The Doctor watched while the Yeti completed its strange task. Soon the entire pile of crates was coc.o.o.ned in the cobwebby substance. The Yeti lowered the Web-gun and stepped back. It turned and marched off, the other two Yeti close behind.
The Doctor waited until they were gone, then clambered up on the platform. He went over to the cobwebbed crates and began examining them curiously.
Corporal Lane looked across the Operations Room to Captain Knight. "Firing checks complete, sir. Ready to detonate."
"Carry on, Corporal."
Lane"s thumb came down on the red b.u.t.ton.
The Doctor was gingerly rubbing the cobweb-substance between his fingers. There came a m.u.f.fled thump, a blinding white flash, and everything went dark...
Just as Lane pressed the firing b.u.t.ton, Sergeant Arnold ran into the Operations Room. "Don"t detonate, sir!" he called, then stopped, realising he was too late. As Knight swung round in astonishment Arnold went on, "Those kids have changed their story, sir. There was was someone else with them- someone else with them- some kind of a Doctor."
"What! If he was anywhere near those explosives..."
"I think he most have been, sir. Apparently he was following the cable."
Captain Knight sighed. "All right, Sergeant. Take a party and see what you can find."
As Arnold saluted and left, Corporal Lane called out, "Blast recorder doesn"t seem to be working, sir."
"Rubbish. Miss Travers has just checked it."
"Nothing registering, sir."
Anne crossed over to the console and examined the dials. "I"m afraid he"s right." She moved to another set of dials and frowned. "But the circuit checks show there was was an explosion." an explosion."
Knight sounded exasperated. "You can"t have an explosion without blast-can you?"
Anne shook her head.
Knight scowled, "This Doctor who was in the tunnels- maybe he tampered with the charge. I think I"ll have a chat with those two youngsters."
He strode along the corridor to the Common Room.
Anne followed. Chorley, ever alert for a story, tagged along behind clutching his tape recorder.
As soon as they entered the room Jamie and Victoria jumped up with a flood of questions. Knight stopped them.
"Quiet both of you. And sit down." Victoria and Jamie sat, fearing the worst. More gently Knight went on, "We"ve no news of your friend as yet. We"ve sent someone to investigate.
Meanwhile, I want to know exactly what you were doing in the tunnels."
Jamie and Victoria looked at each other, faced not for the first time with explaining their presence in some unauthorised place. The TARDIS never seemed to put them down anywhere safe.
When they didn"t answer, Chorley spoke up, eager to use his skill as an interrogator. "Where did you break into the Underground System?"
Jamie glared indignantly at him. "We didna" break in anywhere."
"You must have done," snapped Chorley triumphantly.
"All the stations are sealed off, aren"t they? How else could you get here?"
Jamie looked helplessly at Victoria, who said weakly, "We just-arrived. We were brought here." "By this mysterious Doctor? And for what purpose? Was it sabotage?" Chorley was well in his stride by now.
"Och no," said Jamie bewildered. "You"re making it all sound far worse than it is."
Private Weams appeared in the doorway. "Excuse me, sir, Corporal"s raised Holborn on the radio. Sounds like trouble-another Yeti attack!"
Forgetting Jamie and Victoria, Knight ran from the room, Chorley at his heels. Jamie stared after them, "Did yon soldier say Yeti? Those robot things we had so much trouble with in Tibet?"
Victoria nodded. "I think so."
"Och no, not again! Trust the Doctor."
Victoria made a shushing gesture, but it was too late.
Anne Travers had paused in the doorway and was studying them keenly. "All right, you two," she said determinedly. "Just how do you know so much about the Yeti?"
In the Operations Room, Knight stood over Corporal Lane, who was talking into his communications set-up. "Hullo, Holborn, do you read me... Fortress H.Q. to Holborn." He looked up. "Sorry, Sir. Seem to have lost them again." He listened to the faint noise coming from his earphones. "I can hear something, sir. Sounds like firing."
"Full amplification," ordered Knight. "Put it on loudspeaker." Lane adjusted controls and flicked a switch. The room was filled with the crackling of static, mixed with the sound of gunfire. There were shouts and screams. Suddenly, full blast, there came the nerve-shattering roar of a Yeti-then silence. Lane tried the controls, then shook his head.
"Nothing, sir. They"re no longer transmitting." There was a moments silence. Everyone realised what most have happened.
Captain Knight said, "You were were talking to them-before?" talking to them-before?"
