Shining Darkness Read online

  Chuck sounded almost apologetic.

  ‘Kill you all, I’m afraid. Sorry about that.’

  The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Well, can’t say I’m too pleased about it either, but there you go. Orders is – hang on: did 77141 tell you exactly why you had to kill us?’

  ‘That lazy good-for-nothing never tells us nothing,’ grumped Crusher (and the Doctor winced at the thought of another domestic over his double negative). ‘But he is the boss.…’

  ‘So we do as he says,’ Chuck finished the sentence.

  ‘And very right you are to,’ the Doctor said. ‘D’you mind my asking something? It’s about your names.’

  ‘Well, I’m Crusher,’ said the skinnier one, ‘cos I crush stuff up.’ He raised his hands and flexed the immense fingers with the creak of metal on metal and the hiss of hydraulics.

  ‘And I’m Chuck,’ added the fatter one, ‘cos I chuck stuff into the sun. Not the good stuff, mind,’ he added, as if the Doctor might think he were just a vandal. ‘Just the rubbish that no one wants.’

  ‘Into the sun, eh?’ said the Doctor admiringly. ‘That must take some skill.’

  ‘Oh it does,’ agreed Chuck, flexing his fingers. ‘People think it’s easy – they think it’s just brute force, overcoming gravity and all that. But it’s not. There’s a lot of maths involved – otherwise, it just goes into orbit or messes up the system. Gotta get it just right.’

  ‘And crushing isn’t as simple as it sounds,’ added Crusher, clearly feeling left out.

  ‘Not as hard as chucking,’ said Chuck.

  ‘Well, maybe,’ agreed Crusher awkwardly.

  ‘Ladies, ladies,’ cut in the Doctor. ‘Or gentlemen, gentlemen. I’m sure you’re both very special and very unique, and me and Boonie here are very impressed. So 77141 has given you orders to come and crush – and chuck – us, has he?’

  ‘Fraid so,’ said Chuck, almost regretfully.

  The two of them took a mammoth step forward and the ground shook. Crusher raised his hands in front of him and flexed his fingers.

  ‘Who’s first, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably me,’ the Doctor said. ‘But before you start with the crushing and chucking, I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I told you what we’re doing here, would it?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ replied Chuck.

  ‘But you could always try,’ Crusher added, clearly trying to be reasonable.

  The Doctor glanced at Boonie who, throughout the whole conversation, had hovered nervously in the shadows.

  ‘You ever heard of the Cult of Shining Darkness?’

  ‘Those nutters?’ laughed Chuck.

  ‘The anti-machine nutters?’ added Crusher. ‘The mechanet was full of stories about them a couple of years ago. Didn’t they fall apart or something?’

  ‘The woman leading them died, didn’t she?’ asked Chuck.

  ‘That’s them,’ the Doctor agreed, wincing at his own grammar and hoping it didn’t set Chuck off again.

  ‘So what have they got to do with you?’ asked Chuck. His voice suddenly went very growly and low and he bent forwards. ‘You’re not with them, are you?’

  ‘Oh no!’ exclaimed the Doctor. ‘No, not at all – in fact, we’re on the other side. The goodies, as it were. Ask Mother up there – well, when she comes down.’

  Chuck straightened up slowly, but clearly wasn’t convinced.

  ‘But your 77141,’ the Doctor went on slowly. ‘Now he’s a different matter.’

  Chuck and Crusher exchanged glances.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Chuck. ‘77141?’

  The Doctor reached down and dragged a finger across some of the junk at the bottom of the closest pile before holding it up to show them the muck on it.

  ‘How long is it since sector J had a good clean-out?’

  ‘Must be at least two years,’ Chuck said, and Crusher nodded.

  ‘And is that at all unusual for Junk?’ asked the Doctor casually.

  Crusher and Chuck looked at each other again.

  ‘Well,’ said Crusher, ‘now you come to mention it, it is a bit odd.’

  ‘Most stuff round here’s on a one-year rotation,’ Chuck added. ‘You know how quickly technology gets out of date. If it’s not been reclaimed or recycled in a year, me and Crusher usually get to work on it, crush it up real small and send it on a one-way cremation trip.’

