Doctor Who_ Planet Of Fire Part 12

'Couldn't be better!' The Doctor was delighted not to have to live in a time-machine full of evacuees.

Turlough sighed. He was relieved to have made the decision, but frightened of the consequences. As soon as he gave his rank and identification number, the Custodians would be after him.

'You are are in trouble, aren't you?' The Doctor spoke very gently to his companion. in trouble, aren't you?' The Doctor spoke very gently to his companion.

Turlough nodded. 'I should never have escaped from Earth. My ten years' exile was not complete.'

'Exile?'

'You see, Doctor, there was civil war on my planet.

Revolution against the Imperial Clans. We were defeated...

Barbarians!' he muttered, scornful of the new egalitarian regime that had sent him from his homeland. 'My father was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted.

Transportation to this old prison planet.'

'This was a prison planet?'

'Yes,' explained the disgraced Trion. 'When the colonists left it was not immediately abandoned. For several years it was a penal settlement.' He pointed to the mark on his arm. 'You see, Doctor, the Misos Triangle is the brand of a criminal.'

They left the city together: Turlough, with Roskal for moral support. to go to the forbidden lands and locate the crashed s.h.i.+p's powerful transmitter, the Doctor and Amyand to climb to the mountain control centre where the Master had his hideout.

As they walked through the outskirts of the settlement, Turlough talked bitterly of his exile on Earth. 'I was sent to learn the ways of another planet. What can an Imperial Trion learn from Earth people?'

'Humility?' suggested the Doctor, rather astringently, wondering what sort of monster his companion would have become, had he continued to be brought up as the scion of an aristocratic, ruling family.

Turlough said nothing, knowing that his burst of arrogance had offended the Doctor. He felt a bit ashamed.

The Doctor saw the boy blush. 'Are you sure they'll know you've absconded?' he asked, more kindly.

'Oh, yes. There are Trion agents on every civilised planet. An agrarian commissioner on Vardon, a tax inspector on Derveg,' Turlough grinned ruefully. 'And a very eccentric solicitor in Chancery Lane, who had me incarcerated in that ghastly school!'

The tiny, black body of the Master lay on the wide TARDIS floor, like a c.o.c.k-sparrow downed in a high wind.

The rebel Time Lord was exhausted. For a brief moment, he even believed himself to be doomed. Why had the slave not answered his summons when the doors were opened?

At least that girl had left the control room. The thought of Peri breathed new life into him. To have been defeated by the Doctor, his Gallifreyan peer, would have been humiliation enough; to be destroyed by an Earthling, a mere girl, an American even, would make him the laughing stock of the Universe! He must not give up now.

Slowly, he dragged himself across the endless Sahara of floor, till at last he reached the overturned laboratory, and hauled himself onto the wall which was, once again, the floor of his miniaturised workroom. Immediately he saw the reason for Kamelion's delay. The metamorphosis projector had been damaged. The Master ran to inspect the vital equipment. To his profound relief, it was not beyond repair. Soon, his other half would revive and carry him to the blue fire. He would regain his former stature; he would be stronger than any Time Lord, he would be indomitable.

Turlough and Roskal wished the Doctor and Arnyand good luck as they parted in the fertile valley where the Sarns had their fields. It was not far over the ridge into the forbidden land, but the going was difficult as the earth tremors were getting more severe, tumbling loose rocks from the hillside and sending up great, choking clouds of lava dust. 'Come on!' shouted Turlough, above the ophicleide thunder of the volcano. 'The s.h.i.+p!' He pointed to the horizon.

Roskal half expected to be apprehended by Timanov's guards as they walked up to the shattered leviathan. Such trespa.s.s was the greatest crime a Sam could commit. He followed Turlough to the intact flight-deck section, whilst all round them the structure creaked and groaned like a galleon under full sail.

'Look out!' yelled Turlough as a girder from the deck above them crashed across their path. 'We haven't got much time.' He knew the layout of the s.h.i.+p by heart and went straight to the transmitter.

'Is it still working?' shouted Roskal over the rattle of the twisting hull.

'Soon see,' said Turlough, feeding the coded release key into its housing. 'Keep your fingers crossed.'

For a moment nothing happened, and Turlough was beginning to wonder if the emergency power cells had dissipated their charge, when two green lights flashed. He quickly entered a pa.s.sword on the keyboard and waited anxiously while the volcano roared again. 'I hope there's not too much geomagnetic interference,' he muttered.

His doubts were dispelled by a distant voice from his home planet. 'Trion Control. State name, rank and identification code.'

The boy froze. He was about to sign the warrant for his own inevitable rearrest. His hand went bravely to the transmit key. 'My name is Vislor Turlough. Junior Ensign Commander...'

Rescue would soon be on its way for the stranded Sarns.

But for Turlough, there was now no escape.

