Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [44]
‘It’s Ty, sweetheart,’ she said softly. ‘Martha’s gone to –’
‘So much need,’ he said. ‘So much. . . ’ He paused and stared into her eyes. ‘So bright.’
And then his eyes snapped shut and he sagged back onto the bed.
‘What was that?’ asked the doctor, checking the Doctor’s readings again.
Ty shook her head. She had no idea. So much of what had happened in the last day or so was beyond her. Here she was – a nurse turned vet – and, just at the moment, she was of use to neither human nor beast.
Suddenly there was a banging and a hammering on the door.
‘Who’s in there?’ shouted someone.
The receptionist rushed to the door, her face pale.
‘Who’s that?’ ‘Hertig,’ came a gruff voice. ‘Henig Olssen.’
‘Where are the otters?’
‘They’ve gone,’ Henig said.
Mariel was already sliding the pole out of the door handles. In rushed Henig with a couple of the other settlers, armed with spades.
‘Everyone’s gathering in the square – c’mon.’
‘I’m not leaving him,’ Ty said, glancing at the Doctor.
‘Go on,’ Lee urged her gently. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him. He’ll be fine now.’
Reluctantly, Ty gave in, and followed Henig and the receptionist out into the crisp night air.
The orange-lit square was filling up with people – crying and shaking people.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Ty, looking around in fear, although she thought she already knew the answer.
It was like the night of the flood, all over again. Ty watched the receptionist run to find her boyfriend and saw her swallowed up by the crowd. There was no one left for Ty to run to.
No one seemed to know exactly what had happened, although one thing was very quickly clear.
Twenty people had completely and utterly vanished.
And Martha Jones was amongst them.
More than anything, Ty felt she’d let the Doctor down. Back in the bio lab, sitting beside his bed, mopping his forehead and listening to him muttering in his sleep, a tiny, tiny part of her hoped he wouldn’t wake up yet. Not until she’d worked out what she was going to say to him.
‘Well it’s like this. . . ’
‘I couldn’t stop her. . . ’
‘She just ran off. . . ’
No matter how she worded it, she’d let him down. She’d let his best friend run off into the night with nothing more than a high-tech screwdriver.
Reports came back to her about the events of the night before.
Doors and walls all around the square were covered with long scratches, and the grass between the buildings bore numerous scuff and drag marks, scattered with clods of turf torn up by frantic, panicking hands. The whole of the Council had disappeared, along with eight others – including Martha. And there were smears of blood on the floor and walls of the hallway to the Council chamber.
Then, as if to hammer the final nail into the coffin of her fears about Martha, someone had found the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver at the edge of the square, squashed down into the mud. And no one had seen Col or Candy since earlier the previous day, although Janis said that Candy had come looking for Col round about lunchtime. The only assumption they could make was that they’d been taken by the otters as well.
The flood had cut the settlers’ numbers in half; and the otters were whittling down the survivors. At this rate, when the second wave of colonists arrived – if they ever bothered – there would be no one here to greet them. Just a rotting, crumbling settlement and a lot of skeletons.
Ty wanted to cry, but she didn’t even have the energy for that. All she could do was sit by the Doctor’s bedside and hold his hand.
‘Professor Benson. . . ?’
Ty jerked awake suddenly. Candy was standing in the doorway. She was filthy, her face spattered and streaked with mud and crusty green slime. She looked exhausted and, as Ty stood up, she almost collapsed in her arms. Ty manoeuvred her into the chair by the Doctor’s bed, and she all but fell into it.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, her voice equal parts anger and worry.
Candy was shaking, her eyes wide. Ty pulled a blanket from