Fourth of The Darkness In Men series and part of the Fifth Doctor Fiction collection
God, I hate Mars. I've only been here three days and I hate the sodding planet. It's all very well reading HG Wells novels and watching cheapo B-Movies with titles like 'Santa Claus Conquers The Martians', but put me down on the planet for more than a flying visit, and it'll drive me mad.
It's the air you see. Sterile, flat air. With most of the vegetation being artificial, the photosynthesis that happens within them is of a very controlled and industrial process. Or so the Doctor says. Mind you, the Doctor's off traversing the Mars University campus, looking for the library where this book he borrowed about two hundred years ago is from. He left me and Nyssa in some dingy student housing while he went off to find out what a two hundred year fine on a book is.
Mars isn't anything like I expected. The Doctor says that when they first colonised the planet, around two hundred and fifty years ago, it was all eco-spheres and people mutating because of radiation produced by the oxygen processors. Now, it looks just like Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Except the eco-sphere is still there and the sky is a pinkish red. But you know, if I squint, just a little bit, it could be Newcastle in the early evening.
The government recently set up a weather control system, a more sophisticated version that the antique they're currently using on Earth, and, again, just like Newcastle, it always seems to being raining.
To add insult to injury, there's thunder and lightning as well at the moment. I suppose it could be worse, I ruminate as the water lashes down the plexiglass window. Our student housing (which isn't as bad as some of the dives I'd lived in in South Shields, but only marginally) looks out over the huge field of genetically engineered grass. They have to engineer it (says the Doctor) because the Martian landscape is too dry to support a breed of grass which will fulfil it's purpose; photosynthesis.
***
Nyssa turned over in the bed, groaning slightly. "Robbie?"
"I'm here, kid," I say, turning away from the view of Mars' premier city of Ares. Trust the people to choose something like that for a city name. As long as it has a remote connection with Mars, what the hell they must have thought.
"I had a really weird dream," Nyssa said. "You were this big dictator called Prospero, and you were in a huge war with the Cybermen."
I shuddered at the mention of the Cybermen. One of the Doctor's enemies, which I had no real compunction to meet. Daleks I can handle. But Cybermen... there's just something in the thought of them making you into one of them that freaks me out. Belatedly, I realise the name I had been called in my dream. During a brief holiday in the 1930's, I myself had had a dream where I had been called Prospero. It was just a fragmented half-memory; the rest of the dream had slipped from my mind as I woke. I had meant to discuss it with the Doctor, but a rather nasty murder had gotten in the way somewhat.
"It's just a dream," I said to Nyssa, walking over to her and pecking her on the cheek. Nyssa seemed to garner some comfort from this, but I didn't. When the Doctor got back from the campus in the next city, named Wells (doubtless after the ubiquitous H.G), I resolved to have a talk with him.
I lay back down on the bed and yawned. My insomnia had, after a few weeks peaceful, if dreamless sleep in the TARDIS, returned and I had only managed to grab the briefest of sleeps that night.
But then, as I closed my eyes and Nyssa cuddled up to me, I heard something. I opened my eyes and looked. A small leaflet had been slid under the door.
Intrigued, I got out of bed and picked it up. It was printed on crude pink paper, full of pieces of flattened wood.
RALLY TODAY!
The flyer screamed. It continued:
PROTECT THE NATIVE MARTIANS FROM THE COMPANY
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT AT THE BAXTER BUILDING
11:00AM
THIS LEAFLET IS A PUBLICATION ON BEHALF OF THE APS
(c) 2323
I was about to throw it in the bin when Nyssa indicated that she wanted to see it. I passed it to her but I wasn't keen on attending the rally. From what the Doctor had told me, the native Martians, or Ice Warriors, tended to be pretty shady characters and wanted to invade the Earth. When man had colonised Mars, they had left a few isolated pockets of Warriors in the Southern Hemisphere, but lately, the Company had announced plans to expand their mining venture out into the Southern Hemisphere, which would destroy the Ice Warriors' tombs.
"We should go along," Nyssa said.
I sighed. I knew she was going to do this; she's been bored out of her mind the last few days with the Doctor gallivanting around every branch of the university on the face of the planet. Still, it would be something to do.
***
"Doctor!"
The sight of our friend caused Nyssa to gasp with excitement.
"Give your book back?" I asked him, keeping my cool, but nevertheless, extremely glad to see him myself.
