Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [68]
Behind him Leela saw a sudden burst of flame at the furthest point in the long passageway. The cold fire was returning from wherever it had been to. ‘It is coming back,’
she said.
The other Doctor glanced over his shoulder. ‘That’s odd,’
he said. ‘It’s going the wrong way.’
As she watched the burning swell towards them, Leela was momentarily distracted. When she saw the movement at the edge of her vision, she was shocked and unprepared.
Despite what she had said, she was not ready to mistrust the Doctor, either Doctor, because they were both the Doctor.
She felt the knife snatched out of its sheath and saw the Doctor, who could not be the Doctor after all, lunge at the Doctor who said he was the Doctor and whose not so healthy face showed surprise and dismay. And delay. And he could not dodge away from the knife in time to save himself.
Leela’s counter-attack was unthinkingly fast and unblinkingly devastating. She stepped across the front of the lunge and caught the knife hand at the wrist. She pivoted so that he fell over her hip and she twisted the arm and, using the weight of his fall, broke it at the wrist and at the elbow.
The knife fell from his nerveless fingers and she snatched it up. She stepped over him, pulled his head back by his hair and put the knife hard against his throat.
‘Don’t kill him, Leela,’ the Doctor said.
‘He was going to kill you,’ she said coldly. ‘Why do you want to protect him?’ She was surprised at the icy fury she felt. Killing him was necessary. Killing him would be the completion of her moves. She took a deep shuddering breath and eased the pressure on the knife slightly.
‘It’s you I want to protect,’ the Doctor said.
Leela said, ‘I saved your life.’
‘That’s not why you were going to kill him.’
Leela stood up and sheathed her knife. The injured copy of the Doctor rolled on to his back and looked up at them.
‘That hurt,’ he said peevishly. ‘I don’t think you needed to be that violent. I rescued you, Leela. You wouldn’t be running around now if it wasn’t for me.’ He sat up but made no attempt to get to his feet. ‘What happens now? I’m in pain here.’
The fire, which had been rolling through the passageway more slowly than before, reached them now and Leela felt it pass this time. There was a flickering ache behind her eyes and a fluttering inside her ears like the wings of an insect beating very slowly. When it had gone she said to the copy of the Doctor, ‘Why did you rescue me?’
The Doctor said, ‘My guess is he wanted you moving and talking.’
‘Is that why?’ Leela asked.
‘I made it easy for him,’ the Doctor said. ‘I talk too much. I expect you were sulking, weren’t you?’
‘No.’
‘But you weren’t talking?’
‘Is that what it was?’ Leela asked squatting down beside the copy of the Doctor. All her anger was gone now. The seated figure said nothing. He was sitting, cradling his damaged arm, with his head bent forward so that his chin was resting on his chest. ‘Well, is it?’ She poked him. Slowly he sagged over on to his side and lay unmoving.
The Doctor bent down and felt for a pulse. ‘He’s dead,’ he said.
‘Did I kill him?’ Leela asked.
‘No,’ the Doctor said. ‘It was that light, the radiation pulse.’
The Doctor shrugged. ‘We’re not the same. As I said, he’s not a clone. He’s a fabrication. A copy. He’s more vulnerable to it.’
‘I felt the light,’ Leela said.
‘So did I,’ the Doctor said. ‘He’s a close copy, certainly.’
Leela stood up. ‘Most of the time I thought he was you.’
The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. ‘And if we talk and answer questions, the copies can be refined. They might even end up thinking like we do.’
The Doctor strode off down the passageway heading back in the direction Leela had come from. ‘Come on, then!’ he called without pausing or looking back. ‘There’s no time to waste.’
‘Where are we going?’ she demanded, loping after him.
‘To find that control room,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’ve told you that