Part 1 (1/2)

DOCTOR WHO.

AND THE PYRAMIDS OF MARS.

by TERRANCE d.i.c.kS.

Prologue.

TheLegend of the Osirians.

In a galaxy unimaginably distant from ours, on a planet called Phaester Osiris, there arose a race so powerful that they became like G.o.ds.As well as mastering technology and science, the Osirians developed powers of pure thought, bending the physical world to their will by the strength of their minds alone.As they grew in power, so they grew in wisdom-all but one. His name was Sutekh and he was great among the Osirians. But greater still was his brother Horus, whom all Osirians called leader. All but Sutekh, who hated Horus and was jealous of him .The Osirians spread throughout the galaxies of the cosmos. They ruled many worlds, and were often wors.h.i.+pped as G.o.ds. But Sutekh stayed on Phaester Osiris, their home planet, working to develop his powers so that he might one day overthrow his brother Horus.The Osirians were a long-lived race. Sutekh worked and studied for thousands of years, until his powers were truly awe-inspiring. But his mind was full of jealousy and hatred, and in time this turned to madness. Over-mastered by his own fears, Sutekh became convinced that not only the other Osirians, but all all sentient life was his mortal enemy. Not just the more intelligent life-forms, but animals. reptiles , insects, plants... Sutekh hated them all. He feared that someday, somewhere there might evolve a life-form powerful enough to destroy him. sentient life was his mortal enemy. Not just the more intelligent life-forms, but animals. reptiles , insects, plants... Sutekh hated them all. He feared that someday, somewhere there might evolve a life-form powerful enough to destroy him.An insane ambition formed in Sutekh's twisted mind. He would range through the galaxies and destroy all all life, until only he remained as unchallenged ruler. He became Sutekh the Destroyer-and he began by destroying his own planet. life, until only he remained as unchallenged ruler. He became Sutekh the Destroyer-and he began by destroying his own planet.Leaving the shattered desolation of Phaester Osiris behind him, Sutekh blazed a trail of havoc across the cosmos, wrecking and smas.h.i.+ng world after world with his t.i.tanic powers. Soon news of his madness reached fellow Osirians. Led by Horus, they began the search for Sutekh, determined to destroy him.Tracking him by his trail of destruction, they hunted him across the cosmos. At last Sutekh took refuge on an obscure planet called Earth, and here, finally, his fellow Osirians found him.The battle was long and fierce, for Sutekh was a formidable opponent. Seven hundred and forty Osirians came to Earth to combine against him, before he was finally defeated and made captive, in a land calledEgypt.They brought him before his brother Horus for judgement. Many urged that all the Osirians should link their minds and blast Sutekh from existence. But Horus would not agree. To kill Sutekh would mean that they too were destroyers. Horus decreed that Sutekh should not die but should be made eternally captive. A pyramid was built to become his prison. And since more than walls of stone were needed to imprison such a being as Sutekh, he was locked in the grip of a mighty forcefield, paralysed and utterly helpless.For even greater safety, the control-point of this forcefield was placed not on Earth, but on one of the other planets circling its sun. On Earth, a secret cult of Egyptian priests was set up, to guard the Pyramid. Satisfied that Sutekh was for ever bound, Horus and the other Osirians went on their way. What became of the Osirians no one can say. They vanished from our cosmos and were seen no more. On Earth they left behind them legends of the all-powerful G.o.ds who fought wars among themselves.Deep inside the Pyramid, Sutekh lived on. For thousands upon thousands of years he endured his long captivity. Bound by the forcefield of Horus, scarcely able to move a muscle, only his twisted brain was active. It planned and plotted without cease, waiting for the day of his escape. For Horus would not leave even Sutekh quite without hope. He had told him that escape was was possible, though the difficulties and obstacles were so great as to be almost insurmountable. possible, though the difficulties and obstacles were so great as to be almost insurmountable.The mighty civilisation ofEgyptrose and fell. Other civilisations and Empires took its place. Sutekh and Horus and the Osirians were remembered only as a legend. Still Sutekh waited in his hidden Pyramid. Until one day...

