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The Song of Yarru, Chapter Seven
The penultimate chapter, if you can believe it! Chapter eight, with epilogue, next week.
Previous Chapters
...
"What the hell is this?" demanded Sellick, staring at the two identical women, the Doctor, and Watson all frozen in the hallway.
The Doctor pointed the silver weapon at him and the blue light flared to life again. Sellick, Egan, and Moss immediately froze into a pose of military readiness, spines rigid and hands slightly outstretched.
"Who are you?" the Rear Admiral asked his opponent.
"I'm the Doctor. Put your hands up," he returned, gesturing with the weapon.
Sellick complied, and to his sides, so did Egan and Moss. Unlike his subordinates, who seemed fixated on the slender device, his eyes never left the Doctor's face. "You don't know what you're doing," he said evenly.
"Rescuing a free being captured by an illegal military expedition and exposing said illegal military expedition to the known universe?" The Doctor's teeth flashed. "Oh, I think I know exactly what I'm doing."
"You have interesting equipment." Watson was unsettled by the obvious return of the Rear Admiral's composure, which had momentarily been startled away by the appearance of the rescue party. "A lot of noise and bright light, but you're going to have to show me what it can do." His hands came down and he took a half step toward the other man, challenging.
"Stop right there," the Doctor commanded, but Sellick had called his bluff. With a lightning strike, Sellick hurled himself forward. A flash went off from the device and sparks flew from the wall.
"Get them!" screamed Sellick as he wrestled with the Doctor. A plume of smoke began to billow from the wall.
"Fire in section four," the computer informed them in a gentle voice. "Automatic suppression engaged."
Egan and Moss lunged for Anahit and Aiku. The fire suppression system in the ceiling discharged a fine mist and green lights began to flash rhythmically in the panel surrounding one of station's the many fire extinguishers. To his horror, Watson saw Moss reach Aiku, still weak from her ordeal, and pull her back against him, his arm crushing her throat. She clawed pitifully at him.
That was when all hell broke loose.
…
Rose had duly set off the pressure reduction alarm that the Doctor had set up and then found herself pacing in the console room without anything else to do. She couldn't blame Anahit for wanting the Doctor with her, and someone did need to stay in the TARDIS, but she felt like the third wheel.
Finally, unable to resist, she opened the TARDIS door and stepped into the closet, where she cracked the door and took in as much of the corridor outside as she could see. Three uniformed men jogged at a brisk pace down the end of the corridor – in the direction that the Doctor and Anahit had gone.
She looked frantically around for a weapon of some kind but found only a long-handled broom in the closet, and without any further thought, she closed the TARDIS door firmly behind her and set off after the men.
She reached a corner and paused, getting a good grip on the handle of her broom. Around the corner, she heard the Doctor's grim, confident voice and another man's. After a too-short exchange, there was a sound of a scuffle, and the zing of the sonic screwdriver.
Although her heart was hammering fiercely, Rose knew better than to leap blindly into a fight. She clutched at the broom and peered around the corner just as the fire suppression system engaged. As she ducked away from the spray, she saw the Doctor and one of the military men wrestling on the ground, neither one clearly winning. Another soldier had his arm around Aiku's throat and a third was kicking a man in civilian clothes.
But then, Anahit's song took Rose's undivided attention.
Her mouth opened in a terrible melody of dying, of plague, of murder, of vengeance, a terrible mockery of the beautiful song of life and growing that she and Aiku had sung to the trees of Yarru.
The sound drowned out the hissing of the mist. It smothered the smell of burning. It suffocated the cries of the men who fell to the floor, muscles suddenly unresponsive.
"Anahit," pleaded her sister, who had come to her knees beside one of the soldiers, who clutched at his eyes and screamed without sound.
As she had while watching the Tree Singers work their magic on the infant platform, Rose could feel effects of the song even as its killing force bypassed her. The hair on her scalp and arms stood up and she felt a wavering pressure in the air, as if it had grown suddenly thick.
Aiku and the Doctor seemed to be similarly spared from harm, along with the civilian man, although he covered his ears with his hands. That gesture was clearly futile, as one of the soldiers was clutching at his ears and still writhed in pain. When blood bubbled from between his fingers, Rose was shocked out of inaction and ran to Anahit.
