Doctor Who_ Planet Of Fire Part 2

'Been nice talking to you.' The professor rushed away to supervise the lifting of the final crate from the launch.

The Doctor walked with Turlough towards the far end of the harbour wall. 'Suppose one of the divers disturbed something...' He gazed out to where the expedition boat rode at anchor over the wreck. Suddenly he began to squeak like an old lady who has turned her hearing aid up too high.

'Oh, no!' thought Turlough as the Doctor pulled the detector from his pocket. 'That signal again!'

'Just as I thought,' muttered the Doctor, squinting in the bright sunlight to get a reading from the device in his hand.

'It's coming from out in the bay. I wonder if we could prevail on one of the professor's divers...'

'That bearing's not accurate enough,' interrupted Turlough.

But the Doctor would not be discouraged. 'When the next transmission comes, well take one bearing from here and a second from the TARDIS. The convergence will give us the exact source.' He pointed to a small waterside cafe on the other side of the harbour. 'That will make an excellent base for the first radial.'

The Doctor hurried across the sleepy square, looking forward to a cool beer and a rest in the shade. 'Toss you for the TARDIS,' he offered, rather half-heartedly, to his companion.

'I'll go,' said Turlough, anxious to sabotage the Doctor's experiment. 'The heat is making me feel sick.'

Not even Ariadne, abandoned on Naxos, could have been so downright mad as Peri, marooned on her stepfather's boat. For a solid half hour she had walked backwards and forwards across the deck in a blind fury. Then, having nothing better to do, she curled up in the corner and fell asleep.

She woke up cramped, burned and hungry. After a fruitless search of the cabin for food, she felt all her anger returning. Howard had crossed her before, but never in such a humiliating wayin front of the entire unit! She looked at her watch. Her mother would still be on the other side of the island, her stepfather tied up at the museum for the rest of the day. If she could only reach the sh.o.r.e she could pack her rucksack in the hotel and meet Trevor and Kevin in time for the ferry.

If only she had been a strong swimmer. Yet it was a mere half-mile to the nearest beach. The water was warm, and she could take it slowly. No problem.

Her mind made up, Peri stripped down to her swimsuit and stuffed her s.h.i.+rt and shorts into one of Doc Corfield's patent plastic bags he had conveniently left on the side of the labelling table. She was about to close the zipper when she noticed something smooth and gun-metal grey protruding from one of the boxes. It was the unidentified cylinder she had inspected earlier, cast aside and forgotten by the archaeologists. She picked it up. Hardly likely to be platinum, but the casing might be worth something as sc.r.a.p. Finders keepers, thought Peri, and dropped it in the bag.

Sealing the waterproof satchel, she moved to the side of the boat, lowered herself into the water and struck out for the sh.o.r.e.

Nothing could have suited Kamelion's purpose better than to he left alone in the TARDIS. He waited patiently in his cubicle until the Doctor and Turlough had had time to get well clear of the time-machine. then, mobilising himself, he glided clown the corridor and into the empty control room. He went straight to the console and patched his own circuits into the communications section where he began an extensive search of all the available frequencies. ' Contact Contact rnust be made rnust be made...' He still did not fully understand the problem, but he knew that his a.s.sistance was required urgently.

'Kamelion!'

The robot's head panned towards the intruder. How inconvenient of Turlough to return so soon. 'Contact must be made! Important to obey!' He shouted defiantly at the boy.

'No!' cried Turlough, rus.h.i.+ng to pull Kamelion away from the console.

It is a painful business rugger-tackling a robot, as Turlough discovered when the silver mannikin hurled him effortlessly to the floor. 'Do not interfere!' screamed the automaton monotonously. 'TARDIS will be taken to point of contact!'

Turlough didn't argue but crawled round the console out of sight of Kamelion. He could just reach the panel where he had previously programmed his electronic sedative. This time he selected a wave form that would do nothing for Kamelion's peace of mind or body.

The robot shrieked as Turlough switched on. High energy pulses flowed directly into his circuitry, blotting out all coherent thought and organised locomotion. His arms jerked and girated, smoke began to pour from his joints. With a final scream he twisted his body away from the console in a vain attempt to detach himself from the source of such crippling energy, and collapsed with an enormous crash to the floor.

Turlough leaned over the tormented automaton. 'You're not taking the TARDIS anywhere,' he boasted vindictively. 'And you won't be listening to any more messages. You're finished!' Slowly he dragged the the immobilised torso through the inner door, up the corridor, and clumped it, like a pile of sc.r.a.p, in its own room.

