Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [40]
He swung the car round a sharp corner, misjudged it, and the back of the car slammed into the metal wall with a bone-jarring impact. Thrown to one side, his foot slid off the clutch pedal and the car stalled. Rubbing the back of his neck, he turned the ignition key, but a juddering warble as the engine turned over was the only response he got. 'Come on,' he muttered.
Blue Skirt swayed its head round the corner, and grinned malevolently at the sight of the frantic Doctor at the wheel.
'Come - ON!' he insisted, and the engine finally bit. Squealing away with the smell of burning rubber, the Doctor turned another corner and on to a straight. Another Kusk stepped out from an intersection directly in front of him. The Doctor braked on instinct, but it was too late. The huge biped smashed into the bonnet of the car. The windscreen went dark as the brown twists and nodules of the treacle-bark body slammed into the protective glass, then there were two painfully loud crashes. The next thing he knew he was looking at the body of the flailing Kusk on the metal floor in the rear-view mirror.
"Tut tut,' remarked the Doctor. 'Clearly never heard of SPLINK!'
The image of the Kusk clambering to its feet in the mirror receded as the car sped off once again.
***
Tanhith was back out in the desert.
He felt curiously calm, staring into the sky. The clouds were frozen in spite of the heat, and the sun sat like a fat bloody eye staring down at the settlement. He thought of Hirath's distant moon, punily stepping into the sun's shoes when the rich darkness of night descended over the landscape, looking so small against the backcloth of stars. He imagined how it must once have looked, huge, majestic and low in the sky before its orbit swept it away, softly and slowly over how many million million years, keeping watch over the troubled planet from so far away. He missed the moon. He missed the coolness of night, and the noise of the nocturnal birds calling to each other, the clattering of their wings in flight.
He coughed again, and rubbed his chest. The birds were still wheeling, but their actions were in real time, like his own. They weren't puppets enacting whatever time of their lives Hirath chose for them. They must know, he thought, they must know it's all going wrong and we're all going to die here.
Then he saw it. A pale flare at first, faint against the pinkness of the sky.
Then solidifying, coming into focus. Bright, like an arrow of flame in the sky.
A burning bird falling to earth...' he breathed, excited and scared at once.
He laughed, and it became a hacking cough, one he couldn't stop.
Then the world seemed to rock around him for a split second. He looked up, and the sun had shifted to the east, clouds had changed formation. And the burning bird, the arrow, was a spaceship, suddenly far closer. Dark and sleek, a bird of prey. It would land in front of the cliffs in the middle distance.
Tanhith recognised it and ran.
***
Felbaac was on the edge of the settlement, attempting to calm down the indignant Yast following their recent dismissal, when Tanhith came running up to them, red-faced, eyelashes hanging down wet with sweat. He coughed violently, spitting a few flecks of blood into the red earth.
Felbaac waited impatiently for the coughing fit to finish. 'What is it, Tanhith?'
"The K'Arme,' he panted. 'Ship just touching down. They've found us, come for us.'
'A big ship?' Felbaac's eyes were gleaming.