Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord : The Ultimate Foe by Pip Baker, Jane Baker Read Free Book Online

resonant reply was only thinly disguised.
    The Doctor swivelled round, seeking the direction from which danger would come, describing a three hundred-and-sixty degree circle with his keen eyes.
    Danger, though, was not to come at that level.
    It came from below.
    From the gooey patch of beach on which he stood.
    The mud began to bubble... and, thrusting from the lower depths – a slime-streaked hand broke the surface...
    and scrabbled for the Doctor’s sneaker-clad feet.. !
    ‘This is an illusion! I deny it!’
    ‘Not this time,’ the Valeyard’s voice proclaimed.
    As if in confirmation, another predatory hand poked through.
    And another.
    ‘This isn’t happening!’
    Two more hands joined the assault.
    The beleagured Doctor tried to pull his feet from the sucking, burping quicksand – but a sixth hand emerged...
    and his leg was captured..!
    The obscene fingers locked firm.
    ‘You are dead, Doctor,’ shouted the Valeyard as the remaining disembodied hands grappled for their quarry.
    ‘Not yet!’ The denial was firm... but his attempts to release his ankles were proving unsuccessful.
    He tried to kick them free.
    The sinewy grip on them did not slacken.
     
    If only he’d had his umbrella he could have beaten them off. Instead, all he could do was pummel at those vice-like fingers with his fists.
    A mistake.
    In bending, he lost his balance...
    And fell flat on his back...
    In the muddy pool of quicksand...
    ‘Goodbye, Doctor,’ Valeyard called.
    Goodbye it seemed indeed. The Doctor’s torso... neck...
    then curly head sank beneath the mucilaginous slime...
     

10
    To Be Or Not To Be!
    Where was Glitz?
    Like the Doctor, he had passed through that office door.
    But fractionally after him. Sufficiently delayed to land in a different area of the dunes.
    The bleak aspect appalled Glitz. Not a person in sight.
    Not a house. A tavern. Or a tree. Nowhere to hide...
    Ever since he’d met this trouble-prone Time Lord he’d been ‘up the creek without a paddle’! Chapter of disasters: lost his mate Dibber; been dumped in that worst of all places, a courtroom; and encountered a homicidal lunatic called Valeyard!
    The Valeyard! The reminder of the vengeful prosecutor jolted him into action. Running across the dunes, he clambered, puffing and panting, to the crest of a mound – a vantage point from which he hoped to clap peepers on the Doctor.
    He saw him all right.
    At least, he saw his sneakers, his orange spats and the cuffs of his yellow and black trousers.
    Waving.
    Kicking.
    Sticking out of a seething pool of mud! The rest of him
    – body and head – had already sunk...
    ‘Doctor!’ Glitz’s plaintive wail floated on a melancholy wind. ‘Doc – tor – r!’
    Acting the Good Samaritan – or whatever the equivalent was in his quadrant of the galaxy – did not come naturally to Glitz. But those pathetically struggling limbs stirred what little heroism existed in his soul. Slithering in the soft sand, he floundered towards the submerging Doctor.
    ‘Hang on! Don’t give in!’
    He grabbed the Doctor’s ankles. Yanked hard – and toppled backwards!
    Recovering, he became aware he was holding the orange spats!
    His gaze transferred to the mud. No sign of the Doctor.
    Just a few burping air bubbles rupturing the slimy surface.
    ‘What a way to go.’ He stared mournfully at the gulping bog. ‘All in all he wasn’t a bad old codger. Honest, of course.’ A definite impediment in this recidivist’s book!
    ‘But apart from that...’ Using his sleeve as a duster, he brushed specks from the spats. ‘Still, nobody’s perfect.’
    ‘And that’s the clue,’ boomed a sepulchral voice.
    ‘Nobody is. Not even the Valeyard.’
    Glitz slumped to his knees. Trembling. Clasping his palms together in supplication, he realised he was clutching the spats – and slung them from him as though in fear of contamination!
    A single, regurgitating bubble devoured them...
    ‘Oh Great Cosmic Protector of grafters and