"Just a few words, sir, very faint. Far as I could gather the ammo truck had trouble on the way, and arrived very late. They must have got the ammo unloaded, sir, they were just leaving when they were attacked..."
"I"ll take a squad myself and have a look. We"ve got to have that ammunition."
Corporal Lane added, "I"d like to volunteer, sir. That other radio operator was a mate of mine."
"All right. Private Weams, take over from the Corporal."
As he turned to go Knight noticed Chorley. He had been recording the last moments of the Holborn squad on his tape recorder.
"Splendid stuff that, Captain. Most dramatic. Lots of action."
Knight stopped. "We"re going to see what happened to those men, Mr Chorley. Perhaps you"d like to come with us.
You might see some "action" at first hand."
Chorley recoiled. "Er, yes, well.... most kind, but I wouldn"t want to get in your way. Perhaps I"d better stay here."
"Yes," Knight said contemptuously. "Perhaps you"d better." Followed by Corporal Lane he strode out of the room.
Sergeant Arnold and Corporal Blake stood examining a cobwebbed pile of shattered wood-all that remained of several crates of high explosive. Arnold raked among the debris and picked out a few fragments of twisted metal. "What do you make of this?"
"Part of our detonator. So it fired all right. But if it went off..."
"Why didn"t the tunnel come down? Why"s all this wood piled together instead of scattered around? How can you have an explosion without any damage?"
"Obvious, innit?" said Blake. "Someone interfered with the charge. Maybe this Doctor bloke."
Arnold nodded. "Maybe. I"d certainly like to know where he is!"
The Doctor woke from a nightmare in which he was running furiously through endless semidarkness-only to find that the nightmare was true. He forced himself to stop, and leaned gasping against the tunnel wall, while he tried to remember what had happened.
The explosives had gone off while he was examining them. But there had been no explosion, not in the true sense.
The cobweb coc.o.o.n with which the Yeti had covered the boxes had somehoiv absorbed all the power. But the Doctor had been standing only inches away, and enough explosive energy had remained to send him flying across the platform.
He could dimly remember picking himself up and running frantically into the tunnels, presumably in a mild state of sh.e.l.l-shock.
Now more or less himself, the Doctor realised he had no idea how long he"d been running or in what direction. He might even have pa.s.sed through other stations in his headlong flight. How on earth was he going to find Jamie and Victoria? They couldn"t be left to roam the tunnels, not with Yeti on the loose again. The Doctor groped in his pocket, looking to see if his torch had survived unbroken. It hadn"t and he threw it away. Suddenly a light-beam flashed out of the semidarkness and a clipped voice spoke. "Stand perfectly still and raise your hands."
The Doctor obeyed. A tall figure appeared, torch in one hand, revolver in the other, covering the Doc-tor. It was a man in battledress, the insignia of a Colonel on his shoulders.
Even through the semidarkness the Doctor caught an impression of an immaculate uniform and a neatly trimmed moustache. The soldier peered down from his superior height at the small, scruffy figure of his captive. "And who might you be?" he asked, sounding more amused than alarmed.
Feeling at something of a disadvantage the Doctor answered sulkily, "I might ask you the some question."
"I am Colonel Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart," said the precise, military voice.
"How do you do? I am the Doctor."
"Are you now? Well then, Doctor whoever-you-are, perhaps you"d like to tell me what you"re doing in these tunnels?"
5.
Battle with the Yeti Although neither of them realised it, this was in its way as historic an encounter as that between Stanley and Doctor Livingstone. Promoted to Brigadier, Lethbridge-Stewart would one day lead the British section of an organisation called UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), set up to fight alien attacks on the planet Earth. The Doctor, changed in appearance and temporarily exiled to Earth, was to become UNIT"s Scientific Adviser. But that was all in the future. For the moment the two friends-to-be glared at each other in mutual suspicion.
"Never mind how I got here," said the Doctor impatiently. "You wouldn"t believe me if I told you. The important thing is that there are Yeti in these tunnels.
They"re robot servants of an alien ent.i.ty called the Great Intelligence. We must warn the Authorities at once."
Lethbridge-Stewart"s revolver, which he had lowered on seeing the Doctor"s harmless appearance, was raised to cover him once more. "The Authorities already know about the Yeti, Doctor. But not, it seems, as much as you do. I think you"d better come with me."
Professor Travers"s laboratory had originally been an army workshop. Now the heavy machinery had been cleared away and the benches were loaded with a complex array of electronic equipment. Travers was hard at work. Having