Doctor Who_ The Ice Warriors - Brian Hayles [42]
‘On my terms!’ snarled the warlord. He gestured to Isbur. ‘Bring the girl!’ Turning back to the Doctor, he continued. ‘Now we have two hostages, we make the bargains here!’
‘You haven’t got time to bargain—before long, the glacier will crush and destroy you and your ship! But we have a device that can melt the ice and release you!’
‘We know of this device,’ hissed Varga. ‘The girl has told us its name—the Ioniser.’ His voice changed to bitter anger.
‘Do not try to trick us! We know it is a weapon aimed to destroy us!’
Before the Doctor could answer this charge, Victoria was led in by Isbur. When she saw the Doctor, her face fell. ‘Oh, Doctor, they’ve got you too!’
‘Don’t worry, Victoria, we’re not beaten yet.’ He smiled cheerfully. ‘Jamie’s safe and well, for a start!’
Victoria’s face flooded with relief and hope, but Varga’s harsh whisper brought the Doctor back to the nub of the matter.
‘If what you say is true, why have you not freed us before?’
The Doctor’s eye flicked beyond the Martian to what looked like a complex technical area. Could it be the engine room? Somehow he had to find out without giving his hand away! He hesitated. ‘Er... there are certain difficulties.’
But the Doctor’s probing glance had confirmed the Warlord’s suspicions. ‘You are afraid of us!’ he exclaimed keenly. ‘You are afraid our ship will explode!’
The Doctor tried to put the problem simply. ‘If the Ioniser causes a nuclear holocaust, it’ll defeat its original purpose—to hold hack the glaciers!’
‘That is what I suspected...’ breathed the warlord, and then gave that peculiar choking laugh that so often meant danger. ‘You dare not act against us!’
‘We don’t want to harm you, or your ship,’ repeated the Doctor irritably. ‘I keep telling you, our action would release it—you’d be free!’
‘But if the ice melted too quickly,’ Zondal pointed out,
‘there would he severe flooding.’
‘And our engines would be useless!’ hissed Varga. ‘We would be at your mercy—and there would be no escape!’
‘You can walk out of here now,’ suggested the Doctor.
‘You’d be safe—even if your spacecraft was destroyed.’
‘But without this vehicle,’ whispered the grim-faced warlord, ‘we cannot return to our planet.’
The Doctor was about to inform the Ice Warrior that his distant home planet—Mars—had long since died, when he stopped himself, horrified. With nowhere to return to, the Martians would be forced to stay—but it wasn’t in their nature to remain guests for long. They were conquerors, colonisers and invaders; and with their deadly weapons, probably invincible! Suddenly, the Doctor thought of a vital question.
‘Why did you come here in the first place? What was your mission, Varga. Tell me!’
‘To investigate this planet... and report,’ answered Varga. His next words confirmed the Doctor’s worst suspicions. ‘We find that we are... superior.’
The Doctor’s mind seethed with alarm. This small squad of Ice Warriors, with or without their space vehicle, could devastate and dominate Earth—continent by continent—if they chose to! And he had a definite feeling that this would have been part of that original Martian plan, conceived so many centuries ago, and halted only by a freak landing on that prehistoric glacier. Suppose there were other scout ships, buried in the ice? Varga mustn’t be given the chance to put his secret orders into practice—which meant there was only one way out, dreadful but necessary. He began speaking with what seemed an unnecessary loudness—but not for Victoria’s benefit. Clent had to be persuaded to act—and act now!
‘You do realise,’ stated the Doctor emphatically, ‘that at a certain point almost immediately, fact—my Base will have to activate the Ioniser regardless of the consequences?’
Zondal didn’t catch the urgent emphasis. He sneered in disbelief. ‘And risk destroying you—and themselves? They are not fools!’
‘Better that.’ the Doctor started to say, ‘than—’
In a flash, Varga’s fist had grabbed his arm,