The Cadaverites

by ComsatAngel

Trying to find out the truth behind an alleged massacre and The Dark Children, the Third Doctor travels to a provincial Russian town in the Soviet Union in 1969. He is escorted by a UNIT officer. The pair find themselves trapped in a town under siege, fi

5. Chapter 5

NINE

Colonel Stefan was a hard man. He had seen action as a junior officer in Hungary, again in Czechoslovakia as a Spetznaz officer and in several unofficial "encounters" on the Sino-Soviet border. He was rated as "Politically Reliable", which had allowed him to travel abroad and see the non-Communist world.

None of which gave him the needed experience to cope with what he found in Trevilho. The pilot had called him up to look out of the cockpit when they approached the isolated town, a vista of flame and sudden flurries of sparks. The only area large and well-lit enough to land on was the town square, where hordes of people fled from the helicopter.

The paratroopers set up a tent, hammering pegs into the cobble's corners, and Stefan used that for his headquarters, with the radio behind a partition. Several of the cowering refugees in the square were brought in for questioning, which amounted to – in the Colonel's opinion – complete nonsense.

'Aliens? Monsters? Vampires?' he burst out, reading transcripts.

'The stories are consistent, sir,' commented Sergeant Vlassov, equally non-plussed.

'Get the mayor here. And that MVD officer, Kopensky. And the KGB station members.'

Only the mayor and Kopensky arrived, none of the KGB agents being discovered, with two more people in tow – the mine's engineer and a driller. They confirmed the previous stories, which only annoyed the colonel even more. A conspiracy!

'Do you have any proof of these – these frankly insane allegations?' he asked the quartet.

No. They did not. No prisoners, no bodies, nothing except wild stories.

Then, to make matters more complex, a dangerously-driven BTR came skidding into the square, containing and carrying people who had supposedly been taken prisoner at the mine. Two of the escapees were strangers who claimed to come from Moscow Centre, or the GRU.

Those two strangers now sat, handcuffed to folding chairs, under the hostile gaze of the colonel. He would find out the truth! The only action Colonel Stefan took that consoled the Doctor was sending the mine escapees over to the makeshift medical room in the town hall.

The Doctor felt guilt at managing to get John into such a pickle. He recognised the Colonel as a man with influence and information at his fingertips, one who couldn't be blustered or flustered into accepting the travellers stories.

'We'll deal with who and what you are later. Currently, my brief comes from the Politburo itself. Find out what is happening here. A simple request. And what do I hear in return? Utter nonsense! You could fertilise the fields with the answers I'm getting!'

In a simple gesture that contained unspoken menace, he indicated a small table, covered with a green surgical cloth, upon which lay a metal bowl containing several syringes.

'If you two start to talk fairy-tales, I promise you an especially hard interrogation. Now. What has been going on here?'

The Doctor sighed.

'Really, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

'Oh no? No harder to believe than oupirs and white devils.'

'Look at the BTR,' interrupted John. 'It wasn't mountain mist doing the damage.'

'Then what was it!'

'Alien prisoners held captive for five hundred years until mining operations released them,' stated the Doctor flatly.

'They've been attacking the town at night,' added John helpfully.

'Indeed. That would explain the sudden lack-of-attack when I arrive, would it? They're so scared of the Guards Airborne?'

The two travellers suddenly became aware of an aural absence – no sounds of battle tonight.

'Have they given up?' asked John, looking at the Doctor. Sergeant Vlassov smacked the back of John's head.

'No talking to each other,' he growled.

Colonel Stefan shrugged. Alright, they wanted to play silly games. Let the gloves come off. The white-haired one, who called himself the Doctor, got a full syringe. The big man, pretty obviously a soldier, got another syringe.

Ten minutes later, they were both repeating the same story. The ex-soldier could barely focus and slurred badly, but the Doctor seemed bored. Privately and worriedly the colonel doubted if the mysterious stranger noticed any effects from the drugs.

'John, are you alright? Can you hear me?' asked the Doctor, concerned at John's reaction to the so-called truth drug. The dosage had been dangerously high, sufficient for even himself to feel a slight effect.

'Shuttup. No talking to each other,' growled Sergeant Vlassov again, moving behind the Doctor to deliver a slap.

The blow never fell. Instead they all heard a loud "pop" from outside, a small hole appeared in the rear of the tent and Sergeant Vlassov fell clumsily over the Doctor from behind, overturning the chair and spilling the Time Lord on the ground. Another two "pops" sounded, adding more holes in the tent wall.

Colonel Stefan knew that sound well – a silenced pistol.

'Sentry!' he yelled, ducking low and drawing his own pistol, just as a terrific bang sounded in the next partition and the tent walls bulged outwards and inwards under the force of an explosion.

Slowly, carefully, the Doctor pushed himself away from the cold stone cobbles, taking an inventory of how he felt. The handcuffs, cheaply-made chrome steel, had fractured under the force of the blast and left him free to move.

There had been an explosion, after the unfortunate non-com fell dead over him, he remembered.

