Doctor Who_ Ultimate Treasure Part 19

'Exactly!' said Thorrin, with a calculating gleam in his eyes.

'And with any luck a sizeable portion of the forest with it, if it's all as dry as this. There is a slight breeze in the right direction which should help.'

'But you can't,' exclaimed Arnella.

'Why not? This is no time for half measures, and it's evidently good for nothing else. As Sir John pointed out, it is clearly a contrivance of the natives. And since they have proven themselves quite ruthless when it comes to setting their traps and hazards so far, they can expect nothing less in return. Let us see how frightening they can make a field of ashes. If they think they can intimidate Alex Thorrin so easily, they can think again!'

Gribbs stirred and slowly sat up, resting his back against the tree. The wood was filling with gloom around him as the shadows of evening lengthened.

He was aware of a terrible pounding in his head, and a dull ache along his back where he had hit the tree. Feeling sick, he looked around for the red beast that had knocked him down, but, thankfully, there was no sign of it. Unfortunately, neither was there any sign of the girl.

What would Qwaid say when he found out he'd lost her again?

Then inspiration, brought on by his own splitting headache, struck. As soon as his mind had cleared a little, he called up Qwaid.

'I found the girl,' he said brightly, 'only she took a knock on the head when she landed and she's still out cold.'

'Are you sure she's all right?' cut in the Doctor's anxious tones.

'Sure,' said Gribbs easily. 'I've seen these things before. She'll come to in her own time.'

'OK,' said Qwaid, coming back on the line, 'but as soon as she does, you check the Falcon Falcon, right?'

'I'll do that, Qwaid. Just you leave it to me. How are you doing?

Been staying awake?'

'What do you think? At least we're nearly clear of this muck.

There's a line of trees ahead. Maybe another wood...' Drorgon's voice spoke out in the background. 'Qwaid. See that? Looks like a fire...'

'Yeah, it is. We'll take a closer look. Call you again.'

Gribbs broke the connection with a sigh of relief. He'd bought himself some time. Now all he had to do was really find the girl -

and keep an eye open for that creature as well. He struggled to his feet and drew his pistol. It wouldn't catch him by surprise again. The sudden awful possibility occurred to him that the creature might have eaten her. How would he explain that to Qwaid?

Peri was having the ride of her life. Red was bounding through the trees on a curious but effective loping run, forcing her to hold on tightly to the pommel hoop and duck overhead branches.

Gradually the forest opened up and in the failing light she now saw they were moving along a familiar, well-marked pathway.

Were they headed for the pyramid after all?

They pa.s.sed a couple of the robed locals. Peri expected some sort of reaction, but they merely stepped politely aside to let them by, then continued on their way.

Through the trees to one side she saw a large metallic dumbbell form resting on widespread strutted legs. A s.p.a.cecraft.

She was back in the landing grounds. And then in the glade before her was the TARDIS.

Red padded to a stop beside the ersatz police box and waited expectantly.

'Now how did you know where to bring me?' Peri asked him.

'Did you scent my trail from the other day, somehow? Well it was a nice try but I haven't got a key, so...'

Then she saw that the TARDIS's door was ajar.

Thorrin stood back and admired his handiwork. Tree after tree was catching as the fire began to eat its way into the dead forest.

Wood popped and dry gra.s.s and moss crackled and hissed, sending clouds of sparks into the air. The others shaded their races from the heat, but Thorrin seemed positively to bask in Its intensity. The first of the trees toppled and shattered, showering a cloud of sparks and blazing fragments across the ground. Myra saw Brockwell take Thorrin's arm protectively.

'You'd better step back a little, Professor. It's not safe standing so close.' Another tree collapsed, setting small tongues of flame flickering across the matted tangles of dry gra.s.s that fringed the forest edge.

'We had best retire to the mud fields,' said Falstaff, mopping his brow. 'We must resist their soul-sapping doldrums while this conflagration burns itself out.'

With Brockwell half dragging Thorrin, they turned their backs on the blazing trees.

The tiny fires that had been smouldering about them seemed to suddenly burn brighter. Before they could take half a dozen steps they had flowed and merged into two arms of flame that crackled out from the forest through the gra.s.s and met with a roar, encircling them in a wall of fire.

CHAPTER 17.

NIGHTMARES.

