Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [106]
The voices were whispering to Jobiska.
She was fretting. 'Why don't they listen? No one listens.'
Come home then, they insisted.
'It's time then,' she said.
Yes.
She sighed and smiled. 'Time to go home at last.'
***
Always voices, thought Chris. Wherever I go, it's always someone else's voice in my head. Yemaya and Yemaya and Yemaya creeps on this petty pace from day to day.
Maybe I'm bored with travel ing. Maybe it's time to stay in nights with a trashvid or just my thoughts, not other people's second-hand, shop-soiled, cast-offs. Let's go home and see the folks. Let's have a party and a singsong round the old joanna. (We don't have an old joanna. What is an old joanna?) Never mind, here comes that song again. Altogether now:
Eighth Man Bound
Make no sound...
***
'Cast out.' Satthralope sat in her place at the head of the table, turning the keys on her ring in a steady clicking motion. 'The poor, poor House.'
'The House buried us,' said Glospin. 'We had five days. I would have set things right as my first duty as Kithriarch.
But the House had to interfere.'
'No, it is not true. We are cast out.'
'Where are the rest of the Family?' said Redred. 'And where's the imposter who took the edict?'
'All dead,' said Satthralope, staring blankly ahead.
'Dead? How can they be dead?'
'No, not dead,' insisted Innocet. 'Just gone away.'
'Dead of shame,' said Satthralope.
The Doctor, slipping in beside her: 'If they were dead, the House would have replaced them.'
'You are dead,' she said, turning her keys.
165
'Now you see me, now you don't,' he agreed.
'Wishful thinking,' said Glospin.
Satthralope struck out wildly. 'Soon Quences and I shal be the only ones alive.'
'I want to get out of this insane house!' shouted Redred. Everyone shushed him.
There was a retching sound from across the table. Owis was being sick.
'Idiot,' said Glospin. 'Only you could eat your own poisoned food!'
'All dead soon,' muttered the Housekeeper. 'Then who will see to the House?'
The Doctor slammed his fist on the table and marched into the centre of the Hal .
'All right! What do you want me to do? Apologize to the House? Then I apologize! I'm sorry! Obviously I should have found a more suitable Family. Tell the House that it can exact whatever revenge it wants. Swallow me up or drop timbers on my head if it likes, but that won't change anything! I'm still me! Stil its child!'
The TARDIS dropped from the web above like a stone.
The Doctor tumbled clear as the police box hit the flagstones with a splintering crash.
A flurry of frightened fledershrews winged around the Hal .
The Doctor smiled. 'I got it down,' he said in quiet triumph.
***
'Whose TARDIS is this?' demanded Redred.
'The Doctor's,' said Innocet.
'Come back,' shouted Satthralope. 'No one was granted permission to leave the table.'
Both Rynde and Glospin were already perusing the overturned ship. It seemed unharmed by its fall, but the cracked flags beneath it were knocked into a crater.
The Doctor and Chris watched them from a distance.
Innocet heard the young man mutter, 'They can't get in, can they?'
'It's fallen door-side down,' said the Doctor. 'As long as you remembered to lock up.'
'Um,' said Chris.
She ran her hand across the ship's weathered blue surface. It was trembling slightly, betraying the enormous potential of the TT engines locked inside. Dust and grit had col ected on the ridges and panels. Strange colours.
Scratches and burns and something that looked like claw marks.
How dare he! Her Cousin, who brazenly challenged the House and got his own way too. Had these powers always been in him? Always kept in eclipse? Who was he, who kept company with aliens and forces from the Time of Chaos? Was Glospin right? Where had he been while they, his own Family, were condemned to the dark? Or was he the dark himself?
The chorus in her head was no longer unified. It had become a rabble of cries. She had striven