1.

The Terror is Unleashed.

In a hidden valley, s.h.i.+mmering in the blazing heat of the Egyptian sun. twomen stood gazing at the squat black shape of a Pyramid. One was an Egyptian in tattered, striped robes and red fez. The other was tall and thin, with a keen, scholarly face. Despite the heat, he wore a white tropical suit, with stiff collar and public school tie. The year was 1911, and Englishmen abroad were expected to maintain certain standards.The Englishman was Professor Marcus Scarman and he was a dedicated Egyptologist. At this moment, his eyes were blazing with controlled excitement as he gazed on the greatest discovery of his career. A secret Pyramid of unfamiliar design, tucked away in a valley still unvisited by other Egyptologists. Here was a find to make him the envy of all his rivals. Rumours of the existence of a hidden Black Pyramid, centre of some secret native cult, had long been circulating in achaeological circles. Many had scoffed at them. But Marcus Scarman had pa.s.sed long years tracking them down, spending many English sovereigns to buy information in the bazaars ofCairo. At long last he had found Ahmed, whose love of gold had finally overcome his fear. They had journeyed together into the desert for many days, and now they had arrived.Near by, a gang of half-naked Egyptian labourers squatted patiently by the tethered camels. Marcus made a brief examination of the exterior of the Pyramid, then beckoned them over. 'There's a sealed entrance-here. Shouldn't take you long to get it open. Ahmed, go and fetch two lanterns.' The labourers began swinging their picks, and Marcus watched impatiently as they chipped away mortar and started lifting aside the heavy stone blocks. As soon as the s.p.a.ce was big enough, he pushed them aside. 'All right, that'll do. Ahmed, tell them to wait here. You come with me.' Eagerly Marcus climbed through the gap, Ahmed following cautiously behind him.They found themselves in a long stone-walled tunnel. going deep into the heart of the Pyramid. Marcus pressed eagerly ahead. the tunnel led into a huge echoing burial chamber. Marcus held up his lantern and looked around. The light flickered eerily off jewelled caskets and ornately decorated golden urns. 'Perfect,' he breathed. 'Absolutely perfect and quite untouched. The reliquaries are still sealed. Great Heavens, what a find! This tomb must date back to the first dynasty of the Pharaohs.'Ahmed looked about nervously, sharing none of the Englishman's enthusiasm. In the dank, echoing darkness of the burial chamber, surrounded by mysterious shapes, he was overcome by the fear that he was blaspheming the ancient G.o.ds of his people. Surely there would be punishment...Too absorbed to notice his companion's lack of enthusiasm, Marcus moved through the chamber, till he reached the wall at its far end. The wall was hung with a jewel-encrusted tapestry of enormous value. Marcus stretched out a trembling hand and touched it reverently. 'How many thousands of years since the priests sealed the inner chamber, and draped this tapestry over the entrance?' he whispered to himself. It was obvious from the rich furnis.h.i.+ngs of the burial chamber that this had been the tomb of some great one of ancient times. But whose? Impatient to know the answer, Marcus reached out and carefully drew back the tapestry. Behind it was a wall built from blocks of stone. The mortar between them was old and crumbling-the wall would be easy to move away. As he studied it, Marcus became aware of something strange. In the centre of the wall a glowing red light had appeared. It actually seemed to come from deep inside inside the stone... Marcus turned to the Egyptian. 'Ahmed! Your lantern, man. Quickly!' the stone... Marcus turned to the Egyptian. 'Ahmed! Your lantern, man. Quickly!'Reluctantly Ahmed came forward, holding up his lantern. In the light of the two lanterns, the ruby-red glow burned even brighter.Ahmed backed away. 'It is the Eye-the Eye of Horus!' he muttered in his own language. 'It is a warning. Do not cross the threshold of the G.o.ds or you will die!' Dropping his crowbar with a clatter, Ahmed turned and ran, back down the stone pa.s.sage towards the daylight.Marcus Scarman called after him angrily. 'Come back here, I need your help!'All he heard in reply was the wailing voice of the Egyptian, echoing down the tunnel. 'If you cross the threshold of the G.o.ds you will die...''Superst.i.tious savage,' muttered Marcus. He looked back at the wall. The eerie red glow had faded. Determinedly he picked up Ahmed's crowbar. 'I've come too far to turn back now...' He jammed the crowbar into a crevice and began to heave. Mortar crumbled away beneath his onslaught. Marcus jammed the crowbar deeper. Groaning with effort he heaved again...There came a deep, hollow grinding sound, and a whole section of the wall swung away. Marcus stepped forward into the gap, and was immediately transfixed by a blaze of green light. He looked upwards. Above him there hovered an indescribably malignant face, a mask of pure evil. Marcus tried to scream but the sound was locked in his throat. Then came a sudden huge blast of sound, like a discord from some enormous organ. The wave of sound seemed to lift Marcus's body and hurl it to the ground. He lay sprawled out, limp and motionless, eyes closed and face a deathly grey.

