Doctor Who_ Space War - Malcolm Hulke [48]
The Master stepped out from the shadows of a corner of the cave room. ‘Thank you, Miss Grant.’ He came up to the communications equipment and switched it off. ‘You see, that was the trap.’
As Jo stepped back her arms were pinioned by an Ogron. Ogrons appeared out of the gloom from all sides.
‘What do you mean?’ she shouted defiantly. ‘You’re the one who’s trapped. I’ve given your position away.’
The Master glanced at the papers on his table. ‘You mean those planetary co-ordinates I left for you to find, my dear?’
She gasped. ‘They were fakes?’
‘On the contrary, they’re perfectly accurate. But you see this is a short-range transmitter. No one will have picked up your message unless they’re within a few hundred miles of this planet.’
Jo felt deflated. ‘No one heard me?’
The Master grinned. ‘Your friend the Doctor must have heard you. At the moment he’s orbiting the planet in a small scout craft. I picked him up on radar some time ago.’
‘How do you know it’s the Doctor?’
‘Who else could it be? You see, when the Doctor arrives we shall be waiting for him. So you’ve been very useful to me.’ The Master turned one of the knobs on his radio equipment. The radio started to emit a regular bleep. ‘That’s so he won’t get lost. He’ll think this horning signal comes from you, Miss Grant.’
The Master snapped his fingers. The Ogron holding Jo started to lead her away.
‘Oh, by the way, Miss Grant,’ said the Master. ‘I must congratulate you on escaping, which is exactly what I wanted you to do. But from now on, you’ll be kept under guard. You’ve escaped for the last time, Miss Grant. In fact, I’d say this is the last day of your short and rather eventful life.’
The scout spaceship from Earth made a perfect soft landing on grey sand. Five minutes earlier the pilot had picked up the regular bleeps of what was obviously a homing signal. By manoeuvring the craft, finding the signal sometimes weak and at other times strong, he had narrowed its source to an area of one square mile. Within that area he chose the best possible landing place. From here the party would have to walk, using a pocket receiver to locate in detail where the homing bleeps emanated from.
Alighting from the General’s spaceship, the Draconian Prince looked at their inhospitable surroundings. ‘I can well understand why neither of us showed any desire to occupy this planet.’ He turned to the General. ‘In future both Draconia and Earth must maintain constant surveys of these uninhabited planets, to ensure no one is making unlawful use of them.’
‘If there is a future,’ growled the General. ‘For all we know, during our absence our two empires may already have wiped each other out.’ He caught sight of the Doctor standing some yards away. apparently staring at the sand. ‘Doctor, if you could resist day-dreaming we need to complete our mission.’
‘Come over here,’ called the Doctor. ‘Look at this.’
The General and the Prince, followed by the group of Earth soldiers, crossed to where the Doctor was studying huge footprints in the sand.
‘According to your records,’ said the Doctor, ‘one dominant life-form. Let’s hope we don’t meet it.’
‘We are all armed,’ the General said confidently.
‘We should still hope.’ The Doctor turned on the little receiver brought from the spaceship. A regular bleep-bleep came from its loudspeaker. By turning the receiver he found the point at which the signal was strongest. ‘This way,’ he said, leading the party. ‘Towards those bushes and rocks.’
As they trudged through the sand, the General asked, ‘Doctor, has it occurred to you what we’re going to do when we find the source of this signal?’
‘No idea, old chap. It depends what we find when we get there.’ The Doctor paused, staring at the bushes just ahead.
‘What is it?’
‘I thought