Doctor Who: Ribos Operation (2 page)

‘Feeling better, old girl?’ he murmured, anxiously checking
the TARDIS’s rapidly reviving systems. ‘You must have had
quite a shock...’ Just then he noticed that K9’s eyes were glowing
fiercely and his antennae whirring agitatedly from side to side.
‘Whatever’s the matter with you, K9?’ he cried.

‘Master: an alien presence has been detected, proximity...’
K9 began to rasp.

‘Oh, it’s quite all right,’ the Doctor interrupted, ‘harmless
old character. I had a drink with him. He gave us a job.’

‘Correction, master,’ K9 retorted. ‘The alien is...’

‘Quiet, or I’ll close you down,’ the Doctor ordered,
engrossed in his work at the console. ‘How can I be expected to
tackle this unexpected assignment unless I am left in peace?’

At that moment one of the inner doors opened soundlessly.

‘I am here to assist you, Doctor,’ said a soft, musical voice
which seemed to come from nowhere. The hem of a long white
robe made of a silken material floated into the Doctor’s field of
vision. He looked up sharply and found himself face to face with
a tall, aristocratic woman dressed entirely in white. Her dark
hair was parted in the centre and swept back, falling in long
curls on each side of her finely chiselled, almost Grecian face.
Her eyebrows arched as she fixed the Doctor with pale,
unblinking eyes fringed with delicately curved lashes. ‘I am
Romanadvoratrelundar,’ she announced after a considerable
pause.

‘Well, my dear, I’m sorry but I really cannot be held
responsible for everything,’ the Doctor replied, shaking his head
sympathetically and turning back to the control console.

Suddenly he straightened up again and thrust his face into
that of the strange newcomer. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

K9 gave a brief whirr: ‘Female humanoid, almost certainly
harmless,’ he announced.

‘I am Romanadvora...’ the stranger began patiently.

‘Yes, I know all about your misfortunes,’ the Doctor
interrupted irritably, ‘but who are you?’

The woman walked slowly and majestically round the
console, her long robe flowing gracefully behind her. The
Doctor watched her suspiciously. ‘The Council warned me about
your eccentricity,’ she smiled, ‘so naturally I studied your Bio-Data Record before I considered accepting the assignment...’

‘Oh, you were actually given a choice in the matter,’ the
Doctor muttered resentfully under his breath.

‘... as your assistant.’

The Doctor’s face darkened dangerously. He hunched his
broad shoulders almost up to his ears and glowered. ‘My what?’
he rapped, clenching his teeth and gripping the edge of the
console in a frenzy.

Completely undaunted, Romanadvoratrelundar took from
beneath her robe a curious wand-like object. ‘I was instructed to
give you this,’ she smiled. ‘It will be invaluable in our task.’

The Doctor took the device and stared blankly at it for
several seconds. ‘Ah, yes, of course,’ he murmured, ‘absolutely
indispensable, I quite agree.’

‘It is the Locatormutor Core,’ the stranger explained, ‘and
you are holding it upside down.’

Recovering himself, the Doctor shook his head firmly.
‘When you have had as much experience of Time and Space as I
have my dear, you will learn that up and down are concepts of
very little importance,’ he said with a condescending smile. Even
so, he turned the instrument the other way up and studied it
with a puzzled frown.

‘When inserted into your navigation panel the
Locatormutor will indicate the Space-Time Co-ordinates for the
position of each Segment of the Key to Time,’ the stranger
explained in a patronising tone, pointing to a narrow, rough-edged socket cut into the panelling of the console.

The Doctor stared incredulously at the scorched and ragged
hole among the intricate circuitry. ‘Who did that?’ he cried
angrily, patting and stroking the damaged panel with soothing
hands.

‘It was arranged while you were with the Guardian,’
Romanadvoratrelundar replied, with a smile of satisfaction. ‘My
instructions are to be of assistance at all times.’

Furiously the Doctor turned on K9: ‘A fine watch-dog you
are,’ he cried.

The robot’s antennae waved briefly. ‘I repeat: the female
does not appear to be a hazard,’ he said. ‘My radiaprobe assisted
in the operation.’

‘So you’re both in this together, are you?’ the Doctor
muttered, turning back to the console. ‘Never mind, old girl;
we’ll soon get you patched up,’ he murmured, rubbing at the
blackened metal with his sleeve.

