Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 13

Drakefell was sweating. His hands clutched and unclutched at his 70 sides.

'Or I could just come out with it in front of them.'

'All right! You men... go, uh, dismissed.'

The soldiers smirked and left.

'All right, I've done what you wanted now tell me what you have to say.'

'Where is the rocket?'

'What? You're here to answer me!'

'The world is in terrible danger, Dr Drakefell.'

'You think I don't know that?' Drakefell exploded. 'The whole d.a.m.ned planet on the brink of nuclear war, and all because...'

He sank into his chair.

'All right, the Doctor replied calmly, 'at least tell me who was piloting it.'

Drakefell gave him a haggard look.

'It was Colonel Thomas Kneale, wasn't it? At least on the way up.

And Davey O'Brien on the way down. Very odd.'

Drakefell was trembling. His mouth moved slightly, but no sound came out.

At last 'Please...' he whispered.

'Something very bad happened when you launched that rocket,' the Doctor continued. 'And I'm not talking about the Russians.'

'Well, what in Jeee-zuzz name have we got here?' a voice boomed behind the Doctor. He spun round to see an enormous American soldier a five-star general, no less filling the doorway.

Drakefell was on his feet.

'General Crawhammer, this man was found '

'I know, Drakefell. Snoopin' round Davey O'Brien. So what have you got outta him?'

'Well... he calls himself the Doctor.'

'You mean you ain't even learned his name? Jeez, Drakefell!'

The general turned and stomped out.

'Bring him,' he barked.

Two soldiers American soldiers marched in and grabbed the Doctor by both arms and dragged him into the corridor. He cast a final glance back at the deathly pale Drakefell, staring paralysed after him.

'You too, Drakefell!' Crawhammer bellowed. 'I'm gonna show you how it's done.'

He flung open an ornate door into a plush, thickly carpeted room with huge, high windows and chandeliers, and stomped in.

'Dora!' the general barked into the air. 'Get me Bill Hark on the phone.'

71.The Doctor was pushed in after him. Drakefell followed, then the guards, closing the door behind them.

'Very nice, General... What was the name again?'

'Crawhammer.'

'It suits you. So what was this, the ballroom?'

'The small dining room, I'm told,' the general replied. 'Now it's my office. This is where we do the talking in comfort. If that's the way you want to play it.'

'I see,' said the Doctor. And suppose I don't? Where then, the cellar?'

'Something like that,' the American replied. 'So tell me what are you doing here?'

'I came to find out exactly what happened to the Waverider.'

'You should know. It was your Commie puppetmasters who brought it down.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Hey I ask. You answer.'

'Is it because you have nothing in your formidable a.r.s.enal capable of creating an explosion of the magnitude your instruments recorded?

Well, let me tell you neither have the Russians.

Crawhammer took a step forward.

'Who then? The Chinese?'

'No,' said the Doctor, clipped and losing patience. 'Not the Chinese.

General, the destruction of your rocket was caused by a rare and violent exothermic reaction of a type that cannot, at this time and on this planet, be generated.'

'What's this c.r.a.p?' asked Crawhammer warily 'What are you saying?' said Drakefell, suddenly stepping forward.

'That something and I need to find out what created a reaction capable of crossing certain... trans-dimensional absolutes. Colonel Kneale's craft what was left of it was sucked into the rift and almost certainly vaporised, I'm sorry to say. But something came through from the other side.'

'The other rocket...'

'd.a.m.n it, Drakefell!' Crawhammer shouted. 'He's supposed to tell us!'

The door opened and a young woman's head popped around it.

'Dr Hark on the telephone for you, sir.'

Crawhammer s.n.a.t.c.hed up the phone from his desk.

'Hark! ... Yeah, that's right. The X-ray, yeah... The radiographer well put him on!'

The Doctor was starting to feel uneasy.

72.'Yeah, can you describe him?' Crawhammer bellowed into the phone. 'Yeah... Yeah...'

