Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace (4 page)

‘Well, girl, what do you want?’ he asked. ‘Why aren’t you at your work?’

Ara returned Damon’s look with a stare of steely defiance. ‘I have a message – a message for Professor Zaroff,’ she stressed, knowing full well that the only person Damon feared was the professor himself. All Damon’s power stemmed directly from Zaroff. ‘It is very important,’

she said as she handed over to Damon the note the Doctor had pressed into her hand.

Damon gave the note a cursory glance and then looked back at Ara. He pretended to deliberate, but Ara knew he had already made his decision – indeed the only decision he could make.

‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I shall take this to Professor Zaroff.’

Back in the temple the preparations for the sacrifice had been made. The necessary invocations to Amdo had been chanted and the appropriate obeisances to the statue of the goddess performed. More importantly– at least as for as the potential sacrifices were concerned – the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie had each been tied to the end of one of the four beams which hung over the well. Below their feet four hungry sharks swam about in the water, eagerly awaiting their next meal.

The child-priests untapped each of the earthenware pots which kept the beams balanced. As the water began to pour out of them into the surrounding channel, so the time-travellers’ weight began to tilt the other end of the beam towards the water and the waiting sharks.

There was an almost ecstatic look on Lolem’s face as he watched the Doctor and his friends being slowly lowered down into the pool. ‘Life is a stream of water that drains away even as time does and cannot be re-claimed,’ he intoned while the other priests chanted their litany to the goddess. ‘Accept, O mighty and powerful Amdo, these your sacrifices.’

The sacrifices’ feet were now only inches away from the water and the jaws of the frantic sharks. The fish had been starved for days and the prospect of fresh blood had whipped them into a ravenous frenzy.

Polly screamed hysterically as the mighty jaws gnashed beneath her in fevered anticipation.

‘Hold on!’ cried the Doctor. ‘Hold on for your lives!’

3

The doors to the temple crashed open and a contingent of armed guards, dressed not in traditional costume but in black leather uniforms and jackboots, stormed into the temple. Lolem and his priests stood back in outraged amazement as, without a word of explanation, the guards marched over to the sacrificial well and re-plugged the earthenware pots, thereby stopping the descent of the TARDIS crew into the shark pool. The temple guards looked at each other in bewilderment, unsure of what to do.

Lolem stalked angrily up to the figure who had just entered the temple and had evidently given the black-uniformed guards their orders. The newcomer was tall and dressed in a high-collared white coat; a short black cloak hung over his shoulders. A shock of prematurely white hair covered his head, and a pencil-thin moustache topped his cruel mouth. The skin of his long aristocratic face was sallow but his large eyes gleamed with an icy-blue brilliance.

‘You dare to interfere with a sacrifice to the Great Goddess Amdo, Professor Zaroff?’ Lolem spluttered with rage, making little attempt to conceal the contempt he felt for this man.

‘I would not wish to interfere with your sacrifice,’ Zaroff stated calmly. His voice had a pronounced East European accent to it, together with a slight American twang. ‘But I am searching for that man.’ He pointed a long bony finger at the Doctor whom he recognised from Ara’s description.

Lolem glanced over to the Doctor and then back at Zaroff, as though he were considering what his answer should be. In truth, like everyone else in the city he had no choice in the matter. The power which Zaroff possessed was one to which even a high priest had to bow if he valued his life.

‘Very well,’ he said finally, mustering as much dignity as he could as he turned to the temple guards. ‘Release him.’

Bemused, the guards untied the Doctor and brought the little man to the professor. The Doctor offered his hand but once again it was refused.

‘I must thank you for –’ he began, but Zaroff cut him short.

‘That information you have,’ he snapped. ‘What is it?’

‘First release my friends,’ said the Doctor, nodding over to Ben, Polly and Jamie who were still dangling over the shark pool.

‘Your friends are of no concern to me,’ Zaroff stated coldly. ‘Your information– quickly!’

