Chapter 8 (The Fury of a Time Lord)
Lilly could feel the room closing in around her as she stood in disbelief at what Arnold had just told them. She knew she should have been bothered about the fact that Arnold had just told them that everyone on the estate were aliens in the disguise, but the news about Holly was much, much more important.
And she was scared that he was lying. She didn’t want to let herself enjoy that type of news in case it was a lie.
“You killed her,” said Lilly again.
“I didn’t kill her. I never touched her,” said Arnold. “It was another of our kind.”
“Who?” said the Doctor.
“Mr Twemlow,” said Arnold quickly. “Charlie was always acting with his own agenda.”
“Wait a minute,” said the Doctor, closing his eyes and holding up his hands. “This is a little bit of an information overload. I need to take a minute here.”
“But she’s dead,” said Lilly, ignoring the Doctor. “She’s laid out on a table in our TARDIS dead. Lifeless. Gone!”
“She’s not dead,” said Arnold. “She’s merely been put into a deep, deep coma.”
“There were no life signs,” said Lilly. “Where there Doctor?”
“No,” he said, returning to the conversation. “She was completely dead.”
“The poison in our claws do that. They paralyse the victim and it masks their body. Makes you think they’re dead. Even the most advanced equipment wouldn’t be able to detect life signs.”
“But why?” said the Doctor. “Why do it?”
“Oh, well,” said Arnold, sitting down on one of the pews, “I spoke to Charlie about it. Said it was a bad idea, but he insisted. I told him no. His own wife told him no, but he still went ahead and did it. Said we needed to scare you.”
“So it was Charlie Twemlow who left that brick with the note? The phone call?”
“Well, yes,” said Arnold. “I mean we were all aware of it. We all decided on it, but it was Charlie who committed the acts.”
Lilly growled and launched herself at Arnold.
“No, Lilly,” said the Doctor, grabbing her and pulling her back.
“Keep her under control,” said Arnold, smoothing out his shirt and composing himself.
The Doctor pointed a finger at Arnold. “Don’t you dare tell me or my friend what we should be doing.”
“This is our estate,” said Arnold. “We are the ones in control here.”
“How do we wake up Holly?” said Lilly.
Arnold went into his pocket and pulled our a test tube with a rubber stopper on the end. Inside was a light blue liquid. “The antidote.”
Lilly reached out for it, but Arnold pulled away. “Ah-ah-ah…not until you promise me one thing.”
“What?” said the Doctor.
“That you will leave us alone.”
“I can’t promise anything until I have the full story about you and your kind,” said the Doctor, apologetically.
“And who made you the judge of my people?” said Arnold. “We’ve been here for over 50 years.”
“I’m a Time Lord. I’m sure you’ve heard of my people?”
“Time Lord. Not Time Judge.” Arnold looked up at the Doctor. “Surely you’d be better off back with your own people, dealing with their own problems.”
The Doctor stared down at Arnold. “Don’t try and provoke me, Arnold.”
“Give me the sodding antidote,” said Lilly, holding out her hand. “Doctor, tell him you’ll speak to him. Tell him you’ll try and understand. I just need that antidote.”
Arnold looked at the Doctor with a look that advised him to listen to his companion.
The Doctor shook his head in frustration. “Very well. Hand her the antidote.”
“You promise to listen to us? You promise to give us a chance?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Just give it to her.”
Arnold held out the antidote and Lilly snatched it from him and raced towards the door.
“Give her two drops of it,” said Arnold. “She’ll wake up with a sore head, but will be okay.”
Lilly reached the door when Arnold spoke again.
“Tell her I’m sorry.”
Lilly narrowed her eyes at the old man and then bolted out of the door.
The Doctor and Arnold had walked in silence from the church to a small street around the corner called Lime Avenue. It had normal, ordinary working class terrace houses. Arnold led the Doctor to a house with a large, red door - No. 33.
“Your house?” said the Doctor.
“My house,” said Arnold.
He put his hand on the doorknob and went inside.
The Doctor stepped into the dimly lit, but incredibly tidy hallway. Arnold hung his panama hat up on the coat hook and led the Doctor through into the living room where Mrs Jefferson, Mr Twemlow and a small collection of the residents of the Runswick estate were sat.
Mrs Jefferson gave a nervous smile to the Doctor and offered him a cup of tea.
“Thank you,” said the Doctor, as Arnold indicated for him to sit down in an armchair.
The Doctor looked around the room. It looked normal and ordinary. There was nothing about this place that suggested it was inhabited by an alien couple. The flowery wallpaper was a little dated for the 1990’s, but then Patricia and Arnold Jefferson were an old fashioned couple.
A plate of custard creams was passed around and the Doctor took one and bit into it. “No Coffee Creams?”
“I’m afraid not, Doctor,” said Patricia.
The Doctor took a sip of his tea and then turned to Mr Twemlow. “Charlie, you’ve caused my friends and I some heartache.”
“I did warn you,” said Charlie, his eyes behind his spectacles betraying no emotion on his face.
“It was you who attacked me outside of my…craft, yes?”
