Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [135]
All around us, people were cheering. The shouts and whoops almost drowned out the rumbling, rolling sound of the explosion as it reached ground level.
'He ... he might have survived,' I said.
'He might have,' the Brigadier said gently. 'Professor Summerfield ... Benny. The important thing is that he beat the Martians. Thanks to him the entire human race has been saved.'
The Brigadier was trying to convince himself as much as persuade me. He was the one who had ordered the air strike, and he'd been the Doctor's friend a great deal longer than I had.
'Yes,' I said, just wanting to cling to something that was certain. 'At least it was quick.'
The Brigadier shifted on his feet. I only found out a few years ago why - he must have known that when a pilot or astronaut dies in a fire or an explosion it's not a quick clean death. A fighter pilot can expect to live a full five to ten seconds as his aircraft explodes around him. It's as bad, apparently, for those who have to listen to the black box voice recorders afterwards.
I looked up, but the Martian ship had been atomised, the Harriers had returned to their base. The only thing up there was a cloud of black smoke, criss-crossed with white jet trails, and even that was begin to disperse.
Nothing had escaped. No Ice Warriors, no sonic cannons, no Red Death. Nothing.
End of extract
***
The Doctor assessed the situation. There was good news and bad news. Taking the negative first: the ground was nearly ten thousand metres away, straight down. On the plus side, it was getting closer. Through the wispy clouds London was a dark grey expanse, broken up by great square patches of green and the grey squiggle of the Thames. It was so quiet. The air rushing past him was so thin that it hadn't the strength to carry sound -
Only one way out. He turned to Grace.
'Not afraid of heights are you?'
'Yeah!'
'So am I!'
In an instant he brought his body under control: slowing his hearts rate, regulating the adrenaline flow. The cold, the shock, the thin air, the friction might have been enough to kill a human, but were mere technicalities to a Time Lord. He increased the rate of his mental activity, and attempted to dedicate it al to one question. But his life was flashing in front of him, random memories and emotions. That hadn't happened in Adisham. Was that a bad sign?
It was a short life, especial y compared with some of his other -
'How do we get down?'
He turned to Benny, a sad smile on his face. 'Ask me again in a week's time.'
He would fall at roughly thirty metres a second, allowing for wind resistance and updraft. He would soon reach terminal velocity. He had about five and a half minutes to solve the problem using only the materials at hand.
His usual assortment of junk: a cricket ball, an elephant feather, a bag of kola nuts, a big ball of string, a piece of the True Cross, even a dog whistle.
Of course! The Flying Elephants of Saltaris III. Their wings were soaked in isocryte, the amazing antigravity material that -
He handed everything but the string to Benny.
The Doctor scowled.
That struck a chord in his memory.
'Curtain rings,' Bernice scowled.
'They might be important. Or they could come in useful.'
He flipped himself over onto his back, bending his knees slightly. The universe rotated until the Martian ship was directly above him. The fuselage was fragmenting, lit from within. The beams and vaults that gave the hul its strength were visible, like an X-ray. The skin of the hull was warping and melting under the intense heat. The fins atomised, streams of fuel streaking out across the afternoon sky. The Doctor hardly noticed.
They had stopped off at Mrs Darling's shop to buy some milk and bin bags.
120
Every Martian in the ship was dead, the Doctor realised. All their weapons and personal possessions had gone.
The Martian Invasion was over, the Earth and every human, every living thing on it had been saved. He might die, but five bil ion humans, twenty five bil ion trees, ten trillion insects and twelve hundred pandas were going to live. It was a