Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors (17 page)

‘When they cease to function, everything about them will be destroyed—including the alien spacecraft.’

‘And its reactor too?’ Victoria asked the Doctor.

He nodded. He didn’t trouble to remind her that their own fate was also in the balance. There’d be little enough time to worry about that if disaster did strike!

Penley, his hand poised on the power lever, took a deep breath. ‘Here we go,’ he muttered tensely. ‘All the way—now!’

He rammed the throttle to full.

In the midst of chaos, Varga stood, majestic and alone.

All about him, his warriors slid weakly to the floor, almost physically crushed by the combination of heat and humidity.

Only Zondal remained conscious—close to collapse, he worked desperately at the smouldering controls. His choking voice barely reached Varga through the thick yellow fumes that were filling the ship. ‘Must... achieve... lift-off!’ were the Martian lieutenant’s final gasping words. His commander looked down at his dying comrade and spoke words that Zondal never heard.

‘It was not power in our engines, Zondal,’ he rasped. ‘It was the heat! Our greatest enemy: heat—from the Earthling’s Ioniser!’ Coughing from the fumes, he continued, ‘A magnificent weapon!’ Then, still standing. he saluted his dead comrades in the Martian style. ‘No... surrender!’ he cried as he, his ship and warriors, were blasted into infinity...

As Clent had predicted, all the seismic probe readings were dead—but the long-range seismograph print-out gave the minor blast recording that meant survival!

‘Only a sub-tremor reading!’ cried Jan, elated. ‘We’re safe! We’ve done it!’

‘Miss Garrett—’ responded Penley with a calm smile.

‘perhaps you’d better set all circuits to automatic and tie in with World Control?’

Jan suddenly realised that several of the technicians were observing her happy outburst with amusement. With an embarrassed, apologetic smile, she moved to the Ioniser controls and made the correct connections. Penley approached Clent, who was sitting at the back of the room, his head in his hands.

‘Clent perhaps you’d care to check over the report we’ll need to make?’

Clent looked up, surprised. He had expected only scorn and humiliation from his colleagues. And now, of all people, it was Penley suggesting that they had a job to do—together!

For a moment, Clent’s face was blank and disbelieving. Then he smiled tiredly. ‘Penley—you are the most insufferably irritating and infuriating person I have ever’—he stopped in mid-sentence, and then grinned broadly—’been privileged to work with!’

Penley simply thrust out his hand to meet Clent’s, and they held the grasp for a brief moment. ‘Thanks, Clent...’

‘Never could write a report, though, could you?’ jibed the Leader gently, hiding his brief display of emotion. ‘Don’t worry, it’s something I’ve been trained to do.’

‘Without the computer?’ twinkled Penley cheerfully.

‘I think I can manage quite well, thank you...’ declared Clent, then added—‘anyway, I can always get the Doctor to help out.’ He turned to smile at the Doctor and his young friends—only to find they weren’t anywhere to he seen. He turned back to Penley and Miss Garrett, his face puzzled.

‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘Where on earth have they got to?’

Outside the great dome that protected Brittanicus Base, the snow had almost melted. Green shoots of long-covered grass were just beginning to show through on a messy bank that had once been a snowdrift, and which still bore the imprint of a certain heavy, blue, twentieth-century police box.

But the box itself had long since gone...