Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [87]
Gatti laid a hand on his arm. ‘Who you’ve already told us you couldn’t have saved.’
The Doctor smiled sadly. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier.’ He got up and stared out into the garden.
‘Your father seems to be having trouble with the flowerbeds.’
Gatti peered through the window. The incongruous shape of the TARDIS stood amongst the rose bushes. ‘It’s nice to see him doing anything at all.’
The Doctor put his coffee cup down and rolled up the sleeves of his jacket. ‘It’s going to be a while before Ace wakes tip, I’ll go and give him a hand. I’ve got quite green fingers, even if d say so myself.’
Vogol Lukos shuffled over to the lift and pressed the button.
The machinery whirred into life.
All around him the studio went about its everyday business. A tide of engineers had descended on the building, checking the transmitters, putting in new connections. There had been a steady stream of shuttles from the docks to the moon all day, repairing the transmitter tower.
All this meant nothing to Lukos. It wasn’t his company any more. Treeb had taken over. Voted in by the other members of the board of governors. An internal enquiry was due to take place in the next few days.
The lift arrived and Lukos stepped into it and was whisked to his office in moments. He stepped out into the silence. The room was dark. He waved his hand over the light sensor.
Nothing. Lukos frowned.
‘Auntie? Lights please.’
There was no reply from the computer. There was a soft chuckle from the darkness. ‘It would appear that even the computer doesn’t recognise your authority any more.’
Lukos squinted into the darkness. ‘Who is that?’
There was a dark shape behind the desk. ‘Treeb, is that you?’
Lukos crossed the office, his anger mounting. The man could take over his company, take over his studios, but this was his office and that was his desk.
‘This is outrageous.’
The lights came on with shocking suddenness. Lukos recoiled in surprise.
Behind the desk was the Master, leaning back in the chair, fingers steepled, a trace of a smile flickering behind his beard.
Lukos gripped the edge of the desk for support. ‘What do you want here?’ he whispered.
‘Me?’ The Master’s face was a mask of surprise. ‘Oh, I want nothing, Me Lukos, but my new friends decided they had one last duty to perform, a contractual obligation, and I wasn’t about to stand in their way.’
Lukos backed away. ‘Friends?’
‘Old friends of yours too, I believe, though they’re not as...
sophisticated as they used to be.’
Lean shadows detached themselves from the corners of the office, mangy loping shapes, their breath harsh and rasping.
‘Barrock? Barrock listen to me.’ Lukos’s voice was pleading. There was nothing in the face of the Zzinbriizi, nothing but pure animal hatred.
‘I’m afraid that they have nothing of the intelligence they once had,’ purred the Master, lifting a decanter from Lukos’s desk and sniffing at the contents. ‘It’s only by hypnotism that I have any power over them at all.’ He poured the wine into a glass. ‘But they do still have a strong memory.’
He poured the deep red wine into an elegant glass.
‘They seem to be angry with you, Me Lukos. Very angry.’
Lukos turned to run. In seconds the pack was on him. The Master’s lips curled back, revealing cruelly pointed teeth. He raised his wine glass.
‘Bon appetit.’
The Doctor knocked tentatively on Ace’s door, then pushed it open.
She was sitting at a writing desk, pasting photographs into an album. The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed. He reached across, taking one of the photographs. Him in London, during the Blitz.
Ace held up a photograph of herself from Iceworld. ‘It’s funny, Professor. I take these as a reminder, of a moment in time that will never come again, because time moves on. But when you see something of your own future, it still comes as a shock.’
‘Ace...’
‘I’ve seen my own death, Professor. Even more than seeing what happens to my mum, that frightens me. That I’m going to die before I see her