Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [98]
Except . . .
Except that elements of different technologies were apparent. In places the veined network covering the walls had been supplemented with fibre-optics, corrugated quark runs and even interstat wave tubes with their distinctive cryogenic sheathing. Areas of the rounded ceiling had been reinforced with metal plates, and some of the bonelike ceiling supports had been replaced with a mixture of simple metal I-beams, intricate Gothic buttresses and plasticrete spars.
Even the few other craft scattered around the hangar were of wildly differ-ing design. A sleek fighter with hyperspace capability sat next to a battered old garbage scow whose engines were of almost outmoded P-shift design; two guppy-like cargo craft with bulging stomachs had been parked side by side, but the hydrogen baffles of one of them had been replaced with a quantum engine designed by a different race for a different class of ship. There was even a long, viper-like Sess-chaser over by the wall. The entire place looked as if it had been assembled with loving care from the bric-a-brac of a thousand interstellar jumble sales.
167
Behind the Doctor, Professor Zebulon Pryce emerged, stark naked, from the Imperial naval shuttle. Pryce paused for a moment, and glanced towards the far end of the hangar – the end through which the shuttle had been dragged.
The Doctor followed his gaze, and gulped in alarm. The gap had been sealed by a force field that strobed alarmingly, and the pressure of the air in the hangar was causing it to bulge out into space. Around the lip of the gap, the protrusions of the gravitational beam generator stuck outwards. It was like being inside a gigantic mouth.
Glancing down at the Doctor, Pryce’s lips twitched slightly, but he said nothing.
‘Hardly the cutting edge of astro-engineering, is it?’ the Doctor said.
Pryce looked as if he might have responded, but he suddenly stumbled forward as Provost-Major Beltempest prodded him from behind with the barrel of a screamer rifle.
‘I still say we should have stayed in the ship,’ Beltempest growled, glancing round the empty interior.
‘To what end?’ the Doctor asked. ‘If they could locate us in hyperspace, drag us into the real universe and then reel us in with a gravity beam like a gumblejack on the end of a piece of twine, I don’t suppose a couple of layers of adamantium would keep them out.’ He glanced around again. ‘Whoever they are.’
‘An interesting mix of cultures,’ Pryce said from beside the Doctor. The Doctor jumped. He hadn’t noticed that the professor had got that close. ‘I count fifteen disparate technologies in this room alone, although biological systems predominate. Do you concur?’
‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ the Doctor bluffed.
Beltempest suddenly cried out and dropped his screamer. The barrel was glowing red-hot. Bending, he tried to pick it up, but couldn’t. A pocket on his space suit abruptly burst into flame. Fumbling, he managed to prise a small blaster out and let it fall to join the screamer, whose barrel was now nothing more than a puddle of molten metal. He turned and made to dash back into the shuttle, but the door slid shut in his face.
‘Come out,’ he shouted, blowing on his burned hands. ‘Come on out and show yourselves, if you dare.’
Pryce glanced back at him. ‘I would advise caution where our friend Beltempest is concerned,’ he said quietly. ‘He is not who he appears.’
‘So you said back on Dis, but how can you tell? You last saw him years ago, and he’s been through a body-bepple since then.’
Pryce shook his head. His white pony-tail waved gently behind him. ‘No,’
he said firmly. ‘He is not the Provost-Major Beltempest I remember.’
168
‘He certainly remembers you,’ the