‘Doctor, I may be inexperienced but I graduated from the
Academy with Triple Alpha,’ the tall stranger protested.

‘Well, you’ve got a lot to learn about metallo-morpho
technology, haven’t you?’ the Doctor muttered, as he tried to fit
the Locatormutor Core into the uneven edges of the socket
without success.

‘I believe you achieved a Double Gamma... on your third
attempt,’ Romanadvoratrelundar retorted, reaching over and
turning the Doctor’s hand round so that the device clicked
smoothly into place. Immediately it began to bleep in erratic
bursts, glowing faintly with each pulse. White-faced with anger
and frustration, the Doctor turned and stared suspiciously at his
new assistant.

Then he suddenly darted round the console, adjusting
various instruments feverishly until the bleeps settled into a
steady, regular rhythm. ‘Seven seven... eight three... eight six...
nine,’ he murmured as a series of numbers flashed up on the
liquid crystal display in front of him.

‘I will look up those co-ordinates, Doctor,’ said the new
assistant, eagerly unrolling the Galactic Chart which still lay on
the console.

‘Cyrrhenis Minimis,’ the Doctor said, without looking up.

Romanadvoratrelundar let the Chart roll itself up with a
sharp snap. She stared at the Doctor in amazement. ‘That is
scarcely believable,’ she exclaimed. ‘How did you identify those
co-ordinates without even consulting the Chart?’

The Doctor shrugged modestly. ‘just experience,’ he
grinned. ‘Nothing difficult about it. You’ll soon learn.’ He began
to stride round the console, waving his arms and holding forth
in great style. He was enjoying his assistant’s astonishment
immensely.

‘Of course, gadgetry is all very well,’ he went on, ‘but there is
no substitute for sheer mental efficiency, my dear.’ Stopping
beside her, the Doctor glanced quickly round as if making sure
they were not being overheard and whispered, ‘What is going to
he difficult is the conversion of the Segment back into its proper
form once we find it. I don’t suppose you’ve even considered
that.’

‘Not at all difficult, Doctor,’ Romanadvoratrelundar smiled.
‘The Locatormutor Core will perform that function perfectly
adequately.’

The Doctor’s superior smile faded instantly. He backed away
round the control console and busied himself setting the Helmic
Orientator on a course to Cyrrhenis Minimis. ‘You’ll find that it’s
quite impossible to do anything without the correct equipment,’
he said pompously.

There was an awkward silence while the Doctor fiddled with
the navigation circuits, watching out of the corner of his eye as
the unwelcome female intruder wandered about the chamber,
inspecting everything with a coolly critical gaze.

‘Is there anything I can do, Doctor?’ she suddenly asked.

‘I don’t suppose you can make tea?’ the Doctor muttered,
giving the Vortex Primer an impatient thump with his fist. ‘No,
of course not... they never teach you anything useful at the
Academy.’

All at once the Doctor clutched at his head with both hands.
‘See what I mean?’ he cried. ‘Gadgets and gimmickry.... one can
never trust them.’ And he started pacing round and round the
chamber so furiously that even K9 retreated to a safer distance.

‘What is it?’ Romanadvoratrelundar asked anxiously,
hurrying over to the console.

The Doctor flung out an arm and pointed to the
Locatormutor Core bleeping monotonously away in its socket.
‘That magic wand of yours has suddenly changed its mind,’ he
cried. ‘Nine nine... seven five... zero seven... four. The co-ordinates are not the same.’

The new assistant glanced at the liquid crystal Display
showing the changed bearing. ‘There is a perfectly logical
explanation, Doctor,’ she said calmly.

‘Of course there is,’ the Doctor snapped, switching off the
Vortex Primer and aborting the take-off. The TARDIS gave a
brief shudder as the Primer groaned to a stop.

‘It means that no matter what or where it may be—one
thing is certain,’ the Doctor murmured, fixing his assistant with a
penetrating stare, ‘that Segment is on the move!’

In the city of Shurr, the main settlement located in the icy
equatorial wastes of the planet Ribos in the constellation of
Skythra, a fiercely gusting wind hurled flurries of snow across
the rough-hewn parapet of the Citadel Tower. In the dying
greenish light of the planet’s distant cloud-obscured sun, two
shadowy figures suddenly appeared crouching low on the flat
rooftop. They were both huddled in thick shaggy furs which
almost covered their faces. One was bulky and slow, but the
other darted nimbly among the shadows. The larger figure
emerged cautiously from the shelter of the parapet and knelt
down to release the sturdy iron clasps holding the four corners
of a heavy trap-door sunk into the centre of the flat roof. He was
joined by the smaller figure who was dragging a heavy object
tied up in a skin sack. Together they strained to slide the thick
iron plate aside, and eventually it gave with a harsh grating
sound which echoed in the black shaft below.

