Part 9 (1/2)

Then the bus gave up the ghost and toppled backwards, over the dune's lip. For sixty feet they shot down the hill, plunging deep into the sand. All four were thrown off balance again, landing in a heap.

When all was still, they stirred themselves. The Doctor was first on his feet.'Anything broken?'

No one had broken anything. Gila was helping Sam to her feet, and she shook him off brusquely.

Iris went straight on the offensive. 'You've wrecked my s.h.i.+p! You've put us into a big b.l.o.o.d.y hole in the ground! This is down to your impatience, Doctor! I hope you're satisfied.'

She flung open the bus's doors and sand came rus.h.i.+ng in. They were buried a foot deep. She hopped out, followed by Gila.

'I thought it was a good idea,' the Doctor told Sam.

'It was,' she said.'You weren't to know she had a rubbishy TARDIS.'

'She did warn me, though. And Iwas getting impatient.'

'Look,' Sam said. 'We're over the mountains, safe. She should thank you.'

'Iris won't see it like that,” he said glumly, following the others outside.

'And I forgot. Iris likes to do things for herself. I shouldn't nave interfered.'

Sam tutted. The Doctor was erratic in deciding who to be tactful with.

They found Iris and Gila staring at the ma.s.sive rise down which they had just plunged.

'We have to get all the way back up there,' Iris was saying sardonically.

'How do you suggest we manage that?'

'Fly?' said Sam.

'Not funny,' snapped Iris.

Gila grunted. 'We push it,' he said.

Even with Gila's prodigious strength, they made little headway. He and Sam and the Doctor pitted their combined weight against the back of the bus and pushed for all they were worth. Iris had plonked herself back in the driver's cab, ostensibly to steer, but Sam couldn't see the point in that. She had been about to point out that they'd be better off with Iris's help in pus.h.i.+ng, but the Doctor had caught her eye. He was wary of further aggravating the old woman. But after they had spent a fruitless, sweaty hour moving the bus precisely nowhere, he was shouting up to the front, 'Are you sure you've got the handbrake off?'

Iris bellowed something filthy at him.

She tried the engines again, which spluttered and coughed dolefully.

Eventually they consented to turn the wheels a little, and the pushers got their hopes up slightly, as the tyres bit into the sand, and seemed at first to drag the vehicle a little way up the rise.

Great flurries of golden, jewelled sand were sent up into the air by the growling wheels. The Doctor produced, magician-like, a rope of handkerchiefs, for them to cover their noses and mouths as a small dust storm was kicked up around them. There was a terrible racket and, above it, came Iris's cry:'How are we doing, fellers?'

'Hopeless!' Gila shouted.'I think we're just digging it deeper into the sand.'

It was true, the bus was burying itself, even as it fought to be free. Iris switched off the engine.

She came stumping round to the back of the bus. She flung off her tiger-skin coat and rolled up her cardigan sleeves.'I'll have to have a go myself,' she said, giving them a bitter look, as if they hadn't been trying enough.

'It's stuck, Iris,' said the Doctor gently.'Don't push it.You'll do yourself a mischief'

'Are you saying I'm past it?' He tutted.'Well, help me everybody!'

Sam was slapping at her bare arms. 'I wish these insects would keep off.'

In the past hour they had been beset by over-large mosquitoes with violet wings. It was as if they had homed in on the stranded pa.s.sengers.

Sam said, 'Is it just me or are there more of them?'

The Doctor glanced around and then he stood very still.

Suddenly the air seemed thick with the things.

'We're being attacked,' he said, just as they became aware of how noisy the insects had grown.

'A swarm!' Iris gulped,and hurried back to her fur coat for protection. She clutched her head.”They're in my hair!'

Only Gila, with his scabrous skin, seemed unaffected.

'Back inside!' the Doctor called.'Quickly!'

As they rounded the bus, however, they saw that the way to the doorway was blocked by a creature standing twice the Doctor's height. The very sight of it stopped them in their tracks. It was orange and muscled, and roaring with laughter, as the insects swarmed venomously around.

'It's a kabikaj,' the Doctor said.'A djinn of the insect world.'

Chapter Ten.

Standing Around Virtually Naked

Kabikaj. It was less of a wraith than the other djinn they had so far seen on this trip. Less of a flesh-eater, a ghostly fly-by-night. The creature that confronted them in the heart of the swarm was corporeal and gross. It looked as if it could knock down any of their party with one easy blow.

And it was still chuckling, low in its tautly muscled neck. The creature was like one whole muscle, Sam thought, dripping like something that had been basted for the oven. And it had its arms crossed, just like a genie in a pantomime.

The insects were getting to them. Sam felt as if she had been stung from head to toe. In a frantic moment she thought the beasts were scuttling into her head through her ears and nose, but that was mostly the noise - a torturous, incessant drone.

”They're being controlled by him, that creature,' roared Gila.'Make him stop!'

The Doctor raised his voice, slipping as he was occasionally wont to do, into imperious mode.'Are these things poisonous?'

The orange-skinned kabikaj threw back its head and laughed. Its lascivious features contorted with mirth.

'Don't give me that!' the Doctor shouted.'Answer!'