Doctor Who: Virgin Missing Adventures [019] - The Man in the Velvet Mask by Daniel O'Mahony

Author:Daniel O'Mahony
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426204619
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1996-03-13T23:00:00+00:00

6

A Clockwork World

The Doctor’s instincts sang as he drew closer to the TARDIS. Her voice called to him through space, poignant and vulnerable. The ship, with her quaint shape, her monotonous squareness, was a reassuring sign that some things remained inviolate, outside Minski’s domain. He steeled himself, resolving not to yield the slightest detail about her to the First Deputy.

The Bastille tower was bustling with people as they descended. There was a scattering of soldiers but most seemed to be minor officials, their dark uniforms decorated with embarrassing tricolour blossoms. The Doctor was surprised to see so much activity. He had expected Minski to live alone and isolated, shielded from the world by bricks and mortar and cold steel, a brooding recluse ruling from the highest turret. There was a false note here.

Sade was waiting for them at the entrance to the laboratory, one arm wrapped in a crisp, white sling. Minski shoved past him, scuttling over to stroke the walls of the TARDIS. Unable to bear the sight of the son, the Doctor turned his attention to the father.

‘I hope that’s not as bad as it looks.’

Sade shrugged. A crease of pain flew across his face, replaced by the usual sardonic smile. The anguish lingered in his eyes, blazing points of white inside the black. The Doctor felt curiously benevolent. Sade’s darkness seemed wholesome against Minski’s bloodless gloom.

‘A flesh wound,’ he said smoothly. ‘There was some trouble. No longer.’

‘I want to see inside.’ Minski’s drab, sandy voice cut across them. He looked up from his inspection of the TARDIS, but his palms lingered against its shell and his eyes flickered hungrily. ‘How can I get inside?’

The Doctor trembled, too weak to contain his disgust.

‘You must have a key,’ Minski insisted.

A small lump of metal twitched in the Doctor’s coat pocket. Not the TARDIS key, he realized suddenly, but the one he had taken from the lab earlier. It burned in his pocket, vivid in his mind.

Steel, he thought. Steel and concrete. Do not break, not bend, not shatter. He chanted the fortifying mantra to himself. Minski smeared his hands across the TARDIS, setting his chubby fingers picking at the lock.

Steel and concrete. Steel. Not weaken, not sway.

‘I won’t threaten you,’ he said lightly. ‘I won’t torture you. You’d turn the pain against itself. It would harden you. But I believe you have a friend in Paris, a young woman. I know where to find her. Perhaps she has a key?’

Fire.

Minski’s mouth was twisted into a victorious smile, a broad grin sliced across his flesh. It was full of childish cruelty, incongruous on his child’s face. A silent rage ignited inside the Doctor, searing and scorching his defences. In his imagination, Minski burned.

Sade stepped between them, blocking the Doctor’s view of the TARDIS. Briefly relieved, the Doctor sagged, recovering himself before Minski reappeared. Sade’s back was tense, his spine trembling under his shirt.

‘This is going to have to wait,’ he said, a slight waver in his voice giving his pain away.

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