Table Of ContentThe Ancestor Cell
Peter Anghelides & Stephen Cole
For my parents, Margaret and Allan Anghelides.
PA
For Theresa Shiban, with love.
SC
Chapter One
Travelling companions
Lady Withycombe had remained for some twenty minutes on the carriage seat,
lounging in that warm and comfortable state in which, half asleep, half awake,
consciousness begins to return after a sound slumber. In her reverie, she had
recalled with pleasure her latest visit to Lord Ostler’s charming town house; the
satisfaction that had blossomed in her breast as she cast a shiny new threepenny
bit with ostentatious abandon to her porter at St Pancras; and the ragged urchin
who had waved so impudently at her from atop the station wall.
Thus she sat, unsure for a moment of exactly where in the universe she found
herself, gradually growing aware of a crumpled figure’s presence on the opposite
seat – a seat that, prior to her recent nap, had been unoccupied.
‘I thought, sir,’ she ventured after a modest pause, ‘to have this carriage for my
exclusive use.
This aspiration notwithstanding, you are, I am sure, welcome to join me for the
duration of your journey. What, sir, is your destination?’
But the other remained silent in his place, so that Lady Withycombe would have
thought herself still dreaming and her unexpected companion a carved wooden
statue, were it not for the cooling breeze from the half opened window beside
her.
The dishevelled figure stared, and his eyes blinked occasionally, and his lips
moved in a constant quiver of mumbling. He wore the collar raised on a light
brown coat, which was in urgent need of brushing, and his tumbling brown locks
seemed more suited to a young woman. A soiled hat perched indecorously on the
back of his lank head of hair.
Lady Withycombe essayed her enquiry one more time, with the same lack of
response.
When, after some consideration as to the wisdom of her action, she chose to lean
closer to listen to the man’s mumblings, she thought she could make out a
handful of the words. The stranger was asking the oddest of questions: ‘Phase
malfunction?’ was the first, followed shortly by, “That’s just jargon, isn’t it? Isn’t
it?’
‘I confess,’ she said, coming to a decision at this, and now looking about herself
for her small suitcase, ‘I am unable to assist you.’
Under any other circumstances, Lady Withycombe would have called for the
guard and made an immediate request for the unkempt stranger to be removed
forthwith to third class. Yet there was an ineluctable suspicion in her own mind
that it was she who was in some way transgressing, and not this unexpected and
odd new arrival.
When the train stopped at the next station, she lifted her suitcase through the
door and went in search of a different carriage. On leaving, she could once again
make out the stranger’s mutterings: ‘Must find … Must find … Doctor?’
Chapter Two
Ultimatum
Odd that he hadn’t noticed that before, thought Fitz. The cloth ribbon that edged
the console was frayed, and several studs were missing. He reached up from
where he lay and ran his middle finger tentatively over the ribbon, and the thin
material parted under the slight pressure. A new ship, he thought, and already it
was wearing out.
Not like the Doctor’s previous TARDIS, he thought. There, everything had
seemed old because everything seemed to be covered with a precisely measured
layer of dust, designed with a meticulous eye for intricate detail to look ancient,
as though someone had disguised it as a slightly seedy old college library so that
you wouldn’t see it for what it was – a fantastically complex space vessel that
knocked Emperor Ming’s sparking rocket ships into a cocked hat.
Fitz missed the old TARDIS. He missed the dappled light on its grand wooden
staircase, the deep heartbeat rhythm of the Chamberland grandfather clock, the
pervasive scent of dust and sandalwood and safety. He missed the marquetry
inset on the occasional tables where the Doctor poured rose pouchong into bone
china cups. Gold rimmed cups with rose motifs like the ones at his Auntie
Norah’s. Her tea always tasted special because she used only sterilised milk in
long, tall, thin bottles with gold metal tops …
Who am I kidding? thought Fitz. The Doctor’s previous TARDIS wasn’t more
secure: it was just more familiar than this one. Compassion had never liked
mixing with others, even before she’d been magically transmogrified from a
stuffy bint into their present time ship. As if to prove her lack of regard, she gave
yet another wild lurch and rolled him violently away from the console. His
shoulder smacked against a stout oak chair.
He opened his eyes, which he had screwed up as he’d pitched headlong across
the floor.
Below him Fitz could see blackness – no, he could make out pinprick stars, real
images and not just specks dancing in his terrified eyes. Frozen shards of ice
scattered in a cold explosion all around him until they melted into the distance.
Behind him, he could feel the reassuring bulk of the oak chair, but when he
swivelled round he discovered that it was no longer visible. Instead, far in the
distance behind him, he could make out the orange brown disc of a planet. Three
points of yellow light speared through space towards him. It took him a moment
to work out that the TARDIS scanner had extended to fill the entire room,
enveloping them in a 360 degree view of their immediate surroundings in space.
In space? Hadn’t they just been hiding deep in the labyrinthine depths and
convolutions of the time vortex? Yet now they were in plain view in normal
space time.
‘Doctor?’ His voice was a croak, barely audible over the hum that surged all
around him.
‘Doctor, I thought we’d escaped them.’
A dozen yards from him now, Fitz saw that the tiny six sided TARDIS console
was drifting in the middle of nowhere, like a tired grey mushroom floating in
soup. Unfazed by the feet that he was walking in midair, or maybe just unaware
of it, the Doctor scampered and danced in space around the console.
Even before he noticed the unfamiliar scowl on the Doctor’s long face, Fitz
knew something had gone badly wrong, inadmissibly wrong. The Doctor’s
random movements over the controls betrayed a hopelessness, a fear, and not the
capricious indifference that marked his usual confident control of the ship. He
was muttering to himself, ‘How can they have traced us? Could they have
cracked the Randomiser’s seed? Maybe I should have relied less on vectors
derived from strange attractor charts. Chaos aware control techniques are
childishly simple if you know what you’re doing.’