Peri ran though the TARDIS shouting out the Doctor's name. But the twisting corridors only echoed to the sounds of her own words. She'd hoped that somehow he had managed to return to the craft, but evidently it was empty and, oddly, though she felt rea.s.sured to be within its dimensionally folded walls again, it seemed somehow less welcoming than it had been. But then what had the door been doing open? She was sure she'd seen the Doctor close and lock it when they'd set off.

Well at least she could shut herself away in here from Gribbs.

But for how long? Having set out on a treasure hunt the thought of cowering away inside the TARDIS didn't feel right. Besides, what about the Doctor? Those crooks would hardly just let him go when they learnt she'd escaped. She had to try to do what she could for him. And perhaps now she had a better chance, if she could count on her new friend to help. For some reason Red seemed to have taken a liking to her and showed no inclination to return to wherever he came from. Now might be a good time to reinforce that bond.

She dialled up a heaped a.s.sortment of synthetic meat bars from the food machine, found a large bowl and filled it with water, and took it outside. Red was still sitting in a half crouch, patiently waiting where she had left him. She made a great fuss of him while she opened a few bars and let him sniff at them. He consumed each one, then the rest as fast as she could feed them to him, wrappers and all. Afterwards he drank deeply from the water bowl and then lay down protectively in front of the TARDIS's door, like some monstrous guard dog.

She wished him goodnight and closed the door, feeling really safe once more. Tomorrow at first light she would set off after the Doctor and the others. And there seemed a good possibility that she would be riding at least part of the way.

Arnella was screaming, arms flung about her uncle, as the wall of fire grew higher and closer. Brockwell was stamping on small fires that were springing up about them, while Falstaff slashed wildly at them with his sword. Thorrin was swinging about, glaring at the blaze as though attempting to hold it at bay by the sheer force of his will. It should have burnt out in seconds, Myra thought. No gra.s.s can burn that long or that fiercely, so it has to be another trick. But she could smell the clothes scorching on her back. Was it real fire artificially enhanced or simply an illusion? Could you die from the illusion of fire if it seemed real enough?

Suddenly Thorrin shouted above the roar of the flames, 'This way - it's our only hope!'

For a moment Myra thought he had gone mad. He was pointing into the forest. But then she realised the outer wall of trees had burnt down, revealing cool darkness beyond, overhung by a pall of black smoke.

They stumbled forward, picking their way rapidly across the still smouldering embers, choking in the fumes, the heat scorching their feet. The DAVE drone tried to follow them, but a flaming branch smashed it to the ground. It's an ill wind... as terrestrials say, Myra thought. Then they were beyond the blaze, staggering between the twisted tree trunks and breathing in cool air.

Then the fire came after them.

It leapt from tree to tree, each almost exploding into flame, forcing them to run deeper into the forest to keep ahead. As the trees burnt they contorted still further, writhing into even more fantastic shapes. And as each burnt it seemed to scream. A thin terrible wailing cry, a continuous ululation of agony. Arnella clamped her hands over her ears as she ran to shut out the terrible noise.

'It's heated sap and water vapour escaping through splits in the woods!' Thorrin shouted, sounding less certain than his expression would suggest.

But as the fire sheathed each tree they began to see faces picked out by the flames and the peeling bark. Myra could make out distinct eyes and noses, with mouths gaping in time with the cries. They were too precise to be chance formations. Thorrin stared in horror and disbelief, but the terrible faces would not go away.

'You killed them, you killed them!' Arnella shouted wildly.

Flaming branches uncoiled and lashed out, as though the tree beings were trying to take their revenge on their destroyers before they died. Falstaff cut at one branch with his sword and then, seeing a dark gap between two trees, he darted off, moving with surprising speed for his bulk. In a few seconds he was gone.

Before Myra could decide whether to follow him or not, a howling wind tore through the forest, whipping up dead leaves, ash, and glowing embers into a choking turbid fog. She heard the others calling out, but though she groped about her she could find n.o.body. She stumbled on blindly, eyes and nostrils clamped shut against the unbreathable atmosphere. How long could humans survive it? she wondered desperately.

Then the skies opened as the black cloud above the forest dissolved into a torrential downpour, washing the smoke and ash from the air and drenching the blazing trees with hissing roars.

In moments everything vanished in a haze of steamy vapours.

The cool rain felt like balm to Myra's scales, even though it had not improved visibility. The ground was fast turning to mud and she could neither see nor hear anything of the others.

Exhausted, she slipped and slithered into the lee of an earth bank and sat down to wait for it to pa.s.s.

