Doctor Who_ The Visitation - Eric Saward [24]
Thankful to have escaped the bloodthirsty villagers, it was nevertheless with heavy hearts that the Doctor and Richard Mace fol owed the android out of the stable.
Chapter Eight
The walk through the woods should have been enjoyable. The late afternoon sun was still pleasant and warm. Smoke from the purification fires hung in the trees, as though undecided where to go next. Birds sang, as a very slight breeze rustled their feathers. It was as though Nature had decided to show herself at her best, to convince those who had time to consider such things that she was capable of creating more than plague, fear and violent death. But the Doctor and Richard Mace were among those too preoccupied to appreciate the gesture.
They trudged on, supervised by the android, through undergrowth, along paths and across small clearings, until they finally came to the Terileptil's escape pod. Then on through the side gate, across the lawn and up the crunchy, gravel path. But they did not go to the front door. Instead they were directed around the west side of the house, then right again, to the tradesmen's entrance, where the miller's wagon was waiting.
The long corridor that led to the cellar was dark after the sunlit wood. It also smelt of Soliton gas. Their journey was almost over.
In the cellar Tegan continued to pack the last of the ampoules into a reinforced carrying case, the bracelet on her wrist pulsing in rhythm with her heart. She did not even look up, her concentration fixed solidly on her task, when the cellar door opened and Mace and the Doctor stumbled in.
'Tegan!' shouted the Doctor, relieved to see she was safe.
She turned towards him as he descended the stairs, her expression blank, as though her personality, her very essence, had been drained out of her.
'Yes?' she said.
The Doctor was almost alongside her. 'Concentrate,' he shouted. 'You can over-ride the effect of the bracelet. Concentrate hard!' He reached out and started to shake her. 'Get back to the TARDIS and tell Nyssa what's happened.'
Her empty face stared back.
'You must concentrate on what I'm saying.' Her eyelids started to flicker, but whether she had understood, the Doctor was not to find out, as the android gently but firmly pushed him on.
As they approached the far end of the cellar, the camouflaged energy barrier dissolved, revealing the Terileptil's laboratory beyond. Richard Mace stared at the hole, his desire to understand and exploit the illusion but a distant memory. How could so much happen in one day? he thought.
'You'd better prepare yourself for a shock,' the Doctor whispered.
Horrified, Mace turned to the Doctor.
'Now what?' he croaked.
'I don't think you'll have seen anything quite like a Terileptil before.'
The Doctor was right.' The Terileptil Leader stood just over seven feet tall, with the immediate appearance of a massive bipedal reptile. His head was not unlike that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, only smaller and with a shorter snout. But any thought of the head containing a dinosaur's pea-size brain would have been dispel ed by one glimpse of the lively, intelligent, magenta eyes. Instead of hair, the crown of the head was covered with tiny, flat orange fins, which continued down the back of his neck, where they grew thicker, swelling out where they met the finely scaled epidermis like a ruff. Although everything was totally alien about the Terileptil, there was a strange beauty about him.
His lean, graceful features were arrogant and proud. Even to Richard Mace's tired, bewildered mind, the Terileptil carried himself with great authority and dignity, which made him appear overwhelming rather than terrifying.
'Are you all right?' whispered the Doctor. Mace nodded as the Terileptil strutted up to them. 'How do you do? I'm the Doctor,' he said affecting a totally false note of confidence. 'Are you in charge here?'
'You will remain silent,' hissed the Leader.
'Sorry. It's just that I'm