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.I heard a faint scratching behind us, and turned and saw a small horde of rats scuttle around the bend in the corridor.They were all wearing scraps of leather harness.Several carried leaf-wrapped packages on their backs, and two pulled a tiny cart piled with bits of metal and lengths of wire.I aimed a kick at them and they scattered, squeaking crude insults, and poured one after the other into a vent from which white vapour curled.The Doctor was amused.'I know it's becoming second nature to you, Fyne, but try to restrain your impulse to chase after small mammals.Train, you will take us to your terminus.'The voice told us that the estimated journey time was three minutes, and we climbed aboard.The door shut and with a barely perceptible jolt we were on our way.I stepped up to the nose of the capsule, where the Doctor was watching rock walls rush past on either side, and asked him, 'What if this is taking us in the wrong direction?''Then we'll ask it to go the other way – or find another one that does.' The Doctor looked at me, and said, 'You're feeling more yourself by day, Fyne.'My cheeks prickled.I said, 'You don't have to worry about me.'The Doctor glanced at Casimir, who leaned against the glass at the other end of the capsule, her arms folded across her leather corselet.He said, very quietly, 'Casimir was imprisoned in a tower, and I suppose her father is a kind of king, but she isn't a princess in need of rescue.Remember that you have your own problems.'I held up my hands, showed him the fine golden furze on their backs and the thorns lodged under my loosening fingernails, and said, 'I'm hardly likely to forget.''The important thing is to find out about the siren voice that seduced Seraph, and to do that we must first end this silly siege.' 'I agree.Once Casimir has rallied the officers –'The Doctor shook his head.'Follow my lead, Fyne, and try not to do anything rash.You might make things worse rather than better.' 'The only way wars end, Doctor, is when one side wins –'The capsule's voice said sharply, 'A problem! Danger! A problem!' and the capsule braked so hard and abruptly that the Doctor and I were knocked down in a heap.Casimir wailed in alarm, on all fours now, the claws of her hands and feet dug into the rubbery floor.As I started to crawl towards her, the capsule slammed into something unyielding.There was a tremendous bang and the lights that studded the roof went out.After a moment of eerie quiet stillness, we all got to our feet, reassuring each other that we were uninjured.The only illumination was a fall of sparks from somewhere above, spluttering and flaring as they dripped onto the cracked glass nose of the capsule, which had come to rest at an angle against the rear end of what appeared to be its twin.It took all three of us to haul up the door.Casimir stepped out and looked left and right, showing all her teeth is a fearsome grimace.'This is a trap,' she said.'I can smell it.I told you bad things lived here, and now you've delivered us straight into the lair of one of them.'Beyond the two capsules, the tunnel was half-blocked by a spill of rubble.Water poured down from a broken pipe, splashing noisily onto the stones.A cold, musty smell like graveyard earth made every hair of my new coat of fur stand on end.The Doctor was examining the capsule into which our own had smashed.It was filled with an irregular lattice of cords and stalagmites and stalactites of what looked like blackened spun sugar, and things were caught in this web – bones and parts of skeletons and what looked like a streamlined suit of armour that suddenly raised its head and said in a croaking voice, 'Save yourselves.'The Doctor ignored this advice, of course, and swung up into the wrecked capsule and started snapping the web of brittle spars and ropes that pinioned the armoured man.Casimir took several paces towards the tongue of rubble that half-blocked the tunnel ahead of the wreckage, then hissed and turned back, her tail lashing back and forth, and grabbed my arm.'Forget the Doctor,' she said.'Come with me.' 'We should help the poor chap stuck in the –' 'It's only a recycler.Come with me, Edward.''I can't leave the Doctor behind, Casimir [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]