The Baby Farmers (short story)
The Baby Farmers was a short story published in the anthology Consequences. It was written by David Llewellyn.
Plot
A woman named Mary gives up her baby to a mysterious woman in a carriage, who uses the name Mrs Blight. Blight says the boy will be delivered to a wealthy couple who could not conceive a child of their own.
Emily Holroyd arrives at the abandoned Herbert House, where she finds a book in mysteriously pristine condition. She later returns it to the University College library.
At the Hub, Captain Jack Harkness opens a telegram addressed to Emily. It says to meet a gentleman wearing a white carnation at the Coliseum Music Hall in Butetown, who has important information regarding HMS Hades. Despite protests from Charles Gaskell, Jack goes to meet him in Emily’s place. At the theatre, Jack meets William Mayhew, a reporter for Western Mail, who leads him onto the street so they can talk privately. Before Mayhew can say anything, him and Jack are shot dead by a mysterious man in a horse-drawn carriage.
At the Hub, Emily chastises Gaskell and Alice Guppy for letting Jack go. To save Alice, Gaskell pretends it was his idea. The following day, when Jack has still not returned from his outing, Torchwood begins investigating the HMS Hades. Emily and Alice attempt to visit the ship, now a “ragged school” for orphans and urchins, where they are turned away by Mrs Blight. Gaskell goes to visit Admiral Montague, who becomes agitated at the mention of the HMS Hades. Montague insists that nothing suspicious is going on, dismissing Mayhew as a hack journalist.
Meanwhile Mrs. Blight visits Tiberius Finch, who is conducting experiments in the belly of the ship. She informs him that Torchwood have visited, and he suggests that they might be “looking for their friend”. It is revealed that Jack is being kept aboard the boat as a ‘patient’.
Two kids, Sam and Peter, are playing on the marshland when Peter discovers a severed arm.
At the Hub, Emily discovers that the ragged school is falsifying its records, using the names of babies who died shortly after birth to forge its own list of students. She also discovers a classified ad from the Western Mail where a wealthy couple are offering money to adopt an unwanted baby. The ad contains a phone number registered to the late husband of Gertrude Blight. As Emily passes this information on to Alice and Gaskell, she receives a phone call informing her that the body of William Mayhew has been discovered. She tells the team to wait until nightfall, when they will pay another visit to the HMS Hades.
Gaskell goes to pass some time talking to the barmaid Clara at the Six Bells. His former Navy friends Tice and McQuaid appear. When Gaskell leaves they follow him to an alley and pull out knives. They fight, and Gaskell shoots Tice dead before leaving his own revolver on the ground next to MacQuaid, framing him for the crime.
Gaskell returns to the Hub and picks up a shotgun. Emily loads a revolver and Alice sharpens a Corsican knife before the three head out on horseback to the Hades. After they grapple up the side of the ship, Gaskell shoots a guard almost immediately. Afterwards, they see that this guard is a blowfish, who was wearing an irremovable collar with a vial of cyanide attached.
Alice picks a lock, and the three descend into the ship. Another blowfish guard charges at them, and Alice dispatches him quietly with her throwing knife. Emily kills a third blowfish by shooting it in the chest. Further into the ship, they discover piles of babies’ blankets and shoes. In the next room they find a series of cots with alien infants strapped inside. These alien babies had been fed with the human ones. In another room they discover a chamber of alien foetuses suspended in liquid. Many of the foetuses were strange and deformed versions of the alien creatures they had previously seen in the cots. Finally they approach the ship’s old armoury, and Emily peeks through the door to see Mrs Blight and Finch standing over an operating table, to which Jack has been strapped.
Gaskell bursts into the room and is shot in the chest by Finch, who then escapes out of a different door. Gaskell survives due to a bullet-proof vest and gives chase. Emily rescues Jack from the operating table while Alice and Mrs Blight fight. Alice pushes Blight onto a harpoon, where she is impaled and dies. Gaskell then returns to say Finch has gotten away. As the team leaves the ship, Jack frees the alien children from their cots.
Finch is hiding on the upper deck of the ship, watching the Torchwood team walk away. The freed infant blowfish catch up to him and eat him alive. He screams out, and the Torchwood team look back. Gaskell lights the fuse of a projectile in his bag and throws it at the ship. It explodes, killing the infant creatures and setting the whole ship ablaze. After this, Jack leaves in disgust.
At the Hub, Emily and Alice wonder how things would have turned out differently if Emily had gone to meet Mr Mayhew instead of Jack. At the Six Bells, Clara sees Gaskell looking distressed and embraces him.
Jack goes to Montague’s mansion to confront him. Montague explains that he was breeding the aliens to be used as an army, in place of human soldiers. Once he’s revealed himself, Jack opens a door to reveal two blowfish. He lets them into the room, then walks away to the sound of Montague screaming.
Characters
- Emily Holroyd
- Charles Gaskell
- Alice Guppy
- Captain Jack Harkness
- Henry Montague
- Tiberius Finch
- Gertrude Blight
- William Mayhew
- Clara
- McQuaid
- Tice
- Mary Thomas
- Mr Crank
Worldbuilding
- Emily compares a building to something "from a Brontë novel", mentioning Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights specifically.
- Mayhew expresses his distaste for the work of Gilbert and Sullivan.
- When Gaskell pulls a gun on him, McQuaid compares him to Wild Bill Hickok.
- Henry Montague listens to Schubert on a gramophone.
Notes
After Emily and Alice's first encounter with Gertrude Blight, Blight says “Good day, Miss Holroyd, Miss Guppy", despite neither Emily nor Alice revealing their surnames. While it's possible that Blight has been keeping tabs on Torchwood this is never confirmed, and Emily and Alice do not address it.
Continuity
- Torchwood are measuring rift activity from the Hub.
- Jack states that he’s working “freelance” for Torchwood.
- Emily receives a telegram from a reporter working for Western Mail.
- Charles Dickens read in Cardiff at Christmas time in 1869, and a poster for this reading was displayed outside the Hub thirty years later. This reading of A Christmas Carol was interrupted by the arrival of the Gelth. (TV: The Unquiet Dead)
- Gaskell references his days serving in the British Navy, and recalls meeting Admiral Montague aboard the HMS Atropos in Portsmouth.
- The Blowfish were in Cardiff in 1899, as they were in Fragments.
