Doctor Who BBCN17 - Sick Building (2 page)

5

‘Yes! Just in time! I think.’ He stopped. ‘In time for what?’ He ran his hands distractedly through his tangled dark hair.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You muttered something about saving somebody, or something. And getting there in time. Some awful kind of danger. . . ’

‘That’s it!’ he cried. ‘I hadn’t realised I’d told you so much about it already.’ Now he was haring off round the console again.

‘Hardly anything,’ she protested. ‘What kind of danger?’

His head popped up over the console and his expression was very serious, bathed in the green and satsuma orange glow of the TARDIS

interior. ‘The Voracious Craw,’ he said, very solemnly.

‘I see,’ she said.

‘Ooooh, they’re a terrible lot,’ he said, gabbling away twenty to the dozen. ‘Each one is the size of a vast spaceship. They just go sailing about with their mouths hanging open, devouring things. Devouring everything they come across. They look just like, I dunno, gigantic inflated tapeworms or something. Only much worse. If your planet attracts a Voracious Craw into your orbit. . . well. I don’t hold out much hope. No sirree. They just go. . . GLLOOMMPP! And that’s the end of you. That’s the end of everything. They’re just so. . . voracious, you see.’

Martha gulped. ‘My planet? They’re heading for Earth?’

‘What?’ His eyes boggled at her. ‘Are they?’

‘You said. . . ’

‘Nononononono,’ he yelled. ‘I never said your planet. I said a planet, any planet. You really should stop being so. . . Earth-centric, Martha. I’m showing you the, whatsitcalled, cosmos here, you know.’

‘Which world then?’ she asked him, quite used to these rather infu-riating lapses in his concentration.

A picture of a pale green, frozen world appeared on the scanner screen. ‘This one,’ said the Doctor, jamming his glasses onto his face.

Every single facial muscle was contorted into an almighty frown as he gazed at the implacable planet. ‘We’re in orbit. Around somewhere called. . . ah yes. Tiermann’s World. Named after its only settlers.

Never heard of it.’

6

‘And this Voracious thing is headed towards it?’

The Doctor stabbed a long finger at a grey blob that Martha had taken to be a featureless land mass. ‘There it is. Circling the world.

Chomping its way through continents.’

‘But it’s huge!’ she cried.

‘And, according to the instruments, it’s heading towards the only human settlement on that whole planet. They’ve got about thirty-six hours.’ He whipped off his glasses, jammed them into the top pocket of his pinstriped suit and flashed her a grin. ‘What do you reckon to whizzing down there and tipping them off, eh? They might not even know they’re about to be gobbled up by a massive. . . flying tapeworm nasty space thingy.’

His hands were scurrying over the controls again, before she could even reply. The vworping brouhaha of the ship’s engines drowned out any thoughts she might have aired at this point. Instead Martha peered at what she could see on the screen of the Voracious Craw, and imagined what it would look like from down on the surface. What it would be like to gaze up into the mouth of a creature that could eat whole worlds. . .

She was jerked out of her reverie by the Doctor tapping her briskly on her shoulder. ‘C’mon, We’ve got vital stuff to do, you know. People to warn. Lives to save.’ He paused and stared at the console for a moment. Martha wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but the constant burbling noise of the myriad instruments sounded somewhat different. ‘Hmmm,’ said the Doctor. ‘She doesn’t sound very happy. Too close to the Voracious Craw. It doesn’t do to get too close to one of those. They can have some very strange and debilitating effects.’

‘Oh, great,’ said Martha.

‘We’d best get on,’ the Doctor said. ‘The TARDIS will be OK. I hope.’

He patted the controls consolingly, and then hurried out.

Martha followed him down the gantry to the white wooden doors of the TARDIS. She was bracing herself for what they were about to face out there, but at the same time she was exhilarated. Wherever they wound up, it was never, ever dull. Literally anything could happen, once they stepped through those narrow doors and into a new time 7

and place.

