FIFTEEN
Evgeniy and Avtandil sought out John, whom they found working on the BTR's turret from the outside. Valentin, the old army officer, was rattling and banging inside the turret. Curious children stood around looking intently at the activity. Finally the big machine gun slowly disappeared inside the turret, to be shoved out of a door by Valentin. John carried and laid it flat on the cobbles, taking charge of a long belt of ammunition that Valentin brought out.
'We desperately need cable,' began Evgeniy.
'So we're going up to the mine to get it,' finished Avtandil.
'The Doctor is staying here in Trivelho, but we thought you might like to come along,' continued the mine manager. He pointed at the machine gun. 'You can bring your friend.'
'Okay,' replied John. 'I am not going to carry and fire it simultaneously. No way.' He certainly wasn't – he'd done that very thing in an emergency once and still had back pains from it. 'Plus no silver bullets.'
'Given the size of that thing and the bullets it fires, you won't need silver,' commented Avtandil wryly.
There was no reply from John, who stared curiously at an MVD soldier who had come out of the town hall. The man seemed familiar in a strange way, despite the scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face.
'The Doctor,' explained Evgeniy, leaning in close to whisper. 'Disguised to prevent that GRU spy from discovering him.'
Walking rapidly from one pole to another, the MVD-besuited Doctor began to check the overlay of the net, before moving on to the adapted aerials. They had to be accurately positioned individually, and tied into the energy grid with cables that wouldn't fuse or melt when suddenly full of current. The parabolic dishes had to be spaced out equidistantly on the edge of the grid, with a common focus at the centre of the grid. Nobody else could be trusted to do the work, especially since nobody else knew what the Doctor was doing or how the whole arrangement worked – an omission that the Time Lord deemed essential. If people survived this event then he didn't want them having prior knowledge of technology from the far future.
John was appalled at the noise of the aerosan; the confined space and stink of diesel and overheated lubricants he coped with. He diligently went at the banana-sized machine gun rounds with a metal file.
Evgeniy brought along an axe, whilst Avtandil carried a single-barrel shotgun borrowed from the civilian militia, loaded with silver shot.
'Do you know where this cable is?' asked John. 'I don't want to have to search for it, not lugging this gun around.'
'Oh, yes. In the mechanic's stores,' replied Evgeniy, with an air of assurance.
'We hope,' added Avtandil in a mutter, barely audible above the engine.
The upward incline of the approach road to Nickel Extraction Combine Number One was gentle enough for the aerosan to travel up it, at a reduced rate.
'Don't worry, we'll be able to leave all the faster,' shouted the leather-faced driver. The noisy vehicle got even noisier as the rising walls on either side reflected the engine sound back at them. The driver slowed and swung them in a big arc around the rear of the power plant once they reached the quarry proper, coming to a stop next to the mechanic's stores, engine running.
'Get it pointed at the exit and don't turn the engine off!' instructed Evgeniy. The trio of passengers set off warily, Avtandil carrying the muzzle end of the machine gun.
'Oh dear,' murmured Evgeniy, stopping in front of the stores building. The wooden doors were open, a padlock and chains lay shattered and scattered on the ground and there were narrow naked footprints visible in the quarry floor. Less remarked were sets of caterpillar tracks.
'Beware of ambush,' warned John. 'There could be one or two or a whole flock of those creatures inside, safe from the sun.'
Just to be on the safe side, he motioned Evgeniy back. The unfortunate Avtandil had to carry the muzzle end of the machine gun, in the space made by cocking an elbow out to one side and clasping both hands together.
'Open your mouth,' warned John. He hefted the weapon and fired a short burst, swinging the muzzle left to right across the front of the wooden building. Splinters flew about, Avtandil swore in Georgian as the gun barrel grew hot and his ears were assaulted, and a muted shriek came from the sheds.
'That's one of them,' shouted Evgeniy, clutching his axe all the tighter. John swapped his over-sized machine gun for Avtandil's shotgun and indicated that Evgeniy pull the left-hand door fully open with his axe-blade. More shrieks sounded from within the shed as daylight swept in, revealing a Cadaverite cringing and hissing in a corner, away from the bright bars of daylight coming in through bullet-holes. Without ceremony, John shot the squalling creature dead.
Evgeniy peered in round the open doors, making a small sound of surprise. John looked around also, seeing empty racks and hooks, bare shelves and rifled cabinets.
'Stripped. They've taken all the stores,' said Evgeniy, anxiously casting around. 'Except these!'
The relief in his voice was obvious; "these" referred to a stack of cable drums stored one atop the other in a corner. The drums were extremely heavy, but under Evgeniy's guidance they were rolled out to the waiting aerosan, then into the rear up a couple of planks. When all six drums were in, the vehicles crude suspension was visibly lower. All three men were sweaty and tired, and mistakenly stayed outside the aerosan to catch their breath.
'I wonder why they pinched all the stores,' asked Evgeniy.
'And left a creature in that shed,' added Avtandil. 'Almost like a sentry.'
Guarding the cable? wondered John. Or keeping an eye out for human intruders?
The answer came abruptly into view around the side of the vehicle garage – the ancient Komsomolets tractor John had driven into the mine, now with the UV lamp removed, towing a trailer and sporting a strange, bulbous construction that compeletely enclosed the cab. The noise of the aerosan's engine had drowned out the approach of the tractor.
'In!' shouted John, practically throwing Evgeniy into the aerosan after Avtandil. The leather-faced driver, looking stunned, started away from the tractor. Lack of traction meant a slow start for the aerosan and for several agonised heartbeats they panicked that the far heavier tractor would catch and crush them. The walls of the power plant slid by to their left with mocking slowness; they barely managed to escape, turning in a wide arc again.
John felt his stomach flip when the driver slowed down.
'What are you doing! Keep going!'
'Not bloody likely, mate,' replied the driver, hotly. 'Just look where they parked.'
Having failed to catch the fleeing aerosan, the tractor had turned left at the power plant and made it to the quarry exit before them. Parked broadside on, together with the trailer it prevented the aerosan from leaving.
'They want that cable,' said Evgeniy. 'We were lucky those drums are so heavy; they had to get a trailer hitched to the tractor to tow them, and they had to go back into the mine to get a trailer.'
'Is that the old artillery tractor from town?' asked Avtandil. 'Because they've made it handle like a sports car. And stuck a black bubble on it. Doubtless to allow them to drive around in daylight.'
'It's our cable and they can't have it,' declared John.
'We can't get anywhere with our cable, however,' pointed out Evgeniy.
'Let's try a bit of shooting. Violence may persuade them to leave,' said John. With some effort a cable drum was shoved into the doorway, he rested the heavy machine gun on the drum, aimed as best he could and fired. No more than five rounds, one of which struck the strange black bubble on the tractor and ricocheted off, droning into the air like a bee. Another round struck the engine compartment, knocking up a cloud of dust.
The alien's response was immediate; the tow bar detached from the trailer and fell to earth with a dull clunk, the tractor turned fully against them and revved it's engine.
'Stop it!' shouted the driver. 'Don't get them charging at us, whatever you do. This thing can't reverse.'
A stalemate. The position endured for at least a minute.
'The Doctor needs the cable. The aliens want the cable. We can't carry it back to town. We can't get past that tractor.'
