Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [130]
Lethbridge-Stewart's earpiece crackled. 'T minus two minutes.' He could hear the words, so he was alive.
He pul ed himself up, coughing and laughing. 'That was a close one. Is everyone OK?'
As the brick dust began to settle, he could make out Bambera on her hands and knees, shaking debris from her hair. Standing behind her were half a dozen soldiers, with machine guns.
They weren't his men. They were Provisional Government troops.
***
The hatchway dilated closed, and Xznaal stepped from the lift platform into the main hold. He had spent a week in the Tower, with its crude human attempts to replicate the temperature and humidity of Mars. The genuine Martian atmosphere tasted odd: too dry, not rich enough. It was dark here, dul Martian lighting simulating the conditions of his native world, and also the paucity of its energy reserves. Al around were silos and cylinders full of raw materials brought from refineries and mines the length and breadth of this land. With the wealth of the Earth he could have rebuilt the Argyre. The diseases that racked the bodies and minds of his people would have been cured, there would have been food and fuel for all. He pictured Mars how it might have been: dry fountains running with water again, the zoos and parks teeming with life.
The ceiling above him clattered. The hold of the Martian ship was vast, large enough to contain the plunder from an entire military campaign. The pressurised vessel took up the entire roofspace. The Red Death was inside, impatient to start its work, possessed of an overwhelming urge to be released. Xznaal listened to the glorious sound, imagining the moment when he would pul the lever that freed the gas, the action that would destroy all human life. First he would destroy the Doctor.
He realised that the warship's cannons had been silent since he had stepped aboard.
'Gunnery officer, why have you stopped firing?' he barked into the air.
Something darted outside the chamber, behind the glass door. It was impossible to see it clearly. The door retracted.
Standing framed in the doorway, bathed in red light, was the Doctor. He resembled a human male, with a long, shaggy mane of fur. According to al the legends, the Time Lords were able to select their physical frame. Why did the Doctor wear such a body, when he could choose the most magnificent armour, or a form that glittered or shone like gemstones?
'Well, it might be something to do with this.' The Doctor tossed over a crystalline ball. Xznaal caught it, seeing that there was a delicate mechanism at the globe's core. It took the Martian a few seconds to identify the device as the main processor of the gunnery computer. The Gallifreyan's face was twisted so that his teeth were bared. Vrgnur was behind him. But Xznaal's scientist was not the Doctor's captor, rather his stance resembled that of a bodyguard.
The Martian Lord drew in a deep breath. 'Vrgnur, what is the meaning of this treachery?'
In his paw, the Doctor was holding a small holocamera, the device he had used to project his image. He put that device in the pouch of his robe as he began walking the length of the room over to Xznaal. Inside its storage vessel, the Red Death began scattering around, excited by the new arrival. Xznaal could hear it scratching and clawing at the wal s of its prison.
The Doctor glanced up the storage tank lining the ceiling before brandishing a small codex. 'I've made some calculations.' He opened up the cover and began leafing through the pages of handwritten notes. 'I even got your scientist here to check my working.'
'And what are your conclusions?' Xznaal growled.
Vrgnur stepped forwards. 'Lord Xznaal, the Doctor is a scientist of great skill. His calculations confirm the results of the tests that I conducted on soil and water samples from Adisham. They show that the Red Death hunts all Terran DNA, not just that of the humans.'
Xznaal grunted his satisfaction.
'If we were to release enough of the Red Death to wipe out the human race, it would eradicate the entire Terran biosphere,'