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Human Nature - Chapter Eleven

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Castling

Amid a crowd of local people who rushed out of the pub, gesturing and shouting at the shape in the sky, Smith gathered his party together. 'Bernice, you know what that was. Did they - the ones who are after the ball - do it?'

'Unless a first-year had an unusually successful day in the physics lab, I think they're a good bet.'

'Then we definitely shouldn't fight them. They're too strong.' He walked back and forth through the huddled boys and adults, his hands clasped ferociously behind his back. 'This is only a war if we make it a war. We need to play a different game. A game like chess.'

'Pawns,' Alexander told him carefully, 'get taken in chess.'

Smith bit his knuckle in concentration. 'Yes. So we cheat. All of you, listen to me, we need to find Tim.' He divided the boys up into groups, and sent each of them out to a particular one of the boy's haunts and gave them the same instructions. 'If you find Tim, with or without the red sphere, bring him back here. Come back here anyway in two hours. If you see the enemy, run and hide. Don't let adults try to protect you, just get out of their way. Benny, Alexander, you two take a few boys and go up on to the hills. Joan and I will try the orchard.'

'Now, wait a minute -' Benny began, but Alexander had grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her away through the gathering crowd before she could finish her sentence. The boys delegated to their party ran after them.

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'I don't think your niece likes me very much,' Joan told Smith as she watched them go.

'You're too alike,' Smith told her, leading her away. 'Not that I think either of you appreciate the comparison.'

A few minutes after the couple had left in the direction of the orchard, another commotion added to the one that the crowd were creating. Another group of tired and tattered schoolboys, a vast number this time, threaded their way out of the pub and collapsed in the garden, holding their hands to their bleeding ears.

They'd been in the tunnel when the bomb went off. The explosion had rushed down it as a pressure wave, the air rolling over them and bursting their hearing like a terrible, intangible fist against their temples. They looked like defeated prisoners-of-war and their faces were blank and hollow. Some of the locals started to help them up and a doctor moved from boy to boy. The startled townsfolk began to ask questions of them.

After the last schoolboy had climbed the stairs, Mr Moffat, the bursar, staggered up out of the cellar behind him. He'd run about the school for half an hour before the explosion, avoiding battles and shepherding schoolboys towards the library.

He collapsed on to the bar and a barmaid ran to him, pressing a glass of brandy to his lips in concern. 'Ah...' he said to her. 'You've saved my life.'

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Smith and Joan approached the gate of the orchard, holding hands. They'd been talking about Bernice's bizarre idea that finding the Pod would transform Smith into another person and had even started making jokes about it.

The dark cloud was starting to disperse, and the silver dust had begun to settle across the countryside.

'The size of that explosion...' Joan whispered. 'John, I am beginning to suspect that some of what Bernice says may be true.'

'Some of it,' Smith muttered. 'Not all of it.'

'So, may I ask why you have suddenly steeled yourself so?'

'Once, perhaps, but try asking it five times fast.'

'Don't evade me, John. You've changed.'

'For the better?'

'Yes. I didn't think you could play a soldier for long.'

'You're right, it isn't me.' Smith vaulted the gate and I helped Joan climb over. 'I can see why Rocastle thinks that way. It's attractive. Imagine, never having to make any decisions. Because of honour. And etiquette. And patriotism. You could live like a river flowing downhill, hopping from one standard response to the other. Honour this. Defend that.'

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'May I add the concept of the waterfall to this gay picture?' Joan asked, enjoying their conversation despite, or perhaps because of, its grim setting.

'Oh, you may. But that's just death, and Rocastle's principles let you get over that in a barrel.'

'Well, the edge of that waterfall looked very close until you decided to paddle against the tide. I can't believe that either of us are still alive, or that we're still active and not shocked into silence.'

'That's because we're doing something. That's why I sent the others off so they wouldn't sit still and get afraid. Tim will be in the orchard. When I was a boy, I used to go and see a man who lived on a hilltop, and on the way there were fruit trees - '

Joan stopped walking, and held Smith's arm harder. 'There was a man who lived on a hilltop? Near Aberdeen? That doesn't sound very likely.'

'Yes!' Smith insisted. 'Near Aberdeen. I can see him. I can remember -' He turned his head to reassure Joan and blinked in astonishment. 'No I can't.' He turned back to the angle he'd been standing at before. 'Yes I can, he was -' He turned back to her and took in a long, frightened breath. 'Joan, my memory of this man seems to depend upon the angle I hold my head. What does that mean?'

