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Authors: Ian Briggs

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Doctor Who: Dragonfire (7 page)

BOOK: Doctor Who: Dragonfire
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Kane was transfixed by the fierce beauty of the statue. 'It is finished,' he whispered. He stepped forward and reached towards the face of the statue. 'The whole of eternity has held its breath for this moment. Time has stood motionless. The past is finally obliterated!' He turned to the Sculptor, his voice soft and tender. 'But no one must ever see your work. It exists - that is enough. No one can ever be allowed to look on it and live.' Kane started to remove one of his gloves.

The Sculptor watched him. He knew how close he was to death, but he was peaceful. He had always known that he would die like this.

'What more could you achieve with your life?' whispered Kane. 'After this - nothing. You have found your true destiny in life, and fulfilled it.

What would be the point of trying to live beyond it?' With his gloved hand, he drew the Sculptor towards him. 'Feel no fear. You are beyond that also. Your death shall be speedy, I promise you. Embrace death with the same tranquil

artistry with which you embraced your destiny.' Kane turned the Sculptor away, towards the statue. 'Your final sight shall be that of your ultimate achievement. Gaze on it - and die fulfilled...'

Solemnly, Kane placed his bare hand over the Sculptor's eyes, and pressed against his face. The Sculptor was instantly blinded by the freezing pain. He had planned for this moment, planned on holding himself utterly calm as his life froze away and turned to ice, but now he was terrified. He tried not to struggle, but the warm-blooded animal instinct in him wanted to fight - fight and preserve every last drop of precious life.

 

Shortly, the Sculptor's struggles grew weaker, then ended - the body lay limp, cradled in Kane's arms. Kane lowered the body gently to the ground.

He stood back, and gazed up at the statue.

There weren't many passengers in the Lower Docking Bays, and the Doctor and Glitz made their way to Pier 63. The status board indicated that the Nosferatu was still berthed there. From behind a cargo pallet, standing at the adjoining pier, they saw a guard waiting by the airlock.

'Only one guard,' whispered Glitz. 'Do you think you can keep him occupied, while I sneak on board?'

The Doctor looked doubtfully at the huge, Neanderthal thug. 'I'll do my best.'

'Right then - off you go.'

The Doctor straightened himself, emerged from behind the cargo pallet, and loped confidently off towards the guard. He strode in a complete circle, and ended up heading back towards the pallet. Glitz watched the manoeuvre in amazement.

The Doctor returned to Glitz's hiding place. 'What's the matter?' hissed Glitz.

'Haven't you forgotten something?'

'What's that?'

'The map.'

Glitz squirmed guiltily. 'I was going to leave it here -for you to find when you got back. Honest I was...'

 

The Doctor held his hand out for the map. Reluctantly, Glitz fished it out of his belt, and handed it over. The Doctor put it safely in his pocket. 'Thank you. Right, good luck.' The Doctor held his hand out to shake Glitz's and then set off again towards the guard.

The guard didn't seem to notice the Doctor approaching, and the Doctor glided right past him to stand on his other side. The Doctor decided that the guard was evidently ignoring him, so he cleared his throat. 'Excuse me...' he started, 'what's your attitude towards the nature of Existence?' Glitz, listening from behind the pallet, raised his eyes in disbelief.

The guard turned and stared at the Doctor.

The Doctor regarded the simian-featured guard and began to doubt whether in fact the guard was high enough up the evolutionary ladder to comprehend spoken language. But he decided to persevere. 'For example: do you hold any strong theological opinions?'

The guard stared at him, then opened his mouth to speak. 'I think most educated people regard mythical convictions as fundamentally animistic,' he grunted.

The Doctor's jaw dropped.

Glitz was incredulous.

The Doctor recovered himself. 'I see... That's a very interesting concept...'

The guard spoke again. 'Personally, I find that most experiences border on the existential.'

 

'Ah. But how would you reconcile that with the empirio-critical belief that experience is at the root of all phenomena?'

Glitz emerged from behind the pallet, and gingerly made his way round the back of the guard towards the open door to the airlock.

The guard was absorbed by trying to answer the Doctor's logical conundrum. 'I think you'll find that a concept can be philosophically valid, even if theologically meaningless,' he countered.

This response had the Doctor struggling. 'So, what you're saying is that before Plato could exist, someone had to have the Idea of Plato?'