The Doctor and Amyand climbed higher and higher up the quavering mountainside. It was a hard struggle against the sliding shale and drifting pumice, while the sulphurous smoke caught in their throats. The Doctor paused for breath and looked down at the black panorama of cinders and tufa in the valley below him. He imagined how Sarn must have been in the days gone by: a colonial paradise with the forces of nature held in check by the technical ingenuity of the Trion settlers, until nature started to get the upper hand, and the soft life of the expatriots became threatened by a native force no army from the Imperial Clans could ever pacifythe volcano.

But while Sam might have been too hot for the wealthy colonists, it was an ideal dumping ground for undesirables from the home planet. The Doctor described to Amyand how his forbears had been brainwashed Trion dissidents, abandoned to fend for themselves amongst the territorial leavings of the Clans; how new arrivals were dumped, mindless in the forbidden lands, and left to wander into the city where they were received as G.o.ds by the superst.i.tious tribal community that had sprung up. 'You see only prisoners fresh from Trion would have the Misos Triangle,' he explained.

They began to climb again. 'The entrance to the control centre should be somewhere near here,' said the Doctor.

'This must be where Timanov saw the vulcanologist.'

Amyand imagined the effect of the silver engineer on the young Sarn. And he was beginning to understand the pa.s.sionate faith of the old men. Outsiders had had come at the Time of Fireto control the volcano when it became critical. The technicians would have brought giftsfood, tools, supplies of all kind for the prisoners and their descendants. 'But why did they stop?' he asked puzzled. come at the Time of Fireto control the volcano when it became critical. The technicians would have brought giftsfood, tools, supplies of all kind for the prisoners and their descendants. 'But why did they stop?' he asked puzzled.

'Cuts, I expect,' said the Doctor. 'They needed to pay for a war or two in their other colonies.'

'Will they want us back on Trion?'

The Doctor laughed. 'I expect the new regime will treat you like heroes.'

There was another loud rumble from the mountain, this time deeper and more sustained. The black smoke grew thicker and the crater above them glowed red. 'We're too late,' cried the Doctor.

A thin, crimson tongue of lava gently licked over the volcano's peak. Slowly, but inexorably the flaming stream oozed down the mountainside. The ground throbbed.

Smoke and steam and asphyxiating gases burst from the earth all about them. The noise was ear-splitting. The Doctor and Amyand staggered to a halt, retching in the poisonous air. The way ahead was blocked by the flaring cataract. Already the heat was unbearable.

'We'll have to go back,' yelled Amyand.

They turned to retrace their steps. But as they retreated it seemed to get hotter. The reason was soon only too horrifyingly obvious; another all-consuming, incandescent cascade of molten rock poured from the crater, trapping them between two widening streams. The Doctor looked round for a way of escape. Directly below them the two lava flows were about to join together. They would have to go up and hope to find the entrance in the mountain before it was too late.

The ground immediately above the path was almost sheer, but there was a small ledge about ten feet above them. Amyand climbed onto the Doctor's shoulders and tried to haul himself up. But the porous rock crumbled in his grasp. He tried again, setting off an avalanche of pumice which poured on top of them. The little island between the two lava flows grew smaller. The heat was now almost unbearable. The Doctor tried to push Amyand further up...

'It's no good, Doctor,' cried Amyand, sliding back yet again.

'Doctor! Doctor!' There was another voice somewhere, in the smoke above them. The Doctor peered up and saw Peri's grimy face looking over the ledge. She leaned down and grabbed Amyand's hand. The young Sarn scrambled up, and taking off his tunic, used it as a rope to haul up the Doctor.

'Quick,' shouted Peri. 'Over here.' She led the way along the ledge and into a narrow opening in the side of the rock.

They lay on the floor of the tunnel, exhausted, while smoke and fire blotted out the entrance behind them. It was the second time the American had saved the Doctor's life, and it was lucky for all of them she had been unable to find her way off the ledge and down the mountain before the eruption.

Peri herself was delighted to be reunited with her friend from the police box. The Doctor would be able to deal with the Master and his Tin Man; then they would all escape in the other travelling machine. She quickly recounted her adventure with the lilliputian Master. 'He's still inside the TARDIS,' she explained as they got to their feet and hurried along the tunnel. 'Running about like a rat in a hayloft.'

'He must have had an accident with the Tissue Compression Eliminator,' exclaimed the Doctor, glad at last to know the nature of the Master's incapacitation. He grinned mischieviously. There was a delightful irony in his old enemy being so perfectly hoist with his own petard.

'Why wasn't he killed?' asked Peri, who had seen for herself the devastating effect of the little black twig.

'Must have escaped the full impact. Besides, he's a Time Lord.'

'A Time Lord?' Peri was wondering just what race of supermen she was dealing with.

