Doctor Who BBC872 - To the Slaughter

Chapter Three
Fitz had wandered through the darkened corridors of the ship and found no
one. Perhaps it was night-time and everyone was asleep.
The rooms were weird. Some of them were really big, empty save for occasional
concentrations of furniture. Others were smaller and still more Spartan
– a couch, a mirror, a weird sculpture, maybe. None of the rooms seemed to
have much point. Fitz deduced they must be some form of art.
Suddenly he glimpsed movement in the next room along – fleeting shadows
on the wall. Trix, maybe? A googly-eyed monster? Cautiously he investigated.
Whoa. The walls themselves seemed to be moving. Each was a slow spin of
colours ranged around a white, hovering chair in the middle of the black-tiled
floor. The colours bled into patterns both soothing and unsettling, beguiling
the eye. Fitz approached the wall. He felt like he was tilting, falling, his mind
rushing with the ever-flowing colours.
He reached out to touch them.
‘Ick,’ he said, and snatched his hand away.
It was bright and shining. Glistening. Fitz swallowed hard. His skin was
seeping colour like thick sweat. Without thinking, he wiped at it with his other
hand. Now that one was smeared and pulsing with the unearthly light.
‘Oh sod.’ Fitz staggered out of the room, feeling giddy and sick. Never mind
finding Trix. He needed to find the Doctor. Or a doctor – anyone, really.
He needed help.
He’d caught space lurgy from an alien wall!
The Doctor, aware his luck may well not hold, had decided to push it to the
limit. He’d head for Falsh’s office. With Falsh currently out schmoozing his
VIP, perhaps the Doctor could fake an email from the boss to the supplies
manager, demanding ten millilitres of mercury be brought at once to Docking
Bay Two. . .
Disguised in his smock, studying the ladle in his hands with professional fascination,
the Doctor reached the station’s highest floor unchallenged. A man
like Falsh would doubtless need to place himself above everybody else, and
as a matter of course would require the best view in the place – magnificent
Saturn, of course. So that view didn’t slip, it seemed logical that the station
would be orbiting in synchronous rotation, presenting the same face to the
17