The guard's face lit up. 'You've no idea what a relief it is for me to have such a stimulating philosophical discussion. There are so few intellectuals about these days.' The Doctor smiled and noticed that Glitz had now disappeared through the door. But the guard had no intention of letting the Doctor leave so soon. 'Tell me -what are your views on the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?'

Semiotics? The Doctor began to worry. This was going to be a very difficult conversation...

Ace peered down the sheer drop of the Ice Face.

'You're joking! I'm not going down there!'

Mel saw something hanging halfway down. 'Look -it's the Doctor's brolly! We must be on the right track!'

Ace looked down again. 'What did he have to come this way for? I could break my neck!'

 

'How are we going to get down?'

Ace put her canvas shoulder bag down, and began to rummage through it. 'Easy!' She produced two coils of rope and various rock-climbing clips and pulleys. 'First, you lower me down. Then, I lower you down from the bottom. Here - sort this out!' She thrust some tangled rope at Mel, then dived into the canvas bag again. While Mel set to, untangling the rope, Alice clipped a harness round herself and looked for a secure place to nail the pulleys into the ground.

'I've never done this before,' admitted Mel. 'You must have done it lots of times.'

'Well, not lots of times...'

Ace was avoiding Mel's eyes.

'How many times?' asked Mel suspiciously.

"This'll be the first.' Ace looked up guiltily. 'But I've seen them do it on telly, and it's easy!'

Mel looked at Ace. The safety harness Ace was wearing didn't look quite right. 'I think you've got that harness on upside-down. I think those tight straps are supposed to go between your legs.'

Ace looked down, and giggled. 'It's a good job I'm not a boy!' she laughed. Mel smiled - and then she began to laugh as well. This wasn't going to be a bit like they always showed it on telly!

Ace fixed the harness and clipped one end of the rope to it. She threaded the rope through the pulleys and clips, then gave the other end to Mel. 'Here - stand on the loose rope with one foot, just in case your hands slip.'

'OK.' Mel took hold of the rope, and pressed her heel firmly down on the loose section. Ace stepped backwards towards the edge.

'Right. You got it?'

'Yes, I'm ready.'

Ace leaned backwards, and Mel took her weight.

'Just a bit at a time, Mel - right?'

'I'll let the rope out slowly.'

Carefully, Ace held onto the edge and began to feel downwards with her feet for some kind of foothold. Metre by metre, she started to make her way down the Ice Face, with Mel taking her weight. The operation was both difficult and strenuous, and their faces were tense with concentration. 'You OK?' called Mel in a strained voice.

'Keep going... Slowly... I'm about a third of the way.'

The longer it took, the greater the strain became and Mel's hands started to ache from gripping the rope so tightly. She pressed her heel down even more firmly on the loose rope.

Ace was beginning to lose her breath with the effort of trying to find hand-and foothold while still avoiding the sharp, jagged edges of ice.

Suddenly, one of her foothold crumbled and she slipped and banged against the side. At the top, Mel felt the sudden extra weight which pulled her forward. She was alarmed. 'What happened? Ace - are you all right?'

 

Ace was struggling to recover her foothold and handhold. 'Yeah - I'm OK. Keep going.' Mel steadied herself and gripped tight on the rope.

What Ace hadn't noticed was that when she collided with the Ice Face a small spike of ice had punctured one of the two canisters of nitro-9 that were tucked securely in her belt. A light haze of fumes was now escaping from a small hole near the top of the canister. The first that Ace noticed was a sweet, sickly smell she recognised from somewhere.

She began to feel giddy and clutched aimlessly at the Ice Face for some security. 'Hang on a sec...' she called weakly.

Mel heard Ace and held the rope still. 'What's the matter?'

'I feel funny... I think I'm going to faint...'

'No! Don't do that! Hang on!' Mel started to tie off the loose end of the rope.

Ace looked down at the canister of nitro-9 and saw the small hole in it.

'It's the nitro, there's a hole in it. I'm going to pass out..."

'No, don't, Ace! Keep concentrating. I'm coming down!' Mel fastened Ace's rope tightly, then clipped the second harness on to herself.

'Hurry up! I can't think.'

Mel quickly threaded her own rope through the pulley instead of Ace's and took the free end. 'Concentrate on something, Ace! Don't go to sleep!' She grabbed a spare clip and a few first-aid sticking plasters from Ace's canvas bag, then stepped back towards the edge, taking her own weight on the free end of the rope.

