leg! Those accursed misbegotten monsters stole my leg!"
"I'm sorry," began Ace.
"No, don't feel sorry," snapped Raina. "At least I have two legs to stand on... if I ever stand again."
"Dinna say that!" cried Callom. Raina's mind whirled with all the memories. At last she'd straightened out the sequence. Now she rested with her head propped up on one hand, elbow resting on the floor.
"So how do we get out of here?" asked Ace to the Doctor in the cell across from theirs.
"Sh, I'm thinking," he hissed.
"Better think a wee bit faster then, Doctor," cautioned Callom. "That mechanical salt shaker's coming back."
"Doctor, how precisely do the Karakulians move? Those machines" asked Raina from her position on the floor.
"Electromagetic levitation," muttered the Time Lord.
"If only we can disrupt that power," she whispered.
"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed the Doctor, leaping off his haunches. Excitedly he popped his hat back upon his head. "I've got it!"
"Come on Professor, let's have it now," insisted Ace.
"Callom, can you use your special powers to make a Karakulian think I'm outside the bars and not inside?"
"Yes, but what good will my power work on a machine?"
"The Karakulian Collector isn't a mere machine. It's a cybernetic organism. A fusion of flesh and fabricated circuits."
"I get it," said Callom. "I can affect something that has a mind."
"You or I will be ready to blind the Karakulian when we convince it to open the electron repulsor bars. Then one of us grabs it from behind..."
Hurriedly the quartet settled down when they saw the Karakulian glide into the hallway. Once between their two cells it stopped and leveled its eye stalk at the incapacitated Raina on the floor. It electronically requested, "Remain clear of the bars, female inferiors..."
This was not quite the Doctor's plan, with the practical Karakulian totally ignoring him and Callom. Yet Raina said, "Well, I can't walk. You'll have to come in and get me out yourself."
With a pressure of its claw, the Karakulian touched the force beam control. Silently the Doctor noticed how it did this.
"Hey!" shouted a voice behind it. It seemed that Callom was outside the dancing beams of light!
In confusion the Karakulian collector bleeped. Just long enough for Ace to grab the casing without being seen. Raina tossed her cloak over the top of the Karakulian.
"I can't hold this wretched thing!" shouted Ace. The Doctor helplessly stared as the Karakulian fired wildly, blue sparks flying.
Desperately, Raina grabbed the base of the machine, holding her knife in her other hand. . Anger and hatred exploded inside her brain. Raina could only touch the baseplate, yet all her new found hatred and anger flowed through her fingers. She had sought to prise open teh panel,and rip the wires apart to short out the electromagnetic repulsor unit drive... but why did she suddenly feel the energy pass from her to it? It was as if her own body's em field suddenly spiked, then flared into a supernova of power.
"Move-ment . . . ii-mm-parrd," droned the Karakulian, its voice slowing to a grunt.
Ace shuddered as the Karakulian stopped dead. Small screachings were the only sound it now made. "All right, Yank!" she cried, slapping Raina's hand in a high-five.
"I . . . I don't know what I did," stammered Raina. Astonished, she stared at her palms.
"Whatever you did, Yank . . . thanks."
"Ace, turn that control to the left," instructed the Doctor when it was all over. Callom rushed over to Raina and hugged her tight. Wearily she patted his head and assured him she'd be all right.
"That's done it," declared the Doctor, bringing both palms together in a single smack. "Now. Let's get it open."
Callom shrank back. "Och! Ye sure the creature isn't jest deceiving us? Like playing possum?"
"Can I borrow a knife?"
Reluctantly, Callom reached into his sock and pulled out his skeindu. Taking the shortened dirk, the Doctor gingerly pried into the crack between the domed top and the grating. Raina helped swing up the lid, and they saw the fused bits of biological cells merged together with circuitry.
Corners of her mouth drawing down, Raina shuddered. "So that's what a Karakulian looks like."
