DOCTOR WHO.
CAVES OF ANDROZANI.
by Terrance d.i.c.ks.
1.
Androzani Minor Revisited
Twin planets...o...b..ting each other in s.p.a.ce one large, one relatively small Androzani Major and Androzani Minor were two of the five planets that made up the Sirius system.
Androzani Major was civilised, even industrialised, the home of an industrial conglomerate powerful enough to influence government a complete contrast to Androzani Minor, which was uncolonised and very largely uninhabited, an unattractive planet of desert rocky plains and seething mud volcanoes.
Yet this barren little planet held the key to a power and prosperity far greater than that of its richer twin.
Androzani Minor was the source the only source of spectrox, the most valuable drug in the universe. Spectrox was the reason for the savage guerrilla war being waged in the cave system beneath the surface of Androzani Minor.
And this spectrox was soon to have a devastating effect on that mysterious traveller in s.p.a.ce and time known as the Doctor, and his current companion, a girl called Perpugilliam Brown Peri for short.
A wheezing groaning sound shattered the silence of the rocks desert of Androzani Minor and an incongruous square blue-shape appeared.
Two figures emerged into the glare and heat of the sun.
The Doctor, now in his fifth incarnation, was a slight, fair-haired figure with a pleasant open face, and an air of mildly-bemused curiosity. He wore the garb of an Edwardian cricketer: striped trousers, lawn blazer with red piping, a cricket sweater bordered in red and white, and an open-necked shirt. There was a sprig of celery in his lapel.
His companion, Peri, was an attractive American girl, her piquant features framed in short clark hair. She wore pink shorts and open-necked pink shirt.
The Doctor and Peri stood by the TARDIS for a moment, looking around them. They were on a bare rocky plain, ringed by distant mountains. Scattered about the plain were great twisted monoliths, pillars of rock carved into weird shapes by the scouring of the desert winds.
Peri surveyed the barren prospect. "The tide"s out!"
The Doctor seemed lost in thought. "Mmm?"
"When you said sand, I thought maybe I could take a dip."
"You"re a little late, Peri. Its about a billion years since there"s been any sea on Androzani Minor."
"You"re such a pain, Doctor!"
The Doctor nodded absent-mindedly. "Come on!"
"Come on where?" thought Peri. She followed him across the desert.
The Doctor strode happily onwards, glancing keenly about him, as alert and interested as if they"d been visiting one of the great beauty spots of the universe. That was one of the Doctor"s most endearing and aggravating characteristics, thought Peri. He was interested in everything.
"Doctor, this place is just unbelievable!"
The remark hadn"t been intended as praise, but the Doctor took it as such, smiling at her appreciation.
"The old place hasn"t changed at all. Still nothing but sand!"
Peri spotted something gleaming at her feet. She stopped and picked up a handful of greenish globules.
"Doctor, look!"
"What?"
"Gla.s.s!"
"The Doctor took the globules from her and peered at them. "Almost, anyway. It"s fused silica." Peri"s earlier remark made its way through into his consciousness and he added indignantly, "I"m not a pain!" He began searching the area around them. "Here"s some more of the stuff. Now, why would anyone want to come to a place like this?"
"Why indeed?" thought Peri. "Who says anyone has, apart from us?"
"The patches of silica were fused by the rocket pods of some kind of s.p.a.cecraft." He studied the globules more closely. "Too small for interstellar travel, I think, so it obviously came from the twin planet, Androzani Major.
The interesting question is why?"
"Maybe someone wanted some sand to make some gla.s.s so they could blow a new vacuum tube for their reticular vector gauge?" Peri suggested helpfully.
"Sarcasm is not your strong point, Peri. If I were you I"d stick to aha! What have we here?"
The Doctor rushed off to study two tracks stretching away into the distance like wobbling train-lines.
"Aha!" mimicked Peri. She followed him. "All right, Doctor, I"m looking. Why Why am I looking?" am I looking?"
"These tracks were left by a monoskid. You can see the deep furrow where it left the ship and the shallow one where it returned."
"Or vice versa?"
The Doctor shook his head with irritating certainty.
"No, no, no. You can see where the light track sometimes crosses the heavy one. So, someone came here with a heavily laden monoskid, unloaded it somewhere, and then returned to the ship."
"So, you got a merit badge in tracking when you were a boy scout. I"m suitably impressed, Doctor. Can we go now?"
"One moment," said the Doctor absently. "Yes, it looks as if the tracks lead to those caves over there."
Peri followed the direction of his gaze. They were standing in a sort of shallow basin, its walls formed from eroded rock. On the far side of the basin, the low walls were pierced by a number of openings presumably the caves to which the Doctor had referred.
The Doctor began heading determinedly towards them.
Peri hurried after him. "Is this wise, I ask myself?" she muttered. "Oh well!"
As they approached the caves the Doctor said suddenly, "Blow-holes!"
"What?"
"Now we"re nearer, you can see. They"re not caves, they"re blow-holes!"
