Doctor Who_ Psi-Ence Fiction - Chris Boucher [53]
Leela had seen the Doctor perform this greeting ritual. She took his hand and shook it up and down twice. He seemed very pleased. 'I work in the student bar,' he said. 'Any time you're passing be glad to buy you a drink.'
He started back the way they had come, then paused and turned. 'So long as it's not a cultural taboo, of course,' he said. 'I wouldn't want to offend you again.' He waggled his thumb at her and smiled.
Leela watched him trot away and disappear round the corner at the end of the corridor. She was still not certain about his motives. This could still be a trap so she drew her knife and readied herself to fight.
Laboratory 7B was where the Welsh said it would be, and beside the door was a narrow panel which Leela deciphered as Dr B Hitchins. She hoped that Dr B was in some way the same as Doctor Ghostbuster Bazzer, though she could not see how it would be. But the Hitchins was correct, so she put her ear against the door and listened. The only sound she could hear was a distant crackling hiss. It reminded her of the wind in the wood whipping up eddies of dry leaves. It reminded her of the wood. She recoiled from the door into a fighting crouch and spun round to face the corridor.
There was no threat but she found she was shivering. Something was happening to her. Something was turning her from a warrior into a frightened child. She was Leela of the Sevateem, she shouted in her head.
She was no child to be terrified by ghosts and demons and the shadows of dreams. She stood up straight and sheathed her knife. This was a time for thinking and for reason. She stopped shivering and moved back close to the door and put both hands against it. It was cold, like the flesh of a corpse was cold. There was a very faint smell, too, which she could not quite identify. It was an acrid smell: burning but not fire. She leant her forehead against the door and breathed. She could see her breath making a tiny cloud of condensation. It was cold there. It was not her fear making her shiver: not just her fear.
The handle of the door was a dull-surfaced, polished metal lever. When she reached out to touch it a spark of static electricity flickered into her fingers. That was the smell she realised: electrical flame. The Doctor said there was no smell from such things, but Leela knew that lightning strikes left the sharp smell of burnt air. She pressed the lever down and heard the metal catch click.
The door was made to open inwards. She pushed at it carefully and when the gap was wide enough she drew her knife and slipped into the room, taking three quick sideways steps to make herself a less obvious target.
Behind her the door shut itself. Leela ignored it. The real danger was in front of her.
Someone or something murderously destructive had ripped through the place only moments before, attacking anyone who was here. There was blood running everywhere and bodies, four at least, sprawled throughout the length of the room. As far as she could tell the Doctor was not one of them, but she could not see everything from where she was standing. She resisted the urge to rush forward and search for him. There was no track or trace of blood at the door or in the corridor outside. Unless there was another way out of the room, whatever had done this was still in here. She pressed her back to the wall and waited. Nothing moved. She surveyed the layout carefully. It was a long room. There were oddly shaped containers: four standing, one lying flat and raised on a frame of reinforced legs. Any of these could contain more bodies or could be hiding the killer.
Two people, a boy and a girl both covered in blood, were lying on the floor near the box on legs. There was