"Yes," the Doctor sighed. "A living brain fused to modern circuitry. Which gives me an idea. Help me get this out of here... and we can make use of a tried and true method..." he whispered, voice low. Using Raina's cloak, they reached into the casing and bundled the squirming mass out. Quickly she wrapped a cord round its top.
"You mean there's a wee beastie inside that machine?" asked Callom from behind. "Like some sort of a brain or a gremlin?" All he and Ace had seen was the Time Lord and the geologist hefting a small bundle out of the Karakulian. Bits of electronics flew out, Ace and Rayna working hard to clear the inner workings of the mechanism out.
Turning to everyone, the Doctor announced, "Step one of my plan is accomplished. Now for the next play. One of us lucky souls must get inside the casing and play dress-up."
"Raina could get inside," suggested Ace. "Then we could push her."
"Och, can I?" asked Callom, sensing Raina's emotions of loathing repulsion at the very thought. "I'm the wee lad remember?"
"No way, shrimp," said Ace.
"I don't see a problem," said Raina. "He'll be safest inside there if the Karakulians fire upon us. Besides, he can manipulate the controls. I mean you did jury rig it..."
"Yes," the doctor muttered, twisting wires and circuits together. "I removed the prime brain and control unit. Now this connection here will work like a makeshift joystick Callom. You just twist this toggle here to go left, and this to go right. The pedal on teh floor controls speed..."
"Okay Professor," sighed Ace. "Whatever you say."
"Time to try for size," announced the Doctor. He made a stirrup with his hands to boost the young Scot inside. Holding Raina's hand, he slid into the seat.
"Och, this is strange," he exclaimed from inside. The curved walls of the Karakulian casing rose around him. Eerily it felt the right size for him. He sat on the bottom, holding the improvised control unit the Doctor handed down to him. A small screen flared into life, and the doctor explained it could show was was immediately otuside the small tank.
"We're closing the lid now," said Raina. Callom's world became dark temporarily, only illuminated by the doctor's improvised LCD screen before his frace.
"Kind of like a tank in here," he shouted. Callom grasped the control box, twiddlign with the tiny control rods. Slowly the casing slid forwards, toward the door. "We may have to push him from the back," said Ace, sliding around behind the travel machine and pushing it out the door. Helping Raina to walk, the Doctor followed.
"See anything?" asked Ace.
"No," came the reply, in her mind.
"Here, Ace. Raina and I will walk ahead of you two, like we're prisoners."
Ace halted Callom, letting the Doctor and Raina pass. Hand under Raina's right arm, the Doctor and the explorers moved out into the corridor. Callom managed to move the travel casing as Ace pushed from behind.
The real test came when a Karakulian rolled down the corridor toward them. "You don't have to push, you infernal machine!" shouted the Doctor.
"Query, moving experiment subjects is not authorized?" asked the new Karakulian.
"New authorization," grated Callom, swirlign his mind into an illusion, and hurling it into the cybernetic brain cells of the Karakulian Collector.
"Perfect," muttered Ace behind him. *** PART SIX: SUDDEN GROWTH
A haze fogged his brain. He woke up running, ripping the sleeves of a shirt that had suddenly grown too tight. All Callom remembered at that second was the impulse to run like crazy. Strangely, the passages he ran through were silent. Not a threat in sight. Gleaming metal seemed to stretch for miles like some sectioned human gerbil tube. Rounding one section bend, Callom spotted a familiar blue box. Staggering, Callom slid in the isomorphic key pressed into his hand an eternity ago. It took him forever to cross the brightly illuminated flight -deck to reach the lounge. Wearily he collapsed onto a chair.
Safe for the moment, in the humming sterile atmosphere and soft white lights, he relaxed. Then, feeling the bind of his clothes, that seemed strangely tight, he tottered to his feet. Someone approached from the side. Just on the edge of his vision there was the doorway. Who could be in here with him? Startled, he backed away. As suddenly as the face appeared, it vanished. Stealthily, Callom crept towards the "doorway." Heart pounding in the silence, he lunged forward.