He slammed the phone down and started to pace slowly around the Doctor, all the time staring at him with what seemed to be a mixture of awe and revulsion.

'Drakefell, get out,' he said. Drakefell slipped dutifully away...

'So you're the G.o.dd.a.m.n Russkie augment...' Crawhammer said to the Doctor with something approaching respect in his voice. 'How do they do it?'

'I'm afraid you've lost me,' said the Doctor.

'Grab him, boys!'

The two soldiers closed in, again gripping his arms.

Crawhammer opened a drawer in his desk and took out a Bowie knife. He strode across and jabbed it into the Doctor's stomach. The tip pressed painfully, just short of breaking the skin.

Slowly the general drew the knife upward. The Doctor's pullover was sliced in two. The b.u.t.tons pinged off his s.h.i.+rt.

Crawhammer snicked the last b.u.t.ton off at the neck, then drew the Doctor's s.h.i.+rt aside. He pressed the knife-point against the left side of his chest, then the right.

'Two hearts... We've been dreamin' about something like you.'

He started to chuckle, and ran the knife up and down the Doctor's breastbone.

'So guess what, boy? We're gonna go right on and open you up!'

73.

Chapter Eight.

Rita looked at her watch.

4.35. Had she really been here that long? The woman could come back at any time.

She had to find out more. She licked her lips and scanned the living room. Where to start... She didn't really know what to do this was the sort of thing she'd hired McBride for.

Papers, doc.u.ments anything like that... She crossed to the big old dresser and heaved on its single drawer. It was locked. So were the cupboard doors beneath. She tried the kitchen cupboards, and pulled on a door leading from the kitchen. Locked. So was the back door.

It was a strange kind of lock Rita had never seen one like it, and she couldn't open it.

Suddenly struck by a nasty thought, she went back and tried the front door. That was also locked, and also with a sleek, impenetrable mechanism.

She went to the front window. Same story. She was a prisoner.

For the first time she noticed the smell of flowers in the room. She was standing over the vase of chrysanthemums. Their fragrance gently wafted upward, lingering longingly at the edge of the senses.

She shook her head to clear it.

She picked up a wooden footstool and hurled it with all her strength at the window, then dived out of the path of the stool as it ricocheted back off the undamaged panes. All she'd done was knock over the vase. She picked it up, and gathered the flowers together, smelling them as she did so.

There was no water. The vase was completely dry.

She put a flower to her nose the smell really was wonderful then ran her fingers over a petal.

She tugged. The flower bent but the petal wouldn't break. It felt...

She put the flowers down and picked up the newspaper. She tried to tear off a corner. It wouldn't tear. She held a page in the fire. It wouldn't burn.

It was fake. The flowers were fake. This whole place was fake. It was too perfect from the crackling of the logs to the pendulous ticking 74 of the big, boxy old clock in the corner.

Nearly two. She looked at her watch again. 4.40. She remembered the time she'd got here just past 1.30. Her watch had gained nearly three hours since she wound it this morning.

She didn't know what was happening, and she didn't know what to do. And for all she knew, Ace was already dead.

In fact, Ace was having the time of her life. She'd spent the evening eating burgers with Jimmy in Soho. He was quiet, shy, almost dreamy.

And a hunk. After they'd eaten they'd had a drink in The s.h.i.+p on Wardour Street. Years from now Ace and her friends would get chucked out of here for being under age.

She couldn't remember how long it had been since she had been completely independent of the Doctor usually she was either running alongside him or desperately searching for him.

She felt truly relaxed for the first time in years.

They pa.s.sed the cinema she'd visited the day before, and Ace told Jimmy about the film.

'I don't go to the movies much.' he'd replied.

'What do you do?'

He'd shrugged. 'Work, I guess. Look at the animals...'

'What about mates?'

Jimmy shrugged. 'I keep myself to myself. I got one good buddy.