Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [26]
He rarely went out into the forest or the swamps on his own, and then only when he really had to. His duties were all at the settlement, in the offices, zoo lab or in the kitchens.
It was the in the refectory that Candy finally found a clue. Janis, the duty cook, told her that she’d seen Col not twenty minutes ago.
He’d said something about the One Small Step – with an oddly worried look on his face. And then he’d snatched a couple of wrapped duck sandwiches from the counter and rushed off.
It wasn’t much to go on, thought Candy, but it was all she had. So she grabbed a waterproof jacket from a hook near the door and set off into the forest.
It didn’t take her long to pick up his trail. Candy had plenty of experience of tracking animals, and she was quick to spot the signs of Col’s passage: a broken branch here, a footprint there. The fact that Col wasn’t a small man made the footprints deeper and easier to spot.
But she was relieved when she came across one of the sandwich wrap-pers, flapping on a branch – now she knew that she was on the right track. The route to the ship followed the path to the old settlement for a couple of kilometres and then veered right, inland. The flood had washed it a lot farther than anyone had expected, according to Orlo, and the journey took her through relatively unfamiliar territory.
The forest thinned out closer to the water, replaced by lower bushes and soggier ground. Fortunately, for once, there was no sign of rain. Before she knew it, she was breaking out of the vegetation at the peak of a small hill; and standing not a hundred yards away, slumped over on its side in a half-drained river, was the One Small Step. It was a sorry sight.
She, along with the other settlers, had seen it in all its grandeur before take-off back on Earth. Launched from just outside Mbandaka in the Democratic Republic of Congo (because of its proximity to the Equator and the ease of launching), the ship had blazed golden in the evening sun, eliciting gasps of delight from all of them. Back then it had shone like a star.
But much of that glory had been burned away by the launch and planetfall. And by the time the settlers had set foot on their new home, it was looking much the worse for wear. All those months under water had done nothing to improve matters. Only the three fins (totally functionless, Orlo had told her, there simply to look good!) retained any of their shine. One of them rose to the roof of the forest, albeit at something of a lopsided angle.
The flood had painted the rest of the ship in shades of mud-brown, slime-green and disaster-grey. And then the rain had streaked rivulets of cleanness down its side. Candy slithered down the bank towards the river, spotting Col’s footprints in the gloopy mud as she went. She thought about shouting Col’s name, but something made her hold back. She felt a bit guilty, but she wanted to find out what he was up to, and giving him advance warning that she was on her way might not be a good idea. As she reached the ship, she saw that the passen-ger ladder was still intact. Bent at a weird angle, but, amazingly, still intact. It dangled a couple of feet from the mud – from where Col’s footprints ended.
Candy looked up across the vast, barrelling curve of the ship, and noticed a dozen holes in the plating, a shattered window on the flight deck and a vast gouge along the ship’s flank. . . She sighed. It would take a lot of work to make this fly again. Gritting her teeth, Candy reached for the ladder, grabbed firmly, and began to haul herself up.
∗ ∗ ∗ Whilst Martha slept, she dreamed. A dream more vivid, more solid than any she’d had before.
She was standing in a lake – a vast, mirror-smooth lake – that stretched to the horizon all around her. The sky above was a deep blue, untouched by clouds. High overhead burned a tiny, white sun, but when she stared up at it, it didn’t hurt her eyes. The lake must have been shallow, since it only came up to her knees.