" a spot of angling," said the Doctor.
With an unearthly shriek, a black shape dropped like a thunderbolt from the sky above, fastening its teeth into Peri"s upper arm. She felt no pain, just a kind of enormous, incredibly heavy blow. She went numb with shock, unable to resist.
Flapping its wings, the creature tried to lift her, but she was heavier than it had expected. The Doctor flung himself upon Peri"s attacker, gripping the scrawny neck with both hands and trying to wrench it away. The beast hung on doggedly, teeth sinking deeper into Peri"s arm.
Leaning forwards, the Doctor fastened his teeth into the creature"s neck, jaw muscles bulging as he clamped down hard.
With a shriek of rage and pain, the creature loosed Peri, who fell unconscious at the Doctor"s feet. Angrily the great head swung round to attack the Doctor. Sliding his hands up to the point where the head joined the neck, the Doctor tightened his grip and held the flapping beast at arm"s length.
Exerting a force that seemed incredible for his slender frame, he gripped tighter, tighter and then began to twist, wringing the creature"s neck. With a sudden grinding crack the long neck snapped and the beast went limp.
Hurling its body down the steep slope, the Doctor knelt by Peri. She was still unconscious, blood pulsing from a deep gash in the upper arm.
A gash so deep that the arm seemed almost severed.
The Doctor took a silk handkerchief from his pocket, twisted it into a rope and tied a cruelly tight tourniquet above the gaping wound. The bleeding slowed.
The Doctor bent to lift her, changed his mind and disappeared inside the TARDIS. He pulled open an emergency locker in the control room, took out a flat metal disc and dashed outside. Kneeling beside Peri, he ripped away the torn safari jacket and clamped the disc just below the terrible wound. A thin rime of frost began spreading over Peri"s arm, spreading until it covered her face and then the rest of the body. The Doctor picked up the frozen, corpse-like figure and carried it into the control room. Pulling a bunk from the control room wall he laid Peri"s body down.
For a moment he gazed at her. She looked like a statue in ice. But she was safe for the moment. The emergency cryogenic device would hold her body in stasis, the effect of the wound no worse, and no better, than it was at this exact moment. In time the effect would wear off. Before then, he must find Peri skilled medical care. The arm had been almost severed.
With the finest medical care in the cosmos it was by no means certain that Peri"s arm and indeed her life could be saved.
The Doctor moved to the many-sided control console and considered. Fast action was vital but clear thought even more so.
Where should he take her? He considered Gallifrey, despite the dangers and disadvantages for himself. The price of return would be high, but he would pay it unhesitatingly to save Peri.
But there was somewhere else somewhere closer and better. A place where the savagery of war had raised surgery to its highest pitch of skill. The domain of the one man who could save Peri"s arm and her life.
The Doctor realised that the decision had already been taken. His hands were moving over the controls.
The Castle stood on a mountaintop, dominating the bleak and rocky countryside all around. Winds howled, thunder roared and lightning flashed around its turrets and towers. Once it had been the home of a ruthless warlord. Now, the interior transformed, it was a citadel of medical science.
In the high-ceilinged, stone-flagged reception area, nurses, doctors and orderlies moved silently to and fro. Monitor screens glowed behind the circular reception desk in the centre of the hall. Suddenly the sacred silence was broken by an odd wheezing, groaning sound. A blue box materialised in a shadowed recess at the back of the hall, and a fair-haired man emerged. In his arms he carried the frozen body of a wounded girl, her right shoulder soaked with blood.
The Doctor stood looking around for a moment and saw a pa.s.sing orderly with an empty hovertrolley.
"Here, you!" he ordered, with such authority that the orderly obeyed instantly. The Doctor laid Peri"s body carefully on the trolley. "Follow me!" He strode over to the reception desk.
Obediently, the orderly followed.
Behind the desk, the receptionist ignored him.
The Doctor spoke again, that same whiplash of authority in his voice. "I must see the Surgeon-General, immediately."
The receptionist, a thin, imperious-looking woman in a white robe, stared at him in outrage.
"Impossible!"
"Essential," said the Doctor. "Can"t you see this is an emergency?" He pointed to the trolley. "This girl is gravely wounded, and I"m not sure how long the cryogenic stasis will hold. If she isn"t given immediate expert help, she"s going to die."
Drawn by curiosity, a young intern came over and examined the body on the trolley.
"I"m afraid you"re too late," he said gently. "The wound is too severe, the poor girl is beyond saving. Though perhaps if we amputate the arm..."
