Doctor Who: Dragonfire (10 page)

A beam of fire cut through the air.

The gun fell out of the tall crewman's hands. Glitz looked up, to see him slump to the ground. Another beam of fire burst on a second crewman and he fell to the ground, dead.

The companions looked round, and in the darkness behind one of the crew-women, they saw the Creature. The remaining crewman and two crew-women turned with their guns towards the Creature, but it picked them off in quick succession. Then it turned on the companions.

'It's going to kill us!' cried Ace, but the Doctor motioned them all to stand still. The Creature watched them all.

The Doctor stepped forward quite slowly and stood four or five metres in front of the Creature. 'We don't intend to harm you. Can you understand?' Then he slowly put his hand to his head and, with a polite smile, raised his hat. The Creature watched him. The Doctor replaced his hat and then repeated the action. The Creature watched him carefully, then raised its own long, skeletal arm to its skull and tapped the front of its head.

The Doctor turned to the others with a smile. 'You see where a little common courtesy gets you?'

The Creature had taken a few huge strides down the passage, but then stopped and turned back, as though waiting for the others.

'It wants us to go with it, Professor.'

'Well, let's see what our new friend wants to show us, then.'

They set off down the passage, after the Creature.

Glitz looked back for a moment at his dead crew lying on the ground.

They could be trouble at times, but they were all right underneath.

Poor Winterbottom. He'd never intended this to happen when he sold them to Kane...

'Danger. Approaching defrost threshold. Minus 10 °C and rising... minus 5°C... 0°C... Danger. Defrost threshold crossed. Ambient cabinet temperature: 0°C and rising... plus 1 °C... plus 2 °C... plus 3 °C...'

The lid of the cabinet clicked open automatically. Kane struggled to reach over the side and pull himself upright. His whole body was on fire! He was gasping in the burning air. 'What is happening?' he croaked weakly. 'The cryostat controls... I'm too hot... Can't breathe...' His strength gave way, and he fell to his knees. He knew he had to reach the cryostat controls, and he dragged himself, crawling, across the ground. In front of the cryostat central column stood Kracauer. Kane looked up at him. 'Kracauer... What is this?' He tried to reach up past Kracauer to the controls, but Kracauer didn't move. 'I must, must adjust the cryostat controls...'

Kracauer raised his foot, and pushed Kane backwards with it, laughing.

Kane collapsed on the floor again. He crawled around blindly, agonisingly. 'No...' He reached the foot of the statue. The base was swimming in water. Kane felt the water, and realised what it was. He looked up fearfully. The statue was melted beyond all recognition. 'No.

Not my statue!'

He began to claw his way up the statue. It took all his strength, all his determination. He forced himself to stand up. Kracauer hadn't expected him to have this much strength.

'Who is responsible for this?' Kane turned to face Kracauer. He needed no support now. He began to step slowly towards Kracauer. 'Who has desecrated the monument? Who? Who?' He seized Kracauer by the throat, and began to squeeze.

Kracauer grabbed Kane's arms, and tried to prise them off him, but Kane was driven by blind fury now. 'Who told you? Tell me their name!

Who?' Tighter and tighter Kane squeezed, squeezing all the breath out of Kracauer, squeezing all the life out of him. Kracauer struggled for breath - but there was none. He thrashed around wildly. Tighter and tighter Kane squeezed, until Kracauer stopped struggling, and fell dead to the ground.

Kane turned to the cryostat column and hit the red emergency button.

A flood of refrigerated gases was released from the column, enveloping Kane with refreshing coolness. He steadied himself against the column, as he felt the gases quench the fires in his body. But there was one fire that wouldn't go out - and his eyes were filled with consuming hatred.

'Belazs!'

Belazs was sitting in Kane's seat in the Control Room. She looked at the controls in front of her, and smiled.

'Ah! My dear Belazs.'

She swung round, terrified. It wasn't possible!

Kane approached her from the small door to the Restricted Zone. His face wore a friendly smile. 'You know, I've been thinking... I've been thinking over your request to leave me.'

Belazs didn't dare take her eyes off him for one second. But there was nothing unusual in his expression - except perhaps for the smile, which she hadn't seen since she was a fresh, young teenager. What had Kracauer done in the Restricted Zone? Why hadn't he killed Kane?

