A Brush With Evolution

`Hello!' said the Doctor in his friendliest voice to the squatting caveman who was digging in the wet sand.
Looking up, the Neanderthal gave a scream and began to flee.
The Doctor looked innocently behind him. `Er...wait!' he yelled, and began to pursue the primitive down the beach.
As the caveman loped away, he began screaming something unintelligible in the direction of the cliffs.
The Doctor had almost caught up with him when they reached the base of the cliff. Whilst the Neanderthal began the ascent with great speed, the Doctor was forced to move more cautiously.
`Look at how he's climbing!' gasped Nyssa in amazement.
Adric arrived at the base of the cliff, having sprinted after the Doctor. He began to overtake the Doctor on the climb.
`Adric!' shouted the Doctor. `Adric, its useless! Come back!' The Doctor grasped Adric's ankle as the boy climbed further.
Adric struggled for a moment before beginning the climb down. `I nearly had him then!'
The Doctor shook his head and stared at the figure above as the Neanderthal disappeared into one of the caves. `There's more of them in there - they would have reacted to you like anybody whose home is invaded.' He gave Adric a look of conviction.
Adric nodded. `What do we do now?' he asked.
`Well,' said the Doctor, looking back at the beach.
`If they wish to communicate, they will do so, but as for now...' He smiled. `Fancy a paddle?'

The cricket ball struck the wickets with a resounding clatter, before dropping into the wet sand. Tegan cheered and Nyssa picked up the ball. `My turn to bowl, I believe?'
Tegan, still smiling, said: `All right, but the Doctor's trickier to stump than Adric.'
Adric glowered and handed the bat over to the Doctor. `Stupid game anyway,' he grumbled. `Doesn't even have a practical scoring system.'
`Now Adric,' said the Doctor sternly. `This is a game of skill, not logic.' Adric walked over to the other stumps, hands in his pockets.
The Doctor took his position, and Nyssa casually threw the ball forwards.
`No, no, no,' said the Doctor, sticking his bat in the sand and picking up the ball from where it had fallen slightly short. `Over-arm, Nyssa, like I showed you.' He moved over to her.
`I've had enough. This is going to take ages,' muttered Adric, and slumped himself into a deck-chair.
Tegan did the same, picking up the book the Doctor had been reading. It was a book by George Cranleigh: Black Orchid. She had known a little of his work before she had met him and then seen him fall to his death while they were visiting 1920's England. La dy Cranleigh had given the book to the Doctor as a present, and Tegan had been meaning to borrow it after he'd read it. From the looks of things, he was only half way through. She looked up at the Doctor, bent over Nyssa and guiding her arm in the beginni ngs of a swing. Even now he nurtured and educated her. They shared a special relationship, those two, one which would be the same as Adric's and the Doctor's if their mutual stubbornness and pride didn't get in the way all the time.
Tegan wondered if the Doctor knew how much he meant to Nyssa and, despite their arguments, Adric. She turned to look at the boy. He was staring at the two, and Tegan thought she saw a little jealousy in his eyes. But who was he jealous of, Nyssa or the Do ctor? Tegan felt it was a little of both. They were a strange bunch of aliens to be friends with, but sometimes Tegan was glad of the day she'd stepped into the TARDIS on her way to her first job as an air hostess. After all, at least they weren't green a nd blobby or trying to take over the world, and she'd always wanted to travel...

A distant humming sound alerted the Doctor. He paused in the middle of the tuition and listened.
`What is it?' asked Nyssa. `A spaceship?'
The Doctor looked worried. `I hope not, I do hope not. Everybody into the TARDIS! Quickly!' He began to collect the wickets together, handing the ball to Nyssa, who then rushed over to pick up the bat. Tegan had Black Orchid and took a deck-chair, Adric folded up the other three. They then all bundled into the TARDIS.
The Doctor pushed the door control, then frantically side stepped round the console until he was at the scanner. The cricket equipment and deck-chairs lay scattered about. Tegan put Black Orchid on the time rotor.
Sure enough, over the cliff swooped a black warship, bristling with vicious weaponry. It swung back round to face the cliff before beginning to land on the beach. As it landed, a turret swung round and fired a burst of energy beams into the cliff-side. Th ere was a sudden rush of cavemen, fleeing their homes, crawling down the cliff to cower in terror before the spacecraft. A ramp was lowered, and the Neanderthals, encouraged by a few laser bursts, were herded into the ship.
