Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace (5 page)

‘But how did you find this place?’ asked the Doctor.

‘I had long suspected its existence. The legends of nearby islands told of a once mighty kingdom now buried beneath the sea. I came here where I knew I could continue my research in peace, free from the interference of my fellow scientists above ground.’

‘But how did you get them to accept you?’ The Doctor wanted to know. ‘Surely science is in opposition to ancient temple ritual and idol worship.’

‘The Atlanteans needed me. When I arrived here they depended for their food on the few animals living on the surface and the fish which you as a scientist know are rare at these great depths. I developed the means of extracting plankton from the sea and, at a stroke, solved their perennial food shortages. They are right to be grateful to me; they owe me their lives.’

‘But surely that’s not all?’ pressed the Doctor. Why did he have this feeling that Zaroff was hiding something from him?

‘Their society was stagnating; it had hardly advanced since its disappearance over three thousand years ago. I brought with me all the benefits of modern science: electricity, penicillin. I trained their thinkers and philosophers, taught them that the ways of science far outstretch the narrow path of superstition and ignorance.

In return they gave me all the facilities I need to pursue my research.’

Zaroff paused a moment and considered the Doctor, debating whether he could trust his great secret to this scruffy little fellow with the brilliant eyes. Finally he said:

‘And I also gave them a rather large sugar-coated pill.’

The Doctor’s eyebrows arched with interest. Just at that moment one of the technicians working in the laboratory interrupted their conversation and handed Zaroff a slim sheaf of notes. The scientist glanced over them and then turned apologetically to the Doctor. ‘There is a slight problem in one of the power generators, Doctor. Please feel free to look around my laboratory while I attend to it.’

As Zaroff and the technician moved away, Ara, who had made her way to the lab and had been standing in the doorway awaiting her chance, approached the Doctor. The Doctor, noticing her worried expression, asked her what was wrong.

‘It’s the girl –your friend,’ she whispered, fearful lest Zaroff should hear her. ‘They’re going to carry out the fish operation on her.’

‘Fish?’ asked the Doctor and remembered the Fish People he had seen swimming outside. He looked quickly around the laboratory. Zaroff was deep in conversation at the far end of the room. ‘Ara, do you know where the main fuses are?’

‘Fuses?’ Ara did not understand – a fact the Doctor noted with interest.

‘Never mind... Go back to Polly and if the chance comes get her away.’

Ara nodded. ‘But what will you do?’

‘Well, Zaroff did say I was to look around the laboratory, didn’t he? Now hurry!’

As Ara left the room the Doctor sauntered as casually as he could over to the banks of machinery lining the wall.

Frantically he began to examine them; if he was to save Polly he would have to act quickly.

In the clinic to which she had been brought Polly was fighting for her life – her human life at least. She had been strapped to an operating table by two burly male nurses while Damon hovered over her. He was trying to inject her with a large syringe, but Polly’s struggles and refusal to remain still for even a second were making his task almost impossible.

‘Don’t be difficult, girl!’ he snapped and ordered the two nurses to try and hold her down. ‘It’s quite painless; you won’t feel a thing.’

Polly remembered that that was exactly what the school doctor had said to her when she was seven and was being vaccinated against polio; he had been lying too. She responded to Damon just as she did to the school doctor: she screamed.

Damon winced as Polly’s decibels threatened to pierce his eardrums. ‘One tiny jab and you’ll know no more about it until it’s all over,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘This will hurt me more than it will hurt you...’

Polly screamed again and kicked savagely with her free legs at the two nurses at the foot of the operating table.

Suddenly the overhead electric light flickered and then went out; the whole operating theatre was plunged into semi-darkness. Damon cursed under his breath.

‘Not again,’ he complained. These power failures were becoming more and more frequent and increasingly irksome. ‘How am I supposed to work in conditions like these?’ He threw down the syringe onto a nearby worktop in disgust, and angrily pulled off his surgical gloves and mask. ‘Look after the girl,’ he instructed the nurses. ‘I’ll go and speak to Zaroff myself. Perhaps he’ll listen to me.’

And with that Damon stalked out of the clinic, leaving Polly and the two nurses alone in the darkness.

‘Do you like my laboratory, Doctor?’

The Doctor spun round from the control panel he had been examining. There was a guilty expression on his face like that of a naughty schoolboy caught stealing apples.