Qwaid urged them on into the shelter of the nearest clump of trees on the edge of the forest as the torrent descended. The fire they had been approaching was swallowed up by the downpour, and in seconds the only sign that it had existed was the pervasive odour of damp ashes.

As they huddled out of the rain and wind he tried to raise Gribbs on the comm link, but all he got was static.

'Must be the change in the weather,' he said aloud, more for his own benefit than the others. Silently he wondered if Gribbs had simply turned off his receiver. Perhaps he'd fouled up again and didn't want to admit it. What if he'd got the ship working and decided to give up on them? No, he wouldn't do that - would he?

What other surprises had Alpha left for them? Maybe the ship was b.o.o.by-trapped and Gribbs had tried to take off and it had blown up. He could still see that last image of Alpha's face on the monitor...

'I don't like it here,' Drorgon rumbled, swinging his great head about anxiously and fingering the stock of his cannon. 'It feels...

bad.'

'You don't have to like it, just be quiet and do what you're told!'

Qwaid shouted back. 'We say what's bad around here. Others worry about us, got it?' He was surrounded by fools, but he mustn't lose their respect. And yet it was getting harder to think of new things to say. Then he realised the Doctor was looking from one to the other of them with solemn intensity. 'What?' he demanded, his voice cracking under the strain.

'It's begun,' the Doctor said. 'Another form of mental attack.

The opposite of what we experienced out on the mud flats, I think. You must both force yourself to remain calm, whatever stimulus you feel. Do you understand?'

There was something very compelling and soothing about his voice. Qwaid swallowed, forcing himself to concentrate.

'You hear him, Dro? You keep cool, yeah?'

'But I feel it, Qwaid. It's all round us.'

'No it ain't!' Qwaid said, very much afraid that Drorgon was right but desperate not to show the depth of his own fear.

Even as he spoke he saw a tiny flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye that disappeared when he turned to look properly. Then there was another. Somehow he knew they were shadows of half-formed things that should never see the light of day. He drew out a torch and flicked it about after them, but they always evaded the beam. He began to flinch and jerk at the slightest movement. A heavy raindrop worked itself through the branches and landed on his cheek, where he dashed it away with a whimper of terror. Drorgon fired his cannon at something unseen out in the darkness, then shone his own torch only to discover he had blasted their tenacious DAVE drone to fragments. For a moment that cheered him enough to force a chuckle. But the dread returned, growing deeper by the minute.

The Doctor was sitting with his fists clenched and eyes shut apparently fighting his own demons. 'However real they seem they aren't there,' he said quietly, as though repeating a mantra.

'I am master of my own mind.' Then more loudly: 'I deny you, do you hear me?'

The storm lessened and the rain swept away, leaving a clear sky tinted by the last cold blue glow of the vanished sun. The Doctor forced his eyes open, looking suddenly haggard. 'I suggest we get back on to the mud flats. I think we can manage the la.s.situde better than this, at least until morning.'

'Yeah... right,' agreed Qwaid, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

They all three made to stand up. But they couldn't. Something was wrapped around their ankles holding them fast. With a sobbing cry Qwaid shone his torch down at their feet.

Pale glistening roots as thick as ropes were curling about their legs.

Back in the Stop Press Stop Press, Dexel Dynes cursed loudly.

That was the third DAVE drone he had lost inside a couple of hours. His expenses for this story were going to be steep.

Rapidly he reprogrammed the second of his patrolling DAVEs and sent it on its way. But it would take over an hour to reach the scene of the action, and meanwhile he was as good as deaf and blind. The blank screens on his monitor array stared back at him like dead eyes. The scene of the year might be taking place somewhere out there this second and he might miss it!

That possibility was the only thing in the galaxy that really frightened him.

When the steam and rain lifted Myra found herself all alone, sitting on the edge of an ephemeral flood stream that gurgled away between the trees. The only other sound was the incessant dripping from the naked branches.

She looked around her curiously. 'Hey, where is everybody?'

There was no reply. Taking out her torch, she got up and began to make a circle through the trees, keeping the stream at the centre and calling out their names. There was still no reply.

Where could the others have got to? n.o.body would have gone far in these conditions. Fifty metres at most.

She scratched her hip irritably, then realised she was feeling hot and itchy in several places. Some ash from the fire must have got into her clothing and between some scales. She tugged out a flap of her jerkin and shook it about, but the itching only became stronger. She twisted around and shone her torch on her side.