As he walked slowly across the room, the Doctor was speaking quietly but distinctly. 'I think I understand it now,'

he said. All eyes were watching him now. Even Neville's head swivelled slowly to follow the Doctor's progress. 'That must have been the crucial moment for the Denarian. The initial first generation host,' he whirled round and pointed to the hunched-up figure in the armchair, 'you, Sheldon. That initial host needed to be preserved intact as an incubator, a breeder breeder, for Denarian material. Later generations would have to be cultivated within other hosts. So the Denarian continues to reproduce to saturation point within the original host until genetic, biological contact is made with a secondary host.'

The Doctor stopped in his tracks and pointed at Packwood.

'You,' he accused. 'You are the secondary host, from the blood infection. And I would think that by now you are under complete Denarian control. The third generation.' He continued his slow journey across the room, his eyes locked for a moment with Peri's. 'You probably didn't even realise it was taking you over.' There was something in them. Some message imparted across the s.p.a.ce between them as he spoke.

'Even now you might not be able to tell. But when I said it was wrong, I meant it.'

'And what do you intend to do about it, whether you are right or not?' Packwood asked, a trace of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice.

'Oh, I intend to stop you,' the Doctor answered seriously.

There was something in the Doctor's voice, an edge to it, that alerted Peri. Packwood had caught it too, she saw that. He looked across at Rogers, and the shotgun froze, pointing at the s.p.a.ce where the Doctor had been standing.

But he was no longer there. He was diving headlong to the side of the chaise longue chaise longue, rolling along the floor as the first barrel of the gun discharged and blew a ragged hole in the back of the seat. Peri screamed as wadding and velvet exploded out of the furniture beside her. She leaped to her feet.

As the Doctor rolled away, his hand lashed out at the occasional table, catching the oil lamp a solid blow. Then he was on his feet again, grabbing Peri, shouting to Sir Anthony and Janet, running towards the door where Rogers hesitated with the gun.

The oil lamp hit Neville square in the chest. He dropped the tea pot and it shattered into fragments, bone china spinning across the hardwood floor. A pool of oil spread across the corpse's dry chest, the flames running with it, eating into the fisherman's sweater.

Packwood was shouting. Rogers was swinging back and forth with the gun. Sheldon was screaming something incoherent. Sir Anthony was running after the Doctor and Peri, dragging Janet with him, her eyes wide and empty.

Rogers seemed to recover. The room was filling with oily black smoke, and the second shot did nothing to clear it. The Doctor dived away again, pulling Peri after him. Neville had been thrashing wildly as they pa.s.sed, the flames now licking along his arms as they flailed in the smoky air. The shot hit him in the side as he turned, propelling him across the room.

He crashed against the chair where Janet had been sitting, the fire taking immediate hold on the old upholstery. For a few seconds the chair and the corpse were one, a flaming ma.s.s of orange and black. Then the corpse of Bill Neville slipped to the floor, the flames seeming to burrowing into his body as they ate through the remains of his clothes.

The Doctor shouldered Rogers aside. Packwood was shouting through the smoke. Rogers. .h.i.t the door frame, cannoned off and fell heavily to the floor. Peri was first through the door, emerging through the misty smoke into the hallway, the Doctor close behind. He overtook her on the way to the front door. Behind them Sir Anthony was dragging Janet, and Sheldon was stumbling off in the other direction, deeper into the house.

'Leave him,' the Doctor shouted. 'They won't hurt him.

Well, no more than they have already.'

Peri leaned forward, hands on her knees, trying to breathe.

Her vision seemed blurred, the world wobbled. The smoke, she told herself. The effects of the smoke. Behind her she was dimly aware of Rogers running after them, shotgun open, jamming in cartridges.

The Doctor was tearing at the bolts, swinging the heavy door open to let in the misty cold night air.

They all froze on the threshold.

In front of them, stumbling, shuffling, lurching out of the mist, were the villagers. Dozens of them, heading straight for the house. The light from the hallway caught their pale faces as they approached. It made their dead, white eyes seem to glow in the night. Ahead of them, two cadavers in fishermen's jerseys and waterproof trousers waded out of the shadows beside the door. And Dave Madsen's corpse, his head a ma.s.s of congealed blood and broken bone, reached out for the Doctor's neck.

Chapter Twelve.

Sacrifices The Doctor skidded to a halt on the threshold and pulled back to avoid Madsen's clutching hands.

'Don't move,' Rogers called from down the hall. He snapped the gun shut and ran towards where the Doctor, Peri, Sir Anthony and Janet were standing.

'Ah,' the Doctor said cheerily as Rogers approached. 'Just what we need.' Without further comment, he grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and pulled it. Hard.

Rogers lurched forwards, his brisk pace levered by the Doctor's tug on the gun. He crashed through the group of people in the doorway, and swung round so that he seemed for a moment to be locked in a dance with the Doctor. The Doctor let go of the gun, and Rogers continued, falling back through the doorway, knocking Madsen aside and smacking into the fisherman that stood behind him.

The Doctor immediately leaped forward and shut the door, slamming the bolts home.

'That won't keep them out for long,' Sir Anthony pointed out. 'What about the windows?'

'Toughened,' Janet said, with obvious effort. 'No way in.'

'Sounds good to me,' Sir Anthony conceded.

The Doctor was leading them back down the hall now.

'Except that Packwood can always open the windows and the door,' he said. 'And Janet here is going to succ.u.mb to the alien material at any moment. That is, if the house doesn't burn down first, of course.'

'Otherwise OK?' Peri asked.

'Oh yes,' the Doctor admitted. 'Nothing we can't handle.

Ah, there you are.' This last was directed at Packwood, who had stepped out of the smoke-filled drawing room as they pa.s.sed.

