Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [108]
‘Will it attack us?’ asked Fitz, edging away from it slowly.
‘The proof’s in the pudding,’ said the Doctor, keeping close to Fitz.
‘Strangely enough,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve rather lost my appetite.’
‘Not sure the same can be said for that thing, though. Tain?’ the Doctor asked again. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Doc. . . tor. . . ’ The voice that seemed to issue from all around them was recognisably Tain’s, but it sounded pained, tortured. Something inside him –
whether intuition, or something linked to Tain’s repair work on his and Fitz’s bodies – told him that the Trojan was very close to gaining complete control over the bioship.
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‘The duct. . . ’ said Tain slowly. The Trojan’s soldier froze, halfway through its eerily balletic arm movement, as Tain spoke – as if the bioship possessed only enough processing power for one or the other, but not both simultaneously. ‘Leave.’
And then the creature jerked back into life and a second foot appeared, following the first – which was now placed firmly on the floor of the chamber.
A knee followed it and then the rest of the lower leg. This soldier was smaller and more slender than the other ones – perhaps it was easier and quicker.
He remembered what Tain had said earlier about the Trojan’s soldiers. Was it finally learning? Or was it just the exigencies of the situation that were forcing it to create such a small one? Hopefully, he thought, this one would be easier to defeat – and then he caught sight of the sharp, scything talons which slid from the fingers of the creature’s free hand. The grotesque birthing was almost complete. The wall around the creature’s buried trunk shuddered, flesh unwilling to relinquish its grip on such an abominable child.
‘Go on,’ urged the Doctor, pushing Fitz forward. ‘Get out.’
‘I’m not leaving you.’
‘Too bloody right you’re not – I’m going to be right behind you. Go on.’
‘Language!’ said Fitz.
‘Go!’ hissed the Doctor, ‘Just go!’
The Doctor gave Fitz another shove, but his friend was being irritatingly
– and familiarly – obstinate. He felt an unaccustomed tightness in his chest, a pounding of his hearts that he knew with cold clarity was fear. Proper fear. The kind of fear that other people felt all the time when they were around him, when he dragged them into his escapades. He felt he ought to be grateful for this weird melding of him and his best friend – how often do people genuinely get to experience the emotions of someone else, first hand?
He wondered how Fitz was feeling, tried to remember how he would normally feel in circumstances like this. Presumably – although his whole being was currently threaded through with a cold filigree of anxiety and jitteriness –
he’d be calm and collected. He glanced sideways at Fitz, squinting, trying to see if he could see anything of himself in the set of Fitz’s face, but Fitz’s expression was blank, unreadable. Calm. He tried to ignore the sudden flush of envy and pride that welled up hotly inside him. He shoved gently at Fitz’s shoulder, urging him towards the pucker of the duct. He wondered whether it would even work, with the Trojan in control. Maybe Tain was saving his energies for the moment when he and Fitz were at the duct and ready to be squeezed upwards and out, like so much toothpaste. He hoped Tain would be able to time it right: the duct was in easy reach of the Trojan’s soldier One slip, and the vicious-looking claws, weaving about blindly in the amber light, would slice them from neck to groin. He felt his hearts pattering in his chest.
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‘Get out!’ he whispered in Fitz’s ear, shoving him forwards so hard that the Doctor almost fell. He watched as Fitz let the momentum carry him across the room towards the duct, realising, at the last moment, that he had his fingers crossed.
He suddenly remembered playing Super Mario Brothers in a pub in Brad-ford, back in the eighties, having to time his