Doctor Who_ Enlightenment - Barbara Clegg [28]
There was nothing except a distant voice saying ‘Die...
die... die...’ and in the rushing noise a sound that could almost have been the Black Guardian chuckling. Turiough made his last effort. It was wrenched from him, without thinking. ‘Doctor!’ he called at the top of his voice.
‘Doctor! Help me!’ The audio-alert was now one continuous scream and the chuckling, rushing noise grew louder and louder. Turiough shut his eyes. Then suddenly everything stopped. There was total silence. It was broken by the Doctor’s voice. ‘So that’s where you’ve got to,’ it said mildly.
The candles were guttering in Wrack’s wheel–house as she led Tegan in. There were empty wine goblets left here and there, and silver platters of half-eaten food, but otherwise the room was empty.
‘I thought you were taking me to meet someone,’ Tegan said, suddenly wary.
‘They seem to have gone.’ Wrack answered with plausible charm, but Tegan felt her suspicions growing.
‘Shall we return to the party, then?’ she said firmly, and turned towards the door. Wrack raised no objection.
‘Whatever you wish.’ She sounded perfectly agreeable, but she paused, as though on an afterthought. ‘First –’ she said, and then broke off. ‘What?’ Tegan wanted to know. Wrack smiled at her.
‘Have you heard of time standing still?’
Tegan was puzzled and thrown off her guard. ‘Well...
yes...’ she said. ‘It’s an expression... it means...’ But she never got any further.
‘... exactly what it says,’ Wrack went on, and moved her hand in front of Tegan’s face in a soft gesture. The girl stood like a statue, her lips slightly parted on the next word, as though turned to stone in the middle of speaking.
Wrack looked into her eyes, and then stepped back and surveyed the motionless figure with satisfaction. ‘You will remain frozen in time until I have finished with you,’ she said. ‘Foolish Ephemeral!’
Turlough opened his eyes at the sound of the Doctor’s voice. He could have collapsed with relief as he saw the Time Lord standing in the doorway. ‘Vacuum shield!’ was all he managed to get out, in a sort of croak. ‘I re-set it,’ the Doctor answered calmly, and stepping into the room, he closed the door firmly behind him. Why the knowledge that he was safe should make him feel like passing out, Turlough could not understand. Reaction, he imagined. ‘I thought I was going to die,’ he heard himself saying feebly.
‘Not yet.’ The Doctor’s voice was kindly, but he seemed more interested in the grid room than in Turlough. ‘What are you doing in here?’ he asked rather absently, as he prowled around looking at everything. ‘Something Wrack told me,’ Turlough managed to get out. ‘She said this place contained the secret of her power.’
‘Did she?’ The Doctor sounded interested, but he still went on with his examination. ‘It is part of the ion drive system, of course.’
‘Why is it open to space?’ Turlough asked. He thought with horror of that gigantic vacuum in which he had so nearly disintegrated. The Doctor’s reply was brief and to the point. ‘Better reception’ was all he said. And then suddenly he stopped dead, looking at something on the grid at his feet. He looked next at the ceiling overhead, and gave a low whistle. ‘What is it?’ Turlough asked. There was an urgent note in the Doctor’s voice as he answered.
‘Wrack uses this place as a receiver for something else as well. Something quite different.’ ‘What?’ Turlough’s curiosity was so strong that he crossed over to the dreaded grid again without even hesitating. ‘Look at that.’ The Doctor pointed to the floor where they were standing.
Unlike the squared pattern of the rest, the girders at that point formed the shape of an eye. The Doctor pointed directly overhead. In the ceiling above them was a small eye-shaped. aperture, a crystal at the centre of it – like a pupil – from which a dim light filtered. ‘Know what it is?’
he asked.
Turlough was nonplussed.