Doctor Who: Galaxy Four (10 page)

The bars slid up before her and she stepped out into the half-light by which the Doctor had been working. ‘The Rills won’t harm us. They want to help.’

The Chumbley moved up beside her. ‘We were told your friend is in danger.’

The Doctor glanced nervously about him. ‘Who said that?’

‘This did,’ Vicki answered, resting a maternal hand on the machine’s head.

‘Ah, did it?’ The Doctor peered at it. ‘I take it that is a Rill talking?’

‘If you care to put it that way, yes. You’d better answer him.’

The Doctor addressed the Chumbley, feeling something of a fool for doing so. ‘You were told correctly. Our friend is in serious trouble.’

‘Then perhaps you will both come inside.’

The Doctor hesitated. ‘It occurs to me that if we do that we could both be trapped.’

‘Doctor,’ Vicki said, ‘if they meant us any harm this Chumbley could shoot us now.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he nodded in agreement. ‘Quite true. Very well, lead the way.’

The Chumbley pivoted and made for the entrance. Before it reached it, however, one of its brothers came scudding out and chumbled off into the distance. The Doctor looked after it. ‘Where’s he going in such a hurry?’

‘To repair the damage you and your friend did to its fellow machine. We are sending another to do the same for the converter.’

‘Ah.’ The Doctor looked suitably apologetic, then grimaced at Vicki.

They followed the Chumbley along the passageway and into the main chamber, the machine circling to a halt. The Doctor looked about him with as much interest as he had the first time, then a thought occurred to him. He rapped his cane smartly on the Chumbley’s head. ‘What are you drilling for, may I ask?’

‘Power. We need a great deal in order to launch our vessel and the suns are too weak to supply it. Therefore, by drilling we hope to find some beneath us.

‘Then if you take my advice,’ the Doctor said,

‘you’ll find it quickly. You don’t have much time.’

The guard on the viewport slid up and the great eyes surveyed them again. ‘You know about the explosion of this planet?’

‘Rather more than you do. It’s nearly dawn now. There’s only one to go and that’s the end.’

There came a pause while the Rill absorbed this new information. ‘Then we have no chance of survival.’

‘But you’ve finished repairing the ship?’ Vicki asked.

‘Yes. But the only fuel we can find is gas and that is of no use to us. We have no means of converting it into the solar power we need.’

‘Solar,’ the Doctor mused. ‘Meaning nuclear. You’re going to help us and I think we can help you. I can supply the power you need.’

‘We would be deeply grateful.’

‘And that’s another thing,’ Vicki said. ‘You keep saying "we". How many of you are there?’

‘Four.’

‘That doesn’t seem many for manning a ship like yours.’

‘We were twelve. Seven of us died in the crash and one has been seriously wounded by Maaga. He is not able to carry out his duties.’

The Doctor nodded sympathetically, then became businesslike. ‘I shall require some metal-cored cable.’ ‘We have some.’

‘Good. We should be able to effect a transference from our ship to this. I just hope your cable will take it, because we don’t have much time and I’ll have to flood it through. You’ll have to do a little conversion this end first. Can you manage that?’

‘We shall do all you say. You are our only – ‘

The voice stopped abruptly and the Chumbley chittered to itself. There came a whirring sound from the Rills’ chamber and a clicking as from a control panel.

‘What’s the matter?’ the Doctor queried. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We have just received a message from one of our machines,’ the Rill said. ‘It is posted by the Drahvin spaceship. It reports that a being, not Drahvin, came out of it and assumes it was your friend. But before contact could be made he went back in again.’

‘That’s Steven,’ Vicki cried. ‘He still thinks you’re dangerous.’

‘We shall go and talk to him.’

The Doctor was firm. ‘Not yet you won’t. First things first, which in this case happens to be the transference of power. We’ll have the cable. Steven can look after himself for the moment.’

Maaga’s smile was almost a leer as she looked in upon Steven. So much for the machinations of this particular male who thought he could tangle with her. Despite his clever talk he possessed only the mentality of a slave, which was minimal. He was about to learn that it was unwise to challenge the Drahvin elite, a lesson he would never forget, unless something terminal happened to shorten the memory.

