Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [128]
I resolved to keep my eyes open.
Then there was the whisper.
'It ends now, Xznaal.'
The soft voice had come from all around us: echoing from the walls of the Tower, rumbling like thunder in the distant mountains. The Ice Lord was looking around, trying to locate the source of the voice.
'Who are you?' Xznaal hissed. 'Sshow yoursself. Identify yoursself.'
'I am the man that gives monsters nightmares.'
I frowned. It was a loudspeaker, a public address system of some kind. The second time the voice had spoken it had been at a normal volume.
'The Daleks cal me the Bringer of Darkness.'
I couldn't begin to work out where the voice was coming from. It was getting louder, reaching a crescendo.
'I am the Eighth Man Bound.'
Something was glittering, coalescing in the air over Tower Bridge. A face.
'I am the Champion of Life and Time.'
A long, angular face with a jutting chin and aristocratic nose, framed by a mane of brown hair.
'I'm the guy with two hearts.'
Thousand-year-old eyes and a child-like expression gazed down at us, smiling angelically.
'I make history better.'
There was a pause that contained worlds and histories immeasurable to man. Then four words, each one louder than the last, each one drowning out the noise of the wind and the battle.
'I... '
My eyes were watering.
'Am... '
The Brigadier lowered his binoculars, his eyes wide.
'The Doctor!'
And it was.
End of extract
114
Chapter Fifteen
Going Down in History
Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield
I tried to bring my breathing back under control. The Doctor was a hologram, twenty feet high, his hands behind his back. Xznaal had turned to face this vast apparition, which peered down at the Martian Warlord like a parent disciplining a naughty child.
And there was someone pulling me away from the block. Alexander Christian. He put a finger to his lip. Only my hands had been tied, and once I was upright I could hurry away under my own steam. I followed Christian towards the cover between two buildings. According to one of the signs we passed, we were heading to 'The Jewel House'.
Behind us, the Doctor's voice was rumbling again, fil ing the air.
'I am in your warship. Come and face me if you dare.'
The Martian Lord was straining to look up at the ship.
Eve Waugh and Alan were waiting for us. I hesitated. A mass murderer and the two people that had betrayed the Doctor to the Martians. But why trap me like this, when the merest moment before Xznaal had been able to deliver the kil ing blow? Besides, Christian would never work for the Martians. These people were on my side, and there was a wall between us and Xznaal. I gazed out over Tower Green, saw the Doctor's grinning face filling the sky.
Eve had a small pair of wirecutters, and she was snipping through the bindings on my wrist, one strand at a time.
Lex Christian was reloading his pistols, with the help of Alan.
'It's not a trick is it?' I asked the American journalist.
'No,' Eve laughed. 'That's him. He got aboard this morning when they were loading up supplies.'
I could picture the Doctor ducked behind a stack of crates, smuggling himself onto the magnetic lift platform.
Sneaking around the Martian ship, avoiding patrols, opening up inspection hatches.
'But ... how?'
'When the Martians attacked your house, we only just made it out alive.' I decided that under the circumstances it would be churlish to point out that Eve had been the one who had tipped off the Martians in the first place. The last of the bindings fell away.
Another sonic blast detonated. Masonry and glass crashed. It had hit a building, then, rather than the crowd.
'We headed back down to Adisham, but there was this terrible cloud.'
I nodded, rubbing