Vanderdeken's Children Read online

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  Vanderdeken's Children

  By Christopher Bulis

  Chapter 1

  The Derelict

  The steady tolling of the bell brought Samantha Jones back to the TARDIS's console room at a breathless sprint.

  She'd been exploring a dark, twisting, flagstoned corridor, which she was reasonably certain had not been there the day before, when the first sonorous warning notes reverberated through the ship. Other vessels might have employed buzzers or sirens to alert their crews; the TARDIS had bells that would have graced any church tower. They communicated a sense of alarm far better than many more raucous alarms Sam had heard.

  Completing a two-hundred-metre dash, Sam burst into the unlikely expanse of the console chamber.

  'Vortex discontinuity,' the Doctor said in answer to her unspoken question, without looking up from the central console.

  'Victorian ironwork gothic' had been one phrase that had come to Sam's mind shortly after she'd seen the improbable chamber for the first time.

  'Jules Verne meets Canterbury Cathedral' had been another - once she had recovered from her initial shock.

  The chamber's edges were dimly lit by assorted candelabra, torches and oil lamps, which Sam noted did not seem to burn down or need refilling quite as often as they should. In their soft pools of light were gathered an eclectic collection of easy chairs, side tables, statues, clocks and curios. Towering bookshelves and stacks of dark wooden drawers almost obscured the walls. Carelessly scattered rugs softened the flagstone floor, which gave way to parquet only in the chamber's very centre. Here was set the TARDIS's main control console, arched over by six massive lattice girders which met above it to support the upper half of the device the Doctor called the time rotor. This was a transparent cylinder in which two sets of glowing blue rods, like matching clusters of stalactites and stalagmites, rhythmically intermeshed and drew apart.

  The lower half of the mechanism was enclosed by a hexagonal control board, and it was around this that the Doctor bustled. A Christmas-tree selection of multicoloured lights flickered and pulsed as he threw switches and levers, tapped brass-rimmed dials and consulted the kind of tumbler displays Sam had only ever seen elsewhere on an antique fruit machine.

  It was absurd and improbable and yet, somehow, it worked.

  As Sam crossed the floor to the console she felt a tremor run through the ship and grabbed one of the girders.

  'Should I start getting worried about now?' she asked mildly above the throb of the console and the still tolling bell.

  Even as the Doctor flashed her a quick reassuring grin the ringing ceased, leaving only an echo in her ears. The frantic pulsing of the control lights slowly settled.

  'We're not about to be sucked into oblivion, if that's what you mean,' he said. Then he added disconcertingly, 'At least, not in the foreseeable future.'

  Unfortunately, as Sam knew only too well, when you travelled with the Doctor the future often arrived earlier than you thought.

  'So what's the panic about, then?'

  'Any discontinuity in the space-time vortex is always a potential hazard,' the Doctor explained as he pulled the main monitor down on its heavy spring-loaded lazy-tong mount over the console. An image grew on its screen.

  It was a flickering, coiling, writhing thing: as though a rainbow-hued snake was on fire and shedding its burning skins, each of which formed other snakes that coiled back on themselves to merge with the first snake again.

  Sam felt a knot forming between her eyes as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. After a few seconds she gave up.

  'Of course, this is only a four-dimensional approximation of a fifth-dimensional cross section of a multidimensional phenomenon,' the Doctor explained helpfully, continuing to stare at the apparition without apparent discomfort.

  'So it's a psychedelic artist's nightmare,' Sam agreed, squinting at the object again through splayed fingers and frowning in disapproval.'But what does it do?'

  'Well, it can disrupt the TARDIS's flight path as a storm at sea would a sailing ship. It could, for want of a better word, sink us if we got too close.

  So, like any hazard to shipping, it must be charted. If it's a natural phenomenon its magnitude and drift must be plotted...' He paused to tap a dial. 'If it's artificial, it must be investigated.'

  'And this one's artificial?' Sam said.

  The Doctor smiled broadly. 'I rather think so.'

