Sarah and Harry went off. The Doctor didn't even seem to notice them go. He was staring absorbedly at a wall-map which showed the position of the company's off-shore rigs. Three of them were marked by sinister black crosses. There were many more rigs on the map, unharmed as yet, but obviously in the same danger as those that had vanished.
A model oil-rig stood on Huckle's desk. The Brigadier picked it up and examined it curiously. 'These things always remind me of spiders in Wellington boots.'
Huckle took the model from him. 'Correction, Brigadier—spiders in concrete boots,' he said firmly. 'Thousands of tons of it. These rigs are supposed to be unsinkable.'
'That's what they said about the Bismarck,' said the Doctor. 'And we all know what happened there! Have you considered seismic disturbance—an undersea earthquake?'
Huckle pointed to the markings which showed the estimated size of the oil field. 'We spent a fortune proving the Waverly Field geologically sound. Everything is constantly checked for stability. Winds, currents, the slightest movement of the sea bed, all charted and recorded. Our instruments showed nothing.'
The Doctor wandered across to the elaborate RT set that stood in one corner. 'And before every disaster there was a complete radio blackout?'
'That's right. Either there was nothing on the set, or all we got was a sort of electronic burble.'
'No other craft in the vicinity? Nothing suspicious?'
'Difficult to be sure,' said Huckle frankly. 'After all, it was at night. As far as we know, the sea was calm and empty.'
'Correction, Mr Huckle,' the Doctor mimicked Huckle's phrase of a moment before. 'The sea may be calm—but it's never empty.'
Even as the Doctor spoke a vast dark shape was slipping through the sea, heading towards its next target—another oil-rig.
Sarah Jane Smith spent a sociable afternoon chatting to as many people as she could in the little village of Tulloch. It was hard going at first. The village people were polite enough, but they tended to be reserved, unwilling to open up to a stranger. But Sarah had got a foot in quite a few doors in her time as a journalist, and she managed to get most of them talking in the end. Now, an hour or so later, she was discussing her harvest of gossip over tea and scones with Angus MacRanald, burly landlord of the village inn.
Away from his bagpipes, Angus was pleasant enough, a little on the dour side, but an occasional twinkle in his eye showed that his grimness was mostly an act. Sarah was taking a mischievous delight in showing off how much she had learned.
'And they. say in the village that you're the seventh son of a seventh son, that you have the second sight!'
Angus gave a noncommittal grunt. 'Aye, mebbe. Yon fellow the Doctor now. He looks like a man who could see round a corner or two.'
Sarah thought there might be something to the story of Angus's powers after all. It hadn't taken him long to spot something unusual about the Doctor. And since answering questions about the Doctor was always a tricky business, Sarah did her best to change the subject. She glanced round the room and saw a new addition since the morning. Dominating one wall was a vast, many-antlered stag's head, staring down at her with bulbous glassy eyes that seemed almost alive. 'That's a fine looking specimen!'
Angus nodded proudly. 'Aye, yon's a twelve-pointer. The Duke himself presented it to me this very day.'
Sarah nodded, remembering that she'd seen it in the back of the shooting brake. 'He's a strange man, the Duke, isn't he?'
'He's my hereditary chieftain,' Angus sounded reproving. 'The MacRanald, Chief of the Clan.'
'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. It's just that—well, after he picked us up he scarcely spoke a word all the way into the village. He seemed so—preoccupied.'
Angus sighed. 'It's true enough, he's no' the Duke I remember. He's been a different man since the oil people came. All his servants left him, you see. There was more money to be earned at the base. Forgill Castle's an empty, cold-hearted house these days. I havena' set foot there in a long time. I wouldna' care to now, and that's a fact.' There was deep sadness in Angus's voice, and Sarah felt a shiver of unease. She looked round the room. She couldn't rid herself of the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She glanced quickly round, but saw only the oddly-gleaming eyes of the stag as it gazed indifferently down at her.
(Not far away, in a hidden control-room, a claw-like hand reached forward to touch a control. Immediately the scene in the inn parlour appeared on a glowing monitor screen. The alien hand touched another control, and the voices of Sarah and Angus came through, faint but clear.)
