Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [51]
'Exploring.'
'Yeah, but that noise -'
'Oh, don't worry about that,' he said airily. 'The cyborgs may have the brawn but we have the brains. It's no contest.'
Sam wasn't so sure about that. She looked back at the others. Emmeline was still moving like a sleepwalker, barely even looking around her.
Litefoot's eyes, by contrast, were everywhere, drinking in his surroundings.
He would have looked the perfect image of the innocent abroad, if it wasn't for the revolver which he clutched firmly in his right hand.
'Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating,' he muttered.'I say, Doctor, have you ever seen anything remotely like this before?'
'Yes, I have,' said the Doctor.
'What a surprise,' said Sam.'Perhaps you'd like to let the rest of us in on it, then? Arm us with a bit of information. I mean, you never know when it might prove useful.'
'Organic crystallography,' said the Doctor.
'I beg your pardon?' said Litefoot.
'That's the term for the technology you see around you. Peculiar to a particular star cluster in the Biphaelides System.'
'You know who the aliens are then?' said Sam.
'I have a very strong suspicion. And if you would just care to follow me...'
He stepped forward and with a beelike buzzing the crystalline membrane covering the arch slid up into the roof, allowing the Doctor to step through.
'.. .I'll take you on a little guided tour.'
He turned and strolled off down the corridor that lay beyond the arch, looking for all the world as if he owned the place. The others followed, Sam glancing around tentatively.The walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor were made of the same root-like material as the chamber they had just left. She heard another roar, which, although it sounded closer this time, could have come from anywhere. She gritted her teeth, but said nothing, deciding to put her faith in the Doctor. Although he could be ridiculously reckless, he had managed to keep her alive so far.
This corridor curved round a corner and ended in another crystalline door.
The Doctor walked towards it unhesitatingly. Once again, it slid up and into the roof at his approach.
The room they now found themselves in had more features than those they had seen so far. On one wall was a kind of control panel that looked to have been hewn from a gigantic crystal and then partly engulfed by a fungal-like growth. Instead of knobs and levers and switches, the panel was covered with a profusion of the fleshy nodules and protuberances that jutted and bulged from every surface around them. Beside the control panel were an irregular row of what appeared to be convex screens shuttered with thick curtains of membrane.
Confidendy the Doctor walked over to the control panel and was just reaching out his hands to the alien controls when his head jerked up and he looked towards the door through which they had entered.
'What's the matter?' asked Sam.
'Quick,' said the Doctor, ushering them into the narrow gap between the control panel and the wall.'Everybody hide.'
He dived behind the control panel himself just as the crystalline door slid open with its familiar buzzing sound. Squashed against Emmeline, head hunched into her shoulders, chin resting on her upraised knees, Sam heard movement as something, or several somethings, entered the chamber. She heard the arrivals move across the floor towards the row of screens, and when she felt it was safe enough she slowly craned her neck and peered around the edge of the control panel. What she saw seemed to suck the air out of her lungs, and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to prevent herself gasping for breath.
Three aliens had entered the chamber, one of which Sam assumed to be male, the others female. The 'male' was the most fearsome in appearance.
Squat and powerful, it was fiery orange in colour, with a huge, domed head that sprouted direct from its broad shoulders. Its deep-set eyes were glints of dark malevolence beneath its vast brow. It had an almost ferret-like snout and a tiny, down-turned mouth.A row