Doctor Who_ The Mark Of The Rani Part 6

A Deadly Signature Despite his objections to the Doctor's autocratic manner, Lord Ravensworth had brought Luke Ward. Or, to be more precise, he had despatched a messenger for him.

Luke could truly be called a golden boy. Tall, fair-haired, the eighteen year old exuded honesty and intelligence. It was not difficult to comprehend Ravensworth's pride in his protege.

He had submitted to the barrage of questions with worried concern. But, as yet, none of his replies had given the Doctor a lead. His father's reported violent behaviour was completely inexplicable.

However, the Doctor persisted. 'And you're certain your father was perfectly normal this morning?'

'The lad's told you he was!' Lord Ravensworth was losing patience with the inquisition.

'I know, I know. Bear with me. The answer's probably staring me in the face and I just can't see it.'

Realising that escape from Killingworth depended on the Doctor unravelling the mystery, Peri joined in. 'When did you last talk to your father, Luke?'

'When he came off shift. He were on't way to bath house.'

'Bath house?'

'To get cleaned up.' Luke failed to understand the Doctor's evident excitement.

'Doctor, you recall when we pa.s.sed the bath house'

'Luke, can you find me an old coat and cap?' This was not really a request.

'Aye, in't lobby, but...' Luke's orders usually came from Ravensworth. His lordship gave a fatalistic shrug. 'Do as he says.'

'Doctor, when we pa.s.sed the bath house, that gadget of yours ' Again Peri was interrupted.

'Reacted. Yes. Yes. I said it had been staring me in the face, didn't I? It was! Literally!' Discarding his own jacket, he accepted the soiled coat Luke had collected from the lobby.

'I guess I should, but I don't get it.'

'Glad it's not just me!' Ravensworth said fretfully.

'Those men who attacked me. They didn't look as if they'd come straight from the pit, did they?' He struggled into the coat. 'They were clean!'

As if this explained everything, he dashed from the office.

Of the baffled trio, Ravensworth was the first to give voice. 'Is he often like this?'

'Too often. Excuse me.' Peri scooted out of the door.

She did not have far to go. The Doctor was rubbing his hands on the ground and transferring the dirt to his temples.

'Would you mind telling me what's going on?'

'I'm about to follow as you would term it a hunch.'

A reply that told her nothing. A sigh of resignation.

'Okay, where do I fit in?'

'You stay here where you'll be safe.'

That did it! 'Safe! 'Safe! From the moment I stepped into the TARDIS I haven't been safe!' From the moment I stepped into the TARDIS I haven't been safe!'

'How do I look?' Nose, forehead, cheeks and ears were smudged with coal dust. His teeth gleamed white as he grinned at Peri.

'Like a man who could do with a bath.'

Pleased with her reply, he donned the cap with a flourish and set off.

Little did the Rani know she was about to receive yet another unwelcome visitor. She was too preoccupied.

Circled by the rosy hue on the scanner, the Master could be seen exploring the eerie disused mine. Shale scrunched beneath his polished shoes. The rotting pit props supporting the uneven roof were meshed with cobwebs that adhered to his gloves.

'A rat hole,' he muttered in disgust.

'Then you should be at home!' thought his unseen observer as she realigned the contrast.

He moved cautiously... alert... listening. He had no desire to come upon the aggressive miners unawares.

The scuff of a foot on rubble from deeper within. The Master paused... felt for the TCE.

'I told you to wait, you cretins!' murmured the Rani.

'Wait until he's nearer. He's armed!'

The steely command revealed that the Master had underestimated the Rani. When she had plundered the miners' brains, she had also made them her va.s.sals.

Through an implant in their necks, she could communicate instructions. Her erstwhile partner was walking into an ambush.

All was quiet. He ventured on.

' Now! Now! ' hissed the Rani. ' hissed the Rani.

In sudden, simultaneous action, Jack Ward leapt from his hiding place, cutting off the rear, and Edwin Green dropped from a ledge. He landed on top of the Master, howling him over. Before he could recover, the agile Green pounced again, locking his opponent in a grip that prevented him from using the TCE. Frantically, the Master wrestled to get free. The writhing bodies scrunched into the rough shale.

But the Rani, too, had miscalculated. Instead of succ.u.mbing swiftly, the Master was giving an able account of himself. Her all-important phial was in danger of being crushed between the combined weights. The brain fluid would be spilt!

Yanking a mini-transmitter from her skirt pouch, she hurriedly tapped out a code. A micro-second later, breaking from the clinch, Green clutched at his neck.

Choked. Tore at the crimson mark.

To no avail.

The crimson spread... slowly... remorselessly... painfully strangling Green to death...