Joan struggled with a terrible desire that had boiled up inside her, to hit him or drag him away or just stop this madness from happening.

Because she had a terrible feeling that it was going to happen. To her. Again.

'It means that I can hear another waterfall,' she told him bitterly, 'one all of my own.'

'Sorry?'

'It means, you foolish man, that the thing we're after' - she pointed in the direction they'd been walking - 'is that way.'

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Timothy had found the going easier as he walked down the hill. The trees on the other side from the school had been shielded from the blast and were thus still intact. He was vaguely hoping to see the cat again, but it hadn't appeared. He was heading for the orchard, waiting to feel certain about something again.

His eyes narrowed on the sphere, thinking almost that he'd heard it speak again. The demon inside the ball talked in whispers. He squeezed it tightly. That didn't work. He drew it to his face, thinking to look into it like a crystal ball. He'd already tried rubbing it, wondering if a genie would appear and grant him wishes.

And the voice was nearly there, right on the edge of hearing. It got louder as he moved the Pod closer to his forehead. Sparks were dancing in his eyes now, leaving bright trails across his vision. An inch closer and the lightning would leap, the connection would be made. He'd never have to feel pain again, he'd be above missing his dead mother and his father abroad who'd wanted him to be a soldier. But it was terrifying, the things he'd started to see, a great river of information pouring into his head, as if from the lip of a cup that was about to overflow. The responsibility of taking on all that... It would fill him to bursting.

He felt like the young Arthur, the sword standing in the stone before him. All he had to do was grasp it, free it, take on his destiny.

His destiny?

He lowered the sphere from his head, panting. 'I can't do it,' he said bitterly. 'You're not mine.' Then his expression hardened. 'You're right. I must find who you belong to, and give you back to them.'

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Smith and Joan were picking their way through the orchard, Smith turning his head every now and then like a bloodhound on the trail. 'I don't understand this any more than you do,' he told her, 'but it seems to be working.'

'If you find this artefact that everybody seems so desperate to acquire, what do you intend to do with it?'

'Make a bargain. I give it to them, they go away. This battle's about a thing. A round red thing that represents nothing. A thing that's made them kill many times, that made me feel that I could take a life.' His growl receded to a mutter. 'They're welcome to it.'

Joan squeezed his hand tightly, heartened by his words. 'John, let me play devil's advocate for a moment. What if Bernice is right, and the sphere contains something of great value to you? Are you sure that you should give it away? I just want you to be certain of what you're doing.'

Smith shook his head, certain. 'What is there that I could have that I'm not aware of? I can hear and see, I have life and intelligence. Even if she is right, and the Doctor is some advanced being that I'm just the shadow of, I won't feel the loss. I've gained so much, being human. I know I have.'

'How can you be sure?'

'Because I have you.' He took her in his arms and kissed her again. 'And the Doctor didn't.'

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Joan enjoyed the kiss, holding on to him gladly. If she was being honest, desperately. When the kiss was over, she whispered: 'This may be a bad time to mention it, but in the last few hours, have you noticed anything different about me?'

'Different? Apart from ragged, burnt and charmingly tousled? No.'

'Rather more specific than that...' said Joan. She tapped his chin with a finger.

Smith glanced down and saw his ring on it. 'You've - '

'Accepted, yes. Do you think that we should make an official announcement now, or wait until the remains of our workplace have been cleared away?'

'I - ' Smith grabbed her and spun her round in a joyful, random dance. 'Whatever you think best. Or let's just get married. Tomorrow. Yesterday. Tonight!'

'I think that your head was pointing in the wrong direction then,' she laughed, holding on to her hat. 'But there are vast, lately unexplored stretches of me that would quite appreciate being married this evening.'

'Shall we just pretend?' said Smith, his eyes sparkling.

'Don't tempt me.' They fell against a tree and several apples fell from it, one bouncing off the top of Smith's skull. 'Oh, any new thoughts?'

'Nothing Newtonian. I never liked him. He was always very bad-tempered and completely...' His eyes narrowed, and he turned from Joan, fixing his gaze on the figure that had just appeared at the other end of the orchard.

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It was Tim, clutching the Pod in his hand and staring at the teachers in wonder.

'Obsessed with death,' Smith finished.

'Damn,' whispered Joan.

The family came to the edge of the forest at a run. August activated the scanner and clicked his tongue approvingly. 'There it is, a clear signal! Something's happening.'

'I wonder what?' Greeneye muttered suspiciously.

'We'll approach them slowly and carefully.'

'Why can't we just run at them?'

'Because when we run at them, they get away. We need to be more subtle.'

