Doctor Who: Sontaran Experiment (12 page)

Just as Harry threw up his arms in a futile attempt to shield himself, there was a high-pitched whine which nearly burst his ear-drums. The robot stopped in mid-swoop and disintegrated into a cloud of small fragments which showered over him like hailstones.

Staggering to his feet in amazement, Harry saw the determined figure of Sarah Jane astride a rock, holding out the sonic-screwdriver with both hands at arm’s length, her body still trembling from the sonic vibrations.

‘Bullseye, old thing,’ he waved, and scrambled towards her, flourishing the panel in triumph.

Seconds later, Sarah, Harry and the two Galsec crewmen were huddled together among the rocks at the foot of the ridge, staring out at the huge sphere glinting in the late evening sun. The successful completion of Harry’s mission was totally overshadowed by the news of the Doctor’s fate in the ravine. No one spoke as they watched and waited, to see what would happen.

A long time passed before they began to notice that the ground was trembling beneath them—as if some extinct volcano were gradually becoming active again and preparing to erupt.

‘It is possible...’ Harry insisted, recalling the hot bubbling chambers he had discovered in the underground maze of tunnels.

‘Look,’ cried Sarah, suddenly pointing to the enormous globe: its whole surface was shuddering and bulging as if from some colossal pressure building up inside. Thin wisps of white vapour began to seep out all over the dimpled sphere, as if from thousands of small holes. As they watched, the vapour grew steadily thicker, and started to stream out in long, thin jets. The air surrounding the spacecraft was crackling as if charged with some kind of static electricity, and the sphere began to swell and shake like a vast wobbling balloon.

‘It’s getting
bigger
...’ Sarah cried incredulously.

‘Of course it is,’ bellowed a voice behind them, ‘and if you don’t come back out of the way at once you’ll be...’ The rest of the sentence was lost in a roaring wind which abruptly sprang up around them, swirling round the spacecraft like a maelstrom.

The Doctor was standing astride the ridge above them, his scarf-ends streaming almost horizontally, clutching his hat to his head with both hands. Krans and Erak looked stunned. Sarah gaped, speechless, at the figure of the Doctor as if it were an apparition. She was unable to move.

‘Come on... quick,’ Harry yelled, grabbing her by the arm and starting to drag her up the steep slope towards the ridge. Krans and Erak followed close behind. As they climbed, with the gusting whirlwind tearing at their bodies and the rocks vibrating under them like a giant drum, Sarah Jane continued to stare disbelievingly at the figure silhouetted against the skyline, her lips silently forming the word ‘Docter...’ over and over again. When they were about ten metres from the summit, a tremendous hissing and gasping which drowned the wind made them look back.

Styr stood in the hatchway of the spacecraft, enveloped in smoke and sparks. His gigantic frame had doubled in size. His eyes were two roaring jets of fire—like blow-torches—and a thick oily froth poured from his cavernous, red mouth and flew sizzling through the shrieking air. His vicious talons made useless, crippled, grabbing gestures towards them as they scrambled up the last few metres and threw themselves face down on the ridge beside the Doctor, their arms covering their heads.

‘It’s all right,’ the Doctor shouted, staring intently over the summit of the ridge and into the hollow below. ‘You can all watch... but keep well down.’

One by one his companions raised their heads and peered over. Styr had stopped at the foot of the ramp. He was now almost three times his original size, his vast body glowing white hot. They could almost feel the heat on their faces as he turned his roaring eyes upon them.

Sarah shuddered as she stared transfixed at the swelling monster. ‘It’s all gone wrong... it’s a mistake...’ she muttered. ‘The Doctor’s creating a giant...it’ll be unstoppable.’ She tore her gaze away and glanced across at the Doctor. He was observing the fantastic scene below with an expression that was half frown, half smile. Sarah tried to scream something at him, but the wind snatched away her words. At last she caught the Doctor’s eye. He gave the thumbs-up sign and nodded towards the hollow.

As Sarah turned back her head, the air was filled with an extraordinary sound which began as a deafening roar, and was transformed into an unearthly sighing as it gradually became recognisable as speech, ‘Huumaaans... you caannot escaaaaa...’

The whirlwind seemed to be sucked back into the Sontaran’s massive, rubbery lungs. The five onlookers clung tightly to the rocks to prevent themselves from being drawn into the shrieking vortex spinning into Styr’s gaping mouth. Before their astonished eyes, the Sontaran and his spacecraft began to shrink like rapidly deflating balloons.

