Doctor Who: Planet of Fire (10 page)

‘You’ve done it!’ yelled Peri as she caught sight of the dark, unlit cave.

Turlough grinned, feeling rather pleased with himself.

‘Second rescue of the day,’ he thought. But the Doctor wasn’t out of danger yet. They could see him arguing with the imitation Master, and at the mercy of five menacing laser guns.

‘Seems like the Doctor could use some help,’ said Peri, already rattling up the spiral staircase.

The Doctor and Amyand knelt beside the body of Malkon in the entrance of the cave. ‘He’s not dead,’ whispered the Doctor with relief as he felt the faint pulse. He glanced towards the shocked and demoralised Elders. ‘But let them think he is,’ he added. anxious to exploit the confusion caused by the Chosen One’s apparent demise.

The boy stirred. ‘Warn the Doctor...’ The Doctor leaned lower. ‘Kamelion...The Master...’ he muttered feverishly.

The Doctor cursed himself for not taking Kamelion’s odd behaviour in the TARDIS more seriously. It should have been obvious–the Professor had been a robot all along. And so was the Master!

He got slowly to his feet, planning his next move. The danger was still very real. The man in the Burtons suit might well be no more than a sophisticated machine, but he embodied the mind, the will and the evil purpose of the renegade Time Lord, who even now must be watching him through Kamelion’s eyes. ‘You’re not the Master at all,’ he challenged the would-be Outsider. ‘It’s not even a man, it’s a thing! A machine!’ he proclaimed, to the whole assembly of the Sarns.

The
thing
snarled.

‘We can fight it,’ the Doctor shouted to the startled trio of Unbelievers. ‘Just concentrate your minds on destroying it.’

‘A mortal destroy the Messenger of Logar?’ replied the angry voice of the Master. ‘hnpossible!’ The black-suited robot rounded furiously on the Chief Elder. ‘Kill these insolent heretics!’

For a fleeting second the Doctor caught the robot’s eye.

The creature turned defensively from the Time Lord’s knowing gaze. ‘Don’t look away, Kamelion,’ commanded the Doctor. ‘You will accept my will,’ he continued hypnotically. ‘I am the Doctor... You are mere metal, base, deadweight, solid...’ The robot’s jacketed arms began to flap like semaphore flags as the Master’s persona struggled with the authentic Kamelion. ‘You’re a mass of printed circuits. You’re Kamelion... Reject control!’

A gurgling carne from the creature’s throat. ‘Will you allow my enemy to torment me?’ gasped the Master’s voice, while the Doctor continued his remorseless evocation of the true Kamelion.

‘You’re no more than the sum of your parts, a million minature bits and chips...’

‘Kill him...’ The Master was choking.

‘He likes killing,’ said the Doctor bitterly. ‘He reneged on your Chosen One. Next time it will be you. Chief Elder.’

Timanov did not know which way to turn.

‘Kill!’ spluttered the Master.

‘Logar must decide,’ said Timanov with the wisdom of Solomon. ‘Let the Fire Lord give us a sign.’

‘You’ll have a sign alright,’ cried the Doctor, confident now that he could demolish Kamelion’s evil control. ‘If we break the link with the Master, your so-called Outsider will be nothing but a heap of spare parts.’ He spoke again to the automaton. ‘You’re on your own, Kamelion. Your control is weakening, turning to silver... Silver puppet jumping on a string...’ The creature’s body jerked. ‘String cut!’ snapped the Doctor. The Master groaned. ‘Stricken mannikin,’

continued the Doctor mercilessly. ‘Broken toy... No more playing the Grand Panjandrum!’

The Doctor smiled. The Master had started to fizz. The pure Kamelion was about to break through. The citizens were astonished. ‘The shining! The shining!’ they cried.

‘I don’t believe it,’ whispered Roskal, appalled.

‘Psychomorphic fringing,’ said the Doctor without taking his eyes off the now radiant figure. ‘Nothing supernatural about that. It’s an intermediate stage between anthropoid and robotic identity.’

He might as well have been explaining disco dancing to a party of Carmelite nuns. The crowd saw and believed in the divine inspiration of the Outsider’s shining. ‘It is Logar’s sign!’ cried an elderly woman.

The Doctor was oblivious of the frenzy of the citizens.

‘We’re winning!’ he shouted at the Unbelievers.

‘Doctor, we’re playing into their hands,’ warned Amyand. ‘The more you attack it the more it looks like the Outsider.’

But the Doctor knew the control was about to break.

