Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition Read online

  To switch to Tovel’s viewpoint, select section 4 on here

  To switch to Polly’s viewpoint, select section 6 on here

  To switch to Shade’s viewpoint, select section 21 on here

  To switch to Ben’s viewpoint, select section 25 on here

  2

  Creben

  We’re sick of this labyrinth. Of having to choose the turnings. When we scouted this area with Lindey we were working to a pattern, of course. But since the cave-in, it’s hopeless to compare our position. We trust to blind luck and…

  Well, well. We’ve found the very spot.

  The symbol glares out at us, a square stone eye unwinking in our torchlight.

  ‘Creben. You’ve found it.’

  The Doctor’s voice sounds over the wrist-comm. We’re surprised. We did not detect his presence here in the network.

  ‘It appears to be carved in solid stone,’ we tell him, and anyone else who’s listening in.

  ‘I know. I am sharing your sight, Creben.’ He laughs without a good deal of humour. ‘I do hope you don’t begrudge me.’

  ‘Well it’s here, as you can see. But there’s no sign of any machinery nearby.’

  ‘Run your fingers over the rune,’ the Doctor says.

  ‘You think it’s touch-activated?’ We trace the eye’s outline. ‘Sorry. Nothing. No life here.’

  ‘Wait.’ The Doctor sounds suddenly urgent. ‘Look behind you.’

  We turn. There’s a bare wall facing us. Weed hangs down from the ceiling, a thick coverlet.

  ‘Move that aside,’ the Doctor says impatiently. We do so.

  There’s another eye carved in the stone, looking back at us.

  ‘Move aside, boy,’ the Doctor roars, in our head this time, not through the wrist-comm.

  We do as he says, scowling. The two eyes look across at each other. They start to glow. The light gets stronger, blazing hotter until a red haze stretches between the two symbols.

  Then a complex schematic resolves itself in the air before us, its lines and vortices a deep crimson.

  ‘Seems the tools will be unnecessary,’ we say.

  ‘Quite so, Creben.’ The Doctor pauses. ‘Your fingers are all we shall require. Reach out. Touch the schematic.’

  We do so, gingerly. Our fingers press against the blood-red lines. The fingertips tingle. The floating lines feel solid, like wires.

  The Doctor chuckles again. ‘Quite a feeling, is it not? You can grasp and connect these ethereal filaments as though they were real. And so repair the systems.’

  ‘Please, Doctor. I must concentrate.’ He senses how uncomfortable we are at his presence. Retreats.

  When he speaks again it is through the wrist-comm. ‘Tovel’s had some experience of the way these Schirr circuits work. Let us seek his help. Then the two of us can advise you.’

  We study the schematics, brooding. We have never much appreciated the advice of others.

  There’s only silence as we wait. Then, stealthy footsteps. The sound of something coming.

  To continue in Creben’s viewpoint, select section 18 on here

  To switch to Haunt’s viewpoint, select section 11 on here

  3

  Frog

  What you looking at? Ain’t nothing going on. Except kilo on kilo of fresh Schirr meat on our bones. So unfair. You know we only joined the military to lose some weight? That and to get away from home. Maybe find a home. While we still had half a face.

  Wonder how much of it we got left now.

  Don’t wanna think. Just gonna lie here and talk aloud. It’s a good voice we got now. Sexy, you know? Swear we’re turning ourself on here, even saying prayers. Just lying real still, praying.

  I’m gonna go on feeling sorry for myself, you know. You should go somewhere less dull.

  Haunt’s found something you might find kinda interesting.

  Switch to Haunt’s viewpoint. Select section 5 on here

  4

  Tovel

  Step after step on pins and needles down the tunnel. We can’t stop looking at our hands. Knew a pilot in the volunteers who lost his hands once. Not from any war. Accident. All he could say was, ‘I’ll never fly again. I’ll never fly anything ever again.’ We felt so sorry for him. We knew what it would be like if it happened to us. Not just to lose a part of us, but the part that made us what we were.

