Doctor Who: a Big Hand For the Doctor by Eoin Colfer

Author:Eoin Colfer
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781405912051
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

4

The anti-gravity beam sucked the Doctor into its belly and he supposed that this was how being eaten must feel. Indeed it was more than mere supposition. He had been eaten twice before, on the same holiday, by blarph whales in Lake Rhonda who thought it was hilarious to gulp down bathers then pop them out through their blowholes. Then all the whales would surface-high-five each other and have a good old laugh at the bather’s expense. The bather would generally take the whole thing in good spirits – after all, who’s going to take issue with a twenty-tonne blarph whale?

The Doctor banished these memories because they were for another time when he was not suspended in the anti-grav beam of a Soul Pirate frigate.

The Doctor knew he had only moments of total consciousness left before the beam’s soporific agent lulled him into a peaceful sleep, when it would seem as though all his dreams were on the verge of coming to pass. The Doctor shook himself vigorously to stay awake, while at the same time holding his breath.

Suddenly he was back on Gallifrey, with his family, safe at last.

‘That’s right,’ said his mother and she smiled down at him, her long hair brushing his forehead. ‘Stay here, my little Doctor. Stay here with me and you can tell tales of the worlds you have visited. I so want to hear your stories.’

She is so pretty, he thought. Just as I remember her.

‘D’Arvit!’ swore the Doctor aloud. ‘I am being drugged.’ He began to describe what was happening around him just to stay alert.

‘There are half a dozen souls trapped in the beam. Three children and three adults, counting Susan as an adult, which I am not sure I should considering the fact that she wilfully disobeyed my instructions. All able-bodied. The pirates need youth and strength to power their ship. I cannot see Susan’s face, though I can feel her joy. I wonder what she sees in her dreams?’

The beam was more than light. It offered resistance when touched and was heavily charged to allow suspension of dense matter.

‘I know we are moving,’ continued the Doctor, narrating his journey. ‘Yet there is no sensation of movement. No friction whatsoever. I can honestly say that in spite of the ominous circumstances, I have never been so comfortable.’

A slender shape flitted past and the Doctor knew, even from the briefest glimpse, that it was Susan. He recognised her as surely as an infant recognises the voice of its mother.

‘Susan, my dear!’ he cried, releasing more precious breath, but Susan’s smile never wavered, and she did not answer.

The Doctor saw in her expression how optimistic about the universe Susan was and he realised how utterly she would collapse in the Soul Pirates’ hands. That could not be allowed to happen.

They passed through the folded-pastry layers of a puffed-up cumulus and emerged looking at the stars. The second star on the left winked and crackled suddenly as its cloaking shield was powered down, and where sky had been now hovered the hulking pirate factory ship.

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