Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids Read Online Free PDF

grabbed the heavy shoe ready to defend herself as the divider slid open – a towheaded figure tilled the gap.
     
    ‘Phew! You might’ve warned me you were in there!’
    ‘You’re not supposed to be in here, Mel.’
    ‘What about you? Going for a stroll! You just said that to put me off!’ The brown eyes glinted with indignation.
    ‘Why risk sticking two heads into the noose?’ The Doctor’s response was automatic. He had wandered to the dressing table where a handful of silver seeds lay scattered.
    ‘Ever heard of safety in numbers?’
    ‘Hmmmm. Never thought of that.’ Intrigued, he was scooping the seeds into his palm.
    Mel’s concern was still with the chaos in the cabin.
    ‘Looks as though someone’s been in a fight for their life.’
    ‘The question is, Mel, did they succeed?’
    Cabin Six was not the only place in chaotic disarray. The Hyperion ’s waste disposal unit was too.
    A crumpled, uniformed attendant was spread-eagled on the floor where he had been left after an attack. Beyond him, a wheeled laundry bin had a sheet trailing over its side. Further on, closer to the massive steel iris shutter of the waste disposal unit, where warning lights were blinking furiously, was a single black and white shoe.
    Coming from beyond the shutter was the scrunching, churning :limiter of the grinding blades.
    To dispense with waste while in flight, all debris was fed into the powerful machine, pulverised, then evacuated into space... To all intents and purposes, the owner of the shoe had been given the same treatment...
    Clutching his head, the attendant roused himself. Still confused, he instinctively followed the accepted drill and crawled towards the alarm.
    The klaxon’s wail penetrated even to the bridge, almost drowning the bleeping of the Commodore’s intercom.
    ‘Yes?’ he growled into the intercom.
    ‘Would you conic down, sir?’ Rudge’s voice.
    ‘Where?’ Monosyllabic exasperation.
     
    ‘Waste disposal unit. There’s been an – er – accident.’
    ‘Accident? Can’t you deal with it?’
    The wheedling tones again. ‘I think you should be here, sir.’
    Curtly, the Commodore flicked of the intercom. ‘What I’ve done to be landed with him, I fail to comprehend!’
    Rising, he snatched up his white, tvaked cap adorned with the gold braid of rank. ‘Take over!’ he rapped to the Duty Officer, and strode from the bridge.
    The klaxon’s frantic howling penetrated to Cabin Six too.
    The Doctor poked his head out into the corridor.
    ‘What is it?’ he yelled to Janet as she trotted past.
    ‘Emergency in the waste disposal unit,’ she replied, anxious to get to the lounge and reassure the passengers.
    The Commodore’s rugged face was suffused with anger.
    ‘Accident! Why can’t you use plain language, Mister!’
    He addressed a chastened Rudge. ‘Whoever’s been dumped in there has been pulverised into fragments and sent floating into space! In my book that’s murder!’
    The Commodore was in little doubt that that was what had happened: the knocked-out attendant; the sheet trailing from the wastebin; the discarded shoe lying adjacent to the shutter; all led to this macabre verdict.
    ‘Tell them to cut the klaxon,’ he shouted to a guard as he crossed to the injured attendant. ‘Have you called a Medic for this man?’
    ‘Of course, sir. Straight away,’ Rudge replied haughtily.
    It had no effect on the Commodore. ‘Then I suggest you begin earning your salary! Find out who that belongs to!’
    He was referring to the shoe.
    ‘I may be able to help you there.’ It was not the Security Officer’s voice but the Doctor’s. Unnoticed, he and Mel had arrived.
    ‘Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.’ Sarcasm fitted the Commodore’s mood.
     
    ‘Perhaps I should leave it to the Security Officer,’
    challenged the Doctor.
    Mel stepped into the breach. ‘The passenger in Cabin Six sent for the Doctor. When we got there, he was gone.’
    ‘It doesn’t follow he wound up