Doctor Who: Fury From the Deep Read Online Free PDF Page A

straight to Harris's desk. It was, as usual, cluttered with papers and books. 'Top drawer,' she said to herself, opening the drawer and searching it: Nothing there except stationery and technical photographs. Then she searched the other two drawers.
    The same.
    Just as she was about to give up the search, Maggie caught a glimpse of the file Harris had asked her for. It was partly submerged beneath the papers on top of the desk. She started clearing the papers, but suddenly stopped with a shocked start. Something was spread out on top of the file.
    It was a small clump of seaweed.
    Maggie couldn't believe her eyes. What was such a thing doing inside the apartment? Wet and slimy, pitted with bubbles and streaked with veins, the intruder was the last thing Maggie expected to find sitting on top of a file on her husband's desk. She took a closer look. 'Where the hell did you come from?' she said, as if expecting a reply. The seaweed clump was glistening beneath the glare of the desk lamp. Maggie sighed. 'Ah well. Out you go... ' She put her hand out to remove the clump. In one swift, terrifying movement, the seaweed clump suddenly sprang to life, wrapped itself around Maggie's hand, then dropped to the floor. Maggie screamed out in agony, as though stung by a bee or wasp.
    For a moment, Maggie just stood there, shaking with fright, clutching her injured hand, staring in disbelief at the now lifeless seaweed clump on the floor. Then, in one angry impetuous movement, she quickly picked up the seaweed, rushed into the kitchen with it, and frantically threw it out the back door.
    The Harris's verandah outside the kitchen was protected from the snow by a slanting perspex roof and wind-breakers. Pots of winter-flowering shrubs were surviving the extreme cold, but not so the concrete floor which had been cracked by the endless hard frosts.
    The seaweed clump was on that floor now, where Maggie had thrown it. It seemed out of place there: wet, slimy, and ominously still.
    Then there came a thumping, heartbeat sound. The bubbles on the surface of the seaweed clump started to pop, followed by a hissing sound: the sound of escaping gas...
     
    3

A Pair of White Gloves
    Pieter van Lutyens had never liked Controller Robson, not from the first day he set eyes on him. The Dutchman had always found Robson to be arrogant, opinionated, and thoroughly ruthless to his crewmen. Two years ago, van Lutyens had been appointed by his government to serve as a technical adviser to the Refinery, at the request of the British Euro-Gas Corporation. He was a likeable little man, dumpy, balding, quick-witted, the very personification of someone who has learnt how to get on well with people. With most people that is - except Robson.
    'Van Lutyens, are you trying to tell me how to do my job?'
    Robson was glaring again. He was on the observation platform in the Control Hall, checking out computer flow levels.
    'Mr Robson,' van Lutyens spoke English with no trace of an accent, 'the morale of the men out on those rigs is extremely low.
    We've got to do something about it!'
    'I make the decisions around here, my friend - not you!'
    Robson turned his back on the Dutchman and continued what he was doing.
    Van Lutyens refused to be ignored. He gripped the platform hand rail, and called up to Robson. 'You don't understand! I've just come back from the Control Rig. The men are behaving strangely.
    They are being affected by something out there in the sea.'
    'You're here to advise me on any technical problems, not to spread alarm amongst my crews,' retorted Robson.
    Van Lutyens was gripping the hand rail so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. 'Why won't you ever listen to the facts?'
    Robson swung around angrily. 'Now you listen to me, van Lutyens. It was Megan Jones and those fools on the Board who sent you here. I told them it would never work. And it hasn't!'
    'Only because you are too proud to accept advice.'
     
    'Let's get something straight, my friend.'