  Now we look at our hands and we keep telling ourself, ‘I’ll never fly again.’ Not through pity. Because we’re scared if we take us some ship up out into the skies it’s gonna be Schirr. A Schirr ship. And the Schirr’ll be our best buddies and we’ll take them wherever they want to go.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Ben says quietly. He keeps looking at us. Thinks we don’t see him doing it. Thinks we can’t feel him sneaking inside to check this miserable tunnel looks the same through our eyes. But we don’t blame him. He’s only scared, like we are.

  ‘Tovel?’ Ben prompts us.

  ‘I’m a good pilot. Did you hear Haunt say that?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  We shake our head. ‘“Turn this thing around,” she said. Do you remember back in the control room? “Turn this thing around before…” She never finished.’ We stop for a second. We don’t quite know how to cry with our face the way it is. ‘And I couldn’t finish it for her either.’

  Ben’s silent for a few moments. Then he says: ‘It ain’t over yet.’ He sounds optimistic.

  We listen to him and we want to believe it. But it feels like a part of us is just drifting away. Watching the changes happen from somewhere far away. Cut off with no way to get back.

  And then we can’t walk any more. Our legs won’t respond. We stare at them. Ben calls our name but we barely recognise it. We start to beat our legs with the hands that aren’t our own. We shout at them.

  But we shut up when Ben starts yelling in our head. He’s telling everyone we’ve fallen. That we can’t go on any more, and he doesn’t know what he should do. We hear other voices but they’re vague, quiet.

  It’s so dark. No sign even of that stupid weed. Pitch dark. We’re shouting to Ben. Shouting that we’re all right. That we’ll be all right in just a few moments. That we’ll beat this thing.

  We feel his hand on ours. He squeezes our wrist. We know, even by that simple touch, he understands. Strangers, practically, us and him. But we feel like we might be something more now.

  He’s leaving. Maybe he’s just scouting ahead. We shout again, but he won’t answer back. We can hear his footsteps as he backs away and rounds some unseen corner.

  To witness these events from Ben’s viewpoint, select section 25 on here

  To switch to Haunt’s viewpoint, select section 9 on here

  5

  Haunt

  ‘Doctor, wait. Someone’s up ahead.’

  They’re propped up in the shadows. The fleas look like they’re feasting on them, whoever they are.

  ‘It’s Roba,’ declares the Doctor.

  We see he’s right. Sort of. This twitching thing used to be Roba. His dark skin is mottling, falling away to the shiny new flesh of a Schirr. His head looks like someone’s pumped it up. His features, still focused in the centre, form a scabby little continent in the waste of a dark sea.

  ‘He’s wearing his webset,’ the Doctor observes.

  ‘Angels put it there,’ whispers Roba. His eyes look fearfully up at us. He ignores the Doctor. It’s us he responds to.

  ‘Showed me things in my head,’ he says.

  ‘What things?’ asks the Doctor slowly, like Roba doesn’t speak the language.

  ‘What are you bothering to ask him for?’ We tap the metal band clamped round his sweaty head with our gun. ‘Fix up his set. Let’s see in his head.’

  He fiddles with the metal band. We breathe in sharply, close our eyes. Roba’s here with us.

  Only he’s someone else, and he’s back in the control room. We realise we’re seeing the place as it was before we came. Our skin starts to crawl.r />
  ‘Everyone,’ we snap into our wrist-comm, and yell inside our heads. ‘Tune in to Roba. I think you’ll want to see this.’

  Switch to Roba’s viewpoint. Select section 13 on here

  6

  Polly

  We were uneasy, here alone with Shade in the gloom of the passage. Oh, we’re scared to death as well – whatever we find out there it can only be bad – but this feeling of uneasiness is something separate. It’s our first time alone with Shade since we talked together about his past. Except we’re not alone any more. Our head’s like a revolving door with all these people going in and out any time they choose.

  We wonder if Shade feels awkward too. We could probably look inside and see, but it doesn’t feel right to even try.

  He looks at us. ‘You haven’t told anyone, have you,’ he says. ‘About any of it. Not even your friends.’ He’s not asking a question. It’s a statement. And he’s right, of course.

  ‘Maybe there’s more important things to talk about right now than your guilty conscience,’ we say.

  He thinks this over for a while as we go. Looks almost wounded.

  ‘Besides,’ we add. ‘I keep secrets.’

