Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [32]
They always did.
Budi and Ussman were all for returning to Batu. The Doctor and Jamie were obviously just as adamant to remain, in order to search for Victoria. Drew said nothing, watching Wina and Santi’s terrified reactions to the massacre with something akin to sadistic pleasure on his ratlike face. His blonde moustache lifted above his lips like a spiky caterpillar as he savoured their fear. Jamie resisted thumping him as he noticed the offworlder’s evident enjoyment. Santi was crying, but desperately trying not to do so in front of Wina. Wina was shaking as if gripped with some fever, and desperately trying not to in front of Santi. Wemus looked as worried as the rest of the group, including the Doctor, who was trying to assert some calm over everybody, but acting increasingly like a nervous mother hen himself. It was Kepennis who took control.
‘We must leave here.’ he said slowly. His face was drawn and haunted-looking. He held his machete like a weapon and not a tool now. ‘We must head into the jungle away from soldiers and Dogs.’
The Doctor held up his hands frantically ‘We must find Victoria!’ he beseeched. ‘And the soldiers will be able to help us to do that!’
Kepennis smiled grimly. ‘They only help you to die. We must move from this place. Maybe they return.’
‘I want go home!’
The Doctor turned, and Santi had stopped crying, and was now endeavouring to assert some self-control. He held out a hand to comfort her, but she flinched backwards.
‘Santi must go home! ‘
Wina smiled rather cruelly. ‘Santi scared. She not care about your friend.’
‘Aye,’ Jamie added. ‘We must stay and look for Victoria.
I’m no going anywhere until we do.’
‘Santi not scared!’ the Indoni girl hissed, glaring at the slighter, taller Wina. ‘I must go back Batu. Need money to live.’
Again Wina stepped in. ‘She needs meet new tourists.
New men. Santi is working girl!’ A raucous snort of mirth came from Drew at this. Santi snarled and clenched her fists.
The Doctor stepped between the two girls. He could see beyond the surface of Wina’s spite and understood why she was provoking an entirely unnecessary argument: her shaking had stopped. She had something else to concentrate on, something she could understand that had nothing to do with Mumis that came to life and villagers being burned to death wholesale.
‘I think Kepennis is right about leaving here, Wemus,’ he said gravely. ‘But I must ask you to help us find our companion.’
The guide looked at him, then at his friend Kepennis.
Kepennis was silent for a moment, then nodded.
‘We will search jungle around village until nightfall. After that, we leave.’
‘There’s still something I don’t understand,’ Jamie said.
Everyone shut up for once and looked at him. He pointed at the smoking remains of the Mumi. ‘How do dead things come tae life like he says?’ He turned to Kepennis for an answer.
But it was the Doctor who gave him one.
‘They don’t, Jamie.’ He was still holding the purple fungus in his hands. ‘You should know better than that by now.’
Kepennis met his gaze. ‘I saw the Mumi move and talk, stranger. The gods spoke, and then they killed.’
‘Yes,’ the Doctor replied. ‘There seems to be rather a lot of killing going on, doesn’t there?’
His words were drowned out by Wina’s cry of terror. They all whirled around to see what had alarmed her.
A bizarre and terrifying group of figures was emerging from the jungle. Their faces were hidden under balaclavas of leathery animal skin and fur, their dark torsos were naked, their legs covered by ripped khaki combat trousers. They were carrying machetes and bows and arrows. A couple even had old Earth-export rifles. They didn’t look very friendly.
From the window of the first-storey landing,