Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [92]
‘But, Doctor,’ I said, ‘I doubt even I could make head or tail of that capsule. And there doesn’t seem to be a weapon in it, or...’ ‘We cannot be sure the capsule is benign, or that the Mongols will not stumble upon some nugget of information they should not have.’ The Doctor snorted. ‘Unlike our friend the Monk, I must strive to keep the waters of time clear, not make them still muddier!’
The Doctor, of course, knew the route into the cellars very well. I almost expected to see a path worn into the cold flagstones, given the frequency of his trips to the TARDIS over the preceding weeks and months. He paused on the threshold of the great chamber that contained his ship, in case there were still guards within, but, as we had expected, they had long since been called elsewhere. The room was even darker than I remembered it and, after the unsuccessful attempt to set fire to the ship, the air was thick with the bitter stench of smoke and burnt wood.
The TARDIS stood implacably in the centre of the chamber, and the Doctor clapped his hands in delight when he saw that it was undamaged.
‘You always said the TARDIS was indestructible,’ I reminded the old man
‘Did I?’ blustered the Doctor. ‘Well, shall we say, ninety per cent indestructible, hmm?’
I didn’t question his nonsensical words, but instead stood behind him as he fumbled his key into the lock. He pushed open the door, and we stepped into the control room. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I heard the usual hum of the room become louder, and the white, circle-covered walls brighten, as if it welcomed our attention after all this time.
‘My boy,’ said the Doctor, ‘would you mind looking under this panel for a concealed switch? It is shaped like a “T”, and it needs pulling towards you.’ He indicated one part of the hexagonal control desk at the heart of the room.
I rooted about under the panel and finally found what he had described. It was tiny, little bigger than a finger, but although I was worried that it would snap it was incredibly strong. I tugged it, and heard a precise ‘click’ over my head.
I got to my feet to find that a subsection of the panel had rotated to reveal a host of connectors and sockets that I’d never seen before. Some wires were more like high-voltage cables, and terminated in a bewildering array of connectors; others were little thicker than strands of hair and pulsed with light. The Doctor, his face a picture of concentration, was furiously inserting a handful of these threads into pores on the underside of the alien panel. I looked up at the scanner on the wall, which showed static then, gradually, shapes.
‘Like so much of the TARDIS,’ announced the Doctor at last, patting his machine lovingly, ‘it may not be pretty, but it works!’ He inserted the final wire. ‘There!’
The monochrome picture on the scanner stabilised. After a little more fiddling the picture took on colours, and I saw red volcanic mountains and myriad suited aliens and brown vehicles in the midst of battle.
‘That’s what I saw,’ I said.
‘This planet is doubtless many light years from Earth,’ said the Doctor, his voice sounding as cold as the great voids of space. ‘It might no longer support life, or it may even have been destroyed. Or perhaps other races live there now.’ He turned to me gravely. ‘Our enemy is a soldier, still fighting a war that ended centuries ago.’
XXII
Lux aeterna luceat eis
Dodo was bored.
At first she had stared at the skeletal creature with wide-eyed loathing, remembering the horrific tales of its attacks and her own encounter with it when she was in Lesia’s room. She found it difficult to believe that the thing could so perfectly mimic someone she had grown to know so well; she had watched over what she thought was Lesia’s sleeping body for hours, and not once had she suspected it was not her.
She stared at the needles that extended from the creature’s claws and face, and was grateful beyond words that she had been luckier than so many others. But the Doctor seemed to be right
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