Dr Who New Adventures 39 Original Sin, by Andy Lane (v1.0) (pdf)

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do is follow us through hyperspace. No, the best course of action is destroy it
here and now; bring the whole thing crashing down, and the INITEC building
with it.
Powerless Friendless shrugged. I have bad memories of this building, he
said. I m game.
Cwej opened his mouth to protest, but Forrester elbowed him in the stom-
ach. Sign me up for it, she said as he bent double in pain. I d like to shove
this ship right up the arse of the person who runs INITEC. After what he did
to me . . . She paused, and swallowed. After what he did to Martle.
Cwej nodded. Fine, he said, still trying to catch his breath. Whatever you
say. But what about the people in the building?
Glancing out into the corridor, Bernice could see the Hith commander slith-
ering towards them.
If the congruities are preserved, she said, then the ship will appear in mid-
air outside the building. I think. I hope. It ll drop down to the Undertown. Is
there anything in particular underneath us here?
Mostly deserted buildings and water, Powerless Friendless said, moving
over to the controls. The INITEC building is above the area where the old
Scumble ship crashed, years ago. It s a wasteland. And, let s face it, if we can
stop the icaron radiation, we ll save more lives than we squander.
I see you ve got the Skel Ske working, the commander said, addressing
them all from the doorway. Good work. How long before the ship is ready to
go?
Five minutes, said Powerless Friendless, without turning. But it s only
going in one direction.
What do you mean? the commander hissed. Which direction?
Lingerie, stationery and kitchen utensils, Bernice said with a smile.
The Doctor slipped a hand into his right trouser pocket, frowned, and brought
it out empty. He repeated the process with his left pocket. Still nothing.
Pulling them out like an elephant s ears to check their depths, he shrugged.
Next he checked his jacket pockets, one by one, but they were empty too.
230
Doctor, your juvenile sense of humour is proving to be a little wearing.
You ve waited this long, the Doctor snapped, slipping his shoe off and up-
ending it. Impatience doesn t suit you. The key dropped into his palm, and
he grinned. Obvious place! he cried, and slipped it into the lock. The TARDIS
door swung open, revealing a dark interior.
Follow me, the Doctor said, limping towards the darkness.
Vaughn hesitated for a moment, then reached out with a chunky metal hand
and took the Doctor by the scruff of the neck. The Doctor winced as the fingers
tore open one of his rapidly healing wounds.
I ll keep you by my side, I think, he said. I am not unaware of the trick
you pulled on Planet 14. Dragging the Doctor along beside him, he stepped
through the vulnerably open door and into the sterile white light of the con-
sole room. His gaze passed across the roundelled walls, the central console,
the scanner screen and the enormous object embedded in the ceiling. Doctor,
he said, gazing around in avuncular fashion, you have no idea how impressed
I am by the achievements of your race. Even the Cybermen could not construct
a vessel such as this. He tightened his grip on the Doctor s neck.
Thanks a bunch, the Doctor muttered. As I recall, they once stole one from
us. He squirmed slightly, trying to ease his way out of Vaughn s grip. He had
hoped to shut the huge time doors, cutting Vaughn off from the outside world,
but he hadn t anticipated Vaughn wanting to keep him quite so close.
Doctor? Vaughn s voice was sharp, as if he could read the Doctor s
thoughts. Don t think you can betray me. I can kill you faster than you
can move!
Judging by the way that Vaughn s metal fingers cut into the tender flesh of
his neck, the Doctor believed him.
The high-pitched scream of the Skel Ske s engines powering up followed Ber-
nice and the others as they pounded and slithered their way along the twist-
ing, turning corridors of the Hith ship. The Hith troops were sliding along the
walls and ceiling in Powerless Friendless s wake, blasting any bot that dared
show its face. Provost-Major Beltempest had retrieved two laser cannons from
fallen Hith and was cheerfully laying down covering fire with one cannon in
each pair of arms. They d left quite a trail of wrecked metal behind them, but
they d lost a lot of troops in the process.
Chris Cwej suddenly appeared beside Bernice. His arm slid around her back
and beneath her arm, taking some of her weight. She rested gratefully against
the mass of his body. Thanks, she said.
Don t mention it, he said, grinning.
Forrester, who was running beside Cwej, growled, Nothing personal, we
just don t want you holding us up.
231
Bernice turned to make sure that Powerless Friendless was keeping up with
them, and felt a sudden pain stab through her. Powerless Friendless wasn t
with them. Powerless Friendless had stayed behind.
He had tried to explain, in what little time they had before the Hith com-
mander would have got suspicious.
There s no remote timer, he had said. And besides, Homeless Forsaken
Betrayed And Alone and I caused the problem. He s dead, and so it s up to me
to sort it out once and for all.
But . . . Bernice had stammered, desperately trying to think of ways out of
the situation.
No buts, Powerless Friendless had said gently. I don t want to survive. I
can t live with the memories of what was done to me by INITEC, and I can t
live without them either. I hid in the Undertown for too long. I have to . . . to
atone for my cowardice.
And he had pushed her gently towards the doorway with a pseudo-limb.
Impulsively, she had returned and embraced him. Goodbye, she had said,
kissing him softly between his eye-stalks.
And she had left, taking Cwej and Forrester with her.
Bernice s mind suddenly jerked back into the present as they all rounded a
corner, and found the hatch into hyperspace ahead of them. Two bots were
standing guard over it. Beltempest dropped both of them with withering blasts
of radiation.
Out! he yelled, and quickly!
As Bernice passed through the doorway and onto the walkway across hy-
perspace, she momentarily wondered how Beltempest felt, defending a group
of Hith against human-built robots. Perhaps he didn t see the incongruity. Per-
haps he d go back to hating aliens the minute they were all safe. People, as
the prophet said, were strange.
Ahead of them, another ship, presumably the Hith ship, was attached to the
walkway by a long boarding tube.
The whine of the Skel Ske s engines had spiralled up and out of the range of
human hearing, to the point where it was giving Bernice a headache. Casting [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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