Part 29 (1/2)

He groped for the gun inside his coat, but as he pulled it, she freed an arm from under his knee and smacked it flying.

He watched it land too many yards away in the snow. 'Now, why did you have to go and do that?' Sighing, he pulled back his fist to punch her out.

Ray Landers yelped, G.o.dzinski's grip had seized up, like she was in some sort of electric shock. Her hand was a vice around his wrist and the rest of her was turning to ice.

Lines of it ate up her arm, racing one another to get to him.

Ray tugged so hard it hurt his wrist.

He rolled onto his side and swung his rifle like a club. It smashed through the limb of ice and the hand flopped into the snow, tiny crystals starting to eat through the glove.

Ray hauled himself out of there and ran for Zabala, who was sighting along her rifle at what had once been Jen G.o.dzinski. Ray turned to follow her example.

Raising the rifle, all he saw was the ice eating its way along the weapon towards his eye.

Joanna racked her brain so hard she was almost in danger of blacking out again. She'd volunteered - insisted on volunteering - to hold back the drift. Moments after the Hum-Vee had burned off in the direction of the electrical pylon, her two troopers were announcing they were all out of grenades - of any kind.

The drift was holed and cratered in places, but it mended itself and continued its advance.

This stand of hers was more about guilt than courage, she was too aware of that. Action to compensate for inaction, the way a belated card is supposed to make up for a forgotten birthday. If anything, though, it made her all the more determined she wasn't going to fail.

'Explosives!' Joanna motioned the soldiers to follow her.

Pack a charge on board that Snowcat and send it into the thing!'

'Lieutenant, we're short of charges-'

'Just do it!' Her throat was so raw, she didn't even sound like her any more.

The Stormcore was only doing what it was designed to do: multiplexing energy streams and drawing them into a central nexus. It was powerful enough to reel in all sound and even play tug-of-war with the neural pulses travelling the optic nerve.

There wasn't time to explain any of that to Amber: the Doctor lifted her up and carried her away from the centre.

She pummelled him with furious blows, but when he could hear her cries he planted her down again and knelt to bring his gaze to bear on tearful eyes.

'Amber, listen to me. You don't share any connection with the storm. This ice creature is an alien creature; it doesn't belong here. It was pulled or fell through a gap opened up by that device you saw.'

'That's the thing that's making it do all this! Get rid of it, take it away from here! Then I can talk to it, I know I can. It'll listen to me.'

'No, Amber,' the Doctor argued, keeping his voice firm, but his gaze gentle. 'That device is a sort of steering wheel. It's using it to help control its actions. This creature won't be appeased or controlled, not by you, me or anyone. Control is what it wants for itself. It wants nothing more than to be master of its own destiny.'

'You can't know how it feels,' the girl complained bitterly.

'No, I can't,' the Doctor told her honestly. 'Not for certain.

But in the absence of being able to communicate, we have to put ourselves in its place, try to see the world from its point of view. I think it's raw emotion, crystallised, and I think it recognised you as a friend because you shared so many of the same feelings. That's why it seeks out intelligent minds: it craves an intelligence to govern all those mixed emotions and make sense of the world around it. A world where it doesn't belong.'

The Doctor wasn't so very old that he couldn't see the world through the eyes of a child. 'It's a frightening world,' he said, 'when you feel very much alone.'

He thought he saw the first roots of understanding in Amber's frown.

Leela turned her face aside from the blow. But it never came.

She risked a look: Parker had lowered his fist and relaxed his hold. He shrugged. 'What am I doing? I can't hit a girl.'

Leela blazed. 'Then that is your weakness.'

Dragging herself from under the agent, she kicked out with her boot and struck him deep in the crotch. It was satisfying to see him crumple to his knees, eyes bulging painfully.

Irving Pydych had been cheered a little when they had ren-dezvoused with Garvey and his guys on the western sh.o.r.e.

Now. peering up at the pylon, all that cheer had evaporated.

Sergeant Garvey had bravely driven the Hum-Vee back onto the ice, while Pydych held the free end of the tow cable.

The winch having unwound the steel cable to full stretch, there was plenty of slack. More than enough, Pydych was sure, to hang himself.

'This strikes me as a tiny bit dangerous. Especially with my vertigo. I did mention my vertigo, right?' He hefted the weighty hook in his hand. 'Are you sure that's where they want this thing attached?'

Melody regarded him a little too sympathetically for his liking.

'If it makes it any easier,' she offered, 'I can make the climb with you.'

Pydych glanced up again at the tip of the pylon, all the power lines swinging in the wind. Even if he wasn't a born cynic, it was hard to believe anyone would make an offer like that.

Morgan watched the distant figure of O'Neill clinging precariously near the tip of the pylon. He wasn't shy of such hazardous work himself, but his comms man knew what he was doing around electrical things He'd parked the Hummer out on the ice and now all he could do was wait while O'Neill hooked the cable to the power.

Hopefully without- A ma.s.sive explosion turned his attention north. A petroleum fireball ballooned up from the wrecked silhouette of one of the Snowcats.

Morgan broke into a run. Then slowed up some, as he worked out it was some distance past the hotel and the other vehicles. Then broke into a run again, as inspiration lit up inside him, at least as fierce and bright as the burning vehicle.

He badly needed to talk to his brother.

When the police band crackled to life. Makenzie was glancing in the rear-view for a glimpse of Martha, hoping to be able to tell how she was doing back there.

He recognised his brother's voice under the static, but didn't believe what he was hearing.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the mic. 'Are you out of your mind, bro?

The lead car's almost-'

'Trust me. Mak,' the voice came back, clearer this time, as if the radio wanted to convey all of the emotion in that simple appeal.

Makenzie swung his truck out of the convoy and accelerated along the line of vehicles.

Ray tossed the rifle away like it was a rattlesnake. He backed up in the same instant, turning over his hands and searching every inch of his jacket and sleeves for signs of ice.

Snowflakes kept spattering on his uniform and giving him miniature heart attacks.