The Murder Game Steve Lyons
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THE MURDER GAME STEVE LYONS SCANNED BY THE WRONG GUN BBC BOOKS Other BBC DOCTOR WHO books include: THE EIGHT DOCTORS by Terrance Dicks 0 563 40563 5 VAMPIRE SCIENCE by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman 0 563 40566 X THE BODYSNATCHERS by Mark Morris 0 563 40568 6 GENOCIDE by Paul Leonard 0 563 40572 4 THE DEVIL GOBLINS FROM NEPTUNE by Keith Topping and Martin Day 0 563 40564 3 THE ULTIMATE TREASURE by Christopher Bulis 0 563 40571 6 BUSINESS UNUSUAL by Gary Russell 0 563 40575 9 DOCTOR WHO titles on BBC Video include: THE WAR MACHINES starring William Hartnell BBCV 6183 THE AWAKENING/FRONTIOS starring Peter Davison BBCV 6120 THE HAPPINESS PATROL starring Sylvester McCoy BBCV 5803 Other DOCTOR WHO titles available from BBC Worldwide Publishing: POSTCARD BOOK 0 563 40561 9 THE NOVEL OF THE FILM on audio tape 0 563 38148 5/Z1998 Published by BBC Books, an imprint of BBC Worldwide Publishing BBC Worldwide Ltd, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 OTT First published 1997 Copyright © Steve Lyons 1997. The moral right of the author has been asserted. Original series broadcast on the BBC Format © BBC 1963 Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC ISBN 0 563 40565 1 Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright © BBC Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton CHAPTER 1 STORM WARNINGS The weather had turned, more completely and suddenly than nature should allow. Rolling black clouds were interspersed between sun and sea, distant thunder presaging the onset of the storm proper. The horizon was blurred by fine spray and a ferocious wind stung Able Seaman Ben Jackson's face with particles of salt. He closed his eyes against the onslaught, nerves shrieking sympathy with the protesting mainsail. The deck bucked and the liquid uncertainty of seasickness lapped at his guts. HMS Teazer was caught in a ravenous grey whirlpool, lashed by the elements, fighting to escape but already doomed. When Ben tore open reluctant eyes again, he was elsewhere: staring at a blank white ceiling, brain striving to kick-start foam-wrapped neurons into the task of sifting reality from dreams. The storm was fictional, which came as a relief. But the ship too was only a fond memory, his despairing pang at this revelation all too familiar. The stomach-ache, sadly, was real, albeit caused not by the sea's unpredictable swells but, more mundanely, by last night's excesses. Thoughts of the spaceport bar's exotic, not to say freakish, mix of customers prompted Ben's half-woken mind to re-evaluate its stance on what was real and what not. Thus had it been since he had stepped into that blue box in Fitzroy Square in the summer of '66, an age of shattered preconceptions ago. Ben sailed through space and time now, and although he couldn't claim to have adjusted to the fact, he had at least developed accommodation strategies. It helped to imagine that he had merely traded one type of ship for another, even if this TARDIS was far beyond his understanding. He looked on its owner and pilot, the Doctor, as a sort of surrogate captain; on his fellow human, Polly, as a prettier-than-usual cabin boy. Even the variegated forms of the spaceport's clientèle were, at some level, no more alien or incomprehensible than the swinging socialites who inhabited the Inferno nightclub in London. Ben Jackson's life had become something from a dream; his real dreams, to compensate, offered homesick scenarios of Earth, his one- man quarters and life on the ocean wave. Tonight, such normality had been stolen. In the back of his mind, a nagging voice was trying to explain why. Ben had dismissed the rocking motion at first, subconsciously categorising it as a holdover from the dream or a symptom of his lingering intoxication. The next violent judder, however, shocked him into alertness and the cold-water realisation that something was wrong. He threw back his bedclothes and headed for the door, colliding with a cabinet instead as the shaking floor took his balance. A bottle of aftershave teetered over the edge of a pristine dressing table and exploded across the polished floor. He hauled himself to his feet and made another, successful, lunge for the shifting doorway. No time to indulge in self-pity, he told himself. Normally, it was impossible - disconcertingly so - to even tell if the TARDIS was in flight. As Ben raced towards the console room and his captain's side, he wondered what magnitude of storm it would take to upset this vessel. The Doctor leapt frantically about the hexagonal console, coat tails flapping. His ship's anguish was bludgeoned into his mind, translated into panic and