Doctor Who_ Full Circle - Andrew Smith [16]
None of the others stepped forward to challenge him.
The leader is elected unopposed, the Doctor remarked drily to himself.
With a wave of his club, the Marshman now in command conducted the others away from the marsh-side. They crashed indelicately through the shrubbery, oblivious to all obstacles. Soon they had disappeared, swallowed up in the density of the fog, until even the sounds of their progress through the foliage were doused by the fog too.
The Doctor emerged from hiding, K9 trundling along dutifully by his side. He thoughtfully regarded the spot in the white wall of fog into which the creatures had disappeared. 'Follow them, K9. Let me know where they settle.'
'Master.' The loyal computer moved off into the fog, leaving the Doctor completely alone in the now totally silent area around the marsh.
Moisture from the mists had gathered on the Doctor's hair. Lifting one hand, he gently patted his hair with the palm, gathering some of that moisture on it. He looked at his palm, sniffed it, sampled some of the moisture with a minuscule lap of his tongue. He nodded. Definitely non-toxic. The flaw in Adric's story remained, when everything else seemed confirmed. The Doctor couldn't help but feel there was some deadly significance to this.
Behind him, the becalmed surface of the marsh broke again.
Hearing the movement, the Doctor wheeled round in an instant. His look of stark fear gave way to one of curiosity.
Standing in the marsh was a small, diminutive marsh creature. The noises it made were swinish whimpers. It cowered at the sight of the Doctor, afraid and uncertain.
The Doctor realised that it was a child.
He smiled and offered his hands paternally. 'Hello,' he said.
The Marshchild squealed and went down under the marsh again.
The Doctor was hurt.
He suddenly became aware he was alone, and in the open. Time he was getting back to the TARDIS. With one last look towards the marsh and a thought for the Marshchild, he walked off in the direction he and K9 had come.
He again studied the flavour of the moisture from his hair.
The TARDIS console was almost completely reassembled - only the image translator remained. Romana regarded it pensively, averting her eyes to her scribbled ramblings in the notepad in her hand. Negative co-ordinates, she mused. Negative co-ordinates...
Behind her, she heard a knock on the door. Absently, she depressed the door lever and turned back to her notes.
She heard footsteps coming into the TARDIS behind her.
'Doctor,' she began, 'I've calculated that -'
The knife which appeared suddenly at her throat cut short her conversation and threatened to cut a good deal more. She saw the face of the boy wielding the weapon - a wide-eyed, gleeful face - a face with madness in it. Romana was afraid.
While Tylos held Romana steady, Varsh and Keara, knives drawn, moved round in front of her. Their faces were stern.
Varsh came in close to her. When he spoke she could smell the foul stench of untended teeth. 'We're taking over your ship,' he announced.
Romana cast her eyes past him, towards the doors, and saw Adric standing there.
With a shameful expression, he deactivated the homing orb. It fell from his fingers, hitting the floor with a clang. He brought his foot down on it.
In the engine room of the starliner, Nefred stood precariously close to the edge of a narrow engineering throughway, gazing down on the throbbing red ion-drive cells housed in their massive protective force casings. It had been dictated that it would be many generations before the community could develop the ability to safely connect up these power cells - refurbished through solar absorption over generations - to the incredibly complicated propulsion mechanism itself.
Nefred stared at the enormous cylindrical mechanism which sat at one end of the engine room. Connected to the power cells, this mechanism