Halflife by Mark Michalowski

Author:Mark Michalowski [Michalowski, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563486138
Publisher: Diamond Comic Distributors
Published: 2004-04-27T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

‘A spaceship powered by technobabble.’

‘Been there, said the Doctor as he struggled to get up from the floor of the bar, ‘done that, got the T-shirt.’

Calamee stared down at him blankly, Nessus peeking out of the pocket of the jacket that she still wore, pulled tight around her like a shield.

‘Old Earth saying – oh my giddy aunt!’ He clutched at his head where a troop of dwarves had suddenly decided to re-enact Riverdance. And not very well. ‘What happened?’

He looked around – the wave had gone, passed out of the other side of the barn. The ground hissed and fizzed, a thin layer of grey slime sheening in the starlight.

‘Is it safe?’ Calamee indicated the floor around him. ‘And what’s “Tain”? Or who?’

‘Not sure,’ he said cautiously ‘On both counts. The name just came to me.’

He fought back the instinct to reach down and touch the substance that coated the ground – and then noticed that, creeping across the floor as if following the wave, the straw and weeds were miraculously being reinstated.

‘Stay there,’ he warned her, and gingerly crossed to where the plants were springing up. His feet sucked and squelched in the goo beneath them.

He fished in his trouser pocket, found another empty jar and carefully scraped up some of the stuff before screwing on the top and pocketing it.

He stayed where he was and squatted down to watch the rebirth of the vegetation. Rather pointless, he thought, if that was all that was happening.

The regrowth passed silently across the floor, following the wave, and within minutes it seemed that nothing had happened.

‘I think it’s safe now,’ he said to Calamee, and stood scratching his head as she clambered back down the ladder and jumped nervously on to the floor.

‘What was it?’

‘A wavefront.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps an energy field of some kind.’

‘But what was it doing? And what caused it?’

‘I think I know what caused it – it’s just a shame I can’t remember. But as to what it was doing… I think it was breaking everything organic down that it touched, and rebuilding it. What’s more puzzling is why it didn’t do the same to me.’ He stopped, a horrible thought occurring to him. ‘Unless it did, of course.’

Calamee shook her head. ‘You’d still be a blob of slime, wouldn’t you? It didn’t look like anything happened to you when you fell – the grey thing just passed over you.’

‘Now, isn’t that odd? We have a phenomenon that seems, indiscriminately as far as we can tell, to break down and rebuild organic matter, and it leaves me untouched. Now why would that be?’

Calamee gave a heavy shrug and smiled. ‘I’m the one with the questions, remember: you’re here to provide the answers.’

‘Oh…’ The Doctor slapped his hand to the top of his head. ‘There was something else. I had a flashback. Or maybe a dream – or perhaps it was a flashfor–’

‘OK, OK – we get the idea.’

‘I saw a cat. And something happening to my body, some sort of transformation.

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