Doctor Who_ Wooden Heart - Martin Day [7]
‘Doctor…’
‘Oh, and Charles Blondin, of course! Do you know, when he took me across the Niagara Falls in that wheelbarrow, well, for once, I feared for my life…’
‘Doctor!’
‘Hmm?’ the Doctor looked up from his screen.
‘There’s something you should see,’ said Martha, wondering if he could detect the fear in her voice.
Within a moment he was at her side. ‘What is it?’
Martha pointed at the display in front of her. Something had caught her eye – and it made her blood run cold. ‘I thought you said there were no life signs on this ship.’
‘No, there weren’t – though, if you remember, I did add certain caveats, a few qualifications…’
‘Well,’ said Martha, tapping the screen for emphasis, ‘we’re certainly not on our own any more.’
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor slowly. He stared at the monitor, turned his head away, and then looked back at the information – as if checking he wasn’t mistaken. The readings were still there.
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor again.
‘Ah?’
‘Definitely,’ he said. He glanced at Martha. ‘Doesn’t make sense, does it?’
‘Phew,’ said Martha. ‘I thought it was just me.’
The monitor showed a map of the Castor, each level, room and wing picked out in fine detail. Coloured dots marked the presence of life on the ship. ‘There’s us,’ said the Doctor, indicating two strands of information scrolling across the screen. ‘One human, one unknown – how rude! It says we’re both standing in Security Room B, that we’re both physically fit, and… Oh, bad luck, Martha!’
‘What?’
‘Says you’re developing an ear infection. Something to watch out for. Or listen out for maybe.’
‘Honestly, I feel fine,’ said Martha.
‘Computer says No,’ said the Doctor. ‘And we can’t argue with this fine piece of hardware, can we? Not when it has just detected these other signs of life…’
He stabbed at two other dots with strips of information scrolling off them. One strand seemed awash with information, and one barely seemed to register at all. Indeed, as she peered still more closely, the fourth data stream blinked out completely.
‘Look!’ she said. ‘It’s gone.’
‘And then there were three,’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘Well, I say three, but this other life sign… It’s like trying to isolate a footballer’s broken leg by taking an X-ray of the entire team. Just too much data, all in one go! The system is struggling to isolate any meaningful information.’
‘And the one that’s just disappeared?’
‘The exact opposite – no real data worth gathering. No heat, no energy, no movement… Oh, look, it’s come back again!’
The fourth dot appeared again, flickering like a torch running on old batteries.
‘You reckon you can work out where on the ship these… life forms are?’ asked Martha.
‘Absolutely! That big splurge of info shouldn’t be too hard to keep an eye on. Not so sure about the other fella, though – more like a shadow than a real creature at all.’ His voice became a whisper. ‘Between the idea and the reality… Falls the shadow.’
‘Then let’s find out where the big one’s coming from,’ said Martha.
The Doctor pressed a few buttons, whistling under his breath. ‘Just look at the energy that creature’s pumping out!’ he exclaimed moments later. ‘Hook him, her or it up to the national grid and you could power Milton Keynes for a week!’
‘Why Milton Keynes?’
‘Why not Milton Keynes?’ said the Doctor. ‘You know, whenever a chunk of the Amazon rainforest disappears, it’s always a piece of land the size of Wales. Or Belgium. What have they ever done to anyone?’ He found a pen in an inside pocket and scribbled some coordinates on the back of his hand. ‘Bad news,’ he said as he did so.
‘What is?’
‘This big life sign the computer’s picked up…’ He sighed. ‘It’s between us and the TARDIS.’
The Doctor and Martha left the security room only after checking all the available monitors. There didn