Through the swirling chaos of the s.p.a.ce/Time Vortex, that strange continuum where s.p.a.ce and Time are one, there sped the incongruous shape of a square blue police box, light flas.h.i.+ng on the top. Inside the police box, which was not a police box at all, was a vast ultra-modern control room, dominated by a many-sided centre console of complex instruments. A tall man was staring intently into the console's glowing central column. He had a mobile intelligent face crowned with a mop of curly brown hair. A battered, broad-brimmed hat was jammed on the back of his head, an extraordinarily long scarf trailed around his neck. His usually cheerful features were set in a frown of brooding intensity.An inner door opened, and a slender, dark-haired girl came into the control room. She wore an attractive, old-fas.h.i.+oned dress. 'Look what I've found, Doctor.'The Doctor glanced at her absentmindedly. 'h.e.l.lo,Victoria.'The girl, whose name was Sarah Jane Smith, looked at him indignantly. 'h.e.l.lo who who ?' ?'The Doctor looked up, emerging from his abstraction. 'Oh, it's you, Sarah. Where did you get that dress?''I found it in the wardrobe. why , don't you like it?'The Doctor nodded vaguely. 'Oh yes, I always did. It belonged toVictoria. She travelled with me for a time.'The Doctor smiled at the memory ofVictoria, always so frightened, always trying so hard to be brave. Finally the strain had been too much for her and she'd left the TARDIS to return to Earth, though in a period much later than her own Victorian age.Sarah looked at the Doctor thoughtfully. There was no doubt about it, the Doctor in his fourth incarnation was a distinctly more elusive character. Sarah suddenly realised how little she really knew about him. She knew he was a Time Lord, with the ability to travel through s.p.a.ce and Time in the strange craft he called the TARDIS-initials which stood for Time and Relative Dimensions in s.p.a.ce. She knew, because she'd seen it happen, that he had the power to transform his appearance, replacing a damaged body with what seemed to be a completely new one.Sarah had first met the Doctor in his capacity of Scientific Adviser to UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, that special organisation set up to protect Earth from attack from outer s.p.a.ce. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, head of UNIT's British Section, had known the Doctor for a very long time, and looked upon him as a valued colleague. Sarah had been the Doctor's companion on many adventures, both before and after his change of appearance. But she realised that the Doctor had had many lives and many companions, and that she had been involved in only a small proportion of his adventures.The Doctor's usual mood was one of infectious high spirits. But very occasionally he would lapse into a kind of brooding thoughtfulness, when it was very difficult to get through to him. She tried to cheer him up. 'So the dress wasVictoria's? Well, as long as it wasn't Albert's. I'll wear it.' The Doctor went on staring at the control column. 'Oh come on, Doctor.' said Sarah. 'That was worth a smile, surely? What's wrong? Aren't you glad to be going home?'The Doctor looked up. 'Earth isn't my home, Sarah,' he said sadly. 'I'm a Time Lord. remember , not a human being... I walk in eternity.''And what's that supposed to mean?''It means I've lived for something like-oh, seven hundred and fifty years, in your terms.''Soon be getting middle-aged,' said Sarah lightly.Once again the Doctor ignored her little joke. 'What's more,' he went on, ' it's.h.i.+gh time I found something better to do than run round after the Brigadier.'Sarah smiled. So that was it. The Doctor still resented being summoned back to Earth by the Brigadier to deal with the Zygon invasion.*Sarah sympathised but she was determined not to encourage him in his sulk. 