Zaroff eyed him suspiciously.

‘Er – I beg your pardon?’

‘My laboratory,’ repeated Zaroff. ‘You find it all very impressive, yes?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No, not a bit.’

Zaroff frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked coldly.

‘I expected no less of the great Professor Zaroff,’ the Doctor said slyly.

Zaroffs mouth widened into a large toothy grin as the Doctor’s flattery had its desired effect. ‘Yes, I have come a long way in my research,’ he boasted. ‘And luckily the riches of Atlantis and its ample mineral supplies have provided ample means... But enough of this talk. I would like you to meet a friend of mine. Come.’

He led the Doctor across the floor of the laboratory.

There at the far end of the room in a huge water-filled glass tank was the largest octopus the Doctor had seen in his life.

He watched on in amazement as Zaroff tapped the glass, just as if he might have been patting a pet dog.

‘So you’re hungry today, Neptune?’ he said to his bizarre pet. ‘Did we forget to feed you?’ He turned back to the Doctor. ‘He is beautiful, isn’t he?’

‘Oh yes indeed,’ muttered the Doctor, hoping he sounded sincere. For his part he had always preferred cats.

‘Yes, and he will never betray me,’ Zaroff went on, almost talking to himself. ‘Not like those in the world above.’

The Doctor was about to ask Zaroff to explain that last remark when Damon stormed into the room. ‘Professor –’

he began.

Zaroff waved him away. ‘Not now, Damon,’ he said wearily. ‘Can’t you see I’m talking to my friend here?’

But Damon was not to be dissuaded now. ‘I cannot wait, Professor. If I’m to operate on the girl I must have light.’

‘One operation on one girl. You are making an unnecessary fuss, Damon.’

‘I know what’s going on,’ the surgeon claimed indignantly. ‘You’re using so much power on the Project that all civil use is being curtailed.’

‘Ridiculous!’ snapped Zaroff and for a moment Damon thought he had gone too far. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the civil supply. The supply for your clinic is always adequate. The fault must lie at your own intake.’

‘Professor Zaroff, there is nothing wrong with my intake,’ insisted Damon. ‘All power is controlled from your laboratory. The fault must be here.’

‘Very well then. If you will not take my word for it perhaps you will accept the evidence of your own eyes. Let us check the power controls.’

In the clinic the two nurses were becoming impatient of waiting for the return of Damon and the lighting. On the operating table Polly’s constant whimperings were also beginning to get on their nerves.

‘Zaroff isn’t going to listen to him,’ one said to his colleague. ‘We’d better get some lights from somewhere else.’

‘There are some torches in the old quarters,’ his friend said.

‘Right then, that’s where we’ll go.’ He looked at Polly on the table. ‘Don’t worry, prisoner, we won’t keep you for long.’ They left the room, leaving Polly alone in the blackness.

For some minutes the operating theatre was quiet, except for Polly’s sobbing. Then:

‘Girl?’

Polly sniffed. ‘What? Who’s there?’ She felt a hand touch hers gently and then unfasten the leather straps which held her to the table.

‘Don’t say anything. Just get up and follow me,’ Ara said as she helped Polly to her feet.

‘I can’t see anything,’ said Polly.

‘Hold my hand,’ said Ara. ‘I’m used to the dark. Now hurry before they get back.’

‘Oh dear, I can’t think how I came to be so clumsy,’ said the Doctor innocently. ‘I must have bumped into it or something. I really am most dreadfully sorry.. The Doctor, Zaroff and Damon were standing before the control board which regulated the flow of power to the different areas of Atlantis; it was the same panel the Doctor had been

‘examining’ when Zaroff had interrupted him. The control which supplied the power to Damon’s clinic was firmly switched off.

‘You’re not clumsy, Doctor,’ said Damon. ‘You did it on purpose. But you won’t save the girl.’

Zaroff reached out and switched the power back on.

‘Return to your work, Damon,’ he instructed. ‘I shall look after the Doctor.’

Damon gave the Doctor an angry look and left the laboratory.

‘I think you should remain here with me, Doctor,’ said Zaroff flatly.

‘As your prisoner?’

Zaroff smiled coldly. ‘Let us say as my guest.. The tone was congenial but the threat was there. ‘Do not concern yourself about Damon and his accusation. He is just an Atlantean, a primitive. He is clever, but he has no vision.’

