Doctor Who: Combat Rock by Mick Lewis Page B

good word for us, Kepennis, and tell them the Indoni President wouldn’t possibly be interested in negotiating over us. We’re of absolutely no value at all!’
    ‘We are Papul too, you are right,’ Kepennis answered bleakly. ‘But these are OPG rebels who hate Indoni so very much.’ He paused. ‘And that mean us too, because we sell ourselves to Indoni for money, they think. To them, we betray our own people.’
    As if to reinforce Kepennis’s words, one of the warriors cuffed Wemus around the head with a rifle butt as he attempted to put his arm around the dejected-looking Wina.
    The guide yelped and backed off rapidly.
    ‘The OPG...’, the Doctor said ruminatively. ‘I take it they are Independence fighters opposed to Indoni rule in Papul?’
    ‘Operaki Papul Gallaki,’ Kepennis said warily. The leader was listening to the exchange in English with some interest and the Doctor could see that the warrior understood quite a lot of what was being said. Kepennis would do well to choose his words with care. ‘Freedom for Papul,’ he explained. ‘We are to aid them in their cause.’
    The leader had clearly decided the hostages had received sufficient explanations. He barked an order to his men and the guerrillas began moving forward, corralling the tourists away from the burnt village and into the jungle.
    The village smoked silently. A bird laughed and then the rain came. Hard and fast, pounding the leaves, pounding the hostages and their guards, turning the dirt to mud, the mud into streams.
    The jungle welcomed them into its depths, closing around them like wet, slippery fingers.
     
     

Chapter Six
    Heads.
    Everywhere it seemed. A reed bed of heads, rising above the water, above the pink mist, mugging horrifically at the canoe of guerrillas drifting across the lake towards the island.
    Indoni heads mostly, but a couple of Papul faces joined the parade, traitors to the cause, or perhaps because they were simply too afraid to do what had to be done.
    Wayun prickled with fear. He knew that was the desired reaction: the reason the heads were there, impaled upon the wooden stakes of the pier. Yet it was grotesque, horrible.
    Were the tales true, then? Had the Krallik indeed gone mad?
    He tried not to look at the array of heads, gazing instead at the black lilies floating in the water all around the boat. Yet the faces stayed with him; savaged expressions, butchery sculpted into every twist of mouth, convulsion of brow, insanity of eye.
    The others said nothing, grimly quiet as the canoe nosed in towards the dock, its dilapidated motor silenced. Great bubbles of volcanic disturbance broke the surface of the lake here and there, as if a giant were releasing his last gasps of air from below, drowning on the lake bed.
    The prow bumped against the pier and Wayun looked up again involuntarily. There was a recently decapitated head banging directly above him, the ripped neck stump shoved rudely on top of the stake like a bloody glove puppet. The eyes locked with his, and he was staring into the face of his brother, Tumal.
    He could hear the sound of swamp Kroons, he could hear the gentle lapping of water against the wooden sides of the canoe. He could hear the clatter as the men rose to climb out of the vessel. He could hear it all, but understood none of it.
     
    Nobody spoke to him. He felt the light pressure of a hand on his arm, but that meant nothing to him either. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but there was no need. Tumal answered it for him, although Wayun was sure his brother’s mouth didn’t move. Maybe it was the unblinking stare of his brother that had communicated to him, telling him in a dead man’s language all he needed to know.
    Wayun rose to his feet, the canoe swaying madly. The others were waiting for him on the landing pier, their faces guarded, saying nothing. He stepped onto the pier, and one of his friends caught him as he nearly fell. Wayun stared at the man as if he had never seen him