[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.A group of people were retreating into the officers’ mess, Hatiwell amongst them, even as the aliens swarmed over the building.She saw two of the creatures race purposefully towards the telegraph shed.The calculation in their actions brought order back to her own numbed mind.She thrust her disbelief and horror aside, along with her sickening fear for Richard.Wherever the things came from she understood their motives – and what their next move would be.She flung open her cabin door and raced for the stairs.There was still a skeleton crew left aboard.There was a chance.Forrester was still staring down at the carnage below, his mind not yet adjusted to the incredible turnabout of events, when she burst on to the bridge.‘We must take off,’ Emily shouted.‘We can do something as long as they don’t get on to the ship.’ She threw herself into the helmsman’s chair.‘I need power now!’To Forrester’s credit, he did not argue but lunged for the bank of speaking tubes and roused the skeleton watch in the engine room.‘All power to the impellers immediately!’ he commanded.He blew down a second tube, but there was no response.‘I can’t reach the men on the lower hatch,’ he reported.The power came on and Emily fed it into the impellers.She had helped her father design the control system and she knew she could fly as well as any man.The Cygnus lifted off the ground.If the lower hatch was still open she’d have to get thirty feet clear at least before they were safe.She swung the periscope around to check.The Lynx, still resting on the ground below them, seemed to tremble.The portals around its lower decks flashed red and blew out.Tongues of fire licked through them and Emily realised the cylinders in its air plant had exploded.Had the creatures done it deliberately, or was it due to a mischance while fighting with the remaining crew? A part of her mind was icily detached, recognising how the Phiadorans had conspired to lure most of the crew out of the ships.But now the creatures had to take control of the ships or destroy them, because they could not allow them to leave and spread the word of their presence.Emily gritted her teeth.She would do her best to spoil their plans.If Richard still lived they would need men and weapons to save him.Where was the nearest army base?She heard cries from below.Forrester had a pistol in his hand and was standing over the open hatch.He shouted something and then fired twice down the stairs.The things were on the ship! If they got to the engine room.The power lights flickered.With its lifting coils suddenly unbalanced the Cygnus began to pitch over.Emily saw the craggy walls of the glen rise to meet them like a wave.The Cygnus struck, tearing its hull apart and sending a shower of debris across the hillside.The crumpled remains ground their way down to the foot of the cliff and lay still.The Vrall were masters of the glen.One found the powerhouse and smashed the generator controls, extinguishing the irritating lights.In the darkness they fed, growing larger by the minute as they gorged themselves on the dead, their beaks frothing with digestive enzymes.A bloated Vrall fell back from the half-devoured carcass of a horse lying outside the base’s stables and rolled on the ground.Its rubbery skin stretched and split down the sides of its body and a second creature pulled itself out of the back of the first.And then there were two separate stick figures the same size as the original adult Vrall.For a minute they lay still as their skins repaired the ravages of parthenogenetic division.Then they crawled back to the carcass and resumed their interrupted feeding.Turlough watched the creatures on the TARDIS’s scanner, which amplified the starlight so that every detail could be seen.Eventually he turned aside, revolted and despairing.‘They’re reproducing.There’ll be hundreds of them in an hour!’‘Yes, I’m afraid we’re beyond any chance of reasoning with the Vrall now,’ the Doctor said.His manner was icy calm, but Turlough could sense his brain working frantically behind the impassive mask of his face.‘But how do we stop them? The British army won’t be up to it.’ ‘No, this is something quite beyond their abilities.Now there is only one option left – and it’s up to us to take it.’The Doctor lowered his head for a moment, as if in thought.When he looked up, Turlough could see a depth of resolve in his eyes which had not been there before.His fingers flew across the controls.The TARDIS vanished from the hillside, In the glen below another swollen Vrall began to roll on the ground [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]