"Er, not exactly," he said sheepishly, and produced the book from his jacket pocket. "I did manage to track down the branch of the university library where I, er, borrowed it from, but it had been knocked down for fifty years."
"I guess you get to keep it then," I said, a cheeky grin playing across my face.
"Well," the Doctor said. He looked at the book, allowed himself a slight smile and then replaced the book in his pocket. "I see you've taken an interest in Martian politics, Robbie, good, good."
I wasn't about to tell him that I was only there because Nyssa was.
"The Ice Warriors, that's one of them there," he said, pointing out a lumbering green giant who was anything but jolly. "They're really a very fascinating race, all bound by honour and so on."
"Like the Klingons?" I asked.
The Doctor merely gave me a disparaging look.
"What?" I asked him.
"Not everything is like Star Trek you know," the Doctor said.
"But the Cybermen are just like the Borg, aren't they?"
"The Cybermen were here first," the Doctor said absently, looking out over the campus where a few students have already begun milling around. "And what's more," he said, almost as an afterthought, "they're real."
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "But what about the whole thing that nearly all the aliens we've run into have been basically humanoid with knobbly heads?"
"Well," the Doctor began and then trailed off.
"I mean," I continued, "the amount of aliens that could pass for human, it's beyond the realm of scientific plausibility and into cheap B-movie territory."
"I'll explain one day," the Doctor said. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Nyssa asked.
A muffled explosion rumbles through the campus. I definitely hear that.
"There!" the Doctor exclaimed. "That explosion. That one was nearer."
I spin round and see a cloud of black smoke crawling up into the sky.
"Oh shit," I swore.
"Robbie!" the Doctor called over the sound of the panicking students.
"What?" I called back.
"Get to safety. I'll meet you back at the TARDIS in one hour."
The Doctor took his hat off and rolled it up.
"And where the hell are you going?" I shouted at him as he prepared to run towards the explosion.
"No time! I'll explain later."
And with that, he started off at a run towards the building that was still belching thick black smoke.
"Always with the explaining later," I muttered under my breath. I grab Nyssa's hand and together we run in the opposite direction from the Doctor.
***
We reached the ridge that overlooked the city. From there we could see two buildings had been destroyed.
"That building..." Nyssa said with fear creeping into her voice. "It's the Company HQ."
Suddenly, it all began to make sense to me. "Oh Jesus," I said.
"What isss it?" asked a slow, bronchial voice. I turned around and found myself face to chestplate with an Ice Warrior. I looked up at his face; or at least at his mouth, his eyes and nose being covered.
"The building that's been blown up," I said, "it's the Company building."
"The Company that plansss to desssecrate our tombsss?" the Warrior asked in his slow, unhurried tones.
"Yeah," I replied. "My guess is that the student rally got a little out of hand."
"Robbie, you aren't suggesting that..." Nyssa said, the disbelief evident in her voice.
"That the students planted a bomb in the Company building? 'Fraid so."
"But it's senseless," Nyssa said. "All those people..." Her voice tailed off into silence, but her horror at what had happened was illustrated perfectly well in her eyes.
"It's fanaticism," I said.
"We will have our revenge," the Ice Warrior said.
"Hold on Green," I said, reaching out and placing a hand on his thick, green armour plated arm. "We don't have all the facts. And it's just a theory."
"Then we must assscertain factsss," the green giant said.
"I'm with you there. My name's Robbie, this is Nyssa," I said.
"Iytar," the Ice Warrior said.
"Nice to meet you," Nyssa said. She turned to me. "What do we do?"
My mind raced. On the one hand there was the Doctor, who had told me to get myself and Nyssa to safety while he did whatever he did in situations like this. On the other hand, if the Doctor was doing what I thought he was doing, he might be in greater danger than he might realise. "Shame my mobile won't work," I muttered. I turned to Nyssa and Iytar, "Right, we need to find the Doctor. Nyssa, if you can get a radio or something from somewhere - keep us up to date. Iytar, come with me."
***
The radio crackled to life. "-still no reports of causalities from the bombing of the IMC building. Experts have stated that they believe a hover-car was parked in the underground basement, containing seventeen kilograms of thermia. Thermia, banned by the 2376 Genocide Convention is a super-condensed explosive. The other building, the Bradbury Savings And Loan where IMC keep all their financial records has collapsed. No group has yet taken credit for this sickening act."
They cut to a commercial and I turned to Nyssa. "This looks bad."
A ripple of thunder rumbled overhead, seeming to agree with me.
