Doctor Who: Sontaran Experiment (3 page)

He was about to investigate a cluster of strange bubble formations in the floor of the cavernous fault, when something flew past his face and shattered one of the globules as if it were made of glass. Harry reeled backwards, his face stinging from the impact of dozens of tiny, sharp fragments. Then a cascade of stones ricochetted around him. Harry shielded his face with his arms and peered cautiously but expectantly upward.

‘Sarah?’ he called. ‘Is that you?’ Another fusillade of missiles careered down and shattered in a series of bursts behind him. ‘Hey... Steady on, old thing,’ he yelled, cradling his head and crouching against the wall of the cavern.

There was a brief lull. Harry listened, full of misgiving.

The only sound from above was a strange flapping, and what seemed like laboured breathing which came and went round the edge of the hole far above him.

‘Look here,’ he began, venturing slowly to his feet. Just in time he jammed himself into the nearest of the narrow openings as a sudden hail of boulders, pebbles and dust started to fly around the crevasse. As the roaring avalanche increased, Harry forced himself further and further into the tunnel. For a few agonising moments he was faced with a choice: either to risk being crushed alive under the rocks, in the hope of eventual rescue; or to brave whatever horrors might lie in wait inside the tunnel. Even as he hesitated, the entrance of the shaft was rapidly blocked with boulders and splinters of rock. He no longer had any choice; there was only one way he could go.

The Doctor’s limp body was dumped at the entrance to a small cave let into the base of a towering cliff-face and overlooking a vast plain scored with deep canyons. The mouth of the cave was half covered by a crude awning of reeds and thick ferns, and nearby, an open fire blazed fiercely.

A scruffily bearded, wiry man dressed in the remains of a heavy spacesuit unwound the scarf from the Doctor’s neck and rapidly bound his arms tightly to his sides. The massive figure of Krans emerged from the cave carrying a small flask. He flung some of the contents into the Doctor’s face with a mumbled curse.

‘Are you mad, Krans?’ cried the other man, trying to snatch the container away. ‘I don’t want to die of thirst yet: not until I have to.’

Krans brushed him aside with a shrug of his powerful shoulder. ‘He’s coming round, Erak,’ he growled. The Doctor’s eyes had flickered open and then closed again.

Krans lumbered over to the fire and drew out a crackling branch which he brought over and thrust towards the Doctor’s face. ‘What have you done with the rest of our crewmates?’ he snarled.

The Doctor flinched away from the blazing brand with a gasp. He opened his eyes and looked down at his pinioned arms with a mildly puzzled expression. Then he stared straight at Krans and smiled. ‘Do you think I could have a glass of water?’ he croaked. Krans pushed the burning branch closer. The Doctor pressed himself back against the cliff.

‘What’s happened to Roth and Warra and Henk...?’

snapped Erak.

The Doctor craned round to look at him. ‘Oh dear,’ he sighed, ‘I was so hoping for news of some dear friends of my own... but I fear I cannot help you at all.’

‘So there are more of you,’ said a clear, authoritative voice from beyond the makeshift porch. A tall, slim, fair-haired man of about forty was gazing contemptuously at the Doctor’s bound, huddled figure.

‘Two very dear companions,’ said the Doctor, struggling to sit more upright. ‘Perhaps
you
have seen them?’

‘Where did you find him?’ demanded the newcomer, ignoring the Doctor.

‘First saw him lurking around that damned circle,’ Erak replied, giving the Doctor a sharp nudge so that he fell sideways, unable to save himself.

‘I was not lurking,’ he corrected gently, ‘I was simply attempting to repair that old Transmat Installation when I...’

Erak jerked the Doctor upright again.

‘That old
what
?’ cried the tall newcomer, approaching with an incredulous stare.

‘There’s no Transmat here,’ Erak snapped. ‘The Earth’s been junked.’

The Doctor shook his head emphatically. ‘Temporarily abandoned perhaps,’ he smiled, ‘but far from “junked” as you call it.’

‘It’s finished... useless...’ Krans shouted in a sudden burst of fury. ‘It’s nowhere near the Patrol Zones... So no one comes here, ever. Check, Vural?’ Krans flung his last remark up at the tall, fair-haired man. He nodded slowly in agreement.

‘How did you get here?’ Vural demanded, staring down at the Doctor.

‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ the Doctor replied calmly, his eyes watering with the smoke from the glowing branch. Krans suddenly shoved it right up against the Doctor’s face, quivering with pent-up violence.

