Doctor Who_ The Nightmare of Black Island - Mike Tucker [27]
‘Ali, you’re gonna be the death of me!’ Rose could hear the cracks in her voice. ‘You’ve just taken years off my life! What are you doing in here?’
‘Sian remembered she had a torch on a keyring. It was free with a magazine.’ She held it out to Rose. ‘I thought it might help.’
Rose hugged her. ‘Thank you. But you shouldn’t have come down here. It could be dangerous.’
‘None of the others would do it,’ Ali said, extricating herself from Rose’s grip. She looked embarrassed.
Rose took the little torch from her. The LEDs were bright enough to see the way ahead. She couldn’t send Ali back without it and she’d certainly make better time in the remainder of the tunnel with it. She caught the girl by the hand. ‘OK, you can come with me. But you’ve gotta promise me that you’ll do exactly as I tell you, right?’
Ali nodded.
Torch held out in front of them, the two girls headed forward. The Doctor hopped from rock to rock, dancing out of the way of waves, examining the spacecraft. It was small and cigar-shaped, about twelve metres long, with ugly, powerful-looking engines hanging from fins at the rear. The surface was a dull silver-grey, etched with alien hieroglyphics. There were no windows visible, but thick black cables arced from underneath the ship and wound their way up the cave walls, vanishing through neat holes in the rock. He scrambled up on to a large boulder and peered at them. ‘No prizes for guessing where they go!’
‘Doctor?’
65
Bronwyn poked her head tentatively into the cave.
‘Bronwyn! Lovely! Come and look at what you’ve found. Smashing little interstellar hopper. Dual plasma-injection engines, toughened duralinium hull with built-in force-shield deflectors, go-faster paint job and probably a CD changer in the boot!’
Bronwyn shuffled forward nervously. ‘Are there. . . are there any. . . ’
‘Occupants? Nah! Not round here, at any rate.’
He jumped down from his perch to her side. ‘I think that they think they’ve parked somewhere safe. See that?’ He pointed at a cluster of circuit boards hanging from an exposed hatch on the side of the spacecraft’s hull. ‘That’s the imaging circuit of a cloaking-shield generator, or at least it would be if it wasn’t all banged up and broken and nibbled by sea bass. That’s how they’ve kept it hidden all this time and why you’ve not seen it before now. But they’ve been unlucky, didn’t bargain on the sea being so unpredictable. It’s bashed the ship against the rocks, quite recently by the looks of things, hit a vital spot, probably invalidated their no claims bonus. Now, that’s very unlucky for them, but very, very lucky for us, ’cause otherwise you’d never have found it.’
‘But why?’ Bronwyn was looking frightened. ‘Why are they here?’
The Doctor nodded at the cables that clung to the walls. ‘I think it’s got something to do with the lighthouse. Come on! Let’s go and see if I’m right!’
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Rosehadneverbeensogladtoseetheskyinherlife. Usingthetorch that Ali had brought, the two of them had made swift progress through the tunnel, eventually reaching a large metal shutter bolted to the wall. It was rusted and corroded, but had been levered open with an old railway sleeper. By the two boys presumably. A shaft of weak sunlight sliced across the wet brickwork, rain spattering fitfully through the gap.
Rose looked at how far it had been prised open. It was going to be a tight squeeze to get through. Ali had wanted to go first, but Rose held her back, still not sure of what they were going to find on the other side.
Handing Ali the torch, she peered through the gap. The tunnel opened into a ramshackle lean-to in the corner of a sprawling courtyard. Packing crates, oil drums and the remains of an old sit-on lawnmower stopped her getting a better view. She pushed herself flat against the wall, forcing one shoulder through, then the other. Rust and dirt streaked the front of her parka but Rose didn’t care, she was out.
Keeping low behind the piles of junk, she scurried forward, check67 ing that