Doctor Who_ Winner Takes All - Jacqueline Rayner [44]
Darren Pye just scowled at them. But one of the kids, the boy, started forward. ‘Johnny Deans,’ he cried. ‘He said he’d bought his ticket off someone down the pub for £30, and they threw in a mobile too. He was only here for five minutes before they took him.’ The boy paused, and looked at his watch. ‘That was about two and a half hours ago.’
‘That’d be about right,’ said Rose quietly. She’d known Johnny Deans from school, not properly or anything, but she knew who he was. Darren Pye used to beat him up, she remembered. Ultimate act of bullying, this. Johnny probably wondered why his old enemy was doing him a favour. Now she was thinking of those desperate, dying sounds on the telephone. Thinking of how she hadn’t been able to feel sorry about the death. Now she knew it had been someone else dying, someone she’d no grudge against, her stomach suddenly flipped with guilt.
The remaining Quevvils had entered the room; there were now five in all, far too many for the Doctor or Rose to risk trying anything. The lead Quevvil pointed at Rose. ‘Prepare the human,’ it said. Which didn’t sound good at all.
The Doctor jumped in front of her. ‘You’re not doing anything to her,’ he said.
‘You have no choice,’ replied the Quevvil. He was smiling smugly at the Doctor. ‘You will play the game for us and that human –’ he indicated Rose – ‘will be your carrier. If you resist, we will kill that one, and one of these humans –’ now he pointed at the cowering group in the corner – ‘will act as your carrier instead.’
‘Just take her!’ yelled someone from the group – the young man who’d been sobbing on the floor. Rose developed an instant and overwhelming dislike for him. ‘Leave us alone, please!’
The Doctor hadn’t moved, but the Quevvils’ quills were beginning to bristle again. Better to take her chance with being a ‘carrier’ than a pointed death here and now. Rose stepped forwards, trying not to look nervous. A young, hesitant voice called out, ‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t really hurt.’ She turned to see the boy who’d spoken before pointing at the metal disc in the middle of his forehead. So that’s what they were going to do to her first. She gave the boy a smile, thanking him for the comfort, trying to show she wasn’t afraid.
As she passed the Doctor, he suddenly swept her into a great hug. For a moment it scared her: perhaps he really did think this was goodbye, perhaps he didn’t think he could rescue her… But then she felt him pressing something into her hand, and she realised the over‐the‐top embrace was just a distraction. As the Quevvils shouted at them to stop, and the Doctor drew back from her, Rose hurriedly shoved the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver up the left sleeve of her top.
Two of the Quevvils came with her, and led her down a depressingly grey corridor. She made no effort to get away – hard to run from creatures who could spray needle‐sharp quills down the length of the corridor, and anyway, where would she run to?
At the end of the corridor was a door, and the Quevvils took her into a room.
The first thing she noticed was the window. She’d known that Toop was a desert planet, and she’d seen bits of it on the screen via Death to Mantodeans, but it was still a shock to come face to face with it. Somehow she’d expected a desert to resemble an enormous version of Southend, only with fewer ice‐cream sellers and more oases, but it was nothing like.
The sky… the sky wasn’t a glorious holiday blue, it was a dull blue, a grey‐blue, so pale as to be almost colourless. The sun was harshly white: glaringly bright, but lifeless. And even the ground disappointed, she could tell it wasn’t deep, soft sand, the sort you’d make castles out of – or even ride a camel across – it was more like dead ground: dusty and yellow and parched. And it was bleak. All she could see in the distance was a single structure, a dull ochre mound that did actually look a bit like someone had upturned a bucket of sand and produced a truncated cone