Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [88]
The way their mouths mashed made it look as though they were permanently hungry.
She’d only seen them through the window before now. The most powerful impression when she was face to face with them was the smell, which reminded her of disinfectant.
The lead Vore pushed her out of the way, as though it was opening a door.
It hopped over to stand in front of Marnal. Rachel twisted to get a better look.
The Vore was standing there. She wanted to impose human thoughts and emotions on it, but knew she probably wouldn’t be able to recognise what was going through its mind. The creatures’ heads were actually rather small, and were mostly taken up with the eyes and the jaw. There was barely room for a brain.
She screamed, but the Vore didn’t even flinch.
Rachel had never seen Marnal so still, not since he’d changed bodies at any rate. She wasn’t moving either, not a single muscle. She was trying hard not to breathe. All this thinking might be too much. . . What if they could read thoughts?
One of the Vore behind her pulled her to her feet, claws digging into her arms. The one in front of Marnal grabbed him. Then they lifted them both, taking them in a direction that wasn’t up or down, front or back, left or right.
They were somewhere else, a tunnel. It was dark, the air was thin but hot.
Rachel felt like she weighed two stone. The Vore lowered her on to a floor 180
that was thick with fine sand.
‘We’re on the second moon, aren’t we?’ she asked Marnal.
He nodded.
‘Did. . . did they kill us?’
He looked puzzled. ‘No.’
‘How did we get here?’
‘They can move through the fifth dimension.’
‘I’m not even sure what that means.’
‘They can manipulate hyperspace corridors. They travel down them like a spider down a thread of silk.’
The Vore pushed them both onwards.
‘They want us to go this way,’ Marnal said.
The two of them walked slowly, herded by the monsters. The ground was rumbling. It sounded as though they were in a subway beneath a busy road.
Five minutes of walking, and they entered a chamber. It was roughly spherical, the size of a small house. The ground was more uneven. Vore hung from the ceiling, like bats, or walked easily across the pitted walls.
Marnal was looking around. They’d come in through the only door.
‘Is this. . . What is this?’ Rachel asked.
An execution chamber? A larder?
She turned to Marnal, who was looking up at the ceiling. Suddenly, a Vore grabbed his head in two of its claws. Rachel screamed, thinking the creature was about to wrench Marnal’s skull off. Instead, it twisted his head down and round, until his attention was on the centre of the room.
There was a swirling visual display, a hologram. Rachel could make no sense of it. It flickered so fast it was making her dizzy.
‘Imagine it seen through an insect’s eye,’ Marnal said. She tried but couldn’t.
‘It’s the TARDIS,’ Marnal said. ‘They want the TARDIS.’ He sounded almost relieved.
‘We don’t have it –’ Rachel began.
Marnal was ignoring her. ‘I can get you this,’ he told the nearest Vore, speaking slowly.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
Marnal stepped over to her, and leant in close. ‘If we summon the Doctor here, we can take the TARDIS. Escape in it.’
‘Why do they want it?’
‘They have an instinct to spread, to feed. Think how far they could go with a TARDIS.’
‘Is that why they came to Earth in the first place? They were chasing the TARDIS?’
‘Not exactly, but close enough.’
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‘With a TARDIS, they could go everywhere, in every time period.’
Marnal nodded.
‘So we shouldn’t even risk them getting their claws on it!’ Rachel shouted.
Marnal stepped back and looked around, but the Vore weren’t reacting.
‘They can’t operate the TARDIS. I can. We can get a long way from here.’
He stepped up to the nearest Vore. ‘In return, you spare my life. Our lives.’
The Vore stood, impassive.
‘I agree to the deal,’ Marnal said, carefully.
‘Incoming transmission, master,’ K9 reported.
He’d been helping the Doctor fix up the console. The Doctor was over at one of the walls, accessing some of the supply