by Brian Hayles
Clent looked at Jan dispassionately. ‘Nothing will go wrong. The Doctor will succeed. He has to!’
When the Doctor at last reached the ice cavern, he found Penley crouched over Storr’s dead body. After a moment’s pause, Penley covered the lifeless face for the last time.
Penley attempted to explain. ‘Storr came up here to talk to the aliens. He thought they’d be able to do some good for the youngster I found here.’
‘Jamie?’ asked the Doctor eagerly. ‘You know where he is? And what about the girl – Victoria?’
Penley threw a brief glance at the spaceship door. ‘She must still be inside there with them. The lad’s back at our hideout. I think he’ll be all right, but…’ His voice trailed away sadly.
The Doctor looked at him soberly. ‘Better let me know the worst. Is it bad?’
‘He must’ve been shot by the alien ray guns. There may be some spinal damage – paralysis.’
The Doctor looked grim. ‘Then there’s only one place for him, isn’t there?’
Penley nodded. ‘The medicare centre at Base…’
‘Take my airsled,’ the Doctor said firmly. ‘Get Jamie on to it and take him back there – if it’s as bad as you say.’
‘It’s his only hope.’
He lurched against the Doctor as the icy ground shuddered beneath them. ‘The glacier’s moving,’ observed the Doctor.
‘It’s getting worse,’ agreed Penley. ‘Let’s get out of here!’
‘You carry on,’ came the reply, ‘I’ve got a job to do.’
Penley nodded towards the spaceship door. ‘In there?’
The Doctor nodded. ‘There’s Victoria, for one thing – and for another, Clent has to know whether the alien reactor unit will explode if the Ioniser is used properly.’ As Penley stared at him in surprise, the Doctor smiled, ‘I adapted your notes on the Omega Factor.’
‘Did you now…’ murmured Penley, with new respect.
‘But you’re the chap to handle it,’ insisted the Doctor. ‘Do you think you can cope with Clent?’
‘I dare say I can manage to stay sane.’ He looked down at Storr’s body. ‘I’ll take Storr back to his hideout with me. He’d’ve preferred it there.’
With that, he dragged his friend to the Doctor’s airsled.
When Penley was well clear of the glacier, the Doctor activated the tiny communicator. ‘Doctor to Clent,’ he called. ‘I’m going in now, old chap. Wish me luck.’ Then he tucked the device away.
With that, he moved boldly towards the sleek metallic door, and hammered on it with his fist.
‘Open this door at once!’ he demanded brazenly. ‘Open up, I say!’ To his surprise, the door opened immediately, and he stepped inside the airlock. It closed behind him, and he waited for the inner door to open – but it did not. Instead, a harsh voice spoke from a loudspeaker set in the ceiling panel.
‘Identify yourself!’
The Doctor spoke sternly. ‘I am a diplomatic messenger. I don’t answer questions until I am properly received by a suitable person!’
‘You will answer now!’ snapped the voice. The Doctor folded his arms, tilted his chin up defiantly, and remained silent.
‘Unless you answer inside ten seconds,’ the voice continued, ‘the atmospheric pressure will be reduced to zero – a perfect vacuum.’
The Doctor’s face filled with alarm.
‘In that condition, your Earthling body will explode. Countdown commences now. Ten… nine… eight…’
The Doctor’s eyes found the atmospheric level indicator by his side – the pressure was decreasing fast!
‘If you insist,’ he shouted acidly. ‘But I don’t think much of your hospitality!’ The pressure gauge sank lower. ‘I’m a scientist – from the Base – I want to help you!’ The level stopped sinking, and, a second later, it rose to normal. The inner door slid open, and the Doctor found himself confronted by the Martian warlord inside the spaceship. Flanking him were several other Ice Warriors.
‘You are a scientist?’ queried Varga coldly. ‘You do not look like one!’ he gazed at the Doctor’s eccentric dress.
‘He looks more like the human we destroyed – the scavenger,’ remarked Zondal sourly. ‘He could be an imposter. We should destroy him also!’
‘If you kill me, you’ll ruin any chance you might have of escape! Or perhaps you intend to stay inside this glacier permanently.’
Varga stepped forward arrogantly. ‘I am Varga, the Martian warlord. Explain how you can help us!’
