Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [91]
Trust him? When he'd leave Charles for dead but run off to get help for them and his little friend?
There was something she could do here. If no one else was going to make these lunatics pay for what they'd done, she'd damn well do it herself.
Painfully slowly, she began to manoeuvre herself back down the stairs.
***
The TARDIS was big when it ought to be little. That was all Fitz could think of. But, then, the case he'd been carrying was little when it ought to be big.
Same difference, he guessed.
Even so, it took some taking in. He'd imagined the Doctor and Sam squashed in a box taking off into space, he supposed, if he'd imagined anything at all. He'd started believing in it all only when he'd realised the Doctor was deadly serious about taking Sam, and himself, inside the police box for a trip to Bethnal Green, each step over the wet grass in the hard rain bringing the moment of truth nearer, dragging his heart closer to his mouth.
Now here he was, and the Doctor was already flicking switches and pulling brass levers on a wooden control panel. There were no chattering computer banks with big reels of tape attached, no blinking flashing lights or portholes in smooth metal bulkheads. Instead, everything was wood and brass, with a wall full of unreturned library books and a couple of statues dotted about. As spaceships went, while not exactly a disappointment, it didn't feel quite right.
'But will it fly?' Fitz said, wryly.
'It's all a little less ostentatious than that,' said the Doctor, yanking down a monitor on a coiled steel spring and tapping numbers in using what looked a bit like an old typewriter.
'So I notice. Anyway, how are you going to find this place?'
'We know where we're looking, now, thanks to Sam. And their locational shielding effect can't fool us any longer after my exertions in town today.
The TARDIS can now ignore the extraneous signals and hopefully land right on their doorstep.'
A strange, metallic grating started up, and Fitz felt a tingling in the pit of his stomach. 'What was that?'
'Take-off,' muttered the Doctor.
'But I only just got here.'
The Doctor ignored him, and walked over to the big red armchair Sam was curled up in. He blew softly into a wooden recorder. A mournful rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' sounded around the echoing room.
'Give me that,' said Fitz. 'I object to the slaughter of innocent tunes.' He played a coruscating eddy of notes up and down the scales, finishing with a quick rendition of the chorus of 'Please Please Me'.
The Doctor stared at him, agog. Then he snatched back the recorder and returned to the control panel. 'Rubbish,' he said.
***
Azoth suddenly shook into activity. He could detect the shrieking and groaning of the dimensions wrestling with each other to allow something through.
The Taylor unit was now repaired, but Azoth had known it would take some time for the human to recover. In that time, Azoth had gathered again the grains of his past, and remembered his masters, his original functioning, the beginnings of his existence. But then, once again, his motor circuits had died and his mind had lapsed.
Jolted back to the present by the disturbance, he discerned a large, blue box appearing in the corner of the chamber. He recognised it from a blur of Sam's thoughts: it was a travelling device, disguising itself as his own did. It could take its occupants anywhere in space and time.
Thoughts began to coalesce in his circuitry.
***
Maria had fought her way back to the bottom of the stairs, the pain in her legs and the image of Charles flailing about on the floor fuelling her anger.
When she crawled into the hallway she saw that Lucy had somehow made her way back to Watson and the two of them were holding hands again.
It didn't even surprise her this time. It was like stamping on a cockroach that refused to give up and die. But this time she'd really fix them. Now, while she was alone. And hang