"Stop it," she shrieked, but her words seemed to bounce back from the horrifying sound that Anahit made. Next to the Doctor, a soldier's eyes bulged and leaked red tears. Rose grabbed hold of Anahit's arms and shook her, trying to jolt the Tree Singer out of her song.
"They will die," Anahit said, and the song continued unabated around her words. That amazing syrinx at work again. "I will show them their weapon."
"You don't want to do this," Rose begged, finding it hard to force the words past her lips. "Please, Anahit, stop it. We don't have to kill them."
Aiku stepped forward and put her arms around her sister. "Don't do this for me. I don't want it."
That provoked a hiccupping lull in the onslaught, but it resumed. "You don't know what they will do," Anahit continued.
The Doctor, standing with some effort and leaning against the wall, switched the sonic screwdriver on. Immediately the room was flooded with the absence of sound. Anahit continued to sing, but the sound was cancelled out by the pulsing of the sonic screwdriver in the Doctor's hands.
"That's enough. They're dead," he said flatly, only his voice still audible in the suddenly silent hallway.
Anahit closed her mouth and stood her ground, meeting those timeless eyes without flinching. The screwdriver's bright blue light winked out and the hallway was filled again with the hissing of the fire suppression and the sounds of movement from the survivors.
Behind Rose, the man in civilian clothes slumped to the ground and pulled his knees to his chest. Aiku wound herself around her sister and murmured soft words into her ear. The three soldiers lay in crumpled piles on the floor, eyes huge and staring and red-flecked foam in their mouths and ears.
The Doctor took a cloth from his jacket pocket and went to each of the dead men in turn, wiping their faces and closing their too-prominent eyes. When he rose again, he looked as broken and unreachable as he had when he had told Anahit of her gift's killing potential, but Rose went to him anyway. She pressed her face into his shoulder and put her arms around his waist. He was stiff and unyielding, even for her.
"It's not your fault," she whispered.
He turned those desperate, pained eyes upon her and she blinked. "I let her do it," he said. He had the same matter-of-fact tone with which he'd announced the men's deaths, and when he stepped away from her toward Anahit, she let him go.
The Tree Singer stood her ground against him, supporting Aiku who clung to her. "Don't tell me there was another way," she challenged.
"I won't." He emitted a brittle laugh and shook his head. "I knew what you would do." His gaze flicked over to Rose, pinning her motionless for a moment, and for the first time to the surviving man, who was still sitting with his back against the wall, shaking.
…
"I'm Rose Tyler," the blonde woman said, offering her hand.
"George Watson," said that man, struggling to his feet with her assistance. He tried to suppress his fear and shock. "There's another man on the ship. My partner, Bell. He's a biologist."
Bell's office door was locked, but the Doctor opened it easily enough. The other scientist had wild eyes and climbed backwards on his desk so he was pressed against the glass, silhouetted by the planet below him.
"Watson!" he half shrieked. "They're all dead!" He raised a shaking hand to point at Anahit, standing in the hallway behind the Doctor and Watson with her arm around her sister. "She killed them all! We've got to stop her!"
Faced with the spectacle of his partner clearly coming apart, Watson felt a sense of calm come over him. "It's all right, Bell," he said. "It's over. Come down."
The Doctor leaned against the doorway, hands in pockets. "It must have been a pleasure to be locked up with him for all these months," he observed.
"You have no idea."
It took some time to persuade Bell to come down from his perch, and that only after Rose took Anahit and Aiku some distance down the hallway out of direct sight. He was convinced of his own imminent death, terrified of the twins, and certain that the Doctor was part of some conspiracy. Considering that Bell had been so quick to accept the actual conspiracy, Watson found this very tiresome.
They eventually dragged Bell to his bunkroom where the Doctor administered a sedative. "I'm sure it will do him some good, too," he said, smiling, after Bell collapsed backward onto his bed with his mouth open.
"I was going to make a recording," Watson said, knowing his voice was uneven but wanting to hold on to the last shreds of his composure. "I thought I'd send it to some of the protectionist groups. That's what you are, right?"
"Of a sort," the Doctor responded. "There's no need for that. We've got a bigger problem now."
Three dead military personnel – oh yes, Watson had to agree. "What are we going to do?" He didn't know this man, this Doctor, who had stopped Anahit too late, who had shown remorse toward the bodies piled in the hallway, but there was an indefinable air of command around him.
