Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [106]
Watson nodded, stiffly. 'We're too strong to be hurt, now.'
'We've left her boy downstairs. 'Taylor realised. 'Unguarded.'
'There's nowhere he can go,' said Watson. Then he patted the blue paintwork of the police box's door. 'Just like our friend in the box.'
'What do you think he's up to in there?' asked Taylor.
'Like old Roley’, Watson said, jerking a thumb towards the prone figure on the bench. 'Not a lot. Just waiting to die.'
6.66
The Doctor pored over the contents of Azoth's data core once again, this time looking for anything filed under 'Terminal Solution'. He was in with a chance. Azoth hadn't said the program was nowhere, at all: he'd clutched at his head and said it was now here. And that meant that the key details would also be here in the TARDIS data banks.
There. The information was encrypted, of course, but it shouldn't take too long to decipher.
It couldn't. He didn't have too long.
***
Fitz couldn't believe his eyes as he started walking round the cellar. Bottles of wine, hundreds of them, stretched out before him, crammed in from floor to ceiling. Some were thick with cobwebs, dating back forty or fifty years; others had obviously been laid down more recently to be enjoyed in the future. Well, it seemed unlikely anyone would object to his just helping himself. A good drink was exactly what he needed.
Wondering vaguely if he'd already been killed upstairs and hadn't noticed the trip to heaven, Fitz pulled out his Swiss army knife corkscrew and got stuck in.
***
Taylor was hammering on the TARDIS doors, now. The Doctor could hear the blows as he looked up from the translation monitor, rubbing a hand across his lips, calculating probabilities in his head.
'Do you mind?' he yelled at the doors. 'I'm trying to think!' He turned back to the screen. 'How close can you drop me to the hall, old girl?' he asked aloud. 'I wonder...'
***
Taylor backed away as the light on the police box started flashing and an incredible noise started up, as if the wind had been given a voice to scream with. Before his eyes, the police box was fading away.
'How's he doing that?' cried Lucy. 'It's a trick!'
'He can move it from inside!' roared Watson.
'He's leaving us,' said Lucy, hopefully. 'He's giving up!'
'Rubbish, woman,' retorted Watson. 'He's not the kind that gives up.'
'He's got powers, too,' said Russell, looking nervous.
'Aye, boy, and a charmed life!' Watson ushered them out of the room. 'Now, fan out! He won't be going far!' He paused in the doorway as the others headed off in different directions. 'The boy!' he yelled after them. 'He'll be looking for Kreiner's boy!'
***
Fitz sat on a large crate in the middle of the cold flagstone floor and drained a bottle of some fancy wine with a stupid name. It tasted pretty foul, to be honest, but he was comforted by the fact it must've been hugely expensive and not a bad vintage. Wouldn't be here, otherwise.
Suddenly, Fitz felt his stomach lurch as he distantly heard a grating, wheezing noise. It was the Doctor's ship. He'd got away. Or had Watson nicked the keys off his corpse and taken it for a spin himself?
As stealthily as he could with a bottle of posh red inside him, Fitz crept up the stairway.
***
The TARDIS had brought the Doctor to the top of the hall stairs. The scanner showed the landing to be empty. He patted the console and opened the doors.
Cautiously, he looked out. While he'd been crossing to the doorway, Lucy had turned the landing corner and was galloping towards him. He bolted through the doors, dashing to get to the stairs before she did, then taking them four at a time.
'Stop being such a bore!' she yelled at him. 'Stay where you are and let us kill you!'
The Doctor didn't waste time bothering to reply. He took in the decapitated Azoth, glanced at Fitz's mother lying prone by the robot's side, panicked for a moment, then spied the head lying by the far wall, next to Maria. As Lucy hoisted her dress and ran down the stairs, he dashed