Doctor Who_ Planet Of Fire Part 7

The Doctor and Turlough with Amyand and his group of dissidents halted in a side street just beyond the main entrance of the Hall. Amyand nodded to his men who drew swords and knives from under their clothes.

The Sarns a.s.sembled in the Hall of Fire thought for a moment that the Elders had returned. But none of those arthritic ayatollahs could have achieved the speed with which Amyand's picked men dashed up the portico steps and into the Hall.

'Don't anyone move!' shouted the rebel leader as each Unbeliever ran to his strategic corner, grabbed a citizen and held a knife at his throat. 'Stay where you are and no one will get hurt.'

The guards raised their sabres, but dared not move for fear of causing injury to the hostages.

Amyand ran to the stone platform in front of the cave where the fire still raged. 'You're here to see the Outsider,'

he shouted, giving the crowd no time to recover from the shock of the invasion. 'Well, you won't be disappointed because we've found him for you.' He gestured to the entrance as the Doctor arrived at the top step of the portico like a royal bride. 'In fact, two of them!' cried Amyand excitedly as Turlough joined the Doctor.

The citizens were overawed by the spectacle. Like the Unbelievers, they had never seen strangers before.

'Doctor! Turlough!' Amyand saluted the aliens who, escorted by the two armed Unbelievers, processed through the Hall, every eye upon them. 'Do they look like messengers from Logar?' shouted Amyand. 'They're men like us!'

It was a disconcerting experience for the Doctor and Turlough to walk from one end of the building to the other under such universal scrutiny. Turlough was so embara.s.sed that he had no inclination to look round the Hall, and it was not until he reached the platform by the cave that he saw the units from the Trion s.h.i.+p. 'That's the navigational unit from a Trion s.p.a.ce shuttle!' exclaimed the boy. 'And the concentrator from a propulsion unit!' He pointed to another piece of hi-tech pseudo-sculpture that adorned the platform.

'These people,' continued Amyand, pointing to the Doctor and Turlough, 'will tell you that Logar is deadthat Logar never existed.'

Turlough, however, was not interested in the idealogical problems of the Sarns; he wanted to know what they were doing with bits of a Trion s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p. But there was no chance to start asking questions as several of the more elderly Sarns had begun to protest at their treatment from Amyand's gang of iconoclasts. One of the hostages had managed to free himself and several of the guards seemed on the point of a counter coup.

'Stop!' The voice that echoed through the hall was shrill and immature, hardly more than that of a child. Turlough felt a sudden sense of deja vu deja vu, as if he and the boy, now entering with Sorasta, had met in some previous existence.

Malkon walked confidently to the platform, 'There will be no fighting. I order you to put down your weapons.'

Reluctantly the guards obeyed. Malkon took the Doctor's hand. 'You are welcome to Sarn.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Not a very hospitable planet at the moment.'

'You will hear out this Doctor,' said Malkon, feeling far happier with the friendly newcomers than with the bullying mullah, Timanov.

While the Doctor tried to explain to the Sarns the danger of the molten lava that would shortly erupt from the volcano, Turlough crept forward to get a closer look at the components from the s.h.i.+p. His expert eye easily identified the age and cla.s.sification of the vessel. He also noticed, on the side of the navigation unit, the ominous but unmistakeable signs of burning. 'Where did you find this?' he unceremoniously challenged the boy that Sorasta had called their Chosen One. 'Tell me, please!'

This was a question that Malkon had asked Timanov many times. Somewhat apologetically he now gave the same answer. 'That is a gift of Logar.'

'These things came from a Trion s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p!' shouted Turlough accusingly. 'Where did it land? Where are the crew?'

The Doctor, who had joined him beside the components, seemed particularly interested in a large module in the navigation section. 'Whoever the benefactor, he's provided you with a transceiver unit,' he observed.

'What is a transceiver unit?' asked Roskal curiously.

'A way of communicating with other people,' replied the Doctor, wondering if there was a way of avoiding so many refugees in the TARDIS. 'People who can take you away from the city before it is destroyed.' He turned to Turlough. 'If we can get a message through to Trion, they can send a rescue s.h.i.+p...'