***
"Doctor?" I hardly recognised him; he was covered in smoke-stains; his clothes were dirty and torn and he had a nasty looking cut on his forehead, blood was caked to one side of his face.
"Hello Robbie. Nyssa." All the life had gone out of his voice. I wondered what he'd seen at the disaster scene. He looked at the Ice Warrior currently leaning up against the TARDIS and a smile lit up on his face. "Hello, I'm the Doctor."
"I am known as Iytar," Iytar said.
"Pleased to meet you, although I wish it could have been under better circumstances." He turned to me. "Has any group taken responsibility yet?"
I figured he'd seen the radio. "No," I said. "You got anything?"
"Just that it was a bomb," the Doctor said.
"Thermia," I added.
"How did anyone get a hold of that?" the Doctor pondered. "It's been banned for nearly twenty years. They haven't even made any for longer than that."
"Well," Nyssa said, grimly, "someone did."
***
Night fell on the city and the typical wave of cold swept over us. I looked out; the IMC building was still on fire, thick, black smoke blocking out the stars. The Doctor had gone off to look for some of his Martian friends.
"Is that humans who were born here or Ice Warriors?" I had asked as he collected up some items.
"A little bit of both, really," he had replied before bustling out of the TARDIS. "You and Nyssa go back to the housing and collect your things together." He paused a looked a little wistful; his eyes drifting back into the console room where Nyssa and Iytar were talking. "We may have to leave in a hurry."
"Robbie?"
"Yeah, kid?"
Nyssa came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my chest. "Are you okay?"
I leant backwards slightly, feeling her pressed against my back, her hair brushing my neck.
"I'm okay," I said. I guessed Nyssa would suspect I was lying. "A couple of years before I met you and the Doctor... there was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, thousands of people died. Then there was a whole attempt to try and quell the entire idea of terrorism. Me and my dad fell out over it. I told him that terrorism, no matter what America and President Bush might think, couldn't be stopped. As long as there was perceived injustice in the world, then there would be people who think that they should fight against it. He, my dad that is, said that any future generation would look back on the World Trade Centre and the war that followed and there wouldn't be any more terrorism. The war to end wars. Well, I said that's what H.G Wells had said. My dad was drunk of course and I ended up getting thrown out of the house."
"But you were right," Nyssa said.
"Yeah, but I didn't want to be. My dad never could cope with being wrong. But anyway, that's not important... I don't want to be right. Nys, I wanted him to be right, I didn't want nutters to be bombing buildings into the far future. I want things to change. I just want..."
My voice went off into silence. Either Nyssa didn't know what to say or she knew that anything would sound like a hollow platitude. She just held me tighter.
We stayed like that for a long time, then a heavy handed knock came at the door.
Nyssa disentangled herself from me and walked over, opening the door.
"A group hasss taken credit for the bombingsss," Iytar said as urgently as an Ice Warrior could.
"Who?" I asked, turning away from my view of the city from the window.
"The Ice Lordsss."
Now that I was not expecting. "What?" was my first reaction. Then came "Who?"
"The Ice Lordsss," Iytar said, "our ruling body."
"Why have they done this?" Nyssa asked.
Iytar was fidgeting. I knew the answer. "They don't want IMC to dig up the tombs. It's perfectly logical."
"But don't they realise that terrorism won't stop anything?" Nyssa said. She was looking at me with her big eyes. Like I knew the answer. Maybe I did. Maybe the Ice Lords just wanted to preserve their heritage. Maybe the Ice Lords did have a greater claim on the Southern Hemisphere than IMC. Yeah, I could understand them. But the point was I didn't want to. I didn't want to empathise with a race of beings who would kill thousands of innocent people.
I think Nyssa understood my point of view from just looking at me. She looked away, out of the window. "We have to find the Doctor," she said.
***
Sometimes I wish the Doctor had some sort of walkie-talkie where we could find him when he went wandering off like this. I mean, it might be a little inconvenient if he's facing down a diabolical mastermind, but all in all, it would cut down on the searching we had to do around Ares.
Nyssa finally found him sitting in an old shop tinkering with some electronic equipment.
"What're doing?" I asked him.
The Doctor brushed his hair out of his eyes. "I really should get it cut," he muttered absently. "This should detect life beneath the rubble." He held up the small device and flicked it on. He passed it over me and it bleeped. "There," he said, smiling. "This should help with the rescue effort."
"Doctor," Nyssa said urgently, "the Ice Lords have taken credit for the bombing."
