Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [67]
He knew Benron and his father were not on the best of terms but was it possible that Nenron could have been some sort of threat to Leela? And would she recognise the threat if there were one?
„If he‟s done something to cause her problems,‟ Benron went on, „or put her in any sort of danger you can forget the New Way: I‟ll kill him.‟
„Leela can take care of herself,‟ the Doctor said, but the truth was he wasn‟t sure that she could. He knew she didn‟t really understand that she was a major celebrity, and the sort of clanger that might put her in. „Is there any indication in the runner where they might have gone?‟
Benron looked puzzled. „How do you mean?‟
„Distance travelled? Route still in the computer?‟
„You don‟t know much about runners do you?‟
„Not my area of expertise,‟ the Doctor agreed.
„If it‟s a legal unit everything blanks when you park up.
Unrecorded monitored movement: it‟s a basic freedom.‟
„And if it‟s not a legal unit?‟
„This one is,‟ Benron said. „My father only uses legal runners. His authorisations might not stand up to scrutiny sometimes but his runners always do.‟
„Are you saying he‟s a crook?‟ the Doctor asked.
Benron shrugged. „He‟ll do until one comes along.‟
„They spoke very highly of him at the Court of Attack lockup,‟ the Doctor said.
Benron shrugged again. „Lock-up administrators are not the brightest, and they‟re not even the brightest lock-up administrators.‟
„What would you normally do if you wanted to find your father?‟ the Doctor asked, and thought that without anything else to go on he would simply have to assume that Leela took the general advice of her fellow fighters and went to the spaceport to see if that was what Keefer had done. But he had already checked with the Aerospace Main authorities and if she had been there at all she certainly wasn‟t there now. So where did they go next?
„I wouldn‟t,‟ Benron was saying. „Normally I‟d be glad to see the back of him. This time I‟ve done everything I can think of and there‟s nothing. It‟s like he‟s fallen off the world.‟
Lift-off and the climb towards orbit was a harsh and howling horror, as rough as anything Keefer could have imagined.
The flight down had been smooth by comparison. The elderly freighter heaved and surged as it screamed upwards, piggybacked on its rattling jump-booster. In the pitch-darkness of the silo the brutal G forces crushed Keefer down into the lecea seed, squeezing and deforming the makeshift acceleration couch that he had scooped out of it for himself.
As the bracing moved, his spine was wracked and his joints were twisted and wrenched. He chest was squeezed, making breathing a relentless struggle to inflate his lungs. As consciousness collapsed the thought came to him that if this was what Finbar called a good choice, what in the names of all the gods would a bad choice have been like?
When weightlessness finally released him back to awareness and he sucked at a deep, shuddering breath he found himself abruptly enveloped in a gritty, suffocating cloud. Like him the individual grains of lecea had gone into free-fall. A fog of them filled his throat and he began to choke. He needed to get out of the silo quickly. He groped for the control remote. In the stinging blackness he fumbled with it. Suddenly it was gone. He tried to hold his breath as he searched around desperately. There was no sign of it. There was nothing, nothing except the thickening, suffocating lecea seed. He was close to panic now. It was impossible to fight his way out of this, there was no counterattack, there was no possible way to survive. He was dead.
He made a conscious effort and stopped moving. He struggled for the will to control himself. If he was going to die it wasn‟t going to be like this, hopelessly trapped and helplessly terrified.
Now he remembered the inhaler. This time he was careful.
After a couple of deep breaths he was calm and ready for the discipline that focused his senses. It took longer than normal but when he finished he had suppressed all but hearing and touch. Within the scraping whisper of the seeds