Doctor Who_ The Dominators Part 15

Everyone looked blank.

'Negative ma.s.s flux absorption,' the Doctor cried, glancing triumphantly around him.

'What?' Jamie gasped.

'They suck up the radiation, store it and then convert it into propulsion?' Zoe speculated.

The Doctor beamed at her. 'Precisely, Zoe.' He turned to the Dulcians. 'Remember how all the radioactivity disappeared from the Island as soon as the saucer arrived?'

Kando and Teel nodded and a glimmer of understanding flickered between them.

Jam s speechless for a moment. 'So, why are they doing all that drilling out there?' he suddenly blurted out, in a burst of frustrated desperation.

'Can't imagine why no one's asked me that before!' the Doctor cried, fumbling in his pockets and unearthing a broken stick of chalk. Then he rushed over to the wall and started drawing feverishly. 'Four deep holes...' he said, marking out the corners of a square with little crosses.

'Another deep hole the one outside here ' he announced, putting a small star at the centre of the square.

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder at the semicircle of puzzled faces staring intently at his sketch. 'Now, a rocket is fired down each of the four corner holes which all meet at a point far below the surface...' Turning back to the wall, the Doctor quickly drew a side view, showing the four angled shafts intersecting exactly below the fifth one. Once again the Doctor glanced round at his audience. 'My guess is that they intend to drop that seeding device - the thing we saw the saucer, Zoe down the fifth hole... Simple really, isn't it!'

Jame nodded. 'Aye,' he mumbled.

'Well, don't you see?' cried the Doctor. 'They're going to fire the rockets through the planet's crust which is very thin just here on the Island and into the magma.'

'But that could cause a volcano,' Zoe interrupted.

'Exactly, Zoe.'

'And if they explode the seed device in the middle of it...'

'... then the planet will become a vast ma.s.s of molten radioactive material,' the Doctor concluded. 'If their calculations are correct, a vast fuel source at exactly the right particle density and energy flux.'

Turning back to the wall, the Doctor added the trajectories of the rockets and the seeding trigger and then with violent swirls of chalk drew a colossal explosion. He stared at his handiwork in silence for a moment. When he turned round again, the otters were looking at him as if expecting some word of comfort or advice. He smiled bleakly, shrugged, sighed, and srarecl at his fingernails.

'Aye, well we'll just have to stop them, won't we?' Jamie said at last.

The Doctor agreed. There was another long silence, broken only by the sickening vibration caused by the throbbing rig outside. Zoe began to imagine she could almost feel the planet shuddering in horror at its approaching fate.

The Doctor realised that everyone was waiting for him.

'Yes, well, that's easier said than done, Jamie...' he fl.u.s.tered. 'Perhaps if we could somehow get hold of that seeding trigger.. ' He sat on a bunk and stared at his diagrams, hunched with concentration.

Suddenly Jane jumped up. 'Hey, Doctor...'

'Please, Jame, I am trying to think.'

'Aye, but I think I know how...'

'Jamie!' Zoe snapped irritably.

The impetuous young Sent grabbed Kully's arm.

'Listen, I know how can get hold of this atomic seed thing.'

'Oh really, Jamie?' exclaimed Zoe with a sarcastic smile.

Jamie rounded on her. 'The Doctor said they were going to drop it down that hole outside...'

'Indeed I did,' agreed the Doctor absently.

'Aye, well, it's simple. We dig a tunnel from here out to their shaft and catch the wee thing on its way down!'

Zoe turned eagerly to the Doctor. He remained staring silently into s.p.a.ce, and still, like a Buddha.

'Och well, it was just a thought...' Jamie trailed glumly into silence.

All at once the Doctor sprang to his feet. 'Just a thought.

And so simple, Jamie, only you could have thought it!' He seized Jamie's hand and pumped it enthusiastically up and down.

Jamie grinned sheepishly, as if uncertain whether to regard this as a compliment.

'We could use the periscope,' Zoe suggested. 'Just line it up on the drill and that's the direction...'

The Doctor held up his hand. 'There's one little snag.

Our tunnel will have to be quite a few metres long and we haven't much time.'

'But the sandstone should be reasonably soft,' Zoe pointed out.

'And Kully and I can slow those Dominators down a wee bit,' Jamie laughed, flinging his arm round the Dulcian's shoulders.

Kully nodded eagerly. 'We are experts at sabotaging Quarks,' he reminded them.

The Doctor looked serious. 'You've both been very lucky so far,' he warned them. 'Now if we could only devise some kind of weapon for you...'

'Weapon?' Kully echoed, glancing at Kando and Teel.

They smiled and nodded encouragement. 'There's nothing down here except out-of-date rations and medical kits.'

'Medical kits!' cried the Doctor. 'The very thing. It's surprising what one can achieve with a few simple chemicals. See what you can find, Kully.'

While Kully searched through the lockers beneath the bunks, the Doctor led Zoe and Jamie over to the periscope.

'We must establish the direction for our tunnel very accurately,' he advised, as Zoe raised the tube and peered into the smoked-gla.s.s binocular, sighting it as best she could on the incandescent glare of the flas.h.i.+ng rig.

'That's the bearing...' she said at last, blinking and ma.s.saging her watering eyes.

'Righto, Zoe.' The Doctor squinted at right angles to the alignment of the periscope's handles and then marked a point n the wall of the shelter with his chalk. 'We'll have to move this bunk first though.'

