Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon (17 page)

With the Master's gun pressed lightly in his back, the Doctor had no option but to try to steer their way through the maze of corridors. Very soon the Doctor recognised the corridors as those where he and Jo had been taken when they met the Guardian. On turning a final corner they could see at the dead-end of a corridor the huge double-doors and two Primitives standing guard.

'Is that it?' asked the Master.

'Yes,' said the Doctor, 'and it's guarded.'

The Master stroked his beard, thinking. 'This raises an interesting problem. If I raise my gun to shoot first one guard and then the other, then the gun cannot be pointing at you.'

'True,' said the Doctor.

'And you,' said the Master, 'could knock it out of my hand.'

'I would try to do it without hurting you,' said the Doctor.

'Nonetheless,' said the Master, 'using your Venusian karate you would soon render me unconscious, and then try to take me prisoner. Of course, I could let you run away at this point, and that would leave me free to deal with those two guards.'

'To murder them, you mean,' said the Doctor.

'What are the lives of two savages,' said the Master, 'compared with the value of bringing peace and order to the whole galaxy? Still, you always were sentimental, Doctor.' He paused to give the problem more consideration. 'I'm afraid there's only one practical solution. Regrettably I must shoot you first, then very quickly pick off the two guards before they have time to move.'

'Or,' said the Doctor, 'we might simply ask the two guards to go away.'

'How? They don't seem to understand anything we say,

'By telepathy,' said the Doctor. 'I'm sure that's how they cornmunicate, and how the priests give them their orders. May I ask them to go away on your behalf?'

'Is this some trick?' The Master held the gun menacingly close to the Doctor's head.

'In a sense, but not one aimed against you. Certainly among humans,' said the Doctor, 'telepathy takes place when two people's minds give off alpha waves at a cyclic rate between 9 and 11 per second. If I can find the cyclic rate of these Primitives, I can order them to leave that door unguarded.'

This appealed to the Master's intellect. 'All right,' he said, 'have a go. Let's see what you can do.'

The Doctor stared down the long corridor where the Primitives guarded the huge doors. He knew it was no use putting his command into words in his mind, for the Primitives might not understand. Instead he forced into his imagination a picture of the two guards laying down their spears and walking away from the big doors. He repeated this picture over and over again in his mind as he struggled to control his own brain to transmit only alpha thought-waves at the correct rate per second. To blot out from his mind that the guards were still standing by the door, he closed his eyes, then again repeated the mental picture.

'One of them moved!' whispered the Master. 'You're getting through.'

The Doctor tried again, this time at a much higher rate per second. The Master jogged his arm and he opened his eyes. 'Look,' said the Master excitedly. 'They're going!'

The two Primitives had put down their spears, and now they were slowly walking down the corridor towards where the Doctor and the Master were hiding. The Doctor and the Master pressed themselves back into an alcove, and the two Primitives slowly walked by them like sleep-walkers. When they had gone well out of sight the Master tugged at the Doctor's sleeve. 'Come on, you go first.'

The huge doors were not locked and were quite easy to open. The Doctor was back once more in the room whose walls were made of silvery-coloured metal. The Master looked about himself in satisfaction. 'The Doomsday Weapon,' he said; 'the most powerful weapon in the entire universe.'

'You mean that thing?' The Doctor indicated the drum-like object in the middle of the floor.

'This whole room,' said the Master, 'and the hundreds of miles of corridors of electronic equipment that stem from this room. It is
all
the Doomsday Weapon. That,' and he pointed to the construction in the middle of the floor, 'is the control console.' He went to the console and gently ran his fingers over the controls. 'With this our control, we can rule all life on every planet in every galaxy.'

'We?' said the Doctor.

'Of course,' said the Master. 'Are we not both Time Lords? Isn't it our destiny to work together as partners?'

The Doctor heard sounds coming from the corridor. 'I think it may shortly be our destiny to die together if we're caught in here.'

The huge doors slowly started to open. 'Over here,' said the Master, waving his gun at the Doctor. There was nowhere in the room to hide, so the two of them took up a position with their backs to the wall close to the doors. The Master kept his gun at the ready. The huge doors continued to open, and then ten or more of the otter-faced priests entered. The Master and the Doctor stood there in wonder to see what the priests were about to do.

