Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [74]
Using one of their machines.’
The Doctor glanced towards the house. ‘Brand-new clothes, new furniture, plenty of food. Wealth in the middle of devastation.’
‘There is a war on,’ said the Frenchman, ‘if you hadn’t noticed. We have as much right to stay alive as anyone else. If it’s any consolation, Doctor, you are not being sold for some false ideal, some philosophy of the rabble, but for the purest of reasons. For survival.’
He took something out of his pocket. It looked a little like a cactus, green and pulsing with quiet life, covered in stubby spines and tiny etchings.
‘We’ve just been waiting for the right moment,’ said Thierry. ‘We needed to see whether you would trust us, tell us anything voluntarily, since the Ants had so little luck in drawing information directly from your mind.’
‘How much do you understand about their technology?”
‘Very little. But then, I am not a veterinarian, and I understand horses well enough to ride them. On the other hand, you understand the Ants’ machines very well. They want your knowledge. I want it.’
The Doctor said cheerily, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’
Thierry, infuriated, shook his head. ‘They were far too gentle with you. I am not afraid to cause you damage.’
He fired a single shot from the pistol.
The Doctor did not react, even though the bullet whizzed past within an inch of his ear.
The Frenchman grinned nervously. ‘This little engine will summon Kadiatu’s ship. Then we shall open and stabilise the rift her arrival created. The Ants will have a permanent tunnel through space and time.’ He raised the organic device.
The Doctor closed his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
Thierry tried to laugh like a villain, waving his gun about. ‘They can use her ship to punch further tunnels through the ether, stabilising each one. They will plunder as they please. That power makes this war look tiny, pitiful.’
‘I meant,’ said the Doctor, ‘that I wouldn’t summon Kadiatu’s ship here.’
Thierry gave him a look of furious indignation and pressed his thumb into the device.
There was a whump and a crash, and suddenly the ship was standing in the orchard, just where it had come to rest after sliding on its belly through half a kilometre of trees. A second and third wave of thunder rippled through the air, and the ground trembled with the sudden displacement.
‘Oh, dear,’ said the Doctor, starting to back away.
‘Stay where you are,’ growled Thierry, punctuating the order with a wave of his pistol. ‘The Ants want you as much as they want Kadiatu’s ship.’
141
‘I had expected,’ said the Doctor, ‘that they’d take Kadiatu’s vessel directly on board. But evidently not. Ah, well,’ and he kept backing away, ‘the best laid plans –’
‘Stop!’ shrieked Thierry, but even he could hear the sound coming from the ship now, rising in pitch.
‘Let’s see,’ said the Doctor. ‘I could stop and be killed in the explosion, or I could run and be shot. Given the odds –’
The little man turned and dashed away across the field.
Thierry screamed and followed. But not fast enough.
The light seemed to curve around the Doctor’s body as he ran, blanking out everything in front of him and trying to drag him backwards into its searing heart. He couldn’t hope to outrun it.
Then the ground was gone from under his feet, and he was tumbling, falling, blinking the burning spots from his eyes. He felt soil underneath him, sliding and loose, a fierce grip on his coat. The dreadful sound didn’t register for several seconds, and he suddenly clapped his hands to his ears, far too late.
Genevieve was lying atop him, shaking violently, her hands clawing at his coat. She had dragged him into one of the foxholes in the lawn.
They lay there for several seconds. Then the Doctor gently untangled himself from her, popped his head up above the surface of the ground and sur-veyed the damage.
The ship had undergone a massive spatial implosion, taking a huge, irregularly-shaped chunk of the orchard with it. The air was still sizzling with the after-effects, tiny fires