'And time is crucial,' added Evgeniy.
'Don't you have great big boxfuls of dynamite lying around in mines?' asked John. Avtandil nodded, then looked crestfallen.
'They would have been in the stores sheds.'
He suddenly perked up again, stuck his head out of the doorway and looked backwards into the quarry.
'Back in a minute,' he warned, jumping out and striding off towards the power plant.
'Keep clear of the buildings. There may be more hiding,' called Evgeniy. He turned to face John. 'Really, I have no idea what he's doing.'
John poked his head out of the doorway. The Georgian had warily approached the power plant, keeping away from the building and instead walking up behind it to the pair of big fuel tanks, each the size of a single-decker bus that sat there. He checked gauges on the side of each, kicked them for good measure and came hurrying back to the others.
'Boss, we got a fuel delivery a fortnight ago, didn't we? And since this emergency came up we haven't been using it in any great quantities. Well, those tanks have at least twenty tonnes of fuel in them. I say we release it all and set it alight, roast that tractor and the monsters in it.'
'What a horrid idea!' exclaimed Evgeniy.
'I like it,' stated John. 'But they might just reverse out of trouble. You'd need to get a lot of fuel running before setting it alight.'
'Don't you lot of bloody maniacs start setting this thing alight! I warned you we can't reverse,' said the driver, alarmed. 'Whatever you think up better be quick. They might have other tractors.'
'I'm not worried about that,' replied Evgeniy. 'If they had other vehicles capable of travelling in sunlight then we'd have -'
'Piping!' shouted Avtandil, making the driver jump. 'Plastic piping, from the mine tunnels, used to carry cables bundled together.'
'Thank you for reminding me,' said Evgeniy. 'And?'
'Get a hundred metres, put one end under the fuel tank outlet and stretch the other end as near the tractor as possible. Open the valve, soak the tractor, set it alight.'
Realising that using a pipe in such a manner would avoid incinerating their aerosan, Evgeniy nodded.
'Let's get a move on then!' said John. 'Time matters.'
'Ah – the piping would have been in the stores shed. We'll need to actually go into the mine to get any.'
John stared very hard at Avtandil, who shrugged ruefully.
'Sorry. Only place to get it.'
'Well, you're going to be carrying the muzzle end of the Dushka, mate, because that mine entrance is going to be sprayed with bullets. For the record, I am not happy about this. Come on!'
Casting apprehensive glances backwards, Avtandil and John crept behind the power plant buildings, then kept heading north, which took them up and past the vehicle garage. This meant they could get to the mine entrance without being seen by the creatures in the tractor.
'Assume the position,' ordered John, cocking the machine gun. Avtandil reluctantly made an angle with his elbow poking out and John lodged the gun in the space thus created. 'Start walking forwards. Keep your eyes shut and your mouth open.'
The pair moved forward slowly, Avtandil stumbling thanks to the suggestion that he keep his eyes closed. John began firing at the cavernous mine entrance, short bursts of no more than three rounds. The tracers ricocheted around inside the interior like great glowing golf-balls, knocking great lumps of stone from the walls and throwing dust up.
One of the Cadaverites stood in the gloom within the tunnels just beyond daylight, hissing and gibbering at the two men, probably reporting back to it's brethren safer in the darker depths. John caught it with a lucky shot in the head, and the improvised dum-dum effect of the filed bullet shattered the creatures cranium apart. It fell dead, twitching slightly. Whether because of this or other reasons, they got into the tunnel without problem, where Avtandil sliced a great length of plastic tubing from the wall, looping it around his torso like a polythene python.
John, propping the unwieldy gun on stanchions hammered into the tunnel wall, felt uneasy that things had been so easy.
'This is too easy,' he commented to Avtandil when they were safely outside in daylight. 'I reckoned on a wave of them trying to swamp us.'
The Georgian laughed shortly and sagely.
'To be honest, Vanya, I think they are scared of you. For all their supposed mental powers and superhuman strength, you've killed altogether too many of them.'
There was a jaunty strut to the officer's walk before they got back to the aerosan.
'About time!' scolded Evgeniy. 'That damn tractor has been revving it's engine like nothing on earth. They'll try ramming us any minute now.'
'No they won't,' corrected John. 'Because they can't do a thing in daylight. They could very well crush us to pulp under the tracks of that thing, but they can't retrieve the cable drums until dark.'
'Stop gassing and pull this thing backwards, far as you can,' instructed the driver. 'Your genius with the plastic pipe didn't get a long enough piece.'
John and Evgeniy both delivered killer looks.
'You could always go back for more,' added Evgeniy, softly. The driver sat further upright in alarm.
'No way! No, no, I just meant he only got eighty metres or so of pipe instead of a hundred. We need to be further back or the aerosan'll get toasted.'
Avtandil was occupied in splicing pipe to the outlet valves of the diesel tanks. Currently he was concealed from the tractor-borne observers by the bulk of the aerosan, so John was loath to move the vehicle, even presuming that the two of them could shift it.
'It's a caravan on skis. It'll move easily,' said Evgeniy, jumping down outside.
'Easy enough for you to say,' complained John. 'Who here is biggest and has to pull hardest?'
Avtandil walking backwards, unreeling pipe, came past them.
'Don't just stand there, do something useful,' he called.
To the slight astonishment of both John and Evgeniy (if he were honest), determined pulling at the aerosan moved it backwards across the slush and ice of the quarry floor, six inches at a time.
'Yo heave-ho, yo heave-ho – just like the Volga Boat Song,' joked John.
Evgeniy looked at him with an expression of incomprehension that said: ah, yes, Ukranian humour.
Avtandil darted back past them to the diesel tanks and turned on the valves with the aid of a hammer, since the parts were rusted and slow to move. Small streams of fuel shot into the air from the poorly-fitting joints where the pipe had been rammed into the valves, the piping began to twist and writhe like a living thing and Evgeniy asked:
'How do we light it?'
The quick answer was the heavy machine gun. The tracer rounds it fired would light anything as flammable as diesel.
John carried his weapon to the front of the aerosan, where he could see the blue plastic pipe not five yards distant, gushing a continuous stream of stinking diesel fuel, which formed a sluggish stream that ran down the exit road. Because of the approach road's angle, the fuel ran fairly rapidly, and it stuck to the ruts in the road. John balanced his weapon on the aerosan's front hull and fired. A tracer round ignited the running fuel almost immediately, creating a rip of flame that ran back and forwards, throwing up dense black smoke.
By the time he fired the fuel, it had begun to wash around the caterpillars of the tractor and within seconds a rippling tide of flame crept up the paintwork and licked at the strange black bubble atop the cab, which in turn began to smoke and fume. The tractor abruptly revved to a screechingly high pitch, moved forward a little and then reversed backwards far too fast, hitting the trailer and overturning it. Trapped by its overturned trailer, the tractor sat squarely in the flood-path of burning fuel and was rapidly consumed. The black bubble fell apart within minutes, revealing the charred corpses of half a dozen aliens.
Evgeniy sighed hugely.
'At last! Driver – get us back to Trevilho, very quickly.'