Instantly the strange figure leapt into view again. Torn clothing and long hair were smudged with dirt. Its chest rose and fell with each labored breath. Callom wondered who this man was, strangely dressed in a half torn shirt and inadequately short kilt.
"Nae! It canna be . . ." denied a tenor voice.
The character was none other than Callom himself.
Frightened, he froze there, gaping at his unfamiliar reflection. Long wavy hair came to his shoulders. No more were his cheeks rotund from baby fat. Now they'd stretched into the hard lines and angles of a man's. With shaking fingers he traced his firm strong jaw and nose. Taken aback he studied his enlarged strong hands. "It--it's jest na possible! How, by all the veterans a Culloden?"
Only images of a curious ray fired at him gave him any possible explanation. Didn't Raina say something about a Growth Accelerator back on the stolen ship they landed here in? This seemed the only logical explanation.
Remembering his captured friends, Callom snapped out of shock. It seemed best to accept his situation, and benefit from his unnatural growth spurt. How many years did the machine add to his age? Carefully he contemplated his body, now rounded with muscle. Judging from the height of the door, which he guessed was two and a half meters, Callom approximated his present height was 190 centimeters. His head was twelve centimeters shy of the mirror's top.
"That biology book, said something about hormones," he muttered, summoning up the chapters of the book Raina had given him on earth months ago. "Testosterone making the muscles grow and the bones shoot up like a weed. Gotta be at least seven years tacked on t' ma age! Na, that's crazy!""
"But what do I do nau?" he asked himself. What indeed? There were few options. He asked himself what his friends would do. Then threw out the answers. Strange thoughts filled his imagination, as he suddenly fantasized himself dashing off to the rescue like a hero in an epic poem.
"Wait!" he stopped himself. "What can I do? I may be stronger, but I dinna ken if strength is enau . . ."
Growth spurts. That chapter in the biology text flashed through his clearing mind. If his body had matured, could his brain have along with it? Did his powers increase in strength as well?
"Whatever I do, I canna verra well go about get up like this," he decided, clicking his tongue at his reflection with distaste. "I look a sight. Na' worthy of a McLaren."
"Now where is that chamber Raina mentioned? Somewhere . . . ow!"
He winced, and grabbed his hip. He'd bruised it running in his grayout. And starved from the last few hours, just when had he last eaten? "Ugh. Have nae the strength to get there."
Slowly he squeezed his eyes shut. Wished he could get there in an instant. His mind wandered as he thought about the passages he'd have to pass through to get there...
A wave of nausea made him reel, and he blinked open his eyes. Then rubbed them. "Begorra!" he exclaimed. All around him rose racks and racks of clothes.
He had teleported. Without a booster module! Within the confines of the TARDIS. Before it had been so difficult to travel even a few feet. Callom stared a few meters ahead of himself, and concentrated. As if a switch fell, he felt the same nausea and reality blinked to the new scene around him. "Amazin! Ha, ha! This'll be just th' thing!"
Each time the nausea grew less. "Must be like flexing a muscle. Gets easier each time."
Slipping out his knife, he cut away the remains of his outfit. Reached for a long sleeved shirt. Pulled the loose garment over his head and shoulder. It was one of those puffy sleeved ones with an open neck that showed his well muscled chest. Oh well, he'd have to make do. His eyes fell on several strips of tartan hanging out of a cabinet drawer. Unfortunately the tartan he saw was not McLaren, but MacLaren. Something inside him compelled him to wear tartans. It would inspire him to courage. A connection with the past that would not be severed.
A few minutes search yielded a long bolt of Black watch plaid. Callom consulted his memory. "Da was in the Scot's guard. I'd be too. Suppose I'm entitled t' wear regimental Tartan. I'm no exactly civilian if I'm goin' into battle nau."
"Guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way," he sighed. Intently he wrapped the swath around his waist. It was the only tartan he could find that would fit in such a hurry. Around and around his waist, then tucked in under one shoulder. Over his chest he flipped the end, and fastened it there with his clansmen pin. Just like he remembered some Highlanders did in history. Finally he slipped on a beautiful thick leather belt he scrounged up, with an ornate silver buckle.
The ends of his now long hair fell into his eyes. Grunting, he twisted some of it into small braids. Some fibers drawn from the plaid he used to tie off the braids out of his way. Further digging yielded leather boots and grey socks.
Surveying himself in the mirror he nodded. Then trotted off to look for some sort of weapons. One shortened highland dirk was woefully inadequate to tackle Karakulians. Rummaging through cabinets he found an eighteenth century cutlass, several fencing rapiers, and even two mighty claymores. No doubt all were obtained from some past journey. In the cabinet there were also several antiquated pistols, minus ammunition.
"Great snakes, ye'd think this Doctor wuild have somthin better than pirate stuff," he complained, holstering a full sized dirk at his hip. Finding a second leather belt, he slung it across his chest to carry the better of the two claymores.
He 'ported to the chemistry lab. There he found Ace's kit. He wasn't much up on chemistry, but he'd recalled seeing her cook up Nitro 9. Several canisters were stacked, ready for fill. "Ah, tha's guid enau fer me!" he laughed, stacking them into his shoulder bag.
*** Ace despairingly glanced towards the lab. She had tucked herself into an alcove between a counter and a large cabinet just inside. The lab was an enormous space, dingy and dark with cold metal walls and floors. All that illuminated the darkness were the blinking lights on squat Karakulians and the instrument panels. Raina lay stunned, fixed in the sites of a Karakulian extermination gun. If Ace dared reveal herself by attacking, they'd shoot Raina. In the few short hours Ace had begun to grow fond of this erratic scientist with remarkable compassion.
"Warn-ing!" grated the gold Karakulian suddenly. "Heat patterns detected in proximity to laboratory."
"Suspect AL-I-en female in vicinity . . . "
She swallowed hard, and searched for her Nitro-9. Yet there was no more. Raina still lay on a rubberized mat, her hands pressed flat as she tried to push herself up. Anger burned in her eyes as she glared up at the Karakulian scientist. However, she was unable to rise because of the restraining clamps.
Clutching the handle of her baseball bat, she gritted her determination. One last shot at them. She didn't know how yet. Many times Ace had rescued the Doctor. The stakes had now doubled, for he and the Earthling were both captives.
Where had their plan gone wrong?
***
They had reached the labs of the Karakulians, only to have to split up. One way went the males, and the other the females. Callom and the Doctor'd been discovered, and immobilized. Far away in some lab they were taken. It seemed the best escapes had been exhausted. Now Ace struggled desperately to avoid capture, and free her friends. To do what? Get recaptured?
Slowly she made a move forward. They weren't scanning, just now. Again she glanced at the Karakulian covering Raina. Intently it set it probes for another scan. "Now or never," she whispered to herself.
Immediately a brawny hand covered her mouth. Reality blinked out of existence. She struggled against a strong captor. It felt humanoid. Reflexively she jabbed her elbow backwards to hit solid flesh. Whoever it was, she knocked the wind out of them. Then ran like crazy in the opposite direction.
Mind racing, she suddenly realized. Who on earth here was human? Didn't the Karakulians capture everyone on the space ship?
"Wait there, lass!" hissed a voice in her ear, gripping her arm.
"Let me go," she almost cried aloud, dashing down the hallways.
Just in front of her, out of nowhere, appeared a figure. Six feet, wrapped in a green and black toga. Long blond hair hung around his shoulders, and he clutched a long-sword. "Ace! Wait. It's me," he whispered, clutching his stomach in pain.
"Who the blazes are you?" she demanded, backing away.
"It's me I tell ye! Callom McLaren."