Well, here he was still alive, if somewhat stunned and with his ears giving off a contant ringing tone, like a faulty telephone. To his left lay John, stretched prone but groaning healthily – at least to judge from the movement of his lips. The body of Sergeant Vlassov had fallen over the Doctor, partially shielding him from the blast and shrapnel. Sadly, not knowing the man's name, the Time Lord pushed the body free.

Another man lay stretched on the cobbles ahead of him – Colonel Stefan.

John first: pulse strong, good pupillary response, no bones broken. Part of the officer's problem was the unidentified drug used for the interrogation – that would work it's way out of his system gradually.

Colonel Stefan was out cold, a nasty bruise on one temple where he'd hit the cobbles hard. The Doctor pulled him into a classic recovery position, also taking care to acquire the officer's pistol.

Seconds later other paratroopers raced into the tent, checking for the hidden assassin, only then paying attention to the victims. From overhearing their unguarded chatter, the Doctor ascertained that the radio operator was dead, and his radio smashed.

'I'm quite alright, thank you,' he told them with some ascerbity, his hearing back to normal. 'Your Colonel is unconcious. Don't move him un-necessarily.'

Of course they ignored that advice, hefting the inert officer away to a campbed, throwing water on his face until he spluttered awake.

'What! Am I a garden plant?' he coughed angrily, jerking off the bed. 'Enough water.' He took a step towards the Doctor and wobbled uncertainly on his feet. 'One thousand curses! What the hell happened!'

'A grenade, sir,' explained a nervous non-com. 'Killed Corporal Streckvic, wrecked the radio.'

The Doctor watched anxiously as the colonel rubbed his bruise, wincing.

'Aren't you missing something, Colonel?' he asked, calmly. The Russian glared at him, a high-wattage glare that would have served to fry eggs. 'Here. I picked it up whilst checking your pulse,' and he proffered the Tokarev. Stefan snatched it, checked the magazine, racked the slide, checked the safety and called over the nervous non-com.

'See this?' he asked, waving the pistol under the soldier's nose.

'Yessir,' replied the soldier, blinking.

Stefan gestured at the Doctor.

'So did he, and a bloody sight quicker than you, you elephant's arse! Get out of my sight.'

The soldier left, speedily.

More paratroopers were milling around, searching for the mystery killer. Stefan kept a wary eye on the Doctor, taking reports from his handful of men, before dismissing them and walking slowly and carefully to the ex-captive.

'You could have killed me,' he announced. The Doctor nodded. 'Or escaped.' Another nod. 'Yet you chose to stay here. Okay. You are not who you claim to be, that much is obvious. However, nor do you seem to be hostile to the Soviet Union or it's citizens. I cannot make you out.'

The Doctor looked hard at the officer, who stared at the cobbles for long seconds.

'Who would try to kill you, that's my first question. The second question is who would want to destroy our radio. Any suggestions?'

'Your radio!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'The explosion destroyed your radio?' Stefan gave a puzzled nod, not understanding the excited response.

'I went up to the mine, Colonel, only partly out of concern for prisoners. The big personnel carrier had a radio in it, which we needed. There was no other way to communicate with the outside world once the Cadaverites destroyed Trivelho's telephone system.'

The Colonel looked interested, cocking his head to one side and ferreting in a pocket for cigarettes.

'Go on, go on.'

'I found the radio and it was intact before I entered the mine. By the time we left again it had been smashed. Deliberately, by the Cadaverites. Now, why do they do that?'

'Isolation,' replied the officer, lighting up his cigarette. 'Cut off all communication and you isolate the target group.' He puffed away for several seconds. 'Never been in the target group before, though.'

'We can't drive out of town?' asked the Doctor.

Stefan laughed a short, barking laugh.

'Not likely! The MVD and Red Army are under orders to shoot to kill without warning. The Kremlin thinks an outbreak of some hideous disease that turns people into homicidal maniacs has taken hold here.'

Not too far from the truth, said the Doctor to himself.

'And why kill you?' asked the colonel, coolly turning the situation around.

A harder question to answer.

'Simple revenge. I got those people out of the mine, along with John. They didn't like that.'

Colonel Stefan sat down next to the mysterious stranger and finished his cigarette, thinking. Comrade Poskrebyshchev brought the information straight from Comrade Kosygin; do not trust local organs of state security or administration, they may be compromised, in fact we do not feel able to trust any of the local agencies; maintain as complete a divorce from them as you can. Here was a stranger, without any paperwork, who knew more about the disaster than any local, yet who hadn't been here until two days ago.

'You're not local, are you?' he asked.

'Eh? Local?' replied the Doctor, a little nonplussed. 'No. Not at all, not in any way even near local.'

'Good. Listen, then. As you know, you were the target of a gunman. My soldiers can't identify the killer. He hid amongst the people crowded into the square outside, fired off his shots from a silenced pistol to prevent being located and rolled a grenade at the tent wall. Luckily for all of us the fabric has an inner lining of woven steel fibres. Once the grenade went off the mystery killer used the crowd's panic to escape.'

All of this gave the Doctor pause for thought. Indeed, who might want him dead?

This train of thought suffered an interruption, in the shape of an earnest soldier.

'Sir! We have one of the KGB unit members!'

'Whoopee,' came a slurred comment from John. 'Wave some flags.'