'No!' screamed the boy, pulling the Doctor's hand away from the transmitter. 'Contact Trion and you'll ruin everything!'

The Doctor was rapidly losing patience with his companion's eccentricity. 'Are your compatriots so inhospitable?' he demanded.

How Turlough now wished he had swallowed his pride and explained his predicament to the Doctor the moment he had heard that first transmission from the s.h.i.+p's distress beacon. 'The Custodians will move in,' he stammered. 'Escape will be impossible.'

'What are you talking about?'

Turlough did not hear the Doctor's question. He was staring, mesmerised, at a silver pendant on Malkon's neck.

'Where did you get that?' His finger pointed accusingly at the object.

'It is nothing,' answered the young man, startled at such intense interest. 'A Chosen One has many gifts.'

'There are more like this?' cried Turlough.

'Of course.'

'Show me!'

Exasperated as he was with his companion's behaviour, the Doctor was dismayed to see him leaving the Hall, together with the nominal leader of the Sarns. He didn't fancy organising the embarkation of the entire citizenry single-handed. 'Turlough!' he shouted after the retreating boy. 'I need your help.'

Turlough gave a guilty look back at the Doctor, but did not stop. 'You don't understand,' he shouted. 'My father was on that s.h.i.+p!'

Malkon took Turlough straight to his apartments in the paG.o.da where the Doctor's companion instantly recognised the burnished metal case in which were kept the gaudy items that the Elders had presented to their Chosen One.

'A bonded flight box!' he shouted, forcing open the lid of the container to reveal a jackdaw's nest of stolen pieces.

'All these objects are from a Trion s.h.i.+p,' exclaimed Turlough as he dipped into the gimcrack treasure chest and selected three tear-shaped drops of platinum, each on a thin wire chain. 'The ident.i.ty tabs of a shuttle crew!'

'I don't understand,' said Malkon, perplexed.

'Where did they come from?'

Malkon shrugged. 'I have had them since I was a child.'

A wild suspicion inplanted itself in Turlough's mind.

'Malkon, where do you you come from?' he asked the boy. come from?' he asked the boy.

'I come from the fire,' answered Malkon simply.

Turlough's suspicion grew stronger. 'Why do they call you the Chosen One?'

'I carry the mark of Logar.'

'Show me.'

As Malkon pulled back the sleeve of his tunic Turlough gave a small cry. 'The Misos Triangle!' On the younger boy's arm was branded the motif from the cylinder and Turlough now knew where he had seen Malkon before.

'Take me to to the fire where you were found!' he shouted.

Malkon was appalled. 'Impossible. That is forbidden land. Trespa.s.sers are sent for burning.'

'I order you,' said Turlough defiantly.

Malkon scowled. 'No one can order a Chosen One.'

Turlough rolled up the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt to reveal the same double triangle, seared on his upper arm. 'Except another Chosen One!' he whispered to the startled child.

There was great excitment in the Hall of Fire when the Doctor switched on the transceiver he had found in the ornamental wreckage. The Doctor, however, was less enchanted than the childlike Sarns by the babbling atmospherics that came from the communications unit.

'We need more power,' he muttered, wis.h.i.+ng Turlough was there to lend a hand with repairs.

Sorasta, who had been keeping an anxious vigil at the entrance steps, pushed her way through the curious crowd towards the stranger in the frock coat. 'Doctor!' she called nervously. 'The Elders are coming.' There was a buzz of excitment from the citizens who couldn't wait to see what the old men thought of this self-confident alien.

'Good,' said the Doctor, hardly bothering to look up from the dismantled components. 'I need to talk to them.

We've a full scale exodus to organise.'

When Moses came down the mountain to find the Israelites dancing around a golden calf, he must have looked something like Timanov as he strode through the Hall of Fire towards the impious stranger who was desecrating the precious relics. 'Seize the enemy of Logar!'

shouted the white-haired patriarch. 'Arrest all Unbelievers!'

The Doctor got to his feet, beaming his cheery vicar's smile. 'Look, we're here to help you. That volcano could erupt at any moment.'

