Doctor Who_ Cave Monsters - Malcolm Hulke [58]
'The other humans must see you first.'
The Doctor slowly crossed the floor of the laboratory. He took a quick glance at his notes on the work top. The correct formula was missing, so someone had had the sense to know which it was. 'Where to?' he asked without looking back.
'Continue until we find humans,' Morka said.
The Doctor paused. 'If you kill anyone I shall not help you.'
'Forward,' said Morka. 'We may allow those down here to live a little longer when all those on the surface are dead. It depends if they are useful.'
'Practical thinking,' said the Doctor. He stepped out into the corridor. Further down the corridor the Brigadier and Liz were standing at the lift door. The Brigadier was pressing the lift button.
As though by instinct the Brigadier turned round.
'Doctor!' he exclaimed. 'We thought you'd been taken prisoner.
Your antidote's working fine, but now all hell's let loose in the caves.
Reptiles everywhere. I've sent all my men into the caves, and now the 'phone's dead and the lift won't work...' The Brigadier's voice trailed off as he saw Morka and other reptile men come up behind the Doctor.
'Don't make any hasty moves, Brigadier,' the Doctor said. 'We are all prisoners now. I'm sorry.'
'Guard those apes,' said Morka, and two reptile men hurried up to the Brigadier and Liz. He turned to the Doctor. 'Take us to the source of your power.'
The Doctor walked slowly towards the cyclotron room. The Brigadier and Liz were pushed alongside the Doctor. The three were kept bunched together, so that all could be killed instantly if they made a wrong move. As the trio entered the cyclotron room Dr.
Lawrence and the technicians looked up first in surprise then in horror as the reptile men crowded in.
'The nuclear generator must be reactivated,' said the Doctor to Dr. Lawrence. 'They need your power.'
Dr. Lawrence's face was crimson with anger, the first time the Doctor had seen him show any real emotion. 'No! You creatures have tried to ruin the work of this research centre. You have probably ruined my career...' His protest was cut short as Morka's third eye glowed a vicious scarlet. Dr. Lawrence fell dead to the floor.
'All apes look at the body,' said Morka. 'It is an example of what will happen to you if you are not obedient to your masters.' He looked slowly round the group of technicians, satisfied that they were all sufficiently terrified.
The Doctor heard a trundling sound, looked behind himself and saw reptile men dragging in a tubular object on four tiny wheels.
'The destructor?' he asked.
K'to answered. 'You will now connect the destructor to your nuclear generator.'
'I must know the purpose of this machine,' the Doctor said.
'Otherwise I cannot properly help you.'
K'to looked to Morka, as though asking if he may explain the purpose of the destructor to the Doctor. Morka made no sign that the Doctor could understand; his reply to K'to must have been by some kind of telepathy—thought-waves between the two reptile men. K'to turned back to the Doctor. 'Since we entered our shelter,' he explained, 'and went into total sleep, the temperature of this planet, our planet, has changed. We have detected some invisible barrier between the rays of the sun and the surface of Earth. Microwaves from the destructor will disperse this barrier, removing it for ever.'
'The van Allen belt is indestructible,' said the Doctor, hopefully. He could not be sure this was true.
The Brigadier asked: 'Do you mind telling me what you two are talking about?'
'The van Allen belt,' said the Doctor, 'is named after the scientist who discovered its existence. It envelops the Earth, and protects us from the sun's most harmful rays. Without it people would die of sunburn on a cloudy day.'
'Your people will die,' said Morka. 'We reptiles survive best in heat. All of you apes here, under the ground, will live as long as we find you