The KGB member in question turned out to be Zhadov, a very annoyed and dirty Zhadov. His shaven head practically glowed under the illumination of the town square lights, his personal folding-stock AK47 was held by a paratrooper.

'And you are?' asked the colonel, standing up and holding his cigarette like a baton.

'Captain Osip Zhadov, Komitet Gosudarstvenoi Bezopasnosti,' came the crisp reply. 'Detained whilst sweeping Trevilho outskirts for enemy activity. '

"Sweeping" turned out to be an euphimism for trawling town limits for either wreckage or survivors.

'You are guilty of conspiracy and looting,' declared Colonel Stefan. 'Not to mention attempted murder, murder, assault, theft of livestock, crossing state boundaries without an internal passport and behaving in a manner unbecoming to the organs of state security.'

To the Doctor's interest, Zhadov didn't crumple at these allegations, nor did he become less angry or even try to get on better terms with the Colonel. In fact he came out with a string of curses that made interesting listening.

'What do you think you're doing, arresting a KGB officer!' he ended. 'Livestock?' came a few seconds later.

'I am here at the request of the very highest political levels, Captain Zhadov. KGB Headquarters cannot make out any sense of what you idiots have been transmitting to them, so a man on the spot was needed. Me.'

The bald man frowned, crinkling his brow and the top of his head.

'Don't blame me, Zelinski has been doing all the communicating with you people. He made damn sure of that. Those monsters are pretty hard to credit, yes, I grant you that.'

The colonel's moustache twitched with restrained annoyance.

'What bloody monsters! That's half the reason I'm here – silly nonsense taken to extremes.'

Zhadov frowned even more deeply, corrugating his pate.

'Er – then Moscow Centre hasn't been telling us to keep it secret? That's what Major Zelinski told us.'

The colonel glared again.

'Comrade Zhadov, Major Zelinksi's last radio message consisted of the figure one transmitted two-hundred and eighty seven times! He is of unsound mind and cannot be relied upon. Which is why I am here!' said the colonel, the last sentence in a near-shout.

'Ah. Then he didn't tell you about it,' said Zhadov. 'The captive. The monster we have in the basement,' he added hurriedly, seeing the other man's face begin to purple. The interesting hue on Stefan's face disappeared instantly he heard what the KGB officer said. Eyes could be seen swivelling amongst the soldier's of Stefan's paratroop contingent.

'Isn't that a Hammer film?' slurred John. The Doctor didn't know if the officer was being insulting or hallucinating. Regardless of that, he was shocked at the cavalier disregard of these Russians in keeping a live Cadaverite in the town hall.

'Good grief, man, are you serious! A live alien? Don't you know how appallingly dangerous these creatures are?'

The colonel looked similarly incredulous.

'Saints preserve us from idiots,' he seethed. 'Captain, do you really think that Moscow Centre would give orders to keep a hostile, alien, monstrous creature locked up in a provincial cellar? Do you really think that Dzerzhinsky Street is – is – is so stupid? They would snatch it from your hands!'

'No they wouldn't,' said Zhadov sulkily. 'They're nasty vicious things, these oupirs. It bit Zelinski.'

Colonel Stefan threw his head back and gritted his teeth in justified rage at the obstruction just uncovered.

The Doctor felt his jaw sag. They had allowed the Cadaverite to bite Zelinski – and now he knew who wanted him dead.

'Ah – Comrade Zhadov,' he began. 'Did your senior get the bite attended to? Treated with anti-biotics?'

Zhadov shook his head.

'It was only a nip. Look, I know what you're thinking, that maybe it took over our minds. No way – the patrol who blew it up also poked it's eyes out with bayonets. No mind powers without big red eyes.'

Patiently, the Doctor carried on.

'If the Cadaverite bit him, it transferred a quantity of genetic material into the bloodstream of your senior. Not enough to cause a transformation, not enough for replicative absorption, yet still enough to control his mind.'

Both Zhadov and Stefan looked at him with extreme intensity.

'Took over -,' said Zhadov, stopping and thinking. The messages to Moscow Centre consisting of gibberish were sent with him or Petrosian in the room, reassuring them that messages were being sent. Except that all of Zelinski's careful writing down of information, checking in his codebook, the relevant code alterations, the key transmissions, all of that was a masquerade. Intended to deceive himself and Petrosian.

'Then we have a rogue KGB officer on the loose,' reasoned Colonel Stefan. Putting the facts together he reached the same conclusion as the Doctor. 'Who just tried to kill you. And who killed Corporal Streckvic and Sergeant Vlasssov.'

The Doctor nodded. Who else, after all, had access to silenced pistols and grenades? Who else might be acting on orders to kill the Time Lord, who knew entirely too much about Karausians and Cadaverites for the latter's comfort?

'What a nest of poison toads!' said Stefan, punching a fist into his palm. He called over a paratrooper and pointed at Zhadov, glancing at John.

'He comes with us to find this captive monster. So does the Doctor.'

'Can I ride on the pony?' asked John, drooling.

'Make sure he doesn't foul himself,' sighed Stefan, tutting and shaking his head. With three paratroopers alongside, they headed across the cobbles and through the crowd of nervous civilians towards the town hall.