Timanov glared at the supreme heretic. 'You must be the Doctor,' he hissed. 'It is the Outsider's wish that you go to the fire.'

The Doctor sighed. A lot of explaining would be needed to get these superst.i.tious people onto the rescue s.h.i.+p.

'There is no Outsider,' he began patiently. But Timanov wasn't interested. He nodded to the Elders. The old men pointed their staves at the enemy and the Doctor found himself staring down the muzzles of five deadly laser guns.

A young rebel, unimpressed by a mere rod held in the shaking hand of an elderly man, stepped forward to protect the ally of the Unbelievers.

'No!' shouted the Doctor.

But he was too late. A ray stabbed at the young man who fell lifeless to the ground. The crowd gasped at this terrible new power. The Doctor stared, horrified, at the body of his protector. Who could have explained to these unsophisticated old men the violent purpose of their regalia?

The crowds turned towards the entrance again: someone else had come into the Hall. It was a tall, sinister man in a black suit. The late arrival chuckled darkly.

'Oh, no,' said the Doctor quietly. 'The Master!'

8.

An Enemy in Disguise The s.h.i.+p had split, on impact, into three parts. Two sections had been so badly burned as to be unrecognisable, but the third was easily identified as the flight deck.

Turlough stared at the shattered instruments and twisted controlsit was amazing that anyone could have lived after such a crash. He walked across to the tail section where Malkon stood gazing at the charred, half-dissolved skeleton of the s.h.i.+p. Volcanic dust had collected in drifts against the distorted bulkheads, some alloy in the hull was slowly corroding in the sulphurous air and had bled a lurid green and yellow across the superstructure.

'This was your sacred fire,' said Turlough to the young boy. 'A crashed s.h.i.+p.'

'A s.h.i.+p,' repeated Malkon thoughtfully. 'Did I really travel from Trion in this this?'

Turlough nodded. He had tried to explain to his companion as they hurried across the valley and over the ridge into the forbidden land, that the mark of Logar on his arm branded him a citizen of Trion. Turlough's own home, not this planet of fire. 'It must have been spectacular,' he added grimly, thinking of the s.h.i.+p hurtling in from s.p.a.ce, red hot with friction, engines screaming against the inevitable impact. He imagined the explosion and the ma.s.sive conflagration from which a baby had crawled alive. A miracle indeed, but not quite as the superst.i.tious Sarns had interpreted it.

'Where are the others?' said Malkon.

Turlough had been asking himself the same question. If Malkon had survived, why not the pa.s.sengers or the crew?

Could they still be in hiding somewhere?

He moved to the clearing between the three hulks.

There was a circle of small stones, around which a few ragged flowers brightened the scorched earth. Malkon walked across to join the elder boy who was staring at the ground.

'Turlough?'

Turlough turned roughly aside. He did not want his new friend to see him weeping.

Peri was hopelessly lost. 'Doctor! Turlough! Anybody!' she wailed, desperately scanning the vista of clinker and dust.

She was cut and and exhausted by her terrifying scramble down the side of the ravine, and hot from her trek through the sterile valley. She was thirsty, she ached all over, and she was very, very frightened. She held back another wave of blind hysteria and tried to work out the direction of the Doctor's blue box.

There was something on the horizon that was not made of rock and lava. As she got closer, she could distinguish girders, struts, a hotly of metal andshe could have cried with relieftwo human beings.

'Hey, Turlough!'

A dishevelled Peri staggered towards Malkon and Turlough as the two boys emerged from the shadow of the wreck.

'What are you doing here?' said Turlough as the girl collasped on the ground.

'Thank goodness I've found you,' she moaned. 'I was beginning to think I was the last of the Mohicans.' Sitting up, she caught sight of Malkon. 'Who's this?'

'Malkon,' said Turlough impatiently, wanting to know why Peri had left the TARDIS. 'Another traveller,' he explained to Malkon.

'Hi,' said Peri, hoping that Malkon was the ordinary, uncomplicated teenager he looked. She got to her feet. 'Oh, boy. Have I seen everything today! A transgalactic payphone, a stepfather who turns into a robot...'