Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [34]
Jomdek raised an eyebrow. 'There are higher authorities than the Chancellor and her Castellan,' he said.
'When Andred learns of this, he will have you stripped of your rank and publicly dishonoured.'
'As long as he isn't found guilty too,' said Jomdek. 'Bring the alien,' he instructed the guards and walked out of the office.
The guards looked at Leela and then at each other. She looked down at the lifeless K9.
'Follow,' she snapped at the guards and walked out with them trailing behind.
***
Chris Cwej forced open his eyes and stared woozily at the dark overhead. The air was close and stale. The floor was hard under him. Hard enough to make him think that he might be awake for once. Or was he just lurching from one nightmare to another? No change there, asleep or awake. Maybe his life was a string of bad dreams. A string that someone was pulling tighter so that the dreams were bunching up - no telling one from the next. A string on which to walk the high wire.
Whoa, thought Chris. We're getting dangerously philosophical here.
There was something soft under his head that tickled. He sat up and found that it was the Doctor's pul over, neatly folded into a pil ow.
No sign of the Doctor himself.
Chris's skin itched. He looked down at his clothes. He was covered in dust. He sneezed loudly and heard something squeak and scuttle behind him.
A small occasional table, startled by the sneeze, had frozen in mid-perambulation. It swayed towards him a little as if it was curious. Chris sneezed again and the table scuttled for cover in the dark on its spindly legs.
'Damn,' muttered Chris. 'Still here.' He scratched his bare arms, trying to shift the gritty dust. Sometimes it wasn't worth having a bath.
If this was Gallifrey, he wasn't impressed. The place had gone to seed long ago. Six hundred and seventy-three years ago to be exact. Or so he had been told.
Nearby was the eye-shaped mirror hung with shreds of torn web. The Doctor's oil lamp sat high on another table.
Next to it, on the surface of the table, the words CHRIS - STAY PUT - DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING had been written neatly in the dust.
Chris lifted the lamp and tried to make out the TARDIS by the guttering flame, but the police box was nowhere to be seen in the gloom.
'Doctor?' he called in a stage whisper, cautious of what he might disturb, He edged between the massive furniture, afraid it might take a dislike to him and crush him between its angular fitments.
48
He reached the edge of a small clearing in the bric-a-brac where the shadows were particularly reluctant to disperse. He could just make out a stack of frames at the far side which he did not recognize. So where the hell was the TARDIS?
Somewhere on Extans Superior, there was a rose coral beach where a hover-hammock was floating by an antigrav tray on which sat two skyscraper glasses of a drink like the indigo moonrise on Oebaqul Xo. That's what the brochure said. His name was already on the lime slice in one glass. The other glass was reserved for someone he hadn't met just yet. The hammock, swaying deliciously, was big enough for two.
But, Goddess Almighty, the Doctor had gone without him.
Chris stepped forward and his foot kept going. As he toppled into the dark, he dropped the lamp and lunged sideways. His arm caught on a heavy chair and he scrambled to claw a grip on its smooth hide upholstery.
The lamp shattered in the dark wel somewhere far below.
The chair, creakily protesting, dragged itself away, pulling Chris up out of the hole as it went. He lay on the edge of the chasm, gasping back his breath. His knee was wet, cut on jagged wood.
He was in total darkness. He was alone. Despite al the soul-searching and inner harmonizing of Doa-no-nai-heya Monastery, he really missed Roz. They'd told him he would.
He dared not move. If the TARDIS had real y fallen through the creaky floor, had the Doctor been inside? Or had