16 - The Janus Conjunction

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DOCTOR WHO
The Janus Conjunction
An Eighth Doctor Ebook
By Trevor Baxendale
Contents
Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . Escape and Evasion
Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fire in the Sky
Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Escape to....?
Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Janus Prime
Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Menda
Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . Strange Radiation
Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zemler's World
Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Runner
Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Spider Fight
Chapter 10 . . . . . . . . . Here We Go Again
Chapter 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lock-up
Chapter 12 . . . . . . . . . . Regarding Henry Chapter 13 . . .Thanks for the Memory
Chapter 14 . . . . . . . . . . Return to Menda
Chapter 15 . . .The Moons and the Star
Chapter 16 . . . . . . . . . . .No Turning Back
Chapter 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .The Worst
Chapter 18 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moonfall
Chapter 19 . . . . . . . . . . . .The Last Death
Chapter 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . The Hard Road
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Escape and Evasion
They were waiting for a dawn that would never come. Not the warm, bright arrival of a new day, but rather the
first glimmer of hope that they might actually survive the night.
And there was a sad, sick irony to that, too, thought Julya as she sat clutching her rifle and staring up at the
black sky. Because it was a black sky, not a night sky. The burnt-orange ring she could see above her was
the faint corona of Janus Prime's bloated sun, hidden by the planet's single fixed-orbit moon. A permanent
eclipse. Never-ending night.
The distant fire of a sun with only half a million or so years left to burn could do nothing, therefore, to
illuminate the planet. The only light came from the ground at their feet - luminous sand giving off the faint blue
glow that lent everything on Janus Prime an insubstantial, ghostly quality.
The face opposite her reflected this eerie luminescence from chin and nose, reminding Julya of childhood
pranks, fooling around with torches and lamplight. But Lunder looked deathly pale, and there seemed to be
fear even in his eyes.
Suddenly, Lunder began to move.With the barest rustle of combat fatigues, the commando clambered up the
slope that led out of the basement and took up position by the observation point.
When Lunder peered through the hole in the wall, he could see three of the roving spider cyborgs. They were
crawling slowly through the ruins, keeping to a strict military search formation. The nearest one was so close
he could hear its sensor equipment clicking and whirring.
As quietly as he could manage, Lunder slid down the rubble to where Julya waited. She was looking up at
him, her dust-grey face expectant.
'Three spidroids,' he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. Even at this distance, hidden in the ruins, voices
could be overheard by the droids' sensitive aural detectors. 'Stay low. They may pass.'
Julya looked suitably disgusted. She was impatient to move on. Sitting in a hole like this, waiting to be found,
would be nerve-racking for even the most seasoned veteran. For Julya, never trained for combat, the pressure
was beginning to show.'Can't we move now? They won't be expecting it.'
'Quiet,' whispered Lunder.
Julya fiddled nervously with her rifle. A heavy silence fell like a blanket over the ruins, but if they listened
carefully they could pick up the gentle hum of the spidroids, sensors sweeping, tracking, computer brains
calculating possible hiding places and scanning every inch. It could only be a matter of time before they were
discovered.
Lunder moved across to Julya and crouched down beside her. 'Keep your cool. We'll be all right if we stay
calm and just wait for Vigo.'
Julya shook her head.'He's not coming back. Vigo's gone. He's dead, or he's captured.' She looked up at
Lunder, her green eyes imploring him to do something. But Lunder had no answers. He checked his
chronometer so that he didn't have to meet her gaze any longer.
Vigo was the team's point man; he had been gone for far too long now. Lunder told himself that, most likely,
Vigo was trapped, like they were, waiting for a squad of spidroids to pass by before he could rejoin them.
Radio communication was impossible, so they had no option but to sit it out. One thing was certain: they
couldn't leave him behind.