'They get away when Greeneye's being subtle, too,' Hoff muttered.

August sighed. 'The idea is, we spread out a bit and try and cut off all their exits. The Pod may be singing away now, but we can't guarantee that it won't have stopped by the time we get there. All right?'

'All right!' Greeneye grabbed the second scanner and marched off determinedly.

'Sometimes,' August opined, 'I wish someone else was the oldest.' He checked the scanner. 'Come on then, let's finish this.'

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'Hello, Tim!' Smith called brightly. 'Please, don't run away, we've been looking for you.'

Tim stepped forward uncertainly. 'Dr Smith, Mrs Redfern... What happened to the school?'

'It was blown up,' Smith told him, walking towards him. 'In other circumstances, we'd have a party, but - '

'No you wouldn't. You liked the place. You liked everything about it.' Tim began to back away. 'You've come to get me because I ran away. When I was bullied, you told me to put up with it.'

'Yes. I did.' Smith stopped and considered. 'I did that because I was trying very hard. To fit in. To be one of the gang. I wanted to have a place so much that I did things I didn't really want to do.' He glanced at Joan. 'I've got a place now, I know who I want to be. I've grown up. I'm sorry that I gave you the wrong advice.'

'So it's all right that I ran away from school?'

'If you don't like a place, you shouldn't stay there.'

'And what about the bullies?'

'They're the worst thing in the world. It's a big circle. They hurt people. The people they hurt feel powerless and go on to hurt other people when they're able to. And the original bullies were once hurt themselves. The wheel keeps on turning. Unless you step off.'

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'That's what I'm going to do,' said Tim firmly. 'That's what's in this sphere, you know, the things you need to know so that you don't have to cause harm.'

Joan spoke up. 'John knows all about that, now.'

'Well, that's good. For myself, I know I shall never hurt anybody again.' Tim paused for a moment. 'Were you ever bullied, Dr Smith?'

Smith took a deep breath. 'That depends on what you call me. I remember running through the streets of Aberdeen, with a gang of boys behind me. I remember a lot of military louts shouting at me, and I remember girls hating and excluding me. That's in here.' He tapped his head. 'But in there' - he gestured towards the Pod - 'I remember other kinds of bullying. A boy in my class who so hated and loved me that he kept upsetting my experiments. I made myself forget it, thought that I was an adult and could leave it behind. But if you ignore that, you ignore yourself.' He closed his eyes, concentrating on what the sphere was telling him. 'Recently, I thought I had become wiser than him, but found that I was still hurting people terribly.' He opened his eyes again, an expression of excited discovery on his face. 'I'd climbed back on the wheel. Become a bully. Which is why I decided to stop.'

'Being a bully?'

'Being me.'

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Joan put a hand on Smith's shoulder. 'So it's all true? This man I've got to know isn't the real you?'

Smith took her hand. 'He is now. Tim, I know what you're carrying. It's mine, though I didn't know it until now.'

'Then I should give it back to you.' He was frowning, something in his head shouting to him about context and consequences.

'Yes.' Smith held out his hand.

Tim paused, looking at the Pod. 'If I put it to my head, I'd change, wouldn't I?'

'You'd become the Doctor, I suppose. Do you want to?'

'He's the one in the Pod?'

'Apparently.' Smith concentrated on what he was feeling from the Pod. 'He's like me, only inhuman. Dangerous. Loving greatly but not small-ly. He's Merlin. You know the sort of thing.'

'You were him?'

'I took that part of me out and put it in there.' 'Do you want to be him again?'

'No,' Smith said firmly. 'I don't think he's quite me any more.'

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'I feel like I should tell them to form a crocodile,' Benny muttered. She and Alexander were leading a group of four boys down the track that led on to the hills. They'd spent the last half hour wandering about the hummocks and dells of the hillsides in the dark, the boys occasionally gazing down at the moonlit glass palace that had once been their school. 'I mean, why did we do this? Was Tim really fond of coming up here?'

'He did go up there sometimes, miss,' Merryweather said.

'Call me Bernice or Benny, I really don't like being reminded of my marital status every sentence, particularly at the moment.'

'You're thinking about Dr Smith's engagement?' asked Alexander. 'Oh dear.' He glanced at the startled boys. 'That's let the cat out of the bag.'

'To Mrs Redfern, I gather?' said Alton. 'Everybody knows that those two are sweet on each other.'

'Bleh,' said Merryweather.

'My thoughts exactly.' Benny patted him on the head. 'I mean, she's so old. . .'