Sarah shivered and looked away from the stag's head. 'Mr MacRanald, is it true you predicted disaster for the oil company? They say in the village you had a vision.'
'Och, I wouldn't say a vision. No more than a wee feeling. They built their base on Tulloch Moor, do you see, and that's a place of bad luck.' His voice deepened. 'It's a strange murky place, the moor. Its mists are like the steam from a witches' cauldron. Nobody from these parts will cross it after dark.'
'Surely that's only superstition?'
'Call it that if you like,' said Angus darkly. 'But I tell you something. There was once a man staying at this very inn. He went off for a walk on the moor one night and was never seen again.'
Sarah's journalistic instincts were aroused. 'Sounds like a good story—when did it happen?'
'1922,' said Angus solemnly. 'Then there was the business of the Jamieson boys. Went cutting peat on the moor. The mist came down and they were benighted. Donald just disappeared... They found his brother Robert two days later. He was clean off his head, and the fear in his eyes was terrible to see.'
Sarah couldn't help being impressed. 'And when did all this happen?'
'Well it was a wee while ago,' admitted Angus. 'Around 1870, I think.'
Sarah laughed, but Angus's voice was utterly serious. 'Aye, you may laugh, lassie. But take my word, there are evil spirits haunting Tulloch Moor.'
Sarah rose to leave. 'That's as maybe. But I'm sure of one thing, Mr MacRanald—evil spirits don't smash up oil-rigs.'
Sarah went off to her room to wash and rest. As she left the parlour the glassy eyes of the stag's head seemed to follow her.
(The alien hand in the control-room reached out, and the monitor screen clicked into darkness.)
The mist from the sea drifted in over Tulloch Moor, blurring the outlines of the gorse and the few stunted trees, making the moor seem more eerie and sinister than ever. A huge figure came striding through the mist, and a nervous villager might easily have taken it for some ghoul or goblin out of Angus MacRanald's stories. But a closer glance would have brought reassurance. It was only the Caber, faithful gamekeeper, servant and companion of the Duke of Forgill. Everyone in Tulloch knew the Caber. Indeed it was impossible to mistake him. A champion of the Highland Games, his massive size had caused one of the judges to remark that he was as big as a 'caber', the trimmed tree trunk that he was tossing. The name had stuck, and the Duke's ghillie had been called the Caber ever since.
One thing about the Caber might have puzzled the villagers, if there had been anyone on the moor to see him—the gun in the crook of his arm. There was nothing strange about the Caber having a gun. But this wasn't the old, well-cared-for shotgun he usually carried. This was something else altogether. Resting in the crook of the Caber's arm was a heavy, big-game rifle with telescopic sight.
The sea-mist was thickest at the water's edge. It swirled round what looked like a huge, humped piece of driftwood that had floated in on the incoming tide. For a moment it lay there, a shapeless lump. Then the 'hump' slowly detached itself, and took on the shape of a man. Jock Munro let go of the piece of wood that had saved his life and began crawling up the beach. He had floated for untold hours in the freezing sea, and now his instinct was to get away from it. Crawling at first, and then in a shambling, staggering run, he made his way towards the road.
The mist drifted in patches across the road, coming and going with amazing
rapidity. It made driving a tricky business, and Harry Sullivan had no wish to pile up his borrowed oil company land-rover. He drove slowly and carefully, keeping speed down to a minimum. Even so, he had to step hard on the brakes when a shapeless figure lurched out from the mist and collapsed in front of him. The land-rover's front wheels stopped only a few feet from the body as Harry jumped out and knelt beside it. The man's clothes, hair, even his skin itself, were soggy with water. Harry guessed instinctively that this was a survivor of one of the wrecked oil-rigs, and the briefest examination told him that, unless he got warmth, shelter, and dry clothing, the man wasn't going to survive much longer. He started to drag the body carefully towards the land-rover. To his amazement the survivor stirred and began to mutter, 'The rig... I was on the rig.'
'All right, old chap,' said Harry soothingly. 'We'll soon get you to hospital.'
Munro shook his head. 'I'm thinking you're too late.'
The feeble voice and the faint flickering of his pulse convinced Harry the man might well be right. He put reassurance into his voice. 'No, you'll be all right. Can you tell me what happened to the rig?'