Kamelion lay jangling on the floor, every system and circuit of his body in turmoil. Turlough rested against the wall while he got his breath back, then went out, slammed the door and walked back to the control room.

It did not take him long to remove all evidence of his attack on the robot, and he began to plan his stategy for the next Trion broadcast. He soon realised he need only falsify the reading and the Doctor would never get an accurate bearing on the radiation.

Turlough gave a casual glance up to the scanner. There was something in the water... He zoomed the picture in.

Just a girl swimming and waving at somebody on the sh.o.r.e. He zoomed tighter on the frantic semaph.o.r.e...

The girl was drowning.

It was dead easy, thought Peri, as she paddled herself confidently to the sh.o.r.e, towing the buoyant plastic bag behind her.

She was about half way to the beach when she felt the first stab of cramp in her left leg. Suddenly the water was colder, deeper, the sh.o.r.e more desperately far away than it had been when she left the boat. 'Don't panic! Don't panic!' she said to herself.

The convulsive pain shot to her thigh, twisting and unbalancing her whole body. She gasped, and sucked in a mouthful of seawater. She retched and spluttered, frantically trying to raise her head. She tried to wave, but there was no one to see her. She breathed in more salt water and choked helplessly. Her arms thrashed and splashed, her head went under and she could see white foam, a cold refracted sun. Air for a blissful second as she broke the surface, then down. down...

Peri had no memory of Turlough's rescue. She just remembered the moment when she stopped struggling.

The sudden peace. Was that what death was like?

'I think I'm going to die,' moaned Peri.

'No you're not,' said Turlough as he helped the half-conscious girl onto the bed in Tegan's old room.

The American lay back, exhausted, and closed her eyes.

Turlough picked up her plastic bag from the floor. It looked as if there were some dry clothes inside. As he opened the fastener and fished out a pair of shorts and a s.h.i.+rt, a small cylinder rolled onto the bedclothes. Turlough grabbed it, and gazed at the object, his mouth dry. his heart thudding. It was a Trion data beacon. 'Where did you get this?' he shouted at the girl.

Peri's eyes flickered. 'Howard was such a pig... I needed the money.'

So that was where the transmission had come froma beacon despatched from some stricken s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. Inside the cylinder would be the data core with all the details of the Trion vessel's location. It would have to be destroyed before the Doctor returned.

Turlough traced with his finger the engraved trefoil on the side of the cylinder. He rolled up his sleeve. There, on the inside of his arm, was branded the same overlapping shapes of the Misos Triangle. He stared at it bitterly. It was his stigma; the sign of humiliation and disgrace.

The detector on the cafe table began to whistle again. The Doctor picked it up and started to read off the bearing.

Turlough had had ample time to reach the TARDIS and would now be computing the second radial which would enable them to tell within an inch of two where in the water...

'How odd!' The Doctor checked the reading. 'How very odd indeed!' He stood up, flung some coins on the table, and ran across the harbour square. He stopped at the corner and looked at the machine again. Them was no doubt about it. The source of the signal had moved hom the sea and was now very near the TARDIS.

Turlough was still struggling to unscrew the mushroom head of the cylinder when he heard the Doctor's footseps.

He quickly hid the beacon in the towel with which he had made a perfunctory effort to dry himself.

'The point of emission moved,' exclaimed the Doctor as he joined his companion by the console. 'Good heavens!

You're soaking wet.' He stared at the boy who was still dripping all over the TARDIS floor.

'Please, Doctor. Go and see Kamelion. He's had another fit,' said Turlough with as much urgency as he could muster. The Doctor said no more to his companion, but walked straight out into the corridor.

As soon as the Doctor was out of sight, Turlough gripped the bulbous head of the cylinder once more. At last the end began to turn and the thin wafer, protected by the tube, was soon in his hand.

'A data core!' said a voice behind him. The Doctor had returned from an all too brief examination of Kamelion and stood watching Turlough from the open door. 'You're right, Karnelion's in a bad way,' he said, without taking his eyes off the slither of silicon in the boy's hand. Moving to the console, he picked up the two pieces of outer casing from where Turlough had dropped them. 'A beacon,' he observed. 'Sent across s.p.a.ce like a s.h.i.+pwrecked sailor's bottle...' He extracted the core from between Turlough's fingers. 'With a message in it. Who from, I wonder? And where?'