***
Thirty kilometres away, a short-range airship took off from the blast-hardened landing pad with a howling
scream. The noise of its VTOL engines reverberated through the vessel, and the twenty men sitting in its
belly could feel the heavy vibrations through their boots. The spidroids had the Mendans cornered, and now it
was their turn to get some exercise at last. They had been cooped up in the base for long enough.
Sergeant Jon Moslei was not in a good mood. In his opinion, the Mendans should never have been allowed to
get out of the base area in the first place, and this ridiculous chase was just wasting valuable resources.
It was hard to believe that he'd been here only a year. He knew he'd be trapped here for the rest of his life,
however long that turned out to be.
Invisibly, behind the reflective red visor of his helmet, Moslei closed his eyes and killed that particular line of
thought. It didn't pay to think ahead any more. All you could hope for was a quick death, and the chance to
choose how it came. On Janus Prime, both were unlikely. But as the Craab-class troopship banked away
from the base and headed for the ruins, Sergeant Moslei stared at the rows of soldiers before him and felt a
small grudging thrill of pride; this kind of exercise wouldn't be much of a challenge for them, he knew, but it
was good to see the lads in action. Maybe one last time.
***
Lunder picked up his ripgun and quickly examined it, checking it was in full working order. There could be no
room for mistakes, no faulty equipment. He checked the magazine, the firing mechanism, the power charge,
and then Julya.
She was tired, drawn, and the sweat had turned the dust into grey streaks down her face. Her hair, black and
tied into a short bunch on top of her head, was in need of washing. She looked gorgeous, he thought.
She got up and walked carefully across the broken masonry to join him. 'So. What do you really think? D'you
think they've got him?' she asked.
'I told you.Vigo will come through in a minute. Soon as it's safe.' Julya picked up her own gun and examined
it in a brief echo of Lunder's own check. 'Have you thought of calling him? Just to be sure?'
'No chance. The spidroids would pick up the signal burst straight away. There's enough of them out there now
to triangulate our position in a second. We'd be dead before I'd finished transmission.'
He saw the fear in her eyes then, knew he'd been too harsh. More softly, he added, 'Look, weVe got this
far.We can't afford to mess it up now. Let's just sit tight and play it safe - at least for now.'
The sudden roar filled their ears like cement, blocking out everything else. The noise was painful, damaging,
and Lunder had to drop his gun so that he could clamp his hands over his ears. He saw Julya doing the
same. The noise abated, but its painful echo lingered in their ears like a jackhammer, reverberating,
thunderous.
Lunder shouted something to Julya, but he couldn't even hear himself. Julya was staring at him, wide-eyed
and afraid. They both knew what it was, were already looking upward at the lowering black shape in the sky:
the patrol vessel was directly overhead, flying without engine mufflers. The ship had not been built with any
such refinements, the end result being a craft that could burst eardrums from a kilometre away.
The Craab touched down several hundred metres away, the landing ramp already unfolding as the
afterburners ignited. The pilot was operating with reckless bravado, as certain as any of his crew that he was
going to die on this miserable rock.
Moslei stepped down on to the luminous sand and cursed. Every day this rotten tooth of a planet caused him
more pain. He had long ago passed the stage where the glowing ground and pitch-black sky made him feel
nauseous, but there was always a lingering feeling of unease - something alien, something wrong, with this
world.
Concentrate on the job at hand, he told himself. The environment is immaterial. He knew Captain Zemler
blamed him for the escape of the Mendans. Moslei was used to dealing with many more men than he
presently had available on Janus Prime, and a slight miscalculation in the guard-duty roster had given the
Mendans the chance they needed. The Mendans were as cunning as rats - had to be - and this particular lot
had displayed sound tactical sense by making for the ruins. Without a doubt the ruins made a
search-and-destroy mission like this very difficult. The ancient broken-down buildings and crumbling walls
proved effective barriers to the spidroids' sensors, for one thing. There were also the strange energy fields
generated by the planet itself to contend with. They were invisible and harmless, but wreaked havoc with the
cyborgs' sensors. The spidroids were useful, amazingly sophisticated really, but in the end merely tools, and
as such they had their limitations. Moslei had no doubt that in the end it would be a man who found the
Mendans and a man who slew them.
