Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [38]
This really is becoming intolerable, insisted a voice in her head. Threatened with death twice in two days.
Bernice tried to tell the voice to shut up whilst, at the same time, struggling to think of a way out of her predicament. Her eyelids fluttered in the updraught from the dirigible’s propellers and her cheeks flapped slackly as though she were experiencing G-force.
The Ismetch soldiers stood on either side of the brass window‐frame and began to force her through it. She lashed out, catching both on their powerful forearms, and attempted to gain purchase on the polished glass, to no avail. Jamming her feet just below the sill, her mouth opening and closing in panic, she struggled desperately to pull herself back inside.
‘Sir!’
The helmsman’s call cut through the atmosphere in the cabin.
All eyes, including those of Bernice’s guards, turned back towards the interior. Liso glanced over and jerked his head.
‘All right. That’ll do.’
Bernice was dropped to the floor where she sank to her knees, hugging herself in relief. Then she dragged herself into the corner, slapping the firm floor beneath her with grateful hands.
Liso marched to the prow of the gondola and peered out, following the line of the helmsman’s outstretched arm. He swallowed anxiously, his larynx bobbing up and down in the skinny column of his leathery throat.
Billowing over the horizon, like the terrible bloom of a funereal flower, hung a vast pall of smoke.
Liso’s claws dug into the wooden balustrade.
‘Porsim,’ he breathed.
The crew were silent for a long while. Liso’s eye remained fixed on the image before him.
‘Helmsman,’ he whispered. ‘Best speed.’
The helmsman, shocked, mumbled his assent. Liso turned back towards Bernice and stalked towards her. She shied away, having had quite enough for one day, and threw up her arms for protection.
‘Is this your doing, animal?’ hissed Liso.
He closed a claw around her arm and dragged her to her feet. Bernice cried out in pain.
‘That is my home!’ spat the Portrone. ‘You and your Cutch masters are going to pay for this.’
Bernice shook her head violently. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me. I swear it. Why won’t you listen? I’m just as much in the dark as you are.’
‘You deny you know what’s happened to Porsim?’
‘Of course! How could I know? Surely it… it could just be the Cutch blitzing the place. I mean, you are at war.’
Liso seemed to consider this, but then remembered Ran’s words. ‘The Cutch are on the point of defeat,’ he snarled. ‘They couldn’t possibly muster the firepower to do this.’ He gestured towards the plume of black smoke.
‘All right! All right!’ cried Bernice, thinking desperately. She had to come up with something or she’d be out of that window again in no time.
‘Forget about me and the Doctor. And the Cutch. Couldn’t it be something else?’
Liso’s eye closed in weary anger. ‘What?’
‘Another power. I mean, just how many people are there on this planet? Another power bloc could’ve intervened. Even an offworld one.’
‘Offworld?’ snorted Liso. ‘So that’s your great theory is it? Aliens? I suppose they come from the fourth planet!’
Bernice frowned. ‘Where?’
‘That’s where our fairy stories say aliens live. The fourth planet in our solar system.’
‘You mean Massatoris!’ cried Bernice. ‘It’s practically next door. We came from there to here. There are people there! People like you and… well, like me anyway. Honestly. I don’t think they have space technology but…’
She stopped suddenly and her face fell.
For all his bluster, Liso seemed disturbed by this. ‘What is it?’
Bernice sank slowly into her chair.
‘We left a friend there. For a rest.’
‘So?’
‘I’ve just remembered why the eleventh colony of Massatoris is so famous.’
* * *
‘A race memory, then?’ urged the Doctor. ‘That would explain it.’
‘I don’t understand you, Doctor,’ confessed Thoss. ‘I only know what the Faith tells me. There was another people here before ours. A people resembling yours.’
‘But what happened to them?’ said the Doctor, getting to his feet and pacing about.
‘I’ve told you.