Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [72]
The blackness around him lit up with the eyes of the creatures, and he closed his eyes, waiting for the end. The end of Colonel Potter. The end of his one chance of glory.
The blackness was suddenly pierced by a brilliant white glare. Potter peered up. Towering over him was one of the Cybermen, light from a cowling on the top of its head turning the gloom of the tunnel into daylight. For the first time Potter caught a glimpse of the small metal piranhas that surrounded him and he screamed. The Cyberman grasped him in a huge metal gauntlet and hauled him out of the water. It raised its other hand and held it level with Potter's head. There was the flare of a brilliant blue spark, and Colonel Potter knew no more.
In the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral, a borrowed police car stood in a side road, ticking quietly as its engine cooled in the rain of the November night. The Doctor stood outside the policebox shell of the TARDIS, his hood pulled over his head to ward off the rain, as he tried to extricate the key from around his neck.
He slid the delicate metal shape into the lock and, with a subtle series of clicks, the door swung inward. The Doctor vanished inside, slamming the door behind him.
The interior lights of the TARDIS rose in intensity as the Doctor strode into the console room, the heavy circular indentations on the walls glowing softly. The background hum of machinery changed in pitch too, settling into a steady purr, like a contented cat.
The Doctor crossed to the central console, a vast array of complex controls and twinkling lights that rose from the floor of the room like a huge mushroom. He patted the console affectionately. 'Hello, old girl. Yes, I've missed you, too.'
He shrugged out of his duffel coat, and pulled the cassette from a pocket, tossing the coat into a pile on the floor of the console room. The far side of the control area looked like a young boy's bedroom. Clothes and shoes were scattered everywhere, jumbled up with books on nuclear physics and juggling, a Scalextric set and a box of Newberry Fruits.
The Doctor paced round the console, jabbing at buttons.
The technology before him could decode the most complex alien computer programs, could link itself with his own brain, was even capable of independent thought; but as for playing a cassette tape from twentiethcentury Earth...
'Why they didn't fit TARDISes with inflight entertainment, I'll never know.'
He poked at a few more switches, then crossed the room and pushed open the door that led into the bowels of the ship.
The corridors that ran through the TARDIS were practically limitless, though the Doctor knew his way around all of them. Well, most of them. His companions, however, tended to like their quarters close to the console room, and Ace had been no exception.
She had claimed that if there was going to be some emergency, she would rather not spend the bulk of her time trying to find her way around a maze of corridors that, to her mind, looked all the same. This way she could keep an eye on the Doctor. He hadn't complained, at least it meant that he had been able to keep an eye on her.
Until now, at any rate. What would Limb have done with her? A theory was struggling to formulate itself in his mind, and it wasn't pleasant. Thank heavens the man was confined to one small planet in one narrow time period. The Doctor shuddered to