'I take it you believe our story,' asked the Doctor, trying to keep up with Stefan's rapid pace. 'Or at the very least don't disbelieve it.'

The colonel went up the town hall steps at a dead run.

'I, Doctor, am an empiricist. What I can see and touch and taste – that's what I believe in. If you can show me your monster I'll be convinced.'

He stopped at the town hall entrance, speaking to the civilian sentries and displaying a photostated identity badge.

'Colonel Stefan, Guards Airborne. Major Zelinski has gone insane and killed one of my men. He is to be shot on sight.'

Neither of the two civilians bothered to question this order. The Doctor judged that Major Zelinski had made himself somewhat unloved in Trevilho over the years, sufficiently to mean his life was in the balance.

Once in the foyer, Stefan stopped and instructed people; he was in charge now, nobody else, Zelinski the traitor needed to be killed on sight, carry on. Three passing civilians and an MVD non-com were told to circulate and pass on the message.

'Colonel, if we want to know what these aliens know, we need Zelinski alive,' tried the Doctor, with little hope of succeeding.

The colonel paid more attention to Zhadov's back, leading the way to a door under one of the marbled stairways.

'Hey, Doctor, if you take him alive, good for you. Otherwise the incestuous whoreson is dead already.' Stefan recalled Corporal Streckvic, loyal and capable, flattening a huge Czech airforce mechanic armed with a giant metal spanner before he could hit the Major a second time –

The poorly-made door groaned loudly when they dragged it open, creaking on it's hinges. Stefan gave it a look that might have warped the very planks.

A feeble glow from a low-wattage bulb indicated rather than lit the way below them, on steep and wobbly wooden steps.

'Take care, the floor is uneven,' warned Zhadov. More bulbs, unequal to the task of illumination, hindered their way along the corridor. An earthy smell pervaded the corridor, signalling that the earth beneath their feet was literally earth beneath their feet.

'Quality Soviet workmanship,' muttered the Doctor, drawing a venemous glance from Colonel Stefan.

Zhadov waved a hand for silence. He made a hand gesture and pointed to a basement door narrowly ajar, brighter light from the interior spilling into the corridor in a lemon-yellow wedge. Two of the paratroopers took up positions on either side of the door, while the third kicked it open after listening intently at the jamb for seconds.

The Doctor followed the nervous soldiers into the room, recognising a radio – smashed apart and useless – and a huge mahogany table. An empty table. Wires plaited together dangled from the legs onto the basement floor.

A chorus of bitter curses came from Zhadov, who slapped his face, then punched the wall, startling the paratroopers. The cause of his pain and anger was hidden from the Doctor to begin with, until he edged around the table.

Another of the KGB officers, the Armenian – Petrosian, wasn't it? – lay dead on the floor, bullet holes across his chest. A look of implacable anger frozen on his face, the dead man's hands were clutched tightly, the nails full of scratched skin and blood.

The swearing that Zhadov let loose made his curses in the interrogation tent seem mild and uninventive.

'This blood is uncongealed,' declared the Doctor quietly, having a forensic inspection. 'Under the nails. See? We missed this by minutes.'

'Sir, these wires were cut. And here's the pliers that did it,' announced one of the soldiers, discovering a pair of pliers under the table.

So. The Doctor laid his thoughts and discoveries out in a blanket, seeking a pattern. Petrosian dead, killed by gunfire, not by alien tooth and claw; alien released by wire-cutting; radio smashed; no sign of Zelinski.

'I can guess what happened here,' he told Stefan, who looked faintly lost. No alien, no evidence, but a body and proof of murder. 'Petrosian discovers that Zelinski is being controlled by the alien, perhaps a discovery linked to the attack on us in the square. There is a confrontation. Petrosian is killed, but not before inflicting injuries on Zelinski, who then frees the alien captive on it's orders. Now, I speculate that the alien knows what Zelinski knows – that we have silver ammunition capable of killing it – and is not keen on a showdown with Colonel Stefan and his paratroopers.'

They left the basement room in a sombre mood, searching the other empty rooms that opened off the corridor, finding an ancient printing press in one room, a faded collection of parade banners in another. No alien in the basement. Back upstairs they went.

'It won't head for the town square,' declared the Doctor. 'The lights there will incapacitate or perhaps kill it.'

'The rear of the town hall, then,' replied Zhadov, as they emerged through the squeaking, creaking door again.

'No, I don't think so,' said the Doctor, pointing to the huge glass windows in the hall's atrium. A subtle pink flush in the sky heralded the dawn. 'The creature is stuck in here, with us.'

Silent until now, Colonel Stefan glanced around the atrium, seeing workers and MVD soldiers resting or sleeping. On his orders, the paratroopers went around the hall and rudely woke people, getting them to pair off in groups of four, giving each group a floor or suite of rooms to search. Not a small job; the town hall had three floors, each with dozens of rooms of varying sizes.

'We will search the building for Major Zelinski and a captive alien creature, both of whom are to be shot on sight. No warnings, no woundings, just immediate execution. Any questions no good, get to work.'

The Doctor stayed in the hall with Colonel Stefan. Privately he considered this search to be a serious mistake, putting more lives at risk. Nobody would pay any attention to him, not while the Colonel remained to glower at the hapless makeshift militia. Yet he might still be able to help if or when they tracked the Cadaverite down.

