Doctor Who: Dragonfire (5 page)

'You're not going to use those, are you?' Ace grinned, and nodded.

Then she fished two cans out of the bag, and marched up to the icefall.

She smiled at the two guards, and carefully positioned the canisters.

One of the guards turned to her. 'What's going on?' 'If I were you two, I'd go for your tea-break now.' 'Why?' The guard looked suspiciously at the cans of deodorant. 'What's in those cans?'

'Nitro-9.' Ace smiled defiantly at the guard, then she calmly pulled the nozzle off one can, then the second. The guards stared at the wires they could now see sticking out of the top of each canister, leading to the detonators inside. Ace stood up, and smiled again. 'We've got eight seconds. Last one back's a gooey mess!' and she dived for cover round the corner.

The guard couldn't quite believe what was happening. If he had understood the situation correctly, a teenage girl had just positioned two canisters of nitroglycerin-9, then pulled out the detonator safety pins. Yes, that seemed about the size of it...

'It's nitro! Everybody get down!' he bellowed, before hurling himself round the corner.

The explosion shook the entire Docking Bays area and blew the fallen ice and metalwork clean through the entrance. There were clouds of smoke and dust everywhere. Ace jumped up, and peered round the corner at the debris that was scattered all over the Docking Bays. Her face blazed with delight as she surveyed the results of her handiwork.

'Ace!'

The Ice Passages were now loose and crumbling; the Doctor and Glitz slipped and fell as they picked their way through the ice boulders.

'Oh, this is definitely out of order,' muttered Glitz, and then yelped as he slipped again. 'Lookout!' he cried, as his legs disappeared from under him. He grabbed at a small shaft of ice protruding from the wall, and for a moment he was able to steady himself. But the loosely packed ice wall quickly gave way under his weight, and slabs of ice fractured away and fell towards him.

'Glitz!' shouted the Doctor in alarm from further back down the passage.

As the supporting wall crumbled away, the roof of the passage also began to splinter. Glitz was pinned down by a huge slab of ice that had sheered away from the wall. Sharp, cutting spikes of ice rained down on him, and the weight of the slab of ice crushed his chest. Another large ice shaft collapsed out of the roof, and shattered on the slab of ice.

As the ferocity of the cave-in began to die down, the Doctor hurried forward to help his companion. There were small cuts on his face and hands, but mostly Glitz had been protected by the huge slab of ice that was pinning him down. A large, razor-sharp shaft of ice, however, was now hanging precariously over him. If it fell, the rogue would never walk away.

'Glitz - are you all right?'

Glitz eyed the ice spike hanging over him. 'Er - can I come back to you on that one?' He tried to move, but the slab of ice held him trapped. 'I seem to be stuck.'

'Hang on.' The Doctor began to heave at the slab of ice. He managed to raise it a couple of centimetres, but as he moved it, its base pressed against the ice wall, which started to crumble again.

'Look out!' cried Glitz.

The Doctor flinched as the roof began to slip again and then settled down. The spike of ice had dropped another few centimetres towards Glitz. Glitz looked at it, and then at the Doctor. 'On the whole, I think I'd rather be losing at cards..."

'Don't worry, Glitz - soon have you out of there... Now, if we can just raise this a few more centimetres...' The Doctor began straining once more at the slab of ice.

'You're going to do yourself a permanent, if you're not careful,'

observed Glitz, none too helpfully.

The Doctor was still straining to lift the huge slab. 'I said... I'd have you... out of there...' The slab slipped slightly, and the walls and roof settled again. The shaft of ice over Glitz dropped a few more centimetres towards him.

Glitz looked nervously at the Doctor. 'What odds you offering?'

Dust-covered figures were picking their way cautiously through the smoke and debris in the Upper Docking Bays. Mel poked her head nervously round the corner to look. She carefully picked up the bag of nitro, and went over to Ace. Ace was beaming brightly as she surveyed the chaos. 'That was well wicked!'

'What's going on?' Belazs's commanding voice rang through the Docking Bays. She had heard the sound of the explosion from several corridors away and had run here to find a scene of complete devastation. 'Who used

explosives?' she demanded, turning to the guards. The guards turned to look accusingly at Ace. Ace tried her best to look innocent, but the effect was spoiled rather by Mel clutching nervously at several cans of high explosive.