"That is for your chief surgeon to say," said the Doctor obstinately. He turned back to the receptionist. "Fetch him at once, please, before it"s too late."
"I will do no such thing," said the outraged receptionist. "The Surgeon-General is far too busy to be troubled with stray vagrants."
The Doctor was about to give an angry reply when he saw a black-robed figure sweeping across the hall. He turned and called, "Reverend Mother! I beseech your aid."
The figure stopped and turned. The Doctor saw fierce black eyes above a gauzy black veil. An imperious old voice said, "Who calls on me?"
"I call, Reverend Mother," said the Doctor humbly. "There is one here who will die unless the chief surgeon helps her."
A withered hand waved him away dismissively. "I cannot interfere in hospital affairs."
The Doctor lowered his voice. "I beg you, Reverend Mother by the Pact of Ra.s.silon and the Vision of the Eye."
The fierce black eyes studied him. Then the Reverend Mother turned to the receptionist and said, "Summon the chief surgeon."
"With the greatest respect, Reverend Mother "
" Summon him Summon him." The authority in the old voice could not be denied.
The receptionist"s hands flew over her controls. Leaning forward she spoke in hushed tones. "My apologies for this disturbance, sir, there is an emergency in the reception hall.
Reverend Mother Maren herself..."
"My humble thanks, Reverend Mother," said the Doctor.
"You are fortunate," said Maren dryly, "I am seldom here."
They waited for what seemed an endless time.
The Reverend Mother stood motionless. The Doctor went over to the trolley and looked anxiously down at Peri. Was the cryogenic stasis wearing oft?
A medium-sized man in an elaborate white uniform came striding arrogantly into the hall. He marched over to the desk and glared indignantly at the Doctor.
"How dare you have me summoned like this? Don"t you know who I am?"
"I very much hope you will tell me," said the Doctor politely.
"I am Surgeon-General of the Hospice of Karn," said the newcomer. "My name is Mehendri Solon."
Chapter Two.
Lock-up The Doctor bowed respectfully. "It is a great honour to meet you, sir. All the galaxy acknowledges your genius. You are the only man alive who can help me."
Mollified by the flattery, Solon spoke less harshly. "Help you?
In what way?"
The Doctor indicated the hovertrolley. "This young lady is my dear friend and companion. Only you can save her arm and her life."
Solon examined Peri"s wound, and the Doctor examined Mehendri Solon.
The Solon he had known in another time the Doctor"s past and Solon"s future had been a very different man. Older, broken down by a series of disappointments and failures and completely mad.
This was another Solon, still relatively young, untouched by failure, a brilliantly successful man at the height of his powers.
But the seeds of that other Solon could be seen in his face and in his manner. The vanity, the arrogance verging on megalomania, the hint of underlying weakness in the mouth and chin.
The Doctor was well aware of the dangers of contacting someone whose timestream he was later to cross with such dramatic effect. But the risk any risk was worth taking to save Peri. The Doctor"s simple plan was to get Peri healed and then quietly disappear. By the time the Solon of the future met the Doctor"s previous incarnation, he would have completely forgotten the stranger and his wounded companion. Peri"s would be just one more in a long string of successful operations. With any luck, the temporal interference involved would be minimal.
Solon finished his preliminary examination. "There is a chance, just a chance, of saving the arm and the girl if I operate at once. But it will not be easy. The operation will be long and complicated, consuming many hours of my valuable time. Why should I give her priority when there are so many demands on me?" "Because I"ll wring your neck if you don"t, you conceited little swine," thought the Doctor. But he didn"t say so. Instead he said humbly, "Because you and you alone can achieve success and thereby prove your greatness once again."
Solon seemed to find the answer satisfactory. He turned to the orderly. "Take the girl to surgery and have her prepared. I shall operate at once."
As the orderly took Peri away, the Doctor said, quite sincerely this time, "I can"t thank you enough. What are her chances of a full recovery?"
Solon frowned. "Hard to say. There has been a delay and if the saliva of the creature that attacked her was toxic, which is very probable, there"s a grave danger of infection." He shrugged.
"Say, 65 per cent."
The Doctor couldn"t help looking disappointed. "So low?
Even in the hands of the greatest surgeon in the galaxy?"
Solon gave him an affronted glare. "In anyone else"s hands she would have no chance at all."
He turned and followed the hovertrolley.
