Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [94]
‘Can you imagine, my boy, a war fought between people that you and I would not be able to tell apart? A war of genetic purity, based on age-old hatreds and a coexistence that shattered in an explosion of violence? A conflict where only a blood test can tell if your neighbour is friend or foe!’ He shook his head slowly, as if he could scarcely countenance such atrocities. ‘This creature, which has moved with stealth and guile through the hierarchy of this city, is in effect only obeying its orders. It is soldier, assassin and spy rolled into one, with limited chameleonic and psychic abilities. Launched into the heart of enemy territory, it would target one particular ethnic group. It would kill but, more importantly, it would seek out the leaders, the authority structures, and attack them with something far more subtle.’
‘Madness?’ I suggested.
The Doctor nodded. ‘As we have seen. The most awful destruction comes from within. The battlegrounds of this alien world were littered with impregnable city-sized fortresses, or bunkers. One soldier of this type could infiltrate and destroy an entire bunker – much more efficient than sending an army, or raining down useless shells.’
‘If it’s as difficult as you say to tell these ethnic groups apart,’
I said, ‘how did this creature do it?’
‘The information is not clear, but I have an idea,’ said the Doctor. ‘Those spines that extend from its head and hands. Do they remind you of something?’
‘I suppose... needles?’ I suggested tentatively.
‘Yes. Needles! Hollow tubes with which one can infect an enemy – but first they can be used to draw up a little blood from the victim. The genetic material can then be processed and checked against the expected enemy.’
‘That’s what happened when it attacked me,’ I said. ‘It obviously came to the conclusion that I was different from the Russians it had attacked. So it didn’t kill me.’
‘Fascinating, hmm?’ said the Doctor. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend!’
‘And it’s that fear of harming a potential ally that allows the others to keep Dmitri safe?’
‘Exactly, my boy! Exactly.’
‘But why is this...’ I struggled for a name ‘Why is this bunker soldier attacking the people of Kiev? Surely it must realise they’re all completely alien to it?’
‘To understand that, we need to consider how it came here.’
‘By accident?’
‘Indeed. By accident. The bunker soldier, as you call it, has no business here. Such creatures were simply fired towards enemy positions in these special capsules. Clearly this one missed!’
‘I should say so!’
‘Somehow it overshot its target,’ said the Doctor, whose hands were blurring over the controls. ‘Indeed, it had sufficient acceleration to penetrate the atmosphere of its planet and remove itself from its gravitational pull. It must have drifted through the cosmos, possibly already damaged, for many thousands of years.’
‘But eventually it was pulled towards the Earth?’
‘That’s right,’ said the Doctor, reconnecting the controlling device. ‘Completely by chance! It must have made quite an impact on the people who saw it land!’
‘And they brought it to the cathedral, thinking it was some sort of religious icon.’
‘Yes. A survivor of a heavenly war which, I suppose, is not too inaccurate a way of putting it. In any event, to answer your question at last, it seems likely that either the creature, or the casket that controls it, were damaged. It resorted to an earlier, and much more basic, way of establishing the ethnic nature of its enemy.’
The Doctor looked at me keenly, as if expecting me to have followed a logic. But, just for a moment, he had left me behind.
‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘Think about it. If you’re shot into enemy territory, who’s the first person you’re likely to see?’
‘An enemy?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘And it seems clear that it was Yevhen and his friends who opened the casket.’
‘So the creature thinks the people of Kiev are its enemies.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘I suppose Yevhen’s plan was not without merit – if only he could have found a way of getting the Mongols to be the first to open