Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book One - Lawrence Miles [136]
‘Yes,’ mumbled I.M. Foreman. ‘Atavistic terror. I think that’s the point. So, are you coming?’
* * *
Meanwhile, inside the circle:
It was raining rubble. The big black cloud was right overhead now, blotting out the sunlight and moving over the walls of the town, until all Magdelana could think about was the blind man and his make‐believe stellar manipulator.
It was the ship. The Remote ship. The rumours had always said that their settlement had been built on the wreck of their vessel, but she’d never expected to see it in the air. The ship had ripped whole chunks out of the ground when it had taken off, and it was still showering debris down on the world, fragments of rock and old architecture that had been buried under the dust for generations.
She was standing in the centre of the ring of wagons, trying to stay on her feet as the slowest and the heaviest of the townspeople stumbled past her. The Doctor was standing nearby, a spindly outline in the middle of the dust clouds, but frankly Magdelana couldn’t care less what happened to him now.
Whatever her purpose was in this town, none of it mattered any more. She was supposed to be the first line of defence, and the Remote were going right over her head. The shotgun wasn’t even going to take out one of them, let alone the thing in the sky.
She was amazed how little she cared.
‘There!’ shouted the Doctor. Magdelana could only just hear him over the roar of the ship, but he was facing the gap in the circle, the entrance to the travelling show. There were people there, she saw, and they weren’t just slow‐moving locals. She could make out two figures, with their hair and clothes flapping in the wind, hobbling towards the shelter of one of the wagons. One of the people looked like a girl, and you could tell by the way she moved that she wasn’t used to the dust. As for the other…
The blind man.
The two figures paused in mid‐stride. The Doctor was staring straight at them, even though his eyes must have been stinging like nothing on Dust. And the blind man was staring back as well. Like a baby, thought Magdelana, seeing its face in a mirror for the first time. Having said that, she wasn’t sure which of the men was the baby and which of them was the reflection.
She saw the Doctor open his mouth to speak. Then the town in the sky reached out for the travelling show, with what looked like one enormous black arm, and the darkness came down on all of them.
Magdelana was running for cover before she even knew what was happening, although in the dust she couldn’t be sure what kind of cover she’d been hoping for. The dark thing was a boarding tube, it couldn’t have been anything else. Over the whipping of the wind, she heard the sound of an impact as the tube planted itself in the dirt. The travelling show shook. Magdelana’s bad leg was already on the verge of giving up on her, so the vibration threw her off her feet, sending her tumbling forward with the dust sticking to her visor. She landed badly, twisting one of her arms and very nearly snapping the implant in her leg. There was pain, but the world was shaking so hard that she couldn’t tell what was the pain and what was just the shock.
Pounding. Throbbing. Footsteps in the dirt. The Remote were pouring out of the tube, probably in their dozens, almost certainly kitted out in full body armour. And it was only then that Magdelana realised she’d lost the shotgun. She rolled on her back, flinging her arms in all directions, trying to find it again.
Now she could see the soldiers, as smears of shadow against the dust clouds. Great, fat, bulky outlines, clutching weapons that looked even clumsier than the men who carried them. Shotguns and rifles, Magdelana told herself. The Remote had only a limited supply of their electronic weapons, then. The rest had been given local‐style firearms. She saw one of the men turning,