Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [4]
‘Superstitious nonsense. Proscribed gibberish.’
‘Perhaps.’ The Doctor’s eyes told another story.
The box in Ziyou’s hand started buzzing intermittently.
Ziyou’s mind emptied. They had found him. He realized he was looking around, trying to find a non-existent exit.
The Doctor tapped the side of the drone. ‘SAM, would you mind awfully counting down from two minutes? Give us a verbal reminder every thirty seconds.’
‘AS you WIsh. TWO mINutes. MaRk.’
Ziyou scrambled for the tracking device and tapped away at the keys. He was rewarded by a series of buzzes and parps.
‘There’s a skybase in low orbit.’ He tried to keep the panic out of his voice...’
‘What’s wrong with the light in the corridor?’ the Doctor asked softly.
‘The glowbe has gone,’ Ziyou responded automatically.
It didn’t seem important, somehow. ‘But what if it hasn’t?’
‘What?’
‘What if there’s nothing wrong with the light bul– the glowbe?’
‘Then the switch is faulty.’
‘And–’
‘If that’s OK then the wire must be broken, or the fuse has gone, or there’s a power cut, or...’ Off-hand, Ziyou couldn’t think of anything else that could go wrong with such a simple piece of equipment.
‘But what if they are all in good working order?’
‘Then when you flicked the switch, the glowbe would come on.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes. But what if it didn’t? Just once. What if there was no explanation?’
‘There’s always a reason.’
There was a commotion upstairs, the sound of tables being pushed, a stampede, even shots being fired. The band had stopped playing.
‘They’re here already!’ Ziyou yelled.
‘But they can’t be,’ the Doctor complained, shaking the tracking device vigorously and holding It up to his ear.
The skybase won’t arrive for another...’
‘ONe MInute THIrtY seconds.’
‘... one minute thirty seconds. Thank you, SAM. So, if they aren’t here yet, then who is?’
The Doctor was already bounding towards the saloon.
Ziyou found himself following. As they reached the door that led to the main hall, he grabbed the little man’s shoulders.
‘If they find us here, they’ll kill us. Doctor, they’ve sent a skybase after you. Do you know what that means? A thousand ground troops, a hundred guncopters, twenty-five battletanks, ten wardroids. Neutron torpedoes, particle disruptors, cannon threads...’
The Doctor waved his hands. ‘Yes, yes, details, details.’
The door slid open, and the Doctor stopped in his tracks, his jaw dropping. There was a tall figure hovering in the centre of the room. Again, thought Ziyou. Male, humanoid, he flickered, fading in and out of vision. He was wearing a long black cloak and a high-collared tunic, which flowed about him as if it was lashing in the wind.
There was no breeze in the room – in fact, no one in the room was even daring. to breathe, the Doctor included.
The trappers and aliens just stood and stared. Once again, the silence was the strangest sound that Ziyou had ever heard. The figure was completely hairless, he didn’t even have eyebrows or lashes. It happened. A year ago, In the cave, it happened.
‘ONe minUTE.’
‘Is he the same as you saw before?’ the Doctor asked, striding towards the figure.
‘No,’ Ziyou said firmly, ‘The same uniform the same race. A different individual.’
The Doctor had reached the centre of the room. The apparition pitched round, as if on castors turning to face the Doctor and Ziyou. It stared past them, as if it was having difficulty focusing. It began to speak. The Doctor leant forward, keen to catch the slightest sound.
No voice came from the thin-lipped mouth, which worked up and down. After a moment, the ghostly figure realized that the Doctor couldn’t hear him.
The Doctor and the ghost looked into one another’s eyes for a moment. There wasn’t even a flicker of recognition.
‘ThiRTY SEConds.’ SAM’s voice