Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [24]
Somewhere, distantly, a bell tolled. The woman slipped into her sandals and clopped across the stone‐flagged floor to the doorway.
Running a hand over her completely shaven head, she stepped into the corridor. It was time to worship.
* * *
Grek was still on the floor, the Doctor bending over him when Priss came careering around the corner, almost falling into the conference room.
‘Sir! Are you…?’
The young soldier caught sight of the Doctor and gave a little screech of alarm. He pulled his pistol from its holster and trained the weapon on the Doctor.
‘Don’t move, sir. It won’t attack if we’re calm.’
‘Priss…’ began Grek.
‘Move towards me, sir. Slowly. I’ll try to get it between the eyes.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Priss,’ said Grek, getting to his feet. ‘The Doctor here just stopped me from being flattened under that lot.’
He pointed to the rubble on the floor and took Priss’s gun from him in one easy movement.
‘But sir…!’
‘No more complaints, Priss. This person isn’t just a dumb animal. It… he knows things.’
‘Knows things, sir?’
Grek clapped a claw onto the Doctor’s shoulder. ‘Yes. I’m not quite sure why, but I suspect he may prove rather useful.’
The Doctor smiled. ‘Well, you know, anything I can do.’
Priss peered at the talking wonder in abject amazement. Grek began to brush mud and dust from his tattered uniform.
‘Any idea what all that was, Priss?’
Priss pulled himself to attention. ‘No, sir. I mean… Some sort of earthquake, I suppose.’
Grek frowned, as conscious as Maconsa had been of their distance from any known earthquake zone. He smiled at his subordinate. ‘I thought for a minute the Cutch had brought up their big guns.’
‘Yes, sir. Oh, sir, there was something else. A communication from Porsim.’
Grek’s reptilian face lit up. ‘Excellent! At last. Are they all right?’
Priss looked down uneasily. ‘It was from the Pelaradator, we think, sir. Repeated. Over and over.’
He handed Grek a small square of discoloured paper.
The commander looked at it, his expression unreadable in the flaring light of the gas jets. He crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it dismissively into the corner.
‘That’ll be all, Priss.’
Priss clicked his heels and marched smartly from the room, already miserable at the prospect of clearing up the mess.
In silence, the Doctor and Grek pulled the table into the middle of the room and sat down at opposite ends.
‘Why did you come here?’ said Grek at last.
The Doctor ran a hand through his mud‐matted hair. ‘Sightseeing, to be honest. We came to see your planet’s ring system. It’s very spectacular, as I’m sure you’re aware.’
‘We?’
‘My friend Bernice came too. I’d just lost her when your men found me. I’ve been meaning to ask where you’ve been keeping her.’
Grek stood up. ‘We found no one else, Doctor. You were taken by a scouting party.’
The Doctor felt a growing sense of dread. ‘What do you mean?’
Grek’s exhaled breath hissed between his teeth. ‘You were way beyond the front line. A section of jungle near the plains. It’s Cutch‐occupied.’
‘Cutch?’
Grek turned away and his face was plunged into darkness.
‘They’re the real beasts, Doctor. If the Cutch have your friend then she’s as good as dead.’
* * *
Bernice felt panic rising through her. Her throat constricted and her stomach flipped over.
Come on, Summerfield! Don’t let it end like this! Think!
Sweat dripped down her back. She felt her legs begin to move.
Adrenalin coursed through her body. The rifles were being cocked.
Her feet began to move.
A volley of shots rang out with a multiple crackle like the snapping of burnt twigs.
Bernice stumbled and crashed to the jungle floor, her face slamming into the yielding black mud.
* * *
‘You must find her!’
The Doctor banged his fist on the table, rattling the few remaining instruments which the earthquake had not dislodged, and biting his lip in an effort to conceal the sudden pain in his hand.
Grek folded his arms and fixed the Doctor with an unwavering stare.
‘It’s impossible, Doctor. I can’t risk