Heart of Stone / Death Riders Read online

  CONTENTS

  Death Riders

  Heart of Stone

  Justin Richards

  Cover illustrated by Paul Campbell

  CONTENTS

  1. Short Cut to Death

  2. Into the Tunnels

  3. Fun at the Fair

  4. Dance of the Drexxon

  5. After the Funeral

  6. Perpetual Pete

  7. Death in the Tunnels

  8. Broken Links

  9. Master and Slave

  10. The Secret of the Asteroid

  11. Stop the Train

  12. Death Ride

  13. Fine Tuning

  14. Into the Vault

  15. Musical Key

  16. The Awakening

  17. Encore

  CHAPTER 1

  SHORT CUT TO DEATH

  The rock walls were damp and slippery. The only light came from Rodge’s torch. He made his way carefully along the tunnel, avoiding the deeper puddles where the water had pooled after running down the walls. It was condensation from the difference in temperature – the warm, processed air meeting the cold rock of the asteroid’s interior.

  Rodge had lost track of how long he’d been walking. But he had to reach one of the main tunnels soon. In his mental map of the tunnel system, this should have been a short cut. But it wasn’t working out that way. He paused and looked back, trying to see if the tunnel sloped. It didn’t seem to, but over the distance he must have come even a slight incline would mean he missed the main tunnel. He could be above or below it. Maybe he’d do better to head back the way he’d come and take one of the proper routes.

  Or maybe, if he kept going, in just a few metres he’d be able to see the light from the main tunnel. Maybe he’d soon be laughing at how he’d thought he was lost, and how he’d got scared sneaking through one of the Off-Limits.

  Scared … Was he scared? No, of course he wasn’t. In the worst case, he would simply retrace his steps back to Blue 17 and then take the long route. He’d be late and Korl, his supervisor, would shout at him. They were all waiting for the survey results Rodge was carrying.

  Rodge paused, listening to try to hear the sound of machinery. If he could hear the robot drills or rock-luggers he’d know he was close to the workings. But the only sound he could hear was the steady drop-drip-drip of water. Like the beating of a heart, or the measured tread of someone walking towards him in the darkness.

  He shivered at the thought and turned a full circle. His torchlight glistened on the damp, uneven walls and reflected off the shallow puddles. He’d better go back, he decided at last. He was just getting further and further away from where he was meant to be.

  For a moment his stomach tensed. Which way had he come? He’d turned a full circle – or had he? Rodge took a deep breath of warm recycled air as he tried to think. He was sure it was that way – that was the direction he’d come from. Yes, of course – there was the jutting bit of rock near the tunnel floor that he’d grazed his leg on. Had to be.

  He took a minute to allow his nerves to settle before heading back. Bad move – he’d never take a short cut on his own again. At least, not one he didn’t already know.

  As he stood there, preparing to hurry back the way he’d come, Rodge frowned. He could hear something now, he was sure. Something other than the dripping water and his own ragged breathing. A scuffling sound. Something moving.

  He turned quickly, holding the torch at arm’s length so it illuminated as much as possible. But there was nothing. Just rock walls, damp reflections and the ever-present shadows.

  One of the shadows detached itself from the others. Claws clicked and scraped on the hard floor. Something dark and shapeless hurled itself out of the darkness.

  Rodge caught only a glimpse of the creature. Staring eyes wide with fury and hunger. Claws ripping through the air towards him. Teeth glinting in the frantic torchlight.

  Then he dropped the torch. The light went out, leaving only the faintest pale glow from the tunnel walls.

  The last thing Rodge thought as an even greater blackness wiped through his mind was that he could hear music. Mournful, sad music. Like a lament for the dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  INTO THE TUNNELS

  The central column of the TARDIS thumped to a halt and the protesting, tortured rasping of the engines stopped.

  ‘This is the exciting bit,’ the Doctor announced. He grabbed his tweed jacket off the back of a chair and stuffed his arm down a sleeve. The jacket flapped as he tried to get the other arm into the other sleeve, and he ended up twisting round and round in a circle like a dog chasing its own tail.