Using their buggies for quick transport, Captain Dent and the IMC men were now 35 safe kilometres away from the colonists' spaceship. Only one IMC guard remained near, a volunteer who was sitting lookout on a hill near the colonists' dome, using night binoculars for any sign of the colonists leaving their craft. Once back in his ship, Captain Dent went straight to the control room and sat comfortably in his captain's chair. He turned to the radio microphone.

'
Captain Dent to colonists' spaceship,
' he said. '
Do you hear me?
'

There was a crackle of static, then Ashe's voice. '
We hear you, Captain Dent.
'

'
What's delaying you?
' said Dent.

'
An electrical fault in our life-support system,
' said Ashe. '
We are just completing repairs.
'

'
Good,
' said Dent. '
Then get off this planet!
'

He switched off the microphone. Morgan had come up behind him. 'That's a laugh,' said Morgan. 'They don't need a life-support system, not if that old crate is going to blow itself to pieces!'

Dent turned on the microphone again, and tuned into the IMC guards' frequency. '
Captain Dent here,
' he said into the microphone, '
speaking to lookout guard. Any sign of movement around that old spaceship?
'

The guard's voice came back clearly. '
No, sir. Their hatch remains closed. No one's tried to leave the ship.
'

'
Keep watching,
' said Dent. '
If that hatch opens one millimetre, tell me immediately.
'

'
Yes, sir,
' said the guard's voice.

Dent switched off the microphone, leaving the wave-length open for incoming transmissions. He thought for a moment, then turned to Morgan, 'Get the men ready to go over to that so-called Primitive City .'

'Couldn't it wait till daylight?' said Morgan. 'Once that old ship's taken off, there's only us and that fake Adjudicator and that Doctor man left on the planet. We can wipe them out in no time.'

'I want everything finished and done with tonight,'. said Dent. 'By first light I want to radio IMC Headquarters on Earth and tell them to send in the heavy mining gear, and I want to be able to report that this planet is entirely clear of everyone. So get moving!'

'Yes, sir,' said Morgan, and hurried out to get ready the guards.

Captain Dent sat thinking. Then he turned the ship's external television eye in the direction of the sky over the colonists' dome and spaceship. He hoped that very soon he would see the glare of the colonists' ship taking off on its last journey.

The IMC guard acting as lookout crouched on top of the little hill overlooking the colonists' spaceship, his night binoculars piercing the darkness as he watched the hatch of the ship. He was cold and the rocky surface was too uncomfortable to sit on. He had volunteered for the job because it would be recorded in his personnel file, and he earnestly wanted to become a First Officer so that he would get a bigger living unit on Earth. His arms ached through trying to hold the binoculars with one hand and his high-powered rifle with the other. Then he questioned why he was holding the rifle, since all the colonists were in their spaceship. He put the rifle down, and now he was able to use both hands to hold the heavy binoculars. Almost as soon as he had put down the rifle, Winton sprang at him from the darkness, battering at him with a knife-sharp rock.

Jo stood by while Caldwell fixed one of the front wheels of the buggy. In the darkness they had hit a rock, knocking out the track of the buggy's steering gear. More than once they had lost track of the footprints and track marks that were guiding them to the entrance of the Primitives' underground city. Caldwell straightened up.

'That should be all right,' he said. 'Get back on'

As Jo climbed on the seat next to Caldwell they both heard the distant roar of the old spaceship's rocket motors. They turned and looked. The spaceship rose slowly into the night sky, a downthrust plume of flame lifting it higher and higher.

'Well; said Caldwell , starting up the buggy, 'they made it.' He grinned with relief, and the buggy began to more dowly forward.

All at once a brilliant flash lit all the land around them like daylight. It was followed by a momentous explosion as the colonists' spaceship disintegrated.

Caldwell stopped the buggy. He was unable to speak.

'All those poor people,' said Jo.

'Yes,' said Caldwell at last. 'All those poor people. Dead.'

He started the buggy again and they drove ahead slowly and in total silence.

