Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [74]
‘How?’ said a man.
‘How do you think?’ said the Doctor.
‘Something crashed here?’ said Cephas. ‘Something telepathic?’
‘An alien?’ said Chris, looking around for the stick he’d dropped.
‘We won’t know,’ said the Doctor, ‘until we find it.’
‘Don’t shoot,’ said Benny.
The guard eyed the woman in the misshapen denim jacket. ‘Why not?’ he said, levelling his weapon.
‘Because I’m wearing a vortex diffraction force shield,’
said Benny, raising an arm to show the bangle on her wrist.
‘So it won’t do you any good.’
The guard fired. The force shield flared with colour, intense violet dropping down through the spectrum to green and red. The guard fired again, with the same result.
‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘Oh well, I’d better take you to my leader.’
Forrester kept getting branches in the face, trying to keep her eyes on the homing device. She swore and pushed a bunch of leaves out of her way.
They’d spent the best part of an hour fiddling with the little mechanism, a sort of purple knob that fitted into her palm. It was designed to show you the way to the TARDIS, picking out its faint telepathic signal and pointing in its direction. With a bit of mucking about they’d turned it into something that could link through the TARDIS and sniff out its pilot instead.
The sniffer was the only piece of high technology she was carrying. The Doctor had warned her that White and his people might use a scan if they suspected people were getting out; he was making sure the escapers didn’t take anything more high-tech than a tent.
So Roz had kept her sword. It was a. reassuring weight against her hip. Well, not as reassuring as her blaster would have been, but it was good to know it was there — especially since she didn’t have one of the force shields that Benny was wearing. Her armour was still stuffed into a cupboard in the infirmary. She had pulled on a leather jacket and fingerless gloves, and a black T-shirt and trousers.
They’d parked the TARDIS a few kilometres from the dome, well hidden in the forest. The return hop had been reasonably accurate: only three days had passed here since their hasty departure. But anything could have happened in that time, anything.
The last thing Roz expected was to walk right into the Doctor.
She very nearly tripped over him; he was crouched behind a tree, rummaging in the undergrowth, a drone hovering patiently at his shoulder. He glanced up at her.
‘Could you switch that thing off, please?’ he said. ‘It’s interfering with my concentration.’
Roz looked down at the beacon in her palm, snapped it off and tucked it into a pocket. ‘What’s the sitrep?’ she said.
‘I’ve got eight telepaths camped in the forest,’ said the Doctor. ‘I sneaked them out from under White’s nose. We don’t have a whole lot of time. He’s... agitated.’
‘Agitated?’
‘He’s tearing the base apart looking for the Doctor,’ said the drone. ‘He’s convinced you can’t have got out, Doc.’
Roz lifted a hand, and the little robot dropped onto it, a tiny antenna at its front waving as it scanned her. ‘Who’s in here?’
‘CONNECTICUT’s forged a link between the drone and three of the mainframe’s AIs,’ said the Doctor. ‘I modified them so they were capable of independent action.’
‘I see,’ said Roz, looking down at the little golem in her palm. It lifted away and took up its position close to the Doctor.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me how Chris is?’ he said.
‘How’s Chris?’
‘He’s fine. He’s with the others, helping me search the forest.’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me how Benny is?’
‘We already know that,’ growled the drone. ‘She reached the base a quarter of an hour ago.’
The Doctor straightened up, holding a small piece of metal. ‘She gave White quite a shock. What’s your plan?’
‘Benny and