Part 12 (1/2)

93.'They didn't need to,' Chris put in. 'I spoke to Enros telepathically. We all believe in him on the planet Wolsey.'

The guard s.h.i.+fted uncertainly. 'If you're telepathic, prove it.

Put something in my mind.'

'Don't be stupid!' Kat snapped. 'He can only commune with the Undying One. You have heard His Word, I hope? And His prediction of the coming of the pink-skinned offworlders?' The guard nodded hastily. Chris put on his best look of wide-eyed innocence.

Kat reached through the bars and clasped a hand onto the guard's shoulder. 'Now are you going to let us out of here or would you prefer to burn in Purgatory?'

He pulled away from her, gave a derisory snort which wasn't as confident as it might have been, then turned and swept away.

Chris sighed. 'I thought you said that would work.'

Kat grinned and dangled the guard's key in front of his eyes.

It did. Now all we have to do is let ourselves out of here and free the other rebels before the crackbrain thinks to check his pockets.'

Mel plugged her ears as the Doctor's force-field device emitted a shrill whine. 'What's going on?' she cried. The question was given more relevance by a stirring in the forest across the clearing. They hadn't heard anything in minutes and this activity seemed too well-timed to be coincidental.

The Doctor seemed worried too. He dug into the green box's innards, tearing out and reconnecting wires urgently.

The forest was fairly crying out now with the cras.h.i.+ng movements and hunting roars of a dozen beasts. 'Turn that thing off,' Mel shrieked, 'you're attracting them!'

'That's it,' the Doctor was grumbling to himself, 'I've allowed my neutron flow to take on the wrong -'

Mel screamed as a tyrannosaurus burst out of the trees opposite and thundered towards them, its great head down, its mouth s...o...b..ring. The Doctor only glanced up briefly before returning to his work. Mel buried her head in her knees, eyes closed. Then, unbelievably, she heard a guttural cry of surprise, and she looked up to see the dinosaur backing away, 94 bewildered, from the s.h.i.+mmering, transparent dome which now surrounded them.

She wiped her brow and tried to stop her hands from shaking.

'Why is it, Doctor, that everything has to be on the last second with you?' Then her relief was cut short as the tyrannosaurus swooped down and made another attack, its head bouncing of the field with a percussion that made the ground quake savagely.

'How long have we got before that thing breaks through?'

'The barrier is quite solid, but of course it was a rush job.'

'How long?' she demanded.

The Doctor shook his head gravely. 'That depends on how strong Jason thinks his dinosaurs are.'

The following ten minutes numbered amongst the most unpleasant of Mel's life. Much as she prayed it might, the tyrannosaurus didn't lose interest. It hammered against the force field time and again, and each time she thought its grinding teeth came just a little closer to its prey. Worse still, more monsters had entered the clearing, drawn by the noise. A triceratops and a velociraptor fought savagely, whilst a pterodactyl circled the treetops and squawked in hunger. A creature which Mel didn't recognize had made a few spirited attempts at levelling the barrier itself. Its charge was like that of a rhino and she had screamed each time its horned head had impacted with the solid air right next to her.

'Get ready to run,' the Doctor muttered, and her heart dipped to somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach.

'You don't mean -'

It's about to collapse.'

'But what chance have we got of escaping?'

'An incredibly small one. Sorry.'

Mel tensed to make a spring for it, but her body sagged as her brain informed it that flight was hopeless. She could but wait.

The field collapsed.

Mel lost all self-control and screamed.

She was still screaming when, some five seconds later, it occurred to her that she wasn't dead. She opened her eyes to see 95 the Doctor looking apologetically down at her. The undergrowth was broken and trampled, but beyond that there was no sign of their attackers.

'As I said,' she panted, climbing giddily to her feet, breathless from emotional extremes, 'always the last second.'

Then eight men leapt out from the trees, clad only in simple gra.s.s skirts and wielding wooden staffs, which they had sharpened to vicious points. Mel spun round but the men has closed in and formed a circle about them. Their expressions of anger did not bode well.

'And why is it,' Mel sighed, 'that, with you, it's always out of the frying pan and straight into the nearest, hottest and most lethal fire?'

96.

11.

Escape to Danger

Bernice closed her eyes and tried to chase the stars from her vision. 'You could have stepped in before I got conked,' she complained to Roz. 'I'm turning into a phrenologist's nightmare here.'

Her companion tutted as she worked on the knots binding Benny to the bed. 'We don't have time for your witticisms.' She pulled the ropes free and Bernice rubbed her aching arms. 'No time for that either. Stay as you were, pretend to be tied up.'

'I see. You rescue me from sitting against the bedpost with my hands behind my back so I can sit against the bedpost with my hands behind my back.'

'The difference is,' said Roz, 'you'll have this.' She pushed a snub-nosed pistol into Benny's hand and brandished her own weapon. 'I'll be behind the door. Whoever comes in gets the full stun blast. If I miss -'

'Which is a distinct possibility,' Benny interjected unkindly.

'- you get your chance. But make sure you take it fast. From what I've seen, this Dr Who guy can do most anything. Give him a second to think and we're both cinders.'

'More like the ugly sisters,' Benny muttered half-heartedly.

'Can't you talk to these people?' Mel pleaded as she and the Doctor were herded relentlessly through the forest. She stumbled and almost fell, but a sharp stick poked her in the back, persuading her to keep going.

'I'm afraid their language is not developed enough for even a Time Lord's telepathic abilities to translate,' the Doctor said.

He seemed to be coping easily with the enforced march.

Mel sighed hopelessly, but her not inconsiderable discomfort 97 was forgotten a second later. The entourage had left the forest and she was confronted by the shattered remains of what had obviously been a primitive village. Crude log cabins had been demolished or crushed and the ground had been flattened. Her stomach turned as their journey took them past the trampled and mauled corpses of men, women and children alike. The scattered survivors greeted them with sneers and fell in with the escort party, thrusting spiked weapons towards the prisoners in accusatory gestures. Mel flinched and sought protection against the Doctor's steadfast form.

'The tribespeople must a.s.sociate our arrival with the creatures that destroyed their settlement,' he said sadly. 'An understandable misapprehension in the circ.u.mstances.'

They were being pushed towards a definite destination now.