Doctor Who_ To The Slaughter Part 13

They made it as far as the storehouse, and found that the tremors had hit hard. It was like a gang of giants had been playing dice dozens of the huge metal crates had toppled over, spilled their heavy-duty contents, or rattled closer together as if huddling for safety. There was no path across to the deliveries entrance the other side no way through to the ship.

The Doctor looked pensive. 'These supplies are ruined! I do hope Blazar had adequate insurance.'

'The disc things!' cried Trix. 'They can move the crates!'

'The alien took the remote,' the Doctor reminded her. 'It's buried in that lot somewhere!'

'Sonic screwdriver?' she yelled over another terrifying crash, thundering beneath the plastic floor.

'If I can match the frequencies. . . ' He looked up as an ominous creaking, groaning noise started up. 'Oh, no.'

Trix swore in terror as the roof dipped down at the far end of the huge storehouse. Then it began to collapse not in pieces, but in a single swathe of moulded plastic the size of a football pitch, a giant boot brought crashing earthward.

She and the Doctor hared back out through the exit as the enormous roof smashed down on top of the crates. The noise was like a sonic boom fed back through a planet-sized amplifier. Laying on the floor, Trix felt her ears gingerly, expecting her fingers to come away b.l.o.o.d.y.

'You're all right, Trix. Come on, we have to. . . ' The Doctor trailed off, then turned back around to face her, beaming with joy. 'Praise be for cheap, pre-fabricated s.p.a.ce-dwelling materials!'

Trix came to see, and marvelled in amazement.

The white plastic roof could only have been an insulating layer or something, masking off a vaulted ceiling that buzzed and sparkled with weird au-rora. It had fallen in a single piece like an enormous chopping board, covering over the uneven, impa.s.sable silver landscape with broad white indifference.

They had their path across to the other side. Providing the real roof didn't follow suit. Or. . .

'Doctor?'

He'd started singing as they scrabbled across: ' Like a bridge over crumpled Like a bridge over crumpled orders. . . orders. . . ' '

73.'Those glowing lights and stuff up there it's our protective shield against Jupiter's field, right?'

'That's right,' he said cheerily. 'Charging ions and solar particles in the atmosphere to keep us safe.'

A loud, unhealthy buzzing started up, and the lights started flickering like something out of a David Lynch movie.

The Doctor quickened his step. 'If it fails, we're dead!'

'I know, I know, in a second.' From somewhere Trix found the strength to put on an extra spurt of speed, but they were running out of convenient roof. A good fifty metres of crushed crate landscape stretched jaggedly ahead between them and the doors.

'We'll use them as stepping stones!' he said, like it was a sacred vow rather than a desperate last-trick-in-the-box suggestion. He leaped from the end of the roof like it was the galaxy's biggest diving board and landed squarely on the nearest crate. From there he picked his way over a mound of disgorged equipment to the next big box, lying on its side.

Trix stepped where he stepped, followed his every move wordlessly, thoughtlessly. All she could think about was the way the lights were buzzing and sparking, the dreadful sound of ma.s.sive generators running down, the way it was getting colder. The systems were failing here. The moment they did. . .

Her clothes ripped on sharp edges. Her shins and arms throbbed from where they'd banged against twisted metal, she had a mean st.i.tch in her side.

How did the Doctor keep up this pace? Too exhausted to scramble up the side of another mini-mountain of mining gear she tried to squeeze through a tiny gap between two crates. She couldn't get through. She was wedged halfway.

And now she could hardly breathe.

Trix started rasping for breath, slapping at the sides of the crates, furious at herself, furious at everything and everyone. People were supposed to find great strength in times of crisis, weren't they?

The lights fizzed and dimmed to nightlight level. A sheen of frost was forming on the sides of the crate.

Christ, was this ever a crisis.

She heaved with all her strength.

And the crates fell away.

She stared at her hands, disbelievingly.

Only as the crates rose up into the air did she understand what must have happened. Or rather, who.

