Doctor Who_ Full Circle - Andrew Smith [20]
Still looking around, he moved along the second passageway into the starliner.
As he passed one corridor junction, the Marshchild shambled out behind him, watching him.
It set off after the Doctor.
The TARDIS was stable.
Romana, Adric and the Outlers lifted themselves off the floor with some relief, counting their injuries, which fortunately were no more than superficial.
Tylos parted from the others. 'Let's get, out of here,' he urged.
Varsh shook his head. 'We don't know what's out there.'
Tylos stood before the TARDIS doors, wondering what kind of horror could lie beyond them... his imagination began conjuring up all kinds of nasty possibilities, and to quell these thoughts he spun round and protested, 'Well, I don't trust her!' He indicated Romana.
Romana smiled in a way that irritated Tylos no end. 'Where do you think you'd go?' she asked. 'If this story about the mists is true?'
Tylos stammered, 'I don't know...'
Romana dismissed him, turning to Adric. 'Is there any machinery on your planet that could lift the TARDIS?'
'How heavy is it?' Adric asked.
'In your gravity, I should imagine roughly five times ten to the six kilos.'
Adric almost laughed. 'No, nothing like that,' he answered.
'Deciders talk!' Tylos sneered.
Keara heard none of this. Her mind was on something else - the Mistfall rhyme. She had been taught by Varsh to dismiss it as propaganda, but now she recalled it within her head, word for word. She had never really forgotten it, could never forget it.
Two lines were particularly vivid. She remembered fearing that part of the rhyme more than any other as a child. To the other occupants of the room, she spoke them aloud:
'When Mistfall comes
The giants leave the swamp...'
There was a hush, then Varish spoke up, continuing the verse.
'The Marshmen walk the world
The forestlands they haunt.'
Romana remembered Adric's recital of the poem.
'You're trying to scare us,' said Tylos, sounding scared. 'Are you suggesting the Marshmen carried this thing?'
'Well, let's have a look,' said Romana, and she turned the scanner control on the console. The scanner doors parted - to display a different view of the same Gallifreyan panorama.
'That's not Alzarius,' said Varsh, perplexed.
'Damn,' Romana groaned. 'It's still Gallifrey.' She closed the scanner doors and looked at Adric. 'If the Doctor's theory is right, we'll need a local image translator to see what's out there.'
'Or,' Adric proposed, 'we could always just look out through the doors.'
They all turned to look at the doors. There was no way of knowing what lay beyond them.
'There's no other way,' said Adric.
Romana had to concur. She depressed the door lever and the two large doors swung open.
Adric peered into the spatio-temporal void, pitch black, which lay between the TARDIS's inner and outer doors. 'I'll go first,' he said, and walked out through the doors.
He found the external doors a few feet into the blackness, grabbed them and pulled, and emerged... onto the rock floor of the cave which he and the other Outlers had left not three hours ago in search of the TARDIS.
There was no doubting it was the same cave - their various pieces of bric-a-brac lay scattered around, and the fire still smouldered in the centre of the floor.
The others crowded out of the TARDIS behind him. 'Curious, isn't it?' said Adric.
Keara saw them first. She screamed and pointed to the entrance.
The others looked.
The cave entrance was packed with Marshmen.
The creatures regarded the humans with glowering enmity, their thick eyelids moving slowly over their black eyes in a way that was malevolence incarnate.
The leader moved forward, club raised, and his Marshmen followed behind him. They moved slowly, apparently finding it difficult to move in this new environment. It was very probably this which saved Romana and the youngsters. They lunged as one body into the TARDIS, slamming the doors shut just as the Marshleader's club came swinging down towards them.
On the other side of the doors, Adric and Romana leaned against them, out of