Free Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition by Stephen Cole

energy. They were forming shapes, numbers, weird mathematical equations. And although the amount of spray seemed to be growing greater, Polly saw that the value of the numbers was getting smaller.
    ‘Like counting down the hit parade,’ she said with a familiar thrill of excitement.
    Suddenly she frowned. On the far side of the freaky projection, she saw movement. A figure, blurred and hazy, moved stealthily among the rocks.
    Polly tried to focus on the figure but the radio static in her head was growing louder, a near-deafening pressure that continued to build. She leaned back against the tunnel wall. A part of her told her that it wasn’t safe to stay here, that she should go back, but while she tried to concentrate on the words they were lost over the raging of the unnatural sea.
    Close by, over the noise, she heard a low, powerful whine, like a dozen flashbulbs charging up. She frowned. Was someone going to take her picture? She looked down at herself, saw a smear of dirt on the bright yellow leg of her spacesuit, crouched to brush it clean.
    She shrieked as a blast of heat singed her hair and an explosion threw her forward along with half of the wall behind her. She gasped with pain, as the stinging wet slap of her palms against the gritty tunnel floor broke the spell she’d been under. Polly looked up to see a huge, hovering shadow wreathed in smoke from the explosion. Red laser eyes shone into her own, blinding her. With a squeak of terror Polly scrambled up and ran.
    She heard the building charge of the flashbulbs again.

C HAPTER F OUR
    W HILE THE L IGHT L ASTS
    I
    BEN JOINED THE Doctor as he walked stiffly over to join the two troopers, raising his hands to show he meant them no harm. Addressing Roba, he nodded back at the monsters on the dais. ‘I take it, young man, that you recognise these poor, unfortunate creatures here?’
    ‘Unfortunate?’ Roba looked like the Doctor had just spat at his mother. ‘What’re you talking about, unfortunate?’
    ‘Well, of course, unfortunate only in that… Well, they are dead, after all,’ the Doctor blustered.
    ‘Wouldn’t have them any other way,’ Roba hissed. ‘Schirr scum.’
    The Doctor looked at him sharply. ‘Ah, but the manner of their death. Held in stasis for all to see. What of that, hmm?’
    ‘Keep quiet,’ Haunt said warningly.
    The Doctor turned to Shel, whose eyes met his own. ‘It’s bothering
you
, sir, is it not? These creatures are not fake, they are real flesh…’ He turned up his nose distastefully at the crimson mess at their feet. ‘And real blood, of course.’
    Roba clenched his fists. ‘Look, man –’
    The Doctor raised his voice, losing patience, acting as if the hulk of a man was just some upstart kid speaking out of turn in the old boy’s classroom. ‘Surely you don’t think all nine of these Schirr creatures stood here on their dais waiting patiently to be shot until the last man retaliated, hmm?’
    A thought occurred to Ben. ‘And what about that stasis field thing you mentioned, Doctor,’ he said, pleased to have found something to contribute. He shrugged at Haunt. ‘Triggered by
you
lot coming in here, ain’t that right, Doctor?’
    Haunt frowned. ‘What?’
    ‘Yes, it’s quite a mystery, quite a mystery,’ said the Doctor. He looked almost amused. ‘Not forgetting the concealed exit in this room that Polly must somehow have fallen through –’
    Shel finally lost his cool. ‘That’s enough out of you,’ he barked.
    The Doctor looked furious at the interruption, but then everyone’s attention was taken by something else. The echo of approaching footsteps began tripping over themselves as, this time, a small, wiry figure burst into the cavernous hall, dressed again in grey and with backpack and metal headband. Ben was pleasantly surprised to find he was taller than at least one of these space soldiers. But as the bald, scarred person approached…
    ‘Stone me,’ Ben muttered. ‘It’s another