Doctor Who_ The Doomsday Weapon - Malcolm Hulke [29]
The Doctor jumped to one side, and the robot paused, its in-built sensories calculating where the Doctor had gone. 'It's not very quick on the turn,' remarked the Doctor, sidestepping again.
'It's slow but sure,' said Morgan, holding his gun on the Doctor. 'It always gets its man - or woman.'
The Doctor sidestepped again, and again the robot paused, then redirected itself towards its quarry. Now the Doctor was close to Morgan.
'There's no escape, I'm afraid,' said Morgan. 'Might as well give in gracefully. It'll be over in second.' The Doctor made another move which brought him even closer to Morgan.
'Now keep away from the entrance,' warned Morgan, 'or I'll shoot!'
'If you shoot,' shouted the Doctor in reply, 'and my body's found with a bullet in it, that'll mess up your story about monsters!' And having said that, he suddenly dived for Morgan's gun, knocking it from his hand. Then he grabbed Morgan's left band, the one holding the remote-control, and twisted it up behind the man's back.
'You'll break my arm!' Morgan screamed.
The Doctor wheeled Morgan round, to put him between himself and the oncoming robot. Morgan found himself looking straight into the flaying claws of the robot, and unable to break out of the Doctor's hold.
'It'll claw me to death!'
'Drop the remote-control,' shouted the Doctor in Morgan's ear. 'Drop it!'
Morgan screamed in agony as the tip of a claw drew a stripe of blood down one cheek. Almost involuntarily his hand released the remote-control. It fell to the ground, and its casing split open revealing a compact bundle of now exposed transistors and diodes. At the same time, the robot came to a complete halt; and then, after a second, it swayed and fell over backwards with a resounding crash.
The Doctor released his grip on Morgan's arm. Morgan stood there, gasping for breath. Than he made a dive for the gun on the floor. But he was too exhausted to move quickly enough, the Doctor kicked the gun away from Morgan's groping hand, and picked it up himself. Seeing this, Morgan turned and fled. He leapt onto the buggy outside and drove away at top speed.
The Doctor looked at the gun in his hand, then dropped it into his coat pocket, and sadly walked away from the dome.
11 Face-to-Face
The colonists' main dome came onto Dent's control room monitor screen in a bird's-eye-view. Using the IMC ship's powerful rocket drive, he had lifted the ship from its original landing place and now intended to bring it down next to the big dome. All his technicians were in their places in the control room, and above the low hum of the motors he could hear their chatter all around him
'... Radar probe confirms terrain firm... main retrorockets steady... descent rate now at minimum... landing stabilisers activated and in position... final altitude report... twenty metres, fifteen metres, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one... we have contact!'
Dent remained in his captain's seat while the motors slowed and finally stopped. He intended to have a face-to-face meeting with the colonists, and to blockbuster them off the planet. By now, if Morgan had done his job properly, the Doctor would be a mangled corpse in the dome where the two colonists had died. Dent had had objections from Caldwell about killing the Doctor. At one point Caldwell seemed about to go after Morgan and the Doctor, in order to stop the former in his work. Dent had had to remind him that if he defied his (Dent's) ruling, he would be sacked from IMC, and put on a black list that would mean his never working again for any other mining corporation. Caldwell would lose his living unit on Earth, his income, and might end up sweeping the corridors of one of Earth's great building complexes. That, finally, persuaded Caldwell to back down.
One of the technicians said, 'All's clear, Captain. The motors are dead. We've practically landed in the colonists' lap.'
Dent rose from his chair and put on his captain's helmet.