As soon as they had cleared the s.p.a.ce, the Doctor carefully drew a large circle around his chalk mark. Jamie could hardly wait to start chipping away at the concrete with his dirk, but for all his enthusiasm, the sharp blade screeched and skidded uselessly across the hard surface.

'I think perhaps I had better start you off...' the Doctor chuckled, groping in his pockets and finally producing a strange object like a slim torch with a bulbous end and with various itches along its casing.

Jamie snorted scornfully: 'Och, how are ye going to dig a tunnel wi'a screwdriver?' he demanded.

The Doctor looked indignant. 'This not merely a sonic screwdriver, Jamie...' he retorted, adjusting several switches and then pointing the device at the wall at arm's length. 'Now... watch...'

Everyone looked on astonishment as the Doctor's gadget emitted a powerful warbling sound. All at once, in the centre of the chalk circle, the solid concrete seemed to soften and then melt and finally to evaporate before their eyes.

In no time at all the Doctor bored a large hole right through the shelter wall to the sandstone beyond. Then he left the others to take over the tunnelling and turned his attention to the contents of the medical kits which Kully had unearthed in the lockers.

While Jamie, Kully, Kando and even Teel worked like beavers digging into the softish ground, Zoe helped the Doctor to measure and mix various combinations of chemicals in a number of small phials. Some of the mixtures frothed violently, changed colour threateningly and gave off clouds of evil-smelling vapour. But the Doctor seemed oblivious of any hazards, hunched over his task and muttering to himself like some mediaeval alchemist in his den.

Eventually Jamie grew impatient. 'Doctor, I don't think we can wait any longer...' he said, crawing backwards out of the growing hole and brus.h.i.+ng the sand our of his hair.

'Hang on, Jamie,' the Doctor muttered, carefully pouring a little of each mixture into a test-tube. He shook the foul liquid until it suddenly went colourless. like water.

'If this works, you'll not only be able to distract the Quarks, you'll most likely blow them to smithereens. Let's try it out shall we?'

'In here?' Zoe exclaimed in alarm_ The Doctor grinned rea.s.suringly. 'Just a tiny quant.i.ty.'

He took a little silver pill from a bottle and held it poised over the mouth of the test-tube. 'Now, Jamie, just add one of these pills to the mixture before you throw it. Like this...'

The Doctor popped the pill into the tube and stuck a small cork in the end. 'Don't forget Jamie, you must throw it before ten seconds have elapsed, otherwise...'

'Six... seven... eight... Doctor!' Zoe shrieked.

With a start the Doctor flung the phial over his shoulder. There was a blue flash and a brief roar as it exploded under of the bunks behind them. The Doctor grinned as everybody jumped in fright.

'It works!' he cried, hugging Zoe ecstatically.

'Och, ye could have blown us all tae bits,' Jamie gasped, pale as milk.

The Doctor shook his head. 'That was nothing. With ten times as much in each tube you'll have quite an effective armoury...'

All of a sudden there was total silence. Everybody listened. Then they all turned to the Doctor. He was looking suddenly haggard. The drilling had stopped.

It seemed that their last chance was to be denied them after all.

10.

Desperate Remedies Jamie and Kully were soon edging their way out of the back of the ruin and scrambling up the cliff between two bluffs which afforded some cover from the drilling site.

Their mission to create a diversion had now become one of interception. They must prevent the seeding trigger from reaching the centre bore target.

Armed with the phials of colourless liquid and the box of tiny pills, they followed the meandering cliff-edge in the direction of the saucer until they reached one of the perimeter sites guarded by two silent and motionless Quarks below them. They crouched at the edge. Jamie held out a phial and nodded. Kully dropped in a silver pill and began counting while Jamie jammed in the cork. Then Jamie hurled the bomb as far as he could and they both flattened themselves and waited.

'Seven... eight... nine...' Kully muttered.

There was a brilliant blue flash and a huge bang. They craned over the edge to see one of the robots marching spasmodically round and round in circles, jerking its probes and its antennae, while its distress signal blurted out in strangled metallic rasps.

Jame frowned. 'Not quite enough.' He held out another phial, Kully popped in a pill, Jamie corked the tube and flung it.

There was another explosion. This time fragments of metal flew up in the air together with a fountain of sand.

Again Kully and Jamie peered down. One Quark was scattered in pieces over the dunes. The other was wheeling crazily round on the spot, squeaking and grating with smoke pouring out of its head, its antennae hanging like rotten leaves.

'This is fun,' Jamie grinned.

'Let's do some more,' Kully agreed.

They scrambled up and followed the clifftop until they eventually reached another of the perimeter sites. As before, two silent Quarks were guarding it 'This is just a wee bit too easy,' Jamie chuckled as they prepared another bomb.

Kully popped in the silver pill. 'As easy as one... two...'

Toba was making final depth-soundings on the centre bore when he suddenly heard distant explosions and then the Quarks' feeble distress signals. Spitting with fury, he was about order the two Quarks to disconnect from the rig and to hunt down and destroy the alien attackers, when he remembered Rago's warning. Grinding his flinty teeth in frustration, he prepared to resume drilling.

At that moment, Rago appeared from the direction of the saucer. The expression on the Navigator's face sent a chilly spasm through Toba's ma.s.sive frame.

'More Quarks have been destroyed or incapacitated,'

stormed Rago accusingly.

Toba allowed himself an ironic smile. 'You should have permitted me to destroy the primitives.'

'Silence!' Rago thundered. 'We now have only eight operational Quarks. Power levels are minimal. Report reserve status,' he ordered, turning to the Quarks.

'Two units,' bleated one.