The Doctor was striding ahead and she knew that his eagerness was not just about saving the human settlers. He was also quite keen on seeing this Voracious Craw about its terrible work. ‘They’re quite rare, these days, you know, our Voracious pals,’ he said, grasping the door handle. ‘Even I haven’t seen an awful lot of the nasty things. Not properly close up, anyway.’ He grinned jauntily and stepped outside onto the frozen grass of the glade. ‘Ah,’ he said.

Martha stepped past him. ‘What is it?’

He nodded at the bulky form of the female sabre-toothed tiger before them. She was ready to spring. Her low-throated growl made the very air tremble. She was baring her fangs and one of them, Martha noticed absurdly, was broken. Her glittering green eyes pinned the time travellers to the spot and there was no malice nor enmity there.

Just hunger.

‘Whoops,’ said the Doctor. ‘Should’ve had at least a glance at the scanner before we stepped out. That was you,’ he glanced at Martha.

‘Distracting me with all your chat.’

She shushed him. He’d make the creature pounce, she just knew it.

‘Do something!’

‘Um,’ he said. ‘Right.’ Then he stepped forward boldly. ‘Good morning. I do hope we’re not disturbing you, calling in unexpectedly like this. . . ’

The sabre-tooth threw back her head and gave out the most blood-chilling cry that Martha had ever heard. There was real pain and desperation in that sound. It was savage and yet eloquent. And Martha knew, suddenly, that they were both going to die.

8

Theywererescuedbytheblunderingarrivalofayounghumanmale.

He was wearing heavy plastic coveralls against the weather, and he was loaded down with bagfuls of sophisticated camera equipment.

He was so preoccupied with checking the display on one of these devices that he wandered straight into the space between the Doctor and Martha and the beast that was about to spring at them.

The teenager’s head jerked up at the sound of the Doctor’s voice.

‘Get back!’ he yelled, as the sabre-tooth pounced. Martha found herself darting forward and grabbing the boy by his fur-lined hood and wrenching him to one side, where they both landed, full length in the frosty grass. She whipped her head around to see what was happening to the Doctor. He had flung himself straight at the tiger and then darted off in the other direction, giving several whooping cries in order to distract it.

Martha knew there was no time to waste. She was back on her feet and helping up the teenage boy. He was dazed and staring at her in shock. He was clutching his knapsack and, from the way it had crunched underneath them, most of his equipment was useless now. His face was pale and somehow arresting. Martha followed his gaze and saw that the Doctor and the sabre-tooth had gone very still 9

again. Near-silence had fallen in the glade. What had happened? For one heart-stopping second she had seen her friend fall under the vast, savage bulk of the forest creature. But now, seconds later, here he was, standing and staring earnestly into the tiger’s eyes. The tiger was passive and mesmerised. The Doctor was speaking in a very low, persuasive voice.

He heard Martha step forward. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he warned her gently. ‘She’s calm, but anything could break her mood. She’s hurt and frightened. Stay over there, Martha. We’re just having a little chat. . . ’

Martha and the boy exchanged a mute glance. So he could talk to the animals now, could he?

‘See to your children,’ the Doctor was saying. ‘Do your best to get them to safety. You don’t need to harm us. Look after yourself. Hurry.

There isn’t much time.’

The flanks of the great beast were heaving with fury and anguish.

But, as the Doctor spoke to her, she was calming. She growled, low in her throat and it was almost a purr.

‘Go now,’ the Doctor told her. ‘We must all use the time wisely.’

The great cat turned on her heel and padded towards the trees once more. She spared them one more glance and Martha felt herself stiffen with fear. If that thing had decided it was going to kill them, they wouldn’t have stood a chance. She held her breath until the cat had been swallowed up by the trees, and the crackling and snapping of frozen undergrowth had faded away.

The Doctor turned to his companions with a colossal ‘Whewwww!

Blimey!!’ of relief. ‘I’m glad that worked out. Could’ve been a bit messy otherwise.’

‘It was a sabre-toothed tiger!’ Martha gasped. ‘On an alien planet?’

The Doctor gave a carefree shrug.

‘They crop up everywhere.