‘If you throw your gun down I will open the airlock,’ she said and saw him tighten his grip on the gun, an expression of anger coming over his face. It made little difference to her. She had encountered the odd slave in revolt before. Invariably the revolution had been short-lived and often bloody in its conclusion. ‘Very well. But if you try to come through here, you may possibly kill one or two of my soldiers, but you will go as well.’ She saw him look over his shoulder. ‘Yes, outside the machine awaits you. You would appear to have painted yourself into a corner.’

‘So I stay here,’ Steven replied. ‘I may be trapped, but you can’t harm me.’

‘Indeed? Then let me give you some information. On the bulkhead beside you there are some dials. They are pressure gauges.’

She saw his glance at them. ‘What of it?’

She poised herself for the telling thrust, enjoying herself now, all anger gone, to be replaced by undiluted pleasure at the suffering about to befall him. ‘We can draw the oxygen out of, that section. You are about to suffocate.’ As Steven turned to look out of the port and began to raise a hand to the button, she continued, ‘I don’t think I would do that if I were you, because if you do you will then be completely at the mercy of the machine and that would be a pity. Look at it this way: if you stay where you are you at least have a tiny chance of survival. I know it is only very tiny, but there we are, we have to live with these problems thrown up from time to time – if "live" is the word. Whereas if you open the outer door your end is certain.’

The expression of bafflement on his face was a pleasure for her to see. She signalled to her soldiers and Drahvins Two and Three moved the panel and grasped a control wheel each.

‘Ready,’ said Drahvin Two.

Maaga nodded. ‘Pressure?’

‘Normal.’

‘Temperature?’

‘Normal.’

‘Good. Empty airlock–and do it slowly.’

This was all very pleasing. It was not often she had the chance of such sport. She had really boxed this one in, leaving him three options. He could die in the airlock, come in and die at her hands, or go out and be killed by the machine. This promised to be a fun day.

Vicki and the Doctor were sorting through roll upon roll of cable suspended from the deckhead. All of them were light in weight, but the Doctor had examined their cores and could see that, though fine, almost thread-like, they were capable of carrying considerable power. They would need to be for what he had in mind. He held one up so that the Rill could see it. ‘Would this do it? Please bear in mind that there’s going to be a tremendous surge and I don’t want anything burning out. We don’t have the time to go through all this again.’

‘Then you had better take the one second along on your left. That is our strongest.’

The Doctor moved to it and ran out a length. There was no point in his examining it because he was not familiar with their technology. He would have liked to have been, but this was neither the time nor the place.

Perhaps another day, if he was lucky. He was warming to the Rills, indifferent to their physical appearance, but moved by their sensibility. In his experience, time and space were heavily over-populated with villains. What was called for was a serious culling to thin them out and give species like the Rills a better chance. Devil take the main-chancers who cheated at every opportunity and too often ended up winning because of the power their treachery brought them.

These thoughts occupied him as, with Vicki’s assistance, he took the cable as far as the entrance to the passageway. There he stopped and addressed the Chumbley beside them. ‘We’re a fair distance away. Is this going to be long enough?’

‘I was wondering that,’ Vicki said.

‘It will be adequate,’ came from the machine. ‘We try to allow for all foreseeable emergencies.’ ‘Good. Then we’ll be on our way.’

At that moment there was more noise from the Rills’ control boards. All paused and waited until it ceased.

‘What was that?’ Vicki asked.

There was a pause, then the Rill answered. ‘The machine on guard at the Drahvin ship has reported that your friend is still inside. But he is making noises that it cannot understand. It says they sound like cries of distress. He has relayed them to me and I think the same. Your friend is in need of assistance.’

‘Then we’d better give it,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘You cannot help him alone,’ the Rill said. ‘We shall send two of the machines with you.’

‘What can they do?’ a worried Vicki demanded. ‘If necessary, they can cut the ship wide open.’ ‘We might need it,’ the Doctor said, hurrying into the passageway. ‘Come on, Vicki. Quickly!’

