Doctor Who_ Wetworld - Mark Michalowski [68]
The room was cool and dim – no one had bothered to turn on the lights. But there was enough illumination from the windows to see what was happening. Dory Chan was motionless by a big desk on which, unrolled, was a schematic of the drill mechanism and shaft. Dory was staring into space as if she’d done what she was programmed for and was waiting for further instructions. That didn’t make sense, surely, thought Candy as she moved alongside her. Hadn’t the Doctor said that when the slime creature’s instructions had been completed the settlers and the otters had to go back to it for more?
That could only mean one thing: that the slime creature had no more instructions for Dory. And if it had no more instructions, then it had no more use for her.
Candy snuck a glance out of the window. All around, the settlers were coming to a halt. She saw Eton, Pallister’s aide, walking in stut-tery circles. The otters were all stationary.
And then she saw movement.
One of the quad bikes was being pushed along by three of the settlers. The engine wasn’t running and on the cart at the back was big, grey cylinder almost as big as the engine of the quad bike itself. The cylinder was strapped up with metaltape and looked, thought Candy, a right dog’s dinner. Following on behind were two more settlers, pushing a huge reel of grey electrical cable, unrolling it along the ground as they went. What were they doing? She followed the line of the cable – and realised that it snaked in through the window of the control centre in which she stood. Just like that tentacle had snaked in through the window of the ship. The tentacle that had attached itself to Col. The tentacle that had killed him.
Candy ran to the cable and followed its route. It ended in a large, locking plug on a control panel. Quickly, she grabbed it and tried to turn it. But it was fixed tight. A keyed collar held it in place.
Frantically, she wrenched at it with her bare hands, but it was no use.
It wasn’t budging.
Think! She told herself, trying to make sense of it all. She remembered what the Doctor had told her: common sense. Think things through a step at a time. . . The slime-thing had control of the settlers, and the settlers were about to drop something down the drill shaft. Therefore, whatever it was had to be bad. She had to find a way toHer train of thought was derailed as something moved in the shadows of the control room. Several somethings. Her mouth went dry and she froze as, out of the darkness, an otter appeared, its beady eyes fixed on her. Silently, another one appeared, and then another.
Within seconds, she was surrounded.
The Doctor clenched his fists and stared out over the drill site. So close. . .
Down on the mud around the old settlement stood the kidnapped settlers. One or two of them had fallen over and were lying motionless on the ground. Scattered between them were the otters – and some of them looked like they were sleeping too.
The only movement was at the base of the drill tower. He squinted.
He could hardly make out what was going on. Three of the settlers had pushed one of the quad bikes up to the base of the drill. On the back was something fat and cylindrical – it could only be the bomb.
Behind it, two more had unrolled a huge drum of cabling, letting it spool out loosely on the mud – yards and yards and yards of it, back to the Nerve Centre. Even if he ran down there at full tilt, it’d be too late now. As he watched, the settlers heaved at the bomb and it tumbled from the back of the bike – and vanished out of sight into the drill shaft.
Like battery-operated toys whose power had just run out, the settlers fell over and lay still. The cable, looped on the ground in great scribbly swirls, began to unravel, following it down the hole.
‘We’re too late,’ said the Doctor softly, a bleakness in his voice that Martha had never heard before. ‘They’ve done it. They’ve dropped the