Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [16]
Simple plans were usually the most successful though. There was less to go wrong. ‘Hey, you! Yes you!’ he yelled. ‘You’re a lousy climber, aren’t you?’
The creature stirred and clicked. Its whole body quivered and there were brief tearing sounds as it partially detached hooks from the tree trunk and then dug them back in again. It was a start, but the Doctor would need a lot more animation from it than that. He broke off a piece of branch and threw it down into what he judged to be one of its eyes. It had no visible effect. He tried again. There was still no response. ‘I suppose you think you’ve got me trapped up here, don’t you?’ he shouted.
‘That is what it looks like from down here,’ Leela shouted back from the bottom of the tree.
The Doctor peered at her. The louse creature was ignoring her intrusion completely. But when he said, ‘How did you get out of the TARDIS?’ it began to quiver again.
‘It has definitely decided it wants you or nothing, it seems,’
Leela commented, searching the ground for something to throw at the animal.
‘You haven’t damaged the travelling hut, have you?’ the Doctor asked suspiciously.
‘I watched you,’ Leela said, ‘and I copied what I saw you do.’ She found a piece of rotten wood and weighed it in her hand. It was too light and she discarded it. ‘The TARDIS is a machine – there is nothing magic about it. And you can stop calling it the travelling hut. It is not funny to mock people’s lack of knowledge, Doctor. Especially when you are stuck up a tree.’
‘I think I may have underestimated you,’ the Doctor conceded graciously with a vivid smile.
Leela did not acknowledge the apology. ‘You underestimated the size of the predators,’ she said.
‘It is a big louse, isn’t it?’ the Doctor agreed: ‘There’s no obvious reason why it should be. In fact there are any number of reasons why it shouldn’t be. If it wasn’t there I would say it couldn’t be.’
‘That is what you did say,’ Leela said raising her voice above the agitated clacking and rattling of the louse. Casting about she found the remains of the Doctor’s scarf with the coins, penknife and gold nugget still in the knot. Individually they were too small for her purposes, but it did give her an idea.
‘Saying I told you so,’ the Doctor was saying and watching the effect the sound of his voice was having on the creature,
‘shows a certain smugness, Leela. As well as being annoying, such self-satisfaction gets in the way of original thinking and you should avoid it as far as is humanly possible.’ He waited, then went on. ‘I wonder what else I have to do to annoy this thing enough to get it moving. It seems to be endowed with the sort of patience that the irritable would kill for. I was quite certain it was stimulated by my sound vibration patterns. Particularly my voice.’
Leela cut a straight branch and cleaned and sharpened it.
‘It is conserving energy. I expect it gets cold here at night. If it comes from the jungle it is feeling the cold already.’ Using threads from the torn scarf she carefully bound the coins and the nugget round the branch about a hand’s breadth back from the sharpened tip.
‘Jungle? Why should it come from the jungle?’
‘Things grow larger in the jungle. Is that not so?’
‘It doesn’t result in gigantism. Not on this scale. Anyway, first find your jungle.’
‘It is over there.’ She waved a hand in the general direction she had come from. ‘I found it while I was looking for your tracks.’
‘It was probably just a patch of lush plants.’
‘That is what a jungle is, surely?’
‘What about the temperature?’ The Doctor began to shake the top of the tree vigorously in the vague hope that he might convince the creature he was trying to escape. It remained doggedly unmoved.
‘It was hotter than it is here.’ Leela checked the balance of the tip-heavy throwing spear she had made.
The Doctor gave up the struggle to cause vibrations in the tree. ‘It’s no good. It looks as though I’m going to have to climb down and tempt it into action.’
‘Do not disturb it. Let me try this first,