Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [31]
She reached down and grasped the Doctor’s arm. He clambered up alongside her.
‘Most exhilarating. We must do that more often.’
‘Whatever you say, Professor. Where next?’
The Doctor shuffled along the top of the wall and peered in through a window.
‘Time for my talent to shine, I think.’ He tinkered with the catch on the frame, his hands a blur. There was soft click and the window slid up. The Doctor beamed. ‘Ladies first,’
Ace slipped through the opening landed in a corridor, quiet and deserted. The Doctor dropped down alongside her.
‘Odd.’ He frowned.
‘What?’ Ace whispered.
‘Too quiet.’
‘Perhaps because it’s three in the morning. Not everyone keeps the same hours as us, remember.
Nodding, the Doctor caught hold of her hand and the two of them crept forward.
Lukos sat in the darkened expanse of the studio gallery, his eyes fixed on the hundreds of screens. His heart was racing.
‘Come on, my dears, come on. The stage is set, everything is prepared. Let the drama commence.’
The Doctor and Ace crept through the shadows of a deserted corridor. Ahead of them was an imposing doorway with a huge 1 painted in red.
‘The main sound stage.’ The Doctor pulled a stethoscope out of his pocket and pressed it against the huge double doors.
He frowned.
‘Very odd.’
‘What now?’
‘Nothing. No sound at all. Rather strange for a busy studio complex, don’t you think?’
Ace was getting bored now. ‘Maybe it’s because they don’t like working late shifts. Come on Professor, you were wrong, that’s all. There’s nothing strange going on here. It’s just a studio, and not a very busy one either.’
The Doctor said nothing, merely reached out and pressed the door control.
With a deep, throaty rumble the huge doors slid open and he stepped inside.
Shaking her head, Ace followed him. The studio was dark and cavernous. She couldn’t see the Doctor anywhere.
‘Professor?’
Nothing. She peered into the gloom.
‘Doctor!’
With shocking suddenness the lights came on.
Despite herself, Ace was impressed. The studio was vast, the ceiling awash with thousands of lights. Camera and sound equipment littered the floor and an impressive jungle set stretched ahead of her.
The Doctor was peering into the foliage.
Ace crossed to his side.
‘All right, Professor. I’ll admit it’s a wicked studio, but what do we do now?’
The Doctor pointed into the jungle.
‘There’s something in there. I can feel it.’
‘But it’s a set.’ She pulled at one of the trees. ‘Plastic, fake.’
The Doctor tapped at his lips. ‘Nevertheless...’ Abruptly he set off. ‘Come along, Ace.’
Cursing under her breath she set off after him.
Gatti brought the spinner to a halt, the antigravity generators whining as they struggled to compensate for her clumsy driving. She wasn’t meant to be out in the spinner on her own
– she could barely drive it – but she knew that the Doctor and Ace were in danger, and her father’s spinner had been the fastest way of getting to them.
The screen on the dashboard had followed their progress into the studio and now as she watched it cut to another camera deep in the jungle. She peered out of the spinner window at the perimeter wall. Ace’s metal ladder glinted in the moonlight. Pitons and ropes stretched up the sheer wall.
Gatti shook her head.
‘Damn you, Ace, you should have told me.’
She shut off the engine and the spinner settled on to the tarmac. She was about to clamber out when a movement caught her eye. Several hunched shadows detached themselves from the forest and loped across the road. Gatti slid herself down in the seat as the creatures glanced over at her.
Then, with terrifying swiftness they swarmed up the ladder to the top of the wall and vanished from view.
Saarl appeared on the monitor screen again, along with a picture of one of the creatures.
‘Zzinbriizi jackals. Ferocious carnivores from the Ektron system. A fitting adversary for our champion of time and space...’
Gatti shut the screen off, her heart