John watched the Doctor depart through slitted eyes. His gibberish had been put on for the benefit of the Russians; although his head felt as if a herd of horses had spent hours stamping on it, his thoughts were lucid.

Quite what he hoped to achieve by pretending to be chemically-stunned even he wasn't sure. Perhaps it was only his way of thumbing his nose at them. Thank the Lord Above that hatchet-faced Colonel hadn't gone about asking who "Big John" really was. "An officer from the British Army seconded to UNIT" would have gone down like the proverbial lead balloon.

Dimly, and belatedly, John became aware of a commotion in the square outside the tent. A woman's voice, shrill and angry, could be heard arguing with the paratrooper guarding the tent.

The next he knew, a firm and gentle touch lay upon his brow, accompanied by a stern tutting and a ceaseless flow of chatter.

'Idiots, to do such a thing, idiots, not thinking, using such strong drugs on a man unused to them, who helped get us out of the caves, and if the Doctor is hurt I shall never forgive myself, no, for not pushing past those wretched fur-hatted fools with guns, may ten thousand lice dance in their armpits – oh!'

For John had opened his eyes wide, recognising the voice of Masha.

'Hello there, fair lady,' he half-joked.

'Shh!' she hissed, quietly 'They think you're dead to the world, that's how I got in here.' 'Oh dear, still unconscious,' she added in a stage whisper. 'I came to try and help your companion, the Doctor. His life is in danger,' she continued near-silently.

'Trust me, we know that already,' replied John drily, remembering the explosion and the bullets before that. 'Ow!' he winced, as Masha twisted his earlobe sharply.

'Not before, not just now, you slug-witted booby! In the next five minutes. He faces death in the next five minutes, and you have to help him challenge it.'

Her voice carried absolute conviction.

'How do you know?' asked John, wanting to understand. The Russian woman stopped abruptly for a second, looking beyond John, beyond the tent, beyond the present.

'I – I just know. I just know. Ever since being in the tunnel, since then – I seem to see what will happen. Don't look at me like that!'

'Okay,' said John, suddenly jumping upright with the force and conviction of a man possessed, pulling his arms at right-angles from the folding chair, with such force that the handcuff links split apart in a welter of blood and metal. 'Okay.'

The paratrooper on guard darted back into the tent when he heard the metallic clang of rending metal. His progress out of the tent, propelled by John's mighty right uppercut, was equally swift.

'Very well, Masha. The Doctor is in peril, so we are going to ride to the rescue!' Not so hastily that he didn't steal the sentry's AK47 and a spade from the BTR.

TEN

How do Russians like the colour red, mused the Doctor, stuck in the Town hall lobby with Colonel Stefan, observing the socialist décor.

A very weary Evgeny Klimentov spotted the Doctor and came over, casting unwelcome glances at the colonel.

'Doctor Kuznetz. You have noticed that the monsters didn't attack in strength last night? Only a few score, who rapidly disappeared when we started to kill them with silver ammunition.' The exhausted engineer rubbed his eyes, partially disbelieving his own survival. 'Another day of reprieve, thanks to you. Good day, Comrade Colonel,' he finished, coldly, going off for a sleep.

A set of possibilities, probabilities and perhapses suddenly locked into place in the Doctor's mind.

'Colonel! Colonel, I've just realised why the Cadaverites kept destroying any radio they came across,' he called, insistency in his voice. Colonel Stefan, not betraying any of the emotion he felt, looked over at the Doctor.

'Really. Keep your revelations to yourself for the moment, until we track down and kill this monster.'

To himself, and reluctantly, the colonel admitted that, insane though it might sound, a killer alien monster loose in the town hall actually made sense at the moment. Momentarily he wished himself matching wits and bullets against the canny Magyar opposition of Budapest a dozen years ago; at least they were human. At which thought he looked at Doctor Kuznetz, who knew far too much about alien monsters for comfort, and who shrugged off truth-drugs like water, and who didn't seem human either, except in a positive way.

Enough! swore the colonel at himself. Enough, enough. That way lay counter-revolutionary madness.

Teams phoned back to the lobby: no alien, no Zelinski. Nothing in the basement, nothing on the ground floor, nothing on the first floor, nothing on the second floor.

Third floor?

No, not on the third floor either. The damn thing and Zelinski had gone to ground, hiding in the town hall.

'All searchers stay on their floor. I will send troops to look more closely.' The pair of paratroopers left in the hallway got sent down to the basement.

The Doctor checked his sonic screwdriver; fully recharged.

'Colonel, I want to go searching for this creature.'

'Armed with – what? A dentist's drill? You are going to extract it into submission!' sneered the officer. Wordlessly, the Doctor pointed the device and pressed the on button, and the colonel found his gums throbbing, his ears aching and his stomach clenching.

'Non-lethal infrasonics,' said the Doctor. 'At a higher frequency they will incapacitate or even kill the Cadaverite. And where we find the creature we find Zelinski.'

'Whom you want to take alive, eh? Get on with you!' snapped the officer, seeing through the other man's deceit. 'If we get to him first you can dig his grave.'