'You two are under arrest!' Belazs then turned to the guards. 'Take them away!'

The guards grabbed hold of Ace and Mel.

'Hang about!' protested Ace. 'What have we done?' But the guards hauled them off, Ace squawking in protest. 'You can't arrest us! We haven't done nothing!'

'What we need are some wedges,' muttered the Doctor, looking at the loose rocks in the wall of the Ice Passage.

'I would help you,' offered Glitz from beneath the enormous slab of ice,

'but I'm a bit tied down at this precise moment...'

The Doctor began to pick up wedge-shaped pieces of ice from the ground and pack them into the gaps in the ice wall. 'This should help stop the wall from crumbling while we get you free.' Next he turned his attention to the slab of ice that held Glitz trapped. 'Lever,' he muttered,

'that's what we need - first order lever...' He looked round. 'Fulcrum...

we need a fulcrum, Glitz.'

Glitz looked round as well. He didn't like to ask what a fulcrum was, but he was pretty certain there weren't any lying about down here in the Ice Passages. 'Ah, there we are,' announced the Doctor, marching over to what looked like an ordinary rock of ice.

He took the rock and put it down near one end of the slab of ice. Then he wedged the point of his brolly under the slab, and began to lever it against the rock of ice. The slab lifted slightly.

The loose rocks in the wall, which the Doctor had wedged in place, began to shift under the strain. He leaned on the handle of his brolly once more. The shaft of the brolly started to bend under the weight, and two of

the Doctor's wedges in the wall shattered, as the rocks shifted ominously. Glitz looked at the point hanging right over him.

'Come on, Doctor - extract your digit, before I get perforated!'

There was now a centimetre and a half of free space between the enormous slab and Glitz. He tried to wriggle free, but it wasn't quite enough room. The Doctor applied all of his weight to the brolly. The slab moved another couple of centimetres. The remaining wedges in the wall shattered, and the roof began to splinter. Glitz wriggled frantically, and slowly started to work himself free of the slab. Rocks of ice began to fall.

Glitz had worked his chest out from under the slab. His legs were now free, and the Doctor continued to heave down on the lever while Glitz scrambled out. The ice shaft fractured at the top, and came crashing down. Glitz and the Doctor both threw themselves out of the way as the huge spike shattered into the ground, precisely where Glitz had been lying.

'Come on, Doctor! Let's get out of here!'

'Just a moment!' The Doctor grabbed his brolly from under the splinters of ice. 'Never know when it might come in useful again...' Then the two of them scrambled away from the danger area.

They stopped to recover further down the passage. Glitz inspected his cuts. There was no serious injury.

'I don't understand you, Doctor. If you'd left me, you could have had the treasure all to yourself.'

'Fortunately, Glitz, not everybody thinks along those lines.'

Glitz looked at the short man with a peculiar face, wearing a battered hat and carrying a brolly, who'd just saved his life. 'You're an odd fish, aren't you, Doctor?'

The Doctor took this for a compliment, and shuffled a bit awkwardly.

'Well - thank you... It brings out the best in me, you know... when I know someone's relying

on me...

'Relying on you? Nah, you're mistaken. I never rely on anyone. Come on, let's get after those Ice Gardens..." And with that, Glitz strode off over the ice boulders.

'Quite a little expert with explosives, I hear...'

Kane prowled round Ace and Mel with a sinister smile. They had been brought to him in the Cryogenics Chamber so that he could meet the troublemakers from the Upper Docking Bays.

'Yeah? So what if I am?' Ace stared defiantly back at Kane.

'Excellent. I like women with fire in their bellies. Don't I, Belazs?' Belazs standing guard over Mel and Ace, refused to acknowledge Kane's question. Her eyes spat jealousy at the fresh, young teenager who had caught Kane's eye. Kane turned back to Ace. 'I might have a use for you...'

'Oh yeah? And what makes you think I'd be interested in you.' Ace had decided this man with the piercing black eyes was taking too much for granted.

'I can be very persuasive...'

'I'm not frightened of you,' lied Ace.

'Good. Because I need people like you in my army of mercenaries.'

'You what?'