"What?" He looked up at Nyssa, plainly not believing her.
"It's true," I said.
Instantly, the Doctor was on his feet and dashing out of the door. "We have to get to the Council Of Elders," he called behind him, carelessly tossing the device he'd constructed to the fire chief in charge of the rescue operation.
"Press the red button," I advised him. "You'll find more people with it."
The fire chief looked at me, quite befuddled, then pressed the red button. It bleeped.
I ran on after the Doctor, Nyssa and Iytar. I caught up with Iytar first; big old Ice Warriors not having a whole lot of running capability.
"What's this council?" I asked him, already out of breath. You would think that after travelling with the Doctor for six months I would have reached some state of fitness. I resolved to see if the TATRDIS had a gym when I got back to it. If I got back to it.
"It isss our ruling body, made up of our eldessst and wisssessst," Iytar said. He seemed to be even more out of breath than I was. Luckily, the Doctor had spotted a hover-car and was already sitting in the passenger seat, fidgeting. With a shudder, I realised it was the same model as the one the Ice Lords had planted the bomb in.
"Come one Robbie," the Doctor said when he noticed my hesitation. "I need you to drive."
Pushing all thoughts to the back of my head, I dived into the front seat and started it up. The layout wasn't too dissimilar to that of my old Mini back home. I started it up and the car rose off the ground.
"Hey, Doctor," I said.
"What?"
"I don't have a licence for this kind of thing."
"Just don't go over five hundred on the airlanes," Iytar, sitting in the back seat, hunched down so his head wouldn't pop out of the roof.
"Here goes nothing."
I gunned the engine and we flew away.
***
"So... where exactly is it that we're going?"
"The Olympus Mons," Iytar said when the Doctor found himself coming up short.
"There's a navigational aid," the Doctor said, tapping a few of the buttons on the computer I had resolutely being avoiding. The three pedals, the air/ground switch and the steering wheel were enough for me.
A screen lit up and the Doctor typed in our destination. A directional heading popped up, looking like a compass.
"Just follow that arrow," the Doctor said, smiling.
***
As a general rule, things on Mars are ten times the size of those on Earth. Olympus Mons, a mountain, is therefore huge.
Iytar gives us a Martian code and a small cavern opens up in the side of the cliff. I use my Mini-driving skills to land the craft. As we get out I feel very impressed with myself.
"Good job, Robbie," the Doctor said.
"Identity yourselvesss," an unfamiliar Martian voice said.
We spun round and found ourselves facing down an Ice Warrior who seemed to be twice the size of Iytar.
"I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends Robbie, Nyssa and, er, Iytar."
"Doctor?" the guard said. "It wasss you who ssstopped our incursssion of Earth two hundred a fifty yearsss ago. But no human livesss that long."
"I'm afraid that's because I'm not human," the Doctor said. "Please, I need to see the Elders."
"Nobody seesss the Eldersss," the guard hissed. "It isss forbidden."
"I defeated them in battle once," the Doctor said, standing up to the Ice Warrior guard. Smart guy, the Doctor, but he could be so stupid sometimes.
To my surprise, and probably Nyssa's as well, if the gasp she gave was anything of an indicator, the guard backed down.
"Come thisss way," he said, meekly.
"What the hell just happened?" I asked as we walked down freezing cold corridors, our breath (not Iytar's for obvious reasons) clouding before us.
"As I was telling you Robbie, if you would deign to listen to me once in a while, the Martians are a race bowed by honour and ritual. By rights, since I defeated them once before, when they tried to take over Earth, I have the right to demand anything of them."
"And there's no time limit on it?" Nyssa asked.
"No," the Doctor said.
"Lucky for us," I murmured.
The guard led us into a massive chamber. It seemed as if the whole of Olympus Mons had been hollowed out for this room. I felt dizzy looking up; the ceiling was so far away I couldn't see it. I felt a migraine coming on.
There were darkened alcoves spotted around the room at eye level, with one big one right before us.
"I presssent the Doctor," the guard said. "He hasss come to claim on his victory."
A figure appeared in the largest alcove. In contrast to the Ice Warriors, he seemed small and feeble. He didn't wear any armour and there were no cybernetic attachments, unlike Iytar. His helmet was speckled in a shiny, reflective material.
"What iss your wissh, Doctor?" the Ice Lord said. Even his voice was less hissy than that of the other Martians I'd seen.
