Doctor Who_ Curse of Peladon - Brian Hayles [19]
‘That is the only answer,’ he said. ‘Any other course will surely mean disaster. Leave this planet while there is still time!’
‘No!’ Peladon cried out interrupting him. ‘Do not listen to that old man! Neither he nor Aggedor is king here. I am!’
‘Majesty, there is no need’, offered Hepesh. But he was given no chance to continue.
‘Be silent, Hepesh!’ The young king gestured the alien delegates to return. ‘Delegates, I ask you to rejoin me. Listen to what I have to say. Negotiations must go on!’
At this bold speech, the delegates turned their attention to the Doctor. As Chairman, the decision was his. The Doctor sensed the awful isolation of the young king as he fought so desperately for the future of his planet. Peladon must be given a chance, thought the Doctor, and stepped back towards him.
‘I am prepared to listen to the king,’ he said to the others,
‘and perhaps you’d care to join us?’
Hepesh suddenly found himself left alone outside the throne room, and hurriedly followed the aliens inside. As he and the delegates took up their positions, the Doctor caught a brief glimpse of Jo’s cloak as she slipped into the entry leading up to the balcony. No one else had noticed her departure. Everyone was listening to Izlyr as he addressed the king.
‘Your majesty,’ said the Martian warlord in that strange whisper of a voice, ‘negotiations are only possible in a peaceful situation.’
A clipped, factual observation followed quickly from Arcturus. ‘Political conflict violates Federation law.’
‘Centuries ago,’ pleaded Peladon, ‘on your own planets, war and violence flourished!’
Alpha Centauri, almost back to normal at last, piped, ‘We have learned to control our past.’
‘Then teach Peladon!’ cried the young king. ‘How can we raise ourselves from the Dark Ages without help? Do not desert us now!’
Outside the closed throne room doors, the guards were clearing away the rubble of the smashed statue. As Jo came to the top of the tightly twisting stairway that led onto the balcony, she realised that to go any further would be to risk discovery.
She paused, and crouched. It was all too obvious what had been done. There was the metal bar and the stone that had acted as fulcrum to the lever. More important, set into the dust of the rarely used balcony was one mighty footprint. Huge, bigger than any footprint she had seen, in Jo’s mind it could belong to only one person: Ssorg, the Ice Warrior. She thought of his size, and strength. She couldn’t remember if he had been present in the throne room all the time, but if she had managed to slip away unnoticed, why couldn’t he? But she remembered that Izlyr had been close behind the Doctor when the statue fell. If Ssorg was responsible, why had he endangered his chief? Was he in fact in league with someone else? Or was she just imagining things—
building up a ridiculous case on the basis of one smudged footprint? A movement from below startled her from her train of thought, and she drew back into the shadows. As she did so, a glint of light caught a small metallic object, half hidden by the block of stone used as a fulcrum. From where she stood, Jo couldn’t see it clearly. She realised that it would mean moving out into the open before she could pick it up. She peered anxiously down past the edge of the stone platform, trying to see the position of the guards. Unless she moved quickly, she would be missed from the group inside the throne room. And if she was discovered up here, how would she talk her way out of that?
For a moment, the guards turned away, quietly talking. With a quick, supple movement, Jo leaned forward on her hands and knees, grasped the piece of shining metal, and retreated back into the safety of the shadows. She didn’t wait to inspect what she had found. It was time to return to the Doctor.
The Committee were still considering Peladon’s plea that they should remain, when Jo arrived at the bottom of the concealed staircase. She paused in the shadow there, before moving forward quietly. No one seemed to have noticed her absence, or her return. She positioned