'You've been with me a long time now, Belazs. I'm very fond of you. I couldn't bear the idea of losing you. But I've been thinking it over very carefully - and I've decided,' - his unfathomable black eyes locked her gaze tight - 'you may leave me.'

'Lea... leave?'

'Whenever you wish.'

Belazs stood frozen, unable even to think.

'Go, Belazs - in fortune and happiness. Let me shake your hand farewell.'

Belazs didn't understand what was happening. She reached out to shake the hand Kane offered. As soon as she touched his flesh, she realised that he wasn't wearing the protective glove. But it was too late.

Kane tightened his grip, and Belazs gasped at the intense, freezing pain which shot up her arm and into her neck. Kane's smile twisted with hatred. 'You traitor! I've been planning my revenge for three thousand years! Do you think that I would let you stand in my way, now that I am so close?'

Belazs felt the agonising cold eating through her head like acid, and fell to her knees. Still Kane held his grip. 'For three thousand years I have waited - for revenge on my own people. And no one is going to stand in my way!'

The once fresh, young teenager lay dead at his feet.

The Creature strode through the Ice Passages without hesitating; the others had to struggle to keep up. Occasionally, it would stop and look back, as if checking that they were still behind him, but it never waited long enough for them to catch up and rest. It was already in the chamber of the Singing Trees when the others reached it. The long strings of ice swayed in the cool air currents. Mel and Ace, who had never seen in here before, looked about in wonder.

'This is beautiful,' murmured Mel.

'Here, I can hear singing! Where's it coming from, Professor?'

'Shh. I think it wants us to watch.'

The Creature was standing a few metres to one side of the large crystalline structure that stood in the centre of the chamber. Once the others were all watching it, the Creature turned to face the interlocking formation of crystals. Two beams of fire shone from its eyes and seemed to penetrate right to the heart of the structure. Inside the crystals, the beams split into a thousand streaks of colour as they reflected and refracted throughout the perfect optical system.

'What's it doing, Professor?' whispered Ace.

The thousand beams of light seemed to be concentrating round the centre of the structure, and once they reached a certain intensity, they rose up out of the

crystalline formation. It was as though they had physical substance, forming themselves into the image of a regally dressed woman - some kind of elder stateswoman. She seemed to hang in the air over the crystalline structure.

' So that's what all this is for!' murmured the Doctor in admiration. 'It's a polydimensional scanning imager. And our friend the Creature is using itself as the energy source.'

The elder stateswoman had started to speak. 'Planetary archives.

Criminal history, segment 93-12-03. Two of the most vicious examples of the criminal mentality have been the leaders of the notorious Kane-Xana Gang. Until its demise, this gang carried out systematic violence and extortion, unequalled in its brutality.'

The image changed to a static criminal-record hologram of Kane, but the woman's voice continued. 'In view of the sheer evil of his crimes, Kane is to be exiled from the planet Proamon and never allowed to return. He will be banished to the barren planet of Svartos, which has a permanently frozen dark side on which he can survive.'

The image flickered, and changed into a criminal-record hologram of the woman of the Ice Statue.

'Kane's partner, the woman Xana, killed herself during the final siege of the gang's headquarters, to avoid being arrested and tried for her crimes.'

The Creature's beams of fire disappeared, and the images evaporated.

The Creature turned to the others.

'Yes, I think we've heard enough,' muttered the Doctor grimly.

Mel turned to the Doctor. 'That explains about Kane. But where does the Creature come from?'

'And what about the treasure?' asked Glitz looking at the fabulous crystalline structure. 'Is this it?'

The Doctor frowned. 'No. We may be deep beneath Iceworld now, but Kane could find this easily enough if he wanted to. No, the real treasure must be somewhere

else. Somewhere beyond Kane's reach. What does Kane fear most?'

'Heat. It'll kill him, Professor.'

'Precisely. So what better way of protecting the real treasure than to leave a fire-breathing dragon to guard it? In fact, what better protection than if the dragon is the treasure?'

Mel's mouth dropped in wonder. 'The Creature, the treasure?'

