Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [73]
‘Crew of eight, light armaments, hyperdrive capable. There are hundreds of them in service, most of them used as medium-range couriers.’ He moved over to the arrivals/departure board. ‘It’s not listed.’
‘It must be a military flight.’
‘No, they’re all listed, too.’
‘It’s docking at the port just below us.’
‘Let’s get down there.’
Nyssa hesitated. ‘What about the relay room?’
‘We can do that afterwards.’ He was limping for the hatch, despite his ankle. Nyssa lifted her skirt to free her feet and followed. Chris had opened up the hatch and found a metal ladder. He began climbing down. They couldn’t hear the freighter, of course – it was travelling through a vacuum – but it must be very close to them now.
There was another hatch at the base of the ladder.
Warning lights were flashing over it. Nyssa helped Chris to release it, and had dropped down through it with him even before it had finished hissing open. They landed heavily on a metal floor, Chris wincing a little. The freighter was heading directly towards them. They looked up, but the hatch had closed and there wasn’t a release handle on this side. The docking bay was pressurized. Presumably a force wall kept the vacuum out, but let spaceships in. Hatches ground open all along the underside of the vehicle. Flat undercarriage clanked out, unfurling. The roar from the engines blanked out every other sound, echoing around the docking port. It filled the docking port. Her eyes were shut now, the sound of rocket motors passing through her.
Chris took Nyssa, pressed her to him, pulled her down.
The freighter’s docking clamp punched the air above them, then locked into place.
There was a subsonic whine and the cabin lights flickered back on, a great deal dimmer than before. The Doctor stood back from the control box. The heating was on, but at one of the lowest settings. He moved over to Patience, checked her pulse and steadied her. After that, he opened up the equipment locker and pulled out the two thermal blankets he found there. He draped one over her, tucking it in. Tegan groaned and rose, clutching her head. She looked cold. The Doctor thought that he could almost see goosebumps beneath the thin material of her airline uniform. He sat alongside her.
‘I thought we would be killed’ she said, composure already returning to her voice.
‘Oh we have been,’ the Doctor said. ‘We might have survived the fall but were caught in an avalanche.’
‘It’s just snow. We can dig our way out.’ She pointed over to the shovel in’ the equipment locker.
‘It’s not that simple. The snow has frozen solid above our heads. An inch-thick barrier made from ice mixed in with rock can stop the path of a bullet: it’s as strong as concrete. The ice above us must be a hundred metres thick, and there are boulders and trees mixed in with it. We’d need heavy equipment.’
‘So we wait until the air and heat run out?’
‘Yes, basically. Heat loss isn’t an immediate worry –
snow is an excellent insulator and our body temperature will keep the cabin heat tolerable. Air is more of a problem, but I’ve opened the vents. We really need to hope that whoever arranged the escape route cares enough about us to come along and dig us out. Patience and myself will place ourselves in a coma, to conserve our supplies.’
‘What about me?’
‘I can hypnotize you, slow your breathing. First I need to revive Patience to prepare her for sensory withdrawl.’
‘Is she injured?’
‘She’s unconscious and we need to get her to a hospital.
There are no signs of injury, but there might be internal wounding or bleeding. Her head is bruised.’
Tegan leant over. ‘You are concerned for her?
‘Yes.’
‘You know that there is nothing more that you can do for her here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then relax.’
He couldn’t. ‘I’ll try and make telepathic contact.’ He stepped over to Patience, and sent out some thoughts.
Familiarity. Warmth. The beating of a single heart, then two, then three.
‘Contact,’ he said and their recent thoughts were intertwined. The Gallifreyans excelled at entrelacement.
The luxury