"I don"t know. Shine your light here," she whispered, tapping the protruding object with her toe.
It was a little pile of rocks.
"That"s mine!" Polly breathed. "My marker. I must"ve come this way." She frowned. "I"m sure it wasn"t so dark before."
She peered at the little heap of rocks. Beside it was one much larger. "Here. There"s been some sort of subsidence, the tunnel I went through has been sealed off." She paused. "I think that weird place with the blue light and the countdown is on the other side of this rockfall."
"Come on," Shade said. He sounded preoccupied. "I mustn"t let Lindey get too far ahead."
Polly shrugged but gave no argument. Their crunching footsteps set a mournful tempo as they set off after her.
"Have you known her long?" Polly asked tentatively.
"What"s that supposed to mean?" Shade said with a sideways glance.
"Nothing. I just wondered. With you being a team and all."
"Well, then, no. I haven"t known her long. I haven"t known a lot of this crowd long. We"re soldiers. What"s to know? We fight till one day we die."
When Lindey s scream tore through the blackness Polly thought her heart would give out.
There was movement in the dark. Now Shade gripped her her arm, as if not wanting her to run away and leave him. arm, as if not wanting her to run away and leave him.
There was a heavy rushing noise, a pressure in her ears, and Polly"s perceptions seemed to skew. She glimpsed something in Shade"s torch beam: some grotesque, squat little figure, then a pale face falling away into the darkness like a stone down a well as Lindey, still screaming, was s.n.a.t.c.hed away at unnatural, frightening speed.
Chapter Six.
By the p.r.i.c.king of my Thumbs
I.
"We"ve got to help her!" Polly shouted, Lindey"s screams still ringing in her ears.
Shade raised his wrist to his lips. For a few moments he just breathed, deeply and shakily, before speaking. "Marshal Haunt. Have lost Lindey."
There was nothing but static.
"Oh no," murmured Polly.
"Marshal Haunt," Shade repeated. "Respond."
"Maybe..." Polly swallowed nervously. "Maybe whatever it was got Haunt too."
The static stopped, replaced by the heavy silence of the tunnel.
"Shade?" Haunt"s voice from the communicator made them both jump.
"Marshal, it"s Lindey. Dragged off, it was so fast..."
"Get after her," Haunt snapped. "I"m on my way. Out."
"Come on," Shade said. He took Polly"s arm and they ran on together. The torch beam played crazily over the dark and jagged surface. The rock walls were moth-eaten with entrances to other tunnels, gaping open like mouths ready to suck them both inside.
There was a sudden sc.r.a.ping, rattling noise, and Shade ducked down. Polly gave a short shriek of alarm, but a moment later Shade was up again. "It"s all right. I dropped my palmscreen. Let"s go."
They didn"t have much further to run before the darkness suddenly gave way to a thick, porridgey light. She and Shade had emerged into a vast vaulted chamber. It had five walls, stacked high with the familiar dark slates, though one was partially obscured by another of the extraordinary gla.s.s tapestries. The ceiling was heavy with the luminous weed. It hung down in sticky strands, and here and there on the smooth stone floor it lay in glowing heaps that were cl.u.s.tered with the pale insects. Five tall stone columns reached up from the stone-paved floor like huge candles, each one crowned with a pair of ma.s.sive stone sculptures. Eerily lit from above, they reminded Polly of Renaissance cherubs grown fat and gone to seed. It must"ve been a statue of some kind she glimpsed back in the tunnel.
The chamber was otherwise empty and silent, save for the ghostly chiming of the tapestry fragments, disturbed as if by a breeze. There was no sign of Lindey.
Footsteps behind them made Polly jump. She saw Haunt tearing towards them, rifle raised, staring wildly around.
"Where is she?" Haunt demanded of Shade.
Shade shook his head but said nothing.
Haunt glared at Polly. "Did you see anything?"
"There was no time," Polly murmured. "It all happened so fast."
"Too fast," Shade agreed. "She was just... taken."
"Taken by what, for G.o.d"s sake? By a droid? By the hand?"
Haunt"s voice rose a notch, and she slapped a palm angrily against Polly"s shoulder. "By the colour of this stupid s.p.a.cesuit?"
"There was nothing Shade could have done," Polly insisted.
Haunt grabbed hold of Polly"s chin and leaned in close. Her voice was low and threatening. "Listen to me. You do not speak for any of my squad. Never." Her eyes were dark, unblinking. "You follow me?"
Polly nodded mutely. Shade just looked on, apparently unmoved.
"What is happening here?"
Polly could have cried with relief as the Doctor"s voice rang out imperiously around the chamber. Haunt widened her eyes in one more silent warning, then let Polly go.
