Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon (10 page)

By now Dent had partly recovered himself. 'That's a very serious allegation, Doctor.'

'I know,' said the Doctor, 'and its one that I shall have pleasure in making to the proper authorities. I imagine this Adjudicator will be very interested in your activities, Captain Dent.'

Dent turned back to Ashe. 'When I first saw your friend I thought he was eccentric. Now I'm convinced he's mad. I'll send a message to the Adjudicators' Bureau immediately. Excuse me.' And with that, Dent left the dome as quickly as possible. He had never been so humiliated in his life, and he was seething to get his hands on First Officer Morgan.

He found Morgan in the ship's crew room, drinking astrobeer. Overwhelmed with a rage, which he now did nothing to conceal, Dent knocked the astrobeer can from Morgan's hand and then hit him across the face. Morgan fell to his knees.

Dent kicked him and roared, 'Get up!'

Morgan slowly got to his feet. He touched his bruised cheek. 'You've no right to hit a member of the staff' he cried, 'It's against the rules!'

Dent hit out again, and again Morgan fell to his knees. 'I'm doing this,' he said, 'instead of killing you. What happened?'

This time Morgan remained where he was, crouching on the floor. 'He smashed the robot's remote-control unit. He could have killed me!'

The door opened and Caldwell entered. When he saw Morgan grovelling on the floor in front of Dent he grinned and said, 'So, have you got the crew praying to you now, Captain?'

'Morgan has failed again,' said Dent, and briefly explained how the Doctor had walked in on his meeting with the colonists.

Caldwell listened, more amused than upset. 'I'm glad I'm only the mining engineer, and not one of you executives. Are you going to send for an Adjudicator?'

'Of course,' said Dent. 'Legality most always be maintained.'

'Meaning,' said Caldwell , 'that IMC will bribe the Adjudicator to give the right decision?'

'That remark,' said Dent, who had now thoroughly lost his self-possession, 'is slander! IMC
always
keeps to the law!' He knew this was totally untrue, but it was what he had been taught to say. 'I should put you both on a charge of insubordination!' The tiny two-way radio in his tunic pocket started to bleep. He pulled it out viciously, and snapped '
Yes?
into its tiny microphone.

The voice was almost inaudible. '
Captain Dent?
'

'
Who's speaking?
' Dent shouted at the two-way radio. He held it close to his ear to hear the answer.

'
Norton here,
' said the whisper of a voice, '
from the colonists' main dome. Two colonists are just about to enter the ship.
'

Dent's temper faded away instantly. '
What for?
' he asked excitedly.

'
It's the girl called Jo and a young man called Winton,
' continued Norton's voice. '
They're going to look for evidence against us. They want to find out about the monsters.
' The voice paused. '
Must go now,
' Norton said. '
Someone's coming... don't want to be caught.
' Norton went off the air.

Dent went into action. 'You two stay in here.'

'Why?' said Caldwell .

'For once obey an order without asking questions,' Dent said icily. 'And keep the door locked from the inside.' He left them and hurried into the connecting corridor, and thence to the control room.

A number of his technicians were there. He grabbed the microphone next to his captain's seat. '
Now hear this,
' he said, addressing everyone on the ship. '
We have visitors. I want them to be let in - so no guards at the entrance to the ship. Lock all doors to rooms. Leave the connecting corridors free of personnel. Do not, I repeat do not, interfere with our guests in any way.
' He then told the technicians in the control room to conceal themselves wherever they could - behind chairs, under the main console, behind the door. Then he waited. Five minutes later the door to the control room opened slowly and Jo looked inside.

'The whole ship's deserted,' she said, and came on in. Winton followed her.

'Where should we look for evidence?' Winton asked.

'I don't know,' said Jo. 'Maybe in here.'

Dent stood up from where he had been crouching be-hind his captain's chair. He held a gun in his hand. 'Is there anything I can do to help you?' he asked.

Jo turned to escape, but suddenly the control room of the IMC spaceship was full of IMC men who had been hiding. She and Winton had walked into a trap.

