Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [85]
Around him the Fleshsmiths were desperately trying to regain control.
The Master smiled. ‘Always one step ahead, Doctor.’
He crossed to the cryogenic tube. The body was all that w important now. To install it within his TARDIS and download his consciousness via the telepathic circuits. The Fleshsmiths and their machines had served their purpose. He no longer had any need of them.
He placed his hand on the glass of the cryogenic cocoon.
The face on the figure inside was pale and serene. A neat beard bordered the thin line of the mouth. It was like looking back through time, looking back to how he had once been. ‘A new body, at last.’
A drawn-out scream of pain made him spin round. The Fleshsmiths were doubled over, their scarred bodies twisting in agony. The fleshy pipes that linked them to their machines were swelling, distorting. As the Master watched the pipes burst, flooding the floor with thick black ichor.
The surgeon general staggered forward, his arms outstretched. His skin was drooping, sliding from his bones, his features were starting to liquefy. He gave a horrible gurgling cry. ‘Help us. You must disconnect the Doctor’s body from the machine.’
The Master started to back away in horror. The Fleshsmiths were dissolving, melting, their engineered flesh boiling away. The background throb of the machinery was drowned out by their screams.
The surgeon general reached out with skeletal hands. The Master lashed out, sending him tumbling backwards. Choking back his bile, the Master grasped the cryogenic cocoon. His face went pale.
‘No!’
Inside the cocoon his perfect new body was dissolving, bubbling, decaying as he watched.
‘NO!’
The Master scrabbled desperately for the cables linking the cocoon to the Fleshsmith machines. Fluid splattered over his hands, the flesh of his new body liquefying and splashing across the bloodstained floor.
‘You will die as surely as us, Time Lord.’ The surgeon general gave a bubbling cackle.
Eyes blazing with hatred the Master span round, bellowing over the noise of the explosions. ‘Damn you, Doctor!’ He reeled as more explosions shook the forge.
There was a bestial howl from the doorway and the Master turned to see Barrock looming in the doorway. But this was not the Barrock they had last seen. The jackal was hunched and twisted, claws scratching at the stone floor, drool splattering from his lips. His mouth twisted in agony, his brow was creased with the pain. ‘Slipping… away. All... going.’ He loped forward, eyes blazing. ‘Kill... you … for what you...
did.’
The Master backed away. The surgeon general tried to struggle to his feet but his limbs were soft, crumbling.
‘Barrock...’
The Zzinbriizi launched himself across the room, all the trappings of civilisation drained from him, destroyed as the Fleshsmith machinery burned. Razor claws slashed out and the surgeon general disintegrated into a tangle of decaying flesh.
The Master stared around in horror. The Fleshsmiths were gone. They were nothing more than a thick ooze lapping at his boots. He started to back out of the control gallery. There was a snarl from behind him. From out of the shadows the Zzinbriizi surrounded him.
A hand reached out and took the piton gun from Ace.
‘I think that I’ll hang on to that, if you don’t mind.’
Ace looked up through tear-stained eyes. Tired, dirty, his face ashen, the Doctor smiled down at her. Ace shook her head wearily.
‘Another trick? Another stage trick?’
The Doctor helped her to her feet, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘No Ace, no trick. Not this time.’
‘But you died. I saw you.’
‘A stunt double. A copy. A clone manufactured in the forge of the Fleshsmiths.’
Gatti ran over and Ace collapsed into her arms. The Doctor regarded the piton gun solemnly, then slipped it into his pocket. In a corner Trasker was sobbing silently, hunched over the broken body of Greg Ashby. Lukos was curled up, whimpering.
‘Your little bid for power is over, Mr Lukos, your allies will be dead by now.’
The Doctor’s voice was harsh. Lukos looked at him with frightened eyes.
‘What are