***
Fighting a wave of nausea, Lunder picked up his gun and got to his feet. He helped Julya up.
'Come on, we've got to move now,' he said, and then realised he was bawling to overcome his own deafness.
"That was a landing approach. They're here in force.'
'Vigo must be blown.'
'We can't leave without him. It would be like signing his death warrant.'
'We can't afford to wait any longer ourselves.' Julya stopped when she saw the blood trickling from Lunder's
right ear. She unslung a medipac from her belt kit and selected a painkiller, shooting it into his arm in one
motion. "The longer we stay here,' she continued, 'the less chance there is of us getting back home alive.'
Lunder wiped the blood from the side of his face. 'We're not leaving Vigo,' he said firmly.
***
'Platoon!' Moslei snarled into his helmet microphone.'This is your sergeant speaking. Report!'
The receiver crackled in his battle helmet and he heard the voice of one of his men: 'Sarge! Varko here. We
have three spidroids patrolling Sector Seven, but as yet no fix on the Mendan fugitives.'
Varko was an excellent trooper, but Moslei made sure that his own reply in no way betrayed that fact: there
was no chance of any progression through the ranks on Janus Prime.'They mustn't escape,Varko. Increase
the search parameter!'
'Already done, Sarge, but the planet's energy field is disrupting the spidroid sensors and the Mendans are
maintaining radio silence. It's impossible to triangulate their position.'
'Of course, lad. They may be Mendans, but one of them is a professional, remember.' Behind the visor of his
helmet, a smile parted Moslei's sticky lips. "They won't elude us for much longer. They're hiding in the ruins,
waiting for their chance to run. They won't get far. Maintain contact.'
Moslei turned and indicated to the troopers still with him which way he wanted them to go. 'Report directly to
me at the first sign of the Mendans,' he said. He wanted to be in at the kill. His comlink buzzed and Varko's
voice said, 'Sarge! We have contact. Streenus has found 'em.'
***
They both heard the scrape of a combat boot against concrete. Julya was facing the right way so she saw
him first, the pale grey armour glinting in the faint light of the sand.
She pulled her rifle up to her shoulder, aimed, squeezed the trigger. The beam flashed across the intervening
six metres or so in a fraction of a second and caught the trooper on the shoulder, spinning him round. He
staggered but remained upright, the thick armour impervious to low-level blaster fire.
The only weapon they had that was fully effective was the ripgun. Lunder aimed it, pulled the trigger, felt the
satisfying recoil and watched the hole appear in the armour. Half a second later the explosive shell blew and
turned the trooper's innards into mincemeat. He thrashed around in the dust for several moments and then lay
still.
Lunder sank to one knee and activated the tiny speaker in his helmet. A faint hiss in his left ear was the only
reward. Pointlessly he tapped the earpiece, knowing that the technology was unlikely to be malfunctioning
due to anything as prosaic as a faulty connection.
'Nothing,' he said, a worry finally entering his voice.'Not a thing. Vigo should be signalling.'
'Maybe he's pinned down or something,' suggested Julya.
Lunder was shaking his head.'No, he should be on the comnet by now.'
'Try him,' she said.'Why not?'
Lunder activated the pin mike hanging in front of his mouth. 'Vigo. Vigo! Come on, you stupid bastard, say
something.'
***
'Sarge! Trooper Streenus is down!'
Varko's voice sounded in Moslei's helmet. A stab of annoyance passed through the sergeant.
'What is their position?' he barked through the comlink.
A pause. 'Sector Seven Alpha,' replied Varko.
'Are there any other men in the area?'
'Yes, Sarge - you are. Spidroid two eight five niner has identified two humans approximately three hundred
metres to your left.'