'Think about it...' Kane fixed her with his mesmerising gaze. 'Travelling round the Twelve Galaxies ... the diamond sparkle of a meteorite shower... the rainbow flashes of an ion storm... think about it...' Ace was thinking about it - thinking about all the beautiful things in the universe which she had never seen.

'Don't listen to him, Ace,' pleaded Mel.

Kane nodded to Belazs, who pulled Mel roughly out of the way. Kane turned back to Ace. The teenager was torn between Mel and Kane.

She knew Mel was

probably right, and yet... She desperately wanted to see something beautiful in her life. Just once... Just once, let the little girl from Perivale see something truly beautiful. Kane's eyes read her thoughts. 'How old are you?'

She looked at him, frightened. 'Sixt-No - eighteen.' She wasn't going to let him think that she was just a small girl. Kane smiled.

'Eighteen, eh? And no home to call your own?' His voice dropped to an intense, intimate whisper. 'The Twelve Galaxies are your home! Come with me. I understand you.'

'It won't be like that, Ace!' shouted Mel from the other side of the chamber. 'Don't believe him!'

But Ace didn't hear her. All she heard were Kane's soft, intoxicating words.

'Come with me. Let me show you things that you have only seen in the shadows of your dreams. Let me open you to experiences so beautiful that your tears will flow like liquid crystals. Let me take you home...'

Slowly, Kane removed a glove. Inside, he was holding a golden sovereign. 'Join me. Take my golden sovereign ...'

Ace was transfixed. She watched as Kane placed the sovereign on the Control Desk. There was a slight hiss as it made contact. Slowly, she reached towards it.

She was crying silently.

As the Doctor and Glitz journeyed deeper and deeper beneath Iceworld, they realised that the dim light was growing brighter. Instead of dark shadowy ice, the passages now seemed to be suffused with a soft rainbow glow - a shifting play of gentle colours that filtered through the walls and roof of ice, and sparkled in the light sprinkle of snow on the ground. Side passages led away every few metres, and echoed with the bright crystalline chinkle of icicles.

Glitz helped the Doctor down over an outcrop of ice.

'Mind how you go, Doctor.'

'I should have brought my furry snow boots,' joked the Doctor.

But Glitz had noticed something shimmering in a small crack in the ice.

He bent down to examine it. It was a small cluster of crystals, grouped together like a tiny flower. The Ice Gardens! thought Glitz. He looked round and saw another tiny flower sparkling on the wall of a side passage, and further down the passage he could see more of them. He looked for the Doctor, who was striding away without having noticed a thing. Glitz quickly nipped down the side passage, dusting over his footprints in the snow to leave no trail, and in a moment he was gone.

'Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled, Glitz!' called the Doctor. 'I should hate to walk right past a Lake of Oblivion and not notice it.'

There was no reply. The Doctor stopped and looked round. He was alone. 'Glitz?' There was no reply.

'Glitz!' Still no response. The Doctor made his way back to the outcrop of ice. There were three side passages leading in different directions, and no sign of which way Glitz had gone. The Doctor chose one at random, and set off down it.

It was the wrong one.

Ace's hand hovered over the golden sovereign.

Belazs felt the deep scar in the palm of her own hand. Don't touch the coin! Run away, child - now! Run from Kane, and never come back!

'Take the coin,' whispered Kane urgently.

Ace's hand shook uncertainly. The tears left their tracks on her cheeks.

Why shouldn't she take the coin? Why shouldn 't she give herself to Kane. Even if he was evil - at least he wanted her. No one else had ever cared about her.

'Take the coin.' Kane's voice was more insistent now.

He was growing impatient with the girl. 'Take the coin. Do as you are told.'

Do as you are told!

That was what they all said to Ace - Do as you are told and learn your lessons, like a good pupil, the teachers had said. Do as you are told and go to your bedroom, like a good daughter, her parents had said. Do as you are told and give yourself to me, like a good girl, Kane's voice now said.

Do as you are told! the voices screamed.

DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!

Ace reached suddenly foward, and dashed the coin to the ground. She grabbed a canister of nitro from out of her jacket pocket, and held it high. The hot tears were streaming down her face.

'Nobody move!' she yelled. 'Let Mel go!'

Kane nodded to Belazs, and Mel ran across to Ace.

'You stupid girl.' Kane's voice hissed with hate. 'Do you think it's that easy to walk away from me?'