Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [64]
Belay had turned on his heel and was leaving the gallery.
‘I don’t know what’s going on here but I want nothing to do with this.’
Fermindor went after him. ‘Belay? Where are you going?
Come back here. That thing is the way out, you know it is.’
‘What makes them think that what appears to be an indestructible box is the way out of here?’ the Doctor asked.
‘First thing I put in,’ the voice said. ‘It’s always difficult to get the levels in the right order. Particularly when you’re having to rush. The directives become distinctly unsubtle.
You have no choice but to fall back on to the crudest basic drives. That will be why their approach was so obvious. It’s disappointing, but not disastrous.’
The Doctor went back to looking down at the TARDIS. It was safe for the moment. It was too large to move away from the coarse material reduction at the perimeter. If he could find a way to reach it, then he might find that the power being poured at it in a futile attempt to break it down would make getting on board problematical, but there was bound to be a way round that. To his surprise, he saw light suddenly spill from an opening in the chamber wall and two figures stepped into view at the edge of the processing floor. He hadn’t noticed before, but there seemed to be another narrow ledge running round the bottom of the chamber slightly above the roiling mass of the recycling. This ledge was obviously not enclosed by a clear protective plate like the gallery was, because pieces of debris had been tossed up on to it. Belay and Fermindor were pushing them back into the churning turbulence as they made their way to the TARDIS.
‘What are they doing?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Following orders,’ the voice said.
‘To commit suicide?’ The Doctor’s voice was low and hard.
‘In a way.’ There was a distinct chuckle in the voice. ‘I suppose that is what they’ve been instructed to do.’
‘You find it amusing?’ the Doctor demanded. He banged on the clear sheet and yelled, ‘Belay! Fe! Get away from that!’
‘They can’t hear you,’ the runner said. ‘And even if they could they wouldn’t pay any attention to you. You can’t argue with a basic drive, especially a crude one.’
‘Of course you can!’ the Doctor raged.
‘You really think so?’ the voice said. ‘What a disappointing life you must have had.’
The Doctor could see in the harsh plasma flashes from the continuing assault on the TARDIS that Belay and Fermindor were approaching the place where it was nudging against the ledge. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ the Doctor snapped.
‘I’m listening.’
‘First stop them. Call them back.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘You’re going to let them die?’
‘You said it yourself: they’re going to be recycled molecules. No perfection here, I’m afraid. Nothing dies.
Everything is born again. But first, a small experiment...’
As the Doctor watched, Belay reached towards the TARDIS. The power arced into him and he disintegrated, blowing apart in a heavy cloud of falling droplets. Most of him collapsed into the soup on the floor but where droplets touched the plasma ball they too blew apart.
‘That’s your idea of an experiment?’ the Doctor shouted, furiously.
‘Half an experiment,’ the runner said. ‘Keep watching.’
It was as if Fermindor hadn’t seen what had just happened to Belay. He backed away along the ledge a short distance and then he ran forward a few paces and jumped towards the top of the TARDIS. For a split second he seemed to reach over the searing power of the strobing light, then his legs touched it and he was gone, the cloud falling over the plasma as each droplet blew apart again and again and again.
The Doctor was appalled.
‘That must have hurt,’ the runner’s voice said.
Cold rage left the Doctor momentarily speechless. Finally, shaking his head as if dazed, he muttered, quietly, ‘You’re a truly perverted