Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [9]
'an empty metal room.' She turned around and looked archly at him. 'This is Hirath?'
'Did I say this was Hirath?' The Doctor came and joined her in the doorway, breathing deeply. 'Not much air. I wonder where we are.'
'You don't know!' Sam's words were more an exclamation than an accusation, but the Doctor still reacted to the triumph in her voice.
'Oh, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam. I know where we are globally, just not exactly where locally, that's all.' He closed the TARDIS door.
Sam seemed amused by his cheek. "That's like being a kid on Earth lost in a supermarket but knowing he's in England.'
'We're on the moon.'
"The moon?' queried Sam in surprise.
'Sorry, I was forgetting. A moon. Of Hirath.'
'Nearest in or furthest out?'
"There's just the one. Mind you, the TARDIS instrumentation indicates that it used to be far, far closer but was nudged out of line some time ago.'
'By the same trauma that made the paddy fields?'
'I doubt it.Your moon is doing the same thing, you know. Its orbit takes it another few inches away every year.'
'Poor moon,' said Sam, without a great deal of sincerity.
The Doctor continued his little lecture. "This place is a long, long way out now. Hovering round the planet in geostationary orbit.'
'Only visible from a small area of the planet, then,' Sam added, casually, pleased with herself once again.
'If at all,' said the Doctor, running his finger down one of the walls and then tasting the end of it. 'Do you know, I don't know what you'd see in the sky on a planet with fractured time frame. I suppose it might vary. I've never been on one before.'
Sam gave in and asked the obvious. 'So why haven't we landed there, then? What are we doing in a metal coffin?' She was feeling a little dizzy, and put her hand to her head.
The Doctor's high forehead crumpled into concerned furrows. 'Oh, Sam, I'm sorry. First things first. There's not all that much air in here.'
'Stale, too.' Sam sniffed. There's not all that much of anything,' she added, looking around the empty room. It was like a cell.'Can't we hop back in the TARDIS and get some gas masks?'
'Peering through them, we might lose little clues such as these,' murmured the Doctor. 'Look.'
She joined him, squatting on the floor.'So? Scratches. Mice, probably. They get everywhere.'
'Deep scratches. In metal. I'd say somebody's moved a lot of equipment out of here at some point.'
'Or been a bit too enthusiastic with a Brillo pad.'
'Possibly, possibly.' The Doctor nodded absently.
Sam tutted. Her dizziness was getting worse.'Look, Doctor, if there's no fresh air, does this mean we're in a sealed-off area?' She considered.'Area of what, though? Where are we?'
The Doctor fished out his sonic screwdriver from his bottle-green, crushed-velvet frock coat and started to remove a panel. Sam hadn't even noticed it, it being flush to the wall and almost invisible. As he pulled out a tangle of wires and some expensive-looking crystals he talked. 'We're in an outpost on this moon. I don't know who built it but I certainly want to know why.'
'Why?'
' Precisely, yes, "why?"'
Sam rolled her eyes and wiped her clammy forehead. 'No. I mean why do you want to know why so badly? Shouldn't we be where the action is?'
The panel beeped noisily at him. 'I believe Hirath's interesting condition is being manipulated from here.'
Sam tried to concentrate. 'You used the temporal probe thing to tell you that?'
"The disturbance faded to just above omega from this very spot. No doubt about it, this is a controlling system of some kind. Ah!'
With a sudden loud whine, an opening appeared in the wall. Sam staggered forward and hung her head out of it, breathing the air noisily and gratefully. 'Good job whoever was here didn't come back and catch you knackering their lock. If they're strong enough to