The Doctor didn't bother to deny his hope of taking the rogue agent alive. Instead he calmly reasoned where the two fugitives might be hiding. Not in the basement – a few empty rooms and the boiler-room, with nowhere to conceal a person. The ground floor included the atrium, the huge hallway and two impressive marbled staircases, all reducing the space available for hiding places. First floor first, then.

Under a series of huge paintings in the approved Social Realist style – Hero Workers Over-achieve Girder Production, Donbas Project is Completed Early, Peasants on the Collective Farm – the Doctor cautiously opened doors on a series of small rooms, sweeping the sonic device into them with no results. Next was a larger function room, mahogany chairs ranked around the walls to make way for the temporary medical centre set up there. Trestle beds, portable canvas screens and a portable X-ray machine took up the centre of the room, with a doctor and nurse attending to half a dozen of the mine escapees. The Doctor felt a sense of relief that they were being looked after, and gave them a reassuring nod when faces turned to look at him questioningly.

'Just testing,' he announced, sweeping the sonic screwdriver over the room. Three people swathed in bandages occupied the trestle beds; one with both legs wrapped, another with both arms wrapped and one with his entire head covered by the material, leaving only space for his eyes.

This last person jmuped upright in alarm and surprise when the sonic beam swept over him.

'Curious,' said the Doctor, puzzled for a second. The high-frequency beam fell beyond the range of human hearing. Unless, of course, that person's preceptions were skewed by being under the influence of alien DNA.

Suddenly there was a silenced automatic pistol in the man's hand.

'Zelinski!' shouted a voice, and the Doctor felt himself knocked sideways by a person tackling him. Someone large rushed past the prone Doctor, and he recognised John, wielding a – shovel?

'The tricky bit was getting past that hatchet-faced colonel,' explained John. 'So I hid my face behind the spade, and Masha leant on my arm.'

'I knew you were in trouble, and that awful man would try to kill you,' said Masha, hesitantly.

The Doctor pursed his lips and weighed the spade in his hand. Colonel Stefan could be heard approaching.

'I used the flat, not the edge, Doctor.'

'A good job too,' commented Masha, noting the large and bloody dent in the spade. 'If you used the edge you'd have cut him in two.'

Colonel Stefan and two paratroopers leapt into the room, weapons drawn.

John had already stripped the bandages from Zelinski's face and used them to tie his wrists together behind his back.

'You! What are you doing here!' barked the officer in disbelief. Seeing the unconscious Zelinski, he moved his mouth but no sounds came out.

'Doctor, would you mind applying a bandage or two?' asked John of Doctor Pavel, holding up his forearms, cut and bleeding where the handcuffs bit into the skin.

'Ah – yes. Ah – of course,' said the bewildered and frankly scared doctor.

'And see to that traitor,' snapped Stefan, checking the rest of the room suspiciously, finding no clue to the Cadaverite's whereabouts.

'Can he talk?' he asked Pavel, indicating Zelinski with an unwavering gun muzzle.

'No. Not now, with a fractured skull and concussion at the very least. He'd be dead if the bandages hadn't cushioned the blow.'

'You said we'd find the monster with him, this mythical horror I still haven't seen –' began Stefan's harangue, cut off short when he realised the Doctor not only wasn't paying attention but was more interested in Zelinski's hands.

'Very interesting,' commented the Doctor, taking one limp hand and inspecting the palm. He repeated this process with the other hand. Stefan controlled his impulse to arrest and execute this meddler on the spot; the stranger knew more than he admitted, a lot more. Sooner or later he'd tell what he knew.

'What's so interesting?' asked John, puzzled.

'Look at his brow,' instructed the Time Lord. 'Sweaty. His palms are sweaty, where they aren't burnt or cut. His clothes are damp with sweat.' Pavel appeared with a thermometer.

'His temperature is too high,' said the nervous Czech. 'With no reason. No fever, the surroundings are not hot, he should not be so hot. And look at this,' he finished, showing Zelinski's wrist, which displayed a puncture wound. The skin around had gone dead white, the colour of cooked chicken.

'He needs a good dose of anti-biotics,' recommended the Doctor. 'For the moment, however, he is morphologically attuned to the Cadaverite which inflicted that injury.'

Nobody understood.

'What he feels, it will feel, and vice-versa.'

Masha sniggered.

'Then it must have a terrible headache! Poor thing, eh?'

The Doctor nodded in wry amusement.

'Yes, quite. And since he feels hot, so must our unpleasant alien visitor.'

All eyes and thoughts turned to the boiler-room.

'There was nothing down there,' said one of the paratroopers. 'It's an empty room.'

In answer the Doctor pointed to Zelinski's hands, scratched by recent sharp objects, burnt by the same objects.

'These injuries were suffered in dealing with metal laminates, presumably during the alien's escape.'

None of the paratroopers remained to hear what else the Doctor had to say, heading off at a trot.

'Really! I wish these people would stop to pay attention to what I tell them!' finished the Doctor, crossly. 'That creature may well kill them all. Come on, you two, we have an alien to catch and a few stupid soldiers to save.'

He ran after Colonel Stefan and his two soldiers, John and Masha following him in turn, down the marbled staircase, where onlookers stared at them in puzzlement and suspicion, through the squeaking basement door and down the steep steps beyond, risking a fall in the feeble light.