‘You may not care about my friends, but I do.’ The Doctor stared defiantly into Zaroffs cold unblinking eyes.

‘Professor Zaroff, if anything happens to them you will never know the vital secret I have to tell you.’

To be defied in such a way was a new experience for Zaroff. He looked strangely at the little man dressed in the preposterous clothes before admitting defeat. ‘Release them all,’ he ordered Lolem, who complied begrudgingly. Once they were freed, Ben, Polly and Jamie were brought before Zaroff. ‘Have them taken to the Labour Controller,’ he told Lolem. ‘He will know what to do with them.’

The Doctor’s companions began to protest but the Doctor urged them to go. Everything would be all right, he assured them; for the moment it was enough that their lives had been spared.

As the temple guards led them out, Zaroff returned to the matter in hand. ‘Well, Doctor? What is this great secret you want to tell me?’

The Doctor immediately changed the subject and smiled his most endearing smile. ‘First let me say how glad I am to see that the reports of your death twenty years ago were greatly exaggerated.’

To the Doctor’s great surprise Professor Zaroff also smiled. ‘The whole world believed I had been kidnapped,’

he chuckled.

‘The East blamed the West; the West blamed the East,’

said the Doctor.

Tears of delight began to stream down Zaroff s face as he imagined the chaos his disappearance must have caused.

‘I wish I could have been there!’ he laughed.

‘And now here you are, the greatest scientific genius since Leonardo da Vinci, under the sea!’ The Doctor’s estimation of Zaroffs worth was not mere flattery; there was no doubt that Zaroff had been one of the greatest thinkers of his day. ‘But what really happened, Professor?’

he asked. ‘You must have a fantastic story to tell.’

‘Perhaps I’ll tell you one day – if you live.’ Zaroffs tone had shifted from one extreme to the other. He towered threateningly over the little figure of the Doctor. ‘Now, what is this vital secret you have? I must know it.’

The Doctor blushed and lowered his eyes. ‘Well, er...

actually I haven’t got one...’

‘Guards!’ Zaroff snapped his fingers and two of his black-uniformed henchmen approached the Doctor. The Doctor pleaded with Zaroff. ‘Professor, I’m sure a great man like you wouldn’t want a modern scientific mind like mine to be sacrificed to a heathen idol.’ The Doctor’s words struck home. Zaroff ordered his guards to draw back and considered the little man. ‘You know I could have you torn to bits by my guards, yes?’ he asked.

The Doctor nodded his head. ‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘You know I could feed you to Neptune?’

‘Who?’

‘My pet octopus.’

‘Oh yes. I’m sure nothing is beyond your capabilities, Professor,’ the Doctor said slyly, playing on the scientist’s vanity. ‘But I’m sure Neptune would find me very tough to eat!’

‘You have a sense of humour, Doctor,’ Zaroff sniggered.

too, have a sense of humour. I need men like you.’

Suddenly Zaroff burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and slapped the Doctor amicably on the shoulders. Encouraged, the Doctor joined in the merriment, thankful for Zaroff s abrupt changes of mood.

‘You come with me, yes?’ asked Zaroff.

‘Yesyesyes!’ giggled the Doctor.

Arm in arm, the two men left the temple, laughing and joking together like two long-lost school friends.

Lolem, however, was not amused. His eyes narrowed with hatred as he watched the two scientists depart. Ever since Zaroff had appeared twenty years ago, the high priest had grown to resent his presence. He begrudged him the great power and influence he held, which had already displaced Lolem from his own position of pre-eminence among the city’s hierarchy, and threatened the privileges he enjoyed as high priest. But most of all he hated Zaroff for the contempt he displayed towards the Sacred Mysteries of Amdo.

Up to now Lolem had elected to remain silent, prepared to bide his time, secure in his faith that one day Amdo would visit her just revenge on the scientist. But now Zaroff had gone too far: he had profaned the Holy of Holies, depriving the goddess of her rightful sacrifices, and he had made a laughing stock of Lolem in front of his own priests and guards.

