Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [85]
They scared her to death.
'All right, Nashaad, this time you've got to get us out of here,' said the Doctor, patting him encouragingly on the shoulder with a broad smile.
'I can do that! I can do that!' whooped Nashaad, starting to bounce up and down in delight.
'Not now!' urged Anstaar.'In a moment.' She squeezed his hand and saw him blush. She let go, embarrassed.
'You go first, I think, Anstaar.' The Doctor spoke over his shoulder, watching as the last of the Kusks moved into position at the other side of the arena.
Anstaar wrapped her arms round Nashaad's neck and held her legs round his waist. The little man tottered slightly, then bent his legs. She wondered if he had hinges rather than knees under his tattered trousers, then suddenly her stomach was in her throat, her greying hair was tight against her face. Then she was grimly scrambling for a handhold as Nashaad hit the side of the wall some way from the top. She heard the Doctor's voice floating up, warning them to be careful.
She pulled at a handful of vegetation, and shrieked in alarm as it came away from the spongy cliff face, but Nashaad had a strong grip on the rock, and by climbing up him and standing on his shoulders, she could just reach up to the lip. He reached up a hand and she trod on his upturned palm to lever herself up the last few inches. Scrabbling in the dirt, she was seized by a sudden panic-fuelled desperation, and she hauled herself up, working muscles she barely knew she had, digging in with her knees, her feet, anything to get herself over the edge. I can't be that infirm, she thought with a measure of relief.
When she finally reached safe ground she caught a crazy sideways glimpse of the three sinister figures watching her in the distance with their hideous eyes. With a short involuntary cry she rolled over and away from the edge. Nashaad clambered up behind her, clearly hoping for some kind of praise. Anstaar offered him a weak smile and it seemed to suffice.
It was a weird sight, the Doctor all alone in the arena, wreathed in mist under the setting sun, with the charred black of the crater around the circular probe almost like a huge Kusk eye staring back at her. The three dark shapes were standing the other side of the rim, watching him. She could see defiance in the Doctor's face even from here. He wasn't scared, not even in this predicament. She shook her head in a kind of silent wonder.
Nashaad walked up the edge of the rim, but the Doctor seemed to sense his movement. He spun round, his voice ringing out, 'No, Nashaad, stay there. You'll never take the weight of me and all this.' He shook his coat at Nashaad.'Look after Anstaar.' Anstaar moved forward to protest, but the Doctor immediately went on, 'And Anstaar, you look after Nashaad.'
Nashaad turned to Anstaar, confused.'Who looks after him?'
'I was wondering that myself,' she replied, her eyes fixed on his small shape in the rocky basin.
'Hey!'yelled the Doctor.'Does your elementary Kusk boy-scout kit include some kind of climbing equipment?'
***
The creatures were ripping through the crowd of desperate men. Yast couldn't run any more. When he'd seen the hideous creatures lurching towards them over the rise, it had been almost a moment of release. The fear, the pain, it all seemed to melt away. He stood there as the crowd dissolved in panic around him, their cries and shouts echoing away in his head. There was just silence, silence and the huge brute heads of the alien creatures bobbing towards him at the top of the burnt, brown, gristly bodies.
It seemed so ridiculous, so stupid, to have survived all he had just to face death in this form in this ridiculous place. So he sat down heavily on the ramp of the ship and looked at his foot and laughed giddily among the dusty bones and carcasses they'd pulled out from inside.
'Get out of the way!' Someone was trying to hobble past him, pushing at him.
'You're blocking the doorway! Quickly, man!' Felbaac's voice.Yast