Doctor Who_ The Bodysnatchers - Mark Morris [78]
Glancing up to make sure that he was not being observed, he made his way over to the nearest Skarasen. It was lying on its side, its great flanks heaving as it breathed in and out. One of its eyes rolled to observe the Doctor, but that was its only reaction.
'Hello, girl,' said the Doctor soothingly, and placed his hand on the creature's back. Its scales were cold and hard as metal. Like many of the creatures that this community of Zygons employed, this Skarasen was barely an infant, measuring no more than forty feet from nose to tail. The Doctor reached across and gave one of the tentacles clamped to the Skarasen's belly an experimental tug.
Finding it to be tightly secured at both ends, he nodded in satisfaction. He dropped the flippers to the floor and climbed up on to the dozing Skarasen.
It didn't react as he took hold of the tentacle he had tugged a few moments before and began to shin up it. His body ached from his earlier exertions, but he forced himself on, hand over hand, leg over leg. The ovular receptacle was perhaps fifty feet above floor level, and by the time he reached it, he was coated in sweat beneath his wet suit, every muscle in his body crying out in pain.
He paused for a moment, breathing deeply, his aching arms and legs wrapped around the pulsing tentacle. Bracing himself, he let go of the tentacle with one hand and unzipped the bulging hip pack attached to the belt at his waist. He extracted a large, old-fashioned syringe and a slim transparent case full of needles. Awkwardly he removed a needle from the case and screwed it into the syringe. He clamped the syringe between his teeth, put the case back into the hip pack, and took out a vial full of colourless fluid. He drew the fluid into the syringe, then rammed the needle into the hive-like receptacle and depressed the plunger.
When all the fluid was gone, he pulled out the syringe and dropped it back into the hip pack. 'Sweet dreams,' he murmured, patting the hive as a man might pat a pet dog. He shinned back down the tentacle and less than two minutes later was again standing beside the dozing Skarasen.
He was about to make his way over to the steps when the crystalline door above him slid open and two Zygon scientists entered the milking chamber.
Instantly the Doctor dived behind the snoozing Skarasen, flattening himself against the floor. He lay for a moment, listening for the sound of raised voices that would inform him that he had been spotted. However, hearing nothing except the greedy gulp of the lactic-fluid pumps, he crawled along the length of the Skarasen's body until he had reached its head, then peeked out from behind it.
The two Zygon scientists were making their way unhurriedly down the steps. It seemed inevitable that in a matter of moments they would be heading towards his hiding place. All the Doctor could do was lie there and hope for the best.'Excuse me,' he whispered and pressed himself so tightly against the underside of the Skarasen's jaw that he could smell its breath, an odd combination of rancid meat and engine oil, and feel the nudge of a strong, steady pulse in its throat.
The Zygon scientists walked towards him, talking in their high, fluting voices. Suddenly they stopped and the Doctor heard one of them say,'What is this?' He closed his eyes briefly. He had forgotten about the discarded flippers. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He heard the scrape of the flippers as one of the Zygons picked them up.
'They appear to be footwear of some kind' one of them trilled.
'I agree,' said the other.'Perhaps they belonged to the escaped human.They are certainly not of Zygon manufacture. I will raise the alarm immediately.'
'There's no need for that,' the Doctor said, abruptly jumping up and walking towards them. 'I'm sure we can talk this whole thing through like sensible aliens.'
The two Zygons looked almost comically surprised, and more than a little nervous. Knowing that the best way to retain an advantage was to keep talking, the Doctor babbled, 'I've just