The Doctor watched him go, wondering what to do next. He was tempted to go back inside the TARDIS and jump forward a week or two. But the Blinovitch Limitation Effect made such short temporal time hops very tricky. He might reappear months later, Peri would think he"d deserted her. No, he"d have to sit out the wait in subjective time. Should he wait in the TARDIS or seek some kind of accommodation?
Suddenly the decision was made for him.
Two hard-faced, black-uniformed men marched across the hall towards him, security written all over them.
"Come with us, please," said the first of them.
The Doctor looked around for the Reverend Mother but she had disappeared.
"Come with you?" he asked mildly. "Why?"
"You are under arrest."
The Doctor was marched through endless stone corridors. From time to time he caught glimpses of the hi-tech medical equipment imposed on the ancient fabric of the castle. The ancient corridors were illuminated with modern glow-strips.
They pa.s.sed brightly lit operating theatres, rooms filled with sophisticated monitoring equipment and long wards full of motionless, sheet-shrouded figures. It was hard to tell, thought the Doctor with a shudder, if they were hospital wards or morgues.
They descended several flights of stone steps; the hi-tech additions faded away and the atmosphere became solidly medieval. They ended up in a dark corridor illuminated by flaming torches set in wall-brackets. There were rows of metal-studded doors, each with its own small barred window set high in the door.
One of the cell doors was opened, the Doctor was shoved inside and the cell door clanged shut behind him.
He surveyed his surroundings. A wooden bunk with a thin straw mattress and an even thinner blanket. A small barred window in the far wall, giving a view, if you stood on the bunk, of sections of castle wall on either side, and sheer mountainside falling away below. Ahead, more mountain peaks.
Cell facilities, a stone jug of brackish water and a rusty metal bucket under the bunk.
"Could be worse," thought the Doctor, remembering some of the places in which he"d been locked up. "This is probably one of the VIP suites. Perhaps I should publish a guide Cells and Cells and Dungeons I Have Known Dungeons I Have Known."
Security methods are much the same everywhere, and this was an all too familiar routine. The imprisonment without explanation or discussion, leaving the prisoner alone with his fears. The long hours of waiting, giving him plenty of time to worry about his fate. Perhaps a routine beating or two. Poor food, degrading conditions, abusive guards. It was all part of the softening-up process, designed to break the prisoner"s will before the interrogation began.
The Doctor wondered how things were going with Peri. Had the operation begun yet? Would it be a success? Had he done the right thing in bringing her here? Hoping desperately that Solon"s talents matched his conceit, the Doctor stretched out on the bunk. After a while he drifted into sleep.
At this very moment the Doctor was the cause of a clash between two of the most formidable personalities on Karn.
No one could deny that Commander Aylmer Hawken, Head of Security of the Hospice of Karn, looked the part. A ma.s.sive figure, well over two metres tall, he had a jutting jaw, permanently blue with stubble, and a bullet-shaped head covered with close-clipped black hair, now sprinkled with grey. His dark grey eyes were deep and penetrating under beetling brows, his wide mouth thin-lipped and severe.
Despite his always immaculate black and silver uniform, his long arms and big hands gave him an undeniably ape-like appearance. He looked, as one of his more daring subordinates said, like a well-tailored gorilla.
Despite his intimidating appearance Hawken was, in his own way, a civilised soul, well educated, cultivated, with a taste for the finer things in life. Though occasionally forced to use blackmail, torture and murder in the course of his work, Hawken did so with the greatest reluctance, and only as a last resort.
The very sight of Hawken intimidated most people, but his opponent in the current discussion showed no sign of being impressed.
The slight, wizened form in the flowing black robes was upright and erect, and the bright black eyes behind the flowing veil stared fearlessly up into his own.
Reverend Mother Maren of the Sisterhood of Karn was a power in her own right. The Sisterhood had been on Karn long before the Hospice, and its members were both feared and revered. Here on Karn, home of the Sisterhood, the Reverend Mother Maren was on her own territory, and it was Hawken who was on the defensive.
"You locked him up," she was saying scornfully. "The security man"s answer to every problem. Lock it up and throw away the key!" "But Reverend Mother, he had to be locked up," protested Hawken. "The Hospice is a military installation as well as a place of healing. We can"t have people casually bypa.s.sing one of the most sophisticated security systems in the galaxy with some unfathomable piece of equipment "
"The mere fact that he was able to do so should have warned you to handle him carefully. Do you know anything about him?