Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [76]
He saw the dislodged mouthpiece floating on its length of tubing in front of his face and, grabbing it, clamped it between his teeth. He gulped oxygen to revive himself, knowing that he had only a few seconds before the leg started rising into the air again.Then.like an aquatic monkey, he pulled himself hand over hand as far up the tree-like limb as he could get, clinging on like a limpet as the leg again swooped him up and through the water.
This process was repeated at least a dozen times before the Doctor finally reached the top of the leg. During the next brief hiatus, he swam-scrambled over the bulbous joint securing the leg to the main body of the ship, and climbed on to the barnacled carapace that he knew was as impervious and adaptable to the pressures and problems found in the deepest regions of space as it was to those in the water.
Spread-eagled across the vessel's back, jolted by its movement, he began to search as before for a suitable breathing-hole. He used the craft's spines and nodules as handholds both to drag himself along and to secure himself when the ride became too bumpy.
Eventually he found what he was looking for. The breathing-hole resembled a puckered mouth in the centre of a wrinkled depression. As before, the Doctor settled down to wait, though this time he had to brace the muscles in his arms tightly to prevent himself slithering about.
Just as he was beginning to think that he wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer, the breathing-hole began to show signs of activity. First, the wrinkled depression began to flex and shiver like cold flesh. Then the mouth of the hole began to open, at first twisted and quivering, as though in a moue of pain, and then stretching wider, as if to yawn and cry out.
The Doctor saw the water that the ship was drawing into itself before he felt it. It appeared as a vortex, a shimmering whirlpool, above the hole.At first it was small, no larger than an ice-cream cone, but as the hole stretched wider, so the vortex increased in size and power. Now the Doctor could feel its pull, and he welcomed it.As the breathing-hole became the entrance to a cavern, and the vortex above it stretched to the size of a man, he rose slowly into a semi-standing position, then stepped forward.
Instantly the vortex had him, dragging him into itself. The Doctor felt himself spun and buffeted by an irresistible force. Though it went against his instincts, he tried not to resist, tried to relax and let it take him. It was impossible, however, not to close his eyes and cry out in pain when he felt himself being sucked down. The water was being drawn into the ship under such pressure that it felt as though his body was being pounded with chunks of concrete. As water smashed against his face and body, ripping off his face-mask and dislodging his mouthpiece once again, and the ship sucked him into blackness, he felt consciousness slipping away. His last coherent thought, before he was clubbed into submission, was to wonder whether this might have been a mistake.
***
The first thing the Doctor became aware of when he woke up was the sensation of water sloshing against his face. He opened one eye and saw that he was lying in a gourd-shaped chamber, the walls and floor of which were riddled with mouth-like openings. The whole place was dripping like a sea cave at low tide.Water was pooled in the depressions and hollows between the apertures. Groggily the Doctor climbed to his feet, his body stiff and bruised.'Next time I'll avoid the tradesmen's entrance,' he murmured as he checked his wet suit for signs of damage.
There were none, which meant that, though battered, he was relatively dry.
However, at some