`What's going on?' asked Adric, curiously.
`Precisely what I want to find out, Adric,' said the Doctor, peering closely at the screen for a moment before moving Tegan out the way of the console. With a flurry of activity, and an enthusiastic thump on the console, near the time rotor, the TA RDIS began to dematerialise. `I'm going to find out exactly what's going on in that ship,' he declared.
Shortly, the rotor stopped, and the Doctor touched the scanner control once more.
`Looks more like the inside of a dungeon than a spaceship,' said Tegan, staring at the gothic architecture. `Sure you haven't gone off course again, Doc?'
The Doctor gave everybody a cautionary glance. `Stay here. I'll go alone.' He put his hat on again and opened the doors.
Tegan looked back at the scanner. The Doctor waved and disappeared from view.
Nyssa stepped over to close the doors, but before she could, Adric had rushed through them. `Adric!' called Nyssa, but he was already outside.
`Close the doors, Nyssa,' said Tegan, moving towards the TARDIS corridor. `There's no point worrying about those two.'
Nyssa stared at the two retreating forms on the scanner. She sighed. `Oh, but I do...'

The Doctor had disappeared round a corner, and Adric padded as quietly as possible up the corridor. The floors and walls were all made from some dark, matt metal, with bloody illumination coming from red wall sconces. Adric peered round the corner. No sig n of the Doctor. The whole place had all the menace of the deepest, darkest swamp.
He stepped forwards a few paces and the Doctor emerged from an alcove behind him. `Adric!' he whispered angrily. `I thought I told you to stay in the TARDIS!'
Adric turned round, startled. `Look, I'm sorry Doctor, but I wanted to talk to you - without the others.'
The Doctor folded his arms and took up an awaiting stance. `What's it about this time?'
`I want to apologise.'
The Doctor relaxed a little.
`I know I've been rude and said plenty of nasty things, and I want you to know I'm sorry for being such a pest these last few days.'
`Very well, Adric,' the Doctor said sternly. `You know I accept your apology, but I think you should say sorry to Tegan as well.'
Adric screwed up his face.
The Doctor began to raise his voice, folding his arms and bending towards Adric. `Humans feel very strongly about these things and it is not fair to upset her!' He straightened up a little, and then spoke more calmly. `Especially after you've on ly just recently come to a reconciliation.' He looked straight-faced at Adric, awaiting an answer.
Adric nodded reluctantly. `I've made a mess of things, haven't I?'
The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth a little.
`Just when everybody was getting on so well with one another,' continued Adric gloomily.
The Doctor grinned. `Well, that's settled. Now, cheer up, we'll just have a quick look round and get back to the TARDIS. Then we can go to London and all be friends again.' The Doctor continued merrily down the corridor, hands still in pockets.
As they strolled, the Doctor chatted away in a low voice. `What do you make of the decor, Adric?' he inquired conversationally.
`Reminds me of the Hydrax. You know, the Vampire's spaceship in E-Space.'
`Yes,' said the Doctor vaguely, thinking. He reached out his arms along the width of the corridor. His hands did not touch the walls. `Rather wide, don't you agree?'
`Suggesting these creatures are larger than the standard humanoid form?' said Adric, catching on quick.
`Wider,' the Doctor gestured with his outstretched arms, `but not that much taller.' He reached up, almost touching the ceiling.
`I thought most people were unaware that Earth had had any alien contact?' inquired Adric.
The Doctor had his arms outstretched across the width of the corridor, and was gently flapping them. `That simply means no alien contact has been recorded as historical fact. We've landed on Earth plenty of times, but no-one presumed we were aliens.' `But the landing we just saw was in broad daylight!'
`You're over-estimating the social structure of these primitive humans, Adric,' the Doctor babbled, in full flow. `They have no recorded history, as such, although events like this may be passed on as legends and fairy tales, but by word of mouth, so that they're entirely unrecognisable as alien -' The Doctor paused, and realisation struck his face. `- landings.'
Adric looked worried. `What's the matter?'
The Doctor's mouth hung open slightly as he stared past Adric's shoulder.
Adric spun round, in case anything was there, then turned back. `What's wrong?' he repeated again, more urgently.
There was a sound of footsteps approaching from the corridor ahead. The Doctor sprung out of his trance and pulled Adric into an alcove.
