Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [56]
As he fell the Doctor instinctively grabbed at the first thing he touched and a sickening wrench tore through his hands and arms and shoulders and he found himself clutching the end of the workdesk and swinging and dangling over the breath-stopping drop.
With the pain subsiding he tried not to think of the six hundred feet of empty air directly below him but looked instead at the structure of the workdesk and tried to see a way of climbing up it to safety. Above him a face appeared at the hole in the wall and stared down at him. It was a young, bland face with nondescript brown hair. To the Doctor it looked exactly like one of the robots he had seen in the hatchling dome. ‘Can you help me?’ he called up to it.
‘You are not Ander Poul,’ the robot said.
‘Help me anyway.’
‘Only Ander Poul must know,’ it said and reached out and shook the workdesk.
‘I won’t tell anybody!’ the Doctor shouted, desperately clinging on.
The robot disappeared from sight and the Doctor felt the workdesk being heaved at from inside the suite. ‘Stop that!’ he commanded as loudly and firmly as he could manage. ‘Stop that this instant!’ He felt the workdesk slip further through the gap.
He swung his leg up over a bracing strut and hauled himself on to the top of the workdesk. The top was more difficult to hold on to. With his arms outstretched so that he could grip the edges, he began to pull and scramble his way upwards. With an abrupt jerk the workdesk was pushed further outwards and tilted more. He gritted his teeth and held on.
Once again the robot peered down at the Doctor from the hole. ‘I order you to stop what you’re doing,’ he told it.
‘Deactivate. Stand still. Stop.’ The robot leaned out and reached towards him. Just for a moment he thought it might be trying to help but then it began to shake the workdesk with one hand as it stretched down with the other.
The Doctor heaved himself away from the robot’s grasp. It inched down closer. He pushed himself away from it but he was at the limit of his movement. Suddenly there was a yell and a scramble and the robot fell past him. The workdesk jerked and shook precariously. The Doctor scrabbled with his feet and dragged himself up with his hands. Everything jerked again. The Doctor looked down. The robot was hanging by one hand from the bottom of the workdesk. It swung itself upwards and lunged for the Doctor’s leg with its free hand. It missed and fell back.
Undeterred, it began to swing backwards and forwards, building up momentum for its next try.
Bracing himself with his feet and one hand, the Doctor reached out for the edge of the hole with the other. It was just too far away. He realised he had no choices left. He would have to make one all-or-nothing try. He took a deep breath and gathered himself. If he missed, the fall would certainly kill him, but if he stayed where he was it was equally certain that the robot would kill him. He took another deep breath and, pushing with his feet and legs, he let go with his hands and made a plunging snatch at the gap. Even as he did it he knew he was going to miss, he knew he was going to fall short, he knew he was going to fall. He could half-see the dizzying chasm directly under him, the tower dropping away from him. His hands clutched at the empty air. He could feel himself beginning to fall.
Without warning Con bobbed up in the gap and grabbed the Doctor’s outstretched hands. He heaved himself backwards and the Doctor crashed into the gap and scrambled through it, falling on top of Con and knocking the breath out of him
‘Thank you, Con,’ he said, getting up quickly. ‘Not a moment too soon.’
‘That psycho tried to kill me,’ Con gasped. ‘Came out of nowhere. And he was strong. I don’t know what they had him on but he was strong.’
From the way the workdesk was quivering and shaking the Doctor could see that the robot was climbing up it. ‘I don’t think it’s over yet,’ he said. He could also see that there was no way to dislodge it in the time they had available to them. He had to find another