Rago waved his creaking gloves impatiently. ‘We shall take our own craft,’ he announced, striding across to the central dais.
Coughing and sniffing, the Doctor scurried diffidently after him. ‘Actually, if you remove the seats I think a Quark will just fit in,’ he suggested.
The Doctor flinched as the Dominator abruptly rounded on him. Watching anxiously, Zoe feared that her friend had finally gone too far. To her relief, Raga nodded.
‘You will show me the capsule immediately,’ he ordered.
Then he strode away to give instructions to the Quark, cancelling flight preparations.
The Doctor shuffled across to Zoe. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, you’ll be right as rain once the effects wear off,’ he murmured encouragingly.
‘Why did you... tell that monster... about the capsule?’
Zoe asked, fighting bravely against the paralysing effect of molecular adhesion.
‘So we might have a chance to investigate the saucer’s propulsion system,’ the Doctor murmured, ‘then we could discover what these Dominators are looking for here on Dulkis.’
Zoe did not look entirely convinced.
‘Besides,’ the Doctor added, ‘if they take us off to the Capitol we won’t he able to find out about Jamie...’
Zoe looked even more anguished. ‘If only they managed to find the shelter,’ she whispered to herself.
The Doctor had been trying to eavesdrop on the Quark’s complex coded transmission to the Fleet Leader at the communications unit, but he swiftly adopted his cretinous manner as Rago approached.
‘Instruct Probationer Toba to rendezvous with me,’
Rago concluded. ‘Release the female.’
The Quark trained its probes on Zoe and, with a brief pulse of ultrasonic energy, set her free.
‘And now you will lead us to the capsule,’ Rago commanded.
The Doctor bowed. ‘Kindly come this way...’
Rago stared suspiciously at the capsule, lying slightly on its side in deep sand under the cliff, a jumble of wires bristling out of the nose-cone. Then he glared at the Doctor, who tapped the battered hull and signalled the thumbs-up sign, while nodding and grunting encouragingly. Zoe lingered nearby, still stiff and dazed after her ordeal in the saucer, and watched the Doctor’s pantomime with uneasy scepticism.
‘A primitive machine, but functional,’ the Dominator declared at last. ‘Repairs can be effected quite easily.’
‘Oh, certainly,’ the Doctor agreed eagerly.
‘It is well that you appreciate the futility of deception,’
Rago added, completing his inspection.
The Doctor nodded vigorously, like some silent-movie comic and Zoe had to suppress a sudden urge to giggle.
At that moment, Toba arrived.
‘I intend to travel to meet the alien leader,’ Rago informed his subordinate. ‘You will remain and complete drilling operations.’
‘Command accepted,’ Toha readily acknowledged. He stared at the capsule in amazement. ‘You intend to use this crude device?’
‘Affirmative.’
Toba’s malevolent eyes narrowed craftily. ‘Is that wise?
It could prove hazardous,’ he rasped.
‘I shall take a Quark as escort,’ Rego retorted. ‘You, Toba, will command in my absence.’
A spasm of excitement jerked through the Probationer’s giant frame. ‘Command accepted!’ he rapped.
‘However,’ Rago continued with deliberate emphasis, ‘I do not expect to find further destruction on my return.’
While the two Dominators and the Quark were busy preparing the capsule for flight, Zoe and the Doctor managed to confer quietly.
‘...but why didn’t you tell me about the shelter before?’
the Doctor grumbled resentfully. ‘I’ve been worried to death about Jamie.’
‘I’ve hardly had much of a chance,’ Zoe replied hotly.
The Doctor pondered silently, keeping a close watch on the group huddled round the capsule. ‘I suppose it’s just possible they found the shelter,’ he sighed eventually. ‘But if they didn’t...’
Zoe clutched at his sleeve. ‘Couldn’t we just creep away now back to the ruin... and at least try to find them?’ she pleaded, her eyes prickling with tears.
Gently the Doctor put his arm round her shoulder, but before he could reply Toba came striding over to them.
‘You will follow me!’ he commanded.
Zoe opened her mouth to resist, but the Doctor firmly propelled her forward, following Toba back in the direction of the saucer.
As they departed, the Doctor glanced back at the capsule where Rago and the Quark were busy making final adjustments. ‘Happy landings,’ he murmured.
