Doctor Who_ Curse of Peladon - Brian Hayles [53]
‘Without our communicators, we cannot return to our spacecraft!’ wailed Alpha Centauri.
Izlyr turned to Jo. ‘Princess, is there no other way that you or the Doctor can communicate with your spaceship?’
‘Spaceship...’ repeated Jo, blankly, then realised that unlike Izlyr and Alpha Centauri, there wasn’t an Earth spaceship orbiting the planet in wait for her and the Doctor!
‘Er... no—I’m afraid there isn’t.’ she said quickly, then hastily clarified the statement. ‘I mean there isn’t another way of making contact.’
‘That is a pity,’ hissed Izlyr. ‘Particularly in view of the special arrangements that will undoubtedly have to be made.’
Jo looked at the Martian, her face puzzled. ‘I don’t quite understand, she said. ‘What arrangements?’
‘For your forthcoming wedding to King Peladon,’ answered Izlyr. ‘Admit that is the purpose of your visit.’
The burst of laughter that followed Jo’s first look of alarm took the three aliens by surprise. Surely a royal engagement was a dignified matter?
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ bubbled Jo, controlling her fit of giggles with difficulty, ‘but a marriage has not been arranged.
To coin a phrase, were just good friends... hardly that, even.’
‘But it would have made a splendid climax to the king’s coronation!’ cried Alpha Centauri.
‘Well, you can forget it,’ exclaimed Jo. ‘And anyway, before we have a coronation, we have to have a king. Are you going to help Peladon or not?’
‘Without contact with our spacecraft, we are trapped,’
observed Izlyr. ‘We can hardly take the offensive, with only three operative agents.’ He threw a brief look at the quivering hexapod, and explained, ‘I do not include you, Alpha Centauri.
You are a natural pacifist, and your habitual hysteria will do nothing for our morale.’
‘Two,’ corrected Ssorg. ‘The Doctor is not with us, Lord Izlyr.’
‘We need him. Where is he?’ demanded the warlord, turning to Jo. ‘He must be told that we are trapped!’
‘I don’t know where he is. I think he was going to find Grun
. . . but he didn’t tell me why.’
Alpha Centauri was becoming agitated again.
‘There’s no escape!’ the hexapod cried, ‘And now, the Doctor has vanished. I knew something like this would happen!’
Jo spoke to the jittery alien firmly but kindly. ‘Centauri, stop it at once. Nothing has happened yet. We’re perfectly safe here in the citadel—and they won’t dare attack Federation delegates.’
‘But these people are barbarians!’ shrilled the deep blue hexapod. ‘And Hepesh hates us... We are at his mercy!’
A military situation was one which Izlyr could understand instinctively, and he spoke with cold precision. ‘As hostages, we would be of great value to Hepesh.’
‘That’d just about finish everything!’ exclaimed Jo.
‘Agreed,’ nodded Izlyr. ‘We must take suitable precautions.
Let us hope we do not have to put them into operation.’
The Royal Guards, like Grun, were handpicked for their total loyalty to the king, and the excellence of their strength and ability as warriors. Their regimental motif, identical on helmet, breastplate, and the proud pennants that they paraded on ceremonial occasions, was the head of Aggedor in profile surmounted by a crown. Their motto read: the king above all.
Traitors would be granted no mercy. But the last persons they expected to see disloyal to the king were Hepesh and the Commander of the Temple Guard. Rumours were flying thick and fast around the barrack room, but no one had yet thought fit to confirm that Hepesh was the declared enemy of the king.
Peladon himself had held this order of the day back until he knew for certain where he stood with the Federation. Until they were told otherwise, the Royal Guard accepted Hepesh as High Priest and Chancellor; out of favour, perhaps, but still officially in power. That trust was soon to be bitterly betrayed.
Hepesh’s knowledge of the secret ways of the citadel was of the greatest value to his swift campaign. He had denied all knowledge of the secret tunnels to the king—because that knowledge was the key