In less than a minute, all that remained of them was two congealed heaps of smouldering and wrinkled metal. A tall column of smoke hung over the debris, curling into the still and silent air.

After a long pause, the Doctor stood up.

‘Congratulations, Harry,’ he smiled. ‘A highly successful experiment—and it was all thanks to you.’

‘Don’t tell me I actually managed to do something right for a change,’ Harry muttered, embarrassed but pleased as well.

The Doctor pointed to the panel Harry was still clutching. ‘My dear Lieutenant Sullivan, you stole the Catalyser Filter Programme,’ the Doctor went on, grinning broadly at the blank looks of his four companions. ‘You see, when Styr plugged himself in to re-energise, the Nucleo-Enzymosis Reactions were accelerated randomly, thus leading to a catastrophic hyper-expansion of the Metabolic Fields... when this reached Criticality, the Molecular Structures could no longer support themselves...’

‘Absolutely,’ Harry nodded, looking round at the others.

Sarah flung her arms round the Doctor and hugged him, her face one enormous and brilliant smile. ‘Thank goodness you’re safe, Doctor,’ she cried.

The Doctor looked puzzled. ‘Why shouldn’t I be, Sarah?’ he asked.

‘That fall...’ Erak put in, indicating the deep ravine behind them.

‘My fault entirely,’ the Doctor grinned, taking out the empty hip-flask. ‘I didn’t pour Styr a generous enough dram.’

‘A generous enough
what
?’ said Sarah in amazement.

‘Glenlivet,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Since Terullian dissolves in alcohol, I thought, why not? Shocking waste of good Scotch though it is.’

‘You mean to say that you made Styr drunk?’ Sarah asked with an incredulous chuckle.

‘Well, a little tipsy, Sarah, and extremely uncomfortable,’ the Doctor replied.

‘But I still don’t understand, Doctor,’ Sarah continued, with a puzzled glance at the precipitous drop beside them.

‘Why weren’t you killed when Styr threw you into the ravine?’

‘Yes, I thought you might be wondering about that,’ the Doctor smiled. ‘It was all thanks to this.’ He rummaged in one of his inside pockets and carefully took out the small piece of Terullian alloy, gripping it tightly with both hands.

‘
That
?’ cried Sarah, frowning in disbelief. ‘How on earth could
that
have saved you?’

The Doctor grinned mischievously at the four sceptical faces around him, obviously relishing their confusion.

‘This is a fragment of the Scavenger’s levitation system,’

he explained, ‘which works on much the same principle as the gravity bar. Now, when I poured Styr that wee dram, a drop or two must have got into his control unit and, by a stroke of good fortune, reversed the polarity of the graviton fields in this little thing.’

The others stared blankly at the insignificant-looking scrap of metal the Doctor was holding up in front of them.

‘So?’ Sarah said, after a pause.

‘Well, it’s obvious,’ cried the Doctor. ‘This little fragment suddenly acquired an intense dislike for the Earth’s gravitational attraction and did its best to escape.

Since it was trapped in my pocket, it slowed me down and broke my fall. Simple really.’

‘Let’s have a look,’ Sarah demanded, after a stunned silence.

‘Are you sure you want to, Sarah?’ the Doctor warned.

Sarah held out her hand. No sooner had the Doctor placed the scrap of Terullian carefully in Sarah’s palm, than there was a flash and a sizzling as something flew past their faces.

‘Where is it?’ Sarah cried, staring at her empty hand.

The Doctor pointed up into the sky with a long, bony finger.

‘Somewhere up there,’ he laughed. ‘But it’s no good looking for it now. It’s gone for ever.’

The whole sky was aglow as the giant disc of the sun sank towards the horizon.

‘Come along, everyone,’ the Doctor called, setting off down the ridge at a cracking pace. ‘How time flies: we must hurry...’

‘What about this invasion that’s supposed to be happening, Doctor?’ Harry panted as he caught up.

‘All in good time, Harry, all in good time,’ the Doctor muttered as he forged ahead. Just as they reached the foot of the slope, Sarah suddenly stopped dead.

‘Listen,’ she shouted. Everybody halted. A faint but persistent bleeping was coming from among the boulders.

The Doctor rushed over and searched the crevices.

Eventually, he stood up, brandishing Styr’s communicator set. ‘They must have heard you, Harry,’ he grinned. The Sontaran Controller’s raging features glowed brightly on the small display panel.