  Amy grabbed his collar and held the jacket so he could finish putting it on. ‘You’re hopeless,’ she told him.

  ‘Lucky I’ve got you then.’

  ‘Lucky you’ve got us both,’ she retorted.

  ‘Absolutely.’ The Doctor turned to Rory. ‘Is my bow tie straight?’

  ‘Not really,’ Rory told him.

  ‘Excellent!’ the Doctor bounded down to the TARDIS doors. ‘Come on then. Let’s see what’s outside.’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ Rory asked as he and Amy followed.

  ‘Where’s the fun in knowing?’

  The Doctor grasped the handle, ready to pull the door open.

  ‘Just so long as it’s safe,’ Rory muttered.

  The Doctor hesitated. ‘That’s a thought,’ he said seriously. Then he grinned. ‘No – just kidding. Of course it’s safe. There’s air and gravity and hardly any radiation. What more can you ask for?’

  ‘Sunshine and flowers?’ Amy said.

  ‘Safety and beauty,’ Rory suggested.

  ‘Yeah, all those. But apart from that, what? I can promise you, whatever is out there will be thrilling and exciting. It’ll be new and different. It will be… ’

  With a theatrical flourish, the Doctor pulled the door open.

  ‘Damp and boring and made of rock,’ Amy said.

  On the other side of the TARDIS door was a rough wall of dark rock. A droplet of water ran down its glistening surface and dripped on to the Doctor’s shoe. He watched it all the way.

  ‘Obviously we’re not going anywhere,’ Rory said.

  He reached out to close the door again, but the Doctor slapped his hand away. ‘I think rock, dark damp rock, is new, different, thrilling and exciting,’ he said grumpily.

  Amy laughed. ‘You would.’

  ‘No, no, no – I do.’

  The Doctor reached out, ran his finger down the damp wall and then licked it.

  Rory grimaced. ‘Oh, that’s gross.’

  The Doctor ignored him. ‘Traces of trisilicate. This wall has been machine-cut – look, you can see the scratches and grooves where the robot cutting tools have sheared through it. The damp is condensation, which suggests the rock itself is cold, but the air is warm. The fact there is air, and gravity, means there’s artificial life support plumbed into this asteroid, which means there are people here, too.’

  ‘Show off,’ Amy said.

  ‘All of which is exciting and thrilling like I said, wouldn’t you agree?’ The Doctor tapped the tip of his damp finger on Amy’s nose.

  ‘I might,’ she admitted. ‘If we could get out of the door.’

  ‘Easily fixed.’

  The Doctor slammed the door shut and ran back to the control console.

  ‘How do you know it’s an asteroid?’ Rory asked. ‘Not that I’m really interested,’ he added. ‘Well, I’m a bit interested, which is why I asked. But only a bit. Not in the thrilled, excited sense of interested.’

  ‘Good question,’ the Doctor conceded.

&nbs
p; The central column began to move slowly as the sound of the TARDIS engines echoed around.

  ‘Composition of the rock is typical of an asteroid in the Mangall system,’ the Doctor went on, adjusting a control, checking a dial and thumping a button. ‘That would fit with the mining operations too, assuming this is the thirty-third century, which it is.’

  The TARDIS engines ground to a halt again.

  ‘And in any case, I checked the readings when we landed.’

  ‘So you already knew?’ Amy asked.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell us?’ Rory said.

  ‘And deny you the chance to be thrilled and excited and … all that?’

  ‘Could have lived with it,’ Rory muttered.

  The Doctor was back at the TARDIS door. ‘Second time lucky.’

  ‘So where are we now?’ Amy wanted to know.

  ‘Pretty much where we were before. I just turned us round.’

  The Doctor pulled the door open. This time they could see a rocky tunnel stretching away into the distance. The Doctor led them outside and closed the door. He pointed to the tunnel wall next to the TARDIS.

  ‘There you are – I licked that.’ His expression turned into a frown and he inspected his finger. ‘Why did I do that? It was gross. Rory – you said it was gross and you were right. Don’t let me lick walls again, right? Not ever.’