‘Keep concentrating! It won’t be so impressive when it’s a mere robot.’

In the laboratory of his TARDIS, the Master also knew that the fragile link with his servitor was all but severed.

But the Kamelion’s sensors had revealed to the stranded Time Lord a power within the Hall of Fire that was invisible to the eye of the Doctor. ‘The cave!’ he gasped, staring at the retracted image in the glass. ‘Quickly. Shield yourself from the Doctor, in the cave!’

‘You’re becoming Kamelion,’ droned the Doctor mesmerically. ‘Obey me... The Doctor...’

A disembodied voice cried from the dazzling shape.

‘Take them to the cave!’

‘Obey the shining one!’ ordered Timanov.

‘Don’t resist,’ whispered the Doctor as he allowed himself to he shepherded with Amyand, Roskal and Sorasta into the grotto. ‘Any distraction will allow the Master to break through.’ The Doctor showed no dismay as the grid across the opening slammed shut. An obedient Kamelion would soon release them.

The Doctor was stunned to see his old enemy reform instantly at the cave entrance. The metamorphic Master surveyed the prisoners behind the bars. ‘Doctor, you quite let your enthusiasm run away with you.’ He laughed at the humiliation of his adversary.

‘What went wrong?’ asked Amyand, crestfallen at the sudden reversal.

‘Something in the cave is screening the thought control,’ muttered the Doctor, angry with himself for not forseeing the possibility.

The Master grabbed a laser gun from one of the Elders.

He smiled, almost fondly, at his greatest enemy. ‘Over the years I have dreamed a million exquisite tortures to accompany your final moments, Doctor.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘That it should come to this.’ He raised the slender rod towards the horrified Doctor.

‘Stop!’ A girl’s voice echoed horn the entrance of the Hall.

The Master spun round to see Peri pushing her way through the crowd towards him.

‘Peri, get back!’ shouted the Doctor.

But the courageous American marched steadily towards the man in the dark suit. ‘Kamelion!’ Peri chided the metal Master as if he were a disobedient puppy. ‘You’re supposed to be the Doctor’s friend!’ The Master smiled. ‘Kamelion!’

repeated Peri with slightly less confidence. But there was none of the fringing she had so easily triggered, back on the ridge path.

‘You see,’ the Kamelion-Master laughed. ‘I have grown stronger since our last meeting. Your puny mind can no longer effect me.’ He took a few steps towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘I am grateful, however, that you have seen fit to return the comparator.’

‘That thing is where you’ll never find it,’ answered.Peri, immenseley relieved she had handed the component to Turlough on the way back from the bunker.

‘No matter.’ The robot Master nodded to one of the Elders who raised his staff in the direction of the young girl.

‘No!’ protested Timanov. ‘There has been too much killing.’

There was authority in the Chief Elder’s voice that worried the Master as he gazed at the image in the glass of the metamorphosis projector. He felt resistance coming through the feedback system. ‘Do not oppose them or the TARDIS will never be free,’ he warned his other self. ‘Take the girl with you. She is unskilled but strong. We will use her.’ As for the Doctor, he was reluctant to allow his scheming rival out of his sight, but he must not risk alienating the superstitious Sarns with an orthodox execution. And the Doctor would be safe, locked in the cave, dying in the final holocaust that would soon destroy Sarn and all its inhabitants.

‘Very well.’ The Kamelion-Master shrugged. ‘Spare the girl. I have work for her.’

The Doctor knew that without Peri’s intervention he would now be dead, and he was horrified that she was, once more, at the Master’s mercy. ‘Leave her,’ he pleaded from the cave. ‘She is no part of our quarrel.’

The Master was delighted to see the pain he caused his enemy. ‘At least in my TARDIS she will be spared the paroxysms of this dying planet.’ A warning rumble from the volcano synchronised with another evil chuckle from the Master. ‘I am sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of seeing you die, Doctor.’ He smiled through the bars.

‘Though I am consoled by the thought that your imminent and inevitable demise will be excrutiating!’ He turned abruptly from the cave. ‘Now, Chief Elder, I have work for you all, elsewhere.’

‘Work?’ protested the old man. ‘But where are the gifts?

The Outsider always brings gifts from Logar!’

The Master could see the Elders muttering suspiciously amongst themselves. With so much at stake he would need to be scrupulous in observing their bizarre protocol. ‘Of course,’ he reassured them. ‘The gifts. I have them in safe keeping at the ruin... Buried!’

