Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [27]
The closer of the two men had his visor pulled up. Under the bulk of the helmet, it was hard to make out much of his face, but he was definitely a local. Sarah saw two big white eyes staring out at her, and spotted the sheen of sweat on his skin. He was fairly young, and there were tiny hairs sticking out from the flesh under his nose, a moustache that hadn’t quite taken root yet.
‘Don’t move,’ the man repeated. ‘Don’t say anything.’
‘Why not?’ asked Sarah.
The man nudged the air in front of him with the barrel of his gun. The gun looked like it was made out of plastic, so either the men were using stun guns, or the Remote had given the Saudis a few ideas about side arms.
‘Is that an answer?’ Sarah persisted.
‘You are now in the custody of the Special Internal Taskforce,’ the man said. He’d obviously remembered the phrase parrot-fashion, and Sarah guessed this was the first time he’d ever had the chance to use it. ‘You will make no attempt to escape. You will make no attempt to speak. You have no rights under Saudi law. You are to be considered alien agents, and therefore threats to the security of the kingdom.’
‘When you say “alien agents”, do you mean alien agents, or just alien agents?’
The man did some more air-nudging. ‘Shut up!’ he barked.
Sarah took a step towards him. ‘Why?’
The soldier looked as though his eyes were going to pop. His friend nervously shuffled back into the corridor. ‘I’ll shoot you!’ he announced.
‘No you won’t,’ said Sarah. ‘This is a TARDIS. TARDISes come fitted with something called temporal grace. The Doctor showed me once.’ She took another few steps towards the man. ‘What have you done with the Doctor, by the way? I know he’s in prison. Somewhere near here, is he?’
‘Stay back!’ was all the soldier could say.
‘Temporal grace,’ Sarah went on. ‘Weapons don’t work inside the TARDIS. Well, guns don’t. I’m sure you’d feel it if I got Lost Boy over there to give you a wallop round the ear.’
Lost Boy seemed to appreciate this concept, because he started to cross the floor. ‘Which gives us the advantage,’ Sarah concluded. ‘Lost Boy’s bigger than either of you. Actually, he’s almost bigger than both of you. So you’d better drop those bits of plastic you’re holding, before he gets angry.’
Sarah stopped, not three feet away from the soldiers. Lost Boy shambled to a halt by her side.
The first soldier’s hands were shaking. He pointed his gun at Sarah, then at Lost Boy, then at Sarah, then at Lost Boy. His lips were trembling, and he didn’t seem to know what to say.
‘Uhhn,’ said Lost Boy, succinctly. Then he reached out for the gun.
The soldier fired.
There was, in spite of everything, an explosion.
* * *
He was starting to lose track of time. Ironic for a Time Lord. When he’d been younger, some friends of his had learned the skill of internal chronometry, of being able to tell the exact time, to the nanosecond, without the need for any kind of measuring device. Just another way for Academy students to show off, really. Sometimes, the students would ‘borrow’ the Cardinals’ TARDISes, taking the show-offs to randomly chosen points in the galaxy’s history, just to see if they could keep track of two relative time interfaces at once.
The Doctor had never had the knack of internal chronometry. It had all seemed a bit pointless, somehow. But, even so, he couldn’t help feeling that he should at least know what day it was. Especially as he’d been here for only… well, for a number of days in single digits, anyway. If this had been going on for years, fair enough. But days?
He decided that more sleep might be a good idea. Sometimes he had peculiar dreams when he slept, and imagined that one of his former regenerations was hovering over him in the cell, but he doubted it was important. Besides, on the one occasion when he’d tried to warn his previous life about Faction Paradox, the old boy hadn’t understood a word of it.
* * *
It was the surprise that knocked Sarah off her feet. Lost