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Dr Who [Lethbridge Stewart] Andy Frankham Allen (v5.0) (epu
Content Selected Essays on Tech Cory Doctorow
Amazing Doctor Darwin Charles Sheffield
Brian Moore The Doctor's Wife (epub)
Bite My Cookies [Who Needs Chri Joyee Flynn
Doctor MC Three More Wishes Be Kind To Y
Doctor Rat William Kotzwinkle
Doctor No Ian Fleming
[heft] Perry Rhodan 0509 Die Banditen von Terrania
[heft] Perry Rhodan 1879 Phantome in Terrania

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.The Doctor’s mind was racing.Trying to work out the balance of opposing forces and calculate the best possible escape-path.Suddenly he realised there was a computer at his feet, able to do the job even quicker.‘K9! Optimum escape trajectory, quickly!’K9 whirred briefly, and his eye-screens lit up.‘Thirty-four, seven, zero, one, seventeen, fifty, zero, five.’Leela found the figures strangely familiar.‘Isn’t that where that.ion drive thing was coming from? Where the space ship is?’‘Yes—but I’ll just have to risk it.’The spiral nebula hung in the blackness of space like a giant flaming catherine wheel, a whirlpool of fire sucking the square blue shape of the TARDIS closer, closer.The TARDIS disappeared.Chapter TwoThe MinyansThe giant space ship was time-battered, space-weathered, almost a derelict.The big square hull was patched and scarred and worn, like the enormous fin of the solar sail.Propelled by the faint but steady pulsing of its ion drive, the vessel sped steadily towards a distant spiral nebula, so far away that it was little more than-a blazing point of light in the blackness of space.Inside the space ship, there was an impression of massive, worn-out yet somehow still-functioning machinery.The control room was enormous with ribbed steel walls and great arched metal instrument banks set about the floor.At the front, where the control room narrowed with the nose of the ship, a great curved viewing-port was set into the wall.Below it was the raised command deck, with a semi-circle of, padded acceleration couches set around the main control consoles.Tala was piloting the ship on manual and visual control systems.She was a tall woman, incredibly old, face seamed and wrinkled, hair grey and wispy.Nevertheless, her hands moved over the controls with total confidence.There were three other crew members.On Tala’s right in the command chair was Jackson, captain of this strange vessel.A massive figure, square-jawed, with iron-grey hair, he sat gazing at the viewing-port, hands resting on his knees, like some heroic statue.Next to hint was Herrick, younger, round-faced, curly-haired, a man who should have been full of vitality and enthusiasm.Instead he was slumped at his post, as if overcome by weariness.Orfe, the fourth member of the crew, sat at a sub-control console, to Tala’s left.Tall and lean, with a long, quizzical face, Orfe looked like a born joker.But he studied his instruments with the same gloomy intensity as the others.All four astronauts were strong and fit; all except Tala, relatively young.But all four seemed in the grip of some terrible lassitude, as if every word, every gesture cost tremendous effort.An atmosphere of doom lay over the entire ship.They were rallying themselves to deal with a minor crisis—a mysterious, unexplained noise.Tala finished checking the scanners.‘Nothing up front, Captain.’ She rubbed her hand over her eyes.‘Only the spiral nebula on two, four, zero.’‘All right, Tala, stay on watch.Orfe, check that nebula.’‘Nebula on two, four, zero, checking,’ said Orfe mechanically.‘Couldn’t have been the nebula, Captain, it’s too far away.’‘Herrick, have you got anything?’‘Nothing on targeter, sir.There’s no trace, no blip, nothing.’Jackson shook his head, as if to clear it.‘All right, let’s think it through again.It’s not inside, it’s not outside, nobody saw it and we got no trace.But we all heard it—didn’t we?’ One by one the others nodded.‘ Then what was it? Orfe, re-run the tape, let’s hear it again.’A strange, wheezing, groaning sound filled the control room.As the noise faded away, Jackson looked round.‘Now then, was that noise generated inside or outside the ship?Has anybody ever heard anything like it before?’Like lethargic marionettes, the others all shook their heads.‘All right, Orfe, run it through computer ident.’‘Ident running, sir.’ If the sound, or anything like it, had ever been encountered before, the fact would be recorded in the computer’s memory-bank.With infinite, weary patience, they sat and waited.The Doctor looked up from the scanner.‘As far as I can gather, we’ve managed to materialise inside something else—a space ship presumably.Probably the one K9spotted.’‘Affirmative, Master.’Leela looked at the scanner.It showed metal walls all round.‘What do we do now?’The Doctor was stripping off his painter’s smock and beret and replacing them with his usual hat, coat and immensely long multi-coloured scarf.‘We’re well clear of the nebula by now, so we could just go on our way.’‘But you don’t want to?’‘Well, we could just take a quick look round,’ suggested the Doctor hopefully.‘I’m rather intrigued to know what a space ship’s doing, wandering along the fringes of the Universe.’Brave as Leela was, she had a strong streak of primitive caution.In Leela’s world danger had been all around—the aim was to keep away from it and stay alive [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]