  Amy was looking round. The TARDIS was standing against the wall of a wide tunnel hewn from the dark, damp rock. The tunnel was about four metres high and roughly the same width.

  ‘So, we’re in a mining tunnel dug by some sort of robot drilling machine deep inside an asteroid in the whatever system you said it was, right?’ Amy said.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So how come we can see? Where is the light coming from?’ She pointed at the roof. ‘No lights – look. But there’s light from somewhere.’

  ‘It’s as if the walls are sort of glowing,’ Rory said. ‘Except they’re not.’

  ‘Fluripsent crystals,’ the Doctor said. ‘Clever, eh?’

  ‘Floor-what?’

  ‘The mining drills embed them in the walls when they dig them out. They emit a radiant light. Which means the walls glow – only they don’t. Good description, Rory. It’s a bit like throwing your voice, you know, how a ventriloquist does. Only the crystals throw light, so it seems to come from somewhere else.’

  ‘It seems to come from all round us,’ Amy said.

  ‘Like I told you. It’s clever. Now, let’s go and see if we can find someone to tell us exactly where we are.’

  ‘How do you know there’s anyone here?’ Rory asked. ‘You talked about robot drills and stuff. Maybe there are no people.’

  ‘There’s air,’ Amy pointed out.

  ‘Might need that for the robots,’ Rory said. ‘OK, before you say it, I know robots don’t breathe. But car engines need air for internal combustion, don’t they?’

  ‘Good points, both of you,’ the Doctor said. ‘But robots don’t need light. Not these sorts of robots anyway. And the crystals are expensive. They’ll only embed them in tunnels that people use, and use regularly. Anywhere else, you need a torch.’

  ‘So which way do we go?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Towards the noise,’ Rory said.

  As they had been talking, a low rumbling sound was building in volume. It was getting louder all the time and the ground beneath their feet was beginning to vibrate.

  ‘This way.’ The Doctor set off briskly down the tunnel. After several steps, he stopped abruptly, swung round and headed in the opposite direction. ‘This way. Definitely this way.’

  They hadn’t been able to see from further back that another tunnel cut across the one where the TARDIS had landed. An enormous vehicle appeared, as if out of the tunnel wall, and lumbered slowly over the crossroads and off down the other tunnel. It was like a massive bulldozer, on caterpillar tracks, but with a huge conical drill on the front. It was dusty and dented, obviously very old. There didn’t seem to be any exhaust, but Amy could detect an oily smell in the air as the sound died away.

  ‘Do we follow it?’ Rory asked as they reached the crossroads.

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘We’re looking for people, not the drill face. It’s off to do some mining. That’s boring machine work.’ He grinned. ‘And I do really mean boring.’

  As the sound of the mining machine faded, Amy could hear another sound in the distance. It was very faint but it was coming from further down the tunnel they were in.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘I mean – it sounds like … ’

  ‘It sounds like an electric organ,’ Rory said. ‘But, I mean, it can’t be. Can it?’

  ‘One way to find out,’ the Doctor told them. ‘And that way is onwards.’ He strode off along the tunnel towards the sound.

  Ahead of them, Amy could see that the tunnel opened out into a vast cavern. The size of the chamber was truly stunning. But that wasn’t what made her gape in astonishment.

  ‘What?!’ Rory gasped.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Amy said.

  The sound of the electronic organ was louder now. As they got nearer they could hear people laughing and talking. They could smell the food that was being cooked. They could also hear other, quieter music …

  ‘Well, there’s something you don’t see every day in a vast cavern deep inside an asteroid floating in space,’ the Doctor said.

  Small tents and side stalls were arranged around the edge of the cavern. Larger tents were clustered in the middle. A white-faced clown on stilts walked past, waving to a child who was eating candyfloss. A small crowd of people gasped in unison as a fire-eater spat flames into the air. Wooden horses rose and fell as they went round a large carousel.

  They were looking at a huge fairground.