  It was a beguiling and dangerous smile. It spoke of a passionate delight in discovery, of intense curiosity coupled with boundless energy, of old knowledge and new horizons. Nobody else could wear it quite the way the Doctor did.

  'Unfortunately I can't plot its parameters properly,' he admitted. 'But it seems to have at least one extension into normal space. We'11 have to establish its co-ordinates there to fix a station point.'

  The console lights reflected in blue eyes set in a lean face, with something of the look Sam had once seen in a character in a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painting. His wild, shoulder length, curling, light-brown hair accentuated the impression, as did his frock coat and wing-collared shirt, pinned grey cravat, brightly patterned waistcoat and narrow trousers. He fitted his surroundings as well as any surroundings could fit him. A man out of time and yet of all times.

  A steadily deepening mechanical pulsation reverberated through the console room.They were descending from the complex of higher dimensions, which enfolded all space and time, to those mundane four in which Sam had spent most of her life. The pulsation fell to a bass tone, there was a dull booming thud, then silence.

  'Where are we?' Sam asked.

  'Temporally in the year 3123 by your calendar. Physically we're several hundred light years from Earth in deep space. Somewhere close by should be the interface between the hyperspatial aspect of the vortex discontinuity and real space.'

  She stared at the monitor. For a moment it displayed only a scattering of stars shining hard and untwinkling in the void. Then, as the external camera panned, an object came into view.

  It was a cylindrical form with a curious projection rising from its mid-section, like a segment of some vast machine. There was a scale grid along the bottom of the monitor screen and Sam made a quick calculation.

  'It's big - over four thousand metres long.'

  'At least that,' the Doctor agreed.

  Sam frowned and adjusted the monitor controls so that the image of the strange vessel swelled and overflowed the edges of the screen as she zoomed in.There was no sign of any interior illumination from portholes, or of navigation lights. In the pale starglow its hull appeared overall to be a dull green and was formed of numerous raised plates, scale-like slabs, nodules and branching pipes. Here and there she saw tints of maroon, brown and occasionally silver. Flared rings or flanges encircled both ends of the central shaft like monstrous bracelets. Eight tall spires or horns radiated perpendicularly from each of them into space.The conning tower, or whatever it actually was, that rose from the middle of the shaft resembled a conical stack of variously sized plates, pierced through by several vertical pipes rising from the main body of the craft. The not altogether agreeable image came to her of a tree stump smothered in bracket fungi.

  Either the TARDIS or the alien craft must have been drifting, for, as Sam watched, the end of the massive hull slowly turned towards them and she saw it was hollow. The interior was a tunnel large enough to drive a supertanker through. But apparently it did not run the length of the craft, for there were no stars at the other end, only a fathomless blackness.

  The whole aspect of the craft was unfamiliar and deeply alien.

  "That's funny,' Sam said. "The near end of that ship, or whatever it is, looks lik
e it's out of focus...' She peered closer and caught her breath. 'Doctor, do you know, I can see stars through the fuzzy half of it?'

  'No, but if you'll sing it I'll hum along.' His expression became momentarily apologetic under Sam's withering glare.'It appears to be translucent because part of the craft is extending into hyperspace,' he explained more soberly. "That's the source of the discontinuity we detected.'

  'Have you ever seen anything like it before?'

  'No. But then even I am not familiar with every vessel ever put into space.'

  'Isn't there some sort of data file you can check? Jane's All the Galaxy's Spaceships , sort of thing?'

  "There is, and I consulted it while you were gawping at our find. Nothing like it is listed - but then not every ship gets registered.'

  Sam felt the great hulk looming intimidatingly at them. She took a deep breath and tried to sound offhand: "Then I guess we'll just have to check it out for ourselves.'

  'Unfortunately, that might not be possible,' the Doctor said, frowning at the console displays. "The craft's emanating an unstable and very powerful energy field in real space as well as the higher dimensions. It means I can't materialise the TARDIS much closer to it than this. However, as you may have noticed, we're moving towards it at a steadily increasing velocity.The craft must have considerable mass to influence us at this distance.'

