Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [19]
Anstaar found herself giggling. She'd never have imagined the process would tickle. Then it was as if her eyes were retreating down into her head, her neck, into her torso. She saw her insides, organs, soft translucent fibres. Skin, flesh, and sinew paring away, huge wounds opening up with no blood, no pain, just fading sight. Just her life, her body oozing away on this ticklish, this - no, not any more -
No feeling any more.
***
Sam couldn't believe it. The woman had just faded away bit by bit, her skin, her insides, then even the bones. There was a smell of something burning, like something left in an oven too long. She felt suddenly sick.
The man, too, was sniffing. He wiped the thick string of drool from his mouth and focused on her. 'Organic. It's not meant for living things. That must be why she stank us out like that.' He sniffed again, loudly, and giggled softly.
'Vasid, I take it.'
'Yeah, that's me.' He stared at her, his thick eyelids hanging down heavily in a suspicious squint.'How did you know?'
Sam clenched her fists.'She screamed it at you with what I'd guess was her last breath.'
Sam suddenly wondered what the hell she could do next. What had she barged in on? Was she jumping to conclusions?
Then Vasid growled and threw himself at her. Eyes wide in surprise at how quickly he could move, she went down under his sweaty bulk, winded.
Even gasping for enough breath to fight back, Sam found time to reflect ruefully that eight or nine times out of ten in this game, your first and worst suspicions were often proved right. If you didn't jump to conclusions, they'd save you the bother and jump first.
***
The Doctor scrutinised the area of wall behind which the TARDIS
presumably still stood. The tiniest of cracks in the metal alerted him to where the door was, and a few small dents to its left at eye level were all that remained of what was presumably once an entry coder. 'One way only,' mused the Time Lord. The TARDIS must've landed them in some part of the base sealed off long before, and now presumably forgotten about. There was no map here suggesting what lay beyond. Presumably the sonic screwdriver could help him gain entrance back to it, though.
Interesting. Just what had been cleared from that room further into the bowels of the forgotten area?
The Doctor twirled round on one heel. He was torn between going to the staff quarters, going to see if Sam was having any luck in the control room, and going to explore a likely room which might hold some records of the partitioned-off area. The staff may well prove to be as ignorant of this extra lebensraum as the map suggested. In which case, while Sam kept them busy with questions and probably violent alarm at her presence, he could nip along and surreptitiously look for a real record of what was going on.
Which would mean a trip to the Chief Monitor's office. Which if memory served...
The Doctor tossed a coin, stared at the result anxiously, and moved back down the way he had come. Then he froze, tossed the coin on to the floor and stalked off in the opposite direction.
***
In the Chief Monitor's office, a persistent beeping noise rang out from a small black plastic box buried in the bottom drawer of a nondescript plastic desk under a pile of diskettes. Had anyone been there to respond to the beeping and picked up the box, they would have seen scrolling red letters of liquid crystal swirling about the data screen on its flush black surface.
Something was trying to make contact.
***
'Get off me, you sick piece of -'
Vasid's thick fingers clamped over her mouth. 'It was you!' he snarled. 'All the time you made me think it was - it was her. Anstaar.You mode me send her down there -'
'Down where?' gasped Sam, breathing in as much air as she could, squirming against Vasid's sweaty bulk, nearly gagging at the stench of his body odour.'Hirath? You sent her to Hirath?'
'You made me send her,' squealed Vasid.'It was you.You!'
Sam struggled harder, then let herself go limp. Vasid looked