'Grab them,' ordered Dent, and the IMC men pinned the prisoners' ands behind their backs. 'Now let me explain our mining methods,' said Dent. 'We use a lot of explosive charges - bombs, if you like. These bombs are exploded by remote-control radio. A charge set ten or twenty kilometres from here can be made to explode by a touch of this button.' Dent put a finger on to a button on the control console. He turned to Jo. 'Your friend the Doctor will be invited here. I shall explain that if he does not retract his ridiculous story about attempted murder, I shall press this button. I shall also explain that you and your companion will be killed instantly if I am moved to press that button.' He then turned to his men. 'All right, carry out the exercise.'

The IMC men set to work binding their prisoners' arms and legs, and gagging them. Then big plastic sacks were brought in, and Jo and Winton each put into one.

After that Jo was conscious of being carried down a corridor, into the open, and then being driven on some vehicle for a distance over the rough terrain. When the sacks were removed they were by the ruin of a small single-room stone building. It had no roof or door or windows. They were still surrounded by IMC men, who quickly removed the gags and untied their arms and legs. Then they were frog-marched into the ruin. Two IMC men inside were gently putting a plain metal box down in the middle of what had been the floor. A third IMC man was using a sledge-hammer to drive into the floor a metal spike with a big ring in it. Now an IMC man quickly put a manacle on to one of Jo's wrists, and another manacle on to one of Winton's, then attached chains from them to a ring on the plain metal box; and, having done that, he attached another chain from the box to the metal spike driven into the floor. The attachment of Jo and Winton to the metal box - obviously a bomb of some sort - and of the box to the spike in the floor was done in under a minute, and without a word being spoken by the IMC men. The job done, the IMC men stepped back, and the one who seemed to be in charge came forward and adjusted a control on the side of the box. Immediately, a light started to flash on top of the box. Under the IMC badge on this man's tunic as his name and rank in small letters, 'Security Guard Allen'. Winton wrenched wildly at his manacles, tautening the chain that held him to the metal box.

'I wouldn't do that,' cautioned Allen, 'unless you want to blow yourself to bits. In fact, I wouldn't move at all.'

'You're nothing more than criminals,' Jo shouted.

'We obey our orders,' said Allen. 'There can't be anything wrong in obeying orders.'

With that, the IMC men hurried away. Jo looked about herself. 'What is this place?'

'Primitive ruins; said Winton. 'They must have built these little one-room houses at some time, but they don't now. You find these ruins all over the place.' He stared at the manacle on his wrist. 'What do we do now?'

'Try to get away, of course,' said Jo. Jo compressed her hand, folding in the thumb over the palm to see if she could gently pull her hand through the manacle without upsetting the explosive charge.

The Doctor returned grim-faced from the IMC spaceship. While he had been completing repairs to the colonists' electrical room, the message had come from Dent saying that Jo was in the IMC spaceship and wanted to see the Doctor. The Doctor went there immediately, only to be told by Dent that Jo was attached to an explosive charge at a hidden location, and that she and Winton would be killed instantly if the Doctor made any more trouble for IMC. He went straight to Ashe and reported what Dent had said.

'This is abominable,' said Ashe. 'Even if Jo and Winton committed trespass by entering the IMC spaceship uninvited, they should not be treated like this! I'll go and talk to Dent straight away.'

'I don't think you have grasped the position,' said the Doctor. 'These people have no interest in law and order, or fair play. If you go, Dent may kill his prisoners there and then.'

'What do you suggest?' asked Ashe. He was clearly at the end of his tether, only too willing for anyone else to take the decisions now.

'He said they were “somewhere”,' said the Doctor. 'Maybe we can find them both.'

'I'll organise a search party immediately,' said Ashe. 'Not immediately,' the Doctor said, restraining Ashe. 'The IMC ship is on our doorstep. They can see everything we do. If Dent sees signs of a search, he'll press that button. We'll have to wait until after dark. The problem is - where has he put them both with the bomb?'

Jo sat back, her hand bruised and the manacle still on her wrist.

'Why not give up?' advised Winton. 'If you jerk that box you could blow us sky high.'

