Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [85]
‘Kill the Doctor,’ the robot repeated, rolling after him.
The Doctor ducked left, and an energy bolt whizzed past him. As he raced back into the part of the TARDIS he knew, the Doctor had one thought: why on earth would anyone build a robot in the shape of a dog?
The trick was to move quickly, and to know where you were going. The Vore swarm was in the Low Countries at the moment, but would be over the English Channel within two hours.
Trix did what she could over the phone, calling the police – not saying who she was, of course – and gradually piecing together the Doctor’s movements.
He’d traced the truck to an address in north London, and a few hours later the police had mounted an armed siege there, one that had been called off when the second moon arrived. The police had been busy with other things since then.
That was the best she was going to do. Spending several hours in the hotel’s dining room – the only place with mobile reception – got her out of her bedroom, and stopped her thinking about Fitz. In theory.
Trix went back up to her room. She’d left the shower on. For a moment, she thought Fitz was going to pull a Bobby Ewing, she was going to find him in the bathroom wondering why she looked so surprised. When she got into the bathroom, though, there was an odd red stain on the mirror. It looked like melted lipstick, or possibly crayon. There was also the faint whiff of fly spray.
175
She packed her bag. It took far longer than she thought it would to find her car keys, twenty minutes, and they only showed themselves when she broke down crying with the frustration of it all. Then she cleaned herself up and went downstairs. The receptionist wondered if she’d be back tonight. Trix couldn’t tell her. She’d been the only guest last night, so was confident she’d get a room if she needed one.
A couple of Vore flew overhead as she threw her bag on the back seat of the car. They were hundreds of feet up and didn’t react to her. There were so many around, and their rules of engagement were apparently so arbitrary, that all you could do was hope you didn’t catch their eye. They were ugly things, and ungainly, but when they were individuals the wary could survive contact with them. When the swarm descended the rules would change. Were these Vore scouts? What were they scouting for? Nothing on television or the Net suggested there was any sense of purpose to the attacks. Wherever the Doctor was, once he’d saved any lives he could save, he’d try to determine what the Vores’ purpose was before he did anything else.
She sat in the driver’s seat of her BMW for a moment, trying hard not to cry.
There would be time for that later. Or she’d be dead too.
The sky was dark and grey, but it wasn’t raining here yet. Her hotel was at the top of a hill, off a side road. There was gunfire from the town below.
Trix decided to follow it. She wanted to see whether there was any effective resistance. The car was handling in a funny way again. It had been the same since she’d got it – the suspension was off, or there was something wrong with a wheel bearing. It wasn’t a big deal. She drove the car down the hill, with the radio turned down so she could hear what was going on outside.
A couple of big army trucks were parked in what was usually a market square. Soldiers were sitting around, rifles at their sides, taking the chance to swig some drink or read the paper. There was a big pile of dead insects by the war memorial.
The lads looked pleased to see Trix as she got out of the car, and she duly did her best to flash them smiles and look impressed. She asked a squaddie carrying a petrol can where she could find his commanding officer, and he pointed out the lieutenant in charge.
‘My name’s Beatrice Macmillan,’ Trix told him.
‘Are you all right, miss?’
Not a pleasantry, a genuine question. Trix wasn’t sure what she was doing that made him ask this.
‘You’re secret service, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You can always