Regardless, the other man's eyes were surrounded by a fine network of lines and dark shadows. "That is entirely up to you."
Previous Chapters
...
"What the hell is this?" demanded Sellick, staring at the two identical women, the Doctor, and Watson all frozen in the hallway.
The Doctor pointed the silver weapon at him and the blue light flared to life again. Sellick, Egan, and Moss immediately froze into a pose of military readiness, spines rigid and hands slightly outstretched.
"Who are you?" the Rear Admiral asked his opponent.
"I'm the Doctor. Put your hands up," he returned, gesturing with the weapon.
Sellick complied, and to his sides, so did Egan and Moss. Unlike his subordinates, who seemed fixated on the slender device, his eyes never left the Doctor's face. "You don't know what you're doing," he said evenly.
"Rescuing a free being captured by an illegal military expedition and exposing said illegal military expedition to the known universe?" The Doctor's teeth flashed. "Oh, I think I know exactly what I'm doing."
"You have interesting equipment." Watson was unsettled by the obvious return of the Rear Admiral's composure, which had momentarily been startled away by the appearance of the rescue party. "A lot of noise and bright light, but you're going to have to show me what it can do." His hands came down and he took a half step toward the other man, challenging.
"Stop right there," the Doctor commanded, but Sellick had called his bluff. With a lightning strike, Sellick hurled himself forward. A flash went off from the device and sparks flew from the wall.
"Get them!" screamed Sellick as he wrestled with the Doctor. A plume of smoke began to billow from the wall.
"Fire in section four," the computer informed them in a gentle voice. "Automatic suppression engaged."
Egan and Moss lunged for Anahit and Aiku. The fire suppression system in the ceiling discharged a fine mist and green lights began to flash rhythmically in the panel surrounding one of station's the many fire extinguishers. To his horror, Watson saw Moss reach Aiku, still weak from her ordeal, and pull her back against him, his arm crushing her throat. She clawed pitifully at him.
That was when all hell broke loose.
…
Rose had duly set off the pressure reduction alarm that the Doctor had set up and then found herself pacing in the console room without anything else to do. She couldn't blame Anahit for wanting the Doctor with her, and someone did need to stay in the TARDIS, but she felt like the third wheel.
Finally, unable to resist, she opened the TARDIS door and stepped into the closet, where she cracked the door and took in as much of the corridor outside as she could see. Three uniformed men jogged at a brisk pace down the end of the corridor – in the direction that the Doctor and Anahit had gone.
She looked frantically around for a weapon of some kind but found only a long-handled broom in the closet, and without any further thought, she closed the TARDIS door firmly behind her and set off after the men.
She reached a corner and paused, getting a good grip on the handle of her broom. Around the corner, she heard the Doctor's grim, confident voice and another man's. After a too-short exchange, there was a sound of a scuffle, and the zing of the sonic screwdriver.
Although her heart was hammering fiercely, Rose knew better than to leap blindly into a fight. She clutched at the broom and peered around the corner just as the fire suppression system engaged. As she ducked away from the spray, she saw the Doctor and one of the military men wrestling on the ground, neither one clearly winning. Another soldier had his arm around Aiku's throat and a third was kicking a man in civilian clothes.
But then, Anahit's song took Rose's undivided attention.
Her mouth opened in a terrible melody of dying, of plague, of murder, of vengeance, a terrible mockery of the beautiful song of life and growing that she and Aiku had sung to the trees of Yarru.
The sound drowned out the hissing of the mist. It smothered the smell of burning. It suffocated the cries of the men who fell to the floor, muscles suddenly unresponsive.
"Anahit," pleaded her sister, who had come to her knees beside one of the soldiers, who clutched at his eyes and screamed without sound.
As she had while watching the Tree Singers work their magic on the infant platform, Rose could feel effects of the song even as its killing force bypassed her. The hair on her scalp and arms stood up and she felt a wavering pressure in the air, as if it had grown suddenly thick.
Aiku and the Doctor seemed to be similarly spared from harm, along with the civilian man, although he covered his ears with his hands. That gesture was clearly futile, as one of the soldiers was clutching at his ears and still writhed in pain. When blood bubbled from between his fingers, Rose was shocked out of inaction and ran to Anahit.
"Stop it," she shrieked, but her words seemed to bounce back from the horrifying sound that Anahit made. Next to the Doctor, a soldier's eyes bulged and leaked red tears. Rose grabbed hold of Anahit's arms and shook her, trying to jolt the Tree Singer out of her song.