"H-Callom? No way," she gasped, still keeping her distance. Sickness twisted her stomach. Somehow she'd become nauseous. "How? "
"That growth accelerator. They fired that device at me, and I grew. I swear t' ye . . . "
"A-lien de-tect-ed! Pur-sue, pur-sue!"
"Och, ye gotta believe me!" The stranger grabbed her wrist with lightening speed, and pulled her along behind him. "C'mon, lass! We gotta get otta here!"
"What, and leave the Doc and Tryn? Are you crazy?"
"I've gotta plan!"
Ace couldn't help but dash behind the man. Sure he was humanoid. But how in the name of Time and Space could he be who he claimed? Callom was a thirteen-year-old boy, and this person was at least twenty. Nevertheless, his tenor voice had the same thick accent. Also, the clothes he was wearing were sure not futuristic, like any Thal from Skaro would wear. Not even twentieth century. He looked like Duncan MacLeod or someone straight out of the movie Highlander, with his loose peasant shirt and the tartan swath wrapped around his waist and over his shoulder. A sturdy thick leather belt was fastened around his waist, with a second strap going across his shoulder like a pirate's sword belt. Metal pins gleamed in the scant lighting of the corridor. She recalled they looked exactly like Callom's McLaren clansmen pins he wore on his kilt. But why was he wearing Black Watch?
They ducked behind a low panel. Just how had they come here?
"Rest easy," he whispered, propping her up against the wall.
"I just don't get it," she muttered. "How did I get here? Out of that lab?"
"I'm sorry if ye feel sick. I guess mebbe tha's a side effect of 'porting. Should go way in a few minnits."
"Ugh! I feel like I wanna hurl."
"Jest dinna hurl on ma tartan," he joked. She saw him reach into a leather shoulder bag, and produce a canteen. "Try and get some of this doon ye. It may help."
"I was just about to rescue them when you botched it," she snapped, between sips.
"I saved yuir life, lass. How inna name of St. Brigid were ye goin t' save em without the right weapons?"
"Okay. You gotta point." Grimly she shook her head. "If I only had some Nitro-9 about now. . ."
"Is this what yuir lookin for?" he asked, opening his shoulder bag. Several deodorant cans were stacked inside.
"Oh brill," she sighed, feeling better for the first time in hours. "You're okay after all, Callom . . ."
"So I take it you believe me?"
"Who else would know where to get my Nitro-9?" Nevertheless, he still sensed she was not totally convinced.
"Where's the Doctor hid? I saw Raina in there, right enau. But I didnae see him."
"He's in another lab," she breathed, trying valiantly not to throw up.
"I managed to get this away from them," he said, pulling out the Doctor's map.
"Before they nicked him?"
"It was sitting in a Karakulian lab. I dinna ken how to read it though. Still, I figured out the scale."
Ace took it from him, glanced at it. Then leaned her head back agaisnt the wall. "Uh, the room's still spinning," she muttered. Still she was a little shaky.
"What do ye suppose they're doing to em?"
"Heard those creeps saying that they wanted to drain his brain or something."
"If the Doctor's a deadly enemy, won't they jest kill him?"
"Eventually, they'll off him, I guess."
"But what about Raina? I saw her pinned down under some ray."
"They think that she's a good specimen. I think from what they were saying, that she's gonna be dissected or something."
"Och! No while I'm around, they don't!"
"I think that's what they did to the crew of the ship. They must have them down here somewhere, as guinea pigs for their experiments."
"Didn't the Doctor say these Karakulians conquered other planets?"
"Yes. But these Karakulians here have been left behind as a kind of . . . Blast, what's the word?"
"Rear guard."
"Thanks."
"I wonder. Were those Karakulians the ones that made that ray gun in the first place?"
"What ray gun?"
"I mean that weapon that stopped the Cerise, and the TARDIS. Raina said that the ship reported flashing lights at one time. Before the madness started."
"Great, but if it's the same weapon, why didn't we get paranoid?"