  'Will we hit it?' Sam asked, her voice betraying nothing of the alarm she felt.

  'Fortunately no. Due to the interference we materialised with some intrinsic motion.That, combined with the attraction of the alien ship, has put us on a hyperbolic trajectory.We'll make our closest approach in half an hour or so, then pull away again.'

  'Well, have you got any spacesuits with flight packs on board? We could buzz over and take a closer look while we pass it.'

  'Possibly... somewhere,' the Doctor said absently, running his lean quick fingers over the controls like some maestro pianist.'But I'd like to filter out some of this interference first. It might affect the flight pack circuitry at close range, and it wouldn't do to get ourselves marooned over there, would it?'

  As he worked, Sam idly tracked the monitor image about, examining the alien craft curiously. What was its purpose? That huge central shaft couldn't possibly be a drive tube, could it? Perhaps the whole thing was some sort of spacegoing dry dock.

  Then a twinkle of light beyond the edge of the craft caught her eye. The image on the monitor shrank as she zoomed the camera out to encompass a wider angle of space. Two other ships appeared, standing off on opposite sides of the alien vessel. And even on this long view she could see internal lights sparkling on them.

  'Doctor, we've got company.'

  The Doctor looked up, his eyes narrowing.'So we have. Apparently somebody else detected the same energy disturbance we did. How long have they been here? I wonder.'

  'Perhaps that thing belongs to them.'

  'I don't think so.Those ships are of quite different designs.'

  Sam enlarged the picture and saw immediately what he meant.

  The ship on the left of the alien craft had a slender, gleaming white hull decorated with green and red livery stripes. Several rows of large observation windows glowed along its sides. At least three domes rose over its upper decks and within them she could see what looked like greenery and the sparkle of water. Everything about it suggested luxury, grace and, improbably in airless space, streamlined speed. Clearly a passenger liner.

  The ship opposite it and nearer to them was, by contrast, an unprepossessing, dull, grey, compact bullet. Pods mounted on short outriggers ringed its tail section while unidentifiable teardrop blisters broke the smooth curve of its nose. Lights showed from a mere handful of portholes. There was nothing graceful about its lines, merely functional efficiency. It looked nastily like a warship, Sam thought uneasily.

  Even as she watched, the warship - if that was what it was - rolled slightly towards the alien craft. One of the hull blisters split apart to reveal a point of blue-white light within it.

  'Force-beam projector,' the Doctor said.

  A faint path of sparkling radiance sprang into being between it and the larger ship, like dust motes caught in a beam of sunlight. It flickered about the strangely textured hull, but did not seem to quite touch it.After half a minute the beam was cut off.

  'No luck,' the Doctor observed.'The interference is preventing them locking on.They'll have to rig an actual tow line if they want to move her. Ah, the

  's trying it now.'

  A beam, projected from a hatch in the liner's hull, also scattered across the alien ship without apparently finding any purchase.After a few seconds it too was extinguished.

  'I think they're as puzzled about that ship as we are,' the Doctor mused, his hands dancing across the controls. 'I wonder if they're discussing the matter..." -

  A crackle of static issued from a speaker grille, then a distorted voice.

  'Ship-to-ship channel,' said the Doctor, making some fine adjustments. The speaker's words became clearer.

  '... a mistake on your part to think we have given up just yet, Commander,'

  said a woman's voice firmly. 'We are not relinquishing our claim.'

  'There's a visual signal as well,' said the Doctor. The external view on the monitor faded into an indistinct blur for a moment and then resolved itself into the head and shoulders of a strong-featured woman of about fifty, wearing a merchant navy captain's uniform and a determined expression.

  'May I remind you,' she continued, 'that we discovered this derelict within the borders of our protectorate zone, and under interstellar convention we have first rights to salvage.'

  'Leaving aside the fact that we also have claims on this sector of space,' a man's voice responded scathingly,'may I in turn remind you, Captain Lanchard, that discovering a vessel first does not, legally, grant you exclusive rights to it.'