Maybe it’s a world of prehistoric beasties. Dunno.’ He fixed the teenage boy with a sharp stare. ‘And you are?’ Before the boy could reply, the Doctor shouted at him: ‘You could have been killed, bursting in like that! Couldn’t you see the danger? It was about twelve-foot long! Couldn’t you watch where you were going?’

10

The boy was trembling with delayed shock, Martha could see. He brushed his long black hair out of his eyes and faced up to the Doctor’s angry scrutiny. ‘I. . . didn’t see it. We don’t come out here much.

I’m. . . not. . . used to it out. . . h-here.’ Suddenly he looked much younger and very, very scared. Martha judged that he couldn’t have been much more than fifteen. He was looking around the wintry glade with sheer terror and confusion. Martha was secretly pleased that she was dealing with being in this place so much better than this apparent native. Here she was on an alien world and – besides the sabre-tooth encounter – she was cool as anything.

The Doctor’s voice dropped and became kinder. ‘What’s your name, and who are you?’

‘Solin, sir –’

‘Doctor. And this is my friend, Martha. We’re here to help you.’

‘Help me?’

The Doctor nodded firmly. ‘You, your people. The human settlement here.’

‘My family,’ the boy said. ‘We are the only people here. Under the dome. In Dreamhome. There are only three of us.’

‘Three!’ the Doctor smiled. ‘Well, that should make things a bit easier.’

Solin’s face was creased with puzzlement. ‘But I don’t understand. . .

Why would we need your help? We have everything we need in Dreamhome. Everything we will ever need. That’s what Father says.’

‘Hmm, he does, does he?’ smiled the Doctor. ‘Well, you saw what that sabre-tooth was like. She’s got wind of something. Something really, really bad is on its way.’ The Doctor did his heavy-frown thing, Martha noticed, when his eyebrows jumped and set themselves at a very serious angle. ‘You lot really need my help. And Martha’s.

Martha’s help is indispensable, too.’

‘We already know something bad is coming,’ muttered the boy. He looked sullen.

‘What’s all this stuff?’ Martha was picking up pieces of futuristic equipment that had flown out of Solin’s knapsack. Solin took them from her, sighing at the damage. ‘I was taking pictures. That’s why 11

I’m out here, in the forest. Normally I wouldn’t, but I thought. . . this is the last time, my last chance. And Father said he could send out the Staff and they would take all the pictures I wanted, of whatever I wanted. But it isn’t the same, is it?’

‘No,’ said Martha, though she couldn’t make head nor tail of what he was on about.

‘Why was it your last chance?’ asked the Doctor, testing him out.

Solin was tying up his bag and hoisting it onto his back. ‘Because my father says that we have to leave this world. We have to get aboard the ship that brought us here and go somewhere else. He has sensed the danger, too, Doctor. Same as that sabre-tooth did. He knows we have to leave here. We’re already going, Doctor.’

It took them some time to get through the woods onto the track that Solin assured them would lead to Dreamhome. As they went, ducking under branches and shimmying past trunks, the air was growing colder. The sky was closing in and darkening so they could see less and less of their new environment. There was something eerily quiet about the forest. To Martha, it seemed as if the whole place and all the remaining life forms in it were holding their breath. There was a curious atmosphere, of the whole place waiting for something dreadful to happen.

‘So you’ve lived here all your life?’ she called ahead to Solin, hoping that their voices would dissipate this feeling of anxiety.

‘I was born on the ship before we landed here,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never known anywhere else. This is my home.’

To Martha’s eyes, he seemed unaccustomed to being in the forest.

He tripped and swore a couple of times as he led them through the undergrowth, and he seemed, at times, unsure of the direction to take. The Doctor was studying him carefully, Martha noticed, just as he studied the strange plant life, all petrified by frost as they made their gradual progress.

‘I’ve lived in Dreamhome all my life,’ Solin admitted. ‘Father says there isn’t much point in our going outside. All of this. . . ’ he gestured at the twilit woods about them. ‘We can watch all of this on our 12