The rocky corridor led them straight to the seismic control centre. 'A masterpiece of Trion engineering!'

whispered the Doctor as he surveyed the machinery in the cavern. He spotted the only too familiar yellow column and ran to it. In the doorway lay Kamelion in an unrecognisable heap, fizzing peacefully. 'Keep an eye on him.' said the Doctor to Amyand and raced to the control panel in the centre of the huge cave.

'Where are you going?' cried Peri, who had expected the Doctor to hunt the Master in the TARDIS.

'I must slow down the eruption!' shouted the Doctor.

'The Master's interference has unstabilised the seismic machinery.' He began, tentatively, to adjust the position of some of the levers. 'If I override the automatic controls I might be able to delay the worst of it.'

'Can't you stop it?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'The Master has already triggered a ma.s.sive surge of numismaton from the planet's core. When that hits the surface it will disrupt the inhibition system altogether.' He glanced at one of the monitor screens with its view of the city in the valley below. 'There will be devastation.'

Gradually, the Doctor learned how to generate a counterforce of the volcano's own energy that could check the discharge from the magma chamber. The fragile equilibrium established, the rumbling grew less aggressive.

The Doctor checked the readings and scanned the monitor screens. He breathed a sigh of relief: the lava flow had petered out. 'That should hold back the eruption for a while. Long enough, at least, for the Sarns to escape.' He followed Peri towards the yellow TARDIS. 'Now for the Master.'

Amyand looked up from his vigil over Kamelion's s.h.i.+mmering body. 'No change, Doctor.' The Doctor nodded. It seemed the Master had lost control of his only friend. He led the way into the Corinthian column.

The cabinet was still lying exactly where it had fallen, but the Doctor went straight to the console and began to strip out one of the components. 'Exchange is no robbery,'

he murmured as he removed the temporal limiter with which he could repair his own machine. 'Now for the laboratory,' he whispered, and tiptoed towards the cabinet, keeping clear of the open side. As soon as he reached the miniaturised compartment he seized it and turned it upright, as if it was a snare containing some wild animal.

The Doctor gasped as he peered over the little wall. He had not prepared himself for the shock of seeing his old enemy so cut down to size. Could that really be the supreme adversary, whose evil purposes he had thwarted across the centuries: that little doll in the velvet suit?

The minuscule Master got, once more, to his feet and scowled up at the giant Doctor, who loomed over his laboratory, flanked by an equally ma.s.sive Peri and Amyand. 'So what does it feel like to have a taste of your own medicine?' boomed the Doctor.

'I live, Doctor!' piped the pygmy Gallifreyan in shrill defiance.

The Doctor felt an unworthy thrill of pure vindictiveness. albeit in somewhat reduced circ.u.mstances,' he jeered at his humiliated rival.

'I shall soon be restored,' boasted the little man. 'To profit from my research.' Without turning his head from the Doctor's gaze, he swivelled his pin-head eyes towards the metamorphosis projector he had finished repairing the second before his laboratory had been righted. 'Come, my Karelion,' he whispered under his breath. 'Revive! Revive!'

The Doctor squinted at the matchbox workbench. 'You were experimenting with the Tissue Compression Eliminator.'

'To increase its power a hundredfold.'

'You made it too powerful for your own good.'

'A small design problem.'

'And a very small Master!'

The elfin figure clenched his little fists, wis.h.i.+ng he had annihilated the Doctor in the Hall of Fire.

'That's why you needed Kamelion, isn't it?'

The Master sneered at the Doctor who had so naively trusted the silver factotum. 'I have lodged in the mind of that slave since our fateful meeting on Xeriphas.'

The Doctor remembered Karnelion's extraordinary seizure back on Earth. 'The scream in the TARDIS. He even felt felt your pain.' your pain.'

'And came instantly to my help!' The Master began to laugh. 'Now with the next surge of numismaton, all is prepared for my supreme renewal.'

'Kill him!' cried Amyand, amazed at the arrogance of the evil pixie. But the Doctor did not move. 'What are you waiting for?'

The Master knew the Doctor better than the militant Sarn. 'Just as he has waited for centuries,' he mocked.

'Second rank genius crippled by moral scruple. How could the Doctor ever destroy me me!'

Amyand did not appreciate the nicety of a rhetorical question and gave an immediate answer. 'By wringing your neck as if it were a rat or a snake. And if he won't do it, I I will!' will!'

'No!' screeched the Master.

'Out of the way, Doctor.' Amyand pushed the impotent Time Lord aside. 'I owe you a favour.'

The Master screamed like a gin-trapped rabbit as the huge, red, calloused hands came down on him. He recoiled from the unnatural body heat, gagging at the stench of the enlarged sweat glands. He wriggled furiously as the young man's fingers curled around him like the coils of an enormous boa constrictor.

'Away from the box!' A familiar voice sounded from across the control room.

The Doctor, Amyand and Peri swung round. Standing in the doorway, Tissue Compression Eliminator in his hand, was a full-sized Master.