'Don't you think that you're being a bit jealous, loved one?' said Alexander.

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'Jealous? No, no, I don't think it's jealously to hope that the man who's been transporting you about the place won't settle down in one small country and. . . oh yarbles.'

'Yarbles?'

'It's terribly rude, but they won't understand that either.'

'Interesting,' Alton began, 'that we're old enough to be shot at, but not to hear wicked words.'

Benny ignored him. 'The only reason he sent us off to do this was so that he could spend some time alone with Mrs Redfern. And in the middle of a crisis! I ask you!'

'Well, we've got a few minutes to kill before we get back to the pub,' Alexander said soothingly. 'I don't suppose we could go and have a look at what's happened to the school?'

'Oh, could we, miss?' the boys started to call. 'Could we?'

'Stop! Stop!' Benny waved her arms for quiet. 'I don't believe this! There are people out there who are trying to shoot us, but you want to go sightseeing.'

'We could just take a look from a distance. If anybody's there, we'll sneak off again. Benny, it's made of glass, where are they going to hide?'

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'All right,' Benny agreed. 'But we just pop our heads up, say ooh, and pop them down again. OK?'

'Thank you, miss.' Merryweather gave her a little hug. Benny shrugged him off. 'And no hugging.'

They crept up to the remains of the boundary hedge between the school and the forest.

'Ready?' Benny asked. One, two, three!'

They all stuck their heads up over the hedge. 'Ooh,' said Merryweather.

The glass school shone in the moonlight, casting a fabulously complex shadow of intersecting silver. 'There's somebody inside,' said Alton.

And indeed there was. Two dark shapes moved through the building, randomly like ghosts. 'Is it them?' Alexander asked.

'No,' Alton replied. 'One of them's wearing a Hulton uniform.'

'It might still be them. I'll go and take a closer look,' Benny told them. 'And no, Merryweather, you can't come too.' She hopped through a gap in the hedge.

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The two figures resolved themselves as Bernice got closer to the spectral building.

It was Rocastle, with that awful boy Hutchinson behind him, wandering from room to room, a large book in his hands. Benny stepped through an open window, wondering as she did so about the incongruity of the dull panes of glass in the gleaming walls, and approached them. The aliens would never do anything so trivial and English as whatever these two were doing.

Rocastle turned from inspecting one of the glass statues that the bomb had made of the boys. 'Ah, Miss Summerfield. I'm glad to see that you survived. Are any of the boys with you?'

Benny found herself chilled by his matter-of-fact tone. 'Dr Smith got most of his House out. Apart from that, I don't know.'

'He ran away, you mean!' Hutchinson snarled. 'If he'd stayed at his post, this might not have happened! How many lives do you think his cowardice cost?'

With a great effort, Bernice ignored him. 'I wouldn't recommend staying around here. The aliens might be back.'

'Oh, do we know for certain that they're aliens?' Rocastle asked, making a tick in his book. 'They sounded almost English to me.'

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'What are you doing here, anyway?'

'I staged a retreat, took a number of my boys out through the dormitory windows and on to the roof of the sheds. Then the explosion happened. Like magic, isn't it? Quite like magic. Anyhow, after it had all died down, I thought it'd be best to ascertain the casualties. I'm going to have to answer for the life of every one of these boys, Miss Summerfield. The least I can do is identify them.'

Benny couldn't help asking, 'What's the difference between a retreat and running away, exactly?'

'The difference is, he's in charge!' Hutchinson told her. 'He gives the orders, which Smith disobeyed.'

'I wouldn't get so touchy about it. What's past is past.' Rocastle waved a hand airily. 'Smith has some good sides to him. Knock off a few comers and he'd be a solid chap. What he has to do is to concentrate on what's best, eliminate the negative.'

Benny followed as the teacher and pupil wandered into another glass room, this one full of small statues. Some of them were throwing their hands into the air, some had intensely pained expressions on their faces. The light creaking of the glass suggested somehow that the pain continued, even in death. 'So what are you going to do after you've finished this?'

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Rocastle looked up from the register and tapped his teeth with his pen. 'Oh, I think I shall have to eliminate the negative altogether. Do my duty. I have no future, madam.'

Bernice shook her head. 'Look, there are other ways to go about these things. We've got a party of boys together. Come with us.'

Rocastle seemed to consider it with the same gentle dislocation that had rolled over all his decisions. 'All right. When we've finished this.'

'If you don't want to use it,' Timothy asked, 'what do you want it for?'

Smith slowly withdrew his hand.

