Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [85]
One half of the police box exterior was a tall oblong of blackness. The dear old thing had heard his cry for help and opened the door.
The Doctor increased his speed as he headed for the doorway, almost colliding with the uniformed man who stepped in front of the police box. The Doctor skidded to a halt.
‘That’s far enough, Doctor,’ Sergeant Bridie said. ‘Or whatever your name really is. You’re under arrest.’
141
Interlude
Gilliam’s Story
The voice called her name for a second time. It was on the edge of her aware-ness, like a partly remembered song.
‘Highness, can you hear me? Answer me, please.’
She was wrapped around something. Something warm. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Not yet. Her curled-up body felt stiff and brittle; she feared that if she moved she might crack apart. Perhaps she could just lie here for ever.
‘Highness! Please.’
She knew the voice. It reminded her of her stepfather. Protective and judgmental. It was her chancellor. Ala’dan.
She opened an eye and saw him high up above her, fluttering about anxiously.
‘You’re alive!’ The old man shouted and clasped his spindly hands together.
Gilliam looked about her. She was lying at the botttom of a deep pit. Had she fallen? She was hugging a large glass ball to her stomach. It was warm and lit from within. The sphere was one of several which described a circle in the underground chamber.
The bird/globe
And then she remembered finding the entrance to the gateway the previous night. Sinking down into the dark. Leaving her stranded, away from the protection of her thermo-tent. The warmth from the strange spheres had kept her alive, kept the freezing desert night at bay. The first queen of Kr’on Tep had built well.
Thank you, Petruska.
Gilliam climbed to her feet and looked up at Ala’dan. ‘I’m all right. You can stop praising the man-god now and think about how you’re going to get me out of here.’
Ala’dan nodded. ‘I’ll send a message to the king.’
‘No,’ Gilliam ordered, more harshly and quickly than she had intended.
‘Don’t do that. I. . . er. . . don’t want anyone to know that I did something as stupid as falling down a hole in the ground. There should be null-gravity 143
equipment in the shuttle or failing that you could just find some rope. You head the government: use your initiative.’
‘Highness?’
‘What?’
Ala’dan looked down at her and smiled warmly, his face cracking into a thousand lines. ‘It is good to see you alive.’
She waved her chancellor away, but was grinning to herself even as his face disappeared from the lip of the pit. It’s good to see you too.
She turned her attention to the chamber she had discovered. The smile was wiped from her face when she found Petruska’s remains. The skeleton was partly disintegrated, several of the grey spokes of the first queen’s ribcage were broken. A deep crack ran down the centre of her skull.
Gilliam knelt by what was left of Petruska’s body for what felt like a long time, a well of sadness growing in her stomach. Petruska hadn’t escaped: the gateway she had created to flee her oppression had become her tomb. The histories of Kr’on Tep were correct. Moriah must have discovered Petruska’s and Tol’gar’s secret plan and killed them both. Gilliam glanced around the chamber; there didn’t seem to be any signs of Tol’gar’s remains and she wondered, absently, what might have become of them. The details of what had happened all those years ago seemed less important now that she knew Petruska hadn’t succeeded. She could leave the points of history to the professor and his students.
It was only then that Gilliam realized exactly how much she had invested in Petruska’s life story. How much her own decision to abandon her life here was tied up with the first queen having escaped from Moriah’s grasp. Now that she knew how Petruska’s life had ended,