'Didn't stand a chance... came at us suddenly...' The voice tailed away.
'What did?' asked Harry urgently: 'What came at you?'
(The Caber settled himself on the hilltop, face down in the gorse, legs spread for balance, elbows forming a steady tripod. He cuddled the walnut stock of the gun into his shoulder and peered through the telescopic sight. The two figures on the road below sprang up in sharp relief. He moved the rifle barrel steadily until the cross-hairs of the telescopic sight intersected on his target...)
Harry put his head closer to Munro's, trying to pick out the sense of the feeble words. He was reluctant to delay getting the man to hospital, but those mutterings could contain a vital clue, and if the journey was too much for the poor chap... 'Huge... terrible...' Munro was saying faintly. 'Charged again and again. Smashed the rig to pieces...'
Munro's body jerked, and was twitched from Harry's arms as if by a giant invisible hand. Too astonished to move, Harry saw blood gush from the wound in the man's chest. The rifle boomed again and Harry spun round, his hand clutching his head, and collapsed across Munro.
The sea mist swirled slowly round the two motionless bodies.
3 The Zygons Attack
When Sarah came down from her room, UNIT's temporary H.Q. was empty except for the Doctor. He was happily fiddling with a pile of electronic equipment which he had spread all over the big table. Sarah peered over his shoulder. 'What's all this then?'
The Doctor sighed. Sarah's constant curiosity about anything and everything was one of her most engaging characteristics, but it could get a little wearing. He knew from experience it was no good trying to put her off. Only a clear, precise explanation would satisfy that enquiring journalistic mind. He spoke without looking up from his work. 'This is part of a probe system for detecting localised jamming and alien energy emissions.'
Sarah considered for a moment and said, 'What happens if whatever's doing the jamming jams the jamming detector?'
The Doctor opened his mouth to deliver a crushing reply, then realised with a shock that Sarah was quite right. He'd overlooked that problem. 'I shall build in a protective circuit,' he said with dignity, hurriedly assembling the necessary parts.
Sarah started wandering round the room. She wanted to tell the Doctor about her chats with Angus and the villagers, but he was obviously too preoccupied to listen. She glanced up, met the baleful glare of the stag's head, and hurriedly looked away. 'Where's the Brigadier?'
'Down at the quayside, I think. They're bringing in some wreckage from one of the rigs. I asked him to get the stuff to me here before too many people know about it.'
'No use trying to be secretive in this village,' said Sarah darkly. 'The landlord's got the second sight.'
The Doctor made a minute adjustment to a very small circuit. 'Maybe we should recruit him into UNIT.'
The telephone rang, and Sarah picked it up. It was the Brigadier, and his news made Sarah go pale with shock.
She said, 'Yes, he's here, I'll tell him. We'll come at once.'
Something in her voice made the Doctor look up. 'What is it, Sarah? Bad news?'
Sarah nodded. 'It's Harry—he's been shot!'
The hidden control-room was filled with a strange sound. It was a high-pitched electronic gurgling, rhythmic and monotonous. The creature at the console reached out, touched one of the nodules on the control panel, and the noise went up in pitch.
The control console, and indeed the entire control-room, was as peculiar and alien in shape as the creatures operating it. It was made of a strange, gnarled, fibrous material, and somehow seemed to have been grown rather than constructed. Instead of knobs and levers there were root-like stumps and projections, while sensitive nodules replaced buttons and switches.
The alien being at the console was a Zygon. Its name was Broton, and its voice when it spoke had a hissing, gurgling quality, curiously like the noise that filled the air. 'What is the impulse strength?'
On the other side of the control-room, another Zygon presided over a similar bank of root-like instruments. It replied in the same hissing, gurgling tones. 'Diastellic reading seven-o-three.'
'Increase the sonic call tone by three remars,' Broton ordered.
The Zygon's claw-like hands moved obediently over the control nodules. 'Increased tone, three remars. Contact firm.'
'Check directional pulse.'
'Pulse correct to within one Earth mile. Closing.'
'Adjust final course for target strike.'