"There"s no sign of Lindey," Haunt snapped. Polly saw she was ignoring the Doctor and talking to Shel, who stood behind him. "Could whatever took her have got past you?"
"No, Marshal," Shel answered. "We saw nothing."
"These tunnels interconnect," the Doctor added. "We crossed from ours to join yours. I imagine all the pa.s.sages are joined, it"s quite a labyrinth." He nodded decisively.
"Terrific. So Lindey has vanished, just like Denni. You saw nothing. Shade did did nothing." nothing."
"Again," Polly heard Shade whisper. He absently itched one of the black ridges in his face, and quickly screwed up his eyes as if in pain.
As she wondered whether or not to place a consoling hand on his shoulder, she noticed his palmscreen fastened securely to his chunky belt.
And, peeping from his jumpsuit"s hip pocket, the shiny corner of an identical computer.
"Are you all right, my dear?" the Doctor had crossed, as quiet as a cat, to join her. Polly steered him discreetly over to one of the stone pillars.
"Doctor," Polly whispered urgently. "I think Shade has got Lindey"s palm computer thing. She must"ve dropped it when she was..." Her voice dried up, and she swallowed. "I think he found it in the tunnel and pretended it was his."
The Doctor frowned. "Are you sure, child?"
She nodded. "So why hasn"t he told Haunt?"
"Why indeed?" muttered the Doctor. "I wonder..."
"And when I first met him... When I was running from whatever that thing was that chased me away from the blue place..." She looked wide-eyed at the Doctor. "It was Shade who brought the roof down on us, stopped me leading anyone there to see for themselves."
"You must tell me all that happened, Polly."
She gladly obliged. It felt good to be able to tell the outlandish tale just as it happened and know that she was believed without question, taken deadly seriously. The Doctor always did that; made you the centre of his world whenever he looked at you.
When she"d finished, the Doctor simply nodded. "It sounds to me as if you stumbled upon a power source of some kind.
Perhaps the very core of this subterranean citadel." He nodded again with satisfaction at this summation.
"And someone else had found it too," Polly said, remembering the figure she"d seen through the blue haze.
"Oh, this is a terrible place!" She scratched the back of her neck. "There"s something here with us, I"m sure of it.
Something... evil. Watching us all the time."
The Doctor patted her absently on the shoulder. "We have eyes too," he said, "and we must use them well."
Around her feet the white fleas hopped mindlessly. High above, the cherubim balanced precariously as if frozen in the midst of some joyful dance.
II.
Ben felt like piggy in the middle, stuck between Tovel and Roba. The two men joked to keep their spirits up, but the conversation went right over Ben"s head. A good foot shorter than either of them, perhaps it was no surprise, he mused ruefully.
Suddenly the laughter stopped dead. Ben heard a sc.r.a.ping sound ahead of him, then silence.
There was a sound like a generator charging up, and then confused movement about him in the dark as Tovel pushed past to join Roba.
"Keep down, Ben," Roba shouted. "Kill-Droid approaching."
A red glow was creeping round the corner of the tunnel.
Then it was lost in the flare of laser fire from the two soldiers.
Ben shielded his face as splinters of rock showered over him, smelt chemical smoke from the glowing barrels of the guns. A large stone fell from the ceiling and struck his leg.
"Go easy!" Ben shouted. "You"ll bring the roof down on us!"
The gunfire stopped, as if they"d actually listened to him.
The air was thick with dust. For a moment, all Ben could hear was Tovel and Roba"s ragged breathing.
"We got it," Tovel said. "Sharp shooting, marksman."
Roba coughed. "You sure we got it?"
"We must"ve got it."
Cautiously they advanced on the bend in the tunnel.
A rush of crimson coloured the walls. Something slammed into the two men, knocking them back.
In the red haze Ben could see a nightmare figure rounding the corner. It was huge, filling the tunnel. Its head was a great gla.s.s cylinder, the source of the infernal glow. Its body was the size of a chest freezer, chrome and gleaming, bobbing about on countless spidery limbs that seemed fashioned from tensile steel.
The machine whipped out a metal tentacle that ended in a cruel spike, one that looked easily big enough to skewer two heads in one go. Roba brought up his gun but the robot"s spike hooked it from his grip. With a flick, the gun clattered out of reach behind the thing.
Ben scrambled to his feet.
"Here!" Tovel shouted, and hurled his own rifle Ben"s way.
Before he could grab it, the robot flung out another tentacle and caught the gun like it weighed nothing.
Ben scooped his own gun from the tunnel floor and fired it, aiming for the thing"s head. There was a noise like bullets firing and a lackl.u.s.tre light flashed out from the gun"s tip, but he felt no recoil and the effect on the robot was disappointing to say the least. Ben thought the droid wasn"t even going to notice his attack, but finally its head rotated slowly round to face him.