Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [52]
'What's going on?' Possessed by a sudden rage, the Doctor started to tear at the planks with his bare hands.
Dust flew into Chris's eyes. The screams of the panicking Cousins echoed through the Hall. Again, he saw the darkness rising up the windows.
The Doctor dragged a plank to the floor. Then another. It was dark as night outside the windows of the Hall. He set his bottleopener to the latch. With a vum, it snapped apart.
Before he could pul open the window, it was slammed wide open by a smal avalanche of falling soil and rock. He choked, up to his knees in tumbling earth. 'What have you done to my House!'
A cloaked woman stepped out of the shadows almost beside him. Chris knew Innocet immediately. She was tall and had grown thin, but her gaunt face was stil proud. She wore a battered brown bonnet and seemed to carry a great weight on her back.
'It's what you have done!' she said.
She and the Doctor stared at each other in a long, long moment of mutual recognition.
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Chris, his eyes still smarting with dust, heard the creaks and groans of the long-neglected House. He heard hatred and rage stir in its timbers, but, stronger than that, he felt the surprise and contempt that passed silently between Innocet and the Doctor. And it mingled with the sorrow that came from a tremendous bond that had turned so sour.
'Innocet,' said the Doctor and he reached to take her hand.
She pulled back from him. Her hands were trembling.
'There's been.. . a kil ing,' she said, looking at Chris and Glospin. She pointed at one of the arches that led off the Hall. 'Through there. It's Arkhew. He's in the funguretum. He's been murdered.'
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Chapter Fourteen
The Keep
'How many dead?' said Romana.
Chancel or Theora sat at her office port amid the strewn aftermath of the outrage. 'One guard killed outright,' she said to the image of the President on the plasma screen. 'And one ordinal civilian sent for regeneration.'
'Are you all right, Theora?'
The Time Lady touched her hair where the celebrated arabesques were coming undone. 'A little shaken,' she admitted, but her decorum and authority were undiminished.
'The device came up in one of the service lifts. It was loaded on Under-Level fourteen, near the dry-dimension docks.'
'So it could have been sent by anyone.'
'The panoptic record for that level is unaccountably blank. The lift was programmed to stop at Level eighty-four.'
'But that's the Tharil Embassy!' exclaimed Romana. 'And only two floors below the Presidential suite.
'The guard there realized that something was wrong, but had no time other than to get the lift away.'
'So he sent the lift further up the tower?'
'He took the lift...'
Romana closed her eyes in despair.
'The lift bypassed the Presidential suite,' continued Theora. 'It reached as far as the summit observation suites on Level one hundred and sixteen. Fortunately they were empty at the time. The soft architecture absorbed most of the implosion. Security has confirmed it was a singularity bomb.'
'No,' Romana gasped. 'What about the Ambassador?'
'Neither Prince Ambassador Whitecub nor his retinue were in residence at the time.'
'Thank goodness. Put my personal guard at his disposal, Chancellor. The Tharils are valued allies.'
'Is that wise, Madam President? All the other Embassies wil expect similar treatment. I have already conveyed your personal concern to Prince Whitecub and had his security doubled.'
'Oh, very well. But we must honour the dead guard. For his Family's sake. Now what about the bomb?'
Theora fed a recording of the implosion into the warpcom unit. It displayed an image of the Citadel Tower rising above the sunlit cloud bank. There was a momentary flash of darkness near the summit. The Tower's shape warped inward and the light seemed to be sucked out of the sky. Then a black box of gravity cordons clamped into position around the edifice and light returned to the sky.
'There was no warning from the Matrix,' said Theora. 'And no one has claimed responsibility.'
Romana was staring in disbelief.