In the atomic shelter, the plight of Jamie and Kully was now desperate. They clung to the ladder under the trap door, gasping for breath, their skins burning and their throats dry as ashes. In vain they listened, straining to detect the faintest hint of rescue. Some time earlier, the vibration of the drilling rig had provided a short-lived burst of euphoria and hope. But since it had stopped there had been total silence: nothing.
‘It’s no good, it’s the end,’ Kully whimpered. ‘They’ve abandoned us. We’ll never get out now.’
Jamie sagged against the cold steel rungs of the ladder, sweat pouring down his face and dripping off his chin.
‘Doctor, where are ye?’ he gasped, ‘Where are ye?’
Then slowly Jamie roused himself. With an almost superhuman effort he balanced his body and placed both hands against the hatch. Then he straightened his legs and pushed his head up against his hands. Kully stared at him as if he were mad. Jamie’s face went beetroot, he let our a blood-curdling yell and roared: ‘
MacCrimmons for ever...
’
Kully stared speechless at the extraordinary totem-like figure with in squashed crimson face performing an almost magical rite in front of him.
Suddenly there was a faint grating sound, a trickle of dust and then a brief waft of cool air. Jamie bent his knees, lowered his arms and seized Kully in a wild embrace.
‘It... it moved... it moved...’ screamed Jamie.
Kully looked doubtfully up at the heavy trap door: ‘You must have imagined it...’
‘Come on, man, heave!’ Jamie shrieked, almost knocking himself out as he thrust frenziedly upwards again with head and hands.
Sceptically Kully did the same The hatch stirred and rose a few millimetres and cool, fresh air rushed through the gap. ‘We did it, we did it!’ Kully yelled, drinking the air greedily. ‘What did I tell you, Jamie?’
After a few seconds they were obliged to lower the trap and rest.
‘Aren’t you the wee ray of sunshine,’ Jamie panted ironically. ‘But we’re no free yet.’
‘Oh don’t be such a defeatist,’ Kully scolded him, ‘it’s no good giving up now.’
‘Who’s giving up?’ Jamie demanded, throwing himself at the hatch again.
‘Well,
I’m
, not,’ Kully cried, adding his considerable weight.
Gratefully they gulped great lungfuls of air as the trap rose several centimetres.
‘Even if we canna get oot, at least the air can get in,’
Jamie observed while they rested once again.
‘No good wasting time,’ Kully panted, heaving away with all his might yet again.
Shaking his head in wry astonishment at Kully’s miraculous new lease of life, Jamie straightened his legs and pushed. Suddenly the hatch gave way so abruptly that they all but toppled off the ladder. Jamie just managed to reach through and grab a pie of metal piping to prop the trap partly open. After another brief rest they moved a rung or two further up the ladder. Then, with a final heave they opened the hatch completely.
Jamie scrambled through and sat thankfully on the ledge, his head and shoulders partially hidden among the debris. ‘Well, come on up. No use hiding down there,’ he urged.
Cautiously Kully hauled himself up through the square opening. They had only a brief opportunity to luxuriate in the fresh air before a feared and familiar noise made Kully start so violently that he almost tumbled back into the shelter.
‘Quarks,’ Jamie exclaimed, peeing intently through the wreckage. He could just make out Teel and Kando working at the drilling site surrounded by several robots.
‘These Dominators aren’t much good without their Quarks, are they?’ he mused.
Kully squinted uneasily through the debris. ‘So?’
‘So, we destroyed one. Why not others?’
Kully looked incredulous. ‘Attack the Quarks?’ he whispered. ‘But we had the laser thing before. Now it’s buried somewhere under this lot.’
Jame squeezed his fleshy arm encouragingly. ‘Och, we MacCrimmons never had such things – but we did for the Redcoats right enough,’ he muttered dramatically.
The Dulcian scratched his balding head in bewilderment: ‘MacCrimmons? Redcoats?’ he echoed blankly.
‘Never mind, ye wee Sassenach,’ Jamie murmured impatiently. ‘Listen, we’ll rescue Teel and Kando. Are ye with me?’ he demanded, wrenching free the length of pipe with which he had propped open the hatch, and brandishing it confidently.
Steeling himself, Kully swallowed nervously and then nodded.
With the light of battle in his eyes, Jamie led the way.
They wriggled cautiously through the maze of debris and into a gully behind the ruin which led up the cliffs and was not visible from the drilling site. After a strenuous climb, they were soon edging their way along the meandering clifftop, spying on the scattered groups of Quarks at work among the dunes stretching below them. Eventually they came upon one of the perimeter targets, where Balan and two Quarks were operating a rig.
