Doctor Who_ Return of the Living Dad - Kate Orman [99]
‘She’s not Death,’ said Benny. ‘She’s dead.’
‘She spread herself so thin that there was finally nothing left.’ His voice rang out, louder than the ringing in their ears.
‘She was a first-year archaeology student. She found an ancient Youkalian time-travel device which discharged the remnants of its power through her.’
The Doctor spun round, as though lecturing some unseen crowd. ‘She grew up on Mars,’ he shouted, ‘where her family bred orchids, but she couldn’t remember any of their names, and she was very good at origami, and she couldn’t remember her own name, and her favourite flavour of ice cream was butterscotch!’
The others were staring at him. He put his hands over his face and ran them suddenly, sharply back through his hair.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s no time to spare.’
The sky yacht was parked above the forest, disguised as a low cloud. After tugging on their armour, Roz and Chris ran their handscans over the area, raising them up to the base of the ship, above the tips of the trees. You could just make out the metal if you squinted the right way.
‘No obvious traps,’ said Roz. ‘In any case, I can’t imagine anything that’ll bother, er...’
Ms R opened the boot. The fifth member of the party came shimmering around the car.
It was a smear of red, hovering in the air, like an error made by a careless landscape artist. You could see through it, barely, the outlines of the trees diluted by its rich colour.
Roz didn’t know what it was, and she didn’t want to know. She just stood the hell out of its way as it blurred suddenly, leaping into the air.
Its tip slapped against the airlock of the yacht and stuck fast. It pulsed for a moment, and became more solid, wiggling itself invitingly.
Roz gritted her teeth and took hold of its sinuous body.
She expected her hand to go right through it, to discover that it had no substance at all, that it was just a wisp of colour in the afternoon sun. Instead her fingers met a textured, ropy surface that gripped her as hard as she gripped it.
She resisted the urge to pull her hand away, and started to climb up the living rope. Chris followed after a moment, and then Ms R. The Ra’ashet waited, picking its teeth. Roz glanced down at it. Yeah, the red thing probably couldn’t have borne its weight as well as all of theirs, she guessed.
At the top, the red thing extruded some of its rough surface to loop around her hips as she picked the lock. The Doctor had pinched all of Albinex’s security codes while he’d been aboard.
They had to wait while the airlock cycled, clinging awkwardly to the red thing. Roz hoped the fuzzy colour was as strong as it seemed.
‘Look out!’ shouted Ms R.
A hairy, warm hand reached down and grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the airlock.
‘Chris!’ Roz yelled. Oh great, give him even more ideas, she thought, as the Ogron tried to break her neck.
They’d slipped past patrols, avoided a jeep, and now they were standing at the base of one of the squat, cylindrical buildings. There were two dead guards at the entrance to the silo.
Bridget covered her mouth with her hand. Isaac and the Doctor knelt by the bodies. ‘They were stabbed to death,’
said the Time Lord shortly. ‘With a long blade, by the look of it.’
Isaac shook his head. ‘A sword?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t fancy using projectile weapons around a nuclear warhead,’ said the Doctor. ‘Bridget, thanks
— get yourself away from here as quickly as you can.’
The young woman opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She nodded, and briskly walked off across the grass.
The door was open. The Doctor caught Isaac’s arm as the Admiral was about to go inside. ‘This is it,’ he said. ‘This is really the moment where you decide what you want.’
‘I’ve made this possible,’ said Isaac firmly. ‘I have to stop it if it kills me.’
Benny looked at him in horror, but they were inside the building before she could say anything.
Chris vaulted into the airlock and kicked the Ogron’s knee with all his strength. It roared and dropped Roz’ reaching for the boy.