Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [102]
‘Revert to the landing party?’ said Pete, at last.
‘But it must be too late,’ said Sarah.
‘We can’t know that. I don’t see that we have any option.’
‘And end up in another pea-souper?’ said the Brig. ‘They’ll have us dancing a fandango before we’re finished.’
There was a baffled silence.
‘Hah! Of course! ‘Gas masks?’ said Sarah.
The time has come. Bring in the first of the faithful!’
The Doctor turned away from the window, where he had watched the return of the flying Skang.
Dame Hilda - Mother Hilda, as he had to think of her now -
seemed not to have heard Alex. She was slumped in her chair, utterly defeated.
‘There is a big enough gap for us both to be able to see,’ he said.
Of course she knew that. But if she heard him, she gave no sign. The grief he felt as he turned back was not for her, nor yet for the stunning beauty who was being ushered in through the front entrance. It was for the world, for all the worlds, and the pain that lay at the heart of things.
He was about to see a ritual murder. Before his eyes, the perfect body of this trusting child would be reduced to nothing but a bag of bones.
And yet... there was no way that he could experience in himself the hatred that he knew his companions would be feeling for the Skang. They weren’t fiends from some alien hell, but creatures with as valid a right to existence as humankind, or the natives of Gallifrey, or any other race from the kaleidoscope of living beings he’d met during his epic journeys through time and space.
The ‘first of the faithful’ had halted at the top of the steps leading down into the arena, a dismayed hand to her mouth as she saw the upturned faces.
But after the original hesitation, she drew herself up and, with her chin in the air, descended the staircase and walked down the aisle to the stage and the waiting leader of the Skang with a confident stride, the air of the high-couture catwalk, which said ‘I’m-me-and-be-damned-to-you’.
Hilda’s room, as befitted her position, was the nearest to the platform, so the Doctor had a profile view of the meeting, and was able to hear the murmured voices.
‘Don’t be afraid, my dear.’ It was the golden voice of Alex Whitbread encouraging her as she hesitated once more at the bottom of the aisle.
Gazing up with the wide-eyed innocence of a neophyte at the living figure of the being who had taken possession of her mind and her heart, she slowly mounted the steps to the stage and gracefully knelt, bowing her head in submission.
A hand under her chin, gently lifting.
‘What is your name, my child?’
‘Emma.’ There was no tremor in the voice.
‘Are you ready to receive the reward your devotion so richly deserves?’
‘I am.’
The Skang put his head back and closed his eyes, murmuring some words. Was he praying? Or delving from the depths of their united being a structure, a ritual, which translated itself into human speech?
Emma’s face was already blissful. She closed her eyes as the Skang took her lightly by the arms, and touched the nape of her neck with the needle tip of his proboscis. As it entered her flesh, there was a simultaneous sigh of satisfaction from every member of the watching group.
Emma didn’t even flinch.
It wasn’t plunged in like a giant dagger but glided through the satin skin as gently as the touch of a loving husband with his virgin bride.
At once Emma’s peaceful countenance changed. She opened her eyes and, with a gasp, took a deep breath; and as the sharpness entered her further, she uttered a sound very like a moan, but expressive of a delight beyond imagining.
The Doctor dropped his eyes. If he’d been a near-voyeur before, now he felt that he was illicitly present at an intimacy deeper than any sexual encounter.
The sound of Emma’s voice grew louder as the moan changed into a crescendo of ecstasy so exquisite it pierced the mind. At the very top of the cry, when it was beginning to seem that there was no limit to the exaltation that she could reach, her voice stopped.
Despite himself,