Doctor Who: Terminus Read Online Free Page A

reproof, but it was mild. He understood that she was as anxious as he was for Nyssa’s safety. His first touch of the door caused it to open automatically.
    It had a wide swing and, like Nyssa, they all had to take a pace back. A metallic scent-cocktail of machine-scrubbed air came wafting through, reminding Tegan of aircraft runways and oil-stained tarmac and open bay-doors, causing a stab of nostalgia that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. There wasn’t much to see other than dim lights and dark metal. She said, ‘Are we going through?’ She was doing her best to sound confident, but she wasn’t quite making it.
    ‘ I’ll go through,’ the Doctor said. ‘You wait here.’
    He hesitated for just a moment, and then he went to the threshold and stepped down. Tegan followed him to the edge and looked through after him.
    What she saw was a section of a corridor complex formed from staggered alcoves down one side with a curving wall opposite that was probably a part of the ship’s outer skin. The floor was a see-through metal grating over a cable trap, and the lighting seemed to be set at night-time levels. The Doctor was standing and looking around. The only sounds were the drone of buried motors and, laid faintly over this, an ethereal windsong that was deceptively like far-off crying.
    ‘Well?’ Tegan said.
    ‘She’s gone.’
    ‘Which way?’
    The Doctor was about to say that there was no way of knowing, but then he saw something a short distance away that made him think again. He walked over for a closer look. It was a biotechnical text from the TARDIS library. It was scorched along one edge.
    He set it against the wall and turned back to Tegan.
    ‘Stay back,’ he said. ‘She can’t have gone far.’ And then he set off in the direction that the book had indicated.
    Tegan waited and listened when he’d gone from sight, but after a few moments the sound of his footsteps faded. They hadn’t left it too long; surely Nyssa must have realised after a while that the danger was over and she could stop running. Perhaps she’d turned around and was heading back already. Tegan was doing her best to be optimistic, but she couldn’t get the image of the damaged book out of her mind.
    She moved back into the TARDIS. ‘Nyssa’s gone,’
    she told Turlough.
    Nyssa’s abacus had been warped and scorched, but otherwise it was recognisable. Turlough had picked it up, and he was flicking the beads from side to side. He said, ‘The Doctor will find her.’
    ‘Do you really care?’
    Turlough was smiling. ‘Do you know, Tegan,’ he said, ‘it wouldn’t be possible for me to be the ogre you seem to think I am.’
    ‘Really?’ Tegan said, and her disbelief was obvious.
    ‘Really. I mean, am I criticising you because you’d rather stay here than help look for Nyssa?’
     
    That did it. She turned and went out through the doorway.
    Turlough watched for a moment in case Tegan changed her mind, but he wasn’t expecting it. Of the three, she was the easiest to manipulate. All he needed to do was to annoy her a little, and she’d jump off impulsively in whatever direction he wanted. He reached into his pocket and brought out the contact cube.
    Although he couldn’t say so, he blamed his controller for his earlier failure. There had to be a better way of bringing the Doctor down than by striking at his technology; that, after all, was the Doctor’s strength. The cube started to glow.
    ‘They’ve left me alone,’ Turlough said as soon as contact was established. ‘What can I do?’
    ‘ Nothing. Destroying the TARDIS is nothing if the Doctor lives. ’
    ‘He’s gone.’
    ‘ Then follow and kill him. Find a way. ’
    Tegan hadn’t even gone out of sight of the door when Turlough stepped down into the corridor. It wasn’t going to be as simple as it had seemed at first; the corridor branched and divided further down, and the monotony of its appearance was disorienting. She heard her name being called, and she