Doctor Who_ St. Anthony's Fire - Mark Gatiss [82]
Ace looked up. ‘They’re from the rings, you said.’
‘Yes and no.’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘They’re from up there but they’re not real.’
‘Not real?’
‘They’re constructs. There’s a mechanism inside each one.’
He hurled the stones at Thoss’s feet. ‘Your entire ring system is artificial!’
* * *
16
Slayed in Flame
Martino rubbed his small, pale button of a nose as acrid smoke wafted into his face.
He watched the jungle blaze with great satisfaction. Fire licked at the diamond‐patterned bark of a hundred different trees, sending seed‐pods exploding outwards as the flames roared through them. The two black ships were wreathed in heavy, sooty vapour.
Despite his professional pride in the destruction, however, Martino felt uneasy. Miller should have returned by now. The constant trembling of the ground set his teeth on edge. In a few moments he would confide in Chapterman Jones and begin an analysis of this strange planet.
For now, though, he kept his fingers pressed down on the nozzle of his flame‐thrower and watched the fire lash out like an enflamed red tongue into the jungle.
A small, dazed‐looking mammal, something between a bear and a monkey, dropped from a burning tree, chattering in pain as its skin was singed.
Martino smiled at it, cooing gently, and stroked its face with the nozzle of his flame‐jet. Then he blasted the fur from its body.
Just for fun, he sprayed the air with fire in a wide arc, like a child with a water‐pistol. He dropped his arm suddenly as something in the night sky caught his eyes. The flame‐jet fell from his hand.
Under the rings, bowling through the jungle like a glutinous whirlwind, something was approaching. It had no form he could recognize, just a massive concretion of hovering ooze, sparkling in the starlight, trailing a comet‐tail of dreary, swirling dust.
Dimly, Martino could see it rippling through the burning jungle, flaming debris sucked up its dark core.
He began to walk backwards towards the ship. The Magna had to be told. It seemed Miller’s fears about this planet were justified after all.
* * *
‘Down here,’ said Thoss in a sepulchral whisper.
The hole beneath the shrine in which the Doctor had hidden yawned open, Thoss’s old claw gripping at the hefty flagstone.
The Doctor stepped through. ‘Do you have any torches?’
Ace and Thoss followed onto the first of the stone steps. ‘There’s no need,’ said Thoss cryptically. ‘This place lights itself.’
Intrigued, the Doctor pressed on, feeling his way downwards in the pitch black, his hands sliding unpleasantly over the slick, moss‐covered walls.
After a time, he felt a change in the texture. Ace called from behind him, ‘Doctor, it’s getting lighter.’
The Doctor looked back. He could now see Thoss and Ace, albeit dimly, and the walls had taken on a dull metallic sheen. In addition, they were quite warm.
‘It’s reacting to our presence,’ muttered the Doctor, looking round. The light was gradually increasing, revealing the metal walls of some kind of shaft. The Doctor ran up to them and felt the surface.
‘Intriguing.’
‘Has it been bored?’ said Ace.
The Doctor didn’t look round. ‘Well, haven’t we all at some time?’
Ace tutted. The Doctor smiled.
‘No, it seems to have been… grown. As though the metal were exuded by something.’
Ace stepped from the stairwell. ‘Something like this, Doctor?’
The Doctor whirled round.
The steps had led them into a small chamber. At the centre, bathed now in an orange light, was a many‐sided metal object, like a huge irregular die.
‘What is it?’ said Ace with a gasp. ‘Doesn’t fit in with the rest of the decor, does it?’
‘Quite,’ said the Doctor. ‘Thoss? Care to enlighten us?’
Thoss strode up to the polygon and ran his claw over the metallic surface. ‘There are many such things all over Betrushia. Relics of the Time Before. No one knows what their function was. I discovered this one below my Temple some time ago.’
The Doctor looked at him quizzically, his face half‐hidden in the shadows. ‘No one knows their secret or no one knew?’
Thoss inclined his head. ‘One day it opened