"They will die," Anahit said, and the song continued unabated around her words. That amazing syrinx at work again. "I will show them their weapon."
"You don't want to do this," Rose begged, finding it hard to force the words past her lips. "Please, Anahit, stop it. We don't have to kill them."
Aiku stepped forward and put her arms around her sister. "Don't do this for me. I don't want it."
That provoked a hiccupping lull in the onslaught, but it resumed. "You don't know what they will do," Anahit continued.
The Doctor, standing with some effort and leaning against the wall, switched the sonic screwdriver on. Immediately the room was flooded with the absence of sound. Anahit continued to sing, but the sound was cancelled out by the pulsing of the sonic screwdriver in the Doctor's hands.
"That's enough. They're dead," he said flatly, only his voice still audible in the suddenly silent hallway.
Anahit closed her mouth and stood her ground, meeting those timeless eyes without flinching. The screwdriver's bright blue light winked out and the hallway was filled again with the hissing of the fire suppression and the sounds of movement from the survivors.
Behind Rose, the man in civilian clothes slumped to the ground and pulled his knees to his chest. Aiku wound herself around her sister and murmured soft words into her ear. The three soldiers lay in crumpled piles on the floor, eyes huge and staring and red-flecked foam in their mouths and ears.
The Doctor took a cloth from his jacket pocket and went to each of the dead men in turn, wiping their faces and closing their too-prominent eyes. When he rose again, he looked as broken and unreachable as he had when he had told Anahit of her gift's killing potential, but Rose went to him anyway. She pressed her face into his shoulder and put her arms around his waist. He was stiff and unyielding, even for her.
"It's not your fault," she whispered.
He turned those desperate, pained eyes upon her and she blinked. "I let her do it," he said. He had the same matter-of-fact tone with which he'd announced the men's deaths, and when he stepped away from her toward Anahit, she let him go.
The Tree Singer stood her ground against him, supporting Aiku who clung to her. "Don't tell me there was another way," she challenged.
"I won't." He emitted a brittle laugh and shook his head. "I knew what you would do." His gaze flicked over to Rose, pinning her motionless for a moment, and for the first time to the surviving man, who was still sitting with his back against the wall, shaking.
…
"I'm Rose Tyler," the blonde woman said, offering her hand.
"George Watson," said that man, struggling to his feet with her assistance. He tried to suppress his fear and shock. "There's another man on the ship. My partner, Bell. He's a biologist."
Bell's office door was locked, but the Doctor opened it easily enough. The other scientist had wild eyes and climbed backwards on his desk so he was pressed against the glass, silhouetted by the planet below him.
"Watson!" he half shrieked. "They're all dead!" He raised a shaking hand to point at Anahit, standing in the hallway behind the Doctor and Watson with her arm around her sister. "She killed them all! We've got to stop her!"
Faced with the spectacle of his partner clearly coming apart, Watson felt a sense of calm come over him. "It's all right, Bell," he said. "It's over. Come down."
The Doctor leaned against the doorway, hands in pockets. "It must have been a pleasure to be locked up with him for all these months," he observed.
"You have no idea."
It took some time to persuade Bell to come down from his perch, and that only after Rose took Anahit and Aiku some distance down the hallway out of direct sight. He was convinced of his own imminent death, terrified of the twins, and certain that the Doctor was part of some conspiracy. Considering that Bell had been so quick to accept the actual conspiracy, Watson found this very tiresome.
They eventually dragged Bell to his bunkroom where the Doctor administered a sedative. "I'm sure it will do him some good, too," he said, smiling, after Bell collapsed backward onto his bed with his mouth open.
"I was going to make a recording," Watson said, knowing his voice was uneven but wanting to hold on to the last shreds of his composure. "I thought I'd send it to some of the protectionist groups. That's what you are, right?"
"Of a sort," the Doctor responded. "There's no need for that. We've got a bigger problem now."
Three dead military personnel – oh yes, Watson had to agree. "What are we going to do?" He didn't know this man, this Doctor, who had stopped Anahit too late, who had shown remorse toward the bodies piled in the hallway, but there was an indefinable air of command around him.
Regardless, the other man's eyes were surrounded by a fine network of lines and dark shadows. "That is entirely up to you."