The Ice Warriors (7 page)

‘How did the Ice Warrior get there then?’ The others remained silent, baffled. ‘He didn’t walk there, did he?’

Reluctantly, Clent answered. ‘
If
what you say is true… he must have arrived… by spaceship.’

‘And where’s that spaceship now, do you reckon?’ enquired the Doctor gently. He answered his own question. ‘In the glacier…’

Arden began to daydream again, his eyes shining with the possibilities. ‘It could still be intact! The Ice Warrior showed no signs of damage or mutilation. They might not have crashed; they might have actually
landed
– to explore Earth!’ He turned from Miss Garrett to Clent, almost begging them to share his exultation. ‘Can’t you see what it means? Intelligent contact with beings from another planet!’

The Doctor spoke more soberly. ‘I think Leader Clent also sees the inherent dangers.’

Clent nodded grimly. ‘The propulsion unit of the
spacecraft…’
he began.

Jan, too, saw what the Doctor was getting at, and whispered, ‘Could it be reactor powered?’

‘Quite so, Miss Garrett,’ applauded the Doctor. ‘And if you were to use the Ioniser at anything like full power…’

‘The heat…’ she hesitated, then went on, ‘the spaceship’s reactor could go critical… and we’d have no way of preventing it from exploding…’

‘The radiation…’ Arden looked at the others, his face now full of anxiety. ‘The whole area would be contaminated – possibly for centuries!’

‘And what if we don’t use the Ioniser – what happens then?’ broke in Clent. ‘We are part of a world plan! If we hold back, the whole operation must fail!’

‘We could try holding it at minimal power,’ suggested Jan.

‘You know that won’t work!’ snapped Clent. ‘It increases the risks of a power feed-back here, with a resulting explosion in our
own
reactor!’

At last it had been spelled out. While the others considered their desperate position, the Doctor murmured his apology.

‘Sorry. But I thought you ought to know.’

‘You were quite right to do so,’ Clent acknowledged with a tired gesture. ‘We must inform the computer, of course.’

Before he could take steps to do so, the doors clattered open, to reveal Jamie, still dazed. He clung desperately to the doorframe. A trickle of blood had dried on his forehead.

‘Doctor!’ he called out, his face tense with effort.

Within seconds, the Doctor had helped Jamie into the nearest chair. He saw at a glance that the cut on Jamie’s head was no more than a graze. But it was obvious that something was seriously the matter. And where was Victoria? Jamie’s breathless words explained everything – and added yet another amazing twist to the already desperate situation.

‘It’s that Warrior fellow!’ he gasped. ‘He’s come alive!’

Both Clent and Miss Garrett were stunned into silence, but Arden cried out in disbelief. ‘What!’

‘I couldn’t stop him. He packs a punch like a charging bull!’

‘Victoria,’ demanded the Doctor, ‘where is she? Is she all right?’

Jamie looked at him, sober-faced, and shook his head miserably. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘He took her with him!’

With Clent leading the way, it was only a matter of minutes before the group arrived at the laboratory. The scene spoke for itself: the trolley, empty but for a mass of crushed ice, the shattered power pack, and the overturned vibro-chair. The Ice Warrior’s past had erupted into the present. Jamie, still dazed, sat down. While the others talked, the Doctor examined the trolley and the electrodes that had once been attached to the great ice block.

‘There’s something very strange about this,’ he remarked.

Clent, utterly bewildered, was questioning Jamie. ‘But what did you do to make it happen?’

‘How do I know? We were just talking, and then I turned, and there he was – standing right over me!’

‘It’s impossible,’ insisted Arden.

‘For a human being, perhaps…’ said the Doctor, mysteriously.

Clent stared at him, uncomprehending.

‘Look at this table,’ the Doctor pointed to its surface. It was cracked and bubbled – as though scorched by fire.

‘But that would take immense heat!’ exclaimed Clent.

‘The electricity—’ offered Jamie.

Arden rejected this. ‘I used a low voltage, deliberately!’

‘But a high current, I believe,’ pointed out the Doctor.

‘Yes… but it was safe – there was no fire risk!’ retorted the geologist.

‘It isn’t necessarily a question of actual fire,’ explained the Doctor. ‘Suppose that current flowed through a high resistance. What would be the result?’