A miniature convoy of two towing vehicles and two guns was motionless on the highway at PK451, awaiting the escort vehicle.s Given that nobody knew what the escort would consist of – squadrons of motorbike outriders, tanks, helicopters or none of the above – attention focussed on the air and the earth equally. Armed soldiers stood guard over the artillery pieces, the affectionately regarded "Ten Tonne Gun", in case spectators turned up in the wilds of northern Russia on this back road for a nosey, fantastically unlikely though that might be.
Colonel Proskurov opened his thermos of shchi and poured out a cup, turning to his second in command, Major Godunov, a man deemed politically reliable enough to accompany them.
'You ever been on an exercise where the AAS1's were used, Felip?'
Godunov, prematurely bald and with a chubby, baby-like face, shook his head.
'No, sir. Never heard of them being used on an exercise at all. That includes being on the border for several with the Chinks and the Hermans.'
Godunov might be politically reliable but his biases were apparent.
'That's not very comradely, Felip. Our "socialist brothers in arms" and all that.'
'Socialist they may be sir, brothers they are not. They're still German on the inside.'
Proskurov stifled an amused snort. Doubtless the East Germans thought much the same of the Soviet Armed forces and the Group of Soviet Forces Germany.
'Even when things got hot in Prague, nobody wheeled out the fuses for nuclear artillery shells. And the map reference we move to is within the borders of Russia. More, it's near the border with Finland.' He refrained from using the name of the town itself; Trevilho. He'd never heard of it before, not that such ignorance meant anything – there were tens of thousands of minor provincial towns he'd never heard of.
Godunov bowed his head in acknowledgement.
'Perhaps we're to make a show of strength against the Finns. Even if they are a collection of rubber-legged old women.'
Proskurov wagged a finger.
'Now, now. They are officially a neutral nation, not part of the evil Western capitalist conspiracy. Or is that evil Western conspiratorial capitalists? A small harmless neighbour anyway.'
Companionable silence settled over the artillerymen, settled in the back of their vehicles, until one soldier, with sharper eyes than the rest, called a warning and pointed eastwards, down the way they had come.
Several dancing points of light were visible on the road, a collection of vehicles travelling in convoy.
Our escort, said the Colonel to himself. The lights grew brighter and closer, resolving into motorcycles and BRDM armoured cars. A single GAZ truck in the middle of the escort convoy seemed out of place, until the Colonel realised that there must be a location to keep the nuclear artillery shells secure.
One of the motorcycles roared off the road and alongside the artillery tractors, the rider looking into the cabs. The Colonel leaned out of a window.
'Colonel Proskurov. Do you have orders for us?'
The rider nodded, unable to speak over the thunder of his bike. Sighing, the Colonel clambered out of the cab and down alongside the rider, producing his official ID card with the Nuclear Authorisation Code designation. The rider produced a similar tag from a pocket and checked that the two matched. Then, satisfied, he reached inside his jacket and produced a slim leather wallet, giving it to the colonel, and requiring that it be signed for.
Colonel Proskurov climbed back into the cab and opened the wallet, whilst Godunov looked studiedly out of the window at the pines marching endlessly back on the other side.
Finally, after a delay caused by the colonel reading the instructions five times to make sure he hadn't misread them, the whole convoy moved off westwards, towards Trevilho.
'Excellent!' said the Doctor when presented with the cable drums. 'Good quality insulation on high-capacity copper wiring, and hundreds of metres per drum.'
'Don't sound so appreciative,' warned Evgeniy. 'Remember the spy.'
The Doctor made a dismissive sound.
'Oh him - I expect he's trying to get past the cordon to avoid getting disintegrated tomorrow. He certainly hasn't interrupted work here.'
'Terrible!' commented the Doctor when told that the Cadaverites were after cable themselves, and had already stripped the mechanic's store sheds of all equipment. In fact he smacked one fist into the palm of the other hand. 'Zelinski! It must be him!'
'Must it,' said John, not seeing how it must be anything.
'What are you talking about?' asked Avtandil. 'Why him?'
The Doctor sighed.
'He got away, and must have seen the preparations we've been making here in the town square. He reported them back to the Children of the Night, who promptly worked out what I'm trying to do. Now they are trying to build a shield.'
Whoops, thought John. A bit of a problem.
'What about cables in the mine itself? Can they use them?' the Doctor asked Evgeniy, who frowned and pursed his lips.
'Hmm. Not really, no. The cable in storage was to replace cables in the mine, which are old, going back the thirties, some of them. Perished insulation. Not very high quality. You could build a grid like the one we have in the town square, but it wouldn't last very long before it burnt out.'
The Doctor pursed his lips and shook his head.
'That's bad. That's very bad.'
'Oh? Why so?' asked Evgeniy, slightly at a loss.
The Doctor turned his head to stare at him.
'Because, Evgeniy, we have the cable that they desperately need. And they will try to get it back.'
Vassili rubbed an eyebrow. The Doctor had told him how important it was to get work done in daylight, when they could move freely and the oupirs couldn't. Yes, that was fine, he understood that. What he couldn't do was work faster than humanly possible.
He stood, wearing huge rubber gloves which stank to high heaven since they weren't properly cured, under the dank roof of the transformer station. "Station" being a rather grand term for a windowless concrete block surrounded by a three metre wall topped with barbed wire. The power cables for the entire town came here, running seventy kilometres underground from Plesetsk. As a fervent Komsomol member he had memorised why the electricity combine used underground cables – because it rendered the electricity supply immune to interference from weather. Up here in the provincial north of Russia the weather had a great deal to say about how phone and power lines behaved.
Now all he had to do was shut down the transformer. Once current ceased to flow he could open up the plant and get access to the incoming power lines, splice in the cables brought from the nickel combine and lead them out across the town to the incredible erection wrought by the Doctor in the town square.
However, however, however, that procedure, if successful, brought it's own problems; the lighting in the town square used bulbs that simulated daylight, which kept the vile oupirs at bay. No power to the bulbs from the transformer meant no oupir-repellent lighting. And the soldiery were running short of silver ammunition. So they had to get everything ready for operating at the last minute.
Vassili remembered what the Doctor had replied when asked about testing: "We can only test it once – when it gets turned on." Bold words. They actually meant a lot since the man would be here with all the potential victims when the energy grid got activated. Not that Vassili's professional curiosity had been satisfied. The Doctor was careful not to discuss the principles of his shield – which Vassili recognised possessed all the characteristics of the "force-fields" from his youthful reading – and to stop people from examining various components of it. "Extremely delicate" was the reason.
' "Extremely delicate" my hairy behind,' muttered Vassili to himself. 'Extremely secret more like it. Who does he think he's kidding? As if this technology is from round here.'
' "Round here" being where, exactly?' came a voice form behind him. The Doctor's voice, from a man who possessed the ability to sneak up on one more craftily than a Cossack. After recovering from his surprise, Vassili lit a cigarette and looked at the uninvited visitor acutely.
'Force-fields. Sonic weapons. Indestructible blue wooden boxes. None of which are human technology, Doctor. Anyone possessing technology like that is not from "round here".'
The Doctor suppressed a smile.
'You know, Vassili, at every turn here in the Soviet Union people guess who or what I am. I get the feeling that perhaps they don't believe everything they are told, that they retain the capacity for independent thought.'
