Free Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids by Pip Baker, Jane Baker Page B

cabin!’
    Rudge was far from bothered. Perhaps the old boy was a bit deaf or a bit obstinate. Elderly people did not always abide by the rules.
    But Janet would not be assuaged. She urged the Security Officer towards Cabin Ten.
    Mel went too.
    Nothing had been disturbed in the cabin.
    ‘He hasn’t touched the drink I brought him.’
    Rudge shrugged. ‘Well, maybe he’s just wandered off.
    Absent-minded.’
    ‘Without his coat?’ exclaimed Janet. The jacket hung neatly in the wardrobe. ‘Or his watch?’
    This did strike Rudge as strange. ‘When did you last see him?’
    ‘I didn’t. See him, that is. He was in the shower. I spoke to him through the door.’
    Patting Janet consolingly on the shoulder, Rudge opened the bathroom divider...
     
    14

The Enemy Within
    The bathroom was deserted.
    Apart from a residue of water in the shower and splashes on the tiles, there was no indication that Mister Kimber or his assailant had been in there.
    ‘Where can he be? With all these killings –!’
    ‘That’ll do, Janet.’ Rudge refused to tolerate histrionics.
    ‘Pull yourself together. Going to pieces won’t help. We’ll search the passenger quarters before we start assuming the worst.’
    With Janet in tow, he exited, brushing past Mel.
    About to follow, she lingered. Something nagged.
    Another disappearance? The investigation needed a fresh approach. But what? She fingered the wristwatch. An inscription on its case read: With you every second. Peter and family . The stewardess was right. Mister Kimber wouldn’t voluntarily have gone anywhere without his keepsake.
    She peered into the bathroom. Initially it yielded no clue – but wait! The old man was supposed to have been taking a shower... yet the fluffy bath towel was folded on the shelf. Crisp and dry. Not even damp.
    A positive deduction that spurred her on to examine the bathroom more keenly... and to discover an object not in keeping with the sterile surroundings. Attached to the air grille, caught by its stem, was a waxy, olive-green leaf.
    Two waxy, olive-green arms were humping the lifeless Kimber between the inner and outer shells of the space ship’s bulkhead.
    Laboured breathing accompanied the grim journey as the corpse was lugged clumsily towards a lattice-work of truss and transverse girders. Although not constructed for this purpose, the girders formed a cage.
     
    The breathing became more stertorous and the two arms flexed and braced to tip the body into the makeshift cage... rolling it on top of the corpses of the electrocuted Edwardes and the guard who had found him.
    Its ghoulish task completed, the creature stretched to full height. Walking upright, the biped’s head was sculpted like a closed ivory brown bud. It had sunken cheeks that projected forward an o-shaped, rubbery mouth. Curling, transparent sepals shielded ear-slits. Neither eyebrows nor lashes framed the lidless, staring eyes in the grotesque, noseless face. Noseless because, like plants, it breathed through its waxy leaves.
    As it advanced, shuffling, it gazed approvingly at the makeshift cage, then patted its green arms with congratulatory fervour... The only sound was the rustling of the leaves that grew all over its body and from the arms and legs.
    This was a Vervoid.
    One of the creatures that had been able to emerge from the giant shucks after the impact of high intensity light.
    Approvingly, it crushed the three humans together as though making room for more, before shufflling away again along the narrow duct leading from the bulkhead and the cage...
    ‘A grim picture, Doctor.’
    An apt comment from the Commodore who had just been given a description of the mutant in the isolation room.
    ‘I’ve no reason to lie, Commodore.’
    ‘And I’m not questioning your honesty. Simply your methods. However, I’m left with little alternative but to begin to cooperate.’
    ‘Begin? I take it you mean, begin overtly to cooperate.’
    ‘This could be the shortest alliance on