"Careful of what?" muttered Peri mutinously. "The spooks and ghosts you"re always telling me don"t exist?"
She looked round the surrounding gloom and shivered a little. "You could have left me the umbrella," she called.
There was no reply.
"Oh, please yourself," said Peri. "I don"t mind getting wet!"
She turned hack towards the stairs - and suddenly a grotesquely masked figure loomed up at her out of the darkness... Then another...
Primitive warriors, masked and carrying spears.
With terrifying speed they closed in on her.
Peri screamed.
The village could have been duplicated on many planets and in many times.
It was an archetypal primitive settlement. A low stone wall surrounding a variety of stonewalled thatched huts of a.s.sorted shapes and sizes. A larger building in the centre, primitive palace of some headman or chief.
A busy place, full of the activities needed for survival.
At a primitive forge a blacksmith was hammering a fragment of metal into a spearhead. A fur-clad woman boiled some kind of stew in a huge communal pot. Bands of children ran amongst the huts playing in the well-trampled mud.
Suddenly the peaceful scene was interrupted. A warrior in full battle-gear came running purposefully through the village. His war helmet with its built-in face-mask, intended both as a protection for its wearer and a means of terrifying his enemies, together with the long spear he carried, made him a grotesque and frightening figure.
Watched by the villagers, he disappeared inside the royal hut, which was distinguished not only by its size but by the gleaming metal pylon erected close by.
The silver tower caught the eye of Sabalom Glitz, as the little band of warriors, part escort, part captors, marched him and his companion into the village.
He nudged Dibber with his elbow. "The light convertor."
"Let me blast it, Mr Glitz," whispered Dibber. "Then we can get away from here."
Glitz looked at the ferociously masked warriors surrounding them.
"Oh, you"d look good with a back full of spears, Dibber.
Use your head."
By now they were approaching the biggest hut - and a little group of natives was emerging to confront them. It consisted of impressive looking warriors and elders, and it was led by a formidable-looking woman.
Middle-aged and thick-set as she was now, it was clear that she must once have been very beautiful. She wore a long woven skirt, a white blouse and a woollen jerkin. Her many necklaces and her silver wrist-cuffs showed that she was a woman of wealth and position. The sickle-shaped crown with is central jewel, jammed firmly onto a head of blazing red hair, indicated that she was a queen. In her face, still strikingly handsome, there was the confident authority that comes with long-held power. Surrounded by the robed councillors, she stared impa.s.sively at the two newcomers.
Glitz nudged Dibber. "We"ve got company - right royal company by the looks of things."
Dibber looked at the stern set features and whispered, "You"ll never charm her her, Mr Glitz."
"I have an uncanny knack with ageing females, Dibber,"
said Glitz confidently. "One look into my eyes and they start to melt..."
Spreading his arms wide, smirking obsequiously, Glitz bowed low.
Dibber looked on dubiously. She didn"t look the melting type to him...
After descending seemingly endless flights of stairs, the Doctor found himself in a different environment altogether. He was in a long, brightly lit corridor, with walls that curved upwards to form an arched roof. The white walls were ribbed, with a sort of venetian-blind effect, and they seemed to be luminescent in themselves, providing the source of the light.
The Doctor came to a junction and turned right into an even wider corridor. On his left there were three alcoves, each with a little flight of steps before it. The alcoves were flanked with long-necked gla.s.s vials set upon pedestals.
Above each vial a long gla.s.s tube descended from the ceiling. Water dripped steadily from the tubes into the receptacles beneath.
Some kind of water-distillation set-up, decided the Doctor. Water would be at a premium so far below the surface.
He paused, looking uneasily around him. In quite extensive wanderings he hadn"t seen a living soul, nor heard any sound other than the ever-present faint hum of machinery. It was a very different atmosphere from the eerily silent woods, or the gloomy rubble-strewn tunnels, but there was something odd and sinister about it all the same.
Perhaps only the machines had survived, thought the Doctor, maintaining this sterile environment for a race long dead and gone. But then, he thought, machines had no need of water.
He picked up the nearest vial and sniffed curiously at it.
Yes, it was water all right. Pure distilled water.
As if to confirm this conclusion, an automated voice blared out. "WATER THIEVES! WATER THIEVES!
PROTECT YOUR WATER!"