'If you're getting tired of being UNIT's Scientific Adviser, you can always...'A sudden terrific jolt shook the TARDIS, and Sarah was flung across the console. '... resign ,' she gasped, completing her sentence. 'Doctor, what was that? What's happened?'The Doctor was too busy to answer her. His hands flickered rapidly over the console as he fought to bring the TARDIS back under control. The TARDIS rocked and spun, and a deep thrumming noise filled the air, like a discord from some giant organ. Sarah lost her hold on the console and staggered across the control room. She fell in a heap in a corner and gazed muzzily upwards. There seemed to be a cloud of smoke. Was the TARDIS on fire?A hideous face, malignant and somehow b.e.s.t.i.a.l, had formed in the smoke cloud and was glaring down at her. It seemed half human, half wolf or jackal. Sarah screamed...The apparition vanished, the organ noise stopped, the TARDIS settled down. Everything was back to normal. Sarah picked herself up and ran across to the Doctor. She grabbed his arm. 'Doctor, what was was it?' it?''The Doctor was absorbed in his instruments. 'The relative continuum stabiliser failed. Odd-that's never happened before.''No, not the upset.I mean that thing thing !-and that noise?' !-and that noise?'He gave her a puzzled look. 'What thing? What noise?'Sarah shuddered. 'It was like an organ... and I saw this horrible face... Just for a second, then it was gone.'The Doctor looked at her. Indignantly, Sarah said, 'You don't believe me, do you?''My dear Sarah, nothing hostile can possibly enter the TARDIS. Unless...' The Doctor broke off suddenly and returned to the console. 'Mental projection?' he muttered to himself. 'Mental projection of that force is beyond belief... and yet-it could explain the stabiliser failure! Now let me see, it was at this end of the spectrum...' The Doctor's hands once again began moving over the controls.Sarah tugged him away from the console. 'No, Doc-tor. Please don't try and bring it back. Whatever that thing was, it was totally evil...'There was another, smaller jolt, and the central column stopped moving. 'We've arrived, Sarah. UNIT H.Q.!' The Doctor checked the instruments, operated the door control.'Hang on a minute,' said Sarah hurriedly. 'I know we've landed somewhere. But are you sure...'She was too late. The Doctor was already outside. Sarah sighed and followed him.They found themselves in a large, well-proportioned ground-floor room, with windows facing on to a garden. The TARDIS was in a corner surrounded by huge packing cases. The room looked like a miniature museum. All around stood various forms of Egyptiana-mummy cases, funeral urns, painted wooden chests. Many were already on display and others simply scattered about. It was as though someone had brought home an enormous collection of Egyptian relics. but hadn't yet finished unpacking all of them. Sarah threw the Doctor an accusing look. 'UNIT H.Q.?'The Doctor cleared his throat. 'Ah, well... you see, we've arrived at the correct point in s.p.a.ce, but obviously not in Time. We've had a temporal reverse. Some vast energy-impulse has drawn the TARDIS off course.' The Doctor smiled, evidently quite satisfied by his own explanation.Sarah looked around. 'Are you telling me this is UNIT H.Q., years before I knew it?'The Doctor nodded. 'That's right''But it's all so different. This isn't even the same house.''No, it isn't...' Suddenly the Doctor smiled. 'Of course, this most be the Old Priory. The UNIT house was built on the same site.''So it was. The Old Priory burnt down, didn't it?'The Doctor held up his hand for silence.'What is it?''Atmosphere,' said the Doctor mysteriously. 'I sense alien vibrations. There's something very wrong here, Sarah...'A deep, discordant organ-note shattered the silence. Sarah looked fearfully at the Doctor. 'That's the noise I heard before. That thing that came into the TARDIS-it must be here, somewhere in this house...'

See 'Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster'

2.