Doctor Who_ Cave Monsters - Malcolm Hulke [55]
'How can you be sure?' asked Morka.
'I have listened to the wall with one of our sound-detecting devices,' said K'to. 'One can hear the humans' voices at this point.
Here, we are closest to their scientific place beneath the ground.'
'Then we commence,' said Morka.
Morka looked hard at the metal wall. Then his third eye began to pulsate, glowing red. K'to's third eye followed, and then the third eyes of the other reptile men. The metal in front of them glowed red hot and then white hot, and soon it fell away in molten flakes. Behind was the solid rock of the caves. That, too, began to melt before the heat-force of the reptile men.
Liz, Dr. Meredith, and the Brigadier watched on intently as the Doctor poured liquids into a phial. By now every chemical in the laboratory was standing in a jungle of bottles and phials on the working-top by the electron microscope. The Doctor put the phial into an agitator, and pressed a button. The phial whirled round, mixing the liquid chemicals. Then he stopped the agitator, and drew off some drops of the liquid on to a glass and put the glass under the electron microscope.
'How are you feeling?' Liz asked the Brigadier.
'Not too bad,' he said, although she could see he was perspiring freely.
'If the virus strain knows what it's about,' said Dr. Meredith,
'it'll soon find a way to overcome the antibiotics.'
'What'll happen then?' asked the Brigadier.
'That will be fatal,' said Dr. Meredith, as though quoting from a medical textbook.
'Thank you very much,' said the Brigadier. 'That's most comforting.' He spoke up to the Doctor. 'It seems I'm going to be dead soon, Doctor. Any chance you can hurry things along?'
'Give him some more antibiotics,' said the Doctor, not looking up from the microscope.
'We haven't got any more,' said Dr. Meredith. 'We've run out.'
'Charming,' said the Brigadier. 'That makes my day.' The Doctor held himself very still. 'I think this is it,' he said quietly.
Dr Meredith crossed to the microscope. 'May I sec?'
'Later,' said the Doctor. 'It's only a few blobs squirming about.
But my blobs are definitely killing off their blobs!' He turned to the Brigadier. 'Where's our guinea pig?'
'In a bed, in a ward, in a coma,' said the Brigadier. 'I brought in the ambulance driver who took Major Barker to hospital.'
'Excellent.' The Doctor plunged a syringe into the phial he had just mixed. 'Now let's get this into him and see what happens.'
The Doctor held the syringe point upwards and marched out of the laboratory.
'Doesn't he ever get tired?' asked Dr. Meredith.
'No,' said the Brigadier. 'He just gets impossible to work with sometimes, that's all.'
Morka stood now in a tunnel of perfectly smooth rock, just wide enough for his shoulders. He faced the rock before him, concentrating on to it the power of his third eye. The rock glowed white with heat and melted. The concentration took all his energy, but he continued until he knew it was impossible to go on any longer.
He stopped concentrating, and walked back through the narrow tunnel to where the other reptile men were waiting. Immediately another reptile man stepped forward to take Morka's place, while Morka regained his strength of concentration.
'Many of the humans must be dead by now,' said K'to, to please Morka. He could see how tired Morka was. Morka took longer spells at melting the rock than any of the others.
'We should have activated the other shelters,' said Morka. 'It is wrong that we alone should have to fight this vermin.' He stood thinking, watching the back of the reptile man now taking a turn at melting the rock. 'What if they do find an antidote? Can your science save us then?'
'There is something else,' said K'to, 'something I have set my assistants to work on. But let us first capture this creature that pretends it understands science. Then we shall see.'
The Doctor, Liz, and the Brigadier stood round the sick-bay bed while Dr. Meredith felt the ambulance driver's pulse. 'It's normal,' he said, excitement in his voice, 'it's definitely