Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [19]
SAM: How close are we now?
DOCTOR: We’ll be touching down in about twenty minutes. Thrusters permitting.
SAM: Shall I go and check on the TARDIS?
DOCTOR: I’m sure it’s quite safe in the hold, Sam. It won’t be going anywhere on its own.
SAM [unconvinced]: Right.
[SAM leaves the control section.]
* * *
Scene 37. A Corridor on the Ship
[The corridor is in semidarkness, the lighting system dimmed, presumably to save power. There are closed hatchways all along the passage, and the walls are lined with numbered service panels. The floor is covered with a metal grating, which clangs in a satisfying manner as SAM walks across it.
[SAM passes a recess in one of the walls, a small hatchway leading into a tiny black chamber on the other side, the fluorescent yellow stencil above the entrance bearing the legend CAUTION: AIRLOCK. She’s obviously heading for a hatchway beyond the airlock, but then she stops, and turns.
[We see that one of the service panels has been dislodged, and is now hanging off the wall at an angle. Noticing this, SAM steps over to the panel and peers into the exposed space; it seems to be a shaft of some kind.
[This all seems very, very wrong to SAM.]
SAM: Doctor?
[She turns. But as she does so, something moves towards her, a shape which until now has been hidden by the shadows of the darkened passage. It’s quite possible that the thing has been camouflaged by some form of optical technology. FX?]
SAM [shouts]: Doctor!
[The shape lunges. We get a glimpse of a dark face, its mouth frozen into a permanent scream, its eyes sunken into a bloated, skeletal head. Then we cut away.]
* * *
Scene 38. The Control Section of the Ship
[The DOCTOR has obviously heard SAM’s cry. He leaps to his feet.]
DOCTOR: Sam?
* * *
Scene 39. The Corridor
[The DOCTOR hurries through the hatchway, then comes to an abrupt halt. Halfway along the corridor, SAM is being held by the CREATURE. It’s still shrouded in darkness, so we can make out only dim outlines: bony limbs, rough skin and what may be large, leathery wings, folded around SAM’s body. The CREATURE’s face is not unlike one of the faces of the Cold, but frozen into position, like a death mask. Its features – what we can see of them – are vague, half finished.
[SAM struggles, but the CREATURE’s clearly too strong for her. The DOCTOR takes a step forward, and the CREATURE instinctively takes a step back, into the airlock recess. It raises a claw to SAM’s throat. The DOCTOR gets the message. He stops moving.]
DOCTOR [cautiously]: What do you want?
CREATURE [FX on voice]: This ship will not dock at Jumpstart Island. We will make landfall at the Ordifica central transmitter. You will take us to the operational centre of this planet’s medianet.
DOCTOR [puzzled]: The transmitter?
SAM: Don’t listen to it, Doc–
[The CREATURE clamps a hand across SAM’s mouth.]
DOCTOR: I’ll take you there if you like. But I warn you, it won’t do you much good. They’re very keen on protecting their property, the Ordificans. They’ll shoot you down as soon as you show your face. If that is a face.
CREATURE: We will overrun the transmitter. We will take control of this world.
DOCTOR: ‘We’?
CREATURE: We are here. All of us. In the ventilation system of this vessel. We will free ourselves. We will take the transmitter. We will become one with this planet’s media.
DOCTOR [slapping his forehead]: Of course! The SOS… it was faked, wasn’t it? This ship –
CREATURE: Our ship. You will take us to the transmitter. Now.
DOCTOR: I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.
[The CREATURE’s claw hovers over SAM’s throat. The DOCTOR looks uncertain.]
CREATURE: We can hurt her. Cut her. Infect her with our being. She will be one with us.
[We focus on SAM. She seems to be looking at something inside the airlock recess, but we don’t see what.]
DOCTOR: I’d be betraying the Ordificans. There are three hundred million human beings on that planet. Doesn