Moslei was already moving, striding through the ruins with his laser rifle ready. He activated the comlink
again. 'Varko! Instruct the spidroid to maintain infrared surveillance, but not, I repeat not, to engage the
enemy.'
***
The spidroid rose above them like a giant arachnid, chittering and whistling in triumph. Its scanners detected
the heat signatures of two human life forms, armed with a combination of charged-partide-beani and
mechanical projectile weapons. Multiple eyes focused separately on where they cowered behind a low wall.
One of the life forms was aiming the projectile weapon. Automatic defence subroutines cut into its main run
program and a thick jet of digestive acid spurted from between the spidroid's fangs.
The spidroid would have cut the male in half with surgical precision but for the incoming program which at the
last moment prevented it from administering lethal force. Instead it recalibrated for a maiming shot, but the
male was moving too fast and the acid caused only superficial damage. The male rolled and came up firing.
The round exploded against the cyborg's sensor array but had little effect.
***
'Move it!'cried Lunder as the spidroid was momentarily confused. He pushed Julya bodily away from him.
'Split up! I'll meet you at the Link!'
'Your leg -'
'Go!'
There was no time for argument. The spidroid was rising on its eight long legs, humming angrily, manoeuvring
for a better shot. A hundred conflicting thoughts rushed through Julya's head in a second, but her body turned
and ran.
Lunder listened to the sound of her boots thudding across the dust and managed a grim smile of satisfaction.
Then he turned to look at the spidroid.
It was bleeping and clicking, antennae flicking to and fro, receiving and assimilating some kind of
transmission. It was taking just long enough for Lunder to recognise that he actually had a chance.
He dived, awkwardly because of the burning pain in his leg, and scrambled over a crumbling wall. He smelled
the acrid stench of the creature's digestive juices spraying the air behind him, and desperately crawled away
into a tunnel formed by collapsed masonry. He felt the skin scraping off his elbows as he squirmed through
the narrow passage as fast as he could. He could feel the blood pounding in his head, sense the acid still
burning his thigh.
Move, you stupid fool, move!
The tunnel narrowed, and Lunder nearly panicked at the thought that he might be trapped. Then he emerged
from the other end, suddenly falling down a bank of shale to land in a crevice between two toppled pillars. He
lay there panting for a few seconds. There was no sound of pursuit.
He looked at his chronometer again. Time was running out.
***
'Sergeant Moslei! We have a bearing on one of the Mendans,' said Varko. He was examining the display on a
portable tracking device. 'Advanced primate spoor heading towards Sector Three. The stress-pheromone
profile indicates female.'
Why couldn't he just say 'It's a woman'? Sometimes Varko could be too keen on the jargon. But then, he had
been trained to fight aliens, not humans.'Just make sure you don't lose the trail,' he said through his helmet's
pin mike.
Varko studied the scanner, oblivious to his superior's disapproving tone. "The Mendan is heading deeper into
the ruins, Sarge, Typical panic flight.'
'Then we have her.' He ordered the nearest spidroid into action. 'I want this wrapped up quickly,Varko.
Concentrate the spidroids' search parameters on the female. If she attempts any form of resistance, eliminate
her.'
***
Julya ran until her whole world had shrunk to nothing but the rhythmic thud of her boots hitting the dirt and the
burning ache in her chest. She was too scared to stop. She was too scared to cry in case the tears affected
her vision. Any second she expected to see the armoured shape of a trooper stepping out in front of her and
raising his laser rifle. She could imagine seeing herself skidding to a halt in the reflection of his helmet visor
as the weapon was aimed. She could imagine the super-hot energy burning through her body. But it was the
oblivion that followed that really frightened her, goaded her body into running faster and longer than she
thought she could, deeper and deeper into the ruins.
Eventually she slowed down and tried to get her bearings. The crumbling stone walls of the old settlement
rose around her in apparently random order. They made no sense to her human eyes, and with rising panic
she realised she was utterly lost.
