Doctor Who_ Empire of Death - BBC Worldwide [99]
Vollmer shoved the last of his explosives into a crevice halfway up the dam, below two large boulders. He looked round at the men who had been helping him. 'All the other charges in place?' They nodded nervously. 'Good. Now we start wiring them together.'
The doppelganger Clark was supervising the placement of the explosives beneath the gateway, using the knowledge he had torn from the real lance corporal's mind. The soldiers had to shield their eyes as they worked, so bright was the glare from the gap in the riverbank. Clark urged his men to work faster, all too aware that the light escaping outwards into this world was bleeding from his own. But soon the bleeding would be staunched - one way or another. All that remained was to connect a cable to the detonator. But when Clark sent a private to fetch the box, he returned empty-handed.
`You haven't been looking for this, have you?' The shouted voice was that of the Doctor, but Clark could not be sure from where it had come. Sound bounced around the sandstone boulders, deceiving the senses.
Ì'm up here!' A lone figure waved at the soldier from atop Corra Linn, holding a small wooden box up in the air. `You'll find it surprisingly difficult to explode all of that without a detonator. I'm just off to rescue Her Majesty. Did anybody want to stop me?'
Clark shouldered his rifle and fired at the Doctor, the other soldiers following his example. Once the shooting had stopped, he reappeared above them. 'Is that the best you can do? You're all a disgrace to those uniforms'
`Get that detonator!' Clark commanded, sending half his men up one side of the precipice and the rest up the other side. He was so intent on following their progress he didn't notice the, lone figure slipping into the rift.
Nyssa crouched beside the boy. 'Even if we go back, there is no guarantee you'll find the home you expect, James.
Time moves differently here. The life you knew - it's gone'
Ì don't care,' he whispered. 'I still want to go back. I don't belong here'
Nyssa stood up again and looked over at Johnson and the other soldiers. 'But we can't leave those men here either. We have to take them back with us'
The real General Doulton stepped through the aperture. `Don't worry about my men, Lady Nyssa, I'll take care of them. You and the lad had best be getting back - while you still can. My men and I will do the rest. Now go!'
The duplicate Clark could no longer see his men. All the doppelgangers had clambered up the sides of Corra Linn in pursuit of the Doctor, disappearing beyond the rock precipice.
Clark knew from the memories of the real lance corporal that another detonator had been left at the temporary dam. If necessary they could recover that one and use it to blow the rift apart. Clark heard gravel moving behind him and spun round, rifle ready to fire. Your
Nyssa had just stepped through the portal, carrying James on her left hip. 'Not much of a welcome,' she said. 'I'd put my hands up but they're full, as you can see.'
`How did you escape?' Clark demanded.
Ì think you have more pressing concerns,' Nyssa replied, looking over Clark's shoulder to the other side of the riverbank. She rested a hand over James's eyes. 'Don't look,' she whispered to the boy.
A single shot rang out and Clark fell to the ground, clutching his wounded arm. A soldier emerged from behind rocks at the far side of the riverbed: The Doctor sent me. We must get you away from here.
That shot will soon bring back the others.'
`Your Majesty?' The Doctor stepped into the Queen's tent, stil carrying the detonator. She was sitting in a chair, her hands clutching a locket. Inside was a tiny picture of her late husband.
`Doctor? We thought you had been taken prisoner. 'Victoria stroked one finger across the portrait before snapping the locket shut.
'For that matter, where are our captors?'
The guard outside your tent is unconscious and will be