Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [78]
Incandescence? Some sort of cremation?
It was very quiet. The cries of the gannet lookalikes seemed very thin and far away. The narrow strips of foam - like the lace at the hem of an old-world petticoat - which lapped at the edge of the multicoloured coral, made less noise than Sarah did herself as she splashed more and more inefficiently through the ripples.
She had found, to her relief, that the water near the reef was only about as deep as the shallow end of the pool where she‟d been sent to learn to swim, going on the bus on Saturday mornings, clutching her shilling for the lesson (until her father lost his job and even a bob was too much).
So she was spared the ordeal of scrambling over the harsh coral of the reef, and she was able to stop and rest with her toes in the sand whenever it felt as though her muscles were about to give out.
She kept a weather eye on the Hallaton, so that the moment she felt it was near enough, she could change course, and make straight for it. It was when she was on her fourth break, as she was seriously beginning to think that she‟d taken on more than she could manage, that she became aware of an extra sound on top of the natural ones. It was coming from the ship: voices calling out - and the distant throb of the engine starting up.
They were getting ready to sail.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
There seemed to be some sort of a trial going on. Dame Hilda had taken her place on the rough seat hacked out of a lump of pumice that was in the place of the regal throne of white marble the Doctor remembered from the day before.
In spite of his bowed shoulders, which spoke of the extreme weakness of his emaciated body, Alex Whitbread, who was standing to her left, had his chin arrogantly raised as he surveyed those about to judge him and pass sentence.
One by one, members of the group came up to stand on Hilda‟s right and speak either for or against reinstatement.
The Doctor was only half listening. Though, of course, the delay would give Sarah time to get to the Brigadier, the internal politics of the Skang surely couldn‟t have much to do with the business in hand?
After the first three or four speeches, which all seemed to be in Alex‟s favour, and the reaction from the rest of the teachers, the Doctor felt that the outcome was only too predictable. It almost seemed as if they were just going through a ritual.
Still listening with half an ear, his mind wandered off to consider the puzzles that still remained unsolved. How were the Skang able to disguise themselves as human beings with such uncanny accuracy? What had happened to the original humans? And how did the aliens land on the Earth in the first place?
He cast his mind back to the innumerable forms of life he‟d encountered during his long years of wandering through space and time, and could think of none that matched the Skang - though, of course, he still had to contend with the unpredictable gaps in his memory that resulted from the process of regeneration.
His thoughts returned to the present with a jolt. This was exactly the sort of distraction they‟d been taught at the Academy to guard against. This was when one was most vulnerable.
As if he hadn‟t learnt the lesson for himself! There was the time, for instance, when he‟d nearly lost a leg to a Sclaponian dragonfly, because he‟d been daydreaming about the voluptuous wife of the Grand Vizier. Quite vainly, of course.
Any sort of union with a Sclaponian, whether permanent or temporary, would have been a disaster. He‟d have lost more than a leg...
A movement below caught his eye. Good grief, he‟d let his mind wander off again! What was going on?
There‟d been a show of hands. He‟d registered that. Alex Whitbread had overwhelmingly won the vote. But what was happening now?
All the teachers were standing.
All, including Dame Hilda and Whitbread himself, had thrown their heads back, and had closed their eyes. A murmur floated up, a murmur that was not quite