‘Good evening,’ said the Doctor good-humouredly.

‘What can we do for you?’

The Controller uttered a series of hoarse, incomprehensible gasps, his domed head swelling and filling the panel.

‘Who... ?’ he finally managed to blurt out.

‘You’re getting warm.’ the Doctor grinned. ‘But. I am afraid your little project has no hope of success. I’ve had a look in my diary, and it would seem that your best time to invade the Central Milky Way will be in about—three centuries ago to be exact. Assuming, of course, that you don’t get lost in the Magellanic Clouds. Cheerio.’ The Doctor let the communicator slip from his fingers and smash onto the stones. ‘ “Brinkmanship” I think it’s called,’ he said, with a satisfied glance at his four companions. He set off again with long, loping strides. ‘It’ll soon be dark,’ he called, ‘we haven’t much time...

When at last they reached the circle where the TARDIS

had disappeared, the nine spheres were ablaze with the reflection of the setting sun hanging low in the deep indigo of the sky. Krans and Erak eyed the rudimentary Transmat Installation suspiciously while the Doctor rushed from sphere to sphere trying to complete his adjustments before darkness fell.

Eventually, the Doctor signalled to the others to stand well clear. They all stared anxiously into the centre of the circle and waited. The Doctor flitted from globe to globe, muttering furiously away to himself as he fiddled with the complex mechanisms inside them. At last he stood back with folded arms and stared intently into the circle like an expectant conjuror.

Nothing happened. The TARDIS failed to appear.

‘It’s no good,’ the Doctor murmured, shaking his head and frowning at the nine blazing spheres. ‘It is not going to work, I fear.’

Sarah looked around at the rapidly darkening, barren landscape, where thin gaseous mists were beginning to gather again.

‘Whatever are we going to do without the TARDIS, Doctor?’ she said quietly. The Doctor did not reply, but stood with bowed head, hands thrust deep into his pockets, lost in thought.

‘You’d better come and join us in the cave,’ Erak said after a long pause. ‘We’ve got quite a store of provisions...

and now that there are only two of us left...’ He broke off and glanced across at Krans.

Krans nodded. ‘You saved our lives,’ he growled.

Sarah smiled gratefully and shook her head. ‘Thank you, but we just have to get back to the Terra Nova,’ she replied. ‘Vira and her people are depending on us.’

At that moment the Doctor suddenly sprang into action.

He grabbed the Catalyser Filter Programme Panel which was still tucked under Harry’s arm. ‘Just what I need,’ he cried. ‘Just as well you didn’t throw it away, Harry.’

Harry looked disappointed. ‘But I was going to put that on the mantelpiece next to all my rowing trophies...’ he grumbled.

Sarah gave Harry a sharp prod. ‘If we don’t get the TARDIS back, Harry,’ she hissed, ‘you’ll never see your precious knick-knacks again.’

The Doctor was kneeling among the reeds, busily connecting a bunch of wires he had pulled from inside one of the globes to a series of terminals protruding from the back of the Panel.

‘Never throw
anything
away...’ he murmured as he sonic-soldered the connections. Then he became absorbed in re-setting selected keys among the grid of coloured pyramids covering the front of the Panel.

‘What good is
this
going to do?’ Harry demanded, staring down at the makeshift circuitry surrounding the Doctor.

‘Never you mind, Harry,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘Just don’t tread on it, that’s all.’

After a few last adjustments, the Doctor sprang to his feet. ‘Off we go,’ he cried.

‘But... where’s the TARDIS?’ Sarah said.

The Doctor gave a dismissive wave, striding impatiently into the middle of the circle. ‘It will have returned to the Terra Nova by now,’ he said. ‘I think I remembered to set the Boomerang Orientators before we left. If it gets lost it should go back to where it came from. Do come along, everyone.’

Sarah and Harry exchanged puzzled glances as they followed the Doctor into the circle.

‘Are you sure you won’t join us, my friends?’ the Doctor called to the two Galsec crewmen who were lingering uncertainly at the edge of the circle.

‘No thanks.’ Erak waved. ‘We’ll wait until your satellite people get down here. We’ll be OK.’

Krans spat into the reeds. ‘Never did trust those contraptions, anyway...’ he muttered, glaring at the fiery globes of the Transmat.

The Doctor directed the sonic-screwdriver towards the mass of circuits he had just assembled. ‘As you wish,’ he called, ‘But I advise you to stand well back. It should be all right...’ he said, pressing the trigger.