Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [93]
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. The feeling she’d had in Egypt when she threw up on Sedjet’s front lawn, the insane feeling, it was coming back to her.
She went to the tubes. Each was the right size to hold a large human being.
There were hibernation controls at the base – surprisingly similar to the ones she’d seen aboard the Admiral Raistrick. Maybe they’d picked up an IMC ship in their travels and pinched the technology.
The first tube she checked was empty, and the next, and the next. Surely there’d be someone here, he was here somewhere, she might be able to get the machines to work, she might be able to save them –
She realized she’d been running around the curve of the wall, shouting. For how long?
Every tube was empty.
She was too late. She’d failed. She hadn’t saved him.
A black blossom of pain erupted in her chest. She started to crumple it up, stuff it down – no, hang onto it, hang onto it –
She sat down on the floor, took deep breaths. She stopped, hand cramping around the hilt of the gun. No-one had heard her yelling or come to kill her.
Or take her away to the funny farm. Oh, God, was she coming apart at the seams?
Ship was empty because it had processed everybody. Everybody except the Doctor, and he was next.
182
The burning erupted through her. She came to her feet, grimacing like a panther. ‘You monster!’ she shouted at the walls. ‘Monster! You alien monster bastards! You took Sedjet away, you took Alan away, you took Jan away, but you’re not going to take the Doctor away!’
The Doctor got out of his bonds and out of his cell and he ran.
His shoulder was electric, burning, but he made the pain drive him on.
There were no alarms, no guards, only Ship, the curved walls surrounding him. He felt their attention as he fled, Ship sensing him, watching him.
It was like the bad moment on a roller-coaster, just before the top of the first dip, when you realize you’ve left it too late to get off. In a moment you’ll be falling, falling –
Chest heaving, he stumbled against a wall. The layout of the corridors was different to the pattern he remembered. Ship had rearranged itself – was probably rearranging itself even now, its interior becoming a labyrinth to trap him. He imagined he could hear it breathing.
Half a dozen thick green vines leapt out of the wall and snatched at him.
He sprang back. The vines were growing out of the living stuff of the corridor, lashing out, blindly groping for him.
He bolted, turning down another passageway where the light was redder, twisting back on his course. He didn’t know where he was going, he just had to keep going, keep going, keep going –
The thing in his shoulder squeezed.
He collapsed in mid-stride, lay on the spongy stuff of the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest, face white as paper. He did not move. He barely breathed. His heartsbeat was an agonizing motion in his chest. He wished it would stop.
While he lay there, the tendrils quietly grew from the wall behind him, slowly looping over and around and beneath him until he disappeared inside the solid cage of vines.
Neither of them said a word.
Kadiatu was waiting for Ace when she exited cold storage. Ace was in firing position the instant she saw the African woman. She hesitated. Perhaps she hesitated because she’d personally killed exactly three hundred and ninety-nine sentient individuals. One more would make it four hundred. Perhaps she was just tired. But no matter what happened, she had to save the Doctor.
Kadiatu’s body kept trying to leap into combat speed, her arms and legs jittering with the urgent need to move, to fight. No matter what happened, Ace could not be allowed to save the Doctor.
183
Kadiatu’s gun arm jumped up into firing position and the bolt leapt across the short space between them and a coruscation of light exploded in Ace’s midriff and around her and she fell sideways, hair flying, shades spinning away, her body still following the