Vassili puffed away on the cigarette, not answering. Let matey dig his own grave a little deeper.
'What progress have you made?' asked the Doctor.
Well, that was quantifiable, concrete, practical information.
'I've unscrewed all the access panels on the transformer and removed them. Don't go anywhere near it, you'll get a shock. The cable for splicing in is bared to a metre in length, all insulation scraped off. The cable runs all the way back to the town square.'
The Doctor cast a perceptive glance over the humming electrical plant butted against the corner of the room, then at the controls set into a panel sat in front of the machine itself.
I hope my proxy ambassador is able to persuade people! thought the Doctor.
John stood in the town square, looking deadpan even if his thoughts were seething with indignation.
'Taking off just like that! Not the done thing.' Of course the Doctor had a lot to cope with, but he could at least tell people where he was going. And John had been left with a job to do which he didn't relish very much. He hefted the megaphone experimentally, then put it to his lips and pressed the trigger. Feedback squealed around the town square, which at least caught people's attention.
'Hello, hello, Agent Izvestilnyuk speaking. I repeat, this is Agent Izvestilnyuk speaking. Can I have your attention please. Thank you.' That much remained a guess. John had no idea of who, if anyone, was paying attention. 'The lighting in the town square will be going out shortly in order to provide power for the protective shield. Please do not panic. I repeat, please do not panic, remain calm and order will be restored.'
The number of people present in the square seemed to be a gauge of what they believed about the attempts being made to save them. Currently there were about two hundred family groups, mustering maybe eight hundred people. After John's megaphone broadcast, a slow haemorrhage of townspeople took place, leaving the town for a place on the cordon perimeter. They knew the town better than he did, so trying to prevent people escaping was fruitless.
One good thing he did was to inspire children in the town square encampment, a whole cluster of them in a makeshift creche looked over by Anya, entertaining them with tunes played on a flute. Whilst walking by, from the corner of his eye he noticed they were looking at him. He came to an abrupt stop, put his feet together, hopped backwards, jumped carefully forwards and managed to balance upright on his hands, walking forwards on them for several paces before beginning to wobble. He fell backwards again, landing on his feet and remaining deadpan, turning smartly on his heels to face the way he had come and stomping backwards across the square to where he had been heading originally. This wasn't as difficult for him as other people would have found, since his training for and experience in Ulster included "silly walks". The group of children found his sombre antics hilarious, especially Irina, who covered her mouth whilst laughing.
'Children, children,' exclaimed Anya. 'You see the big man? Well, you may be scared of the monsters, but they are scared of him! If trouble comes –' and her voice trailed off indeterminately.
The Doctor had done as much he could in the pokey little electricity sub-station, helping Vassili to prepare electrical cables and the transformer. Between the two of them, they had put together an improvised junction box. Now he needed to get over to the TARDIS with yet more cable. He pushed a drum ahead of him, unreeling as he went.
Crossing the town square, he noticed that the shades of evening were drawing in. The fire kept constantly going for communal cooking blazed brighter than usual, keeping darkness at bay. Whilst it did lend an air of jollity to the proceedings, it also warned of imminent darkness.
I have less time than I thought and considerably less than I like, he told himself, pacing off on his long legs, keeping the drum rolling. Occasional members of the public happened past him, only sparing a sidelong glance at the MVD soldier squelching a big wooden drum along the sleety road. The cable ran out short of the TARDIS, so he retraced his steps, getting back to the cobbles of the town square in time to see the much-battered BTR revving its engines. People around the square in their huddles stopped to look up from whatever they were doing. The big vehicle revved again, then ponderously wheeled about, narrowly missing a telephone pole, forcing a family to scatter to avoid being crushed. The matronly woman of the group shouted abuse at the BTR, which showed no signs of stopping.
'They're stealing it!' shouted a spectator, pointing incredulously at the personnel carrier.
'Stop!' yelled the Doctor, waving madly in front of the BTR. The driver took no notice of him at all and the Doctor jumped to avoid being crushed. 'Idiots!' he shouted, shaking a fist at the departing vehicle.
Semyon came up, looking puzzled.
'What's going on? Where are they taking the BTR?'
The Doctor's response could only be a shrug.
'I suspect, and hope to be proved wrong, that they have taken the vehicle to try and break out of the cordon.'
Semyon snorted.
'Fat chance! With only five wheels and no guns they haven't a hope.'
The lone sentry on the town hall roof sat on a chair and sipped vodka-laced tea to keep warm and motivated. The drink came from a flask he'd made up, with the addition of honey.
His job was to keep watch for the Children of the Night, sweeping the town ruins and beyond with binoculars for any sign of the white monsters creeping or running closer. Zhadov – a man not to be argued with – had told him to get up on the roof for tonight; the monsters were guaranteed to attack, apparently. If anything suspicious took place he had a phone on an extension cord, and would ring the foyer.
A hubbub in the town square below, accompanied by rumbling diesel engines, didn't interest or involve him. Five minutes later a dark moving object on the snowfields beyond the town did involve him. Picking up the binoculars, he looked long and hard at the travelling shape, deducing that it was the damaged BTR which had been retrieved from the mine. He rang the foyer.
'What bloody fool gave permission for that mobile coffin to go wandering out in no-mans land?' he asked.
'Nobody. They stole it,' replied the phone operator shortly.
'Do they think that cordon doesn't use infra-red lights at night?'
Abruptly, a searchlight came on amongst the cordon troops, flicking it's long, probing beam across the snows until sweeping across the BTR, then returning to it. Another searchlight came on, catching the BTR, which fishtailed and stopped driving at the cordon, instead altering course to move parallel to it. This didn't save the vehicle; two trails of sparks flew at it from different parts of the cordon, hitting and creating big roiling clouds of flame that erupted from blown-open hatches and windows.
Anti-tank rockets, surmised the sentry. For good measure a helicopter took off in the middle distance, leisurely made its way to the blazing wreck and proceeded to pepper it with machine gun and cannon fire. Once again the sentry rang down.
'Whoever was in the BTR is charcoal by now. They got picked off by rockets and helicopters.'
The cordon remained as tight and relentless as ever. Unsurprising, with the frightening (and untrue) briefing given to the troops manning it.
John came back late to the square, having been trying to track the BTR and giving up; despite missing three wheels it moved faster than he did. Witnesses amongst the families there told of men behaving suspiciously around the vehicle, passing round bottles of drink before clambering inside. The Doctor had been seen – or rather a very busy MVD soldier had been seen – rolling cable drums back to the warehouse ruins where the very peculiar blue wooden box stood. The smell of stew being cooked in a communal pot drifted past John's nostrils, making his stomach contract protestingly.
'Hello there,' he introduced himself to the stout babushka stirring the pot. 'Any food going spare for a hungry chap?'
The elderly woman looked up with bright eyes in her seamed face, judging him.
'Oh, the oupir-killer. I suppose you can. You got my grandchild back alive,' and she patted a small, grubby child sitting next to her. John gave an extremely solemn wink and was rewarded with a look of surprise whilst he gulped the stew down.
'Comrade Izvestilnyuk, could I have a quick word?' asked a heavily-disguised voice.
John turned to see an MVD soldier behind him. The Doctor, of course, wrapped up in camouflage.