'I found it!' The Doctor waggled the little remote control in her face. 'I'll bet my coat's around here too, perhaps we could '

74.But she was already haring for the tradesmen's exit. The floor became a comforting concrete beneath her feet, solid and dependable as she pelted through reception.

A gash opened up beneath her like a fat black snake slithering through the stone, but the docking tube was in sight now. Swearing with every step she took, she wound up running the last few metres with a foot each side of the widening chasm. Finally, she threw herself forward on to the hard plastic ribbing of the tube, clinging to it and gasping for breath.

The Doctor yelled out behind her.

She turned to find him doing the splits, straddling the divide, and couldn't help but break out into hysterical giggles.

He flipped himself forward, one arm each side of the split, and crawled along like Spider-Man scaling a building until he could drag himself on to the tube beside her. It looked like he was giggling too.

Then his face hardened. 'We're not clear yet.'

Dragging her up, he tugged her along into a last staggering run to Falsh's ship. Their breath clouded out in steamy gasps. A rime of frost was coating the insides of the docking tube; the lighting was a grey shadow.

Then finally their destination came into sight, the airlock door obligingly open. Together they climbed into its welcoming warmth, and the Doctor shut the inner doors.

'We made it,' panted Trix.

'Not yet,' said the Doctor. 'Thebe's about to be vaporised. We have to get clear of the particle containment area!'

He pelted out of the airlock, heading for the c.o.c.kpit.

75.

Chapter Ten.

'That's it.'

Tinya sat up in her chair triumphantly. Never mind she'd been up all night.

Never mind her eyes felt like someone had poured grit into them. She had found the moment. The moment the agitators came aboard.

It seemed the Doctor hadn't been lying to her about his craft the big blue box.

There, in Loading Bay Two. One moment it wasn't there, the next. . . with a wheezing, groaning sort of a noise. . . it was. Half hidden by crates, but there it was.

Security had noticed nothing. Why should they be watching a sealed loading bay? Besides, the Polar Lights Polar Lights was the only vessel berthed in that bay at the time. They'd arranged for the antique sweeteners to be delivered there, ready to be loaded aboard Halcyon's ship when it arrived. They'd known the place was empty. was the only vessel berthed in that bay at the time. They'd arranged for the antique sweeteners to be delivered there, ready to be loaded aboard Halcyon's ship when it arrived. They'd known the place was empty.

No one had any defence against a box that could appear from nowhere.

It was all really rather interesting.

The men came out first. The advance guard. The distraction tactics.

Fifteen minutes later, the woman followed.

The mastermind.

Then the box was dragged by drones into Halcyon's ship along with everything else. Including, eventually, the first of the agitators to reveal himself.

The one called Fitz, who'd seemed so perfectly stupid.

Halcyon hadn't contacted Falsh yet, as far as she knew. Had Fitz taken off once aboard? It seemed more likely than Halcyon involving himself in anything so crude as a breakin, even if he did suspect Falsh's motives in destroying Carme. Then again, relations had been strained between the two of them for some time. . .

This byzantine business was shaping up into something perfectly delicious.

And, perhaps, highly profitable.

Security should be shown this tape at once. If Falsh hadn't laid off the security chief, she'd never have been able to view it ahead of them. But the lad deputising was like putty in her hands. She smiled. One flick of her black fringe and he was ready to move mountains for her.

Security should be shown this tape at once.

77.Once she'd edited out the offending sequences and made it seem like that most interesting little box had been there all along.

She smiled to herself. Halcyon was clearly a dark horse. He would have to be watched very closely.

In the Polar Lights Polar Lights's airlock, a kind of awful calm drifted across Trix, even as the most violent tremor yet started up. She knew there would be nothing she could do to help the Doctor clear the vaporisation field. It was out of her hands. If they didn't make it, they didn't make it.

She lay on her back, still fighting for breath, looking up at the alien archi-tecture of a s.p.a.ceship 500 years in her own future, wondering if she would live or die.

