Doctor Who_ Curse of Peladon - Brian Hayles [30]
‘Alien!’ spat the bearded priest. ‘You have defiled the inner sanctum of the Temple of Aggedor. Your mind, your words, your being, all are evil!’
‘You’re being a fool, Hepesh,’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Let me speak to the king!’
‘You go to him now,’ replied the priest, ‘It is his task to cast judgement upon you. But for what you have done, there is no defence, and only one punishment: your destruction! Grun, take him away!’
Ssorg had found no sign of Aggedor and had returned to Izlyr with only Jo’s cloak in his great hands. It had been torn to shreds as though by a wild animal.
Without further discussion, Jo had been taken back to the Martian quarters for interrogation. Strangely enough, she felt less afraid than angry. To her, it was obvious that Izlyr already thought her guilty of some terrible crime.
‘I tell you I saw the monster—he was there,’ she insisted.
‘You heard him, too, and you can see what he did to my cloak!’
‘Ssorg, what else did you find?’ demanded the warlord.
‘Nothing, Lord Izlyr.’
‘I’m not making it up,’ cried Jo. ‘Those cries—my cloak—
why won’t you believe the evidence?’
‘True, we heard sounds,’ admitted Izlyr with chilling preciseness, ‘and we discovered your torn cloak. But only you have seen this monster—not us. It could be a clever trick!’
‘It isn’t!’ exclaimed Jo furiously. ‘I’m telling you the truth!’
‘Yet you also entered our room, secretly. It was you that Ssorg found holding the servo-unit belonging to Arcturus. And you did not wait to be questioned as an innocent person would.
You escaped!’ accused Izlyr.
‘I found Arcturus’ thingamajig-in your room! It was you that must’ve taken it! And I escaped so that I could tell the Doctor and King Peladon!’ Izlyr didn’t answer immediately. He studied Jo’s face and paced before her, thinking. Eventually, he spoke.
‘So, you believe that we tried to kill Arcturus.’
‘If not, what was that servo-unit doing locked away in your room?’ retorted Jo.
‘Placed there by you, Princess, to cause trouble,’ hissed the Martian.
‘That’s just not true!’ cried Jo. ‘We discovered Arcturus, nearly dead!’ There was a pause. Jo waited for Izlyr to rage with anger but instead he gave a dry staccato cough, a sound that she later came to understand as the Martian equivalent of a laugh.
‘You are mistaken,’ continued the warlord. ‘Nobody tried to kill Arcturus.’
Jo blinked. ‘What?’
‘To kill a creature like Arcturus, the helium regenerator must be de-activated’, hissed the Martian. ‘This was not attempted.’
‘But...’ Jo groped for the question, her mind racing, ‘—the missing unit...’
‘Merely sensor equipment’, said Izlyr. ‘Disconnection only produces a metabolic coma.’
‘You mean... it couldn’t be fatal?’
‘Only uncomfortable,’ whispered Izlyr.
For a moment, Jo was speechless. When at last she spoke, it was with a genuine note of apology in her voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘it looks as if we’ve misjudged you, Izlyr. But the Doctor only knows your planet as bearing a race of warriors.’
‘That was so—once,’ conceded the Martian warlord. ‘But we have learned to reject violence, except in self-defence.’
Jo pointed at Ssorg’s arm, and the strange weapon there.
‘What about Ssorg’s gun? This is supposed to be a peaceful mission, isn’t it?’
‘Unfortunately, in order to spread peace, it is necessary to survive.’
Jo nodded. She could see the point. But she was still puzzled. ‘If it wasn’t you, who was it? Who could possibly benefit from all this troublemaking?’
Izlyr had no chance to offer any theories. With a flurry of tentacles, Alpha Centauri entered the room, and squeaked in panic: ‘Izlyr—Ssorg—Princess—come quickly! The Doctor has been taken prisoner! He is in the throne room. We must go to him. He is on trial for his life!’
Peladon prepared to speak. He had heard Hepesh out and the essential fact of the Doctor’s presence in the sacred temple could not be denied. The time had come, therefore, for judgement to