Doctor Who - The 8th Doctor - 07 - Kursaal by Peter Anghelides

Author:Peter Anghelides
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Media Tie-In, Fiction
ISBN: 9780563405788
Publisher: BBC Pubns
Published: 1998-02-14T08:00:00+00:00

‘You want to stop me,’ said the Doctor.

‘Yes, but –’ began Kadijk. At which point, the Doctor jumped.

For one awful moment, the Doctor thought he might have misjudged things. Then he felt a jolt that almost dislocated his shoulders, and he realised it was all right.

The ladder clattered and clanged a bit more, and then flattened back against the side of the building. The Doctor looked up. Kadijk was ten metres above him shouting something down at him, but the words were indistinct. Two more heads appeared over the edge of the buildings. Then he realised that one of the police officers was starting to clamber carefully over the edge and onto the emergency escape ladder.

The Doctor stepped aside, gripped the next ladder, and jumped with his full weight onto it. Like the previous one, it gave a protesting groan before dropping like a stone, taking the Doctor with it. Section by corroded section, the ladder slid out in its grooves – thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk – until it reached its limit, and the jolt shook the Doctor’s body. This time, however, his feet were on the bottom-most rung, and bore the bunt of the impact. The idea of the design was that the ladders slid down and locked before you put your foot on the first rung. But these had not been maintained or serviced for years, and when the Doctor released the catches they just stayed where they were 191

until some weight was applied to them.

He kicked off another restraining catch and swiftly stepped on to the next section of ladders, dropping another ten metres.

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

Far above now, the policeman was following him rung by rung.

He could see from a quick look down that he was approaching the last section of ladders. He hopped across, but this time the ladder did not slide freely. He could see that it was more badly corroded than the others. Fumbling in his jacket pocket, he found the sonic screwdriver, which had been so useful earlier in overriding the lift control to get him to the roof. He played the device over the corroded links between the ladder sections, and heard a satisfying cracking sound as the oxi-dising contamination vibrated off the metal. And then, unfortunately, the rivets popped out too.

Thunk, thunk, thunk –

The last section of ladder dropped out of the bottom groove with a shriek of metal.

The Doctor closed his eyes, bracing himself for the final impact. The last section dropped at an angle away from the building, and landed with a squelch in the ornamental border.

The Doctor opened his eyes again and looked down. He was buried up to his shins in mud, still clutching the ladder, which had also sunk a third of a metre into the border. He pulled his feet out of the dirt, shaking off the topsoil with a grunt of distaste. Then he rescued one of his shoes from the dirt, and slipped it back on his stockinged foot.

‘I only polished these this morning,’ he sighed.

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