He ignored her question. "Why they're wasting time with that Growth Accelerator when they could build one of their own wi' their know-how?"
"Beats me."
"I was jest thinking, lass."
"What about?"
"That crew. D'ye suppose that they all died? Or some may have survived an been brought here, mebbe?"
"Cripes!" she exclaimed. "How can you sit there and ask naff questions while Prof and your friend are in it deep?"
"It might help us figure out what they're doin t' the Doctor. For all we know the answer could come from it."
"You and your stupid daydreaming!"
"At least I'm thinkin about this . . . "
"Like I'm not? Look kid, there's times for asking questions, and time for acting! This isn't the time to be sittin on our butts chatterin!"
"Raina was alway teaching me to ask questions, an make observations!" argued Callom. "Tha's what a good scientist does."
"You ain't no Einstein, squirt."
"Neither are ye, lass. Don't ye want t' get to the bottom o' this mystery?"
"We can do that after the Professor and your friend are free, if we can get them away from those Karakulians."
"Oh, all right," he grumbled. "But I still think..."
"Look, I'm still older than you. And I know what I'm doing. We'll get the Professor to brainstorm later. Clear?"
"Ye may be older, but can ye teleport?" he asked her. "I ken see what ye wanna do. Jest barge in there wi explosives blazin . . ."
"Have you got a better idea?"
"As a matter of fact I gotta plan. That is, if ye want to listen to a kid like me."
"Okay, let's hear your brilliant plan then,"
"I was thinking, we cuild use some strategy. Wi ma teleportin and yuir nitro-9."
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I cuild read yuir mind, telepath that I am, but tha's no proper."
"Oh dry up," she said, grabbing his shoulder. Her fingers felt the soft tartan swath draped over it. It was still hard to believe he was Callom McLaren, but their verbal sparring was starting to convince her. That same wisecracking he had. "What's on your mind?"
"If I create a diversion, ye can get in and free Raina."
"How are you doing that?"
"By ma teleportin."
"I thought that knocked you silly. That's why we had to carry you before . . ."
"No anymore. Ma powers have increased. I can teleport guid enau wi'out tiring. At least not so fast. Those Karakulians won' know what him em."
***
Raina writhed. Just the slightest movement sent pain into her leg. Still the burn had not yet healed. Even with her quick healing abilities it could take days for such a severe burn to begin to mend. Pieces of her tissues had been sampled and placed into culture dishes. A few blasts from the Growth Accelerator were applied, and the tissue slowly grew.
Raina wished they'd test it on her burn. At least to facilitate the healing process. But they were instead testing her response to pain. Needles were inserted into her leg, near her nerve endings. Each time she'd flinch, the pain would register in a computer database. So she remained still. Escaping was out of the question too, if she tried to run, the Karakulian gun would exterminate her. And with a lame leg, there was little chance even with her quick reflexes, that she could escape alive this time.
"Studied in-dicate that female's response to pain is lower than first hu- manoid spec-i-mine."
"Psi-scans in-dicate negative. Fe-male is psi-null."
"Scans on Doc-tor indicate index of 5 on psi-scale. Pro-ceed-ing to total drain of rel-e-vant know-elge."
However, back in the cell she had somehow crippled the Karakulian. She had stunned it into submission. That wasn't a psycho blast. A psycho blast utilized psionic energy to send an overload into its system. Channeling her anger and hatred, Raina had grabbed the baseplate. Reflexively she'd been attempting to psi-blast the Karakulians mind. Then the Karakulian simply stopped moving.
What had she done? If the Rani had done some genetic engineering, what was the affect of it? It seemed as if her instincts were awakened, and she could sense things few otehrs could. Her body seemed to be healing at a phenomenal rate now, far and above what these injuries woul dnormal take to heal. What new powers existed with this body? She was able to communicate with Callom. It could just be a psionic bond with him. Change had limited her sensitivity, similar to deafening someone's hearing. When she could use her telepathic powers, she had none. Some Earthlings were psionic. The Rani had said that hundreds of years after her generation, the previous species had psychic abilities. They communicated solely through chemical transmitted messages through the atmosphere. In fact, many Earthlings, the more primitive types, could actually absorb psychic energies and dampen them in the centuries to come.