Then she heard the spidroid.
The sharp chittering of its electronic brain galvanised her into action. She darted through a gap in the nearest
wall and found herself in a narrow alleyway. To her right the passage ended in a jumble of collapsed
brickwork. To her left it disappeared into the gloom. Instinctively she ran towards the darkness, and then
instantly regretted the decision. The spidroid could see perfectly well in low light using infrared. It could scan
for body heat, or particular life-sign readings, or even her smell. Nowhere would be safe here.
And now it was coming through the gap in the wall behind her. She could hear the clack of its multiple legs,
could see the groundlight reflecting off its hairy torso... She could sense it probing for her in the darkness.
Julya started forward, her legs shaking, heart pounding, making for the deeper shadows at the end of the
alley. She had no other choice. Then, ahead of her, she saw a light flashing in the air - a small white beacon
about three metres off the ground. A strange noise accompanied the light, a distant mechanical wheezing
which seemed to grow louder and louder.
Then, with a rush of displaced air, a tall blue box appeared in front of her. The noise faded and the lamp on its
roof stopped flashing. Julya stood in the small cloud of glowing dust particles thrown up by the box's arrival
and stared at it in disbelief, her escape route blocked.
Behind her, the spidroid whirred and clicked in anticipation: its prey was completely trapped.
Chapter Two
Fire in the Sky
Ten minutes earlier, Samantha Jones had been listening to the Doctor's ancient recording of Enrico Caruso in
Verdi's Aida . She had been trying to familiarise herself with the songs prior to their arrival on Earth in 1871,
just in time for the opera's inaugural performance at the Cairo Opera House. The Doctor had promised her a
grand spectacle - with a glittering audience including the Khedive of Egypt and his entire harem occupying no
fewer than three boxes - after politely correcting her pronunciation:
'Eye-ee -dah,' he had said, smiling,'not Ada.'
Now the TARDIS was hurtling through the space-time vortex while its owner sipped a cup of tea and made
tiny adjustments to its antiquated controls. Sam remained unimpressed. The last opera she had seen with
the Doctor had been performed on the planet Thurakzima 7 by silicon-based life forms (a rock opera, she'd
concluded) and so a return visit to her homeworld... well, she felt almost uncomfortable to be going back to
Earth. They hadn't been back in some time, and, as usual, she'd started worrying about what her parents
might say.'I couldn't call, Mum, I was in the nineteenth century.' She'd have to sort it all out. One day.
As the TARDIS was, relatively speaking, still on the outer fringes of Earth's galaxy and some four centuries
adrift, Sam considered that she had plenty of time to change out of her tracksuit leggings and into a suitable
frock. Now, from her position in the library armchair, legs tucked beneath her, Sam watched her friend as he
tinkered. She liked to think that he had the brain of a genius and the face of a poet, but this rather romantic
perception was occasionally spoiled when she considered that he also had the hair of a Rolling Stone and the
clothes of a Victorian lounge lizard. He was, of course, none of these things: the Doctor was a Time Lord -
and at the moment a somewhat distracted one: he was currently humming 'Smoke on the Water' by Deep
Purple in direct competition with Caruso's 'O terra, addio' booming from the gramophone's trumpet speaker.
As she watched, his long face creased into a worried frown.
'Trouble?' Sam asked, uncurling from the armchair.
Alerted by the squeak of training-shoe rubber on the polished wooden floor of the control platform, the Doctor
glanced up. "These readings aren't right at all,' he told her, waving a hand over the bewildering array of
flashing lights and dials which made up the hexagonal console.
'What's up?'
'Either the TARDIS sensors are on the blink again or...'
'Or what?'
