Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition
Read Ten Little Aliens: 50th Anniversary Edition Online
Authors: Stephen Cole
Contents
The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection
Chapter Two: Appointment with Death
Chapter Three: Death Comes as the End
Chapter Four: While the Light Lasts
Chapter Five: Destination Unknown
Chapter Six: By the Pricking of my Thumbs
Chapter Eight: Cat Among the Pigeons
Chapter Ten: The Secret Adversary
Chapter Eleven: The Road of Dreams
Chapter Twelve: Murder Is Easy
Chapter Thirteen: They Do It with Mirrors
Chapter Fourteen: Spider’s Web
Chapter Fifteen: Partners in Crime
Chapter Seventeen: The Unexpected Guest
About the Book
Deep in the heart of a hollowed-out moon the
First Doctor
finds a chilling secret: ten alien corpses, frozen in time at the moment of their death. They are the empire’s most wanted terrorists, and their discovery could end a war devastating the galaxy. But is the same force that killed them still lurking in the dark? And what are its plans for the people of Earth?
An adventure featuring the First Doctor as played by William Hartnell and his companions Ben and Polly.
About the Author
Stephen Cole liked books, and so went to the University of East Anglia to read more of them. Later on he started writing them too, with more TV and film tie-ins than he cares to admit to along the way. He has been the voice of a Dalek and an editor of fiction and non-fiction book titles for various publishers, including the
Doctor Who
novels
The Feast of the Drowned
and
The Art of Destruction
.
The
Doctor Who
50th Anniversary Collection
Ten Little Aliens
Stephen Cole
Dreams of Empire
Justin Richards
Last of the Gaderene
Mark Gatiss
Festival of Death
Jonathan Morris
Fear of the Dark
Trevor Baxendale
Players
Terrance Dicks
Remembrance of the Daleks
Ben Aaronovitch
Earth World
Jacqueline Rayner
Only Human
Gareth Roberts
Beautiful Chaos
Gary Russell
The Silent Stars Go By
Dan Abnett
For Jill, still
I
NTRODUCTION
It’s ironic, I suppose, that as I write an introduction to a novel that celebrates the unreliable narrator, I find I’m one myself.
More than ten years have passed since I wrote
Ten Little Aliens
. I’ve written a lot of books since, so I suppose could be forgiven for having hazy memories. But I definitely recall the pitch in a nutshell was ‘
Starship Troopers
meets Agatha Christie’.
The Agatha Christie part was inspired by what else was happening in my professional life. For a few freelance months from 2000 to 2001, I was editor of a partwork magazine dedicated to Christie’s works; each issue came with a special edition of one of her books.
For me, while I’d seen all sorts of Christie adaptations, this was the first time I had actually read the originals. I had to get through an awful lot of crime novels very quickly; and as the magazine analysed many of the stories, so I found myself studying Christie’s style, the way she constructed her baffling crimes and their ingenious solutions. My favourite was her bestselling work,
And Then There Were None
– formerly known as
Ten Little Indians
– which I found genuinely creepy.
Then, one sunny day in early 2001, I met with Rosalind Hicks – Agatha Christie’s charming daughter – at Greenway, the breathtaking family estate on the banks of the River Dart. Rosalind was granting me privileged access to her mother’s early scrapbooks, to peruse and publish photographs that had never before been made public. At one point, our conversation turned to
Doctor Who
(I can’t think how that happened) and
apparently
the Christie family used to watch the show in its early days.
I like to picture Agatha viewing, say, that First Doctor story
The Rescue
(go and watch the DVD!), and screaming, ‘Oi! Vicki! Koquillion’s a feller in a skin!’ at the screen through a mouthful of cucumber sandwich, little dreaming she’d turn up as a
Doctor Who
character herself, decades in the future.
Of course, classic
Doctor Who
paid homage to the murder-mystery genre’s tropes and tricks in a science-fiction setting once or twice in its long history but, pumped up with so much Christie, I fancied having a fresh go myself.
Around that time, there was talk of changing
And Then There Were None
’s spooky setting from Indian Island to Soldier Island. A lot of people assume that all Christie novels took place in the 1920s and 1930s, but in fact she gave her books contemporary settings, right up to the 1970s and her death. The idea of Soldier Island got me thinking that the gear and image of a soldier in 1939 when the novel was written differs somewhat to a 21st-century military type; and as for the soldiers of the
future
…
Remember the
Starship Troopers
part of my original pitch? I suspect you can see where this is going.
So the clash of futuristic ‘space marines’ with the classic murder-mystery set-up emerged organically. I called the outline
Ten Little Aliens
as a joke title at first, to signal my intent.
As the concept developed, there was definitely only one TARDIS team I wanted for the adventure: the First Doctor, accompanied by the brilliant Ben and Polly to add some Swinging Sixties period pluck to the proceedings.
I say definitely. But that’s because I’m an unreliable narrator.
