"You"ll soon forget him, Peri."
Peri struggled to sit up. "He wouldn"t leave me here. He wouldn"t!"
"He had no choice," said Jek dryly. "Some people I do business with decided to take him with them."
"But why?"
"They believed he was spying on them for the Govenment."
"But that"s ridiculous!"
Sharaz Jek shrugged. "These petty criminals are invariably paranoid, their twisted little minds infested with mistrust and suspicion."
"You didn"t have to let them take him," sobbed Peri.
"You could have stopped them."
Sharaz Jek didn"t seem to hear her. "To think that I, Sharaz Jek, who once mixed with the highest in the land, am now dependent upon the very dregs of society. Base, perverted sc.u.m, who contaminate everything they touch.
And it is Morgus who brought me to this. Morgus destroyed my life." He whirled round on Peri, eyes blazing through the slits of his mask. "Do you think I"m mad?"
Peri shook her head. "No..."
"I am mad," said Jek, with quiet satisfaction. "Do I frighten you?"
"No," whispered Peri again, although by now she was terrified.
Sharaz Jek leaned over her, the hideously masked face close to her own. "You are so important to me. I have lived so long in these caves, alone, like an animal. But now I can feast my eyes on your delicacy and forget the pain and the blackness in my mind. That is all in the past. Now we can think of the future."
He reached out, gently stroking her hair.
Peri was dimly aware that this fantastic, twisted being was making some kind of declaration of love. She gazed around the gloomy workshop. If this was all that lay ahead of her, it was almost a relief to recall that she was dying.
"What future?" said Peri wearily. "You know the Army are planning to attack you."
"I know."
"And your androids won"t fire back because the soldiers will he wearing belt-plates."
"Belt-plates emitting a signal on eighty beta-cycles. I have changed the recognition code to fifty beta-cycles."
There was a hideous glee in Sharaz Jek"s voice. "General Ch.e.l.lak, my dear, is in for a shock.
General Ch.e.l.lak was receiving a shock at this very moment. He had just discovered that Peri was missing from his quarters. He looked at Major Salateen in amazement. "She"s gone."
"She must have been stronger than we thought, sir."
Ch.e.l.lak shrugged. "Well, she can"t get far, can she? We"ll soon pick her up again unless she dies first of course."
They went back into Ch.e.l.lak"s office and began going over the plans for the attack.
Shaking his head to clear it, the Doctor looked at the forward view-screen built into the control console.
Androzani Minor seemed to be rushing towards him at alarming speed. Too fast, thought the Doctor. Much too fast... He rubbed his eyes, trying to concentrate.
Suddenly there came a pounding at the door. "Doctor.
Unlock this door! What are you doing in there?" There was more pounding, then Stotz"s voice came again. "Doctor?
Are you going to open this door or not?"
The Doctor was beginning to feel rather light-headed.
"Ah, Stotzy! Have a nice rest?"
"d.a.m.n you, Doctor, open this door!"
"Sorry, seems to be locked!"
The Doctor heard Stotz call, "Krelper, go and get the cutting gear!" Then, "Doctor? Now listen, Doctor, be reasonable. This isn"t going to do you any good!"
The Doctor glanced at the screen, now entirely filled by the planetary surface. "Sorry, we"ll be touching down in about two minutes. Or more probably crashing down! You see I"m a bit out of practice with manual landings. So if I were you Stotzy, I"d find something firm to hang on to!"
"I"ll murder you when I get in there, Doctor," bellowed Stotz.
Seconds later, the Doctor heard a hissing sound from the control-room door. He glanced round and saw the glowing tip of a thermic lance carving through the metal of the cabin door like a red-hot knife-tip through rice-paper.
With astonishing speed the lance sliced a jagged square panel out of the door. Punched from the outside, the panel dropped into the control room with a clang.
Through the resultant gap the Doctor saw an enraged Stotz, glaring at him. Stotz reached his hand through the hole to open the door and gave a yell of agony as his wrist touched the still red-hot rim of the gap.
Abandoning the idea, he levelled his machine-pistol at the Doctor. "All right, snoop. Hands in the air. Come over here and open that door."
"Why?"
"Because I"ll kill you if you don"t!"
The Doctor laughed. "Not a very persuasive argument, actually, Stotz, because I"m going to die anyway. Unless of course..."
"I"ll give you till a count of three," screamed Stotz. "One!"
Quite unperturbed the Doctor went on. "Unless of course I can find the antidote..."
"Two!"
"I owe it to my friend Peri to try because I got her into this. So you see, I"m not going to let you stop me now!"
The Doctor closed his eyes.
On the screen, the surface of Androzani Minor rushed closer...
10.
Mud Burst!
"Three!" yelled Stotz.
His finger tightened on the trigger and the ship slammed into the desert surface of Androzani Minor.
Stotz was thrown back, clear across the corridor.
The Doctor stabbed at the controls, opening the door on the far side of the room and the exit hatch beyond.
By the time Stotz got the door open and came running into the control room the Doctor was out of the ship and haring across the desert.
Krelper and Stark, the other surviving gun-runner, came tumbling into the control room behind Stotz.
"Get after him!" yelled Stotz, and waved them onwards.
Something jingled against Stotz"s foot.
He picked it up. It was a section of broken twisted handcuff. Angrily Stotz hurled it across the control room.
The Doctor was sprinting like a hare across the bare and sandy desert surface of Androzani Minor, with Krelper and Stark at his heels.
Every now and again, the bullets from their machine-pistols kicked up spurts of sand close to the Doctor"s body.
However, since the Doctor was ducking and weaving and the gun-runners found it hard to run and shoot straight at the same time, none of the bullets. .h.i.t him.
The Doctor ran into an area of dunes and was at last able to find some cover.
Krelper and Stark came to a halt, scanning the country ahead of them.
"That way," shouted Krelper. "He went down that ridge!"
The Doctor popped into sight behind a distant dune, and then disappeared again.
"Come on," yelled Krelper. "After him. Get him!"
Stumbling and clumsy in the soft sand, the two gun-runners ran after the Doctor.
An alarm-light flashed on Stotz"s yid-console and the angry face of Morgus appeared on the screen. "Stotz, why have you disobeyed my orders? I told you to stay in orbit."
"I"m sorry, sir," said Stotz wearily. "The Doctor tricked us. Somehow he got control of the ship, and "
Morgus cut him short. "I don"t want excuses. I"m on my way to join you. Put out a homing beacon."
"You"re coming here?"
"Yes. My future plans may have to be changed drastically. I am in beta-drive, so expect me shortly."
"Something wrong?"
The screen went blank. Morgus had broken the connection.
Stotz stared worriedly at the empty screen. He could sense danger.
Ch.e.l.lak and Salateen were leading their advance party towards Sharaz Jek"s secret base.
Salateen halted the men at a point where several tunnels met.
Ch.e.l.lak came up beside him. "Trouble, Major?"
"Not too sure of the route from here, sir. I thought I"d memorised it pretty thoroughly but..."
"Take your time."
"I remember this cave well enough, sir. The vaulted roof, those pillars there. I"d swear we"re only a few yards from Sharaz Jek"s headquarters now."
Ch.e.l.lak turned to the men. "Safety catches off. Stay on the alert."
"The trouble is, I was coming out of one of those tunnels, and trying to keep an eye on the girl at the same time."
Chcllak produced a chart from his belt-pouch. "I think we came this way when we first landed. There"s a ventilation shaft on the left that runs through to the old refinery. But the rest is unknown territory. We just haven"t surveyed this level yet."