Doctor Who_ Psi-Ence Fiction - Chris Boucher [37]
It was as she expected. She found the Doctor's heavy, careless footprints easily enough, the less obvious marks of her own progress beside them.
She scanned the ground carefully. There was no sign that anything had been following their spoor here at this point. Satisfied that she could tell exactly where their line of march had been, she circled away from it and headed for the TARDIS from the opposite side. She knew it was unlikely that whatever these predators were they would target the Doctor and her by lying in ambush along the already trodden trail. But there was a remote chance that they might. The chance of death is never remote, the chance of survival always is. Why had she been taught that? That was so completely useless: it could not be called a rule. Why would she remember it? She wondered. She drew her knife and shifted her weight slightly forward on to the balls of her feet. Fight or run, she must be ready for either if she was going to survive.
Carefully she approached the small hollow where she knew the TARDIS
was standing. It was screened by stunted trees which the Doctor had said were scrub oaks. He had been so positive about it that Leela doubted whether he had any idea what the bushy vegetation was actually called. All he was certain of was her ignorance, and as usual he took advantage of that to pretend to be vastly knowledgeable. He was a typical shaman in that way, as in so many other ways, now she came to think about it. He revelled in the attention he got for his magical powers, whether they were real or not. He always denied it, but really he loved to play the powerful shaman.
He loved to show off. At the moment he was enjoying himself among the students, who it seemed to her were even more ignorant than she was herself. They followed him around listening to his every word and he encouraged them to do it. It was not behaviour that a warrior found proper.
It lacked dignity. That was why she had come back to this threatening place. She had planned to wait by herself with the TARDIS, to wait by herself for the Doctor to tire of his new-found acolytes and return so that the two of them could leave this world and continue on their travels.
She ghosted forward. The vegetation still seemed to be completely blocking her view of the TARDIS. That was wrong, she thought, that could not be. The scrub oaks, or whatever they were called, were not dense enough to do that. True, she was deliberately approaching from a different angle but She stopped. She could see through the thicket of small trees.
There was nothing there. There was nothing in the hollow. The TARDIS
was gone.
For a moment she doubted herself. Was this the right place? The wood was unfamiliar to her. Know your ground or end up buried in it. She might be mistaken about the trail, she might have got the directions muddled. Her panic might have distorted everything she knew, everything she thought she knew. Breathe deep and slow, examine what you know. She shook her head. Nonsense. It was nonsense. She was Leela of the Sevateem.
She was a warrior, trained by the best of her tribe to be the best of her tribe. She knew exactly where she was. She knew exactly where the TARDIS was. Or rather, she knew exactly where the TARDIS should be. It should be exactly where she was looking. It was gone. Something or someone had taken it. It was gone.
For a moment she doubted the Doctor. Had he left without her? While she was dodging the warriors from the university who were trying to take her captive, he could have sneaked back to the TARDIS and left without her.
Suppose she had been right after all. Suppose he was conspiring with the Tesh all along. She knew there were Tesh there in that university somewhere, she knew there were. She could sense them. She could smell them. How was it the Doctor could not? How could she believe that? Or perhaps he had simply taken a new companion to