Doctor Who_ Longest Day - Michael Collier [96]
'Further power fluctuations observed, Leader,' came the technician's terse report.
'Patch in the extra power you diverted to tracking the engineer,' said the Leader pointedly. 'Our power must last,' it stated, with finality.
The matter-transmitter platform suddenly hummed and the opaque glow swirled above it. It took the Leader no more than a couple of seconds to respond to the sight of the Doctor forming before his huge eyes.
'Seize it and kill!' he bawled in his gravelly monotone.
Several Kusks moved eagerly to obey.
Chapter 12
Getting out of Hand
'Wait!' cried the Doctor, brandishing the precious circuitry from the probe as if he were holding a crucifix and warding off vampires.
'Wait!' warned the Leader to his troops in turn. The Kusks froze.
The Doctor's voice rang out through the fetid air in the control chamber.'I've rigged a destruct mechanism into these circuits. If you kill me I can't deactivate them and your precious prize will be lost for ever.' He smiled.
'I'm the Doctor, by the way. How do you do?'
***
Felbaac threw off the skeleton and ran to where Furstican was leaning against the monitor screen. Hirath's atmosphere splashed up against the vidscreen, violent reds clashing with purples and yellows in an insane kaleidoscope of colour. The ship was vibrating so much that he thought it would pull itself apart.
'Are you all right?' yelled Felbaac, grabbing the man by his shoulders.
To his horror, he realised that his own hand was blurring, smearing between old age and infancy, first skeletal, then full, fat and fleshy.
He screamed. Furstican was staring at him in horror. 'Your face!' the man exclaimed.
'How can this be?' mumbled Felbaac, feeling his skin loosen around his bones.
The swirl on the screen darkened and the buffeting got worse. Furstican slid heavily to the floor, his eyes shrinking in their sockets as old age seized him too and swung him around and around in the maelstrom of colour.
***
'So tell me,' said the Doctor. 'Why go to these lengths? Whatever's happened to you in the past, why choose this path?'
'We did not choose that our planet should become caught in war between alien powers,' stormed the Leader. 'The aftermath of war shaped our path.'
'We are few,' interrupted the technician. 'Our race hangs in the balance. We must grow stronger in order to defend ourselves.'
'Be silent,' insisted the Leader. 'You would have this humanoid think us weak?'
The Doctor looked up fearlessly at the sharp teeth of the Leader. 'How could I think anything else? Look at you.' He paused, and moved angrily forward towards the Leader, apparently oblivious to the snapping teeth and keen, hungry stare of those Kusks about him. 'So desperate to learn the secrets your probe has stolen for you. Ready to hinge your invasion plans on a natural disaster, a disarmament treaty, anything, ready to gobble up anything at any time that's incapable of offering strong resistance. To take away the choice from other races just as it was taken from you.'
'We cannot afford this diversion, Leader,' announced the technician, rising from its kneeling position on the sticky brown floor. 'We need the datacore.'
It walked heavily towards the Doctor.
'Reconsider,' begged the Doctor, backing away. 'Your programming powers must be quite phenomenally ingenious to bring even temporary stability to the forces unleashed by that probe's travel mechanism. You can still use it to take another path. Build defences, protect yourselves. Don't enslave others.'
'Strength is protection,' stated the Leader.
The technician kept up its slow advance.
'Wait!' cried the Doctor. 'I travel through time and space, I have knowledge, I'll help you.' The Doctor was speaking so quickly his words were a blur. 'I'll help you if you help me let the people stranded down there escape.'
'Irrelevant,' rumbled the Leader. 'Hirath's surface is on the verge of becoming inimical to