Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [37]
‘How do you do?’ he said. ‘I’m the Doctor and this is...’
‘Just call me Ratkin!’ Ace butted in angrily.
She pulled back sharply as the claws groped at the Doctor’s jacket and wrenched at his tie, half choking him in the process.
The creature had begun to whine pathetically, ‘Poor Control. No way up. No escaping. No hoping.’
‘Don’t listen to it!’ hissed Josiah, using all his weight to keep the door closed. ‘It’s a depraved monstrosity!’
‘Depraved or deprived?’ snapped the Doctor. He grabbed at the creature’s arm and indulgently stroked the top of the struggling claw in a vain attempt to free himself.
‘There, there. There’s a poor Control.’ He looked from the arm to Josiah and back to the arm again. ‘Now, which of you is Jekyll and which one Hyde?’ he asked.
At once, Control’s voice grew pitiful as it whimpered,
‘Spare a farthing, guv’nor. Pity poor Control. Locked away.
All on lone.’
‘Fiend!’ roared Josiah and slammed his fist into the claw, which withdrew with an accompanying shriek. The door slammed shut and he twisted the lever home.
As the lift trundled upwards and Control’s howls of rage receded beneath them, Josiah fell to the floor in a swoon and lay trembling feverishly beside Nimrod. The Doctor leaned over Josiah and saw how the bleached, white skin on his head was flaking and turning translucent grey. The white hair had become brittle and crumbled to the touch.
‘Is he dying?’ Ace asked wearily, unwilling to admit that she was also almost too exhausted to stand up.
‘He’s had a hard day’s night,’ diagnosed the Doctor.
‘He’s evolving again... into his next stage.’
It might take other life forms thousands of years, but Josiah was able to change his physical form before their very eyes. Ace shuddered at the thought, but the Doctor sat cross-legged on the floor and pondered silently, awaiting new developments in whatever form they might evolve.
8
Creature Comforts
Dinner had been served late that evening and it had been well into the early hours before Josiah and the Doctor had made their descent in the lift. Deprived of her master, Mrs Pritchard understood that her duty was to wait as long as was necessary until he returned. She stationed her maids beside the lift gates and stood immobile at their head, staring at the slow progress of the clock.
Distant thunder rumbled occasionally: It came not from the clear sky, which was bright with stars, but echoed in the ground on which the house stood.
At close on half past three o’clock, she was suddenly aware of a strange whimpering sound from close by. She turned to seek out the source of this annoyance and discovered Gwendoline still dressed in a gentleman’s dinner-jacket, sitting on the stairs and blubbing into her bare hands.
The maids began to cluster behind their mistress, staring coldly at the snivelling creature.
Gwendoline turned her red-rimmed eyes up to the housekeeper, twisted her locket in her hands and blurted through the tears, ‘Why did father go to Java and leave me?’ And where is my mother? I try and try, but I cannot understand.’
There was no sympathy to be had from the servants.
Mrs Pritchard responded with a harshness more fitting to a governess than a member of the domestic staff.
‘That is a wicked thing to say. Wicked! Your mother would be ashamed could she but hear you. Sitting there dressed like a music-hall trollop! It’s this Doctor filling your head with ideas.’
‘His words are so confusing,’ confessed Gwendoline. She rose to her feet and wiped her eyes with Ace’s tissue.
‘Uncle Josiah’s ideas are much easier to understand.’ With a sudden sense of purpose, she determinedly undid the bow tie at her collar.
‘Go upstairs and dress yourself properly,’ advised the housekeeper.
Gwendoline instinctively moved to obey her servant’s instruction, but halfway up the stairs she halted and looked back. Mrs Pritchard was staring up at her with a puzzled frown.