Oval doors at the rear of the alcoves slid open and yellow-clad blank-faced figures poured out brandishing clubs.
The Doctor, as always, did his best to he friendly. "Ah, how do you do, gentlemen. Perhaps you could direct me to the station master"s office? I"m sure we can sort this out amicably..."
But the Doctor"s friendly overtures were quite useless.
Brandishing their clubs, the yellow-clad figures rushed upon him, and the Doctor went down beneath a hail of blows.
4.
The Stoning The immortal studied a console that was ablaze with flashing lights. The reading was clear. A life-form was present where no extra life form had the right to be.
The Immortal touched a control.
A monitor screen lit up above the console and a sombre-looking middle-aged man, black-clad and wearing a shiny black skull-cap, appeared on the screen, "Yes, Immortal?"
The Immortal"s voice boomed out. "Marb Station shows one work unit over strength. Remove it."
"Immediately, Immortal."
The screen went dark and the Immortal turned away.
His ma.s.sive metal body, with its terrifyingly blank curve of metal in place of a head, moved silently across the control room.
In a nearby sub-control room, the black clad man stood thinking for a moment. His name was Merdeen, and he was one of the most senior servants of Drathro the Immortal.
He moved across to where a red-overalled figure in a yellow harness and communications helmet sat at a console.
"Call the watch," ordered Merdeen. "Marb is a work unit over."
The guard, whose name was Grell, stared unbelievingly at him. "How?"
"I do not know. But the Immortal is never wrong."
Grell nodded. "I will summon the watch."
His hands moved over the console.
Dibber was right. The queen - her name they had discovered was Katryca - didn"t melt easily.
In fact, for all Glitz"s smarmy charm, she was showing no signs of melting at all.
She had listened to Glitz"s tale impa.s.sively. "So, you are outlanders?"
"From a far-off star, your majesty," said Glitz impressively.
If he was expecting an awed reaction he was in for a shock.
"You have a s.p.a.ceship?" said Katryca matter-of-factly.
Glitz was taken aback. "You have heard of such things?"
"It is recorded in our folk memory. Before the fire, our ancestors travelled among the stars."
"Is that a fact?"
"It is also recorded," continued Katryca coldly, "that such star travel angered the G.o.ds, who punished us by sending the great fire which destroyed our planet."
"No, dear lady," protested Glitz. "It was all much more secular than that." He gestured towards the gleaming metal obelisk. "That attracted the fireball."
There was a shocked murmur from the crowd.
"That is our great totem to the earth-G.o.d Haldron," said Katryca proudly.
"No madam," said Glitz confidently. "That is a malfunctioning navigational s.p.a.ce beacon. It attracted the fireball five hundred years ago, and I am here to tell you that it is still malfunctioning today."
"How do you know this?" demanded Katryca.
"It is my job to know. What"s more, if you don"t have it dismantled, the fireball will return."
Katryca studied him thoughtfully. "What is your name?"
"Sabalom Glitz, Your Majesty."
"I am an old woman, Sabalom Glitz. You are not the first to visit my village from another world."
"Is that a fact, dear lady?"
"Each and every one of them has wanted to dismantle the great totem."
Small wonder, considering what it was worth, thought Glitz. But all he said was, "In that case, you can surely understand the urgency"
Katryca continued, "yet each and every one of them had a different reason."
"Let me a.s.sure you madam," said Glitz smoothly, "that my credentials are both bona fide and completely in order."
He reached for his hand-blaster as he spoke, but before he could raise it, one of the warriors at his side wrenched it from his hand while another presented a spear at his throat.
Not without some difficulty, two more natives wrested the laser rifle away from Dibber.
Proudly, one of the warriors handed Katryca Glitz"s hand-blaster.
"Ah, yes, the guns," she said dryly. "All the other outlanders had very similar credentials."
"That totem is a navigational hazard," spluttered Glitz indignantly. "It must be dismantled."
Katryca said, "You must think me a fool. You have come here for no other reason but to steal the totem of our great G.o.d."
"And what would I want with the symbol of some earth-grubbing deity?"
Katryca smiled. "I do not know. But before you die, I shall certainly find out."
Her warriors dragged them away.
Katryca hefted Glitz"s blaster in her hand. "Now Immortal," she whispered, "I am ready for you!"
The Doctor recovered consciousness to discover that he was bruised all over and lashed to a supporting pillar.