‘There are certain conditions that have to be met first,’ insisted the Doctor.
‘You are our prisoner!’ hissed the warlord furiously. ‘It is I who set conditions and ask questions!’
The Doctor held up his hand, and smiled. ‘Listen!’ The faintest of tremors ran through the spaceship. Its sound sensors were picking up the creak and grind of the ice mountain outside. ‘It is you who are the prisoners,’ the Doctor pointed out gently, ‘… and I who can set you free!’
‘On my terms!’ snarled the warlord. He gestured to Isbur. ‘Bring the girl!’ Turning back to the Doctor, he continued. ‘Now we have two hostages, we make the bargains here!’
‘You haven’t got time to bargain – before long, the glacier will crush and destroy you and your ship! But we have a device that can melt the ice and release you!’
‘We know of this device,’ hissed Varga. ‘The girl has told us its name – the Ioniser.’ His voice changed to bitter anger. ‘Do not try to trick us! We know it is a weapon aimed to destroy us!’
Before the Doctor could answer this charge, Victoria was led in by Isbur. When she saw the Doctor, her face fell. ‘Oh, Doctor, they’ve got you too!’
‘Don’t worry, Victoria, we’re not beaten yet.’ He smiled cheerfully. ‘Jamie’s safe and well, for a start!’
Victoria’s face flooded with relief and hope, but Varga’s harsh whisper brought the Doctor back to the nub of the matter.
‘If what you say is true, why have you not freed us before?’
The Doctor’s eye flicked beyond the Martian to what looked like a complex technical area. Could it be the engine room? Somehow he had to find out without giving his hand away! He hesitated. ‘Er… there are certain difficulties.’
But the Doctor’s probing glance had confirmed the Warlord’s suspicions. ‘You are afraid of us!’ he exclaimed keenly. ‘You are afraid our ship will explode!’
The Doctor tried to put the problem simply. ‘If the Ioniser causes a nuclear holocaust, it’ll defeat its original purpose – to hold back the glaciers!’
‘That is what I suspected…’ breathed the warlord; and then gave that peculiar choking laugh that so often meant danger. ‘You dare not act against us!’
‘We don’t want to harm you, or your ship,’ repeated the Doctor irritably. ‘I keep telling you, our action would release it – you’d be free!’
‘But if the ice melted too quickly,’ Zondal pointed out, ‘there would be severe flooding.’
‘And our engines would be useless!’ hissed Varga. ‘We would be at your mercy – and there would be no escape!’
‘You can walk out of here now,’ suggested the Doctor. ‘You’d be safe – even if your spacecraft was destroyed.’
‘But without this vehicle,’ whispered the grim-faced warlord, ‘we cannot return to our planet.’
The Doctor was about to inform the Ice Warrior that his distant home planet – Mars – had long since died, when he stopped himself, horrified. With nowhere to return to, the Martians would be forced to stay – but it wasn’t in their nature to remain guests for long. They were conquerors, colonisers and invaders; and with their deadly weapons, probably invincible! Suddenly, the Doctor thought of a vital question. ‘Why did you come here in the first place? What was your mission, Varga. Tell me!’
‘To investigate this planet… and report,’ answered Varga. His next words confirmed the Doctor’s worst suspicions. ‘We find that we are… superior.’
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The Doctor’s mind seethed with alarm. This small squad of Ice Warriors, with or without their space vehicle, could devastate and dominate Earth – continent by continent – if they chose to! And he had a definite feeling that this would have been part of that original Martian plan, conceived so many centuries ago, and halted only by a freak landing on that prehistoric glacier. Suppose there were other scout ships, buried in the ice? Varga mustn’t be given the chance to put his secret orders into practice – which meant there was only one way out, dreadful but necessary. He began speaking with what seemed an unnecessary loudness – but not for Victoria’s benefit. Clent had to be persuaded to act – and act now!
‘You do realise,’ stated the Doctor emphatically, ‘that at a certain point – almost immediately, in fact – my Base will have to activate the Ioniser regardless of the consequences?’
Zondal didn’t catch the urgent emphasis. He sneered in disbelief. ‘And risk destroying you – and themselves? They are not fools!’
