Doctor Who: The Dominators (13 page)

fascinating...’

Zoe squinted across the chamber at the project display.

‘I think that fifth hole is the one by the ruin, Doctor: The Doctor nodded. ‘The bull’s-eye...’ he murmured.

At that moment Probationer Toba burst in followed by the Quark with Kando and Teel. The latter was stumbling, doubled over with both arms clutched across his chest.

‘Quarks, assemble the specimens,’ ordered Toba.

The two robots herded Kando and Teel next to the Doctor, Zoe and Balan. Zoe tried to help Kando support the injured Teel, but they were brutally shoved apart.

Toba walked slowly round the frightened huddle. ‘The other simpleton – the boy – is missing,’ he rasped. ‘He has defied the Dominators and attacked the Quarks. Where is he?’

There was a long silence. Zoe glanced anxiously at the Doctor. Balan gazed in horror at Kando and the semi-conscious Teel.

Toba walked round them again, his vast hands clenching and unclenching with an ominous squeaking.

‘You will die, one by one, until you inform me...’ he tormented them.

Still there was silence. Toba stopped and jabbed his creaking glove at Balan. ‘You were a witness. Speak.’

The Educator stared mesmerised into Toba’s glittering eyes.

The Dominator stepped hack. ‘Quark, destroy!’

One of the robots whirred expectantly. Kando cried out and clung convulsively to Teel. A sizzling bolt tore through the air and Balan’s protective suit collapsed in a heap, empty.

Striding over it with savage indifference, Toba towered over the Doctor. ‘You know the simpleton boy. Where is he? Answer or die.’

The Doctor hesitated, fiddling nervously with his tie and blinking meekly. Then his eyes narrowed and he curled his lip in disgust and contempt. But he remained silent.

Zoe held her breath, watching the Doctor’s struggle to contain his outrage with anxious admiration.

‘Answer!’ hissed Toba.

The Doctor compressed his lips and set his jaw.

Something in his eyes seemed to disconcert the Dominator, something he had not anticipated.

After a brief duel of wills, Toba turned abruptly and lumbered away a few paces. ‘Quark!’ he rapped.

The nearest Quark jerked its probes round towards the Doctor and waited, its antennae glowing red and its circuits clattering in growing excitement.

Zoe thrust her fist into her mouth and shut her eyes...

9

Jamie and Kully had managed to escape from the gorge by the skin of their teeth after the damaged Quark, hard on their heels, had suddenly ground to a smoking halt halfway up the slope, its traction mechanism finally burnt out, but its probes still firing intermittently. As they dragged themselves dazed but unharmed onto the plateau above, they found their escape cut off. A huge crescent of Quarks was advancing towards them, driving them relentlessly back into the gorge.

‘Where did all yon tin Sassenachs spring from?’ Jamie exclaimed, pulling Kully down into a hollow just in time to avoid the vicious crossfire of ultrasonic pulses which suddenly shredded the air above them.

A stinging torrent of sand erupted a few metres away and fell on them, almost completely burying them. Jamie wriggled furiously to and fro, working his way in a kind of trench towards the steep cliff edge.

‘Come away, Kully!’ Jam yelled above the sizzling din.

‘Let’s get to the shelter and lie doggo till things cool down.

wee bit.’

‘Doggo?’ Kully echoed, spitting the sand our of his mouth and trying to imitate Jamie’s ample.

With a series of deafening roars, several more huge columns of sand shot into the air and scattered around them. Jamie turned himself round and grabbed Kully’s flailing hands, and hauled the squirming Dulcian towards the steep drop.

‘Come on, they’re far too close for comfort!’ Jamie panted, heaving Kully’s sweating hulk through the trench.

When the exhausted Dulcian reached the precipitous edge, he went rigid with terror. Without thinking, Jamie rolled himself over the cliff and dragged Kully after him...

Half rolling and half sliding down the brittle sandstone face, they soon reached the dunes below. Then, after a hair-raising skirmish with a Quark patrol advancing from the direction of the saucer, they eventually reached the deserted ruin.

Bundling Kully through the hatch into the atomic shelter, Jamie searched frantically around in the wreckage until he located the tip of the periscope mechanism. After a brief struggle, he managed to clear away the obstruction that was preventing it extending properly. Nearby, he came across the blocked inlet for the ventilator system and soon dislodged enough sand to allow at least some air through into the shelter below. Then he took cover.

