Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [94]
He narrowly avoided another golden fist, and circled round the android again.
***
Taylor knew nothing of the struggle around him. He was too busy listening to the buzzing, urging him to return to the house, to get out of the death cave, to return to the house...
***
'Neither of us has time for this,' the Doctor cried as Azoth staggered towards him again. 'Your energy is almost exhausted. If you heal Sam and the others I will help you recharge yourself, restore your function.' Azoth wasn't listening. 'I can prove to you then the Beast are not evil, that
-'
The Doctor realised that a blasphemy like that was clearly going too far.
Azoth lashed out an arm in a blur and grabbed hold of him. The Doctor felt his ribs start to buckle. Then he was flung against the medi-couch that held Taylor, the force of his impact causing a shower of sparks and crystal to erupt in his face.
The Doctor cried out and fell backward on to Sam, clutching his eyes.
***
Fitz watched in terror as Taylor began shaking on the couch. It was as if he was being electrocuted.
'The activation is too soon!' said Azoth, his voice higher, as if he were in pain, too.
***
Taylor looked around him in dazed disbelief. It was the cave, the death cave. Then he recoiled from the presence of the angel from his dream.
'Keep away! Keep away or I'll kill you!' Taylor ran to the other side of the couch, putting it between him and the golden man.
'You will damage yourself,' the thing hissed at him. 'You are not ready. You will not function correctly.'
It reached out and flicked a switch. Taylor saw the big metal doors begin to close.
With a yell of defiance and fear he shoulder-charged the angel, sending him reeling into a wall.
'Azoth?' someone shouted. It was Roley's friend, the Doctor, lying on the floor with the girl, hiding his eyes, afraid.
A blue power was crackling around the angel. Its golden head was snaking, becoming blackened and tarnished. It screamed, a terrible noise, a noise worse than the flies that were still buzzing in his head.
Taylor stared around him, wildly, then realised the doors were still sliding shut. He ran through them and into the blackness, without another glance.
***
The Doctor rubbed his eyes. The skin felt tender about them, burnt. He couldn't see properly, he couldn't focus on Sam, so he felt for her pulse.
'Still there,' he muttered. 'Hold on, Sam, hold on.'
'The last...'Azoth's voice was little more than a whisper. 'Gone...'
There was a clattering. Was Azoth getting up, or falling down?
'Terminal solution...'
'What?' the Doctor shook his head, trying to clear it. 'What do you mean?'
'To destroy Beast... Ensure... total elimination of life... on Earth...'
'No!' The Doctor scrambled up. What was happening? "That's genocide thousands of times over!'
***
Fitz watched as the half-cooked golden man clambered up and dragged itself over to the Doctor. The thing was half wrecked, but by the look of it that wasn't going to stop it killing him. Just in the way it had killed the ancestor he'd never even known he'd had. And if the Doctor died now...
what the hell would happen to Fitz Kreiner and his nearest and dearest?
'I've never had time for metronomes, Doctor,' he muttered, finding the switch for the doors and activating it.
***
The Doctor's sight was beginning to return. He realised that Azoth was about to deliver the killing blow.
'Wait!' shouted Fitz."The Beast, I feel their presence here!'
Azoth ground to a halt, then turned his blackened face towards Fitz. 'You...
sense the Beast?'
Fitz nodded. 'Sure.' He began to act like a medium in a trance. 'I sense them, I sense them here, there, everywhere!'
'All right, don't milk it,' grumbled the Doctor.
'Then... 'nal solution... not 'ssary...'Azoth held out his hands and fell noisily to his knees, as if worshipping Fitz. 'Once lost... now...' He grasped his smouldering head. Now... nowhere... '
With a final hum of power and a