They threw themselves down in the sand and shielded their eyes as the drill reached maximum power and the whole area lit up like a magnesium flare.
‘They seem to be drilling in five places a kind of pattern,’ Jamie shouted into Kully’s ear above the whining throb of the rig.
‘But what for?’
‘I dinna ken,’ Jamie shouted, ‘but I ken what we’re going to do right enough.’ Using his piece of pipe as a lever, Jamie quickly dislodged a small but heavy boulder from the brittle sandstone. Then grasping it in both hands, he leaped to his feet and hurled it with every ounce of his strength over the cliff edge.
Narrowly missing Balan, the missile struck one of the Quarks squarely on its vertical antenna. Instantly, both Quarks disconnected themselves from the rig and swung round, scanning the dunes in a frenzy of bleating. Balan flung himself headlong in a panic, and lay still.
Chuckling with delight, Kully dug furiously with his finger, and prised up another rock. ‘Do it again.. do it again...’ he begged, passing it to the crouching Jamie.
Jumping up, Jamie repeated the attack. ‘Take that ye wee porridge pot!’ he yelled as the second stone crashed onto the domed head of the same Quark.
The other Quark jerked round and fired its probes. A fountain of molten sand flew up into Jamie’s face as he threw himself flat. Suddenly the cliff started to disintegrate around them as the two Quarks fired simultaneously, carving deep gouges out of the soft ridge.
‘Time to go!’ cried Jamie, scrambling up. But at that same moment there was a mighty roar and the whole cliff collapsed, hurling him helplessly down onto the dunes and leaving Kully scrabbling desperately halfway up the crumbling face in an avalanche of sand.
Picking himself up, Jamie raced towards a steep V-shaped gorge dividing the cliff at right angles nearby.
Sizzling spouts of sand soared all around him as he fled up the sloping cleft with both Quarks tramping rapidly in pursuit.
Meanwhile Kully had managed to scramble back to the clifftop, tripping. as he went, over the length of pipe.
Seizing it, he stooped low and scampered towards some large spherical boulders precariously perched on the edge of the gorge. Reaching them, he saw Jamie below him, running for his life as the gorge exploded around him.
Kneeling behind the biggest stone, Kully inserted the pipe at an angle and heaved. To his delight, the boulder stirred and settled back again. Tingling with excitement, Kully waited until the two Quarks were almost exactly beneath him and then threw all his weight against the pipe.
Gradually the huge stone moved forward. Then it tipped over the lip of the gorge and rolled faster and faster, bouncing down the steep slope in gigantic arching leaps.
Recklessly Kully stood silhouetted against the sky yelling in triumph as the boulder flattened one Quark completely and knocked the other on its side in a cascade of sparks.
‘Mac... Crimming’s for ever. Death to the Redcoats!’
Kully’s victorious cry changed abruptly into a squawk of terror as the edge of the gorge gave was under him and he plunged over and over in a flailing of arms and legs, finally coming to rest next to the astounded Jamie in a hollow.
‘Well...’ he spluttered, spitting sand out of his mouth and blinking his watering eyes. ‘Well, I’m with you now all right!’
A little way down the gorge, the damaged Quark was already whirring back into action. Levering itself upright again, it swung its glowing antennae wildly about like a bundle of fluorescent blades, seeking out its prey trapped in the dead-end of the valley.
8
The Council had been in session for hours. Director Sencx reclined in his chair, silent and pensive, only half listening to the interminable drone of the Councillors’ deliberations.
The violent memory of the Quark attack in the survey module was burnt indelibly in their minds and they had still not recovered from the shock and disappointment of Chairman Tensa’s advice.
There was a long silence. Suddenly the Director’s face betrayed the deep and impotent anger surging through his being. ‘It is our tragedy to do nothing. We are the prisoners of our own negative philosophy,’ he declared. ‘Little wonder that some of our youth – like my own son – are determined to rebel.’
‘But why should the aliens intend as harm us?’ asked Deputy Bovem for the thousandth time. ‘No intelligent race would indulge in irrational purposeless violence...’
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than the wall of the chamber parted to admit the huge lumbering figure of Rago, closely followed by his Quark escort. There was an awed and appalled silence while the Dominator flashed his emerald glare around the assembly.