Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon (9 page)

'Oh, yes, sir,' said Morgan. 'Very amusing.'

The Doctor remembered his way out of the IMC spaceship. The entrance, he noted, did not appear to be guarded. Outside was a buggy, similar to the one Caldwell had used to bring him here.

'Is this for us?' said the Doctor.

'Yes, sir,' said Morgan. 'Please take your seat.'

The Doctor sat by the driver's seat, and then Morgan took his position. Before starting, Morgan produced from his pocket a miniature two-way radio, pressed the transmitting button and spoke into the built-in microphone. '
First Officer Morgan to control. Am taking guest to his venue, starting now.
'

After a moment Dent's voice replied through the two-way radio. '
Control to First Officer Morgan. Message received and understood. Carry on.
'

Morgan pocketed the little two-way radio. He turned to the Doctor, with a friendly smile. 'I understand from Captain Dent that you've lost something and want to look for it. With the buggy we could cover quite a distance, if you want.'

'That's very kind of you,' said the Doctor. 'Can you spare the time?'

'Strictly speaking,' said Morgan, 'each trip with the buggy has to be logged, and accounted for. But no one's going to notice a few kilometres here or there. Where do we start?'

The Doctor pointed. 'In that direction, I think.'

'Right,' said Morgan. He set the buggy in motion and steered the way indicated by the Doctor. 'What is it we're looking for?'

'A rather tall, blue box,' said the Doctor.

'With no trees or anything,' said Morgan as they drove along, 'every little thing shows up for kilometres on this planet. So it maybe it won't be too difficult to find.'

Within fifteen minutes they were at the flat plain where the Doctor had seen the drag marks leading from where the TARDIS had materialised. 'It was there,' said the Doctor, pointing, 'but you can see it's been dragged towards those hills.'

'Okay,' said Morgan, starting up the buggy again. 'This looks easier riding than those little switchback hills.' He drove ahead, following the dead straight line of the drag marks, but not very fast. After five minutes the hills seemed to be no nearer.

'Is this the maximum speed?' asked the Doctor.

'Well, no, sir,' said Morgan. 'But we're not in a hurry, are we?'

'Of course not,' said the Doctor.

They drove ahead for another few minutes. Then a bleeping sound came from the pocket where Morgan had put his little two-way radio. 'Excuse me, sir,' said Morgan, stopping the buggy and pulling out the little radio. He pressed the transmitting button. '
First Officer Morgan responding. What is your message?
' He listened, and they heard Dent's voice.

'
Your buggy monitored on radar going away from, I repeat away from, colonist,' dome,
' Dent's voice said. '
What are you doing, First Officer Morgan?
'

Morgan looked at the Doctor, smiled and shrugged. '
Just trying to help our guest, Captain,
' he said. '
He wanted a ride.
'

Dent's voice replied, '
We are not in the joyride business, Morgan. Rectify immediately.
'

'
Yes, sir,
' said Morgan into the radio. '
Message understood.
' He returned the radio to his pocket. 'I'm sorry about that, sir, but we've got to go back.'

'I understand,' said the Doctor.

Morgan steered the buggy into a wide U-turn, then slowly headed back the way they had come. They passed the starting point of the drag marks, then mounted the first hill which the Doctor and Jo had climbed on their arrival on the planet, and slowly went down the other side. Morgan said, 'Doesn't this take us near where those poor people were killed?'

'It's in a straight line from here,' said the Donor, 'just over another couple of hills.'

Morgan said nothing as they rode over the next two hills. Then the Leeson' dome was in the little valley before them. 'That the place?' asked Morgan. The Doctor nodded. 'I wouldn't mind taking a look at the damage those creatures caused,' said Morgan. 'Mind if we stop off for a minute?'

Morgan halted the buggy outside the little dome, dismounted and stood and stared at the front of the dome. The Doctor remained seated on the buggy. Morgan turned and asked, 'Where did they find them?'

'You can see blood stains over there,' said the Doctor, pointing. 'The woman was found inside.'

'Is it safe to go in?' asked Morgan.

'I imagine so,' said the Doctor who, filled with suspicion, was secretly very much on the alert, and was intrigued to see how Morgan was going to get him to get off the buggy and go into the dome. 'Why not take a look?'