  The Doctor nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘So the fact that this particular lot of junk hasn’t been touched for so long is a wee bit suspicious, you’d say?’

  The two robots swapped glances again.

  ‘Y’know,’ said Crusher slowly. ‘You might – and I say might – be onto something there. Masher, over in sector E, was going to bring the remains of a Hajaveniakii stasis chamber over here, but 77141 made him carry it all the way over to T. He wasn’t happy, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘So,’ said Chuck, straightening up. ‘Let me get this right, Doctor. You’re saying that that lazy lump up in the control tower is somehow in league with these daft culty types and they’ve paid him to keep people away from this sector, are you?’

  ‘Well, either paid him or he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart.’

  ‘Paid,’ said Chuck. ‘Lagacteons don’t have hearts.’

  ‘Or goodness,’ added Crusher.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any proof?’ asked Chuck. ‘I mean, it’s a bit of an accusation to make, isn’t it, regardless of whether he’s a lazy, fat, heartless lump or not?’

  The Doctor sighed.

  ‘No proof at all, I’m afraid. Not unless you count the fact that he’s clearly so worried about what we’re doing here that not only has he sent you two, but he’s sent those as well.’

  As he spoke, the Doctor raised an arm and pointed back down the aisle.

  Illuminated in the cold glow of the light spheres overhead, a tide of crawling, creeping, scuttling machines was flowing towards them.

  Boonie squinted into the darkness: it was as though the ground itself were wriggling and shifting.

  ‘Now tell me that’s normal,’ the Doctor said, and Boonie realised he was talking to Chuck and Crusher.

  ‘What’s he playing at?’ whispered Crusher – although his whisper was louder than most people could shout.

  ‘Your boss clearly doesn’t trust you to get the job done,’ said the Doctor. ‘He’s called in reinforcements.’

  ‘Has he indeed?’ said Crusher in a low, serious voice. ‘Well, we’ll see about that. There’s union rules about this sort of thing.’

  ‘We’re not in a union,’ Chuck pointed out.

  ‘Well, maybe we should be.’ Crusher raised his head and swivelled it through 180 degrees until it was facing back towards 77141’s tower. ‘Oi!!’ he bellowed in a voice like thunder that rolled on and on and on. ‘Boss! What’s going on here?’

  Seconds later, amplified by 77141’s speakers, the reply came back.

  ‘I gave you two bots a job to do, and instead you’re standing around gassing. You can’t carry out simple instructions? Fine! Then let these bots do it instead!’

  There was a grinding, crunching groan from inside Chuck, and Boonie saw how he clenched his blobby hands.

  ‘I’ve told him about that,’ he muttered, gears whirring inside him. ‘We’re not bots. We’re mechanicals. How many times…?’

  ‘Calm down, pet,’ said Crusher. ‘He doesn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down,’ grunted Chuck. ‘And yes he does mean something by it: he means he’s too lazy to take any notice when I say I don’t like being called a bot!.

  And with that, Chuck bent low and swiped his right hand across the ground in the path of the dozens of service and maintenance robots that were scuttling towards them, sending them tumbling and clattering into each other, bouncing end over end like kicked marbles.

  ‘He’s not going to like that,’ warned Crusher with a worried
shake of the head.

  ‘Stuff whether he likes it or not. Let him have his way and, before you know it, we’ll be on the scrapheap – literally – and these… these appliances,’ he spat the word, ‘will be doing our jobs for us.’

  But the little robots just kept on coming, legs clicking, caterpillar tracks whirring.

  Boonie backed towards the Doctor who was looking worriedly up at Mother’s feet, still sticking out of the heap behind them.

  ‘We need to get out of here, Doctor,’ he whispered, hoping that Crusher and Chuck’s hearing wasn’t good enough for them to pick up his words.

  The Doctor’s face fell, like a child who’s been told his holiday had been cancelled at the last minute. He was clearly enjoying it.

  ‘If the service bots don’t get us,’ Boonie continued urgently, ‘those two will. It’s not worth the risk.’