The subordinate Zygon touched more control nodules. Miles away, in the chill depths of the sea, a huge, powerful shape altered its course a few degrees, responding to the alien hands that controlled its movements.
In his office at the oil company base, Huckle crouched over his RT set. He spent every available moment on the air these days, checking and re-checking that the rest of the steel giants for which he was responsible still stood securely on the ocean bed. Every transmission he made was a fresh ordeal; each time he dreaded that the rig he was calling would not reply. He crouched tensely over the set. 'Do you read me, Ben Nevis, do you read me?'
'There was silence, except for the crackle of static. Then, 'Hibernian Control, this is Ben Nevis rig, over.'
Huckle gave a sigh of relief. Without realising it, he'd been holding his breath. 'Got you, Ben Nevis, loud and clear.'
In the radio room of Ben Nevis rig, the operator grinned sympathetically. He knew Huckle well, and realised what he must be going through. Huckle's voice crackled from the set.
'How are you doing out there? How's morale?'
The operator felt like asking 'What morale?' After three disasters the rig crews were in a state of near mutiny, and only the promise of huge danger bonuses kept them working at all. Restraining himself, the operator said, 'Could be worse. Any news of the investigation?'
'Not much. This Brigadier chap's brought in his Scientific Adviser. Weird fellow called the Doctor. He seems...'
Huckle's voice was cut off in mid-sentence. A strange electronic burbling came from the set. The operator at Ben Nevis rig flicked switches and adjusted dials, but all in vain. He switched to transmitting. 'Hallo, Hibernian Control, we seem to have lost you. Are you still reading me? Over.'
There was no reply, only the electronic sound which was getting louder and louder. Suddenly the entire cabin reeled as some huge object struck the rig a massive blow. Thrown from his chair, the operator struck his head against one of the steel walls, and slumped unconscious to the floor. The strange electronic burble filled the little cabin, rising higher and higher.
The sound was filling Huckle's office too, as he flicked frantically at the controls. 'Ben Nevis, Ben Nevis, are you there? Over.' There was no reply.
Huckle abandoned the RT set, grabbed his phone and sent out a general alarm. Within minutes he heard the sound of company helicopters taking
off. But there was no hope in Huckle's face as he slumped down behind his desk. He already knew what they would find—nothing. An empty place in the sea where an oil-rig had once stood.
Harry Sullivan lay white and motionless in one of the oil company's sick-bay beds, a bandage round his head. The Doctor looked at the neat figure of Sister Lamont, who hovered by the bed. 'Has he spoken at all?'
There was a soft Highland lilt in the nurse's voice.
'Not a word, I'm afraid. The wound on his skull is no more than a graze, but he's still in shock.'
The Doctor leaned over. 'Harry, it's me, the Doctor. Can you hear me?'
Harry stirred and mumbled. He seemed to be trying to speak.
The Brigadier rushed in, stopped, and looked down at the bandaged figure. 'How is he? Will he be all right, Sister?'
'He'll be fine. He just needs to rest.'
The Brigadier remembered his news. 'Doctor, they've lost another rig, the Ben Nevis. Forty men aboard. It's completely vanished.'
'Same pattern as before?'
'Exactly. Same radio blackout, same burbling sound...'
'Did you bring that wreckage from the other rig for me?'
'It's all back at H.Q. now. Though what you think you'll learn from a pile of metal junk...'
'I'd better get to work.' The Doctor made for the door, the Brigadier close behind him.
Sarah didn't move. 'I'll stay with Harry for a while. I can let you know if he wakes up!'
The Doctor paused in the doorway. 'Good idea, Sarah. I think he'll soon be coming round. If he can talk, he may be able to tell us something.'
As the two men went down the corridor, Sarah could hear the Brigadier's voice. 'I hope you can come up with something to show Huckle, Doctor. He's coming down to H.Q. for a conference later on, and he's hopping mad.'
'My dear Brigadier, the purpose of my experiments is not to satisfy Mr Huckle, but to discover the truth. He'll just have to be patient and so will you...'
Their voices died away and Sarah looked again at Harry. He was still muttering and twisting, and seemed to be trying to speak. She leaned close. 'Harry, it's Sarah. Can you hear me?'
Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster Page 2