Squeezing himself through the hatch, Jamie carefully lowered it shut after making sure that no loose debris could jam it again. He found Kully lying on one of the bunks.

‘That was marvellous fun,’ Kully panted, ‘especially the avalanche.’

‘Aye, we fair stirred them up,’ Jamie chuckled, getting his breath back. ‘We’ll lie low a wee while and keep ‘em guessing. Then we’ll oot and bag another Quark or two.’

Just then his stomach rumbled noisily. ‘Och, I’m fair starving,’ he grinned.

Kully patted his own ample belly. ‘Fighting is hungry work,’ he agreed cheerfully. Levering himself off the bunk, he began to rummage in a small locker unit underneath it.

With a whoop of triumph he stood up brandishing a slim bar wrapped in toil. Tearing off the wrapper, he broke the bar in half and handed Jamie a piece of a grey waxy substance.

Jamie sniffed at it unenthusiastically. ‘What’s this stuff?’

‘Basic nutrients,’ Kully explained, cramming his portion into his mouth and chewing greedily. ‘Proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates. You can survive on it for annos.’

He swallowed and licked his lips.

Jamie bit off a tiny piece and chewed tentatively. ‘I hope I’ll no need to do that: it tastes like old candles,’ he grimaced, tossing the remainder to Kully.

Rousing himself, Jamie went across to the periscope, grasped the handles and pushed upwards. It slid quite freely, despite emitting a nasty scraping sound ‘Let’s see how the land Iies..’ he muttered, peering into the binocular viewer. For while he was silent, twisting the tube slowly from side to side, then he turned.

Kully stopped chewing and stared at him.

‘We’ve got visitors...’ Jamie said. ‘Lots of them.’

‘Quark, order cancelled. Toba, what is the meaning of this?’

Zoe cried out in gratitude and relief as Rago’s powerful voice suddenly rang around the control centre.

Hissing with frustration, Toba spun round to face his leader as he emerged from the elevator followed by his escort.

Rago stared down at Balan’s suit, at the cowering figures of Kando and Teel, and finally turned to his sullen subordinate. ‘Explain, Probationer Toba’ he snapped.

The Doctor mopped his glistening face and squeezed Zoe’s cold hand gratefully. ‘That was a trifle near the mark...’ he whispered wryly.

Toba brazened things out as best he could. ‘We were attacked, Navigator Rago. A Quark was destroyed, another damaged. In the emergency I decided to...’

‘Emergency? Rago sneered. ‘A handful of primitives manage to incapacitate a Quark and you interrupt vital projects to waste time and valuable power chasing them all over the Island?’

Toba creaked forward a few paces: ‘I decided to hold an inquiry, Navigator...’

Rago turned impatiently and frowned dangerously at the bore-project display. ‘Is drilling complete?’

‘All four perimeter bores are completed,’ said Toba hurriedly.

‘And the centre target?’

Toba hesitated uncomfortably. ‘A minor delay... caused by strata deviations.’

Rago leaned closer. ‘The only deviations have occurred in your behaviour, Tuba. Quark power reserves approach minimal levels and drilling is incomplete, yet you fritter precious resources in fruitless chases and in killing insignificant aliens.’

Toba was aware of the Doctor’s contemptuous stare boring into his back. ‘I considered it my duty...’ he protested.

‘Your duty is to complete the project according to schedule,’ Rago thundered. ‘Have the rockets been installed at the perimeter targets?’

The Doctor’s face lit up with profound interest and anticipation and he edged surreptitiously closer to gain a better view of the project display across the vast chamber.

‘Not yet,’ Toba admitted after an embarrassed pause.

‘Do it at once,’ Rago ordered. ‘Is the seeding trigger approaching criticality?’

There has not been sufficient time to determine.’

‘Time?’ Rago boomed, the rims of his eyes burning like red-hot rings. ‘Toba, if you have jeopardised this most vital stage of our mission by your obsessive irresponsibility, then you will remain here on Dulkis and perish with the weaker primitives.’

The Doctor observed intently as Toba hurried across to the central dais and opened a heavily armoured circular panel near the one he and Zoe had examined earlier. A soft pink glow spread over Toba’s body as he withdrew a large opaque object resembling an ostrich egg, encased within a kind of glass shell with short blunt spikes protruding in all directions. The Probationer peered at each protrusion in turn, the glow transforming his features into a caricature carnival mask.

