Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [3]
She rooted around for a slinky frock and let out a triumphant ‘Yes!’
when she found a lilac silk dress and some matching elbow-length gloves with pearl cuffs. In seconds, she’d slipped into them and was twirling and preening in front of the mirror. The frock, it had to be said, was a wee bit tight on her. But if she breathed in – and didn’t breathe out too much – it’d do. Shoes were a bit trickier, but she found a pair of silver strappy sandals that just about fitted.
‘Knock ’em dead, girl!’ she told herself as, with a final tweak of her hair, she bounded out of the wardrobe, ready for her disgustingly decadent breakfast. At Tiffany’s.
The Doctor was tempted to assume that something had gone very wrong with Arkon’s sun, and that it had caused a massive change in the planet’s ecosystem, turning it from high-tech paradise to swamp world. He was tempted to think that maybe the Arkonides had been messing with solar modifiers and had mutated their star into the orange ball that hung over him. Or that some attacking alien race had done the fiddling for them in an attempt to wipe the Arkonides out.
In fact he was very tempted to think anything except the one thing that really seemed most likely.
He leaned back into the cool interior of the TARDIS.
‘Have you been messing with those controls again?’ he shouted to Martha. But not quite loudly enough for her to hear. Because of course Martha hadn’t been messing with the controls. And the Doctor knew it.
He shook his head ruefully and ventured his foot out onto the mossy tree root, snaggled and sprawled out of the bank like a deformed Twiglet.
‘Must get those gyroceptors fixed,’ he muttered. Cautiously, he tested the root with his weight, and it held. The slipperiness was more of a problem: he had to hang on to the TARDIS’s doorframe as he shifted his weight onto his outstretched foot. Carefully, he brought the other foot out and found a safe-ish place for it.
Finally, he leaned onto it.
‘There!’ he beamed at his own cleverness. ‘Wasn’t so difficult, was –’
With all the comedic grace of one of the Chuckle Brothers, the Doctor began to flail his hands around as his left foot started to slip and slide on the root. And as his other foot decided to join in the fun, he began windmilling his arms frantically, jacket flapping around him.
Seconds later, as he felt himself begin to fall, he instinctively grabbed for the open doorway to the TARDIS.
Which was a big mistake.
The TARDIS might have been a pretty solid, pretty hefty thing, despite its external dimensions. But it was as subject to the same forces of physics – and friction – as he was. And despite the fact that it had squashed the roots underneath it when it had landed, they were still very slippery roots.
It was, thought the Doctor ruefully as his time and space ship began to move, a bit like launching a battleship. Only without a bottle of champagne smashed against the side of it.
With a creak and groan of roots and a deep squelch of mud, the TARDIS began to slide down the bank towards the water, and the Doctor again began to lose his balance. In fact, in accidentally pushing against the TARDIS, not only had he sent it down the natural run-way that the roots provided, but he’d pushed himself in the opposite direction.
‘Wellingtons!’ was the only thing he managed to cry out to Martha as he landed flat on his back in a spray of muddy water. He lifted himself up on his elbows just in time to see his beloved TARDIS pause at the edge of the swamp before it tipped, almost as if it were waving him goodbye. And in majestic slow motion, the blue box keeled over.
There was an almighty splash, drenching the Doctor with warm, silty water, a brief gush of bubbles and a massive