'Won't you come with me?' asked Morgan. 'I'd like to know exactly what happened.'

The Doctor felt Morgan was just too pathetic to play with any more. He got down from the buggy. 'Certainly I'll come with you.' He strode into the dome, and Morgan followed. 'What is it you want to know?'

Morgan stood surveying the damage, in apparent awe. 'Where was the woman found?'

The Doctor pointed. 'There.'

Morgan inspected the wrecked kitchen table. 'These claw mark look fearsome.'

'Yes, indeed,' said the Doctor. 'It was all very efficiently done.'

'What do you mean?' said Morgan.

'I think the whole thing was faked,' said the Doctor, 'by someone who want to frighten the colonists away.'

'You mean someone made these claw marks in the furniture?' asked Morgan, still pretending not to understand.

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'With some mechanical device.'

Morgan took from another pocket a little control unit, a replica of the one with which Caldwell had controlled the robot. 'You mean something like this?' he asked, and pressed one of the controls.

The robot entered through the hole in the wall, its arms extended forward towards the Doctor. But now the metal hands had been replaced by big metal claws. Morgan pressed another control, and the robot stopped. With his free hand, Morgan pulled a small handgun from his trouser pocket, then backed to the main entrance, cutting off the Doctor's escape.

'I wondered why we had all that charade about looking for my last equipment,' said the Doctor. 'Of course your accomplices needed time to get the robot in position behind this dome.'

'That's tight,' said Morgan. 'When Captain Dent radio'd me to say he'd picked on up on radar, that really meant Charlie was in position far the kill.' He paused, and licked his dry lips. 'I'm sorry about this, sir, really sorry. I hope you realise there's nothing personal.' He pressed a button on the remote-control, and immediately the robot's clawed arms started to flay, and then its legs began to move it towards the Doctor.

The Doctor jumped to one side, and the robot paused, its in-built sensories calculating where the Doctor had gone. 'It's not very quick on the turn,' remarked the Doctor, sidestepping again.

'It's slow but sure,' said Morgan, holding his gun on the Doctor. 'It always gets its man - or woman.'

The Doctor sidestepped again, and again the robot paused, then redirected itself towards its quarry. Now the Doctor was close to Morgan.

'There's no escape, I'm afraid,' said Morgan. 'Might as well give in gracefully. It'll be over in second.' The Doctor made another move which brought him even closer to Morgan.

'Now keep away from the entrance,' warned Morgan, 'or I'll shoot!'

'If you shoot,' shouted the Doctor in reply, 'and my body's found with a bullet in it, that'll mess up your story about monsters!' And having said that, he suddenly dived for Morgan's gun, knocking it from his hand. Then he grabbed Morgan's left band, the one holding the remote-control, and twisted it up behind the man's back.

'You'll break my arm!' Morgan screamed.

The Doctor wheeled Morgan round, to put him between himself and the oncoming robot. Morgan found himself looking straight into the flaying claws of the robot, and unable to break out of the Doctor's hold.

'It'll claw me to death!'

'Drop the remote-control,' shouted the Doctor in Morgan's ear. 'Drop it!'

Morgan screamed in agony as the tip of a claw drew a stripe of blood down one cheek. Almost involuntarily his hand released the remote-control. It fell to the ground, and its casing split open revealing a compact bundle of now exposed transistors and diodes. At the same time, the robot came to a complete halt; and then, after a second, it swayed and fell over backwards with a resounding crash.

The Doctor released his grip on Morgan's arm. Morgan stood there, gasping for breath. Than he made a dive for the gun on the floor. But he was too exhausted to move quickly enough, the Doctor kicked the gun away from Morgan's groping hand, and picked it up himself. Seeing this, Morgan turned and fled. He leapt onto the buggy outside and drove away at top speed.

The Doctor looked at the gun in his hand, then dropped it into his coat pocket, and sadly walked away from the dome.

The colonists' main dome came onto Dent's control room monitor screen in a bird's-eye-view. Using the IMC ship's powerful rocket drive, he had lifted the ship from its original landing place and now intended to bring it down next to the big dome. All his technicians were in their places in the control room, and above the low hum of the motors he could hear their chatter all around him

'... Radar probe confirms terrain firm... main retrorockets steady... descent rate now at minimum... landing stabilisers activated and in position... final altitude report... twenty metres, fifteen metres, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... we have contact!'

