Part 5 (1/2)

The Doctor could think of plenty of news that he'd rather receive. He wasn't familiar with any disease that went by the name used by Olvir, but the evidence for its existence was all around them and pressing closer.

'Don't let them touch you,' he told Nyssa. One of the figures was getting dangerously near.

Nyssa pulled back as far as she could, almost flattening herself into the angle formed by the corridor walls. 'I wasn't thinking of it,' she said.

The Doctor's attention returned to the Lazars. They seemed to be shuffling along blindly and without volition, obeying some deeply implanted impulse that had perhaps been drummed into them at an earlier time: when the voice speaks, everybody out when the voice speaks, everybody out. If the three of them could simply keep out of the way, the crowd might even pa.s.s them by without any contact.

Somehow, he couldn't feel rea.s.sured. They'd been walking around, touching, breathing the air. To hope that they'd managed to avoid infection would be like standing in the rain and hoping to walk home dry.

'Excuse me,' Kari said, business-like. The Doctor began to move aside for her without thinking, but then he saw her raise the burner and level it at the nearest Lazars.

'Nyssa!' he said quickly, and Nyssa got the message right away. Standing directly alongside Kari, she clasped her hands together and drove an elbow into the raider's ribs. Kari folded instantly, her eyes wide with surprise as she gasped for breath, and the Doctor was able to reach for the burner and take it away without any resistance.

'It's all right,' he told them. 'Just hold back here, and we'll be safe. Most of them can't even see us.'

The Lazars shuffled on by, intent on some far-off goal that no observer could understand. As soon as Kari could breathe again, she said with indignation, 'You took my gun away!'

The Doctor glanced down at the burner as if he'd forgotten it. 'Oh, yes,' he said, and offered it back. Kari took the weapon, but it was almost as if having it taken away from her so easily had shaken some of the magic out of it. 'But we made a deal,' she protested.

'Ma.s.s slaughter wasn't a part of it.'

'Sometimes it's the only way.'

'But not this time. Look at them.'

So Kari looked. The crowd was thinning out now as the last of them went by. One was tottering blindly and holding onto the rags of the Lazar in front. A few stragglers, and then the three were able to step back into the main part of the corridor.

Nyssa said, 'What about Olvir?'

'He ran,' Kari said with unexpected harshness. 'We leave him.'

'I don't think so,' the Doctor said. 'He's got a lot to tell us.' He moved over to check the nearest of the rooms that lay beyond the now-open doors. It was empty and almost featureless, a few low benches around the walls and a mechanised water-dispenser in the middle for those who could use it. There was nothing for comfort and no sign of any emergency crash-protection, a minimum of expense for a cargo that couldn't complain. The room wasn't too clean, either.

He stepped out into the corridor and started to lead the way back towards the control room and Olvir. An embarra.s.sed-looking Kari was the last to follow.

Tegan and Turlough were watching the last of the Lazars go past from an unusual hiding-place. After Tegan's experience at the sliding door there had been no question of them stepping aside and hoping that confrontation would pa.s.s them by, but as they'd tried to run they'd realised that it was hopeless. There was no escape at all. Every way they turned, they saw Lazars.

It was then that Turlough had started to stamp around on the metal floor. Tegan looked at him as if he'd lost his mind, but when he explained what he was doing she started to do the same.

The floor grating was laid in sections. It was Tegan who found what they needed, a loose section that rocked slightly when weight was transferred from one corner to another, and when the discovery was made they both knelt and, locking their fingers through the cross-hatched gaps in the metal, tried to heave it up from its supporting pillars.

Even though it wasn't fixed, it was heavy. At first it seemed hopeless but then, as they could hear the Lazars only metres away around the next corner, they managed to raise the grating a few inches. They were so surprised at their own success that they nearly let it fall, but desperation gave them strength. The section hinged up, and Turlough held it clear as Tegan scrambled under.

The cable-trap underneath was a shallow pa.s.sageway filled with dust and grime. Tegan crouched low as Turlough followed her in and let the overhead panel drop into place. They were in relative darkness and surrounded by conduit and piping, but they could still see up into the corridor through the floor. It was a strange perspective, and one that made them feel less than safe.

The Lazars came, blotting out the light like slow-moving thunderclouds. Their rag-bound feet made a m.u.f.fled pounding on the metal, and the darkness that they brought made Tegan aware of some dim sources of light down there in the channel with them a phosph.o.r.escent build up around a corroded joint in some piping, or a neon glow escaping from behind some badly fitted safety cover.

It seemed to take forever. In amongst the Lazars was the occasional drone, supporting one who couldn't walk or leading one who couldn't see. The weight of the robots made the flooring bend and creak, and Tegan and Turlough couldn't help shrinking back slightly whenever one of them went over.

But eventually, it was over. The last of them disappeared, and there was silence. Even so, the two of them waited for a while, listening to the quiet in order to be sure. They heard a couple of clangs and b.u.mps, but they were a long way off.

'Time to get out of here,' Tegan said and Turlough, having no reason to disagree, straightened up as much as he was able and put his shoulders against the grating to lift it.

This part ought to be so much easier, Tegan was thinking, because they were on the side where leverage could now work in their favour. But Turlough strained and pushed, and nothing happened.

'It's stuck,' he gasped finally.

'It can't can't be,' Tegan said, suppressing her panic. This was like something from the worst dream she could ever have. She added her own efforts and the two of them pushed together, and still the section wouldn't move. They both fell back, breathless. be,' Tegan said, suppressing her panic. This was like something from the worst dream she could ever have. She added her own efforts and the two of them pushed together, and still the section wouldn't move. They both fell back, breathless.

'We'll have to find another way out,' Tegan said.

Turlough looked at the shadows around them.

'Where?'

'We'll have to look, won't we?'

They took a moment longer to recover, and then Tegan crawled around in an attempt to find them a way through. The cable trap went wherever the corridor went, so in theory they ought to be able to follow it and keep trying the floor panels until they found another that they could raise a.s.suming that they hadn't all been stamped down as firmly as the one overhead. That was the theory, but the practice wasn't so straightforward. Pipes and angles and intruding shafts blocked the way, and they were going to have to do a lot of wriggling and squeezing.

As Tegan turned around, she nudged a piece of plating. It wasn't even fixed in place, and as it fell loose a greenish light came spilling from behind it. Tegan scrambled back immediately.

'It isn't even decently s.h.i.+elded!' she said. 'This place is a deathtrap!'

They stayed well away from the leakage, and managed to push some loose wiring aside to make a gap. The wire hadn't been disturbed in so long that the dust lay like a carpet over it. They came through into an area where they could at least move more freely, but every section they tried to lift was as firm as the last. The channel got narrower and narrower, and it ended in a blank metal wall.

'Oh, no,' Tegan said.

Turlough peered past her. 'Is there any way through?'

'Not a chance.' She knocked twice on the metal. It was like the side of a tank.

'Then we'll have to go back.'

Tegan wasn't happy at the idea, but it seemed that they didn't have any choice. She looked around into the darkness.

'Wait a minute,' she said, and stretched her hand out to the side. It met nothing.

She pulled herself over for a look. What she'd taken to be a solid side-wall was actually the access to a vertical tunnel. Her head emerged into it and she could see that it was wide enough to take them. There were climbing-rungs all the way down, dusty but firm

as she found when she reached out and tested her weight on the nearest.

Tegan looked over her shoulder. 'We're still in business!' she said. Her voice echoed down the shaft. It almost seemed to be mocking her.