Doctor Who_ The Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke [11]
In the old days. between five hundred and a thousand years ago, people had escaped from the towns by going to the country. But there was no country now. Instead, groups of people clubbed together and bought up old spaceships and went to the planets. For the next six years Jane and her husband worked hard and saved their money. Not once did they go up in the lifts for a sunshine treat, or even for a Walk treat. At the end of this time they reckoned they had enough money put by and started to read advertisements from people getting together colonist groups. The advertisement they answered was from Ashe. He had already travelled in Space on one of Earth's astro-merchant-ships, and he knew of a planet not dissimilar from Earth which had been classified for colonisation. It was uninhabited, Ashe said, except fora few Primitives who, if handled properly would he no trouble. A meeting was held, and the Leesons met the other people who had answered Ashe's advertisment. They pooled their savings with the others, and then raided their local library for old books on what was known as farming. Meanwhile Ashe. found a fairly good secondhand spaceship, and organised the making of agricultural machinery based on pictures in old books about land farming. Eventually the great day arrived, and all the would-be colonists boarded the spaceship and they travelled to this awful planet.
Because, in Jane's troubled mind, this planet was awful. Certainly there was room to move, and for the first few days the weary travellers from Earth did nothing but walk around in huge circles, shout, and literally fling their arms about. The main dome, brought in sections in the spaceship's vast hold, was put up first, it provided temporary quarters for all of them, plus a permanent meeting-place, and a home for John Ashe and his daughter. Then they all helped each other to put up the small single-family domes, all some distance from the main dome in the centre of the land which now belonged to the various couples and families. After that they had to sow the seed they had brought, and then live on iron-rations until the seed grew. But the seed did not grow. If it grew at all, it quickly withered and died. Ashe, who had made himself expert in book-learnt agriculture, spent day and night analysing soil samples and trying to work out which fertilisers should be used where. But nothing made any difference.
Meanwhile, there came the news about the big mineralogical combines from Earth gutting other planets, some of them with colonists already there. Earth's mineral resources had been used up hundreds of years ago, forcing Man to seek his needs on other planets. The big mining companies had built great fleets of spaceships, manned by ruthless mercenaries who were quite capable of plundering a planet already successfully colonised by farmers, ruining the land, killing and maiming people who tried to stand up for their rights. If Earth Goventmcnt took any action at all, it was almost always too late.
Now, on top of all their other fears and hardships, these other colonists, the Martins, had been attacked by monsters. One thing Ashe had promised about the planet was that it contained no hostile life forms. Jane had heard of some of the terrifying creatures spaces travellers had found over the centuries - Monoids, Drahvins, some small metallic creatures called Daleks, and even from the bowels of Earth there had emerged once a race of reptile men.This planet was big, as large as Earth itself, and it was foolish of them to believe Ashe when he had said that there were no hostile life forms. How could one man know what lay over the horizon, perhaps hundreds or thousands of kilometres away? - something that had now become attracted to the humans' colony?
As they neared the single dome, Jane spoke her mind. 'I want to go back to Earth.'
Her husband kept on walking. 'How?'
It was a sensible question. The spaceship