‘Doctor?’ persisted Fitz. ‘We’re under attack, and you’re babbling about …
strangely attractive charts?’
The Doctor stared at him, looking as though he might burst into tears at any
moment.
‘They’re beautiful. They’re butterfly shaped fractal point sets …’
‘Spare me the jargon, Doctor, and get with the beat. I don’t want to hear about
pictures of insects. I hate insects, wasps especially. Holiday snaps of red
admirals are not going to impress whoever is on our tails, and if they catch us
they’ll beat the crap out of us.’
‘Yes yes yes,’ snapped the Doctor testily, his mood swinging suddenly in the
opposite direction. He lunged at the next panel along, but he snatched his hand
away almost immediately as though the controls might be hot. Fitz saw his
expression pucker into doubt as his elegant fingers waggled over a different
control. Maybe he was trying to cast a spell over it – things seemed to have
reached that level of desperation.
Before the Doctor touched the control, it moved of its own accord. The Doctor
slammed his fist against the console, and threw his head back so that he was
staring up into the midnight darkness and the stars above them. ‘Compassion!’
he bellowed at the TARDIS. ‘Leave the driving to me, if you’d be so kind.’
Compassion’s voice sounded out all around them. ‘A right mess you’re making
of it.’ Fitz noted that she sounded as infuriatingly calm as ever, despite the howl
of noise that was building in the background, and despite the Doctor’s evident
fury. Or possibly because of that. ‘Hold on tight; Compassion added.
Fitz felt the movement in his stomach first, and then he felt like retching. Their
surroundings swirled savagely about them, distant stars smearing in stretched
arcs as the perspective shifted. It was as though they were in a glass cage that
was twisting on two axes, yet the unseen floor remained solid beneath Fitz’s
body. He considered standing up, sensed his stomach lurch again, and decided to
stay where he was. The wailing sound of Compassion’s TARDIS engines started
to reach a crescendo.
The Doctor clutched at the two nearest console panels as the universe spun
around them. The incongruous landmark of the console was the centre point of
the giddying movement.
Their pursuers loomed larger now behind the Doctor. Spinning balls of fire
outlined him against their oncoming glow and turned him into the silhouette of a
frantic marionette, a shadow puppet against their jaundiced yellow light. His
voice thundered from the centre of his dark shape. ‘Compassion! Return control
to the console! Do it now!’
A racing movement from above made Fitz stare upwards. As the TARDIS started
to move, the flat line of frozen ice rings slowly stretched until they were
concentric circles. Fitz could see where the TARDIS had broken through the
nearest ring. There was a vertiginous movement in the perspective, and suddenly
it was as though he were staring at the same view the wrong way down a
telescope. Then the view rotated swiftly around one axis and, in an unnerving
change, became completely steady, so that the circles looked like a distant target
in space. At the same moment, the shriek of the engines dissipated into the usual
calm hum of the console room.
Fitz took this chance to scramble unsteadily to his feet. He staggered over to join
the Doctor at the console, hardly believing he could traverse the invisible floor,
half fearing, half hoping he might tumble away into the inky depths of space and
away from this nightmare.
The Doctor didn’t acknowledge he was there. He seemed fixated on a spot far
off in the distance over Fitz’s left shoulder. Fitz followed his burning gaze. ‘Are
they still there?’
In answer, a flaring blue fireball barrelled towards them at a colossal, impossible
speed. At the last moment it veered away, scorching off into the vacuum.
Fitz ducked. He peered out from the unlikely shelter of the console. In the
distance a tiny point of light suddenly smeared wide across the darkness,
growing with incredible speed until it loomed like a huge, planet sized red shape
blocking their escape route.
Fitz re emerged from his hiding place, ashamed at his instinctive reaction to
duck and run.
A woman’s voice filled the space around them, clipped tones that brooked no
disagreement.
The voice of someone used to being obeyed without question or prevarication. ‘I
am commander of Presidential Quadrun 19, and Chancellor of Time Present on
the High Council. You cannot outrun this war TARDIS. Further vessels from the
fleet are already at intercept positions in real space and tangential time routes on
all statistical possibilities. Your vessel is forfeit, Doctor. Surrender or we’ll fire
on you directly.’
Chapter Three
Not waving
‘War TARDIS?’ said Fitz faintly. Although the universe was no longer spinning
around his head, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach had returned with a
vengeance. ‘Doctor, how far up the creek are we? And is there a paddle within
reach?’
The Doctor’s face, however, was now a blank mask. Fitz elbowed him sharply in
the ribs, to little effect.
‘Doctor, how can that thing be any kind of TARDIS? It’s huge. It looks as big as
Mars.’
The Doctor shook his head at Fitz. “That TARDIS is mapping its internal
dimensions on to its external dimensions, so it looks a great deal bigger than it
actually is in real space. It’s a flabby gesture of intimidation designed to frighten
primitive opponents.’
‘Well, it scares the shit out of me,’ said Fitz.
‘But it does somewhat weaken their defences,’ noted the Doctor. ‘Makes them
vulnerable to weapons attack. Not that that is going to help us, I’m afraid. Which
they will have calculated, of course. They know me too well.’
‘Surrender, or we’ll fire,’ said the clipped voice again.
Another blue fireball surged towards them. The Doctor lowered his head,
studying the console panel before him. Only his eyes seemed to move, blue
shards of ice flicking from side to side as he searched in vain for the right
control.
The fireball scorched overhead and away from them.
‘Final warning, Doctor,’ said the war TARDIS commander’s voice.
‘Compassion,’ said the Doctor. His voice was measured, low, dangerous.