Turlough watched from behind a pillar as Timanov, after a brief discussion with the surrogate Master, explained to the citizens that they were all to go to the ruin where the blue box had materialised. From his hiding place Turlough saw the Master, his metal hand tight around Peri’s wrist, lead the Elders to the entrance. The girl gave one last, frightened glance back towards the prisoners in the cave. The Doctor waved reassuringly.

With a cruel laugh, the Master dragged the young American down the steps of the portico, while the chattering crowd began to follow the Elders out into the streets and towards the outskirts of the city.

Inside the cave, the Doctor turned wretchedly from the entrance. Suddenly he held up a hand. It was sticky from where he had been gripping one of the cross bars of the grid. He sniffed the rust-like deposit and moved to the wall of the cave. ‘I knew something more than rock was screening me from Kamelion.’ He searched in his pocket and produced a small penknife with which he began to scrape at the stone.

A shadow fell across the entrance of the cave.

‘Turlough!’ cried Amyand.

The boy put a finger to his lips and pointed to where several citizens were still leaving the Hall. The Doctor joined his companion at the grid. ‘What kept you?’ he asked, rather sarcastically.

‘I’ve been to my father’s ship.’

The Doctor frowned. That young man had a lot of explaining to do. But for the moment they had to get clear of the cave and after Peri.

‘Hurry up, Turlough.’ said Roskal. ‘The flame could return at any moment.’

‘I doubt it,’ answered Turlough, struggling with the bolt which was fixed tantalisingly out of reach of anyone inside the cave. ‘I’ve rerouted the flow from the bunker.’

The Doctor gave his friend a grateful smile as the gate swung back. Amyancl and Sorasta went immediately to the prone shape on the edge of the stone rostrum.

‘Where’s Malkon?’ said Turlough to the Doctor. His friend looked anxiously over to the kneeling Unbelievers.

‘Oh, no!’ cried Turlough, as he recognised the child whose head was propped up on a bundle of clothing. He rushed to the injured boy and knelt beside him. ‘Who did this?’ he asked bitterly.

‘One of the Elders.’

‘I shall kill him!’ said the boy in a cold, matter of fact voice.

‘What good would that do?’ The Doctor put his hand on Turlough’s shoulder, surprised to see his companion so upset. ‘We’ve got to get after Peri.’

‘You don’t realise!’ said Turlough, gazing down at the unconscious child. ‘Malkon is my brother.’

In the Heart of the Volcano

As they carried Malkon along the abandoned streets towards the safety of the bunker, Turlough told the Doctor of how the child had guided him to the wreck of the ship in the forbidden lands. The Doctor listened in silence as his companion described how he had seen the graves of the passengers and crew. The boy was still very upset, otherwise the Doctor would have pressed him with many more questions about his family’s fatal journey to the hostile planet. ‘Who could have buried the victims of the crash?’ he asked tactfully.

‘The Unbelievers?’

The Doctor nodded. He could imagine the dissidents creeping out by night to inspect the smouldering hulk, discovering the Trions and realising the truth about the fire. ‘Why don’t Amyand and his friends know more about the ship?’ he asked thoughtfully.

‘The place of fire is out of bounds–on penalty of death.

The people who buried my father must have got caught.’

The Doctor shuddered. He remembered how close he had come to such a burning. Turlough looked down at the body of his brother as they turned off the street into a derelict house. ‘Savages!’ he muttered.

‘He was very lucky,’ said the Doctor, leaning over Malkon as Amyand and Sorasta laid him on one of the bunk beds in the corner of the cave. ‘The power cell in the gun must have decayed.’

‘Will he be alright?’ asked Turlough pathetically, as he kneeled beside the bed.

‘I don’t know. He’s in severe shock.’ The Doctor tried to sound more hopeful than he felt. ‘There could be some damage to his nervous system.’

Leaving Sorasta to look after the injured boy, the Doctor moved over to the machinary in the other half of the cave. He was curious to know more of the technology of the old Trion colonists. ‘Why fuel that cave with volcanic gas?’ he muttered as he scrutinised the flow system.

‘The cave has always been used for sacrifices,’ said Roskal helpfully.

‘With all due respect to your fellow Sarns, the people who built this had a more sophisticated purpose than burned offerings to Logar.’

‘Ready, Doctor?’

The Doctor turned from the ancient switches and dials to where Arnyand stood waiting for him in the entrance.

Turlough jumped up from Malkon’s bedside. ‘Don’t you want to stay with your brother?’ asked the Doctor.

‘You’ll need me when the Sarns find out you’ve escaped from the cave.’