'Certainly officer,' replied the officer in a stage voice. They moved out of earshot of the refugee Russians.
'John, the aliens are bound to attack tonight. In fact they have to if they intend to survive. There isn't time for them to create a protective shield even if they get hold of enough cable, so they are going to attempt to capture this one.'
'Ah. Bad news, that. You and I are the only ones who are immune to their influence.'
The Doctor frowned in concern.
'Perfectly true. So when I leave to run this cable to the Tardis, you will be the sole defender here. Zhadov put a sentry on the town hall roof, so you may get a few minutes warning, but be careful!'
'We still have the fire-bombs I improvised.'
The Doctor frowned further. He didn't like weapons at the best of times.
'Don't rely on them. You improvised them with the help of Zelinski. If that unfortunate man has returned to the aliens they know all about your incendiary trap.'
At the word "unfortunate" John's jaw sagged.
'You don't feel sorry for that bloody man, do you, Doctor!'
He got a stern look from his companion.
'He never asked for what happened to him. Don't sit in judgement on others, John. Unfortunate things can simply happen to people who deserve better.'
With that to ponder on, he left John behind.
SIXTEEN
The Doctor stopped where the first drum of cable ran out, and stooped to attach a heavy-duty male connector, working quickly yet carefully. The new drum of cable was unreeled a little to give the cable some play, and he fitted a female counterpart to it, plugging the two together. They docked with a loud and positive "click". He took time to examine the connection critically, because it would be handling information and energies way way beyond what it had been designed for.
During the mechanical alteration, he became aware of an audience; three men stood in the shadows across the street, not moving yet watching him closely. The trio made no move to stop him and he could hear the clink of glass denoting bottles of drink. An air of abstract malice accompanied their scrutiny, that of wolves waiting to pick off a straggler.
The breakdown begins! he told himself. Stealing the BTR was merely the most extreme example; these outcasts are attempting to find escape and solace in alcohol, since they cannot leave town. The urban counterparts of the figures he'd seen hiding in the snow yesterday.
Keeping to the middle of the road, where the slush and mud coated his boots, he remained warily alert for any possible furtive following by the three men, which made the surprise when the drum ran into and onto another person's boots, right in front of him, all the greater.
'Stay exactly where you are. Any attempt to escape and I will shoot you,' intoned the stranger, well-buttoned up around the face. His right hand remained in shadow but had the unmistakable posture of a firearm held there.
'Really!' snapped the Doctor. 'This is intolerable!' A nasty suspicion took hold in his mind. 'Zelinski?'
A short laugh, lacking warmth or humour, was the only reply.
'Not Zelinski, then. Very well, how can I help you?'
'You can get me through the cordon,' replied the other man. His tone was cool and determined.
'I most certainly cannot!' blustered the Doctor. 'A mere soldier in the Ministry of the Interior -'
'Don't pretend,' snapped the other man, all fake humour draining out of his voice. 'It took me a while to realise you are The Doctor, not a bumbling soldier. With you, I have a passage out of here.'
A touch of desperation underlay the Time Lord's next words.
'Very well, you know who I am – and you surely know that everyone in this town is doomed unless I complete my work here.'
'Then they're doomed. I'm more interested in my own skin and coming out of this madhouse with a promotion. Move over to the left and follow the road out of town.'
The Doctor measured distances rapidly, determined not to go with this desperate and selfish individual – pretty obviously the GRU man marooned inside Trevilho with a watching brief. A quick leap –
With a loud "pop" and a short, bright flash, a gun went off, the bullet whizzing past the Doctor's left ear. The flash came from the vicinity of the interlopers right hand. Silenced, so nobody would come to investigate the sound of shots where there ought to be none.
'Don't mess me around. Now, empty your pockets.'
An impressive mound of bric-a-brac ended up piled between them, even if the Doctor hadn't been using the capacious pockets of his tailored suit and cape.
'What are you, a moving junk-yard? No! Don't even touch it. Get moving.'
The GRU agent kept a respectful distance between the two of them at all times, ensuring that the Doctor never got close enough to utilise his impressive unarmed combat skills.
'They won't let either of us past the military cordon alive, you know,' remarked the Doctor conversationally, whilst plodding down the streets in the dark. 'And I mean both lots of "they" when I say that.'
'Let me worry about that,' said the other man. 'Now be quiet.'
A man of unusual stupidity or bravery or both, decided the Doctor, to dismiss the Cadaverites like that.
A silence of unusual intensity clung around the pair as they walked down the slushy road to the outskirts of town. There the primitive roadway curved back round to begin a circuit of Trivelho, and they were faced with a barrier of piled snow, compacted into a mound three metres high along the length of the road. Forcing a way into and past this frigid, gelid barrier resulted in the Doctor suffering a fit of shivering that prevented him from being able to speak. The mysterious gunman shook visibly, muttering and cursing at the cold and snow.
'Y – you're not a country boy, are you?' stammered the Doctor, to be greeted by a series of shivering curses. 'No, no, I suspected as much. C - can you hear anything?' he continued.
'Shut up! All I hear is you babbling!' snapped the other man. The Doctor refrained from any hasty comment; the agent seemed stressed to near-breaking point by his experiences in Trevilho. Frowning with concentration, the Doctor worked out dates and times.
'You never actually saw any oupirs, did you! The only one you might have seen went into the helicopter under wraps.' Good grief, that explained such cavalier conduct on the agent's behalf! He literally did not know what he was walking into.
A hissed warning to shut up was the only reply. Silently, apart from the squeak of snow underfoot, they trudged on.
'Right. Stop here,' hissed the GRU agent, sinking down onto one knee.
'What on earth for!' asked the Doctor, sincerely astonished that they were suddenly halted in the snow, barely beyond the town and a long way from the cordon.
He got no answer, his captor merely studying his wrist.
Must be checking his watch, thought the Doctor. Why?
'We're here for five minutes and thirty seconds,' pronounced the agent, looking off to the middle distance. 'That's how long it takes for the routine armoured car patrol at the cordon to pass by here. I timed it.'
'Professionally competent, at least,' mock-congratulated the Doctor.
The other man sneered back.
'Trying to provoke me? I'm not about to kill you, Doctor, not when you are my passport across the cordon.'
Theatrically, the Doctor sighed.
'My dear fellow, the troops in the cordon have orders to shoot to kill on sight. No warnings, no warning shots. We are both merely marching to martyrdom.'
The agent sneered silently, but his heart wasn't in it. He fumbled a torch out of a pocket, looked at the bulb and nodded to himself. Perhaps he hoped the Doctor wouldn't notice the trembling hands.
'Time check over. Get moving again.'
Once again, the Doctor was struck by the sheer silence of the eerie, dim landscape. Thin clouds allowed moonlight to illuminate the snowy fields and permitted both men to see more than a darker, drier countryside would; a haunted, half-lit quilt of snow, trees, fences and buried buildings.
'We need to be careful not to fall into abandoned mine workings,' cautioned the Doctor. 'I've spent far too long stuck in a mine already.'
Muttered insults were the only reply.
A seemingly innocuous flurry of snow ahead, moving at speed across their path, made the Doctor lurch to a stop. His companion stopped, too.
'What have you stopped for, you idiot. Keep moving!'