He regarded the Doctor with suspicion. ‘But you, Doctor, what exactly are you? You’re either a fool or a genius.

Which is it?’

The Doctor wisely declined to answer; he wasn’t too sure himself. He changed the subject. ‘Professor, you said before that you had offered these people a very big sugar-coated pill to make them accept you here...’

Zaroff nodded. ‘I have used their dreams and prophesies to my own ends,’ he revealed.

The Doctor paused to think and then said, ‘The dreams of a people living on a drowned continent must mean –’

‘– to lift Atlantis from the sea and make it dry land again.’ Zaroff completed the sentence for him.

‘Exactly!’ The Doctor clapped his hands with satisfaction. ‘But when the city was drowned why didn’t the Atlanteans simply rebuild their city above ground on the island?’

‘They are a superstitious people, Doctor,’ said Zaroff.

‘They have an illogical attachment to their land, to the ruined temples you see about you. As I said, they are a primitive people.’

‘But how are you going to raise Atlantis out of the sea?’

asked the Doctor and then quickly added: ‘Even a genius like you?’

Zaroff smiled. He was enjoying the Doctor’s interest and flattery enormously. ‘It is simple, my friend, the simplest thing in the world.’

‘It’s a very large mass to lift, Professor.’

Zaroff agreed. ‘If I can’t lift it, I must lower the water-level.’

The Doctor still couldn’t follow Zaroff s reasoning. ‘But you haven’t got a drain big enough to take an entire ocean,’

he pointed out.

‘Then I will make one,’ Zaroff said simply.

The Doctor scratched his head. ‘Forgive me, Professor, but I am a little lost. The crust of the Earth is over one hundred miles thick. Below that there is believed to be a white-hot molten core. Where is your ocean to go?’

Zaroff smirked. ‘That is my secret, Doctor,’ he teased.

‘Now you’re making fun of me, Professor,’ the Doctor reproved.

‘Not at all.’

‘Even if you could drill down to the depth of a hundred miles –’

‘There is a place where a fissure reduces the distance to less then fifteen miles,’ interrupted Zaroff.

‘Even so, Professor, it’s still an enormous distance...’

‘But not insurmountable,’ said Zaroff. ‘We have been working on the Project for many years now. We are almost at penetration point.’

The Doctor was silent for a moment, partly marvelling at Zaroffs amazing technological abilities, and partly trying to weigh up the consequences of his actions. Finally he said, ‘But Professor, even supposing you succeed, do you realise what will happen?’

Zaroff chuckled. ‘You tell me, Doctor,’ he challenged.

‘If you drain off the ocean into the core of the Earth the water will be converted into steam... the pressure will grow and crack the crust of the planet, causing unimaginable chaos and destruction – maybe it will even blow up the entire planet..

Zaroff s face beamed. ‘And I shall have fulfilled my promise to lift Atlantis from the sea. I shall lift it up to the sky!’ His eyes glazed over with a visionary zeal, and his voice rose to a fevered pitch. ‘It will be a magnificent spectacle! Bang! Bang! Bang!’

The Doctor laid a gentle hand on Zaroffs shoulder. ‘Just one small thing,’ he said softly. ‘Why do you want to destroy the world?’

Zaroff was taken aback. ‘Why? You, a scientist, ask me why?’

‘Tell me, Zaroff.’

‘The achievement, my dear Doctor.’ Zaroff almost chanted the words like a prayer. ‘The destruction of the world – the scientist’s dream of supreme power!’

With a mixture of pity and horror the Doctor watched Zaroff as he paced about his laboratory. Professor Hermann Zaroff was beyond all doubt one of the greatest scientific brains the world had ever known. He was also totally and irretrievably insane.

4

After their interview by the Labour Controller Ben and Jamie had been escorted by the jackbooted guards down to the mines of Atlantis. Here in the lowest level of the vast underground domain workers toiled away with pickaxes and antiquated drilling equipment at the rich seams of coal and other minerals needed to fuel the new technology Zaroff had introduced into Atlantis. Above the noise of the mining equipment and generators and the rattle of the coal trucks as they moved along their rails was another deeper, more sonorous sound. It seemed to make even the walls shake with its vibration. Ben had nightmare visions of the entire roof, which was supported only by wooden beams, crashing down on them.