He gave a curt nod. “Indeed it was. I was merely trying to protect my people.”
“And every single one of you are aliens, yes?”
“That is correct,” said Arnold.
“So are you going to tell me about your story?” said the Doctor, leaning back in the armchair and interlocking his fingers.
Arnold took a deep breath. “We’ve been here, roughly, for around 40 years. We arrived during the time that they demolished the slums and built the flats. The council at the time were struggling to keep a track on who lived where. At first there was a mere handful of us, but slowly more of our kind joined the group and we took up residence in the tower blocks. Eventually the flats were full of just us. When it came to them knocking them down this estate was built for us to move into. We were a proper little community. We looked after ourselves and took care of one another.”
“But where did you come from?” asked the Doctor, leaning in closer.
“We are a race of creatures known as the Yaros,” said Charlie. “Our planet was devastated during the Time War.” His eyes met the Doctors. “We tried to rebuild from the ruins, but our neighbouring world, Lanix, seized the opportunity to attack and occupy us. The Lanix tore through our world, destroying our cities and stealing our precious minerals, enslaving our peaceful people.”
“I’m sorry,” said the Doctor, putting his half-empty cup down on a coaster next to the armchair.
“We decided to flee. A handful of us.” Arnold took a deep breath. “That’s when we ended up here. But we knew we had to hide. For a time we stayed in the woods on the outskirts of the town, hiding from the Humans.”
“But then we found a way to disguise ourselves,” said Patricia. “Then we moved into the flats.”
“But I detected alien life signs some time back,” said the Doctor.
Arnold nodded. “Unfortunately every ten years our system needs rebooting. For a split second our shielding comes down and we are exposed to anybody out there who can detect us.”
“That must have been a moment when I detected you.”
“Indeed,” said Arnold.
“When you came here we knew something was up. But your attempts to expose us didn’t work,” continued Charlie.
The Doctor nodded sagely. “Both attempts at trying to expose you failed because the machinery couldn’t cope with the overload. It couldn’t cope with the fact that hundreds - thousands - of you were an alien life form.”
Arnold nodded. “I tried to warn you off. I tried to advise Holly to leave.”
“But don’t you see,” said the Doctor, his arms out in a pleading fashion, “that you can’t stay here. If the Lanix find you they could unleash a war in the middle of this town. Thousands of innocents could get hurt.”
“We’re not leaving, Doctor,” said Arnold. “I’m sorry.”
“This is why I was trying to uncover you.”
“And this is why we were so determined to do anything to stop you,” said Charlie.
Lilly reached the TARDIS and fumbled for her key, careful not to drop the test tube with the antidote inside it. She could hardly contain herself. She wasn’t sure what to think. She felt like someone had just taken away her favourite toy and then given it back to her.
And then she cursed herself for thinking of Holly as a toy.
She unlocked the door and ran through the console room and headed down the strip-light corridor. She turned right then left, skidded around the swimming pool, ran down another corridor and then finally…finally…reached the room where Holly was resting.
She flung the door open. She was still there as she had left her earlier on.
Lilly raced up to the table and clasped Holly’s hand. Then she careful took the stopper out of the top of the test tube and gently let two drops of the blue liquid fall onto Holly’s lips. The two droplets slipped in between her lips.
And Lilly waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Lilly was about to give up hope, when suddenly she felt Holly’s fingers tense ever so slightly. Lilly let out a breath and could hardly contain herself. She rested her head against Holly’s chest. Sure enough the heart beat was starting up. Very faint, but it was there.
Holly’s eyelids started to flicker as her fingers flexed and un-flexed. It was like some kind of creation waking up on the scientists table.
Lilly almost wanted to shout. “She’s alive! She’s alive!” but managed to refrain from doing that.
Finally Holly’s eyes flicked open, her pupils narrowing in the bright light as she frantically looked around and around, breathing heavily.
“Where…where…?” was all Holly could manage.
Lilly appeared at the side of her face and looked down at her. “Ssshh,” she said, soothingly. “It’s alright, Holly. You’re gonna be alright. I’m here. I’m here.”
The Doctor finished his tea and then sat back in the armchair again, staring straight ahead at Arnold.
“Say something, Doctor?”
“Hmm,” said the Doctor, closing his eyes. “There’s just one thing I don’t quite understand.”
“And that is?” said Arnold.
“The machinery you have for transforming yourselves, for disguising an entire alien community…that takes some serious hardware.” He cocked his head to the side. “Where did you get that sort of technology?”
Arnold leaned forward. “When we first crashed we met a man. He called himself Matthew.”
The Doctor’s eyes narrowed.
“He said he wanted to help us. He had the technology to help shield us from the Lanix. We jumped at the chance.”
“Matthew…” said the Doctor, musing the name over.
“He was a nice chap. Very quiet, but nice. I would have thought you’d have been all clued up on him by now,” said Arnold.
“Oh, why’s that?” said the Doctor, already knowing the answer before he asked the question.
“Why? Because Matthew was one of your people. Matthew was a Time Lord.”
To be concluded...
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