The Doctor and the Master stood with their backs pressed to the silvery-coloured wall as two more priests entered carrying with them a casket. 'If you play your telepathy trick,' whispered the Master, 'and warn them of our presence, I shall shoot you instantly.'

'If they know of our presence,' whispered the Doctor, 'there will be no need for you to shoot me. We shall both be killed.'

The priests all made a ritual bow to the drum-like control console in the middle of the room. Then they turned towards the hatch in the wall and opened it. Heat from the furnace inside filled the room. Two priests went forward with the casket, a third with long tongs. The lid of the casket was removed and the S-shaped ends of the tongs were dipped into the casket. When the tongs were lifted, they gripped an isotope - fuel for a nuclear reactor. The priest slowly thrust the isotope deep into the white hot furnace.

The Master whispered, 'They most be refuelling the weapon.

'My guess,' whispered the Doctor, 'is that it's a religious ceremony with a scientific basis. It most have been going on for generations.'

The otter faced priests slowly backed away from the now closed hatch, and backed out through the two, huge doors. The doors were closed from the outside. The Master moved away from the wall , 'Now, Doctor,' he said, very reassured again, 'let us see what the Doomsday Weapon can do.' He inspected the controls on top of the drum-shaped console, then pressed one of the buttons. The colour of the whole of the wall on one side of the room changed from silvery grey to dark blue and then to black. Little spots of light appeared. 'How ingenious,' said the Master; 'before our eyes, the galaxy.' He turned a calibrated knob on the control console, and the little spots of light started swimming towards them at enormous speed. The picture of the galaxy was focussing down to one particular spot of light in the centre. After some moments this central spot of light had increased from a spot to a small white disc. Now the Master touched another control and the picture of the galaxy settled and stopped moving. 'That disc,' said the Master, 'is the sun of the planet Earth that you're so fond of. As you know, that sun will eventually burn through to its own core and explode - in about ten thousand million years' time. But with this weapon I can set that motion in progress now.'

'To what purpose?' asked the Doctor. 'Sheer destruction?'

'Doctor,' said the Master somewhat hurt, 'have you ever known me to be vindictive?' He continued before the Doctor had time to answer. 'Naturally the weapon will never be used provided people obey my commands. But to achieve this end, I need your help. The weapon is complex, it needs intelligent minds to operate it. So think of it, Doctor - a half-share in the Universe.' He stepped back and again levelled his gun at the Doctor. 'What is your decision? - to accept my generous offer, or instant death?'

'
There will be no decision.
'

The voice came from the furnace. Both the Doctor and the Master whirled round to look as the hatch slowly opened. Floating up from the flames was the Guardian. It pointed a finger at the Master's gun and instantly he dropped the gun and grabbed at his burnt hand. The gun turned white with heat where it lay on the floor, then melted.

'There will be no decision,' the Guardian repeated, 'because now you most both account to me. Do not try to run away. For you, there is no escape.'

Caldwell shone a strong torch on to the face of rock at the end of the trail. 'They took you through this rock?'

'It opens somehow,' said Jo. 'But I don't know how.'

'Maybe we've found the wrong section of rock,' said Caldwell .

'No, it was definitely here. Anyway, look at all these footprints.' From the spill of light from Caldwell 's torch Jo could see many footprints all around them.

Caldwell shone the torch on to the ground, and scratched his chin. 'Yes, you're right. Some of them seem to lead straight into the rock. How about looking round for another entrance somewhere?'

Jo didn't like this idea because there was no certainty of ever finding another way into the Primitives' city. But she didn't want to disagree with Caldwell too much in case he decided to get back on to the buggy and return to the IMC ship. 'All right,' she said, 'so long as we find the Doctor.'

They got back onto the buggy. Caldwell was just about to start it when the rock began to open. Jo exclaimed, 'Look!' But Caldwell was already off the buggy and hurrying round to stand flat against the rock next to where it was opening. The rock door continued to open and a Primitive stepped out. Caldwell edged along the rock, then clenched his right fist, raised it, and brought it down like a hammer on the back of the Primitive's head. The Primitive fell forward, sprawling in the dust.