Then slowly, slowly, the ship thrummed with power and her stomach shifted as they took off. A tear escaped her right eye, dribbled down her cheek and into her ear. She wiped it away crossly.

Trix didn't know how long she lay there, getting her breath and her wits back. At length, she got up stiffly and padded through the soft pastel walkways in her grimy kitchen overalls, found her way to the c.o.c.kpit.

The lightshow through the window was breathtaking. In the epicentre, lights of every colour flashed and sparked around a dense cloud of debris.

Further out, eerie ethereal glows and skeins of brightness threaded the dis-tended belly of peach-brown Jupiter to the blackness of s.p.a.ce.

The Doctor was sat in the pilot's chair, watching Thebe's destruction in stony silence.

'Do you think Torvin got away?' she said.

He shrugged.

'He was right about that place being finished. But, hey, what a beautiful finish.'

' Thebe Thebe was beautiful.' was beautiful.'

'It was only a rock, Doctor.'

'A rock of ages.' The Doctor sounded husky. 'Just the very possibility of Thebe's existence inspired people to search the skies, night after night in the hope of finding her. Voyager Voyager found her in the end, stumbled upon her by chance. Still, she gave up her secrets so slowly over the decades, teasing and alluring, inviting so much comment and theory at her spectacle in the sky. . . ' found her in the end, stumbled upon her by chance. Still, she gave up her secrets so slowly over the decades, teasing and alluring, inviting so much comment and theory at her spectacle in the sky. . . '

'And then it was put to practical use. That was good too, wasn't it?'

He gave her a you-don't-understand-anything-puny-human look and she shrugged. She was too exhausted to argue with him over a rocky doughnut in s.p.a.ce.

'What about this fragment of Carme you're chasing?' she asked.

78.'It's been powered into a degrading orbit around the south tropical zone. In a few weeks it'll plunge into Jupiter and burn up.'

Trix shook her head. 'What would anyone have to gain by turning a lump of moon into an ejector seat just so the whole thing could go up in smoke a few weeks later?'

'To buy a little more time?' the Doctor suggested.

'Time to do what?'

'I don't know,' he said, before performing the s.p.a.ceship equivalent of stepping on the gas. 'But I intend to find out.'

Chief Supervisor Torvin. His eyes flicked over his name badge and he gave a derisory snort. What a joke. He looked at his discarded overalls, crumpled in a heap in the little silver bathroom.

He'd survived. He'd come through. A new life would begin today.

Naked, he walked from the bathroom to the little adjoining cabin and lay on the bed. He'd set coordinates for the podule. It would take a little over six hours to arrive. He would take a little trip in the meantime.

He took the first of several tablets laid out on the dresser, washed it down with water, then picked up a second and waited, cradling his head in both hands.

The backs of his legs were hit first, then the back of his neck. Gratefully he drifted into a blissful, disa.s.sembling heat. The carnage and horror of the day peeled away from his mind like flesh from burning bones.

'You?' Fitz took a sip of his drink and stared at Sook dumbly. ' You You are an Old Preserver?' are an Old Preserver?'

'I'm co-operating with them,' said Sook distantly.

Mildrid smiled wickedly. 'We wouldn't stand a chance of stopping Halcyon without her.'

They were all sat around a crate in the cargo bay, nursing cups of excellent coffee from a dispensing machine. It seemed Gaws and Mildrid had come aboard in a sudship; these were largely automated cleaning vessels notorious for zipping out of s.p.a.ce to give pa.s.sing ships an unasked-for scrub-down the cosmic equivalent of those annoying gits that clean your windscreen when you stop at traffic lights. Halcyon liked a clean vessel, so while the sudship went to work, Sook secretly entertained its pa.s.sengers.

Fitz kept peering into the dingy distance to try to spy his own transport. All this intrigue, these local politics, they were nothing to him. He should b.u.g.g.e.r off and hide out in the TARDIS the first chance he got, work out how the h.e.l.l he was going to get Trix and the Doctor back without getting snared up in this nonsense.

79.Except. . .