Doctor Who: The Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page B

aching head in his hands.
    ‘Where is she?’ cried the Doctor, directing the torchbeam around the partly demolished cave.
    Ian painfully extricated his legs from underneath the stones and tried to remember. ‘She... she was outside... on the cliff...’ he mumbled, still dazed and shocked.
    The Doctor helped him to his feet. ‘As soon as you have got your breath back, we shall go and find her,’ he said, dusting off Ian’s jacket. ‘The whole roof seems to have collapsed over there...’
    Ian stared along the torchbeam at the impenetrable wall of fallen rock. ‘It’s completely blocked the tunnel, Doctor!’
    he gasped, clasping the Doctor’s sleeve. ‘I’m afraid Barbara’s been...’ He winced with pain and tried to relax his wrenched spine.
    ‘I hope there will not be any further falls,’ the Doctor muttered grimly, turning to glance at the battered police box. ‘I fear the TARDIS could not stand up to too much more of this sort of treatment.’
    ‘I don’t think I could either,’ Ian complained bitterly, trying to gather his shattered wits. ‘Listen, Doctor, I don’t think this was an accident.’
    The Doctor shone the torch in Ian’s face and peered at him anxiously, unsure of the young man’s state of mind.
    ‘Not an accident? What on Earth do you mean?’
    Ian clung to the Doctor’s arm for support and struggled to collect his thoughts. ‘Well, there was this... outside the cave we met this... it came up behind us...’ he mumbled helplessly.
    ‘ It came up behind you? What came up behind you?’
    demanded the Doctor impatiently.
    ‘This thing... It was horrible... Hideous... With a face like one of those Aztec mask things... But it was alive... It spoke to us...’
    The Doctor nodded mysteriously to himself. ‘With red eyes and talons and sabre fangs...’
    Ian nodded eagerly. Then he stared wide-eyed at the Doctor. ‘Yes, but how did you know?’
    The Doctor smiled. ‘This is the planet Dido, Chesterton. I have been here before. In fact, I know it quite well. The inhabitants are extremely hospitable.’
    Ian looked aghast. ‘ Hospitable! Well, this thing certainly wasn’t at all hospitable! It ordered me to come and fetch you while it forced poor Barbara to stay outside...’ he protested, his words falling over one another as his memory grew clearer. ‘Then when I came into the cave there was this terrific bang and the tunnel collapsed behind me..
    Thoughtfully the Doctor shone the torch slowly round the cave, while Ian, finding his strength gradually returning, staggered across to the huge mound of debris brought down by the explosion and started trying to shift the rocks blocking the tunnel. But after only a few seconds’
    breathless struggle, he collapsed exhaused.
    ‘It’s no good, we shall have to find another way out of here,’ the Doctor told him, still shining the torch around the walls. ‘Assuming, of course, that there is one,’ he added pessimistically. ‘This figure who accosted you, Chesterton, was it armed?’ The Doctor suddenly inquired.
    Ian thought for a moment. But even thinking proved painful. ‘I... I don’t think so... Oh yes, Doctor...’ Ian held up his hands. ‘It was carrying a sort of club thing with crystals or something at the end... It was about this long.’
    The Doctor compressed his lips and nodded. ‘That could account for it,’ he muttered with a preoccupied air.
    ‘The last time I visited this planet the Didoi were just perfecting a portable sonic laser for use in engineering projects.’
    Ian groaned and frowned at the rockfall. ‘Some engineering!’
    There was a brief silence.
    ‘Now, how are you feeling?’ asked the Doctor with sudden briskness.
    ‘Not too bad, thanks.’
    The Doctor stretched out a hand. ‘Well, don’t just lie there groaning! Let us get started!’
    With the Doctor’s help Ian hauled himself back onto his feet.
    ‘At least there do not appear to be any broken bones,’
    the Doctor declared, tugging his