Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [65]
shouted Light. It could force the rebellious creature to supply the answers.
‘She’s no good to you any more,’ needled the Doctor.
‘She’s evolved as well!’
Light snarled and the relentless data chattered louder around it, pressing in on its mind like the voices of all the teeming life on this vile, infested planet. ‘No! All slipping away!’
The Doctor leaned nonchalantly against the banisters and asked, ‘Excuse me, Light, but weren’t you in the dining room just now? You haven’t changed your location, have you?’
He braced himself as Light’s trembling head turned to fix him with its deadly stare, but the nerve-jangling pulse of the data drew its gaze back to the screen. ‘What’s the matter, Light? Change your mind again?’ he taunted.
‘You are endlessly agitating, unceasingly mischievous!
Will you never stop!’
‘I suppose I could. It would make a change.’
Light was giving way, but its fate still focused on the Doctor alone. He couldn’t maintain this attack for ever: the monster might rally its angry thoughts enough to crush him under its foot like a disconsolate ant. He needed another element now to tip Light’s teetering paranoia over the edge. He searched desperately for it and found nothing.
‘Nimrod!’ pleaded Light in anguish, seeing its confidant watching from the shadows by the lift. ‘I can rely on you!
Assist me now!’
The manswervant loped slowly towards his god and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir. My allegiance is to this planet — my birthright.’
A deep growl rose into a helpless cry of exasperation.
‘Everything is changing! All in flux! Nothing remains the same!’
‘Even remains decay,’ added the Doctor. ‘It’s this planet.
It just can’t help itself!’
The data from the ship grated through Light’s teeming mind. Its thoughts eluded its grasp; its concentration disintegrated. It defied the corruption with a single, final impulse; it would not be part of this organized chaos called life. ‘I... will... not... change! I shall wake up soon!’ Its voice was rising into a final feeble whine of despair. ‘No...
change! Dead... zero...’
It shuddered, twitched and was fixed. An inert, metallic statue stared up at the data that still chattered across the stained-glass screen.
Ace emerged from the drawing room doorway, where she had been watching with Redvers and Control. She clung to the Doctor’s arm.
‘That’s that again, Ace.’ The Doctor patted her hand affectionately and looked up at the silent shell of Light’s figure. ‘Subject for catalogue: file under imagination comma lack of!’ There was a bleeped response and he turned to find the others all looking up at the active screen.
Nimrod interceded. ‘Excuse me, sir. But Light instigated the firestorm program some time prior to dinner.’
‘Ah.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Ace.
The Doctor pondered the implication for a split second.
‘A very big explosion, very soon.’ He started to hurry towards the lift with Ace. With one concerted movement, Control and Redvers, hand in hand, and Nimrod, took their eyes from the data screen and followed.
As the party began their descent in the lift, Josiah, pistol in hand, slipped across the hall. He opened the gates and glared down the shaft at the disappearing lift cage. With a last look back at his house, the master of Gabriel Chase pocketed the gun, adjusted his gloves and swung out onto the descending cable.
The ship emitted its shrill cry as the Doctor led his party hrough the veil of light. The chamber pulsed with energy as steam jetted from the wall outlets. The two husks were back en tableau in their alcove, standing like waxworks without Control’s will to drive the vestigial shreds of life that linked them between her and Josiah. Lozenges of oloured radiance darted through the haze around them, as the crystal rods rose and fell like a steady heart beat or a countdown.
Ace ran straight for the crystal console. ‘How do we stop it? Same as before?’ she shouted and began to push the rods down into the slab.
‘Ace, don’t do that!’ The Doctor pulled her away from the console.
‘It’ll nuke Earth!’
‘Just look!’ He