Doctor Who_ Enlightenment - Barbara Clegg [3]
A minute later, the beam of his torch hit something solid ahead. It was a wall of boxes and crates, piled on top of one another and roped together.
‘Must be a warehouse,’ Turlough whispered. And then, without any warning, the floor suddenly heaved under their feet. Both of them reeled and almost lost their balance, and as Turlough put out a hand to steady himself he had panicky visions of earthquakes and landslides.
Another tremor followed almost immediately and the ground trembled again. But the Doctor had seen something interesting on the floor ahead and was bending down to examine it. When he straightened up, he held a piece of rope in his hand.
‘Look,’ he said, as though everything were suddenly explained.
It was not until he pointed out what was on the end of the rope, and Turlough saw the tar, that he realised what the Doctor was getting at. They were aboard a ship. A sailing ship. There was another heaving movement, but this time they automatically swayed with it. ‘Getting our sea legs,’ Turlough thought. And then, in the black void beyond the crates, a faint shaft of light appeared. They caught a sudden glimpse of a companion-ladder, and a figure descending it. The Doctor grabbed Turlough’s arm and pulled him down behind the crates. Torches off, they squatted there in the darkness, tense and uncomfortable, hardly daring to breathe. Squinting through a crack between two of the boxes, they could make out a dim light approaching. A man came into view, carrying a swinging oil-lamp. His face was in the shadow, but they could just make out the uniform of a ship’s officer. For one awful moment he seemed to be coming straight towards them and they cowered lower, but he was simply checking the cargo. Then the light shone on his face, and Turlough stifled a gasp. The man’s eyes were set in a strange blank stare, as though he were in a trance. Hands moved blindly to test the cords holding the crates. Like an automaton, the figure turned and went back the way it had come. The hatch closed with a muffled thump in the distance and Turlough breathed again.
‘What was the matter with him?’ he hissed to the Doctor. ‘Did you see his eyes?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Almost as if he were hypnotised.’
Then he gave a sudden grin. ‘At least he didn’t see the TARDIS,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Come on.’ And he moved purposefully towards the companion-ladder, a reluctant Turlough at his heels.
Tegan was getting restless. She had put the chess-pieces away and now there was nothing to do but wait. A flick of the scanner switch still showed total blackness outside, and the room seemed very empty. Firmly she turned back to the console telling herself that she must stay alert and ready for any message that might arrive. Behind her, at the bottom of the scanner screen, something moved. It was a pair of hands. Someone was climbing up outside. At almost the same moment the lights began to dim and brighten, dim and brighten in the White Guardian’s signal. Tegan rushed to the lever, but she was reluctant to turn it to full immediately and the lights remained dim. The power was not enough.
‘I daren’t give you any more,’ she said desperately.
‘... More... more... more...’ came the echo.
On the scanner screen the hands were now followed by a face: a white face, oddly distorted, the way faces are when pressed against glass. Tegan still did not see it, she was too busy manipulating the lever. She was giving more energy than she would have liked, and the room was getting even dimmer. A wisp of smoke trickled from inside the console.
‘Please hurry!’ Tegan found herself entreating. ‘You’re causing an overload.’ But she might have been talking to herself.
The face at the scanner drew back a little and came into focus. It was a good-looking face, a young man’s, with firm cheek-hones, crisp fair hair, and oddly penetrating eyes which were fixed on the girl at the console.
Tegan was oblivious of them; oblivious, indeed, of everything but the shape which was beginning to materialise faintly in front of her. An elderly man,