Jo looked at the box. Its light was still flashing regularly. The thought crossed her mind that she had no idea whether the box really contained an explosive charge. Still, she thought it best to treat the box with great respect. One sudden jerk on the chain connecting the box to their manacles and it might blow up. Then she noticed the grease on the box; it ran in a long blob down one side and might have been some kind of packing grease. She reached forward to get same of the thick grease on to her fingers.

'Be careful!' said Winton. 'Don't touch that thing!'

'I
am
being careful,' she said, and rubbed the grease all over her trapped hand. With her free hand she gripped the manacle, only to realise that the grease on the fingers of her free hand wouldn't allow her to get a good hold on the manacle. 'You try,' she said to Winton. 'Keep your fingers away from any grease, get a good grip of my manacle, then pull!'

'I don't want to hurt you,' he said.

'And I don't want to freeze to death in this place tonight,' she said. 'Now do as I ask you.'

Winton crawled over to Jo and got a firm grip on the outside of her manacle. He pulled. Nothing happened. 'Put one foot into my armpit,' she said. 'Then you'll have something to pull against.'

'I might pull your arm out of its socket,' he said.

'Will you please do as I ask?' Jo pleaded.

Winton worked his way round so that he could put one foot under her armpit. Then he pulled on the manacle. Jo tried not to show the pain of having her arm pulled, in case any reaction from her might deter Winton. Little by little the manacle cane down over her folded hand until she could feel the bones being crushed together. 'Keep pulling,' she said, holding back tears of pain. All at once the manacle slid over the knuckles, and her hand was free. 'Thanks,' she said.

'You'd better run for it,' Winton said. 'Find your way back to the main dome and tell Ashe.'

'Not without you,' she replied. 'If the grease worked for me, it can work for you.' She reached forward to get grease to put on to Winton's still manacled hand.

'My hands are much bigger than yours,' he said, holding up the fettered hand.

She looked. It was true. His hand could never slip through the manacle. 'Then I must break the chain,' she said and started to hunt around for a couple of rocks of the right shape and sire.

'Far better you get on your way,' he said.

But Jo had found what she wanted. She placed one rock under the chain to Winton's manacle, then used the other as a hammer. The chain showed no signs of damage, so she bashed harder and harder with her make-shift 'hammer'. Suddenly, the chain slipped off the rock the was using as an anvil. For a moment the suddenly-taut chain pulled at the box, and the box moved slightly. They both looked at it in horror. The light on the box started to flash at high speed, as though it were transmitting some warning.

In the IMC ship's control room, a light on the main control console flashed on and off at short intervals. Morgan was the first to notice it. 'Captain,' he said, 'something's happening with that explosive charge.'

Dent grabbed his console microphone. '
This is Captain Dent to Security Guard Allen. Notify location.
'

Nothing for a few moments; then Allen's voice from the loudspeaker. '
On the way back to the ship, Captain.
'

Dent said, '
Go and re-check your prisoners immediately.
'

Allen's voice replied, '
Message understood.
'

Jo looked with delight at the broken links of Winton's manacle chain. Winton was already on his feet. 'Come on,' he said, 'let's go.'

They ran out of the ruined little house, then stopped. 'Which way?' said Jo.

Winton looked up at the sun. 'I reckon that way,' he said, and pointed.

They started running. As they began to climb a small hill of rock and scrub, the IMC four-wheel buggy came over the crest of the hill. At the wheel was Security Guard Allen. He turned the buggy to come straight at Jo and Winton.

' Split ,' said Jo, and immediately darted away from Winton, so that Allen would not be able to catch them both.

Allen turned the buggy to head straight for Jo. She sidestepped the machine, then fell heavily on to the rocks. Allen stopped and dismounted, and by the time Jo was on her feet Allen had his arm round her. With his free hand he pulled his gun. Winton had paused some little distance away, not knowing what to do.

'Keep running,' Jo shouted. 'Go and tell them where I am and what's happened!'

Winton turned and began running away, Allen took aim with his gun and fired. But the shot missed. In a moment Winton was over the crest of the hill.

Allen pocketed his gun, and pulled out his little two-way radio. '
Security Guard Allen to Captain Dent,
' he said into the radio. '
Male prisoner has escaped, but have recaptured female.
'