  ‘Oh, it’s always worth the risk, Boonie,’ the Doctor suddenly grinned as, emboldened by Chuck’s stance against the little robots, Crusher joined in, sweeping his freakishly long fingers along the ground and sending dozens and dozens of the little ‘appliances’ bouncing end over end. ‘This is what living’s all about – get rid of the risk, what’s the point of it all, eh?’

  The two of them seemed forgotten by Crusher and Chuck as they clearly started to enjoy their battle against the little machines. Wave after wave of them clattered and clicked their way across the ground and over the bases of the piles of junk around them, like a plague of mechanical insects. But as they did, working as a perfect team, Chuck and Crusher cleared them out of the way, almost effortlessly.

  ‘We’re gonna get the sack for this,’ said Crusher – and glanced at Chuck.

  ‘I know,’ Chuck replied, laughing. ‘But you know something – I reckon it’s worth it!’

  And with that, Chuck gathered up a handful of wriggling, squirming appliances, took aim, and lobbed them with frightening accuracy in the direction of 77141’s observation tower. Boonie held his breath for a moment – until he heard the sound of multiple crashes and bangs. As he watched, the lights of the tower wobbled and began to move, describing a slow arc as it began to topple.

  ‘Bullseye!’ cried Chuck, punching the air.

  With a final, echoing crash, the tower hit the ground – and to everyone’s surprise, floating out of the darkness, there came the sound of cheers. Not just from one mechanical, but from dozens, all over the place.

  ‘Sounds like you two are heroes,’ commented the Doctor.

  ‘77141 always was a fat, useless lump of lard!’ laughed Crusher as he squeezed another handful of appliances until their cogs fell out. He tossed the motionless remains onto one of the piles at his side.

  ‘Now…’ Crusher dusted the remains of the broken machines from his fingers and bent low over the Doctor and Boonie. ‘What we gonna do with you little Squidgies?’

  ‘Squidgies?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Sorry,’ apologised Crusher. ‘It’s what we call you organics. No offence.’

  ‘None taken, Crusher.’ The Doctor paused. ‘Can you tap into records of recent planet-to-ship communications?’

  Crusher glanced – a little shiftily, Boonie thought – at Chuck, who was still at work flinging the last wave of robots into the air.

  ‘Not officially, no.’

  ‘OK, well, say you were to unofficially tap into them. Just, y’know, theoretically.’

  ‘Yeeesss,’ said Crusher, dragging the word out.

  ‘And,’ continued the Doctor, pulling a face and kicking the ground with his toe, ‘say you were to check whether a certain ship currently in orbit had been speaking with 77141…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Would one of those communications be about making sure that we didn’t get our hands on—’

  ‘He’s right!’ cried Chuck suddenly. ‘I’ve found the message! The scheming, bloated, sack of—’

  Chuck was cut off by the sight of Mother, emerging from the junk mountain and holding something aloft – something huge and circular. She held it in one hand as if it weighed next to nothing as she clambered carefully down, sending a shower of debris clattering down the heap as she did so.

  ‘Crusher, Chuck – meet Mother. If you’re in any doubt about our credentials, ask her – she’ll tell you.’ The Doctor checked his wristwatch. ‘But you’re going to have to make it quick: they’re going to be here any minute,’ he said, motioning for Mother to lay the device on the ground.

  ‘So what’s that, then?’ asked Crusher, stomping on the last, few straggling appliances.

  ‘That’s what we want to find out,’ the Doctor said gleefully, bounding over to the segment.

  In the dim light from the floating globes overhead, even Boonie could see that the device had received a considerable battering. The wheel-shaped casing was dented and scraped. Hardly surprising considering the mass of junk that had been piled on top of it.

  ‘Is it damaged?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Well, give me a chance to examine it and I’ll tell you.’ The Doctor rolled his eyes. ‘Look, if you want something to do, go and check how 77141 is. He looked a tough old thing and he may well have survived the fall. If he has, he might already be telling the Cult what’s happening. They might be planning on coming down with some reinforcements. Take Mother with you – you might need her.’

