48 - Dark Progeny

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The planet Ceres Alpha is being ‘developed’. The surface crawls with

gigantic city-machines that are churning and rebuilding the world,

seeding it with tomorrow’s vegetation so that full-scale colonisation

can follow.

But Gaskill Tyran, head of the biosphere-engineers WorldCorp, is

ﬁnding things more difﬁcult than he would like. The whole project

seems to be falling apart under an ever-increasing burden of

mysteries.

Why has a batch of strange babies been born with telekinetic

powers? Why won’t the terraforming go according to plan? Why

are there more and more problems with the comp systems that run

the city-machines?

It seems there may be conspirators. A rival Corporation with its

eye on the contract for Ceres Alpha. And Tyran’s patience is now

wearing thin.

But he gets his answer. A mysterious inﬁltrator known only as the

Doctor.

This is another in the series of original adventures for the Eighth

Doctor.

DARK PROGENY

STEVE EMMERSON

For Ben and Shirley

Published by BBC Worldwide Ltd

Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane

London W12 0TT

First published 2001

Steve Emmerson 2001

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Original series broadcast on the BBC

Format c

BBC 1963

Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC

ISBN 0 563 53837 6

Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright c

BBC 2001

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of

Chatham

Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They came through you but not from you

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit,

not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent

forth.

Kahlil Gibran 1883–1931

The Prophet (1923), ‘On Children’

Contents

Part One 5

11.9.2847 [Earth Standard]

Ceres Alpha 6

Part Two 17

9.11.2847 [Earth Standard]

Ceres Alpha 18

Part Three 96

. . . 97

Part Four 165

. . . 166

Epilogue 222

Some extraordinary facts about the author. . . 224

Some extra, ordinary facts about the author. . . 224

Acknowledgements 225

Part One

Through envy of the devil came death into the world.

– Wisdom of Solomon ch. 2, v. 24

11.9.2847 [Earth Standard]

Ceres Alpha

A scream exploded out of her as Veta Manni sensed the oncoming pain like a

rapidly expanding storm. It hit. Ripped through her. Subsided and left her

shivering and gasping for air. She chased rivers of sweat from her face and

tried to prepare for the next giant wave. Her body was a wreck. Muscles and

sinews torn apart by the tornadoes that struck one after another. A relentless,

perpetual torture. She thought she must have experienced heights of agony

well up there in the outer reaches of human tolerance.

And it was building again. She gritted her teeth and clenched her ﬁsts. The

pain came with terrifying intensity. She lost her grip. Howled and screamed

and produced animal sounds that weren’t her voice. She was so entirely lost in

the suffering now that she felt she’d left her body and was crashing around in

a tumultuous sea of pain.

Josef watched his wife undergoing her private torment, and the fear tore at his

throat. His insides were knots. He took her hand, feeling powerless to help. As

the pain died away, she gripped his hand tight and gasped for air. He leaned in

close and kissed her cheek, then found her eyes imploring him.

‘More drugs,’ she pleaded.

Josef shook his head sorrily. ‘They won’t let you. Too dangerous.’

‘I can’t go on, Joe.’

‘Course you can,’ he told her, forcing a smile into his face. But he wasn’t

so sure. She was visibly weakening now. Wet with sweat and quivering with

a mixture of exhaustion and fear. Her eyes were dark hollows, full of dread

thoughts. He swallowed back the compulsion to sob and tried to force down

inside him the feelings that were screaming to get out.

The past six months had been a huge strain on both of them. Even before

today, and the panic of the baby arriving a whole two months early, Josef had

long been gravely worried for his wife and their child. It had been one endless

catalogue of terrors. The abnormal scans, the changes in Veta, the intense

11.9.2847 [Earth Standard] – Ceres Alpha 7

bouts of sickness. His wife had gone from being a blissful prospective mum

to a physical and psychological wreck in the space of those six immeasurable

months.

Sensing movement behind him, Josef turned to ﬁnd Dr Pryce in the doorway,

regarding them with a curiously absent look as if his mind were elsewhere.

There were two nurses behind him, and a man in a suit whom Josef didn’t

recognise. Pryce’s face abruptly broke into a disarming smile and he stepped

into the room to look over Veta.

‘Everything going all right?’ Pryce asked, not bothering to introduce the

nurses and suited man who’d followed him in and now stood observing Veta’s

naked bottom half with a keen scrutiny.

Josef threw the sheet over his wife’s legs and nodded uncertainly. For a

moment there was only the sound of Veta’s coarse breathing as she prepared

for the next contraction. Then she began to scream and Josef grasped her

hand, this time feeling her squeeze so hard he thought she was going to crush

the bones in his ﬁngers. The scream lasted for ever, and all Josef could do was

watch the suffering so obvious in her contorted face. This wasn’t his wife. His

wife was a pretty girl, not this snarling, screeching, crimson-faced monster.

The wave subsided and Josef was relieved to feel the pressure on his ﬁngers

release. Veta was sobbing gently now, and she watched him through her tears

for a moment before recovering her voice.

‘Next time,’ she hissed, ‘you can have the baby.’

So, thought Fitz, this is panic stations. OK. Just maintain that cool and aloof

exterior. Try not to appear too obviously fazed. And for God’s sake don’t look as

though you’re about to scream! Even though the TARDIS is shrieking through

the vortex and the Doctor looks like he’s gonna completely lose it any moment.

This sort of thing happens every day in the TARDIS. Par for the course. Just

another humdrum day in the life of a swashbuckling time gypsy.

The Doctor lay ﬂat on his back under the half-dismantled control console.

A mess of wires spilled out to engulf him, and as he worked he was forced

to keep disentangling his arms. Fitz gazed anxiously at the TARDIS manual

that was wedged open on the edge of the console. The Doctor had peered into

it maniacally before plunging on his ridiculous little trolley into the tangle of

wires. The bafﬂed look on his face while he read the manual had not inspired

in Fitz a very great deal of what might be termed ‘conﬁdence’.

The Doctor extricated himself with a chatter of trolley wheels.

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摘要：

TheplanetCeresAlphaisbeing`developed'.Thesurfacecrawlswithgiganticcity-machinesthatarechurningandrebuildingtheworld,seedingitwithtomorrow'svegetationsothatfull-scalecolonisationcanfollow.ButGaskillTyran,headofthebiosphere-engineersWorldCorp,isndingthingsmoredifcultthanhewouldlike.Thewholeprojectse...

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48 - Dark Progeny

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