Doctor Who_ Rip Tide - Louise Cooper [59]
He moved past them both and hurried on. Steve and Nina hastened after him. Nina feared that Steve was going to start asking questions, but he didn't; the Doctor was setting a fast pace and he needed all his breath. So did she. The air in the adit was becoming thicker and staler as they moved further from the sea cave, and as well as being hampered by her hot and cumbersomely unfamiliar dry suit she was starting to feel dizzy from lack of oxygen. She ploughed on doggedly, trying not to be affected by it – then a light appeared ahead that was not cast by the torch beam. It was a dull reddish, and it fluctuated and flickered erratically, like a neon strip on the verge of failing. It lit the contours of a curve in the tunnel ahead, and the Doctor was silhouetted by the glow as he stopped and waited for the others to catch up.
Suddenly Steve's voice rang out, making Nina jump.
'God almighty, something's on fire!' He broke into a run. 'Ruth – we've got to get to her!'
'Wait, Steve!' The Doctor tried to bar his way, but Steve was well-built and fit. He shouldered the Doctor aside and disappeared round the tunnel's curve. Then his footfalls stopped abruptly, and his cry echoed back.
'Jesus Christ!'
Nina and the Doctor exchanged a single glance, and pelted after him. The curve was ahead, the light brightened; they turned —
And Nina too cried out as she halted with a jolt.
The tunnel ended abruptly, opening into another and much smaller cave – and in the centre of the cave was the source of the glow. A translucent prism, some three metres high, hung in mid-air. It was turning slowly on its axis, and as it turned it pulsed, emitting the dull, rose-coloured glow like a slowly beating, crystalline heart. The thrumming sound was louder here, and a faint whine sounded on a single, high-frequency note that set up an ache in the bones behind her ears.
Steve stood rigid in the cave entrance, eyes bulging in their sockets as his brain struggled to cope with the image and assimilate it, and Nina stared too, open-mouthed with shock. Patterns were moving in the prism's depths. She could make no sense of them, for they were like shapes in a distorting mirror, random, meaningless, but she was mesmerised, hypnotised —
Suddenly Steve broke the thrall. 'What is it?' The words came out in a dry croak that sounded nothing like his own voice.
'Steve –' Nina clutched his arm, floundering for words, any words, that would even begin to explain. But the Doctor intervened.
'There's no time for that now! Look – over there!'
She followed the direction of his pointing hand. Directly beneath the prism, where bars of shadow confused the eye, lay a hunched, dark shape.
The Doctor strode towards it. Light flared around him, and as he approached he dropped to a crouch, ducked his head and reached out. Nina heard a thin hiss, followed by a groan that did not sound as if it came from a human throat. The Doctor muttered something – she couldn't hear what – then switched from English to a series of rapid clickings. Ruth's alien language – it was her; she was here, she —
'Nina!' the Doctor called urgently. 'I need some help!'
She threw a frightened glance at Steve, but he had covered his face with both hands and was shaking. Praying that he wouldn't recover and come after her, she strode to join the Doctor.
Ruth lay in a foetal huddle; she seemed to be conscious but only just. The Doctor took her shoulders, Nina her legs, and between them they eased her clear of the turning gateway. Ruth's body was rigid and felt appallingly frail; as they laid her gently down on another part of the cave floor an acrid smell tainted the air and made Nina's nostrils curl. Then she saw Ruth's face, and forgot everything else.
The blotchy silver-grey discolouration had intensified, and Ruth's skin was not merely flaking now but peeling in ribbon-like strips. Beneath it, the structure of a shockingly different entity was starting to show itself. Ruth was still wearing human clothes but their contours looked