'We're not alone out here,' whispered the Doctor, remaining still. The GRU agent got even angrier, judging by the way he stamped his feet.
'Of course we're not! There's a brigade's worth of troops out there waiting for us! Now get moving!'
'I meant the oupirs are out here, too,' whispered the Doctor, pointing to another rill of thrown snow away to one side. An intake of breath meant his captor saw the movement, too.
The Doctor understood that things had come to a very bad pass. He stood in front of a man with a gun, a panicked and frightened man who might very well shoot first without asking any questions. Ahead of them were the Children of the Night, slinking about under the snow where they remained invisible, liable to fall upon both captor and captive and kill both. Further away lay the military cordon thrown up by the Red Army, which would kill them both in a heartbeat. And still further off in the distance, getting closer with every minute, was a convoy of artilley that fired nuclear rounds, capable of killing every living thing in Trevilho.
Time was running out.
"Stop it! Stop it! that tickles!' shrieked Kandida, wriggling away from the hands of her husband as they crept up her sides of her dress.
'But, darling, sweetest, who will help with my tie?' asked Tybalt, mockingly. He stood behind her, with the untied tie draped loosely around his neck.
'Leave Mummy alone!' yelled a small female voice, emphasising the demand with a hairbrush applied to Tybalt's shin.
'Ow!' he exclaimed, rubbing the spot where his daughter had hit him. 'Violetta, I was only joking.' He stared at Kandida ruefully.
'Now, Visha, darling, you know better than to hit Daddy. Go and wait in the lounge.'
'Okay!' said the four-year old proudly. She marched off out of the bedroon, the hairbrush sat on her shoulder like a rifle. Tybalt looked at his wife, shaking his head.
'So much her mother's daughter,' he said. 'Now, joking apart, can you help with this tie?' His lack of dexterity with ties consituted an embarassing gap in his vocation. Kandida took hold of the dress item mentioned, tightened it to near-asphyxiation and deftly formed a double-knot.
'There,' she declared, satisfied. Tybalt sighed.
'Go and see Violetta before you leave,' instructed Kandida. Tybalt sighed again. His wife cocked a knowing eye at his amateur dramatics.
Violetta sat in the lounge at a low table, daintily eating warm porrige from a bowl with a gaily-coloured wooden spoon.
'Did you salt your porrige?' asked her father. She solemnly nodded.
'Because?' he continued.
'Because otherwise there will be a lack of sodium in my diet,' she said, parrotting words taught long ago.
'And because the magic kasha monsters will erupt from your bowl - oh, just going dear,' continued the father, gathering up his uniform jacket and lockable-combination metal briefcase. His peaked cap hung on a hook in the hall, which he swung past and collected donning a scarf and greatcoat. Candida came for a goodbye kiss at the door, which made him pause. Normally she never bothered once he left the lounge, since it made Violetta tetchy and awkward.
'Make sure you miss me,' he said, aiming for a light tone.
'Be careful. Be careful, remember Violetta needs a father and come home safe,' replied Kandida, no trace of humour on her face.
Tybalt clattered down the stairs with a blank face but a busy mind. What did Kandy mean?
Outside the secured block of flats, his wait amounted to no more than five minutes. A ZIL cruised up alongside the kerb, stopping to wind the nearside window down.
'Goosegrease,' said a voice from within.
'Don't mess about, Golyubov,' answered Tybalt crossly, having recognised the voice instantly.
'Goosegrease,' replied the voice, increasing in volume and intensity. Tybalt blinked hugely and pondered momentarily.
'Lemonjuice,' he replied, quickly and angrily. The far passenger door opened enough for him to get in, framing an ill-at-ease Golyubov.They had long sinceceased to bother with the supposedly-compulsory checks and countersigns.
'What are we playing silly spy games for?' Tybalt asked his co-pilot crossly, feeling that everyone else seemed to know more than he did.
'There's a flap on at the base,' replied Golyubov, tersely. Normally he was a chatty fellow. Today he drove them glumly to the airbase, the hissing of their tyre-chains the only noise. Snow started to fall while they were still driving, obscuring the lights and watchtowers of the naval airbase.
The sentries at the gates were as stoic and detached as ever – no change there – and insisted on seeing identity cards, signing the pilots in and checking the vehicle registration. Normal procedure, apart from twice as many guards being there this chilly morning.
'What kind of flap?' asked Tybalt, having waited half an hour for more information.
'That I don't know. My informant warned me to look sharp and smart today.'
'Hang on a minute – slow down,' instructed Tybalt. Their approach to the Base Commandant's offices took them past the aircraft hangars. Two big GAZ trucks were parked outside Hangar Twelve, which Tybalt found interesting, because that was where his own aircraft currently sat.
Golyubov darted a quick glance at the hangars, too, noticing the sentries standing outside it. Tybalt chewed the inside of his cheek, wondering.
They both entered the Base Commandants office to formally sign in, beginning their duty roster. The immaculately-turned out junior officer acting as secretary stopped them from leaving.
'The General needs to see you both right away, sir.'
Both pilots exchanged curious glances. Tybalt wondered what guilty secret made Golyubov swallow nervously. The lieutenant knocked on the General's door, opened it and announced Captains Tybalt and Golyubov. A quick march across the carpet and two swift salutes later, both men were invited to sit. Tybalt made sure to keep his metal briefcase close by his feet. Not that the General might steal it, but he might find fault with an officer who didn't look after Top Secret documents.
'Gentlemen,' said the General, and stopped abruptly. He frowned deeply, pushed his chair back, then stood up and turned to look at the blinds across the big picture window. He turned back to face them, still frowning. Making a decision, he sat down and exhaled.
'Gentlemen, you know my career started out in light bombers.' Tybalt and Golyubov glanced involuntarily at one wall of the office, which had grainy monochrome photographs that occasionally featured a younger, slimmer, more cheerful General.
'The Petlyakov PE2. Wonderful aircraft. Manouvrable, robust, fast and reliable. Despite all that our squadron was down to five aircraft by August of '41, during the big retreat. Then we got orders to attack and destroy a railway marshalling yard at Kolovino, to stop the Fascists from capturing it intact and using the rolling stock, the locomotives and the supplies they carried.
'Well, we carried out the attack, even when we realised that the yards were still full of Russian workers. Kolovino had been abandoned by us but not yet occupied by the Nazis. So we blasted the whole place apart. I felt sick afterwards. But orders are just that – orders. And we had to stop the Nazi's getting that yard.'
He looked at both men directly.
'Your orders, as delivered straight from the Admiralty, are to carry out an attack on a mine directly outside the town of Trivelho, using an air-launched cruise missile with a nuclear warhead.'
Perfect silence settled on the room. The distant accelerating whine of an aircraft taking off came clear across the runways.
'Are we permitted to ask why, sir?' asked Tybalt.
'No, you may not, Captain. Mostly because I have not been given a reason myself.'
'Then why us, General?' asked Golyubov.
The General sighed.
'Because of all the bomber crews here, your crew performs the best in the training exercises. This mission is a precision attack on a point target, which you excel at.'
The point targets we attack are ships and submarines, thought Tybalt. A mine? I suppose it can't manouvre to avoid contact, or fire at us, or jam our electronics. Quite the easy option, really.