I
thought
it was the case. But looking back over my original emails to range editor Justin Richards, I’ve discovered that the storyline was first intended for the
Eighth
Doctor with his then companions Fitz and Anji. Justin suggested there was a space in the schedules for a First Doctor adventure; I showed a nominal
interest
but asked if I could write it for the Second Doctor instead. Doctor Two was mine, Justin assured me, in exchange for a beer. So perhaps it was moths in my wallet that led me to take the First Doctor and friends into the scene.
It can only have been moths around my brain that led me to title the finished storyline
The Penitent Hour
. Thank goodness Justin squashed that and we went back to
Ten Little Aliens
.
Some people at the time tutted at my telling a new story for this particular TARDIS team – technically, there’s no real narrative gap between their three shared on-screen stories, and it had never been done before. Up to then, the majority of ‘new’ First Doctor novels had been set in the ‘gap’ between
The Reign of Terror
and
Planet of Giants
(look them up!) – even though costume and dialogue clearly posit there isn’t one.
More unreliable narrators?
Whatever, I love Ben and Polly and to work well with
ten
little aliens, my story needed two companions. I’m glad we took some gentle liberties with the established facts, though Poirot would surely not approve.
Certainly, in the telling of
Ten Little Aliens
I had some fun with the form of the novel; after all, in William Hartnell’s pioneering era,
Doctor Who
’s format was perhaps at its most elastic. Every chapter title in the book is a Christie title, and early on you’ll find a Who’s Who of the space marines in the style of an electronic news mag. Originally it was just for my own reference, but I figured the reader might appreciate it too. Ordinarily the designer
wouldn’t
, as this section called for a bit of playing around – but since I was laying out the books myself at this time, I didn’t complain at the extra work. (Apologies now to the designer of this new edition, Steve Tribe, for the extra work I’ve inadvertently given him.)
Looking back, I was a glutton for that extra work; witness the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ section of the novel, a chance to get right inside the head of the interlinked characters and pick
up
clues as to Who-dunnit. Perhaps I shouldn’t have made such a rod for my own back. Perhaps you’ll let me know?
The creation of
Ten Little Aliens
spanned a turbulent time in my own little world and in that of the world at large. As I began my tale of terrorists with terrible powers, my thirtieth birthday was buried by the collapse of the Twin Towers on nine-eleven. November 2001 saw chapters written in Miami in the wake of an Anthrax terror-scare. The final sections were written as I moved out of my London flat to the Buckinghamshire countryside, while rewrites wrapped in January during a work trip to a still shell-shocked but defiant New York.
I can’t believe it was all so long ago… But for me, it’s a happy type of time travel to see
Ten Little Aliens
back on the shelves for
Doctor Who
’s 50th anniversary. Best of all, Mike Tucker, who designed and built the Schirr for the front cover as a favour, and Peter Anghelides, who gave advice and notes and checked things worked, and Justin Richards, who commissioned both the original novel and this new introduction are all still my very good friends. How gratifying it is to be able to thank them all over again.
And to thank you too, for reading, and to thank Agatha for writing, and to thank all those Starship Troopers for going BOOM!
Curtain
.
Steve Cole
September 2012
C
HAPTER
O
NE
P
OSTERN OF
F
ATE
I
WE’RE GOING TO
take the jump.
The smoky corridor ahead is broken up, a big black gash keeping one end from the other, like a giant’s kicked through it. This whole level is dimly lit, the indifferent white of emergency lighting spread too thin. Behind us we hear the low whine of the Kill-Droid charging up its laser.
Hear that and you’ve got five seconds.
We turn, bring the gun to bear. We’re used to something bigger than this pulse cannon, the trigger’s so small we can barely fit our finger round it. Makes little odds – there’s smoke everywhere, generators are on fire, we can’t see.
We couldn’t stop the Schirr taking the bridge. We couldn’t save the hostages. The
Ardent
had no choice but to take out the whole ship. Good of Haunt to whack out the top section of the
Harbinger
first. Gives us five whole minutes to get back out.
One Kill-Droid floats out of the white mist at last. Cherry-red lasers spew out of its twin barrels. We dive, roll and turn, teetering on the chasm’s edge. Our neck tears on puckered metal. We can feel blood but we’re too charged to feel the pain right now. The Kay-Dee takes the pulse. Its crystal head cracks and shatters like ice under a boot. Clatters to the ground.
Now we hear footsteps. Reload the pulse barrel, unthinking, just on instinct. Gauge the jump again. We can do it, but we’ll need a run-up. Straight into whatever’s sprinting for us now? If it’s on its feet down here it should be friendly, but –
A tall, dark shape flies out of the fog.
Almost
friendly.
Denni
. Her eyes narrow as she sees us. Cannon raised, blonde dreadlocks flapping as she spins on her heel, she fires. The mist illuminates like sheet lightning’s ripping through it. There’s a huge explosion, we feel the heat, smell oil and burnt-out electrics.