Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [49]
‘What are you looking for?’ Iaomnet was almost giggling. ‘The self-destruct button?’
‘The power relay,’ said the Doctor. ‘Which I’ve found. It shut down to conserve energy after ten thousand years of disuse. I’m trying to convince it we’re here.’
‘It? It what?’
‘Ah! There!’
With a rumble they could feel through their boots, the door slid open. Roz realized she was looking at an alien lift.
‘You’re joking,’ she said.
‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘According to the relay, the power systems are quite intact. Much of the structure will have been in protective stasis. In we go.’
Iaomnet pulled back. ‘What if it shuts off partway down, or something?’
The Doctor didn’t look at her, climbing into the lift. It was big enough to hold a small crowd. Or a single, huge creature? ‘There isn’t time to think about it,’ he said. ‘You should stay here if you’re not sure you want to come.’
Iaomnet got into the lift with him. Her frightened breathing was loud in Roz’s ears. She followed them in.
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Roz was expecting the Doctor to do some more creative engineering. Instead, he pressed a few buttons. The doors hesitated and then closed, and the lift moved slowly down, down into the body of the comet.
Roz counted the minutes. Three. Four. It was obvious the Doctor knew what he was dealing with. She wished she’d argued him into leaving Iaomnet on the shuttle – he was probably holding his tongue in front of the double-eye.
The lift began to slow. Roz suddenly realized there was gravity
– generated by the floor, she assumed, since the feeling of slowing down was so gentle.
‘The lift runs parallel to the tunnel,’ said Roz.
‘Where are we going, then?’ Iaomnet wanted to know. ‘What’s at the base of the tunnel?’
The lift doors slid open again, revealing a great black space.
The Doctor cautiously stepped out of the lift, found the outside wall, and evidently the light switch.
The entire tunnel was suddenly alive with spotlights, patches of blue-hot radiance moving around like insects. Picking out the six walls, made out of the smooth white stuff. Picking out recesses and structures in the walls. Sweeping over the immense skeleton crumpled at the bottom.
The Doctor did more things to the controls he’d found. The lights slowed down, expanded, filling the tunnel with an almost even illumination. ‘What the cruk is that?’ said Iaomnet.
The creature’s bat wings were spread out, collapsed beneath the weight of its body. The fine bones of the wingtips were as thick as a human arm.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’re extinct.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘This one is, anyway,’ said Roz.
‘Good,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because to get where we’re going, we’ll have to walk past it.’
Roz and Iaomnet followed him out on to the floor of the tunnel.
There were huge doors around its base. Looking up, she could see a hexagon filled with stars.
‘Is it just me,’ said Iaomnet, ‘or does it feel like a horror sim in here?’
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‘Yeah,’ said Roz, surprised. ‘You’re right. Psychic residue?’
‘What?’
‘Quite probably,’ said the Doctor. ‘Like a trace of radiation.’
‘Radiation?’ said Iaomnet. ‘After ten million years?’
‘Psi powers don’t obey the physical laws of the universe,’ said the Doctor grimly. ‘Imagine the power of this thing when it was freshly dead.’
‘It must have been pretty powerful when it was alive,’ said Iaomnet. ‘Look at the walls.’
Roz looked up, where the intelligence agent was pointing.
There were great claw marks in the metal. She looked at the hooked claws at the end of the thing’s hands, imagining it scrabbling at the metal, trying to climb out. They’d trapped it down here.
‘That’s how the surface was damaged,’ said Roz. ‘In a battle with these things.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Real World Interface of these early models was rather unstable.’
‘The what?’ said Roz.
‘Where are we going?’ Iaomnet insisted. ‘I mean, this is incredible, but I’d like