'"The Mark of the Rani.' The Master had correctly surmised that the fatal crimson mark was the Rani's deadly signature. Her obscene ingenuity made him more determined than ever to conscript her talents.

'Is he dead?' Jack Ward broke in on his thoughts.

The Master nodded. Already he was devising a scheme to turn the situation to his own advantage. If he could persuade these homicidal idiots that the Doctor had caused their companion to die... 'I warned you that inventor was treacherous. I told you to get rid of him.'

Jack Ward was perplexed. 'But he's not nowhere near.'

'He doesn't have to be. He's got a machine that does his foul work for him.' Prepared for Ward's answer, he pulled out paper and pen.

'A machine?'

'I'll show you.' He began to draw on the paper.

The Rani adjusted the controls, but was unable to bring the sketch into focus. 'What's he up to now?'

A loud hammering on the street door.

'It'll be something devious and overcomplicated.'

Switching off the scanner, she quit the laboratory. 'He'd get dizzy if he tried to walk a straight line!'

But in the gloom of the old mine, the Master knew exactly what he was doing. He had drawn a sketch of the Doctor's TARDIS.

'What's that?' Ward s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper. 'A coffin?'

'A coffin?' The appropriate description amused the Master. 'It's the machine that killed your friend.'

'That thing?'

'Can you offer a better explanation?'

'Nay.' Ward's inner turmoil welled into anger again.

'Nay, I can't.'

'Then be guided by me. Take that box and bury it in the deepest shaft!'

'Can't see no point in burying a box!' Ward was a practical man. 'Better to bury him him!'

The others nodded in agreement. Not the reaction the Master wanted at all. No wonder he had such contempt for the beings on this planet! Contrary creatures! In fact, if it weren't that he would derive pleasure from seeing the Doctor butchered by these very humans he so favoured, he'd have eliminated this crew there and then! However, not quite yet...

'Trust me.' The voice was ingratiating. 'I give you my word. Destroying that box will divest him of all his power.'

'Where is machine? Dost know?'

'At the slag heap. Off you go. Fetch it to the pit.'

'Fetch it?' Jack wasn't having that. He was no dim-wit.

'Fetch it? Nay, tha's coming with us.' He wasn't altogether sure he trusted this glib stranger. Anyway, the left side of his neck was irritating him, making him feel tetchy.

The Master, though, had his excuse ready. 'That box is only the bait. I have to return to the village to set the trap.'

The irony was, that while he had been contriving his elaborate plot, the Doctor was straying into a trap of his own making.

Shawl draped over her head, shoulders hunched, spine bent almost double, impersonating the old crone, the Rani opened the bath house door.

'Get on in. Get on in,' she cackled. 'Towels are already there.' Four miners trooped in and slouched into the bath chamber. Three of them began to undress. The fourth commenced a tour of inspection. Unfortunately, by the time he discovered the pipe, crimson steam was already billowing into the room. As his comrades collapsed, he tried to fan away the fumes, but the anaesthetic was too potent. Resistance grew feeble... and the Doctor sunk protestingly into oblivion...

8.

Face to Face t.i.tanium hoops shackled the Doctor's wrists. A blanket covered his torso. Only his head was exposed as he lay on the trolley. Unconscious. Vulnerable.

Having connected the miner on the other trolley to the computer and the extractor so that the fluid from his brain would drip into the crystal flagon, the Rani crossed to the Doctor.

Thinking he was just another human, she brushed the tendrils of fair curly hair from behind his left ear, ready to attach the nozzle of the extracting tube.

Stopped.

Touched his skin. It felt too cool.

Perplexed, she picked up a spontaneous thermometer bracelet: a sensor of her own design. She placed it on the Doctor's forehead. Sixty, flashed on its read-out. She shook it, tested again. Sixty degrees, the temperature of a Time Lord, not that of a human.

Still not wholly convinced, she bent to listen on the left side of his chest where the human heart is found. Then she listened on the right side. There, too, was the steady beat of a heart. Two Two hearts! This had to be a Time Lord. And she knew who! hearts! This had to be a Time Lord. And she knew who!

Brusquely she swabbed the coal dust from his face with a wet sponge. The icy dowsing brought the Doctor round.

The blue eyes widened with dawning recognition as he saw the figure crouching over him.

'Well, well, well. The Rani.'

'You were expecting to see the Master?' Annoyed though she was with the Doctor's encroachment, she could not suppress a glacial glint of satisfaction at his futile attempts to release the clamped wrists.

'See? Not exactly. Not unless he's grown a little larger since I last saw him!' On that last encounter, the Master, hoist by his own petard, was being reduced to the size of a microbe!

'Your smugness is misplaced. He's here. He's normal size. And he wants you dead curse the pair of you!'