Doctor Who_ Last Man Running - Chris Boucher [86]
Leela gathered up her knife and stepped carefully out of the pit. Ignoring the Monlys, she said, ‘Now what?’
The Doctor stared round the circle of bays. There were at least two hundred of them and most of those were active.’
Somewhere in one of these there’s a mechanism which will release Kley and the others.’
‘What mechanism?’
‘Yes, exactly,’ the Doctor said thoughtfully.
Leela frowned. ‘Can we trust them? We could not trust Monly and Sozerdor. And they were both dead.’
‘Sozerdor wasn’t dead,’ the Doctor said vaguely.
‘He will be.’ Leela’s voice was flat with menace. ‘It is a pity his Monly creatures are destroyed. They would have known how to find him.’
The Doctor beamed. ‘Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?
Another good idea of yours, Leela.’ He set off towards one of the inactive alcoves.
Leela followed him. ‘What is?’
‘We’ll use a control bay to find the control bay,’ the Doctor said. ‘All we have to do is select here and specify that bay and when we have it identified either go directly to it or reselect it and operate it from where we are. It couldn’t be simpler.’
He went straight into the alcove and rested his hands on the ghostly flickering of the crystal-flecked wall. A sparkling wave of energy washed through all the surfaces and returned to the Doctor’s hands, where it faded and died away. Though his eyes were open and he could see the curved wall in front of him, the images of Kley, Rinandor, Pertanor, Fermindor and Belay stood out starkly behind the solid surface directly in front of him. Each one was life-size, each one was held in isolation, each one was simultaneously and separately in his eye line. He looked at his hands. ‘Well perhaps it could be slightly simpler.’ Focusing still seemed to be beyond him.
Perhaps, he thought, his understanding of the system was fundamentally a misunderstanding.
Behind the Doctor, Leela searched the wall for a particular pattern among the crystal flecks. She no longer questioned how she knew what to look for. It felt natural, as though it was something she had always known. When she found the right points, she placed her fingertips against them, and the links came alive so that she was able to see and be seen. ‘What do you want there to be?’ she asked the Doctor.
It bothered the Doctor that Leela was now at home and comfortable with the technology. It seemed more than possible that it was working on her constantly, intensifying the feedback whenever she came into contact with any of the control interfaces. He would have to get her away from it soon or she might never be free of it.
‘All the control bays in the chamber,’ he said. The effects of the separate but at the same time superimposed images the machine had given him were still in his mind and he went on, ‘All at once all alone.’
In the closed circle of the alcove, the two hundred or so other alcoves stretched away in a line that went nowhere, and had no length, and put no distance between first and last. In this array of single control bays, the one that held the key to Kley and the others was instantly obvious. ‘That one,’
the Doctor said, putting his hand on it.
Kley had tried opening her eyes, once, briefly. It was as she expected. She was dead. There was nothing. There was only the darkness. The whispering had stopped. The pain had stopped. The screaming had stopped. If she had been screaming. Had she been screaming? She couldn’t remember. If this was death it wasn’t so bad. It was the absence of everything, an infinity of absence, nothing for ever. It wasn’t so bad... Oh, but it was. She couldn’t bear the empty horror of it. She felt the scream gathering in the centre of her breathing. If she opened her eyes, she was lost. If she opened her mouth, she was lost.
‘Kley?’ the voice said. ‘Open your eyes.’
It didn’t sound like Monly.
‘Come on, Kley.’ the Doctor said. ‘Open your eyes.’
Kley opened her eyes. She was standing against the wall in a small brightly lit room. The Doctor was standing in front of her smiling.
‘Good,’ the Doctor said. ‘The way out is there.’ He pointed