Doctor Who_ Full Circle - Andrew Smith [18]
There was a massive general dive for Tylos's knife - Romana was the first to reach it. Whipping it up, she directed it at Tylos's throat. The youngster backed away, terrified, as Romana advanced on him.
He found his retreat obstructed by the control console. He was trapped.
Romana surprised them all by turning the weapon round hilt-first towards Tylos. 'Your knife,' she said, smiling at his bewilderment as he took it from her.
There was an uneasy, uncertain atmosphere in the control room, a silence broken when Adric spoke up. 'I'm sorry. I am. This is all my fault.'
'What do you want?' Romana asked.
Varsh was left to answer. 'The Mistfall legend is coming true.'
Romana paled. 'And the Doctor's out there!'
She had started to reach for the door lever when suddenly the whole room tilted to one side. The five figures were thrown across the room, slipping helplessly down the slanting floor to crash into the wall.
The room levelled out to some degree, but as they clambered upright they could still feel a certain uneasy sway underfoot.
Adric, shaken and nursing a bang on the back of the head, asked, 'How did you do that?'
Romana looked fearfully around her. 'I... I'm not quite sure,' she said.
Then the room tilted again, this time in the other direction, and once again they were all thrown across the floor.
Despite the fog, the Doctor's sense of direction was able to guide him back to the clearing where the TARDIS had chosen to materialise. During that walk he pondered on many things. Once he had the TARDIS instrumentation at his disposal he could carry out a number of atmospheric tests. And an energy location sweep of the surrounding forestlands should be able to detect this starliner Adric had spoken of.
Entering the clearing, the Doctor fished in his pocket for the TARDIS key. Striding forward, he looked up and found a gust of wind clearing the fog from the area in which the TARDIS had landed.
The Doctor came to an abrupt halt.
Where the TARDIS had stood there was now only a square of flattened grass. It had vanished.
5
'We Don't Know What's Out There'
The Doctor moved forward until he was on the very spot on which the TARDIS had stood. Sliding the key back into his pocket, he looked up and around, perceiving treetops dimly through the murky vapour around him.
Then he saw the shrubbery, revealed to him by another fortuitous breeze. A trail of broken branches and trodden foliage led away from the clearing. The TARDIS had been lifted and taken in that direction.
The Doctor hurried away, guided by the trail of ruin through the undergrowth.
A small, scaly hand clutched at the trunk of a nearby tree.
The Marshchild peered round the tree with black, timid eyes, watching the Doctor depart. When the mist had closed around the Time Lord, the Marshchild moved out, following the Doctor's trail.
The control room of the TARDIS continued to dip and sway, as though the vessel were being tossed around on a stormy sea.
Romana had found a handhold on the console and was hanging on for dear life. Around her, Adric and the Outlers tumbled helplessly from one end of the floor to the other, making the most of the very brief respites between the dips.
'Varsh!' Keara cried, panic-stricken. 'What's happening?'
'I don't know!' he retorted impatiently.
Romana fixed them with a determined stare. 'Something has picked up the TARDIS,' she said.
The ship tilted again, and Romana found her hands wrenched free. She screamed as she fell back against the doors, joined by the mass of flailing limbs that was Adric and the Outlers.
The Doctor had lost the trail, he was sure of it now. The TARDIS could have been taken in any direction, he speculated, as he emerged from a particularly thick clump of trees to find himself standing on the ridge of a wide valley. Below him, through the mist, he could just discern the imposing metallic bulk of the starliner.
As good a place as any to start looking for the TARDIS, the Doctor decided, and he started down the grassy slope towards the vessel at a brisk