Turlough decided the time had come to confess his guilty secret. The Doctor must be stopped from contacting the Trion s.h.i.+p. He coughed nervously. 'Doctor, there's something I ought to tell you.'

Peri was dreaming again; the same recurring nightmare.

She was a little girl once more, sent to bed in disgrace.

'Don't put out the light!' she pleaded with her stepfather.

'Please, Howard. Don't put out the light!'

Suddenly, there was energy. Kamelion could feel the restorative power in his circuits. 'Please, Howard... Please, Howard...' An irresistible force began to transform his now dazzling metal carapace. 'Howard! Howard!' The s.h.i.+ning silver skin trans.m.u.ted to a suit of sober cloth.

'Howard.,. Howard...'

The robot's burnished head transmogrified into the face of Howard Foster. The robot's new alter ego alter ego got to his feet, pulled apart his black jacket and white s.h.i.+rt, and plugged himself into the cable trailing from the computer outlet. got to his feet, pulled apart his black jacket and white s.h.i.+rt, and plugged himself into the cable trailing from the computer outlet.

There was a flash and a puff of smoke.

'Oh, dear,' said the Doctor, who had been connecting the data core with the TARDIS computer system. 'Now we'll never know where the beacon came from.'

Turlough smiled.

'What was it you wanted to tell me by the way?'

'Doesn't matter,' said Turlough. much relieved.

The Doctor looked quizzically at his companion. The boy had been worrying about something all day. 'Anything wrong, Turlough?'

The interrogation got no further for the double doors abruptly, and quite spontaneously, slammed shut.

'Did you do that?' asked the Doctor.

'Of course not,' said Turlough, just as surprised.

The column began to rise and fall.

'The TARDIS has dematerialised,' exclaimed the Doctor.

'Kamelion!'

'Impossible. He's out for the count.'

Any further speculation on the destination of their mystery trip was cut short by the arrival in the control room of a smiling American in a dark, well-cut suit.

'Doctor, we meet again.'

The Doctor turned to the newcomer in amazement.

'Professor Foster!'

The robot, perfectly disguised, continued to act out the role of the archaeologist. 'This has to be the most amazing machine I've seen in my life.' He gazed round the control room in a.s.sumed astonishment.

'How did you get in here?' protested Turlough.

'I was following Peri,' drawled the duplicate professor.

'The girl!' cried Turlough. 'I forgot all about her.'

'What girl?'

'I was going to explain,' said a rather shamefaced companion. But he had left it a bit too late as the Doctor was already staring, nonplussed, at the inner doorway where a young lady in blouse and shorts stood blinking, equally amazed, at the mysteries of the TARDIS control room. ' That That girl, Doctor!' hissed Turlough in a loud stage whisper. girl, Doctor!' hissed Turlough in a loud stage whisper.

4.

Crisis on Sarn The sky above Sarn had been dark for seven whole days.

Black rain had fallen on the fields. The earth had began to tremble and shake. A pall of smoke hung over the Fire Mountain. The darkness and the quaking ground had not come to Sarn for nearly a whole generation, and only the old people could recall the last days of endurance. From every corner of the ancient settlement, the citizens were hurrying to hear the wisdom of the Elders and the judgement of their Chosen One.

Timanov stared out past the crumbling columns of the elegant paG.o.da towards the smouldering mountain. Not for seventy years had he seen such a lowering prospect. At the last crisis he had been hardly more than a child. Now, he was Chief Elder of the Sarns, who would turn to him for guidance in the testing days ahead. Perhaps, he thought gloomily. his own misguided benevolence was in some way to blame for the hards.h.i.+p they were about to endure. He turned to the young boy at his side. 'Of course, in my father's time, Unbelievers were sent to the fire.'

'That was barbaric!' replied his companion, appalled at the brutal customs of the not so distant past.

The old man smiled. 'A little over zealous, perhaps. But in those days, Malkon, people did not tolerate dissidents as they do now.'

'The Unbelievers are harmless, Timanov.'

The Chief Elder looked uneasily at his young protege.

The boy had picked up too many liberal opinions. 'It is still a wise precaution to send an occasional freethinker to his death. A burning encourages respect for our traditions.'

The boy seemed nervous. 'I could never order a burning!'

Timanov sighed. He was fond enough of the child, but a Chosen One should be made of sterner stuff. He put his arm on Malkon's shoulder. 'You will be given strength.'

The young man looked sad and frightened, overwhelmed by his responsibilities. 'Don't be worried, my boy,'