Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [39]
Bambera pointed at the machines and then at the crater that lay along the hank surrounded by an area of freshly flung mud. The soldiers pointed at the solitary figure on the outcrop. They all turned and stared at Ancelyn.
He bowed his head in acknowledgement. His wrists still bore red wheals from the handcuffs in which he had allowed her to imprison him.
Bambera yelled his name and started to walk towards the lone figure. The knight followed his lady.
‘Doctor Warmsly?’ called Bambera as they reached the water’s edge.
He did not move, but they heard him say, ‘You’ve probably never thought about it, but it takes one year to uncover one centimetre on a site this big...’
His voice had a dry quaver that was only just under control. He took a step towards the water.
‘What are you doing?’ said Bambera.
He would not turn and look at them. ‘I came to get away from the wreck that girl made of my work.’
She touched his shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I just need some peace and quiet.’
Since childhood Warmsly had heard the distant horns of Arthur’s world calling. He loved Tennyson and T.H.White, and he knew Malory by heart. The site by the lake was his discovery and it had been his slow painstaking love to uncover the history of his dig. No help, no grants from the cold, commercial world. The history and the romance of Arthur were separate realities and he loved them both. One for the head and one for the heart. But he knew in which world he truly belonged.
‘Why do you dig holes in the ground?’ said the yellow-haired man who dressed like a pageant knight.
‘To uncover the past,’ said Peter gloomily.
‘Do you not have songs for that?’
‘Songs?’
‘You know,’ said Bambera, ‘an oral history.’
Peter rounded on them accusingly. ‘Oh yes, we have songs, stories, poems. The trouble is they get it wrong, don’t they. They distort history. I’m looking for the truth.’
‘Such as?’ said Bambera.
‘King Arthur,’ he replied.
Ancelyn lifted his head and stared into the cold wind.
‘The High King.’
Peter shook his head. ‘This site is one of the places where they say the final battle between Arthur and Mordred was ought. And this lake is where Bedivere threw Excalibur.’ He ignored Ancelyn’s eager gaze and turned hack to the empty water. ‘It’s all rubbish, of course!’
It was a few seconds before the Doctor could drag himself back into consciousness.
Not dead yet.
He struggled to his feet and tried to reach the alcove.
Ace was still there, kicking in the churning water. Fighting to keep her head above the rising surface.
Overhead, high in the chamber, the snake circled.
Waiting to swoop again.
Still he could find no way of reaching her. ‘Why isn’t there a central control?’ he shouted in desperation.
Instantly, a small cavity squelched open in a wall across the chamber. He reached eagerly for the hole, but caught sight of a green glow brightening on the wall.
He ducked and the ghost snake barrelled over his head.
The swirling water had filled the alcove, but he saw the kick of Ace’s legs and the glint of the sword.
At the cavity’s heart, there was a pallid nodule the size of a fist. The ship’s organic core. Blue-shelled digits like the legs of a lobster agitated against its pulsing surface. The Doctor grasped the nodule and wrenched it from its place.
It dripped white gel as it continued pulsing rhythmically in his hand. Ganglia strands trailed back into the ruptured cavity.
He ignored the snake as it wriggled slowly nearer.
Holding the nodule in both hands, he concentrated his thoughts and squeezed.
The cavity gave a shrill squeal and the digits scrabbled at nothing. In an explosion of giant bubbles, the water in the alcove vanished upwards, sucked away by pressure as a hatch opened in its roof.
Ace vanished with it.
The Doctor stood back, unsure whether to be relieved or worried.
The snake hovered a foot from his head, its tail moving behind