Adric stared with a detached feeling of terror tempered with curiosity as a huge, dark beast marched past, its hoofed feet making a sharp tapping noise as it went. Adric gagged from the stench, a smell like rotten eggs. He hadn't got a clear look at it, b ut he was sure it had large, bat-like wings that were tightly folded around it, obscuring any other features. Behind it walked what at first Adric thought were Neanderthals, but they were cleaner, walked with a more upright stance, and wore pieces of clot hing. They all had glassy, dazed eyes, as if hypnotised.
The line stopped, and for a moment Adric thought they had been found out. Then he heard an unseen voice, perhaps the beasts, mutter in a guttural tongue.
`I have come with the replacements, Mogri.'
There was a hiss of machinery and a metallic scrape, and the line began to move forwards.
The Doctor crept forward as the last primitive passed.
Adric followed, and could see them stepping one by one into an open section of wall.
Peering through the doorway, Adric could see a large chamber, dominated by a huddled, and obviously frightened group of Neanderthals by an entrance ramp. The ramp was raised, the Neanderthals trapped. The group of replacements stood at the other si de of the ramp, awaiting departure. Adric could now compare the two. The replacements were marginally more evolved, and seemed to stand straighter. Yet they still had that dazed look, and appeared almost artificial. The beast Adric had seen was in the cen tre, his back to the two time-travellers. The wings were fully unfurled; great, powerful, leathery wings, like the wings of a dragon. The beast was a dark red, as was the other creature that it was in conversation with. The other creature, however, was sm aller. It too had wings of sorts, but stubby and Adric doubted it could fly. Instead of hooves, it had clawed, taloned feet with cruelly curved toenails. Its face was obscured by the first beast's mighty wings. Both the Doctor and Adric strained to hear t he conversation.
`Are the replacements prepared?' inquired the smaller beast in a low voice.
The huge wings beat slightly. `They are, Mogri. This batch is the most promising. They should be as genetically suitable as possible. We have raised intelligence marginally, and of course stimulated aggression factors.'
`Still no wings, I see?' stated Mogri.
`Their genes have proven unusually stubborn,' boomed the voice. `Very little can be done to change the physical attributes. The tissue had rejected the majority of shape-altering genes implanted.'
`Disappointing,' agreed Mogri.
`Experimentation is not over, we can work with this new material,' pointed out the large one, `but it should be interesting to watch the replacement tribe in their pitiful attempt to survive.'
`I agree,' said Mogri. `Lowering access ramp.'
`I shall take the specimens to the tissue store,' intoned the large beast. `Farewell.' As the creature began to turn, the Doctor pulled Adric out of sight, back into the alcove. A while later, the larger beast passed, a group of now-subdued Neanderthals in tow.
When all was quiet once more, Adric spoke. `What are you going to do?' he asked, excited.
`Nothing,' stated the Doctor, grimly.
Adric couldn't believe his ears. `But...'
The Doctor sighed, and tried to explain. `Not much I can do, I'm afraid Adric. What you saw was a chapter in the evolution of man.'
`Yes!' insisted Adric. `But they're kidnapping those primitives and replacing them with experimentally grown mutants! That's hardly natural! They're meddling!'
`I agree,' compromised the Doctor, sadly. `I cannot condone what these creatures are doing, but it happened. Its part of history.'
Realisation struck Adric. `You mean...' he began, `...that Tegan's a descendant of an alien experiment?'
`Well, a very distant one,' admitted the Doctor.
`Gradually these experiments integrated themselves into the Neanderthal genetic structure and man went on evolving from there.'
`So you can't stop them or you could face changing the genetic structure of every living human being, including Tegan?'
The Doctor had a pained face. `Worse than that, I could be committing genocide. There's no guarantee that without these various alien visits and this genetic tampering the human race would survive another hundred million years or so.'
`What are they?' whispered Adric with a shiver, remembering the terrifying creatures.
`I've met their kind before. The Fendhal, Azal the Daemon, a nasty genie thing called Fenric. Beings of monstrous, no legendary, power that have developed the roots to nearly every single religion or superstitious belief used by modern man. That's why they can believe it all, it's all stored in their race memory and these religions access fragments of those memories.'
`What about this Christ? Is he one of them?'
The Doctor returned Adric's stare with an enigmatic look, as if he wasn't telling Adric everything. `Where there is darkness there is light, at least that's what I always tell myself. However, look at it from the alien's point of view. We are merely mo rtals. Even a Time Lord must live only a fraction of their existence. To them we are inconsequential. They do not necessarily understand good or evil, mores the pity.'