'Your missile launch is to be the signal for a ground bombardment of the town itself. You'll find exact details in the Briefing Room with the Operations and Meteorology officers. Take your crew there, and remain there until you leave to board your aircraft. Under no circumstances are you to communicate with anyone outside the Briefing Room. Understood? Very well, gentlemen, you are dismissed.'
Once safely outsid the Base Commandant's Office, Tybalt let out a long whistle, and Golyubov breathed an enormous sigh. Wordlessly they looked at each other, feeling cold snow settle and melt on their faces.
'Come on,' said the Captain, finally. 'Time to go get our flying suits, and the rest of the crew.'
'Unless that gun is loaded with silver bullets, we really ought to retreat,' said the Doctor. His sonic screwdriver lay on a pile of miscellania back in the middle of a muddy street in Trevilho. They were defenceless against the Children, who were moving slowly closer under the blanket of snow that lay over the land.
Not thirty metres away, one of the aliens popped up from the concealing snow, darting upright, shrieking a challenge, then ducking down under the canopy of whiteness. The GRU agent loosed off three panicky shots that all went wide, long after the Cadaverite had gone back to cover.
'What was that!' he gasped.
'I told you, an oupir. Or something very close to it. The only thing that will kill them is silver, or ultra-violet light. Since we have neither, may I suggest we dignify our dilemma with a retreat?'
This suggestion met with unspoken approval. The Doctor backed away from the furtive flurries in the snow, his captor mirroring each move.
'Holy Mother. The briefing mentioned things like this. They were mentioned. I didn't believe any of it.'
'Believe,' said the Doctor, dryly. 'As a rational empiricist, you are beholden to factual information presented incontrovertibly. Behold your facts.'
'Devil damn them, what are they?' asked the agent in a choked voice. Another menacing hump under the snow moved across their front as they slowly retreated. The agent shone his feeble torch on the vaguely discernible lump of snow, which rapidly vanished.
'What kind of torch is that!' exclaimed the Doctor, excitedly realising that their situation might not be totally irredeemable.
'A signalling one,' mumbled the agent, swinging his gun in an arc. 'Infra-red so nobody can see it.'
Nobody – nobody except the troops along the cordon, who had their own infra-red lights and detectors. An infra-red torch – just the sort of kit a secret agent might carry.
'Eureka!' said the Doctor, remembering John's feedback from chatting to Zelinski. 'The light from that torch is extremely painful to those creatures. Keep it directed at them and we'll be safe.'
A large piece of rock, hurled with more strength than accuracy, smacked into the snow between them.
'Mostly safe,' corrected the Doctor, still walking backwards.
'You called them oupirs. Creatures out of legend. How can that be – ah! Devil take you!' shouted the agent, dropping into a half-crouch and firing at one of the aliens that had darted up above the snows. With his nerves partially-recovered and the Doctor's steadying influence at hand, he hit the alien squarely in the temple. It shrieked appallingly, slapped both hands to the gaping head-wound and fell into the snows, thrashing like a hooked fish.
'An interesting question,' replied the Doctor, looking around to see other flurries in the snow abruptly retreating to a safer distance. 'Keep moving backwards. An interesting question. I postulate that the imprisoned Cadaverites were able to consciously or unconsciously influence humans in the world above them, perhaps even to the extent of having them tunnel and mine towards the prison caverns. Speculation. Keep moving backwards.'
They moved back and through the barrier of snow and ice at the boundary of Trivelho's roads.
'Keep your torch handy. In the town they have nowhere convenient to hide.'
True enough. The blanket of snow that lay over the fields beyond had disappeared in the town, replaced by muddy slush. The Cadaverites showed no interest in following the two men once their snow cover had vanished.
Trembling with reaction, the GRU man motioned the Doctor back into Trivelho, retracing their path along the muddy street. The small pile of the Doctor's belongings no longer sat neatly in the middle of the road. No, it had been scattered everywhere. More importantly, the sonic screwdriver wasn't there.
'Damn and blast!' snapped the Doctor. He had others, of course, in the Tardis. They were in the Tardis, however, and he wasn't.
'What are you so worried about?'
'My sonic screwdriver. The men hanging about here drinking must have stolen it.'
'How very unfortunate. Keep moving!' said the other man with no emotion at all.
'O – hey!' slurred a voice from the shadows. The GRU agent instantly covered the source with his gun. 'You got any more neat toys like that one?'
'Yeah!' enthused another voice from the opposite side of the road. 'The one that buzzes.'
Sensing an ambush, the agent took aim and fired, the loud popping noise followed by a whine as the bullet ricocheted away. Stunned surprise lasted for seconds until stunned cursing split the air.
'That was unwise,' murmured the Doctor. 'Now they have a focus for their malice.'
The two men on either side of the road stayed in the ruins and shadows, pacing the captor and captive. Where is the third? wondered the Doctor. Surely not lying drunk in the gutter if his two companions –
'YAAAAAH!' yelled the third man, emerging at a jog around a corner just ahead of them. Waving a hatchet, he rushed at the Doctor.
The GRU agent quickly took aim, only to have a large brick fly from the shadows, hit his hand and send the shot aside, ploughing a furrow in the mud dangerously close to the Doctor's foot. The brick was followed by the man who threw it, carrying a large sheet of corrugated tin as a crude shield. Two shots dropped him, howling in pain at a shattered rib, but they also emptied the gun.
Adopting an aikido stance, the Doctor let his demented attacker close in and begin the downward sweep of his weapon. Moving with far greater speed and strength than a man of his apparent age ought to be able to, the Time Lord grasped the other man's wrist with both hands, turned inside his arm and threw him to land, hard, on the ground. Exhaling weakly in pain, the man passed out whilst his hatchet flew to one side and clattered into the rubble of a house.
'Look out!' shouted the Doctor, warning the agent, who turned to fend off a blow from a length of metal railing. The third drunkard dropped his improvised club, turned and ran off, shouting muffled curses over his shoulder.
The agent looked hard at the Doctor.
'What? I should be impressed by you warning me?'
The Doctor returned the look with one of his own, one of considerable depth.
'Stop staring at me like that!' snapped the agent, flushing red. Off to the side the shot Russian groaned pitifully, clutching his ribs.
'If you want to help, you can get that man to the sanitarium,' said the Doctor mildly. 'I have work to do and not enough time to do it, so I can't help.'
'Take him? To the hospital?' said the agent in a strangled voice that expressed sheer incredulity better than a torrent of words.
'Your gun is empty, you're alone, there are creatures abroad in the snows which will kill you on sight. You can best survive by helping the rest of us.'
'I have my torch,' said the agent, waggling it. 'Infra-red. Keeps monsters at bay.'
'The batteries are nearly dead and you'd still be vulnerable to thrown objects. Now, I intend to carry on where you interrupted me – sorting out cable.'
A certain degree of risk was involved, realised the Doctor, turning his back on a man who could well attack him. In fact there was no attack. When he spared a glance backwards, the agent, with bad grace, had hauled the injured man upright and was trudging back to the town square.
The Doctor grinned. There was hope for humans in the long run; he felt positive about that.
'Now, let's be dealing with that cable.'
