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'What do you hope to do there?'

'Make peaceful contact with whatever is in there,' the Doctor said, and rose to go.

Liz also got up. 'All right. Then we go together.'

'Oh no,' said the Doctor. 'I think this is something I have to do on my own, thank you.'

'Doctor,' said Liz, stopping him in his tracks with the tone of her voice, 'if the Brigadier knew you were going into those caves he'd stop you.'

'No one's going to tell him,' said the Doctor.

'I am,' said Liz, 'unless I'm going with you.'

'You realise this is blackmail,' he said.

'That's right,' she said. 'We started this together, so let's finish it together.'

The Doctor shook his head in despair. 'Since I have no alternative,' he said, and then smiled, 'let's go and find some monsters.'

The Doctor and Liz went along the main passageway of the caves leading from the entrance. The Doctor paused, pulled from his pocket papers he had taken from Dr. Quinn's office. He opened up a folded paper to reveal a crudely drawn map. Liz shone her torch on it. The Doctor pointed his finger to an X which Dr. Quinn had marked on the map. 'That, presumably, is where we've got to make for,' he said.

'All right,' said Liz, 'let's go.' She shone her torch back to the route ahead of them, then noticed something on the cave floor glint in the light of the torch. The Doctor also noticed it, went and picked it up and inspected it.

'A cartridge from an FN.303 rifle,' said the Doctor. He held it close to his nose and sniffed. 'Recently fired.'

Liz shone her torch around on the floor. 'Look, there's another one, and another! The FN.303 is what UNIT uses.'

'Yes, I know,' said the Doctor. 'But they haven't been down here for some time. I wonder if it could have been our elusive Major Barker?...'

'Well, anyway,' said Liz, 'let's find the point marked X on the map.' She took a step forward, but the Doctor suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

'That sand there,' he said, pointing, 'it's a little too smooth.' He looked around, found a small rock and threw it at the sand. The trellis-like man-trap sprung up from the smoothed sand, crushing the piece of rock. 'He came down here,' said the Doctor, 'got himself trapped in that thing and tried to shoot it out.'

Liz looked in horror at the man-trap. 'You think we can make peaceful contact with these monsters, Doctor?'

'I think we have got to,' he said. 'Now come on.'

They skirted round the man-trap and continued deeper in the cave. For the next thirty minutes they carefully followed the route sketched on Dr. Quinn's map. It brought them into the huge cathedral-like cave where a little daylight came in from a distant opening to the outside world.

Liz said, 'What do you hope to find? I mean, what does the X

mean on the map?'

But the Doctor pulled Liz sharply into a recess in the cave wall and signalled her to be silent. As they watched a reptile man appeared from one of the passages leading into the great cave. He went up to a huge rock and stood facing it. After a second or two his third eye glowed a brilliant red. The rock opened like a door and the reptile man went inside. The rock closed behind him. The Doctor could feel Liz quaking beside him.

'It was an upright lizard,' she said, 'a reptile!'

'It was also a man,' said the Doctor. 'An intelligent being.'

'But the reptiles were all stupid,' she said, as though she was desperately trying to believe it. 'Brains the size of kittens.'

'We only know about the reptiles whose fossils we have found,' said the Doctor. 'But what if for some reason the more intelligent reptiles hid themselves away in shelters under the Earth's crust?' As the Doctor talked he crossed over to the huge rock and inspected it. 'You see, there isn't even a crack to show how it opened.'

'Do we want to open it?' Liz asked.

'Of course we do,' said the Doctor. 'We must get inside there somehow.' He stood very still for a moment. 'Do you notice a slight breeze down here?'

'There's that opening up near the roof,' said Liz. 'Maybe it's windy outside now.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'It's a steady breeze,