Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [67]
Grek and Imalgahite stood up together, shaking in terror.
The Keth had returned.
* * *
13
Auto‐Da‐Fé
The Doctor moved his closed eyes slowly under their lids. Left to right. Right to left. Slowly he became aware of a gentle humming somewhere beneath him.
For a moment he imagined he was lying in the TARDIS, the reassuring sound of his beloved ship cocooning him. Still without opening his eyes, he unsealed the bubble‐helmet and placed it on his chest.
The sharp metallic tang in the atmosphere and the constant drip‐drip of water brought him immediately back to reality. Reluctantly he flicked open his eyes.
He was no longer in space but inside an enormous hangar, its rough steel walls mottled with rust. Functional metal struts rose from the plated floor to a flat, grease‐heavy ceiling. Scattered in piles all around him were fragments of the ring system, now little more than a thick carpet of glistening dust.
The Doctor stood up and brushed some of the detritus from his pressure suit. He could make out little in the gloom and walked carefully away from what he took to be the airlock, his feet crunching in the thick layer of asteroid dust.
Sniffing, he paused and pulled out the white instrument from the suit pouch. The display glowed dull red in the near‐darkness.
‘Analysis not completed,’ he read out loud. ‘Please wait.’
He put the instrument down and began to clamber out of his pressure‐suit. He piled it neatly in one corner of the hangar with the helmet on top, so he knew where to retrieve it in the event of a hasty retreat. Hasty retreats were second nature to him, after all.
Glancing down at his ruined waistcoat and trousers, the Doctor sighed. If he ever got through this alive then a trip to a tailor seemed imperative. He slipped the white device into his trouser pocket.
It took the Doctor some minutes to walk the length of the hangar and when he finally reached the end he was confronted by a bewildering selection of round metal doors. A small flashing panel at the side of each seemed to indicate an opening mechanism. The Doctor pressed his palm to one and it slid quietly upwards.
‘Humanoid, then,’ he said to himself.
Beyond the door stretched a maze of blank metal corridors. The floor plates were stained and corroded, the grilled ceiling above his head heavy with dust and filth.
‘Corridors, corridors…’ he mused. ‘Just like home.’
An insistent bleeping in his pocket made him pause. He pulled the white machine from his trousers and gazed in wonder at the read‐out.
‘Final analysis of Betrushian ring system reveals…’ He read the rest to himself and then carefully switched off the machine.
His face set in a rigid frown, he strode off down the corridor.
* * *
The woman found herself in an ornately panelled corner of the seminary. Cold stone corridors branched off from a hallway decorated with crimson drapes and hundreds of shadowed niches, each containing white marble representations of Saint Anthony, their anguished or impassioned faces wreathed in cobwebs.
She almost smiled at the similarity between the holy figures; all painfully thin, balding men with deep‐set eyes rolled heavenwards and their hands outstretched in curious two or three‐fingered gestures. In many, rays of marble sunlight from an unseen Heaven poured through holes in their flesh. Some held miniature bells. One was straddling a marble pig.
The woman’s smile vanished as she felt the pain again and a frightening voice admonishing her for her levity. How dare she mock Saint Anthony? How dare… How…
She placed her hand against the panelled wall and fought to keep control. Examining the calloused palms and battered fingers of her hands, she frowned, feeling salty sweat drip unpleasantly into her eyes. Who was she? Why couldn’t she simply accept what the voices told her? The will of Saint Anthony was pure and good. Why couldn’t she do as she was told? Life would be so much simpler…
No. No. NO!
She screwed up her eyes and dug her nails into her palms. All