  ‘So do I,’ he whispers. ‘Keep them for so long, I can’t ever let go of them.’

  We break off our march, look into his eyes. They seem to glow in sympathy with the mossy ceiling. ‘You should see your face,’ we tell him. The skin is barely marked, looks baby soft. ‘It’s like nothing ever happened.’

  He bites his lip. ‘It happened.’ He places a finger on the outline of Lindey’s palmscreen, visible through our grimy yellow suit above the hip. ‘It’s all there.’

  We turn away from him, unzip the front of the spacesuit, pull out the tiny computer. Then we hand it to him.

  ‘Gone?’ he whispers, staring at the display. ‘You wiped it.’ Then he looks at us. So many guys have looked at us that way over the bar in the Inferno at the end of the night. They’re tired, and all the possibilities of the night have flounced out in mini-skirts and high heels in someone else’s arms. They’ve cried on our shoulder and when we give them the right answers they want to take us home and get them through the night. The Florence Nightingale of Covent Garden, the girls used to call us. Except in the morning, those poor lost lambs would only want us to get them a cup of tea and shut the door on our way out.

  We don’t know what to say. Yeah, we wiped every last scrap of evidence – by accident, not because we’re on your side. Yeah, you’re a cheating hypocrite who pulled strings to get himself a second chance. Yeah, you never meant to get those people killed, you just panicked, but they’re dead anyway now and are you going to blame yourself forever?

  He could be hearing all this. Looking in our head. We try to think hard of a penny-farthing like the Doctor did, but it’s no good, it just falls to pieces. A pink elephant appears out of nowhere behind the wreckage. We like that. Think of pink elephants, pink elephants…

  ‘It’s wiped,’ we agree. ‘OK, so it’s not like it never happened. You’ll see to that, by never letting it happen again.’

  ‘It’s happening now,’ Shade says. ‘Happening to all of us… Denni wants us all dead.’

  ‘You won’t… be like before. You’re not running away.’ We squeeze his arm, just a touch. ‘You’re coming after Denni. And you’re looking after me. I don’t think you’d run out on me.’

  We’re saying all the right things. He’s quiet. Maybe working out how much of this night is left, whether we’ll see another morning.

  The passage forks into two snaking tunnels, and we recognise one of our little cairns. We lead Shade down that path.

  ‘You knew Denni well?’ In our minds we can hear the bouncers calling for the swingers to drink up and do their swinging outside in the street.

  ‘We were together for a time,’ Shade admits. ‘I could never work out what it was she saw in me. I guess since my face got me noticed, hanging with me marked her out too. She liked being talked about.’ He gives a nervous laugh. ‘A woman of mystery, that’s Denni. No one could work out what someone who looked as good as her saw in a guy with a burnt-out face.’

  The lights have come up, and oh dear, he’s laying this on a bit thick.

  ‘Woman of mystery is right,’ we say, avoiding the wallowing stuff. He smiles at us suddenly. It’s not like he’s not gorgeous now. We think for a moment of how the two of them might’ve been together. Just for a moment. ‘Why would she do something like this? How could she?’

  ‘I can’t believe it. That she’d turn on us all like this. I mean, she always had problems with Haunt…’ Shade shakes his head. ‘And I guess she always had ambition and a whole load of attitude too. But to do all this…’

  ‘It’s evil,’ we whisper.

  ‘Her temper was evil, sometimes,’ he says cautiously. ‘But her… I can’t believe this of her.’

  We thought he wanted us to take his arm and face up to the chill and the drizzle outside together, but now… he’s thinking about Denni all the more. He looks upset, eyes darting about in all directions, like he’s picturing the things they used to do and trying his hardest not to.

  We should maybe tell him about the pink elephants, but we can’t say we’re not tempted to try to see his thoughts properly for ourself. Something sweeter, altogether safer than this miserable world of tunnels and fleas and seaweed and death and…

  We move through a narrower section of the passage together and Shade’s arm brushes against ours, closer than it needs do.

  We wonder if we’re saying goodnight, or else maybe walking out together. The night big and black above us, the stars bright and close enough to touch.