Joan glanced between them and decided to break the deadlock. Her poor old heart had been filled with joy at Smith's declaration. Astonishing as it was that he really had once been some kind of cosmological wizard, his decision not to take it all up again had been vast. A grand sacrifice for her, a big gesture that, in her emotions now, made him every inch her husband.

'I say,' she began, 'could I have a go with this magic object?'

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Smith looked at Tim. 'What do you think?'

'Just don't put it too close to your head.' Tim handed Joan the Pod slowly and suspiciously, shivering slightly as he let go of it.

Joan took the Pod in her hand. 'Don't worry, I won't run away with it.' She felt it react, in some odd way, to the new touch. Then she closed her fist round it and closed her eyes. 'Arthur,' she whispered. 'Oh my God, Arthur.' Then, with a cry, she let go of it.

The Pod fell to the ground. Joan took a step back from it. 'I saw Arthur, my husband, as he died. And then I felt the Doctor in the sphere. His opinion of it. He was so distant, so... cold. It was as if he was watching that death in my mind, but from such a height. Oh, John, I'm afraid of him, I'm so afraid of him.'

John held her, patting her arm. 'I'm quite scared of him myself. It's odd that you saw Arthur. On the way here, I kept seeing images of Verity. It's like she's in the Pod's memories, but also in my own. I remember our courtship, how we kissed on the rocks in the moonlight. But she's in the glimpses I get of my other past. Why should that be?'

Tim picked up the Pod again. 'I don't know. But, please, answer my question. If you don't want to use the Pod, why do you want it back?'

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Smith decided to tell the truth. 'I want to give the Pod to those attacking us, since it's all they want. We don't need it. Then they'll go away and stop killing people.'

Tim stared at him, his expression pained. 'I wish - I wish I could agree' - he suddenly stuffed the Pod into his blazer pocket - 'but I can't. I won't let you do that. It isn't right.'

'Timothy, let's talk about it, work it out - ' Smith grabbed the boy's shoulders urgently.

A blast of blue light silently exploded the ground between them. Timothy and Smith stumbled backwards, both looking in horror in the direction of the blast.

August and Hoff stood at the end of the orchard, their weapons trained on the humans. 'We have cut off your retreat,' August advised them. 'There is no escape. Now, let's put an end to all this destruction, shall we? We know that the boy has the Pod. Give it to us.'

'What do you want it for, exactly?'

Smith asked. 'We've already been through all this with Professor Summerfield,' August began.

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'Professor? I didn't know she was a professor,' Smith grinned. 'Do you know what of?'

'John, don't antagonise them!' Joan hissed.

'Oh, I'll antagonise.' Smith took a step forward. 'I'll antagonize like I've never antagonized before. After all, these two bullies, these two blundering butchers, are going to get what they want.' He waved his hands in the air, glaring at the two aliens. 'They've wiped out hundreds of lives, traumatized a whole community and now they're just going to take what they're after and go.' He fixed August with a piercing gaze. 'Aren't you?'

'That is so,' August assured him. 'We have no wish to - hey!'

Tim, noticing that Hoff's gaze had wandered off him for a moment, had dived off towards the trees.

The two aliens had time to take careful aim before they fired

But Timothy leapt high in the air, then jumped left right left, and the bolts kicked up the earth around him, shattered tree branches, blasted holes through bark and leaves, until the young boy was lost in the darkness of the orchard.

Smith gazed after him and then sheepishly raised his hands to August and Hoff. 'That, erm, wasn't actually part of the plan.'

Hoff had made to run after the boy but August put a hand on his arm. 'No.'

'No? Do you think I'm going to wait for Greeneye to get here and -'

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'There's a much easier way. Serif's analysis indicated that Dr Smith here has a particular weakness.' August pulled a device from his pocket and pointed it at Joan. 'That's her.'

'Wait!' Smith yelled. 'Don't - '

But August had already fired. A tiny dart embedded itself in Joan's chest. Her expression froze, and she started to walk, unsteadily, towards the aliens. Smith grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her back, but with sudden strength, she threw him aside.

August took Joan by the hand and looked down at Smith. 'She's coming with us.'

'If you hurt her - '

'We won't. You have my word. That is, unless you don't bring the Pod to our base in the forest before dawn. In that case, I'll let Greeneye vent his frustrations on her.'

Smith was about to bellow something, but he made it come out as a whisper. 'Where is your base?'

August raised an eyebrow. 'You'll find it. Well, you'd better, hadn't you?'

And, with that, the two of them walked off into the night, taking Joan with them.

Smith waited until they were gone, and then dropped his head to the ground in despair.