Part 21 (2/2)

There were bookcases full of Reader's Digest publications, a long dining table stacked with knitting patterns, and a piano.

Mike's gaze swept the room and he retreated.

He entered the next room just as quickly and found himself in a lounge with a draylon suite and French windows. Just beyond the oblong of light flooding in through the windows was what he was looking for. A Xaranti hybrid, its back bulging and squirming, was pinning a middle-aged woman to the floor by her throat. The hybrid, a man close to his own age, was grinning and drooling, evidently taking great pleasure in choking the life out of its victim. The woman's tongue and eyes were bulging out of her purpling face and she was scrabbling ineffectually at the hand clamped around her windpipe. Her feet drummed on the carpet as her oxygen-starved limbs spasmed.

Without hesitation, Mike aimed his gun and fired. Just as he squeezed the trigger, the hybrid sprang towards him, swooping low as it did so. The bullet pa.s.sed over its shoulder and smashed a hole through the French windows. The hybrid collided with Mike's legs, sending him staggering back against the wall.

Mike knew how important it was to stay on his feet. As he bounced back from the wall, the hybrid was rolling over. It was too close now for him to use his gun, it would spring to its feet and close the distance between them before he could even get the weapon levelled. Deciding, therefore, that discretion was the better part of valour, Mike turned and fled.

The hybrid came after him, which was what Mike had expected and wanted. If it had got back to finish off the woman, he would have felt honour-bound to turn and confront it again. All the same, being pursued by a ravening psychotic predator was not a pleasant experience. Mike ran as he had never run before, expecting to feel the weight of the creature slam into his back with each pounding step.

'Start the engine!' he screamed at Tegan, seeing her peering out of the truck at him as soon as he burst out of the house.

He saw her face change from surprise to shock as she recognised the thing chasing him - or at least who it had once been. 'Do it now!' 'Do it now!' he yelled. he yelled.

She started the engine. 'Drive!' Mike shouted. 'Drive! Drive!'

If she hesitated they would probably all be dead. He was thankful, therefore, to see the truck pull away from the kerb almost immediately. Mike leaped off the kerb and pounded after it. The truck was doing maybe ten miles an hour when he launched himself at the tailgate. He grabbed it with both hands, ignored a splinter that slid into the ball of his thumb, and hauled himself up and over.

He was lying in a sprawl next to the Doctor's feet, gasping and congratulating himself on his timing, when he heard something thump against the tailgate. Looking up, he saw two hands curled over the top of the wooden flap, a face with tar-black eyes and mouth twisted in a b.e.s.t.i.a.l snarl rising between them.

With frightening speed and agility, the hybrid slid its upper body over the tailgate and grabbed Mike's ankle. Its grip was brutally strong, and instantly Mike read its intentions from the glee of antic.i.p.ation on its face. It meant to twist his foot and break his ankle, and Mike had no doubt that it could do it too. Imbued with the savage strength of the Xaranti, Tegan's former friend could snap his bones as easily as he could have snapped the stick of celery pinned to the Doctor's lapel.

Instinctively Mike whipped up his gun and pulled the trigger. This time the bullet didn't miss. It struck the top of the hybrid's head, sheared it off and scattered it across the road in the truck's wake.

For one terrible moment the hybrid still clung to Mike's foot. Then the grip slackened and the creature tumbled back into the road, arms spread like a horizontal crucifixion.

Tegan stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road and Mike heard her sobbing bitterly. He jumped down from the back of the truck and opened the driver's cab door. She was slumped with her face in her hands as if trying to prevent her near-hysteria from seeping out.

'I'm sorry,' said Mike, 'I didn't want to kill him. I wouldn't have if it hadn't been him or me.'

Tegan didn't answer, didn't even acknowledge him. At least not until he touched her arm, whereupon she wrenched her hands away from her face and snarled, 'Don't you dare!'

The sea boiled and churned, waves cras.h.i.+ng on to the deserted beach as if heralding a storm. A hundred feet from the sh.o.r.e, a dark patch appeared on the blue skin of the sea, like a shadow beneath the surface. The patch inched closer to the sh.o.r.e, growing larger and darker as it came. When it had halved the distance between the place it had first appeared and the bloodstained sand it broke the surface.

The Morok battle cruiser, its rusty, barnacled hull rearing up from the waves, was an eminently adaptable s.h.i.+p. It was designed to transform itself to suit whatever planetary conditions presented themselves. It was thanks largely to s.h.i.+ps like this that the Moroks would eventually extend their seven-hundred year empire across the nine galaxies. This particular vessel, however, would no longer form any part of their battle fleet, its crew having long since transformed to swell the ranks of its Xaranti invaders.

When the battle cruiser had reached shallow enough waters, it retracted its long submarine-like snout, which had streamlined it to allow easier access through the deeps, drew in its powerful propellers, and extended tank-like caterpillar tracks, which gripped the sea bed and hauled it clanking and roaring on to the sand. On dry land it sat for a while, like some vast behemoth acclimatising itself to its new surroundings. Water streamed from its battle-scarred hull; its prow - if such a shapeless, ugly-looking craft as this could be said to have a prow - peeked over the sea-wall at the promenade.

Suddenly there was a tumultuous grating sound, and a number of doors at ground level slid slowly open, extending ramps that clanged down on to the sand. For a moment the openings contained only darkness, and then the black, bristling bodies of fully-grown Xaranti began to emerge into the light, like ants from a nest.

'It looks deserted,' Mike said.

It was the first time either of them had spoken since Tegan had spurned his attempts to console her after the death of Andy Weathers. She had moved across to the pa.s.senger seat and turned her back on him, using her hand as a cus.h.i.+on between her face and the window. Her shoulders had heaved as she sobbed silently It was clear she was no longer in any fit state to drive. Mike had hesitated over suggesting that she sit in the back with the Doctor again, and in the end had decided that the Doctor would be OK. Around here they'd see trouble coming from far enough away for Mike to provide him with any protection he might need. Besides, Tegan with a gun in her hand while in this state of mind was not a good idea, especially now that he'd noticed she was beginning to scratch her shoulders and arms more and more.

Tegan did not respond to his comment, merely stared dully through the windscreen, her eyes pink as if stained by their red rims. The hospital car park was three-quarters full, but there was no sign of life either out here or at any of the building's many windows.

Mike stopped outside the open gates and glanced at Tegan.

'I didn't want want to kill your friend, you know, Tegan,' he said again, 'but I had to. If I hadn't he would have killed me, and then the Doctor, and then probably you too.' to kill your friend, you know, Tegan,' he said again, 'but I had to. If I hadn't he would have killed me, and then the Doctor, and then probably you too.'

Tegan said in a low, bitter voice, 'Don't you think I know that?'

'I don't know. Do you?'

She swung round suddenly, glaring at him. 'Of course I do.

I'm not stupid!'

'I never suggested you were,' he said gently. 'It's just that...

well, if we're going to get through this, we've got to work together. We've got to know we can rely on one another.'

She gave a snort too mirthless to be termed laughter. 'You can't rely on me. I'm changing into one of those things.

Haven't you noticed?'

'Yes, I have noticed. But you're still in the early stages.

You'll be OK for a while yet, won't you?'

She shrugged. 'I think so. I hope so. I keep having these...

these funny thoughts.'

'Funny thoughts?' he prompted.

'Insights, I guess you'd call them. I seem to know things without knowing how how I know them. It's like... like I'm tapping into their minds... into I know them. It's like... like I'm tapping into their minds... into its its mind.' She shuddered. 'It's horrible.' mind.' She shuddered. 'It's horrible.'

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