`If that's so, then why be so interested in the human race, and why stimulate aggression factors and intelligence?'
`Why indeed?' echoed the Doctor. `You know, I'd rather like to find out.' He raised his hands in defeat. `Oh, I suppose we can do something. After all, why break the habit of a lifetime?' He smiled for a moment, before trying to look mor e sternly at Adric. `One of these days, Adric, one of these days...' He didn't quite hide the crease at the corner of his mouth.
Adric looked up expectantly. `Well Doctor,' he said, eyes flashing with equal enthusiasm, `what do we do now?'
The Doctor looked up and down the corridor. `Well, I suppose the first course of action would be to find the "tissue labs."' He indicated in the opposite direction to the TARDIS. `Back that way, I think.' Once more he began to accelerate at a massive pace down the black metal corridor.
Adric wondered how many more times they were going to walk around this ship before they left.

The Beast narrowed its tiny eyes in suspicion. Something was unbalancing the arton energies on the ship. Either one of the Others was attempting some great feat of mental willpower that they had not agreed on beforehand, or there were other minds on board . They were not human minds, he could tell that now, but very similar. They were intelligent mortals, unless Fenric had sent another one of its spies to report back to its jealous master. Or could they be Time Lords? For the first time since The Beast's m emory could remember, a tiny bell of panic began to ring in it's mind. They may be mortals, but the last CIA group had taken a great deal of effort upon the whole Cabal's part to destroy. They would not dare send more, surely?
It was time to act.

`Here we are,' whispered the Doctor, stepping cautiously into the room. It was of a similar decor as the corridor, but boasted a large amount of complex scientific and medical equipment that seemed out of place. `I was expecting a torture chamber or something,' said Adric.
The Doctor touched an operating table. `I don't think you're far wrong there. This equipment isn't designed with the patient in mind.'
Adric opened a metal wall cabinet. Rows and rows of parodies of surgical tools hung on the wall. Many were still stained with blood.
The Doctor stared over his shoulder. `Remind me not to visit their dentist.' He walked over to a pair of large double doors. `I wonder what's through here?' he murmured curiously.
Adric examined the lengths of piping that traversed the wall at one point. `Where do you think the prisoners are?' He stepped over to a table and picked up a hefty device that would probably be pocket sized to the things they had seen.
The Doctor opened the doors. The was a pause. `Ah. The tissue stores, I think.' Adric began to turn back round and head for the doors. `What's -'
`No, I don't think you want to look in there, Adric,' the Doctor said hastily and shut the doors. `That's where they keep the... um... tissue samples.'
`You mean bits of people,' stated Adric calmly. The Doctor played with his hat nervously, scrunching it up and unfolding it repeatedly. `Erm, yes,' he replied. `Listen, why don't we find those Neanderthals and get out of here, hmm?'
Adric pressed a button on the device he was holding. A wall section opened and beyond a reddish force barrier he could see the frightened earthlings.
`Good work, Adric!' praised the Doctor, hurrying over to the force field and looking at the edges. `See if another button deactivates it.'
Adric pressed the other buttons. Nothing seemed to function. `It's not working, Doctor.' The Doctor nodded, as if he had been expecting it. `Most of the other functions probably rely on the creatures' own mental energies.' The Doctor waved his hands around his head in explanation. `Arton energies and so forth.' He looked back at the force field. `If I'd had the sonic screwdriver, I could probably demodulate the frequencies and disrupt it, but we'll have to try something different.' He turned back to Adric expectantly. `Any ideas?'
Adric shrugged, still fiddling with the device. `Well, I suppose a -' He abruptly stopped as the wall disintegrated by the side of the force field. The force field flickered and collapsed.
The Doctor looked carefully at the burnt shoulder of his jacket, and sniffed it, reaching his hands up to his hair as if to check it was all there. `You could have waited until I was out of the shot!' he squeaked in alarm.
Adric continued to stare at the hole he had made in the wall, and then dropped the device in horror. `I could have -'
`Killed me, yes!' grumbled the Doctor indignantly. `In future I suggest you point alien devices well away from other people. I'd never forgive you if you zapped Nyssa or somebody!'
The Neanderthals were slowly approaching the gap in the wall, but they were still very suspicious.
