Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [13]
Run.
No, nowhere to go. Vasid knows this base as well as I do. I can't stay in my room for ever.
Send help signal.
That's in this room, somewhere in here, but in the dark. And Vasid's here.
She felt her way round the hard edges of the console, grazing the skin of her wrist as she found the corner and moved stealthily round until the bank of machinery was between her and her attacker.
And the door.
She looked behind her. The red lights were still bouncing around in the blackness as if in distress. What were they, anyway? She hadn't noticed red lights before. Vost was in charge of operationals - he was the only one who needed to know the real ins and outs of -
Ins and outs.
He thinks I've sent Vost down to Hirath. In pieces. Those red lights. The matter transmitter.
He's going to send me there. To Hirath.
Nothing moved in the black silence.
***
The steel grey of the corridors had given way to a dirty pink luminescence beyond the airlock. A beige sofa with a tiny back to it sat on squat legs on a white rug. A cream plastic chair and a similarly coloured plastic desk with an array of dials, LCDs, and switches built in took centre stage in the modestly sized room.
Tacky,' declared Sam.'Tacky and very nasty.'
"There's your sofa,' said the Doctor, blandly.
'But still no music,' said Sam, equally blandly, but turning away as she felt herself blushing. The Doctor started humming something operatic to himself, and Sam walked over to the rug. Artificial fibres. Nice one.
Someone seemed to have plonked a computer screen in the middle of the desk. Sam walked over and scrutinised the digitpad. 'Two steps up from your average PC keyboard by the look of it,' she said sniffily. But it seemed barely used, with no trace of grime on the ivory-coloured touchpads.
'Maybe that geezer just had a bad day at the office. Hard to imagine a good one, here.'
'TCC,' the Doctor read aloud. He gestured to Sam at the enormous legend inscribed on the wall facing the desk in huge, clean, modern letters. A strange-looking bird that could have been a dove loomed over the letters, wings stretching to either side of the room.
Tasteful logo,' said Sam, and nodded as if deeply impressed.
'Do you think so?' asked the Doctor with surprise.
Sam just glared at him, refusing to be taken in by his apparent misapprehension. 'What does TCC stand for?'
The Doctor abruptly turned and walked over to the desk. He started up the computer. Tee-Cee-Cee' blared out in a synthesised voice to a brief snatch of orchestral choir. 'Oh, very nice.' The Doctor nodded as if in appreciation.
'Do you think so?' asked Sam, drily.
The Doctor hummed the TCC theme to himself in the same operatic fashion, as a grandiose corporate home page faded up on to the digital screen.
'Aha!' cried the Doctor, leaning back in the chair and swinging his battered leather shoes on to the desk. TCC. Temporal Commercial Concerns. We've got time for you."'
'Catchy. Like it,' said Sam with a challenging smile, but this time there was no rejoinder. The Doctor's face had grown hard.
'I don't like the sound of this,' he muttered to himself.
A file seemed to be downloading on to the monitor, and he read aloud.
'Hirath is the choice for races everywhere with problems too large for their living space. Rent the safest house of all for depositing all your darkest secrets. Space is plenty and time has no meaning in a land barricaded by the most natural and effective barrier of all.'
'Go on,' said Sam, nodding encouragingly.
'Time!' snapped the Doctor, slamming down a hand on the array of switches and meters to his right.
Sam jumped as a loud hum permeated the room. An invisible join in the middle of the dove-bird revealed itself as almost the whole wall split in half, each half retreating away from the other, revealing a huge glass observation screen.
'"Where does it stop? Look for the sign of the lollipop",' muttered Sam under her breath as the Doctor moved round to join her in front of the starlit