  CHAPTER 3

  FUN AT THE FAIR

  Somehow the Doctor had acquired a large stick of yellow candyfloss. And a toffee apple. The candyfloss stuck to his chin so it looked like he had a wispy yellow beard. Amy tried not to laugh. And failed.

  ‘What?’ the Doctor asked, laughing too. ‘Oh.’ Realising, he wiped his chin with his other hand – leaving streaks of sugary toffee down his cheek from the apple he was holding. ‘Better?’

  Amy bit back her laughter. ‘Much.’

  They spent a while just wandering around looking at the various stalls and sideshows. There was a hoopla and a large plastic pool where you had to hook plastic toy animals that looked a bit like ducks (but weren’t) out of the water. If your not-a-duck had a black cross on the bottom, then you won a prize. Rory didn’t.

  There were jugglers and acrobats performing in a roped off area. In the middle of the cavern – further away from the glowing walls that didn’t glow – globes of light hung in the air. The tents offered fortune-telling, speeches from famous plays, and tea and cake.

  The electric organ music turned out to be coming from the carousel. The wooden (if they were indeed wooden) horses (if indeed they were horses) performed tirelessly for children (who really were children) in simple overalls and smocks. Everyone was dusty and grimy. But everyone was happy and laughing. Everyone was having the time of their lives.

  Everyone except, judging by his expression, Rory.

  ‘Oh, what’s wrong?’ Amy challenged him. She grabbed Rory’s arm and snuggled her cheek against his shoulder.

  ‘I didn’t win on the hook-a-not-a-duck,’ he grumbled.

  ‘You’re sulking about that?’ Amy was surprised. ‘But the prize was a bouncy ball. It was rubbish.’

  ‘Still didn’t win,’ Rory complained. But he was trying not to smile now. ‘I could have thrown the prize away. And it would have bounced.’

  The Doctor was looking up at the white-faced clown on stilts. ‘What’s your name?’ he called. ‘Happy?’

  ‘No,’ the clown told him, his white face expressionless. ‘They call me Clueless.’

  ‘Clueless the Clown,’ Amy said. ‘I li
ke it.’

  ‘So why do they call you that?’ Rory asked.

  The clown shrugged. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  The Doctor laughed. Amy and Rory laughed too, as the clown lumbered away on his stilts.

  ‘Should have seen that one coming,’ Rory admitted.

  ‘You walked right into it,’ Amy agreed. ‘On stilts. Hey, look – is that a coconut shy?’

  ‘We’re supposed to be finding out where we are,’ the Doctor reminded her.

  ‘Oh, I love coconuts,’ Rory said.

  ‘You find out where we are,’ Amy told the Doctor. ‘Rory and me are going to win a coconut, isn’t that right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Rory agreed.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ the Doctor protested. ‘It’s not even close. “Rory and me are going to win a coconut”? How can you even say that?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Amy said, unsure quite what the problem was.

  ‘It’s “Rory and I”,’ the Doctor corrected her. ‘It’s “Rory and I are going to win a coconut.” ’

  ‘Are we?’ Rory asked the Doctor.

  ‘No,’ Amy told the Doctor. ‘You are going to find out where we are. Rory and me are going to win a coconut.’

  The Doctor looked at her for a moment. His eyes narrowed slightly. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Finally he nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you back here in half an hour.’

  To Amy’s delight and Rory’s obvious surprise, they won a coconut. Amy managed to hit one of the coconuts, but just knocked it sideways a bit.

  ‘At least you can tell they’re not glued down,’ Rory told her.

  ‘It’s better than you’ve done,’ Amy pointed out.

  So Rory bought another set of three balls to throw, using some of the coins the Doctor had just happened to have with him that seemed to work here. His first shot hit the same coconut, and sent it flying out of its stand.

  ‘Result!’ Amy exclaimed.

  The man running the stall was large and hairy with rolled-up sleeves revealing arms covered with tattoos. But his grizzled face broke into a broken-toothed grin as he retrieved the coconut for Rory and set another one in its place.