‘Extremely high temperatures,’ replied Jan. ‘You mean, that thing…’

‘I said it wasn’t human, didn’t I?’ the Doctor reminded her. ‘In my opinion, the sudden build-up of heat shocked him back into neural activity.’

‘And what about Victoria?’ demanded Jamie, clearheaded and alert once more. ‘What can we do to save
her
?’

A surge of guilt flowed over the Doctor’s mind. He faced Jamie tensely, the scientific problem forgotten.

‘You’re right, Jamie. We’ve got to find her! They couldn’t have got far!’

Clent, too, had reacted sharply to the reminder that an undesirable alien menace was loose within the Base
complex;
less important was its helpless hostage. He moved quickly to the video-communicator.

‘Danger. Red alert!’ he snapped to all channels within the Base. ‘Intruders within Base perimeter. Capture and control – priority one!’

But Jamie wasn’t impressed. ‘What good’s that? Suppose they’re already out of it? We’ve got to go after them – now!’

‘My dear chap, I’m very sorry, but we’re down to emergency personnel only. I cannot release men to go wandering off outside this Base. It’d be madness!’

‘But the girl’s life may be at stake!’ added the Doctor. ‘You
have
to make a search party available!’

Jan Garrett saw Clent’s mouth tighten stubbornly. No matter how much the Doctor argued, the Leader had made up his mind. But there was one possible way out.

‘Leader Clent,’ she suggested calmly, ‘we must inform the computer.’ She paused, knowing he had to agree, then went on, ‘It could soon tell us whether it is possible to reallocate the work schedule to release a rescue party.’

The others watched tensely as Clent considered Jan’s shrewd suggestion. He reluctantly nodded his head.

‘Very well, we will put it to the computer…’

Unknown to Clent and the Doctor, Victoria was being held prisoner only a hundred yards away. At the first sound of the security alarm, the Ice Warrior had entered the nearest convenient bolt hole – a medical store room.

Victoria had still been unconscious when they had taken cover. Coming round now, she had no idea where she
was.
All that she could see from the corner where she lay huddled, was the gigantic form of the Ice Warrior. He was standing by the door, listening intently. The distant alarm call stopped abruptly. Seemingly satisfied, the creature now turned towards Victoria – and she saw his cruel face clearly for the first time.

Her throat became so tight with fear that she could scarcely gasp… The so-called armour of the helmet-head and massive body was in fact tough, and reptilian in substance – but unlike animal eyes, its hard glass-covered eye sockets revealed no emotion. Only a vaguely flickering light illuminated their dark depths.

Like the eyes, the creature’s ears looked mechanical in design – electronic, as the Doctor had said. But the mouth was different: mobile, leathery, lizard-like. It seemed to be forever struggling to snatch in precious air, with the result that every breath, every word it uttered, hissed snake-like from that menacing head. From the huge shoulders downwards, the armoured skin took on the shape of a great protective shell.

Victoria noticed with a shudder that instead of hands, or even webbed, reptilian claws, the arms ended in what looked like metallic clamps. And from the right forearm, compact and sleek, but as though part of the creature’s physical anatomy, projected a strange, tubular device – rather like the telescopic sights of a rifle. Victoria had no time for further speculation. The Ice Warrior was now looming over her, cruel and menacing.

‘Stand!’ it commanded.

Victoria forced herself upright. Her knees were like
water.
Only by spreading herself back against the wall could she safely stay on her feet. She tried to keep the terror out of her voice; her chin tilted upwards bravely.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded, looking up defiantly at the warrior head. At first, she heard only the eerie sound of its hissing breath; Victoria shivered beneath its dark, inscrutable gaze. What sort of creature was part reptile, part machine?

‘Where are you from?’ she cried out boldly, knowing all the while that if the creature made another sudden move, she would probably faint. The response from the creature made Victoria’s eyes grow round with wonder.

‘My name… is Varga…’ came the slow, faltering reply. ‘My home… is the Red Planet!’

It can’t be true, Victoria thought to herself desperately. But she forced her voice to frame the question, ‘Mars?’

Varga nodded proudly. Unearthly as he was, everything about him echoed the famous legends that Victoria had heard about the god of war; his pride, his strength and his savagery in battle. But this was a living, hideous alien – not a Greek god. And one who had been dead and buried in the glacier’s ice only hours ago. For a moment, curiosity overcame her fear.