The Doctor turned to look at the Creature. Towering over them, with its membranous skin stretched tight over the deformed skeleton, the Creature shuffled slightly.

'Am I right?' asked the Doctor of the Creature. 'Is it you that everyone has been looking for?'

As they watched it with a mixture of fascination and revulsion, the membranous sheath covering the Creature's grotesque head began to pull down, revealing the glistening, mucus-covered skull beneath. The skull itself seemed to glitter as though made out of metal. Then it started to expand and break apart. The different segments folded back to reveal, inside the Creature's skull, a huge crystal, crackling with an electric storm that was trapped inside the crystalline lattice.

'It's beautiful,' murmured Ace.

'It's worth a fortune,' murmured Glitz.

'More than that, Glitz,' said the Doctor. 'Look past the fabulously valuable crystal. Look at the fire inside it. A source of intense optical energy. Now look at it through Kane's eyes. See it as an evil mind would see it...'

In his Control Room, Kane listened to the Doctor's words via the radio tracking device in the seal of Glitz's map.

'At last,' he whispered to himself, 'after three thousand years, the Dragonfire shall be mine!'

In the chamber of the Singing Trees, Glitz smiled. 'I think I'm beginning to feel a warm, cosy sensation in my money pouch!'

Ace turned angrily on Glitz. 'Lay one finger on the Creature, Bilgebag, and I'll rivet your kneecaps together!'

'All right! Don't get so fidgety, Sprog.'

'Look!' Mel pointed at the Creature. The sections of its skull were hinging back into place, and the membrane skin glided back over the slimy mucus.

Ace screwed her face up in disgust. 'Ugh! That's sick!'

The Doctor wasn't paying attention. He was pacing distractedly, murmuring to himself. 'There's something wrong here. Can't quite put my finger... Proamon...'

'The woman in the hologram said that Proamon was Kane's home planet,' volunteered Mel.

'But why have I heard of it before? Where is it? And was it in the past, or is it in the future?'

'Is this really important, Doctor?' complained Glitz.

'Is a grain of sand important, Glitz? I think I'd like to consult the starcharts back in the TARDIS.'

Ace's eyes lit up. 'Your spacecraft? Brill!'

'Doctor, we don't have time,' reminded Mel.

Ace turned on Mel in disbelief. 'Doughnut!'

'No need to perambulate all the way back to Ice world, Doctor,'

interrupted Glitz. 'These passages have got their own star charts. The Ice Garden. I found it, remember?'

The Doctor looked at Glitz. 'A primitive star chart, eh? Basic constellations and orbital calculations, I imagine. It'll be enough for what I want to check.'

Ace's eyes lit up again. 'Ice Garden?'

The Doctor turned to her. 'No, I'd prefer you to stay here. Won't be long.'

Ace's face fell.

'The Doctor's right, Sprog. Very risky enterprise. You two wait here until the Doctor and I get back.'

'Bilgebag!'

The Doctor interrupted before it came to blows. 'Now, now. I'd like you to stay here too, Glitz.'

'Behave, Doctor! I'm not going to nanny these two!'

'Actually, I was thinking they might keep you out of trouble. Won't be long.'

Ace stuck her tongue out at Glitz in victory.

In the Duty Guards' Room Sergeant McLuhan was lying back on one of the bunks. It was the waiting she didn't like. Always waiting. Mostly, just waiting for the end of the shift. Waiting and hoping that something exciting would happen - anything to break the boredom. The most that usually happened was that a fight would break out in the Refreshment Bar and the Duty Guards would be summoned to deal with it. Or somebody would be caught trying to steal goods from the Freezer Centre. Not exactly what McLuhan had had in mind ten years ago when she was going through basic military training as a new recruit. But at least this was work. And at least there was always the possibility that eventually she might get to do some real fighting - fire a weapon somewhere more than just the practice range.

She listened to Bazin on the bunk below as he turned a page in the book he was reading. Why had they teamed her with him? Was it somebody's idea of a joke to give her a partner who hardly seemed to know which end of a gun the pulse beam came out of? Some joke.

What would happen if they ever got into danger? Would she be able to rely on Bazin to cover her back? Or would he turn chicken and run, leaving them both to get killed?