"I want you to stop your terrorist activities against the Terrans," he said, his voice calm. Not for the first time I was glad that the Doctor was the talky one, not me.
"They wissh to dessecrate our tombss," the Ice Lord replied.
I looked around, seeing for the first time a whole other bunch of Ice Lords in the other alcoves. They were barely visible, but occasionally there was a hissy whisper.
"They won't," the Doctor said, "not if you promise that there will be no more acts of aggression."
"A Terran'ss word is worth nothing," the Ice Lord hissed.
"What about my word?" asked the Doctor
***
"So that's it?" I asked as we strode back to the TARDIS. We had returned the hover-car to it's rightful owner and the Doctor had squared our bill with the student housing authority, who quite rightly understood that we didn't want to be students at Mars University; The Doctor having concocted the cover story that we were on a week visit to see if we liked it or not.
"That's it," the Doctor said with a sad smile. The Martian landscape didn't look that much different at first glance, but I hadn't been there long. No doubt the loss of two monolithic buildings, not to say thousands of lives, was being felt keenly by the colony.
"What about the Ice Lord?" Nyssa asked.
"He'll be tried for crimes against humanity," the Doctor said. "He'll give himself up on the condition that the tombs go undisturbed. The humans and the Martians will live together for a while, but eventually, most of them will leave and settle on new planets." The Doctor looked at Iytar. "It's been very nice meeting you," he said. "I just wish it could have been under better circumstances."
"I too believe thisss, Doctor," Iytar said with what might have been the Martian equivalent of a smile.
I shook Iytar's hand. "See you around, Green, huh?"
"Goodbye, Robbie, Nysssssa," Iytar said.
Nyssa hugged the hulking Martian, then he turned and walked away.
"Where to now?" the Doctor asked, opening the TARDIS doors.
"Doctor," I said, "we can't always save everybody, can we?"
He looked at me, then squeezed my shoulder. "No Robbie, I'm afraid we can't. Nobody can. But we can do our best."
Nyssa slipped an arm around me and I held her against me.
"The TARDIS doesn't have a gym does it?"
***
POSTSCRIPT - ICIPIENCE DAY
"What's so special about this day?" I asked the Doctor as we stood watching the telly's in a shop window. "Apart from Kennedy getting shot that is?"
"Nothing really," replied the Doctor. He raised the coffee to his mouth and drank in the steaming liquid.
"I thought you only liked tea," I said.
"This is America, Robbie, 1963, they don't do tea. Well, not as good as Mrs Miggins' anyway."
I wrapped the coat tighter around my body, feeling the chill New York air bite at my cheeks.
"Cold?" he asks me. He's just standing there in his usual clobber of cricketing gear; if he's feeling the cold he isn't telling anyone. His outfit has gotten us a few odd glances from passers-by. My trenchcoat is just plain chameleon style. It'll fit into any period of the twentieth century, and a few decades on either side.
"Hello Robbie," Nyssa says, coming up to me and wrapping her arms around me. I give her a kiss.
"Done your Christmas shopping?" I asked, gesturing at the bags at her side.
"Christmas?" Nyssa asked, looking puzzled.
I mentally slap myself. Of course, Nyssa being from a planet light-years away from Earth probably wouldn't have heard of Christmas. "It's an Earth celebration thing," I explained.
"Good excuse to eat mince pies," the Doctor said. "And pudding of course. And then there's crackers..."
"Don't worry about it, kid," I tell her.
As the news that Kennedy has been shot is announced over the TV and radio, the streets suddenly turn into a sombre affair. People are no longer bustling happily along the streets, bags full of shopping. They are moping along, almost dragging the bags behind them.
It's been a huge shock to them; I know that. I grew up with conspiracy theories and Oliver Stone movies. It's strange not to have that home movie footage on the newscasts.
"Come on," the Doctor said. "We should be going."
We walked back down the dingy alley where the TARDIS landed. I briefly wondered what any passing New Yorker might have made of a British Police Box.
"So what was all this about, Doctor? I mean, you make a big deal about coming to 1963, but when you get here you have a cup of coffee, watch the newscasts of Kennedy's assassination, then we leave. What's the big idea? No secret agenda? No alien incursions? No world to save?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No, Robbie, I'm afraid not. I just felt like I had to be here. Like something momentous was happing."
"The Kennedy assassination?"
"No," the Doctor said, his brow furrowing, "that's just it, it wasn't President Kennedy." He shook his head. "Come on, let's go somewhere warmer."
