Doctor Who_ Storm Harvest - Mike Tucker [7]
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Phillip.’ She turned round, looking for him through the gloom, but the engineer had gone.
Ace drifted through crystal clear waters, watching the sandy ocean bottom, which rippled with reflected light. Coral bloomed from rocky outcrops – a riot of colour amidst the gentle blue. She kicked out with powerful strokes and swept across the sea floor, sifting through the pebbles nestling in the sand.
Fish drifted around her, sometimes darting in between her fingers as she disturbed the sand, mostly just contemplating her with huge, unblinking eyes. She was picking at a cluster of bright polished stones when the fish suddenly exploded away from her in a furious flurry of scales.
A sudden shadow drifted over her and she turned her head upwards.
Something huge and yellow passed overhead. Ace struck out for the surface.
She broke through the waves in time to see the coastguard flyer thunder into the distance, the roar from its engines echoing around the cove. Shading her eyes she watched as it vanished over the horizon.
Flicking her wet hair over her shoulders she turned back to the beach. She had drifted out further than she had intended. The shore was a distant white stripe, the people on it no more than colourful dots. She picked through the selection of pebbles in her hand and pulled out a vivid green one. Popping it into her mouth for safekeeping she discarded the rest and struck out for the beach.
Out in the deep ocean it had drifted, swept for miles by the currents, every system on shutdown. Now vibrations through the water revived 13
it. Gradually its senses opened up – light dazzled it, sounds and smells bombarded it. There was prey here. It could taste it through the water, feel it struggling towards the shore.
Every sense heightened, it targeted its prey and surged forward.
Ace’s head jerked up at the sound of something loud and fast approaching her. The speedboat was little more than a red blur as it sliced past, the wave from its bow sloshing over her head, momentarily blinding her. She pulled the pebble out of her mouth and waved angrily at the pilot.
‘Wanker!’
The boat sped on, oblivious. Suddenly there was a loud thump, and a protesting roar from the engine as the hull struck something under the water.
Ace could see the pilot wrestling with the controls – the boat was jerking as if it was caught on something. The engine screamed as he wrenched on the throttle. With a sudden torrent of spray the boat was free again, lurching forward through the waves.
As Ace watched, it circled for a few seconds, the pilot scouring the waves for the obstruction, then sped off across the endless blue.
Ace glowered after it.
‘Hope your prop shaft’s bent.
Popping her pebble back into her mouth she resumed her swim back to shore.
Ace waded up on to the beach to find the Doctor sitting in front of a huge sandcastle – really huge. It must have been about four metres square and nearly a metre high. The Doctor was tinkering with a collection of electronic spares while the local kids were further along the beach, shrieking and playing with his kite.
The Doctor was running a long cable to the top of his sandcastle where he had constructed an impossibly slender tower.
Ace sauntered over to him.
‘Wom’s at em, ampon cut?’
He stared at her. ‘I’m sorry?’
Ace pulled the pebble out of her mouth. ‘I said what’s that then, Hampton Court?’
The Doctor looked indignant. ‘Certainly not! It’s the City of the ExxiIons, one of the Seven Hundred Wonders of the Universe!’
He pressed a button on the collection of junk in his hand and the top of the sand beacon began to pulse with light. He beamed at Ace. ‘I was able to stimulate the silica in the sand and make it light-emitting.’
Ace shook her head in disbelief. ‘Professor, you’re in a class of your 14
own.’
She slumped down on to the sand next to him and began towelling