Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [47]
‘More black than green, really,’ Ty said. ‘But the monster bit’s about right.’ ‘Sorry I had to put you through all of that, but it was the only way.’
‘To find out what the alien proteins were for?’
He nodded.
‘Not something I fancy going through again in a hurry, I have to say. But as an intelligence-gathering exercise, it wasn’t totally unsuc-cessful.’ He took off his glasses, popped them in his jacket pocket and grinned.
‘Those slime-things, the beasties in the nests – I know what they want.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘Us!’ he whispered.
The further she was from the settlement, the more nervous Martha was becoming. She’d lost not only the sonic screwdriver, but also any sense of where she was or where the otters were taking her. After their initial ‘conversation’, they’d remained largely silent, whispering to each other in tiny squeaks. One or two of them would rush ahead, obviously scouting out the way, and then return. They’d confer with their fellows and then the whole group would move on again. The couple of times that Martha tried to find out where they were all going were met with silence, and she was beginning to wonder whether she’d imagined hearing words in amongst their squeaks.
How come no one had mentioned that they could talk before? She couldn’t recall their talking when they’d taken her the first time. Up ahead, a domed black shape showed against the darkness of the forest. Although Martha didn’t remember seeing one of the otters’ nests from the outside, she knew full well what it was. Her pulse began to quicken and her mouth began to dry as her little furry entourage guided her down a channel-like path into their home.
She had to drop to all fours, feeling the soft mud squelching between her fingers and the wetness soaking through the dressing gown and hospital gown to her knees. And then she was inside. Memories of the last time she’d been in a nest came rushing back and she fought back the rising panic. But as her eyes became acclimatised to the darkness, she realised that this nest was a little different to the other one: the pit at the centre, instead of being filled with water, contained only soil. Otters ran backwards and forwards across it.
‘So what now?’ Martha said, hunching herself up against the far wall and hooking her arms around her knees. ‘Tea would be nice.’
For a moment, she realised that she was sounding like the Doctor.
And, in a silly way, it made her feel stronger. If the Doctor could get through the worst of times with a joke and a grin, then why couldn’t she? Maybe it was one of those unwritten rules of space and time travel: face it all with a quip or risk going completely barking mad.
The otters that had brought her here lined up around the curve of their nest, linking paws in an incredibly cute way, as if they were about to take a bow at the climax of Tarka – The Opera.
‘I spose that “take me to your leader” won’t help, will it?’ Martha suggested – hoping that their leader wouldn’t turn out to be one of the slime creatures.
‘Leader bad,’ said one of them. ‘Hurt.’
‘Your leader’s hurt?’
‘Bad leader. Leader hurt. Hurt bad.’
Martha shook her head.
‘Just rearranging the words isn’t going to help,’ she said. ‘Is your leader hurt?’
‘No leader,’ repeated the otter. ‘Leader bad. Leader hurt us.’
‘Ah!’
Martha reckoned it was making a certain kind of sense.
‘Right – let me see if I’m getting this right. You don’t have a leader, yeah?’
‘No leader,’ agreed the otter seriously – or as seriously as a squeaking otter could be.
‘But a leader has hurt you? Something you think of as a leader?’
‘Leader hurt us. Bad. Don’t want leader. Leader wants us. Leader wants you.’
‘And by leader,’ Martha ventured, ‘you mean those slime-things, don’t you? They hurt you, didn’t they?’ Martha tried not to think too hard about what the otters’ ‘leader’
had done to her, how it had made her feel – angry, hungry, violent. It had worn off with her as it had worn off with the otters – well, these otters at least. But why these otters. . .