Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [86]
‘We haven’t really considered the possibility that it’s actually solid,’ Sido, the project leader, suggested. A normally deliberate and methodical man, he was beginning to clutch at straws.
Dahla was second senior. She was short and dark and her temperament tended to match her looks. ‘As in block?’ she asked sceptically.
‘As in block,’ Sido said.
‘As in block of what?’ Ging tossed aside the drill she had been using on what looked like it could be a door. ‘And where does that get us?’ She ran her hands tiredly over her shaven head and down across the soft features of her plump, plain face.
Reesh said, ‘My feeling is we take it outside, stick a big charge up it and find out once and for all.’ He was the oldest of the five technicians and the most easily bored.
‘When in doubt, blow it up,’ Dahla said.
‘Works for me,’ he said.
Sido said, ‘And you work for Firstmaster Uvanov, who would blow you up immediately afterwards.’
‘If not sooner and with a much bigger charge,’ Tel chortled.
He had a deep voice, quite at odds with his skinny frame and a placid disposition despite a shock of vivid red hair.
‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at,’ Reesh laughed. ‘He’s going to do that anyhow. We’re Sewerpits fodder unless we come up with something soon.’
‘He’s not going to do that,’ Ging said. ‘We’re too valuable for the ’pits.’
‘Nobody’s that valuable.’ Sido said gloomily
‘We know too much about him?’ Dahla offered.
Reesh had stopped laughing. ‘Shut up, you idiot,’ he hissed, glancing about. ‘That is a seriously one-way trip for you and yours.’
‘And us,’ Tel said.
‘Oh no,’ Reesh muttered. ‘Do you suppose it heard?’
The robot was standing at the entrance to the bay. It was a Cyborg class. The team were not expecting it because they were not part of the test programme and nor as far as they knew were any of the auxiliary equipment bays.
Dahla said, ‘When did they ask you for the day code?’
‘They didn’t,’ Sido said.
‘How did it get in then?’ Tel said.
‘What do you want?’ Reesh asked the robot.
‘You must come with me,’ the robot said politely, indicating Tel with its unblinking, unhuman stare.
‘Why, what did I do?’ Tel demanded.
The robot had no defined inhibitions about answering such direct questions. ‘You match the profile.’
Tel was puzzled. ‘What did it say?’
‘It likes your profile,’ Dahla said.
Reesh laughed. ‘You’ve got an admirer.’
‘That’s a first,’ Ging remarked.
Reesh approached the robot. ‘I think you must have misinterpreted your instructions,’ he told it. ‘Return to your controller for reassessment.’
The robot made small chewing motions and then it smiled blankly.
‘That’s unnerving,’ Dahla said.
‘I’d say so,’ Reesh said as the robot reached for him. ‘The things aren’t right yet, are they?’
It broke his neck with such force that it practically tore his head off.
The others were so shocked that none of them had moved by the time the robot had dropped Reesh and was smashing Dahla against the TARDIS. As it drove its fist through ribs and cartilage and crushed Dahla’s heart, the three surviving technicians finally reacted.
It was already too late for Sido, who tried to lunge past the thing and reach the security alarm. The robot struck him to the floor and stamped him to death. Tel tried to keep the TARDIS
between himself and the robot and get to the alarm by stealth.
He was easily cut off and the robot kept him trapped at the rear of the bay while it manoeuvred Ging into making a run for safety.
‘Why is it so pissed off at us?’ Tel shouted to her. ‘Where’s its higher control centres?’
‘Still the head, I think.’
Ging moved closer to her discarded