‘But you were dead!’ exclaimed Victoria. ‘How did you come back to life?’ She stopped and flinched as Varga gestured angrily.

‘Enough questions!’ he hissed furiously. ‘Give me answers!’

‘Why should I?’ She never had liked being ordered about – even when frightened. But her defiance wavered.
The
Ice Warrior was now pointing the strange tubular device straight at her head.

‘Answers!’ came the insistent demand. Victoria nodded dumbly. The Ice Warrior continued. ‘How long was I trapped in the ice?’

‘I don’t know—’ Victoria started to say, then remembered that answers were compulsory. ‘One of the scientists here thinks you must have been inside the glacier since the First Ice Age…’ she faltered, hardly able to believe it herself, ‘… thousands of years ago.’

The Ice Warrior hissed with astonishment. ‘As long ago as that?’ He paused in wonderment, and then quickly demanded, ‘They found nothing else?’

Alarm flared suddenly in Victoria’s mind. She steeled herself to look into his expressionless face. ‘You mean… there are others like you?’ she whispered.

The Ice Warrior lowered his arm, and stood strangely rigid. Victoria sensed the brooding change within Varga’s mind as he cast back through centuries of time, struggling to remember.

‘We were hovering… over the frozen lands. A sudden turbulence… our spacecraft crashed at the foot of the Ice Mountain.’ He paused. His memory was clearing. ‘We went outside our craft to investigate. The ice mountain shook… split open… swallowed us in a great whirlwind of snow, and there was only darkness.’

He fell silent. Only the gentle labouring of his breath told Victoria anything of his state of mind. She spoke with sympathy.

‘The others with you,’ murmured Victoria, ‘did they all
die
– trapped inside the glacier?’

Varga drew himself up proudly, and giving the staccato, dry cough that passed in his race for laughter, replied harshly. ‘If they are dead as I was… then they can be freed – and made to live!’

The full meaning of what Varga was saying didn’t strike home to Victoria immediately. She could only see the impossibility of ever finding Varga’s companions – let alone recovering them from the glacier. ‘You’ll never be able to get them out by yourself!’ she declared.

‘You do not yet understand my capabilities,’ he murmured harshly. ‘But I will need your help!’

‘
My
help?’ questioned Victoria, surprised. ‘How?’

‘Tell me… how I was brought to life? What is the process? What did these Earthling scientists do?’

‘How do I know?’ said Victoria in exasperation. ‘I’m not one of them.’

‘You saw, you were with them. Tell me!’

‘Why ask me? Why not let me take you to the scientists – to the Doctor? They’ll help you!’

‘I am a stranger – an alien. Why should they help me? They would take me prisoner – keep me as a scientific curiosity – and leave my men for dead in the ice.’

‘They wouldn’t!’ exclaimed Victoria. But this was no human castaway she was speaking to – this was a Martian warlord.

‘With my men, I can talk from strength – not beg.’ He coughed abruptly – a sharp, sneering rasp – and Victoria shivered at the menace in the sound, as he continued. ‘Then we shall decide!’

‘Decide…?’ Victoria’s alarm was gradually changing to panic. ‘Decide what?’

There was no mistaking the grim confidence in Varga’s voice. ‘Whether to return to our own planet,’ he replied sternly, ‘or conquer yours!’

In the great hall, Clent had finished putting the situation to
ECCO
. The others were gathered about him, tensely waiting for its judgement.

‘Those are the relevant factors,’ finished Clent. ‘How should we proceed?’

Jamie could keep quiet no longer, and blurted out in anger, ‘How’s a machine to know?’

‘Be quiet, Jamie,’ admonished the Doctor, as the crisp voice of the computer began to discharge its answer.

‘
The ionisation programme should continue as instructed
–
but the presence of an alien spacecraft must be investigated
.’

The computer paused fractionally. Clent’s look of bland superiority changed to a frown.

‘But how can we?’ he asked the computer. ‘Our reduced manpower—’

The computer chose to ignore Clent, and continued coldly. ‘
Suspected fissionable material must take priority
,’ it clipped out. ‘
Glacial status can be held for limited period
.’

‘But what about Victoria?’ interrupted Jamie.

‘
The emergency operating schedule has been rearranged to free one scientist for the investigation
,’ continued the machine calmly. ‘
In the present circumstances, the nominated member should be scientist Arden. Effect these instructions immediately
.’