‘Don’t play smart with us,’ he hissed. Then he turned to Vural. ‘We’re getting nowhere like this,’ he muttered. ‘So why don’t we finish him off?’

Vural motioned Krans to lay off. He fixed the Doctor with piercing eyes and said in a quiet but menacing tone,

‘You know well enough how we got here. We were in orbit, measuring Solar Radiation levels. You sent out a bogus Mayday Call and enticed us down here. When we left the Scout to look around, the ship was vapourised. Nine of us are stranded.’

The Doctor glanced around, his face creased with pain from the livid burn on his cheek.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked, through clenched teeth.

There was a short pause. Then Vural spoke. ‘Your Scavenger got them.’

The Doctor stared up at the tall figure in front of him.

‘My what?’ he murmured, his eyes widening.

When at last Sarah reached the pit she was almost hysterical with fear. The invisible humming pulsated softly somewhere in the ravine behind her. She sank down with aching lungs at the edge of the hole and called down into the darkness, ‘Harry... the Doctor’s completely disappeared. I just can’t find him anywhere.’ There was no reply and no movement from below. Sarah peered anxiously through the smashed and scattered reeds. ‘Harry, what are we going to do?’ she cried. She was aware of the humming coming slowly nearer and nearer behind her.

Then she caught sight of the mass of fallen rock lying in the bottom of the pit. ‘Harry... What’s happened... Where are you?’ she screamed.

Sarah spun round. A strange greenish light was approaching along the foot of the ravine. She seized a dead branch—like a length of bamboo—from the shattered camouflage. Wielding it in front of her like a club, she backed away from the eerie, humming glow towards a group of enormous boulders, her wellingtons slithering perilously close to the edge of the gaping hole beside her.

Just as she felt her back against the nearest boulder, a rapid panting and flapping burst out among the rocks behind her. She tried to turn round but she found herself hypnotised by the quivering glow gliding smoothly towards her.

The panting came nearer. Sarah felt warm breath on the back of her neck. She gave a start, and lost her footing on the crumbling edge. Her cry of horror was stifled by a large, gloved hand, as she was lifted bodily and carried away among the boulders. She tried to twist round, but her captor held her like a vice. A few seconds later, a dome-shaped object, the size of a very large bell, glided up out of the mist and hovered humming over the yawning pit. Its metallic surface bristled with antennae and probes, and was studded with small covered apertures. The air surrounding the machine formed an iridescent haze.

Sarah stopped struggling and stared in fascination as a thin tentacle emerged from one of the apertures and snaked down into the hole where it seemed to grope for something. There was a pause while the robot clicked softly to itself, and then the tentacle was retracted. A mechanism like a periscope containing a large lens began to sweep the area around the pit. Sarah’s head was forced down between the boulders, out of sight, but she could hear the machine emit a series of shrill bleeping sounds and then glide away, out of the ravine.

When the humming had faded into the distance, Sarah was abruptly released. A tall, gaunt figure in a ragged spacesuit flapped past her and moved cautiously into the open to check that the robot had gone. With fearful backward glances, it loped back to where Sarah was crouching among the rounded, glassy rocks. The rubbery slapping of the ripped material sent a shiver through her body.

‘So it was
you
following me—making that noise,’ she said, with a mixture of relief and suspicion.

Sarah found herself face to face with a terrified, trembling individual with cropped black hair, a thin beard and dark, almost Oriental features. His face was emaciated.

and covered in barely-healed scars.

‘Who are you?’ he whispered. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Just what I was going to ask
you
,’ Sarah blurted, relaxing a little. ‘My name is Sarah. I come from Earth—

but it’s rather a long story, I’m afraid.’

The man stared at her for several minutes, mouthing the unfamiliar name. ‘I am Roth,’ he said at last.

Sarah’s courage began to return. She managed a smile.

‘Do you live here... on Earth?’ she asked. Roth shook his head sharply, indicating his tattered spacesuit. When he moved his arms, the torn material flapped noisily—like bats’ wings. Sarah swallowed hard.

‘Tell me about the machine,’ she said tentatively. ‘Why are you afraid of it?’

Roth gaped at her in disbelief. ‘Do you not know?’ he whispered. Sarah shook her head. Roth wrung his gloved hands together and an almost crazed expression came into his eyes. ‘That... that is the Scavenger,’ he gasped. Sarah shuddered. It seemed suddenly to have grown colder.

