Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [100]
However, Tuval pulled the lever without mishap, an action that precipitated a boom and a puff of dust as the massive stone double doors through which they had entered the room swung closed.
Instantly there was an almighty crash and the room shuddered, spilling Litefoot from his armchair. Next moment the grinding roar of ancient engines filled Litefoot's head once again, and the rods of light within the central column began to rise and fall, meshing and separating. As the room settled, Litefoot noticed a screen beside the console flashing with the message: HOSTILE ACTION DISPLACEMENT SYSTEM OPERATIVE.
The trumpeting of the engines faded and, aside from the splashing of the fountain and the intermittent bleeps and burbles coming from the console, the room became quiet once more.
Litefoot picked himself up, wincing. Tuval did likewise.
'Are you unharmed, Litefoot?' the Zygon asked.
'I think so,' Litefoot replied,'relatively speaking.' He noticed his gun lying on the floor twenty feet away. He must have dropped it when he had entered this... this...
'Where precisely are we?' he inquired weakly.
'We are in the Doctor's time craft,' said Tuval. 'He calls it a TARDIS:
'But we entered a small blue box.'
Tuval frowned as if Litefoot was being deliberately obtuse.'Yes. This is its interior.'
'But that's preposterous!' spluttered Litefoot. 'The box was far too small to house a room of such... such magnitude.'
'Ah,' said Tuval,'you are referring to the spatial inconsistency. It is accomplished by a Gallifreyan engineering technique known as dimensional transcendentalism.'
'I see,' said Litefoot feebly.'Or rather, I don't. But never mind.' The message on the screen had been replaced by a slow tracking shot of stone walls and grey water. 'Is that what's
outside?' Litefoot asked. Tuval nodded. 'It appears the time craft relocated to a point further along the bank when it came under attack from the Skarasen.'
'Jolly useful. That beast of yours will have gone back into the water now, I take it?'
'No,' said Tuval.'Before vacating our craft, Balaak released the Skarasen and programmed them to invade the city, destroying all before them. We Zygons have a telepathic link with our Skarasen, but Balaak's programming is too strong. I cannot override it.'
Litefoot was appalled. 'Then it appears the killing has barely even begun.
How many of these creatures are there?'
'By your numerical system, two hundred, perhaps more.'
'Two hundred,' spluttered Litefoot.'And can they be stopped?'
Tuval's voice was apologetic. 'Not by any weapons that your race have yet devised.'
***
At first Jack thought that the shaking floor was not really shaking at all, that it was merely a consequence of his pounding head. He groaned and awoke in the stinking, rat-infested room that was his home, his body itching from the bugs that teemed in the bundle of straw-filled rags that he called his bed. He sat up slowly, and suddenly sensing movement beside him, whirled round, expecting to see a fat black rat baring its teeth at him. It would not have been the first time such a thing had occurred; he had once woken in the night with a cry of pain to find one of the hellish creatures gnawing at his toes through a hole in his boot.
However, it was not a rat that was sharing his bed but a woman - or rather, a poor excuse for one. Her hair was matted with clumps of dirt, boils sprouted in profusion on her cheeks, and the breath gushing from her toothless open mouth as she snored befouled the air with its stench.
Jack kicked her on the thigh, hard enough to raise a bruise, but the woman barely stirred. 'Hideous old drab,' he muttered, and struggling to his feet, stomped across to the window.There were no rats to be seen at present (though he could hear them scurrying