‘Careful, Unstoffe,’ hissed the bulky figure, ‘if we’re caught
here...’ At that moment a shattering chiming sound rocked the
tower and boomed through the gathering darkness over the
rugged white rooftops of the city—an extensive settlement of
low, rough buildings bordered by undulating wind-swept
tundra.

‘Garron... the Curfew!’ exclaimed the small figure,
frantically fumbling in the sack beside him.

Garron peered down into the shaft which shuddered with
each beat of the gong. Then he turned his round fleshy face with
its small crafty eyes towards the sharp, ferret-like features of his
trembling companion: ‘The moment it stops sounding, Unstoffe,
drop the meat...’ he murmured.

Below the Citadel Tower there was a vaulted chamber
approached by means of a network of low-arched passageways
running through the Citadel. In the centre of this chamber
stood a massive wooden-framed cabinet with glass sides which
contained the Sacred Relics of Ribos: an enormous jewelled
crown, sceptres studded with precious stones, dazzling rings and
ornaments, and ceremonial robes embroidered with rare metals.
Lit by a single globe above, the sacred treasures cast piercing
shafts of multicoloured light into the surrounding gloom.

In front of the cabinet the Captain of the Shrieve Guard
stood with bowed head in obeisance to the holy objects, while
half a dozen of his men completed the nightly ritual of
extinguishing the other oil-globes hanging between the thick
stone pillars supporting the roof. Then, as the chamber
darkened and the booming vibration of the Curfew Gong rattled
the glass panels in the cabinet, the Shrieves formed up on each
side of their Captain and paid their respects. When the last
strokes of the gong had died away, the Shrieves filed out of the
Relic Chamber in silence. The Captain followed, walking
backwards so that he always faced the sacred display, and then
personally secured the massive wooden doors, sealing the
chamber for the night. As soon as the locks had clattered home,
two burly Shrieves began to turn the heavy iron winch-handle
they had inserted into a socket in the chamber wall.

Inside the chamber a rectangular section of wall began to
slide very slowly upwards. As the gap between its lower edge and
the flagstone floor gradually increased, a stentorian breathing
burst out of the darkness beyond the stone shutter. As the slab
rose higher and higher the monstrous panting grew louder and
nearer. Outside, the sweating Shrieves withdrew the handle after
several dozen turns, and the Captain led his squad of Guards
away, having posted a sentry beside the doors.

With a screeching shower of sparks an enormous pincered
claw suddenly thrust itself under the raised shutter and began to
scratch greedily away at the floor of the chamber. Then an
angry, giant shape appeared in the rectangular opening, rearing
and hissing in the semi-darkness...

Garron and Unstoffe crouched in the driving snow up on the
tower roof, their numb bodies jarred by the tremors of the huge
gong suspended somewhere below them. As soon as it was
completely silent, Unstoffe pushed the hunk of raw, dripping
meat over the edge of the trap. They listened as it thudded
against the sides of the dark shaft and finally landed on the
flagstones thirty metres below.

‘Now the ladder,’ Garron murmured, peering down into the
blackness.

Unstoffe pulled a long rope-ladder from his sack and fixed
the grapple-hook at one end onto the raised rim around the
trap. ‘We’d better give it a bit longer,’ he whispered anxiously.

At that moment a raucous bellow erupted out of the shaft
into their faces. Unstoffe all but pitched forward into the gaping
hole in front of him. Garron seized his arm just in time and held
him back. They cowered precariously on the edge of the trap,
transfixed by the hoarse snarls and unearthly panting sounds
echoing inside the shaft.

‘You want me to go down there?’ Unstoffe finally managed to
gasp with chattering teeth and bone-dry throat.

‘Stop worrying, my boy,’ Garron rapped in a menacing tone,
tightening his grip on Unstoffe’s arm and tattered fur collar.
‘We’ll give it a few minutes.’

Soon the monstrous sounds began to subside, and the only
noise came from Unstoffe’s rattling teeth and the relentless
whine of the wind across the steppes.