They burst out into the open and the two Chumblies came chittering along on their heels. Then the machines gathered speed and alternated between leading the way and circling about like guards, chumbling over the rough terrain as though it did not exist and chittering excitedly to themselves as they remained in contact with the Rills. Both Vicki and the Doctor were thankful for their presence as they raced for the Drahvins’ ship, both knowing that without such support they would never be able to come to the assistance of Steven. It was good to have them along in such a time of crisis.

The two came to a sudden and panting halt as they were confronted by Drahvin Three, who rose from behind some of the planet’s flora, her gun aimed at them. The Chumblies also stopped, but the Doctor could hear them still relaying information to the Rills.

‘Where are you going?’ the Drahvin said.

‘Back to your spaceship, of course,’ the Doctor gasped. ‘Surely even you can see that?’

‘Why do you bring the machines with you? They are our enemies.’

‘They are not,’ the Doctor insisted. ‘They’re here to help you and Maaga get to their spaceship so that you’ll be safe.’

She remained stony. ‘Maaga does not trust you. I do not trust you.’

Oh, what a cretin, the Doctor thought, Steven’s plight uppermost in his mind. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘these machines do as we tell them. Watch.’ He turned to the Chumblies and prayed that the Rills could hear him through them. ‘Go forward.’

They did so until he cried, ‘Stop!’ They did that too. The Doctor sighed with relief.

‘Come back,’ he said and they returned to him, as docile as well-trained dogs. The Doctor gave the Drahvin what he hoped was a winning smile. ‘There, you see. Now we’ll be on our way.’

‘I am going to kill you,’ the Drahvin said.

But she never managed it because the moment she had uttered the words a beam lanced out from one of the Chumblies and enveloped her weapon. She cried out in pain and the beam immediately vanished. To her complete consternation she found herself holding nothing but a handgrip. She dropped it, lowered her hands and looked at them with eyes blank of understanding. ‘You had better kill me. I have failed in my duty.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ Vicki snapped impatiently. The Doctor felt the same way. ‘Silly girl. Now come along with us. That’s an order.’

The Drahvin lowered her head in shame, but nonetheless followed as the party resumed its trek toward the spaceship.

Steven’s mouth hung slack and gaping as he gasped for air. Sweat beaded his forehead, fell and steadily soaked his shirt. His heart fought to function normally, despite the fact that it was being, starved of oxygen, but was losing the battle. It hammered this way and that, like a trapped tiger, and found little to keep itself operational.

The gauge needles eased their way steadily downward.

‘Why do you not give up?’ Maaga asked, not really wishing him to.

Bereft of speech, his lungs struggling to consume what little remained of the oxygen and sparing nothing for such an unnecessary exercise, Steven stared at her in hatred, feeling his eyes bulging, his head spinning, but still retaining his grip on the gun. He staggered to the release button for the outer door and again Maaga spoke. ‘That will do you no good. The doors will not open until the pressure is normal. Why waste your strength? After all, there isn’t much of it left, is there?’

Steven fell against the wall and rested his forehead on it, one hand supporting him. But his legs were weakening. He started to slide downward.

4 The Exploding Planet

Maaga could see that the young man had not much longer to live. His face was purple, his tongue hanging out. His chest laboured mightily for air, but there was almost none remaining. He was on his knees and close to toppling the rest of the way. Then unconsciousness would come and, soon after, the end for him. It was a pity to lose a hostage, but he had given her no alternative. Then, too, the Doctor and the girl had no way of knowing about Steven’s hastened demise. That they would learn on their return, by which time it would be too late. Maaga would have them once again and, if necessary, would use the girl as a hostage to replace the dead one. It would all work out in the end, she thought, watching Steven’s final struggle for survival. She would get herself and her soldiers off this doomed planet and up into the freedom of outer space, there to resume the search for a place suitable for colonisation. It could be inhabited or not. The matter was unimportant to her. Anyway, a resident population could prove convenient. After the necessary culling they could be put to any purpose the elite chose, whether they resisted or not. Resistance, too, could be a good thing. It speeded the cull.

‘Soon he will die,’ Drahvin Two said from beside her. ‘It was his own doing,’ she said briefly.

The Drahvin nodded and continued watching the struggling Steven with eyes as calm as those of a scientist studying a blood slide.