Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [83]
'Including my pilot,' said Felbaac coldly.'So what's going on, old man? What in hell's name happened in there?'
Crichter spoke up. 'Wait a minute, Felbaac, why don't you tell us just what's going on?'
'Seems to me you can't do anything without messing it up,' said another voice in the crowd.
Sam lowered the poor old man's head to the floor and got up, a thin smile on her face. 'They've got a point, Felbaac, don't you think?'
'Shut up, you freak,' yelled another voice. Sam turned to answer back, then assessed the mood of the crowd and decided maybe that wasn't such a good idea.
'But this wasn't my doing!' implored Felbaac.
Sam thought he was about to burst into tears.
Yast turned to him. "The safe path. It must've been wrong. You can see the state of our ship as well as I can.'
'Impossible,' said Felbaac in a low voice. 'Those were the K'Arme coordinates. You think they'd risk the life of a Most High Commissioner of the House?'
This whole planet's going wrong,' shouted Sam, suddenly. 'Look at the sun.
Tune's done a bunk, and it must've taken your ship with it.'
Felbaac glared angrily at his hecklers and turned to Yast. 'Have you got the medijab? Tanhith's the best pilot here. He'll have to fly us out.'
'All right,' said Yast, quietly, his face still pale.
'You're not serious,' said Sam, outraged.'He can barely walk. How's he going to fly?'
'We said "shut it", you freak!'cried an unpleasant voice from the crowd.
Sam spun about and saw hard, angry eyes staring at her. 'Just trying to help,' she ventured, in what she hoped was a placating manner.'Surely you can see he's crazy -'
'Crazy to want to help us? Is that what you think?' came another voice.
Sam lost patience. 'Oh, for God's sake, grow up. You think that thing's going to get you out of here?' She pointed at the blistered hulk of the ship, backing away up the rise as some of the men began to advance. She saw Yast administer a weird kind of injection to Tanhith, saw Tanhith's body writhe as a result. Heard Felbaac telling some of the nearby men to empty the hold of all the old people and the bodies. She realised she was already forgotten by Felbaac, by the bulk of the crowd. Only these few limping along towards her seemed to care about her presence at all, and as far as they were concerned, she'd brought these terrible changes about. Sam realised she'd finally pushed her luck with them too far.
As she reached the top of the rise, she turned about, ready to outrun them -
then froze. Her bruised jaw dropped in disbelief.
There were two of them, walking steadily towards her, heading for the rise.
Easily eight foot tall, each was big, brown and glutinous - like giant Mars Bars squeezed and welded into nightmarish sculptures. Huge eyes caught the sun, but the massive mouth on each of them took her attention, sharp bony teeth sunk into dark gums. They were holding guns in delicate six-fingered hands, and pointing them straight at her.
If she'd been given to screaming, Sam would've done so then. As it was, the men advancing on her were more than willing to scream on her behalf as they hopped, limped and staggered back down the rise to get away.
Sam followed them.
***
'Nashaad,' whispered Anstaar,'I'm going to have to ask you to do something very dangerous.'
'I've got metal legs,' whispered Nashaad back to her, uncertainly.
'I know,' said Anstaar, smiling,'and they're very special.' He smiled at her, and she felt a twinge of guilt.'How fast can you bounce about on your metal legs, Nashaad?' she asked, slowly, not meeting his shy, confused gaze.
Behind him she could see the Kusk was cautiously moving round into position.
'Fast. Really fast. Really, really fast.' He touched her arm.'Shall I show you?'
She looked at the ground, smiling sadly. 'Yes, show me. But go the fastest you've ever gone, all right? You're not allowed to