Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [94]
'You stupid freak bitch; exclaimed Crichter. 'I knew you were trouble right from -'
'That's enough out of you,' said Tanhith, quietly. 'Keep quiet. Those things will be looking for us now you've screamed the place down.' He seemed resigned to the fact.
'You'd have done the same -' Crichter began, but Sam shushed him again.
'I can hear footsteps,' she whispered.
Through a crack in the door, she could see one of the two creatures standing in the hot dusty street, about a hundred metres away. Its huge dark party-balloon head was swinging through the air from side to side, as if scenting them. Sam was reminded of the giant in the story.'Fe... fi... fo...
fum,' she whispered to herself. Then her heart jumped. 'One of them's heading straight for us.'
***
Felbaac had discovered that Mortayne was familiar with the principles of take-off. 'Once we're in the air, I can take over. The computer will do most of it - it's a programmed flight path back to civilisation,' he'd said. 'Just get us off and out of here.'
He stood brooding as the crotchety little man and his dour companion pored over the aged and cracked controls. He'd checked the computer. It seemed fine. Good - something was going right.When he got away from here he would lie low for a while. He could take the credit for destroying Sangton -surely the old bastard would be dead by now. Yast would help.
They could rest up. Regroup. No real rush. His fame would be all the greater for its longevity against the forces of evil and oppression.
There was a sympathetic outpost that would give them supplies just a few days' flight away. It would be tough but he'd endured worse.
'You'd better get thinking about how to explain this mess to the outpost in a way that's favourable to us,' he growled to Yast.
'I don't want to think about it,' said Yast. simply, his expression vacant.'I don't want to think about anything.'
'Very useful.' Felbaac kicked a wall. To his annoyance, the toe of his boot went straight through a patch of rust and got stuck there for a moment. He hopped back until he managed to extricate it, then looked to see if Yast was laughing at him. He wasn't. He was still just staring into space. 'You're pathetic,Yast.' There was no response.
Felbaac decided to persecute his new crew a little, to show them who was boss.'Haven't you fixed it yet?'
A low rumble came from the ship's engines, and Furstican looked up at him with the same dour expression.'I think we have.'
Felbaac clapped his hands. 'Time to leave, then.' He pulled Mortayne away from the controls. Perhaps he would train himself up as a proper pilot in the hiatus to come. Save having to rely on halfwits and incompetents quite so much.
He fed the data into the computer carefully and precisely, and breathed a deep sigh of relief as the ship took off a little shakily from the planet surface. Cool air began to fill his lungs as the ship operated its artificial atmosphere, and it was paradise. No, he decided, there was nothing wrong with his ship. Some random ageing had occurred, just as on the way down.
What had happened to the cargo was a freak effect. Things would be fine.
Soon they reached the upper atmosphere. When the buffeting started, Felbaac's confidence was still absolute. It was only a few moments later, when the parched skeleton that had been Mortayne seconds earlier slumped and broke over his back, that he began to panic.
***
'Get out of the way,' muttered Tanhith, pushing Sam's frightened face from between him and the door. Wincing at the effort, he grabbed hold of Fettal by the scruff of her neck and pulled her up from the pile of dead weeds.
Semiconscious, she barely noticed. Crichter realised what Tanhith was planning, and he, too, pushed Sam aside in silence to help the struggling man.
Sam stood horrified but not daring to speak as the door was flung noisily open by Crichter, and Tanhith used his foot to propel