Access to the boiler room was via a large metalled door at the very end of the corridor, now ajar. Wary of running into a trap or crossfire, the threesome slowed and peered into the room beyond.

The boiler-room was not well-lit, and tangles of narrow-bore piping gave it the appearance of a symmetrical jungle. A massive red cuboidal object in the room's middle was the boiler itself, with a furnace glowing ruddily at one end. Big pipes carried hot water from the boiler for the building's heating system, and dials and meters were stuck at various portions of the engine's anatomy. Colonel Stefan and his two soldiers were pointing their weapons at man-high, dirty metal bins lined up against the far wall.

'Coal bins,' hissed Masha in a whisper. 'Locked shut to stop people stealing the coal.'

Yes, and Zelinski wouldn't have the keys, so the fugitive isn't going to be in there, reckoned the Doctor in half a second. Nor would the bins be hot inside.

'That creature is hiding close to the boiler or furnace,' he told them. He cleared his throat, theatrically, before entering the room. Unsurprisingly he discovered three guns pointed at him.

'Over there,' he indicated with a forefinger, keeping his hands (and eyebrows) raised. 'The boiler or furnace.'

Suspicion oozing from every pore, the three soldiers circled the combined furnace and boiler, not finding any suspicous aliens.

'I see no creature,' commented the colonel, uncocking his pistol and holstering it. 'Eh, Doctor?'

Without speaking, the Time Lord strode over to the boiler, looking at the bulk of the machine. He walked around it, nursing one elbow and rumantively chewing a nail.

There! A panel nearly level with the floor, held in place with four screws, one at each corner. The screw's notches were dirtied, but insufficiently to conceal the fact that they had been extracted recently. A closer look at the floor revealed tiny crimson paint scrapings, no doubt chiselled from the screws.

'Excellent!' breathed a voice in his ear, smelling of tobacco and garlic. Colonel Stefan, of course, leaning over his shoulder and glaring with chracteristically ruthless intent.

A gesture later and the two other soldiers stood a few paces from the panel, levelling their guns at it, to the horror of the Doctor.

'No! You mustn't –' he shouted, cut short and drowned out by the enormous hammering din of the automatic weapons fired in the confined space. Big bright splotches appeared on the metal panel where the metal flaked off, centred around black holes where the bullets punctured the metal.

With a shriek like a punctured kettle, the metal panel flew out from the body of the boiler, catching the Doctor squarely on and knocking him to the floor. In turn, John and Masha behind him were unceremoniously flattened, Masha's knife and John's spade flying loose along the uneven concrete floor.

From the narrow space thus revealed, a spitting, bleeding, threshing alien creature erupted in a frenzy of hatred, diving directly at the Doctor. The hapless Stefan intercepted the monster, drawing his pistol fractionally too late to be of use. Both he and the alien rolled across the floor in a flurry of limbs, the pistol going off twice to no useful effect.

Masha, recovering faster than anyone else, lunged for Avtandil's silver-bladed knife. The two paratroopers stood stupidly looking at the Cadaverite, one of it's hands around Stefans throat, which glared back at them, and their eyes went glassy. They both raised their guns and proceeded to shoot each other dead in a mutual exchange of fire that deafened everyone once more. One fell backwards over Masha, pinning her to the floor as the Doctor struggled to his feet, nursing his battered shins. The Cadaverite, utterly unbothered by Stefan shooting it in the chest five times, stood up, loosening the grip it had on the officer. He stood a little erratically, glassy-eyed and levelled his gun at Masha.

The Doctor realised the creature feared the silver weapon above all else, and intended to kill the person who held it, by proxy and at a distance, using the colonel. Silently the Doctor concentrated his own mental powers, not so outmatched as when in the BTR, putting up a shield between Stefan and the creature. The colonel wobbled visibly on his feet, crossing his eyes in a way that might have been comical had the situation not been so serious.

A venemous hiss came from the Cadaverite, and it lunged forward.

Too late! The Time Lord's distraction had lasted long enough for John to catch up his spade, which he swung like an axe, putting twenty stone of muscle, fear and hatred into the stroke. The alien's head leapt from it's shoulders in a gout of black blood, the body crumpled messily onto the floor and Colonel Stefan shook himself back to normality.

'There's your evidence,' said the Doctor, short of breath and with his ears ringing after the gunfire. 'I was going to stun it with my sonic screwdriver until you started shooting, in which case your men would be alive and so would it.'

The silent officer looked incredulously at the remains, rubbing his throat where great red weals showed how he'd been near death. Just to be on the safe side, he dealt the body a resounding kick.

'Decapitation,' said John, hefting the spade. 'Seen it in Hammer horror films. Kills vampires.'

'When you've quite finished,' said Masha, still trapped under the soldier's body. John pushed the corpse aside with little ceremony.

'Up you come, love,' he said, brushing the coal dust and dirt from her dress. Masha knocked his hand away.

'I can manage that and don't get too familiar, for all your airs and graces, young man.'

'Oh. Ah – yes, sorry,' stamered John.

The colonel might have been brutal and ruthless, but he wasn't stupid or blind to the reality of what had just happened.

