Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [15]
‘Of course, of course. If you’d like to come this way,’ Pallister said, his voice oily, ‘I’ll have an office sorted for you.’
He swept towards the doorway.
‘How did you manage that?’ whispered Ty as she and the Doctor followed.
The Doctor pulled a spooky face, wiggled his fingers and grinned wolfishly. ‘Madame Romana,’ he said in a strange accent. ‘She know everything!’
Martha realised she’d fallen asleep again – although she had no idea how she’d managed it. The warmth of the burrow or the nest had dried her out a little, but she was still shivering. The rain and the rustling noises seemed to have stopped but, as she shifted about, lying on what seemed like dry leaves, they started up again.
She squinted and peered at the ceiling – was it getting lighter?
Shewas sure she could see vague speckles of daylight, somewhere up above her. As she peered around her, trying to force her eyes to make something out, there was a flicker of movement, a dark shadow on a darker background. ‘Hello?’ she ventured, her voice croaky, her throat sore. ‘Is there anyone there?’
There was no answer, but there was more movement. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ she added. That’s the way, girl, she thought. Keep your voice calm, steady.
Down in front of her there was a thick, sploshing sound, like oily water being disturbed. The whispering and chittering around her stopped abruptly and all she could hear was the water. It was as though they were waiting for something.
Cautiously, she reached up and rubbed her face, feeling the dried mud and dirt caking her skin. As she moved, she heard tiny footsteps again, and squinted into the gloom. It was definitely getting lighter.
Martha looked up at the ceiling, and realised that it was something like wickerwork: bits of grass and twigs plaited and threaded together, with the vaguest hint of rosy light showing through the gaps. How long had she been here?
‘Doctor?’ she ventured in a whisper. Perhaps he was here, unconscious, just a few feet away. ‘Doctor!’ she hissed again. There was no reply – just the squeaking from the distance, and the sound of the water.
As she stared into the gloom, she realised that she could see more than before. She was in a chamber, the woven ceiling forming a dome above her. It must have been about six metres across, with a darker, sunken area in the middle. Presumably that was where the water was. Something moved on the other side of the pit, and she could just about make out a slim, upright shape – a shape that immediately shrunk, like an animal dropping from its hind legs onto all fours.
And there were other things – paler things – only just visible in the waxing light. Martha narrowed her eyes and looked around: there was a lower level, just below hers, like a miniature Roman amphithe-atre. Sprawled on it, across the pit from her, were three shapes. Could they be people? Perhaps others brought here in the same way she’d been brought. She peered into the darkness, willing her eyes to see. . .
. . . and then wished she hadn’t. She felt the bile rising in her throat as she realised what she was looking at. Laid out in the chamber, their hollow, sightless eyes staring straight back at her, were skeletons. Three of them; Three human skeletons.
Their fleshless skulls gleamed pink as the light grew around her, their mouths open wide as if in a final, terrible scream.
Ty was amazed at the speed that things could move. One minute Pallister had been showing the Doctor into a barely furnished office –
just a desk and a chair. And the next the Doctor was organising a mission to rescue his friend and his spaceship. It made her think even less of Pallister, if that was possible.
Pallister had spent a good ten minutes apologising until the Doctor had turned to him, fixed him with a steely glare, and told him, in no uncertain terms, to