Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [42]
The President, as yellow and dry as the page of an ancient paperback, was clearly very old indeed. Sitting in a high-tech wheelchair which seemed as much a life support system as a means of conveyance, he nevertheless was clearly in full control of all his faculties.
Indeed, when the Doctor – with many an apology –
explained how a member of the mission, through an unfortunate misunderstanding, was travelling with Vice-President Tragan, the uncertainty of age quite vanished and he became a model of command. Dispatching the Captain to meet her, he assured them that she would be perfectly safe in the hands of the Vice-Chairman. Perfectly safe, he repeated, emphatically.
‘Now, why should he find it necessary to say that?’
thought the Brigadier, and noticed with alarm that the Doctor seemed as worried as he felt.
What Sarah had expected to find when she stepped out of the spaceship she was not quite sure, but she hadn’t anticipated finding herself standing under a cloudless blue sky in a beautiful flower-filled garden. Leaving Crestin to deal with the two animals, Tragan gestured to Sarah to precede him down the steps of the landing pad onto a wide path paved with marble.
As she walked down the long winding path, Sarah began to feel that the vista wasn’t so beautiful after all. On each side were banks of strange fleshy blooms, some of which, with a simulacrum of teeth in the centre, seemed almost to be grinning at her. It was a kaleidoscope of rich discordant colours, backed by swirling shrubs and the tangled foliage of thick squat trees. Although there was only a gentle breeze. everything in sight was in constant edgy motion, almost as if the vegetation was on a wary lookout.
‘The largest collection of alien life forms in the whole of Parakon,’ murmured Tragan, behind her.
‘I’d advise you to keep to the centre of the path,’ he added.
‘Why? What do you mean?’ she asked – and immediately had her answer. A small creature the size of a squirrel or small cat darted from the undergrowth and tried to cross the path. But two plants with blooms like giant orchids swooped down and both grabbed it in their –
yes, their mouths!
The flowers’ contest for their screaming capture was soon settled by a natural judgement of Solomon. The disputed prey split down the middle, a final squeal abruptly cut off, and the plants resumed their former positions; the excited flurry of movement around them settled down; and all that could be heard was the sound of chewing.
Sarah had stopped short. As Tragan impelled her onwards with a hand on her shoulder, she was gasping for air, to keep herself from throwing up.
The path going round a bend, a high stone wall was revealed, with an ornate archway containing a heavy gate.
As they approached the gate, which Sarah had expected to swing open, it slid sideways into the wall.
Another push between her shoulders and she walked through the arch – and nearly fell over. She appeared to be on a narrow walkway or bridge, with no sides, thousands of feet in the air. As she heard the door close behind them, she saw that in fact she and Tragan were in a transparent tube, leading from the top of an enormous building to the uppermost floor of another even larger; and each building was perched precariously (or so it felt; oh, how precarious it felt!) on the top of a long stalk or tower. She realized with a jolt that the garden, extensive as it was, was on the roof of a structure which would dwarf the most colossal skyscraper ever built on Earth.
Even though she now knew it was safe, it was all that Sarah could do to cross the twenty yards or so to the other side without dropping to her hands and knees. Beneath her feet, far below, she could see busy roads