`Go on!' commanded the Doctor. `Get out while you can!'
The primitives began to step out into the lab. Suddenly the leader gasped and they all scampered back into the cell, huddling in a corner.
The Doctor's face fell and he and Adric slowly turned to face the beast that had cast such a large shadow over the wall...

The Doctor ducked as a huge claw attempted to swat him out of the way. The huge, bat-winged monstrosity grasped one of the pipes on the wall and pulled it free without so much as a grunt. Utilising it's makeshift club, it proceeded to chase the Doctor rou nd the cabinets of equipment.
`I'm afraid the surgery is closed today!' yelled the Doctor as the creature chopped an operating table in two. `Adric!' screamed the Doctor in desperation.
Adric sat, huddled into his own corner. How could the Doctor not feel it's power? The awesome aura of death and fear that surrounded it had forced the Alzarian to his knees, and it was all he could do to sit and watch in terror. His brain told him to help , but his body just would not respond.
The Doctor dived through the monster's legs and rolled towards the boy. `Get up, Adric!' hissed the Doctor. `Fight it! Fight the fear!' Adric whimpered and inwardly felt disgust for himself. How could he, who prided himself on his logic, his mathematics, his scientific abilities, be cowering in a corner due to some ancient, superstitious fear? He must fight it! The demon leapt after the Doctor, who began to run in circles round the room.
Equipment was shattered as the thing smashed through anything to get to the Time Lord.
Mathematics. The Doctor had told him mathematics held priority over reality. Through mathematics reality could be changed. It was the only truth, and the Logopolitans had gone out and proved it. Adric could still vaguely recall the block transfer computa tions that his mind had manipulated for the Master. He remembered the people and places he had built and destroyed for that man. If he could do that, then his mind must be able to resist this! Adric's mind went over the complex recursive algorithm that he used to generate the wrap-around city of Castrovalva. The numbers gradually invaded his mind and soon they were the only reality.
The Doctor had fallen, hands on his head as if the creature was crushing him with some kind of mental attack. The monster was stooped over him, and the Doctor screamed as it readied the piping for its final attack.
Still concentrating on the mathematics, Adric reached over and took the device. Standing, he pointed it at the beast. Mental energy, the Doctor had said, mental energy. What about mathematical energy? Focusing his mind on the mathematical concept of zero, Adric pressed the buttons. A disintegrating beam shot out of the device, obliterating a lab bench and hitting the creature square on the back as it thrust it's weapon at the Doctor. The Doctor rolled, and the creature, off balance from the beam, fell on its own piece of piping. There was a sickening tearing noise and the piping exited through the creatures back. The monster roared. and began to thrash about on the ground.
The Doctor rushed up and grabbed the device from Adric, hurling it on the ground and stamping on it hard, producing a shower of sparks.
`Is it dying?' asked Adric distantly.
The Doctor shook his head. `These monstrosities are as good as immortal. It's just wounded, very angry and having a bit of a tantrum at the moment.' He began to head for the cell of Neanderthals. `Now lets get these primitives back to the TARDIS !'

`Bacon and eggs!' declared the Doctor proudly, reaching into the TARDIS' food machine and withdrawing a tray full of plates of steaming sausages and baked beans. `Well, nearly right, I suppose.' The Doctor smiled at his friends.
`A little like the navigation system on this crate,' commented Tegan unkindly. `The only time it ever works is when we're destined to get into trouble.'
The Doctor set the plates down in front of them. `I must admit the TARDIS does seem to be a little hit and miss, and it doesn't help when the coordinates say one thing when your actually someplace completely different.'
`So why don't we fix it?' asked Nyssa confidently.
Everyone else looked at her in complete shock. `Have you ever known the Doctor fix anything?' asked Tegan. `Even Adric has a better track record in that department.'
The Doctor frowned and pushed a plate in front of Nyssa. `Go on. A growing girl like you needs plenty to eat.'
`No, thank you, I'm not very hungry,' said Nyssa as politely as possible, eyeing the greasy food with some anxiety. `Excuse me. Maybe I'll have a look at that coordinate reader.'
As she left the Doctor shook his head in dismay. `How can anyone possibly get away with eating so little?' he asked himself.
Adric tucked in to his sausages. `Don't... know,' he mumbled through his food.
The Doctor picked up a fork and played with his own dinner for a moment, then looked back at Adric. `You don't want this do you?' he said, pointing to his plate.