  Boonie was torn: he didn’t fancy leaving the Doctor here with the device, but, equally, he didn’t want to be caught by the Cultists. ‘Go on,’ said the Doctor when Boonie didn’t move. ‘Shoo! Go on!’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to see if it’s damaged – and if I can work out what it does.’

  ‘You’re not going to sabotage it, are you?’

  The Doctor frowned.

  ‘Sabotage it? Why would I do that?’

  ‘To stop the Cultists.’

  ‘Oh, that. Nah. You know, you’ve piqued my curiosity, Boonie. I’m almost as curious as you are to find out what it does. And like you say, if they don’t get this one to work, they may just go to ground again. And much as I’ve loved my trip to your galaxy, I really can’t hang around for ever to help you track them down again. Now go!’

  With a shake of the head, Boonie beckoned Mother and the two of them headed off to the monitor tower.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t need our help?’ asked Crusher.

  ‘You two have been wonderful,’ the Doctor grinned up at the machines. ‘A credit to machinekind everywhere.’

  ‘Hear that?’ said Chuck proudly.

  ‘We like to do us bit,’ Crusher added.

  ‘Our bit,’ Chuck corrected him.

  ‘Here we go again,’ sighed Crusher with a shake of the head.

  ‘Lovely couple,’ the Doctor said to himself with a smile as he watched them go, still bickering. ‘Right, you little beauty,’ he said with glee as he hunkered down next to the segment. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of, eh?’

  He pulled out the sonic screwdriver, checked that it was still emitting the scrambling frequencies that he’d set it to earlier, and activated the secondary circuits. Gingerly, he began to play its blue light over the surface of the segment…

  ‘Doctor.’

  He looked around, wondering where the voice had come from.

  ‘Boonie?’

  ‘No, Doctor.’

  Cautiously, he stood up, the sonic still in his hand. There was no sign of anyone – not Boonie, not Mother. No one. And then he saw it. It had been hidden by the random piles of machinery thrown down by Mother and the broken bits of appliances left by Crusher and Chuck, but once it moved he saw it.

  It was a robot, about the size of a large child. Its upper body was a scratched, pale blue cube, its lower body an inverted pyramid from which sprouted two segmented legs ending in flat, circular feet. Two similar, flexible arms extended from the sides of the cube. A small screen was set into the front of the body near the top, glimmering bluey-white. It had no visible head.
/>   ‘I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,’ he said charmingly, reaching out a hand. But the robot remained where it was, ten metres away.

  ‘I’m using this servitor as a conduit to speak to you,’ the voice said. It sounded surprisingly lively, but the Doctor had no idea whether that was its real voice, the voice of whoever was speaking through it, or just a disguise.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘Oh. OK. What do I need to know?’

  ‘You need to know that if you attempt to interfere with the device at your feet, in any way, that you will not see Donna Noble alive again.’

  The Doctor clenched his jaw.

  ‘I don’t take kindly to threats,’ he said sourly. ‘Particularly not ones directed against my friends.’

  ‘Then don’t take it as a threat, Doctor,’ the voice said, its bouncy nature sinisterly at odds with its words. ‘Take it as a promise. Interfere with the segment and Donna dies.’

  ‘How do I know you’ll honour your word?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘You don’t. But if you do anything to the segment then you can be sure that we will. This is not your fight, Doctor.’

  The Doctor sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets, kicking at a bit of scrap on the ground.

  ‘Now, y’see, threatening Donna is the fastest way to make sure it is my fight. You really haven’t thought this one through, have you? If you’d just given Donna back to me, then things might have been different.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘But you had to go and do the threatening bully-boy bit, didn’t you? I mean, assuming you are a bully-boy and not a bully-girl. There’re plenty of those around. It’s not big and it’s not clever.’

  The Doctor stopped as he caught a brief flare of white light from one of the side aisles.

  ‘The recovery party beaming down, eh? Hope Donna’s amongst them. I want to make sure she’s OK before I agree to anything.’

  And to hammer home his point a little more, he took a step up onto the segment and began jumping up and down on it.

  ‘Hello!’ he said cheerily as two figures – a muscled black man with a grim, angry face and a thin, blonde, humaniform robot – stepped into the light. He looked around in mock puzzlement. ‘No Donna?’