Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [4]
know. The special services.'
Anstaar turned and walked out without another word. She heard his voice.'And don't think I don't know it's you who's been mucking up the maintenance programs on the computer!' he yelled after her.'I know it's you!'
***
In the rec room, the lights flickered on, and then off.
Liquid flowed from the drinks machine, forming a huge dark puddle on the floor.
The bulk of Hirath sat resolutely in the dark of the observation bay.
***
'I'm losing control.'
Tanhith's voice was steady, betraying nothing of the panic that had gripped most of the crew. He looked away from his instruments and into Felbaac's dark eyes.
'And I'm losing patience.' The sound of the ship's engines was a grinding scream, and Felbaac found himself shouting to be heard.'Can't you compensate for the slippage?'
'Compensate?' Tanhith stared in disbelief.'How?' A jolt flung some of the ten-strong crew to the floor, and Tanhith turned back to the mad rush of flight data filling his screen.'It's like finding a needle in the dark.'
'We haven't come so far just to be stopped by this planet's freaked-up atmosphere.'
Tanhith smiled faintly. "That's very inspiring talk, but unless you can do a better job of flying this -'
Another huge lurch sent Felbaac and his men sprawling forward. Yast, Felbaac's right-hand man, was thrown against the back of Tanhith's flight chair. Tanhith heard the little man's voice in his ear, a low whisper over the screeching of the ship's helpless flight.
'Please... please get us down.'
A section of bulkhead above them flickered into flame.'You try shutting up, and I'll try my best,' muttered Tanhith, flicking switches seemingly at random.
Felbaac was studying a screen at the opposite end of the flight deck. The noise as they ripped their way through the time currents of Hirath was so loud now that he had to stagger back to talk to his men.
'The time framings are definitely out. The safe path's shifted.'
'Bad information,' twittered Yast.'I knew it.'
'It can't be.' Felbaac shook his head, then shook it more violently as a cluster of sparks flew from a thick power cable above him and threatened to set him alight. 'Get that under control!' He ducked out the way as two of the crew rushed over to deal with the overload.
Tanhith wiped a hand across his face and tried to stifle a coughing fit as a cloud of fumes began to fill the flight deck. 'Are the framings stabilised, or are they still shifting?'
'I don't know.'
Tanhith smiled. 'I might just get us out of this if we turn back now and take the same way out. I can't guarantee we'll get out the other side if we go on.'
A steady vibration had started to shake the ship. Felbaac leaned heavily against a bulkhead for support.
'Well?' asked Yast, his voice cracking.
***
After taking another hefty swig of narcomilk, Vasid spat on the floor.
'Drinking on duty's an offence,' he said, mimicking Anstaar's low and sensual voice very badly, then swigging down half the bottle in one go. He cursed. Where in the deity's pit was Vost? It was possible, of course, that he'd gone to the landing-pad reception area for something. Maybe something had come up there. No supply ships were due. The next ship on its way here would be the one carrying him back home to sweet civilisation.
And people would take him seriously this time. His hand flicked over the click pad. 'You're so smug,
Anstaar,' he snarled, looking through his narcomilk haze at her on the main screen - an image grab he had procured of her with his trusty old portacam.
She was so prissy that she never even went out of her room for water in the night without getting properly dressed. He'd been waiting for ever to capture the moment she slipped up.
He laughed, then coughed. She couldn't look at him like he was dirt when he could look at her like this. Unguarded. Unaware. The picture was unflattering. She was