Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [28]
‘Changed the core systems?’ Chris didn’t even know what the core systems were, but he guessed they were a damn sight more important than little things like gravity. ‘Changed them how, exactly?’
‘The systems no longer make sense. They’ve been "de–
rationalized", if you’ll excuse my atrocious misuse of the English language. The TARDIS was keeping the problem under control, at least until the Eighth Door section was removed. Now the structure has become unbalanced, large sections of the interior are falling apart. Oh.’
‘What?’ In the experience of Ex-Adjudicator Cwej, there was no word in the English language more sinister than ‘oh’.
‘We seem to have lost life-support.’
Life-support. It was one of those things Chris always took for granted when he was on the TARDIS, that there’d be enough air to keep everyone alive. He tried breathing in. It suddenly seemed difficult and painful. ‘The problem is localized, however,’ said the interface, when Chris was three-eighths of a second away from sheer panic. ‘I would therefore suggest an immediate evacuation of this section.’
Right, thought Chris. Moving in zero gravity wouldn’t be a problem; he just had to push against the wall and float away.
But he was still spinning, and had no idea which way he was facing. He tried stretching out an arm. His spin seemed to slow, but he felt no solid surface under his fingers.
‘The walls have gone!’ he squawked.
‘Fortunately not,’ said the interface. ‘The walls are still existent, but surface friction is partially non-functional. If it helps, you’re currently in contact with the ceiling.’
‘Uh. Right.’ Chris put his hands out in front of him, until he was sure that both palms had to be flat against the ceiling.
Then he pushed, with a forward-and-upward motion. Gently, he started to float off down the corridor.
‘Good luck,’ said the interface, not sounding like it particularly cared what happened to him.
And then, all of a sudden, there was light. Light, and air –
– and gravity.
‘Ow,’ said Chris as he hit the floor. He found himself lying at a T-shaped junction, surrounded by the familiar roundelled walls and ion-blistered atmosphere of the TARDIS. The corridor behind him was dark, absurdly dark. One metre away, the ship was lit with the usual creamy glow; one metre beyond that, there was just a wall of blackness, cutting off the corridor. Weird. Chris pulled himself to his feet, considering his best course of action.
It didn’t take long.
‘Find the Doctor,’ he decided, and set off down another passage, in the hope that he’d be able to reach the console room.
Recalling the incident later, Christopher Cwej was unable to remember exactly what the things that lurked in the passageway had looked like. He vaguely remembered the sense of shock as he practically walked into the nearest of them, and occasionally recalled small details; half-finished clockwork limbs, shapeless mechanical heads, metallic fingers scratching and grinding in the corners. But he found it impossible to build a coherent picture of the creatures, as if he’d only really seen them out of the corner of his eye.
The next lucid memory he had was of running, running along the one corridor from the T-junction that wasn’t blocked off by darkness or populated by monsters of any description.
Aliens, he was thinking. Aliens in the TARDIS!
‘Tell me about your childhood,’ smiled the machine, and Duquesne could have sworn that its voice was the voice of a woman. She regarded the creature suspiciously, noting the fracture lines that her blow to its cheek had created.
‘I have nothing to say,’ she told it. ‘I was a sensitive child, and a sickly one. There is little else of importance.’
The machine nodded. "’Sensitive", yes. But sensitive to what, exactly? Psycho-sensitive? Time-sensitive? Surely not.’
Duquesne sighed. ‘I have never yet been able to answer the question. My spine burns when a caillou is near, or when I come close to the things a caillou