Dent remained in his captain's seat while the motors slowed and finally stopped. He intended to have a face-to-face meeting with the colonists, and to blockbuster them off the planet. By now, if Morgan had done his job properly, the Doctor would be a mangled corpse in the dome where the two colonists had died. Dent had had objections from Caldwell about killing the Doctor. At one point Caldwell seemed about to go after Morgan and the Doctor, in order to stop the former in his work. Dent had had to remind him that if he defied his (Dent's) ruling, he would be sacked from IMC, and put on a black list that would mean his never working again for any other mining corporation. Caldwell would lose his living unit on Earth, his income, and might end up sweeping the corridors of one of Earth's great building complexes. That, finally, persuaded Caldwell to back down.

One of the technicians said, 'All's clear, Captain. The motors are dead. We've practically landed in the colonists' lap.'

Dent rose from his chair and put on his captain's helmet. Caldwell looked into the control room. 'You want me to go with you?'

'No,' said Dent firmly, 'I'll handle this.'

Dent went down the connecting corridor, and then for the first time stepped onto the terrain of the planet. The IMC ship had landed right in front of the colonists' main dome. A group of these poorly-clothed, hungry-looking people were standing watching from the entrance to the dome. Dent walked over to them.

'Captain Dent,' he said. 'IMC Survey.'

A young man stepped forward. 'You've no right to be on this planet!'

An older man restrained the younger one. 'All right, Winton, let me deal with this. My name's John Ashe. I'm the leader of this colony. We have been established for some considerable time and - '

Dent cut in, 'Can't we talk inside your dome?'

'I'm sorry,' said Ashe, 'yes, of course. This way.'

Dent was led into the main meeting area. All the colonists gathered round to hear the confrontation. Dent was glad to see First Officer Norton in amongst the colonists - at least
that
part of the scheme seemed to have worked.

'I can assure you, Mr. Ashe,' said Dent, 'that I'm as surprised as you are. As soon as we met your friend we realised that we must make contact with you people immediately, to sort things out.'

'What friend?' queried Ashe.

'He said he was visiting your colony,' said Dent. 'A tall man, who calls himself “the Doctor”. Hasn't he returned yet and told you about our meeting? He insisted on setting off in advance of us.'

A pretty young woman spoke up from the crowd. 'Mr. Ashe, since the Doctor hasn't returned yet, couldn't you send out a search party? Something may have happened to him.'

'All right, Jo,' replied Ash, 'all in good time.' He turned back to Dent. 'Thus planet has been assigned for colonisation.'

'Not according to us,' said Dent. 'We've been granted full mineral rights. We want to move in heavy mining equipment straight away.'

Norton took his cue to speak up. 'There's plenty of other parts of the planet you could mine! Why pick on here?'

'Our survey's been done here,' said Dent. 'We know for certain the minerals are in this part. In any case, we've been granted mineral rights for the whole planet.'

'I have a photostat copy of the certificate,' said Ashe, 'proving that this planet is for colonisation only.'

'I have a copy of a certificate,' retorted Dent, 'proving the, opposite.' He didn't really, but he knew he could produce one pretty quickly once back in the IMC spaceship. 'There's only one solution to this,' he went on, 'we'll have to send for an Adjudicator.' He referred to the special Earth Government officials whose job it was to sort out claims and counter-claims.

Winton pushed his way to the front again. 'You know it can take months, years even, for an Adjudicator's decision, and by then you'll have gutted the planet!'

Dent ignored this. He spoke again to Ashe 'I'm sure you agree that we must apply the proper procedures?' Ashe was clearly swayed by what Winton had said, but he nodded and replied, 'Well, I suppose so.'

'Good,' said Dent. 'I'll use my ship's radio to ask Earth to send someone.' He turned on his heel to leave, and found himself facing the Doctor who had just entered.

'Sorry to still be alive,' said the Doctor to Dent. 'It must seriously upset your plans.' The Doctor turned and addressed himself to the whole gathering. 'This man tried to have me killed. They're trying to frighten you away with imaginary monsters that don't really exist.'