  The Doctor flashed a bright grin at Sam. 'Let's see if I can conjure up a split screen.'

  The screen image divided into two to show a man's head and shoulders.

  Sam smiled weakly.'State-of-the-art. Impressive.'

  The man on the screen was also in uniform, but one of a darker and more severe cut than the woman's. He continued: 'Until you have succeeded in landing a boarding party or making a secure tow, we too may attempt salvage as long as our activities do not hazard your ship.'

  'Commander Vega,' Lanchard said stoutly, 'I am pleased to hear you are so familiar with Federation law, even though you are not a signatory to its statutes. I trust you will abide by its rulings in this matter. I'm sure you wouldn't want any word of any infringements of that law to reach the Federation council.'

  'As I'm sure neither would you,' Vega replied smoothly, 'in the current circumstances.'

  'Then you will allow us to continue with the salvage unhindered?'

  Vega smiled coldly. 'You don't seem to have had much success so far, despite your so-called superior technology. Perhaps we shall have better luck. Meanwhile we shall be observing your actions closely -just in case you should suffer some mishap, for instance.'

  'Is that a threat?' Lanchard snapped back.

  'Not at all,'Vega replied unabashed.'But in uncertain situations such as this, dealing with alien technology, accidents do happen.'

  'Oh dear,' sighed the Doctor, and voiced his concern at the same time as Lanchard.

  'That sounds like a threat to me.'

  'But why should I feel the need to threaten you? After all, what threat does a mere liner pose to a fully armed front line Nimosian warship?'

  Lanchard smiled coldly. 'Commander Vega, as we are not actually at war, I trust that the relative strengths of our vessels will remain academic. Please remember there are over two thousand civilians on the Cirrandaria , some of them Federation citizens.'

  Vega smiled. 'I might point out that the Federation will not look kindly upon someone who risks the safety of their citizens by attempting to salvage an alien vessel which, in all probability,
will prove quite worthless -'

  A voice interrupted him, speaking softly from off-screen. He turned back to face Lanchard with a scowl further darkening his stern features. 'It seems I underestimated you, Captain. Were you keeping me talking as a distraction?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'There is a small object approaching us. A one-man shuttle or a spying device, perhaps?'

  'I don't know what you're talking about...' She glanced aside for a moment and spoke to somebody out of shot, then turned back to the camera.'Apparently we have it on our screens as well now, but I've no idea what it is.'

  'Its trajectory will take it between ourselves and the derelict,'Vega said.'Have you modified a probe to overcome the interference?'

  'We're working on the interference problem - just as you are, I imagine,'

  Lanchard admitted.'But none of our shuttles or probes have been deployed.'

  Vega was receiving more whispered information. 'It appears to be unmanned, with an unfamiliar energy signature.' He frowned. 'It will pass close by us.As it is not displaying a standard navigation beacon I could consider that a hostile act.'

  'Perhaps it came from the alien craft,' Lanchard suggested.

  'Impossible. We would have observed anything leaving the craft. And we detect no other vessel in the vicinity but your own. What are you trying to do, Captain?'

  Lanchard sighed. 'Nothing! You're acting like a typical paranoid Nimosian.'

  'And perhaps you are being a typically devious Emindian. Recall the probe.'

  'How can I? It's not ours.'

  'Then you will not object to its destruction - since it is clearly a hazard to navigation.'

  'Go ahead. But if you think a show of force is going to make me abandon my position, you're sadly mistaken.'

  'We shall see, Captain.' Vega turned aside: 'Main battery, target unidentified object...'

  The Doctor frowned.'What are they talking about?There's no other ship around here.'

  'Besides us,' Sam remarked idly.

  Nodding solemnly, the Doctor cut the visual element of the intercepted conversation and an image of the Nimosian warship filled the screen. Sam saw that another of the teardrop blisters on the forward section had opened to reveal a turret bearing a complex-looking coiled barrel. It lifted and swung about to point directly at them.