The Doctor disappeared suddenly beneath the console, opening a hatch so that he could rummage around
inside the worryingly archaic electronics Sam had once had the misfortune of seeing. Somehow she still
wasn't comfortable with a machine of such advanced design as the TARDIS being stuffed with a combination
of wires, valves and printed circuits. Only the Doctor could be happy with a space-time vessel that looked like
a police box on the outside and a Gothic stately home on the inside.
There was a sudden flash of sparks from one of the console panels which made Sam yelp. The Doctor
jumped up and wafted a puff of smoke away with his hand. 'Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Won't happen again.'
He studied the instruments with a frown. 'Now that is definitely not as it should be.'
'Doctor,' she said, holding up her cup in a threatening manner, 'you know I'm not afraid to use this cup of tea if
you don't tell me what's up.'
'It's the hyperspatial-mass sensors,' the Doctor muttered, 'picking up something they shouldn't.'
'So, once again: trouble?'
He looked up at her.'What do you think?'
A thrill of anticipation ran through Sam.'Where? When?'
"That's what I'm trying to find out. If I can just lock on to the coordinates...' The Doctor began stabbing
buttons and pulling levers with great energy. He activated the overhead viewing dome, and the entire ceiling
was instantly replaced by a huge red sun. The surface burned and fumed like a cauldron of molten lava, gouts
of flame spewing into the vacuum around it.
'Wow,' said Sam.
'Fire in the sky...' sang the Doctor quietly.
The TARDIS was bathed in a scarlet glow, which reminded Sam rather unnervingly of a submarine's
emergency lighting. 'What is it?'
'Red giant,' the Doctor said. 'An old star about to burn itself out.'
'That's the problem?'
'Shouldn't be.' The Doctor shut down the observatory and the TARDIS lighting returned to its normal subdued
state. The destination monitor hanging on a large Z-spring overhead flickered and filled up with digital
information. The Doctor spared it no more than a cursory glance before operating the controls that Sam knew
governed the TARDIS landing procedure.
'Caruso will have to wait,' he said, pulling the handbrake and grinning as the desperate wheeze of
materialisation began to echo around the huge chamber.
Suddenly everything bucked, and carried on bucking, as if the TARDIS was being dragged down a long flight
of stairs. Sam gripped the shuddering console and gaped at the Doctor, who was operating the controls in a
markedly alarmed fashion.
'What the -'
'Synchronic feedback!' yelled the Doctor.
Sam watched the Doctor's cup of tea begin to slide towards the edge of the console. She reached out one
hand and held the cup and saucer still. 'Syncopated what?' she called back. She could hear things falling all
over the place: candelabras, statuettes, clocks. Then the TARDIS gave a final convulsive lurch, something big
crashed to the floor, and then everything was still. Sam automatically checked the time rotor at the centre of
the console, sighing with relief when she saw that the glowing filaments inside the glass column were
stationary. They had landed.
'Whew -'she said.
The Doctor casually flicked some switches as if nothing had happened. 'I think we were caught in a gravitic
multiloop,' he muttered. 'Probably a side effect of that anomalous hyperspatial-mass reading I told you about.
Unlucky.' Sam checked the overhead monitor instead. It read:
Destination: JANUS PRIME
Dateline: 14.09.2211
HUMANIAN ERA
She reached up and twisted one of the Bakelite control knobs on the base of the old TV set. The picture
flickered and turned into a black-and-white view from where the TARDIS had landed. Sam immediately saw an
image of a human figure, a woman, running towards the scanner, pursued by some kind of giant insect.
'Problem!' yelled Sam. 'Of a bug-eyed-monster variety!' She turned to see the Doctor already halfway to the
exit doors, and sprinted after him.
***
摘要：

DOCTORWHOTheJanusConjunctionAnEighthDoctorEbookByTrevorBaxendaleContentsChapter1........EscapeandEvasionChapter2..............FireintheSkyChapter3................Escapeto....?Chapter4................JanusPrimeChapter5......................MendaChapter6..........StrangeRadiationChapter7.............Z...

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