Doctor Who_ Attack of the Cybermen - Eric Saward [18]
‘All right...’ she said, trying to sound jolly, ‘let’s get started.’
Taken aback by her abrupt eagerness, the Doctor was overwhelmed. ‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I mean, it could be dangerous.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ she shrugged. ‘Anyway, someone has to make sure you return after the agreed hour.’
The Doctor clapped his hands and vigorously rubbed them together like a manic miser. ‘Let’s get started,’ he said. ‘I’m pleased you want to come. You’ll be very useful.’
Peri couldn’t imagine the kind of assistance he expected, as her nerve had gone, and the thought of entering the sewers terrified her. Neither could she believe that the Doctor hadn’t seen how afraid she was, and ordered her back to the safety of the TARDIS, as he usually did.
Scared and unhappy, Peri followed the Time Lord as he scrambled into the pit.
After handcuffing the unconscious second policeman to the bottom of the ladder, the Doctor produced a small torch and started to examine the brickwork for recent scuffs and scratches. Satisfying himself he had found the alien’s trail, he stalked off into the gloom, stopping from time to time, in the tradition of a Cheyenne or Apache scout, to confirm they were still heading in the right direction. Why he seemed so confident, given that one set of scuff marks looked much like another, Peri would never know. It wasn’t that he had established any proven skill in tracking – in fact, quite the reverse. On many occasions Peri had seen him totally lost almost within sight of the TARDIS.
Neither was she happy about having brought along the policeman’s gun. Knowing she would never use it, but hoping it would provide a little moral support, she now feared its accidental discharge. Apart from anything else, the gun was heavy, cold to the touch and awkward to carry.
‘You wouldn’t think this was my first visit to London,’ she said, sadly, avoiding a puddle of something very nasty. ‘If only I could be allowed to see it like a regular tourist.’
‘This route will prove more memorable,’ the Doctor said, as he placed his ear to the wet ground.
She sniffed the foul air. ‘It makes me feel like Harry Lime... And look what happened to him!’
Unable to hear anything useful, the Doctor scrambled to his feet and stalked off along the tunnel, briefly wondering who Harry Lime was.
Suddenly his eye was attracted by a large collection of scuff marks and he bent to examine them. ‘I think we’re following more than one person,’ he said, excitedly.
‘More than one alien?’
‘Difficult to tell.’ The Doctor stood up. ‘But certainly more than one pair of feet have recently passed this way.’
‘Then we must get help,’ Peri insisted.
But before the Time Lord could answer, the sound of a machine pistol firing echoed and rumbled around the sewers.
Afraid, Peri lifted her own gun and waved it about as though looking for someone to point at, but there was only the Doctor, and he was now running in the direction of the gun fire.
‘Come on, Peri!’ his voice boomed. ‘You may get the chance to use that thing. Someone needs our help!’
Peri watched the torch’s bright beam dance away along the roof of the tunnel. ‘But I don’t want to use it!’ she screamed. ‘I wanna be a regular tourist and visit Buckingham Palace, see Trafalgar Square, and spend hours queuing up outside Madam Tussaud’s to see a lot of waxworks I’m not interested in. Don’t you understand?’
But the Doctor was gone. And if Peri wished to avoid stumbling around lost in the dark, she would have to catch him up.
And soon.
5
A Close Encounter of a Very Nasty Kind Payne’s body stretched across the width of the tunnel, his head lolling at an extreme and unnatural angle, his face frozen in an expression of perpetual agony. Next to him was the Beretta and the unsmoked cigarette he had abandoned in his moment of panic. In life, Joe had been a hard, unsympathetic man whom few people liked. But now, not even his worst enemy would have taken pleasure in seeing his crumpled corpse strewn across the wet brickwork.
Suddenly