Part 15 (2/2)

Darren Pye grinned. His mouth opened slowly, and with an obvious effort he forced out the words: 'Baa baa beech...'

Bye, bye, thought Rose, and braced herself.

'There!' cried the Quevvil, slamming the top back on the console and hurrying off to be as far outside Frinel's circle of awareness as possible.

'No!' shouted the Doctor.

It hit Rose like a bullet. Pain exploded, blossomed within her, till there was nothing else.

The impact threw her backwards. And that was all she knew.

Robert, watching the screen, gave a cry.

The man, the ugly man, had been pulled from view, as if he was on the end of a horizontal bungee rope.

The Doctor, not seeming to care that he was surrounded by monsters with spikes and guns and brain*squis.h.i.+ng devices, started yelling at Frinel. 'How stupid are you? I thought the whole idea was to get her through to the end! If you've hurt her...'

Frinel appeared unconcerned. He gestured at the screen, which was showing a view of a rocky ceiling. 'The neural relays are still transmitting, therefore the carrier has not been damaged.'

The Doctor spoke through clenched teeth. 'She is not ”the carrier”. She is a person, and her name is Rose Tyler.'

Frinel waved this away.

'And even if she is alive, and you can just count yourself lucky, pal, that she is, she might still be ”damaged”. Like poles repel, an' all that. You switch that back on when they're next to each other, and what did you expect to happen?'

'Continue playing,' said Frinel, 'or we kill another human.'

'Oh, that's your answer to everything,' spat the Doctor, but he picked up the control pad again.

Suddenly one of the other Quevvils called out, 'Frinel! Mantodeans approaching!'

Robert swivelled his head to look. There was only the one screen in the room, the one showing Rose's point of view, but this Quevvil had a chart that looked like the one from the other room, only it showed a cl.u.s.ter of small red lights. They were approaching a single, s.h.i.+ning white light.

'Evade the Mantodeans!' Frinel snapped to the Doctor.

But the other Quevvil interrupted. 'No, Frinel, they are approaching the other carrier. The one being controlled from Earth.'

Frinel waved a paw. 'Then it doesn't matter.'

'Doesn't matter?' said the Doctor. 'That's a human being! At least let me try to help them!'

'They are unimportant,' said Frinel. 'You will continue to play the game.'

Robert was still watching the chart. The red dots had now totally surrounded the white dot. And then, as he looked, the white light blinked out.

'Too late,' said the Quevvil.

Jason got a text message from Anil. 'He says the bloke messaged him. He says it's game over. He's blaming Anil, though I can't see where he gets that from.'

And Mickey's stomach dropped like a stone, as he thought, someone's just died. A human being's just died. And I should have been able to stop it. If I'd just thought of the right things to say.

Sod this hero stuff for a lark.

But, on the plus side, at least he'd got his telly back.

Rose, not dead, woke up. It took her about six seconds to remember where she was and what was happening. And when she'd remembered it all, she felt very, very cross.

Something b.u.mped against her feet. She couldn't look to see what it was. Then she felt herself move. She began to stand up. As she did, she saw the thing at her feet. It was Darren Pye's head.

TWENTY.

Rose had been taken away from Darren Pye's head, away from the Mantodeans she could see in the distance, chomping away at something unseen, but perfectly imaginable, on the floor.

She had been taken down many more tunnels, across chasms, up steps, and through she wasn't sure how many encrypted locks and b.o.o.by*trapped doors, and she was really fed up.

Then, just as she'd given up hope of ever hearing another human voice again, she spoke to herself.

'Rose, it's me. You're nearly there, so I've got to risk it.'

Her hand pulled the mobile out of her pocket, and began to dial.

'Just got to speak to Mickey again. Listen, I'm going to get you out of there. Once you're at close enough range, they're going to activate the disruptors. I don't know what's going to happen then. But you'll be OK. Trust me.'

The phone was held up to her ear.

'What's that you were saying about being OK and trusting me?' said Mickey's voice. 'Is everything all right, Rose? G.o.d, I hope you're OK.'

But Rose couldn't answer him, and the Doctor couldn't hear him.

'Mickey?' Rose said, in the Doctor's words. 'I hope you're all set. Because it's going to be any minute now.'

There was an air of barely suppressed excitement in the Quevvil control room.

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