Ace was fighting the drowsiness, talking to herself to stay awake. 'Come on, Ace... Not now... Can't go to sleep now... Hang on, Ace...'

With immense effort, Mel slowly managed to lower herself down the ice face. Her feet kept slipping and there were already one or two small cuts on her hands from scraping against the sharp ice, but she knew that there was no time to spare. 'Keep talking, Ace! I'm on my way down. Just another minute.'

Ace's head dropped briefly as she fell asleep for a moment, but she shook herself awake. 'Come on... Mel's almost here... Keep tight hold...'

With grim determination, Mel was scrambling down towards Ace. 'I'm almost there... Just keep talking!'

Ace's mind was swimming and her thoughts slipped in and out of dreams. How nice it would be to drift away -how pleasant it would be to give in to the hypnotic currents that spiralled through her mind.

'Keep talking to me!' shouted Mel, suddenly alarmed that Ace had stopped talking.

Ace shook herself awake again. 'No! Mustn't fall asleep!' But the dreamy spirals caressed her thoughts again. 'Want to go home...' she murmured,'... bed... home... Mum... Dad..." She shook the strange patterns out of her mind once more. 'No! Too late! Too late, Ace!'

Mel had almost reached Ace and could smell the faint sweetness of the nitro fumes. She turned her face away and took a huge lungful of clean, icy air. It burnt her lungs. She turned back to Ace and lowered herself alongside. The effort was tremendous as she held her own weight with only one arm and reached across to the leaking canister with the other.

 

She pulled it out of Ace's belt and then reached down to hold the canister between her knees. Her lungs were bursting for fresh air, but Mel knew that she mustn't inhale. She fished a sticking plaster out of her pocket and held it between her teeth. The fumes from the canister tasted sweet on her tongue.

She ripped the backing off the plaster, and stuck the adhesive down over the hole in the can. Her lungs were tearing apart for air, but she refused to inhale. She took another plaster and stuck that too over the hole. The leak of fumes had almost stopped. One more plaster should be enough. The muscles in the hand gripping the rope were cramped with pain and her lungs were fighting to wrench themselves free, but somehow Mel forced herself to control the uncontrollable muscles while she stuck a third plaster over the hole and sealed it. Her lungs seemed to explode as she inhaled. She quickly gripped tight on the rope with her free hand to take the strain off the painful hand, carefully holding the canister of nitro secure between her knees.

The cold fresh air, mixed with the last traces of fumes, rushed to her brain. She felt her mind starting to spin slightly, but she concentrated on holding still until her brain began to clear once more.

She looked across to Ace, who seemed to be waking from a groggy sleep and couldn't quite orient herself. Mel took the canister of explosive from between her knees, and tucked it securely into her own belt. Ace had a second canister in her belt, so Mel took that too and secured it in her own. 'Are you ready to go down yet, Ace?'

Ace still felt a bit dizzy, but she knew where she was now, and her mind was clearing rapidly. 'Yeah, I'll be OK.'

 

'We've got to go down together, on the same rope. Your rope's tied off at the top. Here...' Mel passed the spare clip to Ace, who leaned across and fastened herself to Mel's rope.

'Have you got the weight?'

Mel now had to take the strain of both of them on the free end of rope.

She gripped both hands tightly, and nodded. Ace unclipped herself from her own rope, and then grabbed hold of Mel's. They were both now clipped

together on one end of the rope, both taking the weight on the free end.

With perfect co-ordination, they slowly lowered themselves down towards the bottom. Halfway down they stopped, while Mel reached across and rescued the Doctor's brolly, then continued down to the bottom.

They stood there, breathless but smiling.

'That was well worth...' gasped Ace brightly. 'And Bilgebag said this was too dangerous for girls!'

When the Nightcruiser range of space vehicles had first been launched, over thirty years ago, it had quickly caught on as the most popular vehicle for passenger transport. Every third craft to soar down the Space Lanes had been a Nightcruiser, most of them Nightcruiser Democrats out on family outings, but also quite a few Nightcruiser Pacifics, whisking busy executives between meetings. That was thirty years ago. But then people's tastes had changed; new styles of vehicle were launched, the Nightcruiser's market-share had started to fall, and the last production line had finally been closed down fifteen years ago.

BOOK: Doctor Who: Dragonfire
4.71Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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