‘Better that,’ the Doctor started to say, ‘than—’
In a flash, Varga’s fist had grabbed his arm, exposed the tiny communicator and wrenched the device free, switching it off in the process. He examined it closely, then laughed.
‘A communicator! How useful!’
The Doctor had always known the risk of discovery. Realising what he had been trying to do, Victoria gasped in fear of Varga’s retaliation. Neither of them expected his response.
‘When the time is right,’ hissed the warlord arrogantly, ‘we will use this device ourselves.’ He stepped closer to the Doctor.
‘You have been most helpful, Doctor. You will forgive my interruption of your warning to your friends. Shall I complete it for you?’ He laughed cruelly. ‘Better that than… be conquered by these Martians! And you are right!’ He gestured towards the engine complex, and his next words struck fear into both the Doctor and Victoria.
‘There is one thing we need to complete our power,’ hissed the Martian arrogantly. ‘Then we shall be invincible – and this planet will be ours to conquer as we please!’
8
The Martian Ultimatum
LEADER CLENT STARED at the blank video screen and said nothing for several seconds. It seemed that – with the Doctor’s message ending so abruptly – their last chance had vanished.
‘What can we do?’ asked Jan. ‘The Doctor! We’ve got to help him!’
Clent shook his head. ‘You heard what he said. Regardless of the consequences, he wants us to take the risk and use the Ioniser.’ He frowned. ‘But he’s not only offering himself as a sacrifice – it’s us as well!’
‘If only he could have said more… Perhaps he means the spaceship’s reactor isn’t dangerous?’
‘But the aliens are…’ replied the Leader grimly. ‘It’s no good guessing, Miss Garrett. We must have facts!’
She had to agree. ‘Until we programme the computer with the correct information, it cannot instruct us how to act.’
Clent turned back to the Ioniser monitors. They were stable, but almost dormant at half power. ‘If only the Ioniser would hold…’
‘At present output, it’s steadily losing ground to the glacier.’ Inside her mind, a silent voice shouted Jan’s opinions. Forget the glacier! Do something to save the Doctor and the girl! We owe them that much! We cannot let them die! Aloud she said, ‘We dare not increase power… not yet.’
Clent turned to her. She sensed the deep confusion in his mind. He was torn between duty, humanity and the need for action – knowing that whatever decision he took, the result could spell disaster… Suddenly, the computer hummed into life.
‘World Director, Ionisation Programme, to all sectors. The new control equation originating from Brittanicus Base will be adapted to conditions prevailing in each sector, and linked to World Central Control. On central command pulse, a concerted intercontinental attack on the glaciers will commence in six hours exactly. Report readiness in three hours. Leaders to confirm status report one hour to zero. Message ends.’
Jan turned desperately to Clent. ‘We can’t do it!’ she cried hopelessly.
Clent’s face was stern; like a soldier taking orders in the face of imminent destruction, he knew instinctively that he must act without question. ‘If we don’t act, the world plan must fail! We have no choice, Miss Garrett!’
Jan was too well trained to defy her superior, but she clutched desperately at one last straw… ‘The computer must be told,’ she insisted firmly, ‘as a matter of procedure.’ As Clent started to protest, she added quickly, ‘With the fresh directive from World Control, it may be able to resolve our local situation.’ She was relying desperately on Clent’s addiction to the rule-book and, to her relief, he nodded in reluctant agreement.
‘Very well, Miss Garrett, feed the relevant data to ECCO, if you must.’ But at the back of his mind he instinctively knew what the computer would say in answer to the grim dilemma. There was only one reply it could give – and that answer would save no one. Seconds later it gave its response.
‘As instructed, set up all circuits to the new equation. No action to be taken until further data available regarding potential nuclear explosion. Prepare to notify World Control in event of unresolved emergency. Repeat, take no action!’ The machine fell silent.
Clent looked across at Jan. ‘It’s what we both expected, isn’t it,’ he commented wearily. ‘But the computer must be obeyed. We must wait.’
‘In five hours from now, you have to report that we are in emergency status!’ exclaimed Jan. ‘At least we have that much time!’
Clent studied her tense face, and saw she didn’t understand. ‘Miss Garrett, you still don’t realise the logic of the computer’s decision not to act, do you?’