  Like a chaperone, the face of the Doctor swims into our view, unbidden. He’s saying something about Haunt. Something we should know.

  To witness these events from Shade’s viewpoint, select section 21 on here

  To switch to Haunt’s viewpoint, select section 9 on here

  7

  Polly

  We walk along beside Shade in silence, listening to the way we take three steps for each of his. Whatever he thinks, and whatever we say out loud, we can believe this of Denni. She’s in the Army, for God’s sake. What woman wants to join the Army? Wants to go around shooting people or whatever? Women like Haunt. Case rested.

  Denni sounds like a real cow.

  We suddenly twig that Haunt might’ve heard what we were thinking, and we blush. A pink elephant comes to our rescue.

  But Haunt’s not listening.

  She’s screaming in our ears. Desperate. Scared.

  Her words are shot through with the dead grey pallor of the angels. ‘Do all you can. Work together. Keep the neural network open. That’s an order.’

  The voice cuts off. Our head goes silent, the unsettling silence you get when some background noise you didn’t even know was there suddenly switches itself off.

  ‘Doctor!’ we scream out loud.

  ‘I’m still here, my child,’ he says, his voice strained. We can hear strange undertones, like he’s talking to someone else at the same time. ‘Marshal Haunt ran on ahead, we saw someone…’

  ‘Denni?’ we ask.

  Shade starts to say something. We shake our head, shush him as we try to listen.

  ‘It seems highly likely, yes,’ says the Doctor. ‘I was too far away to see clearly.’

  ‘Is Haunt dead?’

  A pause. ‘I’m afraid I can no longer detect her in the neural network.’

  ‘Haunt’s dead,’ rasps Shade. He looks lost.

  ‘What about everyone else?’ we say. We’re thinking of Ben.

  ‘They are well. I am keeping a close watch on everyone. Be careful, my dear. I shall be back in touch soon.’

  His voice ebbs away in our head.

  Shade looks as if he might start crying. We go to him, open our arms. Hold him, as he holds us back, shaking softly.

  ‘Who’s going to get us out of this now?’ he whispers, and we want to say
the Doctor will, we’re sure he will. But in the blackness, straining to catch the murmuring presence of the others as they creep along dark passageways, we can’t imagine ever getting out.

  We cling to Shade and we feel no bigger or better than the fleas that leap and skip about us.

  If you have not yet witnessed Marshal Haunt’s severance from the network, review section 11 on here. Then return here and select another viewpoint

  To witness these events again from Shade’s viewpoint, select section 8 on here

  To continue in Polly’s viewpoint, select section 12 on here

  8

  Shade

  We peer ahead into the darkness, our ears full of the crump, crump, crump of our feet on the stony ground, and straining to catch the first whispers of anything that might be lurking ahead of us, licking its lips at our approach.

  When Haunt screams it nearly deafens us.

  She’s lodged somewhere deep in our head, we feel a stab of pain behind our eyes, stony fingers clawing at – no, inside – our shoulder.

  ‘Do all you can,’ she yells. ‘Work together. Keep the neural network open. That’s an order.’

  And every trace of her is gone.

  ‘Doctor!’ Polly yells. Even right in our ears, the scream feels muted in comparison. We stagger back a few paces, still reeling from the power, the pain of Haunt’s presence.

  ‘I’m still here, my child,’ says the Doctor. ‘Marshal Haunt ran on ahead, we saw someone…’

  ‘Denni?’ asks Polly.

  ‘What’s happened to her,’ we start to say, but Polly shakes her head, fiercely. Her long hair splays about over her face.

  We hear another voice inside us. Our own voice: jinx.

  Haunt made a fool of us in front of the whole academy, dressed us up in a combat suit so she could dress us down. Shoot us down. And didn’t we wish her dead? Didn’t we stare down at the vidphone and think about calling in friends and favours that would make Haunt disappear from our life forever? She must’ve known we could do that, but she didn’t care. She knew that when it came to it, we just wouldn’t have the guts.

  We told Polly all this was our fault.

  ‘It seems highly likely, yes,’ says the Doctor. It takes us a few scared seconds to realise he’s saying Haunt must’ve chased after Denni. ‘I was too far away to see clearly.’