Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [62]
‘It’s a robot. The end of the world.’
‘World can only end once,’ Tani said. ‘And I’m still alive. So it hasn’t.’
There’s more to it than that, Toos thought. He knew something. ‘How is it you were waiting for me?’ she asked.
He put a stubby-fingered hand on her naked thigh. ‘I thought I might get lucky.’
‘No you didn’t.’ She pushed the hand away and pulled the ripped silk dress round her legs. ‘Why were you there, Mor?’
Before he could answer, the Voc lost its footing in a pothole and fell to its knees. It did not let go of the buggy’s shafts as it went down and the forward momentum carried the two-wheeled cart on. The Voc’s efforts to control itself twisted and tilted the buggy. One of the shafts dug into the road and the buggy crashed over, flinging Toos and Tani out.
Toos landed hard. Her forehead smacked against the ground and the pain seemed to roll through her like a dull noise. She found she could not draw breath and for a long moment all she wanted was to lie still and quiet in the booming silence.
‘Get up, Captain.’
Tani’s voice was sharp in her ears and at once her arms, her shoulder and her knees were vivid with pain. She sucked at the paralysing air which felt clogged and thick in her chest.
‘Get up, Captain.’
She dragged herself upright, grunting and heaving for breath.
The robot-pull buggy lay upside-down, its wheels still spinning.
Underneath it the Voc was struggling to get back on its feet. It was obvious the robot was seriously impaired. What was not clear was whether it had been caused by the accident or the other way round. Tani was on his feet. He looked groggy but unhurt.
‘Is it the boundary?’ Toos gasped.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her along. ‘We have to run.’
Toos stumbled and almost fel again. She felt nauseous and giddy and each step brought new pains. The killer robot was closing on them fast. She could hear the sound of its running.
She felt so terrible that she was almost ready to take a chance and wait to see if it collapsed at the same point as the Voc but Tani kept urging her forward.
They staggered on. Behind them the sounds of the robot were getting louder. Around them all Toos could see were derelict and empty buildings in what was nothing but a filthy and deserted wasteland. It looked like a bad choice was getting worse, but what other choice was there? Gradually Toos was recovering so that she could run more easily. She was conscious that Tani was labouring badly but then he had never bothered to keep himself as fit as she had. ‘We must be nearly there,’ she urged. ‘Keep going.’ She took his hand and pulled him on.
He grimaced with pain. ‘Not that one,’ he grunted. ‘I think I broke it when we hit the ground.’
She hadn’t registered that he had only been using the other arm. She had thought that holding one arm folded to his chest was because he was out of breath. ‘Sorry,’ she said. Maybe she had underestimated how frightened her former pilot was. He certainly hid it well. ‘How far now, do you think?’ She had noticed that although the buildings they were passing were just as derelict, some of them looked as though they might be occupied. She didn’t want to think by whom - or what.
‘We’re there,’ Tani said. ‘We’ve crossed the boundary. This is defmitely the ’pits.’ He stopped running and sank to his haunches before sitting down in the road.
It happened so abruptly that Toos ran on several paces ahead of him before coming to a halt herself and turning round.
Back where the upturned robot-pull buggy lay in the road she could see the killer robot standing watching them. Unlike her and Tani it wasn’t distressed in any way, it wasn’t even slightly dishevelled - it continued to look as it had been designed to look: like a man of about average height with ordinary brown hair and the sort of plain smock and leggings which denoted discreet prosperity. It was showing no inclination to move on past the crashed buggy so that must be where the boundary was located.
‘We needn’t have run,’ Toos said. It was obviously a more sophisticated model than the