‘Report!’ Rago rapped impatiently.

‘The seeding trigger approaches criticality minus gamma.’

Toba carefully replaced the device and closed the thick panel.

Zoe glanced at the Doctor. He was uttering silently to himself and nodding knowingly as he watched Toba’s every move.

‘Minus gamma. Then there is not a moment to lose, Toba,’ Rago warned urgently. ‘The centre bore must be completed and projectiles will he inserted in the perimeter targets immediately. Understood?’

‘Command accepted,’ Toba promptly acknowledged.

Rago strode across to the Quark control unit and passed his enormous hand over a sequence of coloured keys. ‘The search is cancelled. All Quarks to position at drilling stations and conserve power until further instructions.’ he ordered. Then he turned back to his suhordivatc ‘I shall communicate with Fleet Leader regarding the exploitation potential of the primitives. Meanwhile, keep them under constant supervision.’

Ordering the two Quarks to follow with the four surviving prisoners, Toba strode towards the elevator.

‘Toba.’

The Probationer stopped and waited.

‘This your final chance. Do not waste it.’

As the captives were prodded into motion by the Quarks, the Doctor glanced sideways at Zoe. ‘Speaking of chances,’ he muttered, ‘from now on we must be sure not to waste any of ours.’

For some time the assembled Quarks had remained motionless and silent outside the ruin, like a plantation of dwarf mechanical trees waiting for some unwary bird to light among them. Jamie peered apprehensively at them through the periscope, while Kully lay on a bunk, nervously devouring the emergency rations out of the locker. The tension was almost tangible, like the closeness in the air before a thunderstorm.

Suddenly Jamie whooped with delight. ‘More visitors, Kully!’ he exclaimed, as the Doctor, Zoe, Kando and Teel trudged into view.

Kully elbowed him aside. ‘Balan isn’t with them,’ he muttered anxiously, panning the periscope. Then he groaned.

‘More Quarks?’ Jamie eagerly siezed the viewer again, but he too groaned as he watched Toba arrive and start supervising some of the Quarks around the rig. ‘We’ve got to get them in here with us. We canna just leave them up there...’ he said, focusing on the Doctor and Zoe.

‘Here we go again,’ Kully sighed, clutching head in despair.

The young Highlander grinned mischievously and glanced quickly round the bleak concrete shelter. His eyes lit on the plastic sheeting covering the bunks. He whipped a gleaming dirk out of its sheath inside his sock and rapidly slit the sheeting free from one of the mattresses.

Kully watched in baffled silence as he cut a long narrow strip from one side.

‘Now listen carefully, Kully,’ Jamie said firmly, ‘this is what we’ll do...’

Guarded by a single Quark and huddled some distance from the drilling apparatus, the Doctor and the others covered their ears and averted their faces as the rig began to whine and throb and an intense beam of light flashed down the barrel into the target hole. As the ground vibrated and the whole area shimmered in the hot searing glare, the Doctor attempted to squint under his thick dark eyebrows to observe the awesome procedure.

Zoe put her mouth close to his ear. ‘Any idea what they’re looking for?’ she shouted.

The Doctor forced his blinking watering eyes to stay at least partially open for a few more seconds. Then he turned to her. ‘Oh, I don’t think they intend to take anything
out
of the hole, Zoe,’ he yelled back. ‘More likely they’re going to drop something
in
.’

‘But what?’

Before the Doctor could reply, he caught a glimpse of someone moving among the debris up by the ruin, behind their Quark sentry. ‘Oh dear me... oh no...’ he muterred, as Jamie emerged crouching low and dropped onto his stomach behind a low ridge of sand.

The attention of Toba and of the Quarks was totally absorbed in the screaming and throbbing drill, as Jamie starred wriggling his way towards the unsuspecting robot.

With his back to the rig, the Doctor was able to watch in anxious fascination as Jamie knelt up behind the Quark, reached into his shirt and unrolled the thin plastic strip, Reaching forward, Jamie carefully wound the strong material round and round the robot’s thick, concertina legs, binding them tightly together.

The reckless lad froze as the Quark’s antennae waggled and flickered and its domed head stirred suspiciously.

Then the robot suddenly shifted slightly and its rectangular foot came down, trapping Jamie’s hand underneath. Thrusting the end of the plastic strip into his mouth, Jamie stifled his agony.

Promptly the Doctor stepped forward. ‘Excuse me, sir!’

he cried.