'Incredible,' he muttered hoarsely, rubbing his neck again. 'A monster out of myths. An oupir.' He darted quick glances at both John and the Doctor.'It didn't affect either of you.'

The Doctor waved a hand wearily.

'I am naturally immune. Ivan here was protected by a contra-hypnotic induction. Really, you don't need to worry about us being controlled.'

By lunchtime the bodies had been brought out of the boiler-room, the two soldiers to lie under a tarpaulin, the Cadaverite to lie in two body bags sewn together. The Colonel used the helicopter's radio to make a call to his headquarters, and came back in a subdued mood.

'We're being recalled to Moscow to make a direct, face-to-face report.'

'Before you go, Colonel, let me tell you what I have deduced about those creatures. They actually want to have you destroy the town and mine with nuclear weapons!'

'Eh? What in the name of the devil's grandmother would they want that for!' exclaimed the officer, bewildered.

'The why I cannot understand, not yet. Given time and a question and answer session with our renegade Zelinski, I may be able to find out.'

A scowl crossed the Colonel's face at the mention of the KGB officer, currently in jail under armed guard. A score remained to be settled there, obviously.

'Enough. I go to report to the Minister of the Interior, in person, with his staff in attendance.' Delivered in a gloomy tone, with more frowning.

'Surely that's a good thing!' exclaimed the Doctor.

'I don't know. The facts are more frightening than the rumours. All I can do is present the facts to the Minister. Expect me back tomorrow.' With the surviving paratroopers he climbed back into the helicopter, turning to give a salute to John and a wave to the Doctor.

'A troubled man,' commented Masha, a hitherto silent witness to the departure. The helicopter's take-off drowned out any more comments she might have wanted to say.

Privately the Doctor agreed. The Colonel's ordered, structured and regulated world had come apart dramatically in providing him with the proof he so desperately sought. Who could guess what this revelation would do in the highest councils of the Kremlin? What it wouldn't do was prevent the town's annihilation; that much remained a cast-iron guarantee.

'I am off for a couple of hours gonk,' declared John. 'I've been blown up, knocked flat, pumped full of drugs and driven by a madman sitting on top of a truck. I'm bushed.'

He got ready to set off back to the town hall.

'Wait a second, Big Man,' scolded Masha. 'You've not eaten yet. Come and have some schi before you have a sleep.'

' "She"?' replied John, mishearing.

' "Gonk"?' replied Masha, picking up on the slang.

'Cabbage soup,' called the Doctor over his shoulder, grinning slightly. John might be off for lunch and a lie down; there remained Zelinski to be dealt with.

The jail turned out to be a squalid affair, a barred cell that smelt like a toilet, where the miserable, sullen bandage-headed Zelinski sat chained to a plank bench, his feet chained together, and a chain from that to a chain around his wrists. An unshaven civilian sentry loitered outside the cell, smoking coarse tobacco in a pipe, casting hateful glances at the prisoner.

'I wonder, can I have some privacy, please?' asked the Doctor. The scruffy sentry looked taken aback at the suggestion. 'All I want to do is talk to the prisoner through the bars. No risk of him escaping. You can even stand at the end of the corridor to keep watch on us.'

To persuade the man – perhaps bribe might be closer – the Doctor suddenly discovered a leathern pouch of tobacco in his pocket, part of the miscellany he carried and forgot about until needed.

'Genuine British shag,' he explained, passing the pouch over. 'From one of HMS Victory's midshipmen, if I recall correctly,' he added, in a quieter tone.

Pulling over a crudely-made wooden stool, he took up station outside the cell, casting a careful eye over the prisoner, who looked back with resignation.

'Come to gloat, have you.'

The Doctor shook his head.

'Not at all. No. You see, I think you can help redeem yourself.' Zelinski merely grunted. 'While the alien controlled you, there was a two-way link between you. It suffered when you were knocked unconscious, and you got hot when it hid next to the boiler. Do you see what I mean?'

'No,' replied Zelinski, not sounding interested in anything at all.

'Oh, come on, man! It knew what you knew – you know what it knew. A mutual mind-link. Check your memories. Check them!'

A sneer appeared on Zelinski's sullen face, to be gradually replaced by a look of mixed amazement and horror as he sorted across the memories in his mind and found more there than there ought to be, much more.

'What is this!' He stared, awe-struck, at the Doctor. 'These things I know – how can this be?'

Patiently, the Doctor explained. A mutual telepathic link, which gave each participant reciprocal access to memories and thoughts. In the case of Zelinski, his mind had been completely in thrall to the far more powerful alien, yet his link gave him access to the alien's memories – and via that alien's telepathic link with all other aliens, to their collective intent.

'They want the mine to be attacked. They want it to be destroyed. They see a way out of their prison, with you as the cause, Doctor.'

Naturally taken aback, the Doctor stayed silent at first.

'You destroyed the roof,' continued Zelinski. 'You gave them an inspiration.'

He carried on, talking faster and faster, his voice rising with a touch of hysteria, until the Doctor rapped sharply on the cell bars.

'Stop that! Alright, Zelinski, I mentioned that you could try to redeem yourself. It seems that you have. Now I need to.'