'Can't catch me!' the Doctor jibed, and neatly side-stepped the large man.

They ran.

'Where are we going?' Peri asked.

'Cellars,' the Doctor called back to her. 'The laboratories that Janet mentioned.'

'Why?' Sir Anthony wanted to know as the Doctor pushed Janet ahead of him to lead the way.

'That's where this started. It's the best place to end it.' He called after Janet and Peri who were racing ahead. 'Not so fast!'

They slowed to let the Doctor and Sir Anthony catch up.

Logan Packwood was barrelling after them as they started down the stairs.

Peri made to slam the door shut behind them, but the Doctor stayed her arm. He shook his head. 'We want him down here, with us.'

'Do we?'

'And not letting the others in. One of them is easier to deal with than all of them.'

'So we let him think he's catching us,' Peri said as she chased down the steps after the Doctor.

'Can't keep you fooled for long.'

'And then what?' she asked. They were past the cellar room they had been locked in earlier, heading down the pa.s.sageway towards the laboratories.

The Doctor paused just long enough to admit: 'I haven't the foggiest. I'm making it up as we go along.' Then he was off again. Until he suddenly stopped sharply outside a door. A heavy door, with a tiny square window set high up in it. 'What about this?' he called after Janet.

She shook her head. 'Not lab,' she managed to call out.

'X-ray room.'

The Doctor beamed. 'Excellent,' he decided and opened the door. 'In we go.'

Packwood was behind them, out of sight beyond a bend in the corridor, but they could hear his heavy footsteps. He had slowed - he knew there was no way out for them.

'We're lucky he's so arrogant,' the Doctor murmured.

'Otherwise he might just have locked us down here and let his friends in.'

The room was small. There was a hospital bed pushed against the far wall. X-ray equipment stood beside it. On the other side of the room, close to the door, was a heavy lead screen with a small control panel behind it.

'Right, time for a little experiment,' the Doctor decided.

'Behind the screen, everyone.'

The footsteps were approaching now, close outside.

'Maybe he'll go past and we can sneak back out again,' Sir Anthony suggested in a whisper.

'I hope not,' the Doctor replied. 'Right, Peri, I want you to turn this dial here right round.' He caught her hand. 'When I tell you. Then count to three, and turn it back to zero. Got that?'

She nodded. The Doctor motioned for everyone to duck down, so that they could not be seen from the door. Outside, the footsteps paused, then continued down the pa.s.sage.

The Doctor skipped across to the door and opened it a crack. Then he suddenly, deliberately, sneezed.

A moment later he was across the room, dithering by the bed as if looking for a hiding place. The door swung open and Packwood came in. He paused just inside the door. The Doctor looked shocked, worried.

'Hoping to escape while I pursue your friends, Doctor?'

Packwood asked. He took a step towards the Doctor, into the room. 'Not very n.o.ble of you, I must say.'

'Well,' the Doctor admitted, 'I think we're running out of options.'

Packwood took another step towards the Doctor. He was level with the screen now. Behind it, Peri's hand was tight on the dial. Janet had her teeth tightly clenched as if afraid she might speak or shout. Or scream. Sir Anthony was crouched down, leaning heavily on his stick.

'Perhaps I shall just lock you in here while I deal with your friends,' Packwood declared.

For a moment the Doctor's eyes widened. Then he smiled back. 'Ah, but in this room the bolts are on the inside of the door,' he pointed out. 'To prevent people wandering in while the equipment is on, I a.s.sume.'

Packwood nodded slowly. 'A good point,' he conceded.

'Very well. I'll make it quick for you, Doctor.' He strode across the room, arms outstretched.

'You're too kind,' the Doctor said quietly as the hands reached for him. At the last moment, just before Packwood's huge hands closed on his neck, the Doctor ducked. A moment later he was rolling across the floor, a multicoloured blur of motion. 'Now, Peri,' he shouted as he went, coat tails whipping round like a Catherine wheel. 'Now!'

Peri twisted the dial.

Just as the Doctor rolled behind the screen. There was nothing to see, just a hum of power from the equipment.

But the effect on Packwood was immediate. He had turned to follow the Doctor. Now he sank to his knees, hands to his head.

Peri twisted the dial back to its original position and slowly, carefully, nervously they all looked round the screen.

Packwood was on his knees, head bowed. As they watched he slumped forward, his hands reaching out at the last moment to prevent him falling to the stone floor. He was breathing heavily.

'What's happened?' Sir Anthony asked in a hushed whisper.

'Well,' the Doctor was already beside Packwood, helping him to the bed. 'From what I know about the Gatherer Three mission, and the area of s.p.a.ce it was set to cover, I think it's an area practically devoid of X-ray emissions. Just a hunch, but I did wonder if the Denarian might be a little shocked to come into contact with them.'

Packwood was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands. He looked up slowly, and they could see that his eyes were bloodshot, the irises coloured a pale blue.

'Looks like your hunch was right,' Peri said.

'And we have a weapon now,' Sir Anthony said.

'Something we can use against it.'

'Well, it isn't exactly terribly portable,' the Doctor admitted. 'And unless we get moving, the genetic material will synthesise a cure, a protection as it does with any disease or illness.'

'And another thing, Doctor.' Packwood's voice was husky.

'Yes?' the Doctor asked.

'It doesn't work,' Packwood told him.

The villagers stood silent and still outside the house. Waiting.

Miss Devlin was with the schoolchildren in the centre of the group. In front of them, close to the front door to Sheldon's Folly, two dead fishermen stood with Rogers the manservant and the remains of Dave Madsen. Liz Trefoil's expression was a fixed neutral as she stood nearby watching her lover's corpse.

In the midst of the crowd was Mrs Tattleshall, silent in company for the first time in decades, her handbag clasped like a talisman in front of her.