Puzzled, she shook her head. ‘The computer can only ever be logical. It hasn’t enough facts – it told us so a moment ago.’
Clent’s reply carried an undertone of despair. ‘We have just asked the computer if it is prepared to commit suicide. If we use the Ioniser and we explode the alien reactor, the Base – and the computer – will be destroyed. If we do not use the Ioniser, the glaciers will advance and destroy the Base. Either way, its survival is at risk – and one of its prime directives, programmed as a vital part of its basic circuitry, is to survive! Now do you see the dilemma?’
Jan was silent. It wasn’t only the computer’s dilemma, she realised; it was Clent’s as well. Whatever he did, failure was staring him in the face.
‘We can at least evacuate,’ she said quietly, knowing what his reaction would be. ‘There’s still time…’
Clent was shocked, and angry. ‘Retreat? Throw in the towel? Perhaps you would be happy to face world opinion afterwards, Miss Garrett. I would not!’
‘Is that all that matters? It isn’t only your reputation at stake. There are the lives of—’
Jan stopped in mid-sentence as the picture of Walters flashed on to the video screen. His brisk message startled both Jan and Clent into action.
‘Security to Leader Clent. Two emergency arrivals, sir. I’ve had them both brought to the medicare centre for treatment. One of them’s Scientist Penley!’
Zondal was supervising the removal of the sonic cannon from its usual mounting inside the spaceship to a traction unit in the cave outside. Varga turned to the Doctor.
‘As you can see, Doctor, we have more than just personal destructors!’ He pointed to the weapon on his arm, and Victoria shuddered, remembering vividly the horror of that deadly gun. ‘This can destroy a man in an instant – but the sonic cannon is capable of wiping out whole cities!’
‘What’s it to be used for?’ asked the Doctor.
‘It is an ultimatum,’ hissed Varga. He laughed brutally. ‘An ultimatum that accepts only one kind of reply – agreement!’
‘But why?’ asked Victoria bravely. ‘You’ve already got us as hostages!’
‘Yes,’ agreed the Doctor. ‘What else do you want?’
‘Info
rmation,’ said Varga. ‘You have asked enough questions. Now you will provide answers…’
‘I’ve already told you all I know about the Ioniser,’ replied the Doctor. ‘You don’t need to worry—’
‘What is its power source then? Tell me that!’
Suddenly the Doctor saw the situation in all its clarity. While he had been desperate to know what sort of reactor the Martians had on their spacecraft, they had realised that the Base might be the source of vital fuel for their reactor! The truth was, they were as helpless as Clent and the scientists – the perfect stalemate. But a distant groaning from the glacier outside reminded him of that one random factor. The moving river of ice was dependent on no one; unless it was stopped soon, the Ioniser Base would be swept away like every other man-made object in the glacier’s path.
‘So that’s what you need…’ he said shrewdly, looking past Varga into the engine complex. ‘Fuel – for your reactor. Without it, you’ll never be able to break free!’
‘Answer my question!’ commanded the warlord, holding his sonic destructor close to Victoria’s head, ‘or the girl dies! Quickly!’
‘And if I tell you?’
‘We will take what we need, and use it to blast our way out of the glacier!’ came the fierce reply. ‘Speak!’
The Doctor looked suitably dejected. He turned from the engine complex to face Varga. ‘Mercury isotopes – is that it?’
‘You have them?’ demanded the warlord eagerly.
Victoria’s face filled with dismay at the Doctor’s surrender to the Martian demands. ‘Doctor, you shouldn’t have told him!’
‘You’re more important, Victoria,’ murmured the Doctor, then spoke to Varga defiantly. ‘You won’t find Leader Clent so easy to persuade! He’s got a will as hard as granite!’
‘The sonic cannon,’ whispered Varga, ‘can be programmed to disintegrate the hardest rock. This man will do as we ask – or we will smash his installation to pieces!’ He pointed through the open doorway of the airlock.
There, at the entrance to the ice cave, pointing out over the hillside towards the Base, stood the sonic cannon. At Varga’s gesture, Zondal stepped forward to the control panel inside the main complex of the spaceship. A video-radar screen, with a fire-path already plotted, was suspended over the gun controls.