Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [94]
„Not at all,‟ said Hilda. „The Skang body is far less dense than the human. How do you think they... we... are able to grow so fast inside? Think of the pumice in your bath. It looks like a stone; it feels like a stone; and yet it floats.‟
„Of course,‟ said the Doctor, remembering how light the Skang corpse at the bottom of the cliff had been.
As the last one joined them, the hovering, circling creatures came together and swooped into the sky like a flock of migrating swallows, with such a gust from their wings that it blew the dust from the second explosion right into the Doctor‟s face.
So they weren‟t to die quite yet, he thought, wiping his eyes. But what about the others, on board the Hallaton?
„Got him!‟
Even as Sarah heard the cry of triumph from behind her, she saw one of the leaders of the flying pack seem to falter and drop, as ungainly as a shot pheasant, with a broken wing vainly grasping at the air.
As part of the drill for going into action, a machine gun was manned on each side of the upper bridge, as were a brace of them mounted outside the wing doors of the lower, covered bridge.
Sarah clasped her hands over her ears as a shield against the intolerable racket. Surely the sheer weight of bullets being thrown at the creatures would knock them out of the sky!
But no. The single hit was a lucky shot. She could see that it must be impossible to aim, the way they were flying: never on a straight course like an aircraft or a bird, but swerving and jinking in unpredictable zigzags, which still took them towards the ship... Hang on, though! Maybe they‟d been frightened off?
„Cease fire!‟
Bert Rogers, the signalman, sounded the klaxon, which transmitted the Commanding Officer‟s order to the whole ship.
„What the devil are they up to?‟ said the Brigadier, squinting into the sun as the whole group soared up, way out of range, to hover for a minute or so...
...before closing in on one another to form a tight-knit circle, which fell with gathering speed towards the ship, as the Skang dived like a squadron of kamikazes from World War Two.
„Fire, fire, fire!‟
Again the raucous tones of the klaxon horn, and the mind-battering clatter of the guns. Another Skang, and another, were jolted from the formation as the bullets found their targets. But still they came.
Had they got a secret weapon? Would some sort of death-ray sear the open bridge? Were they all about to be incinerated like the victims of a napalm flame-thrower?
The others on the bridge must have had the same thought, for, as their attackers swooped low overhead, both Pete Andrews and the Brigadier, who were standing in the centre, moved instinctively towards the side, as if it might afford some protection.
But it was Sarah herself who twigged what was going to happen. „Get under cover!‟ she yelled, as she ran for the ladder that led to the bridge below.
She only just made it. The blue mist that was shooting from the probosces of the flying Skang came swirling down the steps after her, almost as if she were being chased.
Nobody had followed. She slammed the door behind her.
The wing doors, as always, were closed already. Would they keep it out? Or would it seep through the cracks, and make her a victim along with the rest?
Through the glass at the front, she could see that already the ship was entirely swathed in a thick cloud of blue, far denser than the one that had greeted them when they arrived.
Please! Please!
She had no idea who she was pleading with. All she knew was that if she were to be taken over too they‟d be finished, the lot of them.
Not the smallest tendril of mist, nor the faintest sniff of violets, came through.
Thank God for Scottish ship-builders.
To say that Alex Whitbread was enjoying himself (though he wasn‟t quite sure whether he still existed) as the group took off from the temple, would be to understate the matter to a laughable degree. This was total rapture - a rapture of a different quality from the bliss of assimilation that he‟d known in Hampstead, and even more overwhelming.