Doctor Who_ The Nightmare of Black Island - Mike Tucker [66]
‘You didn’t do your job properly, that’s what I mean! Priest Commander of the Cynrog?’ The Doctor gave a snort of derision. ‘No wonder your pitiful little race never gets anywhere!’
He crossed to one of the nervous technicians. ‘Gonna take orders from a commander who can’t even count, hm? From someone who thinks that she’s such a clever clogs because she found a way of using the local kids as a resource but didn’t make sure she had all the facts.’
He dodged out of the way as a lump of plaster crashed down from the ceiling.
‘You’ve made a lovely big monster with huge pointy teeth, but it’s not got all its marbles, has it? You missed a bit, thicko!’
‘Another child,’ breathed Peyne.
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‘Yes, another child. Another poor wretch who spent the best years of her life with a fragment of your god inside her head!’ The Doctor’s voice was cold, hard. ‘And now you’ve unleashed your creature without checking that it’s in its right mind, a creature that is mentally unbalanced, unfinished, uncontrollable! All you’ve done is created another nightmare. You’ve failed, Peyne!’
‘NO!’ Peyne screamed in frustration and anger. She stumbled across to one of the humming consoles, pushing her milling technicians aside, claws dancing across controls. ‘It’s not too late. We can still find the child.’
‘It took you fifty years to find the others! What chance do you have of finding another one now?’
‘Because she’s close, Doctor. Here somewhere. See. The readings are almost at optimum. Almost! That means the child is close, within range of the receptors! I’m not going to fail!’ She spat the words. ‘Not now! I’m not going to have wasted my time on this miserable planet.’
‘Your creature will have burnt itself out long before you have time to complete the transfer, Peyne. Listen to it. It’s tearing itself apart!’
‘Then perhaps we need to give it some self-control.’
Peyne started stabbing at buttons and energy flickered around the heads of Morton and the others in the beds. Old bodies twisted in pain, backs arching.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nathaniel Morton and his friends can perform one final service in the Cynrog cause. Their minds are weak, but they can still serve to calm the creature, just long enough for me to find this one last fragment.’
‘No!’
The Doctor tried to pull Peyne away from the controls. She thrust him back savagely, whipping the disrupter from her pocket.
‘You’ve become expendable, Doctor.’
She pulled the trigger.
Ali lay flat on her stomach, stretched out under the crackling Cynrog machine. She flinched as fingers of glowing energy danced across her 157
skin. It tingled. Her eyes were getting heavier and heavier; the sonic screwdriver felt like a lump of lead in her hand.
‘Don’t stop, Ali.’
She could hear Rose shouting from the door. ‘Remember what I told you!’
Ali struggled to concentrate. Ahead of her she could see the cluster of black nodules that she had to reach. She shuffled forward on her tummy. There. She could reach them now. So what was it she had to do?
She yawned. She was so tired and it was warm here under the machine. Warm and glowing. She rested her head on her arm. A few moments wouldn’t hurt.
‘No! Ali, don’t!’
Rose was banging on the metal floor. Ali could feel the vibrations.
‘All right, all right!’
She struggled to lift the sonic screwdriver, holding the tip against the first nodule. There was a harsh blue light and a piercing whine and the back lump split open, revealing a single dial. Ali reached out and turned it from ‘three o’clock’ to ‘two o’clock’, as she had been told. The hum from the machine above changed in pitch. Ali moved to the next nodule. Six more to go.
At the bottom of the lighthouse Bronwyn peered out through the open doorway and smiled at the small figure that wandered towards her from the beach.
She was so very tired. Perhaps it was time to stop, to finally give up.
Inside her head she could feel the thing that she had carried since her childhood struggling to be free. Perhaps it was time to let