Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [98]
Oh, dear God – there was someone in her cabin –
She reached backwards, her hand banging loudly against the dresser beside her bed. She wrenched open the drawer and rummaged frantically amongst her stockings.
Her fingers closed around something metallic. Her brother’s present. You’ll need a gun in America, he had said, jokingly.
‘Who’s there?’ she said tremulously, holding the gun out in front of her.
He stepped out of the shadows, literally out of the shadows, as though he were made from the same stuff as the air.
He was six feet tall. He had long white hair, tied up in a sort of crest decorated with a rainbow of feathers. His face was painted half black and half blue. He was naked – no, he was wearing a loincloth, and some sort of cloak. Gold glinted at his ears and on his lower lip. His teeth were white. His eyes were Blue.
Anna screamed and fired the gun. It kicked against her hand twice before she dropped it, her mind melting under the gaze of those inhuman eyes.
The bullets went straight through Huitzilin, and he threw his head back and laughed and laughed.
* * *
Cristián did not bother to knock.
‘Doctor?’ The cabin was brightly lit, making him squint after the dimness of the hallway.
The Time Lord was sitting on the floor with his back to the writing desk. There was a metal box lying next to the bed, the lid open, a faint radiance coming from inside. Cristián’s scalp and stomach tightened. The air was awash with Blue.
The Doctor was looking at the box as though it were a poisonous snake, as though he didn’t dare move in case he attracted its attention.
‘What is it?’ whispered Cristián.
‘Won’t you please close the lid of the box,’ said the Doctor.
‘But –’
‘Close it!’
Cristián slammed the metal lid shut, cutting off the light from inside. He caught a glimpse of the object it contained, a meaningless shape. It could have been anything. It could only be one thing.
‘The Xiuhcoatl,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ breathed the Doctor.
‘What is it?’
‘You can use it to fuse two molecules of hydrogen or you can turn a puddle into a nuclear bomb. You could hollow out a planet with it. You could write your name on a tree with it.’
‘I don’t think I understand.’
‘It’s one of the most powerful and precise weapons I have ever seen.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘How fortunate for the universe that the Exxilons were eaten by their own technology.’
‘This is what Huitzilin wants,’ said Cristián. ‘He wants the weapon.’
‘He used it once,’ said the Doctor. ‘Just once. He vaporized a mile‐wide stretch of forest. Four hundred people were hiding in the forest, soldiers coming to attack him. He never needed to use it again. The reputation was enough.’
‘And now he can’t use it,’ said Cristián, ‘because he’s not tangible. He can’t pick it up.’
Someone snapped their fingers inside Cristián’s head. He put his hands over his ears. The Doctor twisted and howled, the howl turning into a terrible laugh as he slid down the desk to the floor. He giggled into the carpet.
Cristián sat down shakily on the bed. ‘Anna,’ he said. ‘Oh God. God God God.’
‘It’s what he brought me here for,’ muttered the Doctor into the carpet. ‘What I brought him here for. I want the book. He wants the weapon. The only way to get them both is to come back here, to this disaster.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Can you carry that for me?’
Cristián looked at the towel on the bed next to him, lifted it to see the folded book.
‘I’ll carry you if I have to,’ he said.
* * *
11.40 pm
Frederick Fleet looks out over the ocean.
Frederick Fleet sees something black. He thinks it is something small.
Frederick Fleet watches as the small black something grows larger and larger and larger.
Frederick Fleet rings the crow’s‐nest bell three times and picks up the bridge phone.
‘What did you see?’ the phone wants to know.
Frederick Fleet says, ‘Iceberg right ahead.’
‘Thank you,’ says the phone.
Thirty‐seven seconds pass.
‘Did you feel that?’ says the Doctor. He is leaning against the hallway wall, eyes closed.
Cristián, holding the book, shakes