Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [8]
The Doctor was tall and very fit for someone of his unusual age, but sustaining a flat sprint for minutes at a time still gave him no chance of outrunning a creature with six legs and a hunger that was growing more ravenous with every step it took. The Doctor tried sudden changes of direction but the creature could turn virtually on the spot and, as far as he could see, without any significant loss of momentum. It was too close now to be confused by the zigzagging and the Doctor quickly decided that the tactic was slowing him up more than the creature.
In places where trees had fallen there were patches of thicker scrub growing. The Doctor tried plunging through some of this, shedding the long coat as he went and scrambling under and over the trunks of the dead trees before bursting out and sprinting on across the more open forest floor. Eerily silent apart from the scrabbling of its legs and the rattle of its chitinous body parts, the creature ploughed through the bushes and, ignoring the discarded coat completely, it scuttled on. Relentlessly it strode over the fallen trees and by the time it reached the open it had gained even more ground.
The Doctor was tiring rapidly and it was clear to him that he wasn’t going to be able to outrun the creature or confuse the trail enough to fool it. The lack of reaction to the coat suggested that it was not following his scent, so the chances were that it was following body heat or possibly sound. This did not seem a sensible time to stop and try to work out which, but on the other hand he knew he could not keep going for much longer. He knew too that running for your life was not conducive to rational thought and if he was going to have any chance of surviving this he needed to think rationally.
Ahead of him one of the larger trees looked climbable. Of course, if this monster was anything like the Mallophaga it could probably climb it too but it was possible that its weight might limit how far up it could get. Behind him he could hear the clashing skitter as the giant louse bore down on him. He flung his hat back over his shoulder in the forlorn hope that it might gain him a few extra seconds. There was no time left to consider the options because there were none.
The Doctor put on a final desperate sprint and leapt for one of the lower branches. It creaked ominously as he grabbed on to it. He jammed his feet hard against the trunk of the tree and pushed on upward. At first the branches were evenly spaced on the gradually tapering trunk and he could climb quickly, but that soon stopped and he was left with a wide gap. He stood on tiptoe on the branch he had reached and stretched an arm up towards the next. He was a long way short of touching it. The gap was impassable. Below him there was a tapping rattle. He looked down. The creature was feeling round the trunk of the tree with its front legs. Suddenly it reared up and lunged at where he was clinging. It could almost grab him from the ground – almost, but not quite.
Deliberately and carefully it began to climb.
Pertanor stared at the flattened area. For a moment he forgot the noises that had been circling and gradually closing on them, as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Or rather what he wasn’t seeing.
‘This is the place, isn’t it?’ He started to run forward and then hesitated and walked very slowly out into the crushed clearing the landing had made. He put his hands out in front of him as though he was expecting to bump into an invisible ship.
‘Somebody stole the ship,’ Rinandor said disbelievingly. ‘Is that possible? It can’t be.’ She took a couple of steps out from the edge and then just stood there.
‘Do you think it was him?’ Pertanor asked. ‘Is he more than just a freako, do you think? Could they have got him wrong?’
‘Surely not,’ she said. ‘They got everything else so right, didn’t they?’
Pertanor had crossed the clearing and was peering into the jumble of jungle on the other side. He was still half expecting to see the ship hidden there as if by some amazing prankster. As far as he