Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the pulveriser.’ Mel’s contribution did nothing to mellow the Commodore’s temper.
    ‘The room was a wreck,’ the Doctor volunteered.
    ‘And there was a single shoe exactly the same pattern as that.’ Mel indicated the discarded shoe.
    ‘To be complete, the syllogism requires only the grim conclusion...’ The Doctor gestured towards the pulveriser.
    The Commodore was scathing. ‘And naturally you’ve never met the man or know why he sent for you!’
    ‘We don’t even know his name.’ That was true. When Mel received the message, no name was given: just the request for the Doctor to go to Cabin Six.
    Rudge had been a bystander for long enough. ‘It was Grenville, sir. A mineralogist.’
    This did little to enlighten his commanding officer.
    ‘Doctor, any suggestion why a mineralogist who wanted to see you should be killed?’
    ‘None at all.’
    ‘Or why it is whenever you appear on the scene people begin to die?’ Spoken in anger and frustration by the Commodore, nevertheless the point seemed to subdue the Time Lord.
    Not Mel. ‘Hey! I don’t care who you are, you’ve no right to say that to the Doctor!’
    The Doctor shook his blonde, curly head. ‘He has, Mel,’
    he said ruefully. ‘He has every right. It’s true...’
    Quelling the klaxon had not allayed Sarah Lasky’s and Doland’s anxieties. They rose to greet Bruchner who came breathlessly into the lounge.
    ‘Well?’ demanded Lasky.
    Before responding, he glanced nervously at the Mogarians seated at a nearby table.
    ‘Never mind them,’ snapped the Professor. Then, contradicting her own assertion, she clutched her subordinate’s arm and hauled him to the far side of the lounge. Doland followed discreetly.
    ‘Is the isolation room safe?’
    ‘Yes. I had a word with the stewardess. She said the emergency was in the waste disposal unit.’
    Lasky was visibly relieved. ‘Then we can relax. Nothing to do with us.’
    Bruchner’s dark eyes burned with suppressed fury. ‘That’s your assessment, is it, Professor? The danger’s past?’
    The cryptic remark perplexed Doland: if all was well in the isolation room, then surely the danger was past.
    What danger?
    And what – or who – was in the isolation room?
    These were the questions the Doctor would have posed had he been party to the exchange.
    But he, uncharacteristically, was not asking questions at all...
     
    6

The Booby Trap
    ‘That’s it then. End of the line.’ Could this really be the Doctor talking?
    It was. Sauntering into the gym, he paused at the sunlamp. ‘Operates on vionesium. A speck no larger than a grain of sand will emit sunlight for umpteen years.’
    ‘What d’you mean – end of the line?’ Mel was nonplussed by this improbable behaviour.
    Strangely dispirited, the Doctor ambled to the stationary walking machine. ‘Our contact. Obviously it’s he who’s been pulverised.’
    ‘So we give up?’
    ‘What else?’ He stepped onto the machine, and began walking on its moving platform.
    ‘That hydroponic centre. I told you about the sudden panic when I was in there.’ Mel was referring to the encounter between Lasky and Doland.
    The Doctor showed no interest whatsoever.
    But someone else did. Someone who was in the observation cubicle. Listening to every word being said...
    ‘Immaterial and irrelevant.’
    ‘I beg your pardon!’
    Without interrupting his static walking, the Doctor delivered his homily. ‘My dear Melanie, if you wish to pursue this completely arbitrary course, pray hurry along to the hydroponic centre. And leave me to my peregrinations...’
    ‘Hold it! Hold it!’ The Doctor flipped off the Matrix in the trial room, causing the screen to go black. The Inquisitor, Valeyard and Time Lords swivelled to face hun. ‘That wasn’t as I remember it,’ he asserted.
    ‘How could you remember?’ queried the Inquisitor.
     
    ‘These events are in the Earth year 2986.’
    ‘But I reviewed this section earlier...’ The Doctor left the