The Doctor Trap by Simon Messingham

Author:Simon Messingham [Messingham, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781846075582
Google: ZfT-KwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1846075580
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-10-09T07:00:00+00:00

been torn from the handle and hurled back down the track.

The train hissed up and down through tunnel after

tunnel, turning unbelievable angles and once even leaving

the monorail track altogether and dropping down into a

lower tunnel. Baris felt very sick but he knew better than

to let go.

Finally, there was light again and the train slowed and

gravity suddenly gripped his body. He weighed a ton. His

arms couldn’t hold on any more. With a yell, he fell.

Onto another platform.

Baris lay spread-eagled. He couldn’t move. He had

been chased without respite from one end of this planet to

the other. Wherever he had ended up would have to wait.

Even his need to find Donna would have to wait. This

floor was hard but safe. The train whooshed off.

A long time later, Baris looked up to see a long metal

bench lining an empty platform. Hardly able to walk, he

crawled to the bench, lay down and fell asleep.

‘Curse him!’ bellowed Commissar Weimark. ‘He has the

luck of the Western devil.’

The featureless train had left the station with the Doctor

clinging to its side. Weimark stared down the tunnel. He

needed to think.

‘What is this place?’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ve never seen

anything like it.’ The android soldiers ran their hands

across the smoothly bored platform walls.

‘Yes you have,’ Weimark replied. ‘You were probably

delivered here.’

Ignoring Laki’s puzzled expression, Weimark tried to

think how he should proceed. ‘The Doctor must have

known about the station. This is treachery.’

Unfortunately, this realisation did not help him catch

the Time Lord. He could hardly walk down the tunnel

after his quarry. Not with 500-kilometre-an-hour trains

coming up behind.

‘We should get back to the city,’ said one of the

soldiers. ‘This is a bad place.’

‘That’s right,’ said the sergeant. ‘Commissar, we should

go.’

Their programming, Weimark realised. They would

react in this way to any breach of the Beriagrad protocol.

Anything the squad could not understand they would

avoid. He had to make them understand. He would need

these robots.

‘I am afraid not,’ he told them. ‘Sergeant. This is a

Western Mark transportation tunnel. We have been aware

of them for some time but chose not to tell the common

soldier. We wished to maintain the pretence of ignorance.

The enemy was not to be alerted. Until the final victorious

assault, of course. You understand?’

The sergeant’s neck clicked strangely. The robot was

making up its small mind. ‘Yes, Commissar,’ it said. ‘A

Western Mark transportation tunnel.’

‘Consider yourself under my command. We have work

to do. You will discuss this mission with no one. You will

not ask questions. Just follow my orders.’

‘Yes, Commissar.’

Weimark heard a hissing noise. A new train was

arriving. Apparently driverless, it sidled up to the platform

and stopped. The Commissar nodded at the vehicle. ‘We

must follow the Doctor.’

‘The doors do not open,’ said one of the privates. ‘How

do we get onto the train?’

Weimark raised his rifle and fired an armour piercing

round into the side. The metal burst inwards. The gunshot

echoed down the tunnel, getting fainter as it travelled.

‘We use our initiative,’ he said. ‘Get on.’

‘I love you, my master,’ said the Butler on the TV screen.

‘Please don’t be angry.’

‘Yeah, all right,’ Sebastiene replied. ‘Let’s not get

gooey.’

The Butler looked almost mournful.

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