Rolling the new drum along the muddy, sleety street, he mused on the interruptions suffered so far. Time was critical, yet he found obstructions and distractions everywhere. Perhaps – and it couldn't be lightly dismissed – perhaps the Time Lords were intervening in their customary subtle and underplayed manner, using causality to thwart him.
Perhaps not, he concluded when the cable drum finally rolled against the doors of the Tardis and stopped.
He now had to work quickly, yet with precision. This entailed his most technically demanding work so far, ensuring that human and Gallifreyan technology integrated properly. Also, he got a replacement sonic screwdriver from the Tardis stores. For simple technical reasons his first task was to cut the cable near the Tardis doors, attaching small parabolic dishes to the separate ends inside and outside. Once he left the Tardis he could shut the doors without severing the cable; given the current circumstances, with Cadaverites prowling around, leaving the doors open would be an act of the worst folly imaginable.
Having prepared that, he cut power to the central time rotor before unlocking a floor-level access panel. After all, suffering a time-out at this point would be disastrous for himself and the town. Parsing and locating the relevant chronometric control channel, he carefully spliced in an smart-socket adaptor. Next came the cable, which he stripped of all insulation for a foot near the end, cutting it to a taper. When the tapered end was inserted into the socket, the adaptor instantly contracted and narrowed to form a hermetic seal. The Doctor tested the composite link and found it 97 effective, which was close enough to be acceptable. He was practical, not perfectionist.
Having completed the fiddly business and removed his MVD disguise, he decided to head back to the town square, where the townsfolk might need warning about the encroaching aliens. Neither of the less-disabled drunkards were visible anywhere en route.
In fact he discovered that people in the town square were well-appraised of their circumstances. A slow trickle of people had moved between the town and the roadblock to the west on the only road out of Trevilho. Once there they witnessed several dismally futile efforts to break out of the cordon; on foot, in cars or by tractor, all attempts were met with deadly force from the cordon's soldiery. A handful of refugees, disheartened by the view of dozens of bodies fallen under the cordon's gunfire, returned to Trevilho. Resignation permeated the atmosphere of the square and all around it, a quiet acceptance of their imminent mortality.
The exception, typically, was John, who, equally typically, was messing about with weapons. He had the heavy machine gun used at the mine, and at the expense of several metal files and hacksaw blades, had cut into the barrel. With a nodded greeting to the Doctor, he hit the barrel with a sledge hammer, shearing the metal off at the incision point and shortening the barrel by at least half a metre.
'You won't be able to hit much with a barrel that short,' pointed out the Doctor. The officer tapped the side of his nose.
'At the range I'll be using this, I can't miss.' He hefted the gun experimentally and cradled it in a sling made of canvas, stitched together by half-a-dozen babushkas. 'And Valentin gimmicked the other machine gun.' The trusty sharpened spade lay close to hand, noticed the Time Lord.
The Doctor spotted the megaphone and laid hold of it. People needed warning.
'Can I have your attention, please? Thank you. We need to be on the lookout for the oupirs. I have seen them moving around in the snow to the east of Trevilho. Keep your eyes open and shout out if you see anything suspicious.' As yet the sentry sitting chilled on the town hall roof hadn't seen any trace of the aliens moving closer to Trevilho. By now he estimated their numbers outside the mine down to a few dozen.
From the direction of the mining equipment factory came a muted rumble, revealed as Vassili pushing a pair of gas cylinders on a two-wheeled trolley.
'Doctor! Doctor!' he called, almost bursting with pride. 'Look at this which we built!'
The Doctor looked closer. The upright L-shaped trolley carried two cylinders of helium; over each of their release valves sat a plastic canopy the size of a tea-cup.
'I see. Actually I don't see. What are you showing me?'
Vassili beamed like a proud parent and twisted one of the valves open a notch. Instantly a hideous banshee shrieking issued from the plastic covering, gaining in pitch and volume until the Doctor felt his eardrums were being assailed by miniature hammers –
'Impressive, hey?' said Vassili. 'Those bone-white dastards don't like high-pitched sounds. This ought to make them think twice about tackling us.'
'Indeed,' agreed the Doctor, nursing his jaw and ear. 'How does it work?'
The engineer darted a look at Anya, still working to comfort the children in the town square.
'A musician gave me the reed from a flute. I wondered how to boost the signal in terms of power and thought of massive pressure. Massive pressure led to gas cylinders.'
The Doctor felt a grin forming despite himself. A slightly silly analogy came to mind.
'Vassili, I see the Russian gift for improvisation at work. Are you familiar with the Ganelin Trio? No? A jazz trio who manage to sound like a sextet. All done by improvisation. We'll beat those monsters yet!'
One of the teenaged men rescued from the mine approached the Doctor, clutching a transistor radio.
'Doctor Kuznetz,' he asked, very politely. 'I was wondering whether we could not use this radio and the loudspeaker to cause audio feedback. Comrade Bimilev reckons that high-pitched sounds will repel these creatures, so if we dangle a radio in front of the speaker it will create hideous noise.'
With a permissive gesture from the Doctor, the young man hung his radio from the handle of the loudspeaker and pressed the trigger. A caterwauling screech came from the device, making the Doctor jump.
'Sorry!' apologised the denim-clad teenager. 'I did not mean to make you jump.'
'You didn't!' exclaimed the Doctor, suddenly feeling what Archimedes felt in the bath. 'Of course! That's why they destroyed the radios!'
Avram, the young man, looked in worried surprise as The Doctor tore across the cobbles and took the steps of the town hall three at a time. The mayor and Colonel Stefan were equally surprised when The Doctor burst into the mayor's office unannounced and excited.
'Colonel! I need your radio!' said the Time Lord, grateful that the equipment had not yet been removed or destroyed. Instead it sat to the side of the room on a table.
'Eh? Who are you going to call?'
The Doctor paced over and looked at the set: a robust, functional design, capable of being carried in a backpack and sturdy enough to withstand landing with a paratrooper. Microphone, batteries, aerial, all present and correct.
'Oh, I don't intend to use it to call anyone, Colonel. You see, I finally realised what the Cadaverites were destroying radio sets for.'
His flair for the dramatic got the better of him, and the Doctor paused for effect until both the mayor and Stefan gestured for an explanation.
'The radio waves from a unit like this can cause interference with their mental powers. That is why they destroyed any radio they came across.'
Both the mayor and Stefan seemed less than impressed with this conclusion.
'So what!' said the colonel, brusquely.
The Doctor sighed.
'A broadcast from this unit or a similar one on the appropriate wavelength will effectively "jam" their ability to mentally control human beings.'
This news made both men sit up and pay attention.
'What are you waiting for!' said the mayor. 'Go ahead and jam them!'
Making a rueful face, the Doctor rubbed his chin.
'Easier said than done, Mayor. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of possible wavelengths to broadcast on.'
The civic official looked equally rueful. Colonel Stefan, on the other hand, bared his teeth in a feral grin.
'Millions, eh, Doctor? Then it should take you only minutes instead of seconds to solve the problem.' He waved at the radio. 'Take it, take it. Only hurry.'
Taking the hint, and also the radio, the Doctor left at speed. The idea of a supercharged analogue switcher was already bubbling in his mind. Time was the enemy here, time, time, time. As always there wasn't enough of it. He needed to get to work on the radio immediately.