By the twety fourth century, the Rani had said that Earthling civilization encompassed many star systems. System by system they had colonized a stellar cluster. In some of those systems, the government set up special preserves. Planets on which members of previous evolutions were kept, as a genetic race-bank. A living library set to represent the past, so the ruling species would not forget from whence they came. Was Raina now a psycho damper? No longer just a normal Earthling? Karakulians moved with Psycho kinetic power. She somehow must have jammed the Karakulian's ability to move, back in the cell. Slowly she reached out with her mind. To reach out to Callom. Through the courtyard of her mind she felt his presence, somewhere close by.
*Raina . . .
*Callom! Are you all right?
*Aye. Ace 'n me r coming to save you 'n the Doctor.
*If you try and come in, they'll shoot me. I've got some sort of booby trap attached . . .
*Ace says she'll try and deal with it. I'll be creatin a distraction. You'll have to slip away with her. . . .
*Where are you now?
*Safe 'n well.
"Where did you say those labs were?"
"I thought you knew, sport," she said, hands on her hips. He streaked past her in a blur of black and green, almost sliding like a runner into home plate. "Come back here."
"I dinna remember the coordinates," he admitted.
Ace sighed. Shook her head. "It's that way."
Callom narrowed his eyes. Stopped still. "Sh. I hear something. One of them Karakulians is coming our way."
"Come on, man, don't hang about!" she cried, grabbing his arm, and pulling him along for a change.
Begorra, could she run fast! This eighteen-year-old gal tugged a Highland Scot after her down a bare metal corridor. Her Doc Martins pounded faster and faster, followed by the thump of his rough leather shoes and argyle socks. In the backpack slung over her shoulder rattled the cans of Nitro-9 he had brought her.
Shadows slid down the wall ahead of them. Ace threw her arm back, pressing him against the wall next to her. Five tense minutes they pressed close together, listening for the eerie soundless gliding of the mini-tanks.
"Nearly had us there," she whispered. "Good going, kid."
"Feels like they dinna ken we're here."
"They have an infrared scanning device," said Ace. "I saw it in the lab. They'll catch us sooner or later."
"How much further to the labs?"
"About fifty meters," she said, glancing at the plastic map.
Now and then Callom would catch himself looking at her. A funny hot flush would rise in his cheeks. That type of looking where he found himself watching the sway of her hips as she ran. Or how her breasts curved under her T-shirt. How her thighs smoothly filled out her spandex leggings. Physically she was really nice to look at. What he'd call, bonnie. He was uncomfortable with these thoughts. Yet he realized somehow they must be part of the pushed maturation. An overwhelming instinctual attraction to the opposite sex.
He sensed from her thoughts that she was looking at him similarly. Such thoughts were difficult to screen out. They were so loud underneath her conscious ones, despite the urgency of their situation. Here they were, trying to save two people's lives, and they were thinking of how attractive the other looked. Using her as a mirror, he caught a visual image of how she saw him. Peculiar. Mirrors can lie, but a person's perception told him volumes. Callom looked great in those tartans. She thought the way his kilt swirled around him as he walked was . . . well, sensual. In her decade, men with long hair were common. He'd pulled his back into a braid like Johnny Tremain.
Callom was impressed. She actually had read that book. The same lass who didn't bother reading old stuff, off a scholastic list. In contrast, he devoured every classic he could lay hands on.
Scolding himself, he struggled to block out the pictures he was receiving. As a side effect, his telepathic discernment was increased. What his culture referred as the scrying ability or discernment.
"Hey, kid! Wake up!"
"Sorry. Where's the Doctor bein held?"
"In a lab near Raina's. . ." ***