"Same difference, surely?"
"Not to a speleogist," said the Doctor reprovingly. "And not if you get stuck in one of those things at high tide."
"High tide? I thought you said..."
"A figure of speech." Always eager to impart knowledge, the Doctor explained. "The core of this planet is superheated primeval mud. When its...o...b..t takes it close to Androzani Major, there"s a sort of tidal effect..."
Peri shuddered. "I get the picture. Mud baths for everyone! Well, it makes a change from lava, I suppose."
The Doctor frowned, reproving her frivolity.
Presumably that"s why this planet has never been properly colonised. Androzani Major on the other hand is getting quite developed at least, it was the last time I pa.s.sed this way."
"When was that?"
"I don"t remember, but I"m pretty sure it wasn"t in the future."
"You"re a very confusing person to be with, Doctor, you know that?"
The Doctor looked a little crestfallen. "I tried keeping a diary once not chronologically of course. But the trouble with time travel is, one never seems to find the time!"
They had reached the nearest of the cave mouths by now, and with this, the Doctor popped inside. Helplessly, Peri followed him.
Although the Doctor and Peri didn"t realise it, they were not alone in the cave system. Not far away, a squad of soldiers was hard at work.
They wore silver-grey uniforms with protective helmets, and carried machine-pistols. Their bodies were slung with cross-belts holding cartridges and grenades. Two of them were using instruments to measure distances travelled and the depth of the caves.
The survey of this particular section was virtually finished, and the senior soldier, Trooper Boze, gathered up his gear and moved on ahead to the next position.
By the time he had reached a place he considered satisfactory, the rest of his party were a considerable way behind him, out of sight.
Boze set up his instruments in the new cave and began taking preliminary readings. Absorbed in the familiar routine, he failed to notice the ma.s.sive shape that stirred in the shadows of the cave. Rearing up, it moved stealthily towards him.
It was quite close by the time Boze heard the grating of its claws on the rock and swung around. He saw red eyes, slavering flings, great savage claws reaching out for him.
Boze screamed and the creature lunged lhrward, smashing him to the ground.
The rest of the survey-party heard Boze"s screams, unslung their weapons and hurried to the rescue, guns blazing. But it was too late. By the time they arrived, Boze was not only dead but half-eaten, and the cave creature had disappeared...
The caves of Androzani were truly an astonishing sight, thought Peri. No mere holes in the ground, they consisted of a series of interlinked caves and galleries, large and small, leading ever deeper into the depths of the planet.
The cave through which they were walking now was immense, like a great cathedral. They moved between pillars of twisted rock resembling strange alien sculpture.
The whole place was lit with an eerie greenish light.
Peri looked around her in wonder. "Quite a place, Doctor. Where"s the light coming from?"
The Doctor waved towards the walls. "Natural phosph.o.r.escence. There"s a luminous crystalline material in these walls." He ran his fingers along the surface. It"s polished, smooth as gla.s.s."
Peri wandered to the other side of the cave, feeling the walls. "Which reminds me why we came here, Doctor. And it wasn"t to go miles and miles into " She screamed as her feet slid from under her and she toppled sideways into darkness.
Be careful not to slip," called the Doctor rather belatedly. He hurried over to her.
In fact, Peri hadn"t fallen very far. She was lodged in a deep crevice in the rocks a crevice that seemed to be filled with a sort of giant puff-ball. She thrashed about trying to free herself from the sticky white filaments and only succeeded in getting ever more entangled.
The Doctor peered down into the crevice. "Keep still, Peri!" He studied her situation for a moment. "All right, now try to straighten up. That"s it, reach out and give me your hand."
Disentangling herself, Peri staggered to her feet and reached for the Doctor"s outstretched hand.
"That"s it," he said encouragingly. "Now then, up you come." The Doctor could exert astonishing strength when he chose, and Peri found herself heaved bodily out of the crevice.
Her bare legs were covered with sticky white filaments.
Frantically she brushed them away. "Ugh, it"s horrid! What is it?"
The Doctor brushed some of the filaments from her shoulders. "I"m not sure." He sniffed at a fragment of the stuff between his fingers. It"s not edible by the smell of it."
He wiped his hands on his coat. "Probably quite harmless."
Peri winced as she rubbed the remainder of the stuff from her legs. "It"s stinging!"
"Yes," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "Well, whatever it is, don"t fall into any more of it!"
He moved on. Peri made a face at his retreating back and followed.
Soon they emerged from the caves and into a rift in the planetary surface, a canyon so deep and so narrow that there was very little sense of being outdoors again, though the occasional shalt of sunlight pierced down through the misty gloom. The floor was lined with oddly-shaped monoliths. It was, thought Peri, rather like walking through some strange gallery of alien sculptures.
She glanced at the Doctor. "Why do you wear a stick of celery in your lapel?"
"Why? Does it offend you?"
"No, just curious."
"I"m allergic to certain gases in the Praxsis range of the spectrum."
"How does the celery help?"