Doctor Who - The 8th Doctor - 47 - The Slow Empire by Dave Stone

Author:Dave Stone
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: High Tech, General, Science Fiction, Adventure, Doctor Who (Fictitious Character), Fiction
ISBN: 9780563538356
Publisher: BBC Pubns
Published: 2001-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

sometimes.

‘Think nothing of it,’ said the Doctor. ‘Happens to the best of us, especially in the face – I do beg your pardon – of such a sad story. So what happened then?’

‘Is happened big long time of monkey-hominids running round and burning things and hitting funny marky-face monkey-hominids with sticks,’ said the Collector. ‘Hid out in leafy woods till stopped.

Collectors living much more years than monkey-hominids, yes, so is 95

wandering round in leafy woods and falling into holes and getting very lonely after a bit.

Is lonely for big pile of lovely stuff like

mangle-handles, shaky snowdomes and jars of pickled marmosets back in home world – and just knows all other nasty Collectors have taken things away for very own, with lots of shouty joy and glee. So, decide to go and say hello to monkey-hominid villages – but they all go “Agh! Agh! Horrible slimy monster!” and throw things at.

So is glomping along all dejected when meet Mr Professor and people. . . ’ A limb extended, on the end of which was a perfectly moulded arrow such as might be painted on a sign board, pointing to where Professor Miribilis was about the business of examining the snake lady for mange.

‘Tell my sad-type story,’ the Collector

continued, ‘and he take me in. Is have been with ever since, showing perfectly ordinary Collector-like manipulatory stuff to much delight of monkey-hominid audience. Is OK.’

‘A happy ending, of sorts, at least,’ said the Doctor. He glanced around himself at the general, peaceable presomnolentive activity of the troupe. ‘All things considered, I’d suggest that. . . ’

Quite what it was that the Doctor was going to suggest, I never in point of fact discovered – for at that moment we all of us were abruptly and quite rudely interrupted.

There was the vaguely fleshy-sounding crashing of fungoid undergrowth, and a crazed-looking figure burst into the clearing. Its hair was ragged, caked and matted with blood. The remains of fur clothing clung to its mean and abraded body as though it were only by the clotting of those injuries that the scraps were attached. The figure staggered forward, clutching something to its chest, before collapsing heavily, face first, halfway to the fire.

‘Now there,’ said Professor Miribilis, looking around from his veterinary ministrations to the snake woman, ‘looks like a man with an exciting tale to tell.’

‘I suspect it would have to be short.’ The Doctor ran over to the fallen man and gently turned him over. ‘Let’s see if we can’t do something about these injuries, yes?’

‘I cannot. . . ’ The new arrival worked his ravaged face. ‘I cannot protect. . . ’

Weakly, he lifted a hand towards the Doctor. Clutched in it was a faintly glowing shard of some material that seemed to be of the nature of crystal in the way that crystal itself might be similar to wood, in that both are solid matter but with quite different physical properties.

‘Take it. . . ’ the fallen man rasped. ‘Must keep it safe, keep it from the.

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