‘What is it for?’ she murmured.

‘It catches us,’ Roth cried, staring wildly about. ‘It captures my crewmates and takes them... for torture.’ Sarah clutched her anorak closer to her.

‘Where does it take them?’ she asked. Roth pointed in the direction the machine had taken.

‘To the Alien,’ he muttered.

Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘What Alien?’ she breathed.

‘In the rocks... the thing in the rocks...’ Roth cried, his voice breaking with panic. Suddenly Sarah noticed the horrific burn marks showing through the tears in Roth’s suit.

‘Did the Alien do that to you?’ she asked gently.

Roth nodded, covering his wounds. ‘It killed Warra and Henk,’ he mumbled, ‘but I got away... yunnerstan?’ Roth cowered beside Sarah, shivering, his teeth chattering. ‘I don’t get caught again... Not me.’ He pointed to the pit in front of them. ‘I made traps, and I’ll get it... soon... you’ll see...’ A sudden defiance blazed in Roth’s eyes, and it gave Sarah renewed courage.

‘Roth, you’ve got to help me,’ she said earnestly. ‘I came here with two friends and they have both vanished...

yunnerstan... ? I mean, you understand?’ she corrected herself. Roth nodded furiously. ‘I saw them... I watched you,’ he gabbled. ‘One of them is at the camp... with Vural.

They found him at the circle.’

Sarah’s face lit up. She grasped Roth’s ragged sleeve.

‘You mean you know where the Doctor is?’ she cried.

Vural and his crew were rapidly losing patience with the Doctor. His calm politeness baffled them and deepened their suspicions. Krans was seething with the desire to avenge his murdered crewmates, and had to be forcibly restrained by Vural and Erak when the Doctor quietly denied all knowledge of the Scavenger.

‘I have already explained,’ he was saying wearily, ‘we arrived on Earth a short time ago, and we have temporarily mislaid our transport. As soon as I can complete my adjustments we can return to the Terra Nova.’ There was a pause while the three crewmen stared at the Doctor.

‘He’s crazy,’ spat Krans, giving the embers of the fire a vicious kick.

‘You don’t really expect us to believe that,’ said Vural with an ironic smile.

‘Why shouldn’t you?’ the Doctor asked innocently.

‘Because the Terra Nova doesn’t exist,’ Krans sneered.

Vural gave a short laugh. ‘The Lost Colony,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s a good story that mothers tell their children.’

The Doctor was leaning forward, secretly testing the tightness of his bonds. ‘Fascinating,’ he murmured, ‘a myth... like Atlantis...’

‘And it’s never been found,’ Erak said with menacing finality.

It was no good. Weakened as he was by his recent treatment at the hands of Krans and Erak, the Doctor knew he could not possibly free himself from the unyielding coils of the scarf. His only hope was to play for time. He had been observing something odd about Vural’s manner, and it had given him an idea.

‘Well, I can assure you that it was real enough when I left it,’ he smiled with childlike frankness.

‘The Earth’s been cool a long time now,’ Vural scoffed,

‘and the Terra Novans have never come back.’

‘But the survivors are re-awakening at this very moment,’ the Doctor cried, looking round excitedly. ‘They will be delighted to discover that they are not the sole remaining members of the human species.’ His eyes fixed with a sudden frown upon a small object suspended like a pendant round Vural’s neck, and just visible inside his open suit. He leaned forward as far as he could to look more closely.

‘You
are
human, I take it,’ the Doctor murmured. For a moment Vural hesitated. He glanced quickly down at his chest, and then furtively across at Krans and Erak. They were staring uncertainly at the Doctor.

Vural pushed him roughly back against the outer wall of the cave, and said rapidly, clutching the front of his suit together, ‘Galsec Colony Seven.’

Slumped against the rock, his hat tipped over his forehead, the Doctor gazed searchingly at Vural through half-closed eyes. In a whisper that neither Krans nor Erak could hear, he said, ‘Nevertheless, your little trinket is not a product of human technology, I fancy...’

On the other side of the cliffs which towered above them lay a vast crater completely enclosed by the circular range of jagged crags. Hidden somewhere inside the crater was a brightly flickering fluorescent screen and for a few moments the Doctor’s face had loomed there as a bulbous, distorted image, his piercing eyes staring out. Then something had blotted the image, and the screen had darkened.