Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [48]
And then all at once, away to their left, a section of metal wall, some twenty feet square, crashed down like a drawbridge.
Turlough‟s heart gave such a lurch that he thought he was going to drop dead on the spot. He all but leaped into the Doctor‟s arms, who himself swung round, instantly alert.
Dust was spiralling up from the section of collapsed wall.
Beyond, there was only blackness.
The shadow behind the TARDIS bulged again, and suddenly something was emerging from it. Turlough couldn‟t help it - he screamed. The creature now scuttling into the semi-darkness of the cargo bay was like something from his worst nightmare. Its torso was roughly the size and shape of a bull‟s - powerful and huge-shouldered, packed with muscle.
However it moved on eight jointed, black, crablike legs, and from the tip of its hind-quarters a massive scorpion-like tail curled upwards into the air like a giant black question-mark.
Its face, bristling with the quills that covered the rest of its body, was studded with bulging black eyes like those of a spider. As it moved forward with a hideous balletic grace to position itself between the two time travellers and the TARDIS, Turlough became aware that more of the gigantic arachnids were scurrying from the square of blackness where the section of wall had fallen down, moving forward to surround himself and the Doctor. Turlough was petrified, but the Doctor calmly doffed his hat and said, „Good morning.‟
The creature that had emerged from behind the TARDIS
raised itself up on its legs so that its face was a good eight feet above the ground, opened a flap-like mouth beneath its myriad eyes and made a furious hissing sound, like water dumped on a pan of hot fat.
Part Three
Falling Prey
The creatures advanced slowly, tightening the circle around the two time travellers. As they moved, the bristles that covered their bodies rustled like wind through dry leaves, and their ‘feet’ clicked on the metal floor like tap shoes. The hot, musky stench of them was almost overwhelming.
Turlough, already light-headed with fear, felt certain he was going to pass out. He only managed to avoid it by clutching tightly to the Doctor’s arm. He glanced at the Doctor and saw that his eyes were closed, his face serene. What did that mean? Had he already accepted his fate and put himself into some kind of self-induced trance - perhaps so that when the creatures began to tear them apart he wouldn’t feel a thing?
If so, it was grossly unfair. Why should Turlough have to suffer alone?
He squeezed the Doctor’s arm as hard as he could. Then, when that didn’t work, he shook him. He tried to speak the Doctor’s name, but his saliva had thickened to a gum that glued his tongue to the floor of his mouth. He tried to close his eyes, to blot everything out as the Doctor had done, but terrible though it was, he couldn’t not watch what was going to happen. Any moment now, he expected the creatures to rush forward, making that awful hissing sound. The only thing he felt he could hope for was that his demise would be mercifully quick.
All at once the legs of the creature that had first appeared, the one blocking the way to the TARDIS, seemed to buckle slightly. The creature staggered sideways as if drunk, its legs scraping and clattering on the ground as it tried to right itself. It cocked its head in a curiously dog-like way and this time its hissing sounded like an expression of bewilderment.
Turlough stared at the creature, dumbfounded, then gradually became aware that the others were behaving the same way. They were blundering against one another like cattle in the dark, hissing confusedly. One, at the outermost edge of the circle, was barged by its tottering fellows with such force that it crashed sideways to the ground, black legs pedalling frantically at the air.
The Doctor’s eyes popped open so suddenly that it seemed to snap his head back. For a moment he stared straight ahead as if hypnotised, then he blinked and his features relaxed. He looked around him with