Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [16]
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Oh yes,’ he grinned, ‘I usually am. Have you remembered, by the way?’
‘Remembered what?’
‘About the eleventh colony of Massatoris. Whatever it was you knew about them as a child? That was why we went there in the first place.’
Bernice pulled a face. ‘Oh. Well… no. The whole thing’s rather slipped my mind.’
But the Doctor’s thoughts seemed to be already elsewhere. He pulled his cream fedora low over his eyes but kept his umbrella furled, peering into the jungle.
Bernice grabbed at the umbrella, her face a mask of sulkiness. ‘Well, if you’re not using it,’ she said, shooting a murderous look at the dismal sky.
‘You know,’ said the Doctor, not listening, ‘there was something funny about the readings I took in the TARDIS.’
‘About this planet?’ queried Bernice. ‘Funny? How?’
She followed him as he progressed through the clearing and further into the jungle.
‘I’m not sure. Something’s not quite right, though. I wonder whether…’
The Doctor was cut off, mid‐flow, as a deep, rumbling tremor shook the ground. The towering cycads above their heads rocked back and forth and the Doctor clung to one until the moment passed.
He looked at Bernice and they stood in silence until sure of the ground beneath their feet.
‘Quake?’ asked Bernice.
The Doctor shrugged.
Bernice pulled the lapels of her coat closer to her neck. ‘What’s the… er… crack with this planet, then?’ she asked, using a term Ace had taught her.
‘Crack?’
‘History. Civilization. All that. What d’you know of it?’
‘Oh, very little.’ The Doctor pushed aside a clump of huge, leathery leaves.
‘Is that you being modest? I must write it down.’
‘No, no. Honestly. I’ve seen the rings from space before but I don’t know anything much about the planet’s past. Or present.’ He paused, looking at the leaf‐scars which pocked a huge horse‐tail tree. ‘Or future,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.
Clouds hung low over the jungle now, and Bernice found her boots sinking into the black mud.
The Doctor seemed cheerfully unperturbed, smiling beatifically at the swampy vegetation as rain coursed down his baggy linen suit.
‘I don’t know about you,’ said Bernice at last, ‘but I wouldn’t mind waiting to see these rings from inside the TARDIS. Where it’s dry. You remember dry, Doctor? As in ginger ale, wit and rain, opposite of?’
The Doctor smiled and nodded. ‘You’re right. We could, of course, nip forward in time a few hours. But the ship doesn’t seem as good at those short hops as she used to be.’
He turned back the way they had come and joined Bernice under the umbrella. ‘No, a decent malt and a game of nine‐dimensional Scrabble should while away an hour or two. Or whatever they call hours on Betrushia.’
He slipped his hand surreptitiously around the handle of the umbrella.
Bernice’s eye gleamed with images of warm towels and whisky. ‘Now you’re talking.’
She paused for a moment and realized the Doctor had gone off ahead, taking the umbrella with him. ‘Nine‐dimensional Scrabble?’
The Doctor talked over his shoulder as he headed for the TARDIS.
‘Oh wonderful game, wonderful. Gives you a whole new slant. Still too many letter Qs though.’
He disappeared into the jungle, swallowed up by the rain‐shadowed trees and hairy vines.
Bernice smiled and was about to follow when she heard a sound behind her. Whirling around, she stepped back in shock as first one, then another, then another, tall reptilian form emerged from the undergrowth.
They wore identical brown uniforms which covered every inch of them save for their crested, lizard‐like heads. Bulbous eyes on serrated turrets gazed inquisitively at her. One of them opened its snout and hissed, revealing tiny, tiny teeth.
As one, the creatures fell upon her.
Oh dear, thought Bernice, and it had all begun so well.
* * *
4
Freaks
The orderly wiped sticky white sweat from Maconsa’s grizzled head. The old surgeon grumbled at nothing