Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [130]
'My bike,' said Dorothée.
Leela grabbed her. 'You can't go back.'
Chris and Innocet emerged from the hole. 'The whole place is falling apart,' he said.
Dorothée ran a little way in. 'Where's the Doctor?'
'He said he'd fol ow.'
'Like hell, Chris!'
A tremor rocked the mountain. Soil cascaded from the roof of the hole. The ground cracked under them.
Chris tugged at Dorothee. 'We have to get clear.'
Two more figures appeared, both covered in dust.
'The House is moving,' said Ferain.
Romana yelled, 'Get everyone down the mountain. Run!'
There was a chorus of squeaking and chirruping as a bat-cloud of fledershrews corkscrewed out of the rent into the sky. Across the ground ran a river of tiny rodents.
Owis stood laughing, until Leela dragged him away.
As the panicking refugees began to slip and slide down through the wild orchard, Chris ran back into the hole.
The mountainside split open with a terrible roar.
Out of the ground, earth and rocks cascading like water off its turrets, chimneys and curving roofs, emerged the long-buried House of Lungbarrow.
211
The fresh convulsions knocked the Doctor off his feet. He crouched by the side of the Loom plinth, watching the power feed into the little data extractor Romana had given him.
Something shattered the glass coffin above him and a skeletal arm clattered down.
He looked up. Quences's Ghost was standing over him. 'Lord President, eh?' said the old man. 'Did you like the taste of power?'
More masonry crashed down close by.
'"Like" is a subjective word,' said the Doctor, shaking dust off his hat. 'I like the tick of a clock and the sound of a flute. The song of a rinchin in the fields at harvest. Working things out for myself. I like other people's ideas.
Peace, tranquil ity. And a nice cup of tea.'
The House shook and daylight appeared at the top of the unboarded window.
***
From a window on a higher floor, Chris watched the land grinding past.
The whole estate, as far as he could see through the swaying, silver trees, was slowly undulating as waves rippled out from the House.
The great building moved forward. Soil dashed against its wings and annexes as it ploughed slowly across the escarpment.
Ahead, the ground fell away sharply.
The gigantic edifice was heading towards a cliff.
***
The Drudge reared above the Doctor.
With his head inside the Loom plinth, he was only vaguely aware of Badger's roar and the fight that raged across the Hal .
'Who are you?' demanded Quences's Ghost. 'Who do you think you are, turning down the power I gave you?'
The Doctor ignored the old phantom. He felt the genetic weft of the Loom matrix closing round him. Back to the womb, before the womb. Loom and House - all the same really.
'You know me, don't you?' he told it and climbed further into its maternal warmth. 'Think back. Back to your beginning.'
The House's shudders were mixed with Badger's roar and the grating shriek of the Drudge as they plunged into a crack in the floor.
'Yes. You remember me. When you were a seedling. So long ago. When you were a seed. When you were just an insubstantial idea.'
' LUNGBARROW! ' roared the House.
'Remember your creator.'
The slightest moment of hesitation or recognition. Then the House screamed.
212
'Now you are Lungbarrow too,' said the Ghost. 'The Family is the House. You are the House.'
'Ghosts can't hurt me.'
'I can take your soul.'
The apparition reached into the Doctor's chest and tore at his life.
The genetic weft tangled into the very cells of his Loomed body and started to strangle him.
What did it matter now? He'd been expecting the end. He should stay. A Family - that's what he'd wanted. A Family and a home. Somewhere to settle at last.
No future.
Eighth Man Bound.
'WHO ARE YOU?' demanded the House/demanded the Ghost. 'WHAT ARE YOU?'
The Doctor screamed.
Hands pulled at his shaking shoulders, dragging him out of his new womb.
In a fright of rebirth, he snatched out and clung to his rescuer. 'I don't want to know. I don't want to know!'
'It's al