communicated too forcefully by telepathic circuits. A part of him was dying. He batted down switches, stabbed at buttons and coaxed with his thoughts. He tuned out distractions, staying upright despite the upheaval and making himself ignore the anxiety of his companion. Polly Wright clung to the door frame and screamed with each unexpected jolt. The TARDIS was careening through real space, an unaccustomed condition. The inertial compensators were sluggish with disuse and not designed for manual operation. The Doctor's task, he reflected, was akin to controlling a clapped-out, runaway Cadillac by sticking both hands into its workings and groping for the steering column. Luckily, he had only to achieve stability for one vital second. Springing towards the bank of take-off controls, he slammed home the dematerialisation levers with a decisive thrust. The engines whined in pain and the Doctor belatedly remembered to cross his fingers. 'What the heck's going on?' The cry came from Ben. He had arrived at Polly's side, face red, pyjamas wet with perspiration. He swayed and looked momentarily nauseous as the floor dropped a few centimetres, then levelled out. Polly gasped and closed her eyes. The Doctor let out the breath he had been holding and clapped his hands together with satisfaction. 'We had a small collision, Ben, that's all. Everything's OK now.' Ben looked aggrieved - as much, the Doctor suspected, because he had arrived too late to be useful as because of the mishap itself. '"A. small collision"?' he echoed. 'Fair knocked me out of my bed, it did. I thought the old TARDIS had safeguards against that kind of thing.' 'Ah.' The Doctor's guilt was showing and he knew it. 'I'm afraid I disengaged them.' Mindful of his companions' accusing stares, he continued, 'For once, I needed to follow a specific course - and with good reason.' 'Yes, well,' said Polly, apparently recovered now, 'why don't I fetch some tea to calm us down and you can tell us all about it?' Within minutes, they were seated on wicker chairs in the corner of the room, supplied with mugs of hot tea by the food machine. Ben had changed into a rollneck sweater and slacks and Polly had found time to rearrange her distressed platinum-blonde hair. She looked once more the picture of elegance. The pair sipped at their drinks, while the Doctor ignored his and played with his hands distractedly. 'My intention, you see, was to land aboard a space station.' 'A space what?' asked Polly. The Doctor sometimes forgot that his companions hailed from the mid- twentieth century. 'It's a sort of floating base, Polly, in orbit beyond Earth's atmosphere.' 'Yeah,' Ben chimed in, 'they were talking about them back home, remember? When they sent up a satellite last year. This is the giant-sized version, I suppose.' He looked to his friend for confirmation and the Doctor smiled indulgently. Polly shivered. 'Oh, I don't see the point. To be stuck miles away from anywhere, alone in outer space...' An expression of distaste completed the sentence for her. 'It's perfectly safe, I can promise you. Except I, erm, made a minor miscalculation with the arrival coordinates.' 'So what's new?' Ben grumbled. The Doctor affected his best contrite expression. 'We materialised some distance beyond the station, where we were clipped by a passing ship. The TARDIS's shell is virtually indestructible, of course, but the kinetic energy of the collision sent us spinning out of control. I had to steady us long enough to dematerialise again before we hit something else or, worse, breached the interface between the inside and...' He tailed off, aware that the others were looking glassy-eyed. 'Well it's over now, which is the main thing.' He reached for his cup, downed the scalding contents in one gulp and leapt from his seat, invigorated and ready to press on despite the near-disaster. 'What about the other ship?' asked Polly, with characteristic concern. 'Won't anyone be injured?' The Doctor was already resetting the controls and he answered over his shoulder. 'Their craft was a great deal larger than mine, Polly. Their computer may have recorded a trifling asteroid strike, but beyond that I doubt they even noticed us.' 'Ere,' said Ben suddenly, 'you're not trying again, are you?' 'Oh Ben, the Doctor knows what he's doing.' 'Stuff that, Pol. What if he sinks us good and proper this time?' 'We really have no choice, Ben,' the Doctor insisted, flustered by the interruption. He checked himself and turned to face the young sailor, re- adopting his usual paternal tones as he explained, 'The TARDIS has picked up a distress signal. I have to investigate.' 'Yeah, well.' 'Is there anything we can do to help, Doctor?' He knew better than to refuse Polly's offer.