The time of silence had passed, Lolem resolved; soon would come the time for action.

The Labour Controller studied Ben, Polly and Jamie contemptuously, as if they were specimens in a rather run-down zoo.

‘Your lives have been spared,’ he announced grandly. It was clear from his tone that he considered them more suited for sharkmeat than for a worthwhile workforce.

Unfortunately an order from Zaroff could not be disobeyed. ‘Zaroff has decreed that you provide useful service to the conununity.’

‘Don’t we get a say in the matter then?’ asked Ben.

The Labour Controller ignored that remark and studied Ben and Jamie more closely. ‘You men look strong,’ he said. ‘You will be sent to the mines.’

‘The mines? What do you mean?’ asked Jamie as the black-uniformed guards moved him and Ben away, leaving Polly standing alone.

‘What about Polly? What are you going to do with her?’

asked Ben.

‘That is no concern of yours.’ The Controller callously dismissed the question as Ben and Jamie were taken out of the room. Once they had gone he turned back to Polly.

‘Don’t be frightened, girl,’ he said, more kindly this time. ‘Life can be very beautiful here under the sea. Come with me and look.’ He operated a control on a small electronic console at his side and a shutter on the far wall slid up to reveal a large transparent screen.

The screen looked out onto the sea bed which was illuminated by strong underwater floodlights. Strange fish darted about, looking for food among the waving fronds of sea plants, oblivious of Polly and the Controller; as well they might be, for these fish were blind, having no need for sight in the dark depths of the sea.

‘Seventy per cent of the world’s surface is under the sea,’

explained the Labour Controller. ‘You are looking at one of our food-producing areas. Without them we couldn’t survive.’

Suddenly a large clump of sea plants was parted to reveal two figures swimming into view. Polly gave a start and then looked more closely.

The swimming creatures had obviously once been as normal as Polly or the Controller but now they seemed more fish than human. Their lithe and slender bodies were naked and covered in hard shiny scales of every colour of the rainbow. Where their feet should have been were long flippers, and their hands were webbed. Round glassy eyes stared unblinking out of their strangely impassive faces which were also covered with scales. Large diaphonous fins extruded from the side of their heads.

They swam expertly and gracefully, often out-distancing the tiny fish about them. They ignored Polly and the Labour Controller altogether.

‘What are they?’ asked Polly when the Fish People had passed by.

‘They are our farmers. Once they were human as you and I. Now they work under the sea to gather food for our people.’

‘That’s fantastic!’ marvelled Polly. ‘But how do they breathe?’

‘We alter their genetic coding and give them plastic gills.’ The Controller noticed Polly’s look of amazement.

‘That surprises you, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s breathtaking,’ the girl said, and then winced at the unintentional pun.

‘I’m glad you’re taking it the this,’ continued the Labour Controller. ‘Some people get most upset when they learn that they’re to have the operation.’

Polly’s face fell. ‘Operation? What operation?’

‘We couldn’t sent you out there without it – if we did you’d drown.’

Polly realised what he was talking about. ‘You’re not turning me into a fish!’

The Doctor was also looking out onto the ocean floor.

Zaroff had taken him to his headquarters – a vast complex of interconnected rooms and caves, packed full of scientific equipment and computers, all being tended by white-coated technicians.

Zaroff operated the underwater floodlights and showed the Doctor the view through the protective screen. The Doctor gasped with amazement when he saw the ruined temples and the broken statues and pillars which littered the sea bed. Occasionally one of the Fish People would swim through an archway of a ruined building.

‘So what do you deduce from all this, Doctor?’ queried Zaroff, as though he were testing the little man.

‘Just give me a clue, Professor,’ asked the Doctor.

‘Don’t you know, Doctor?’ Zaroff smiled, enjoying the Doctor’s confusion which merely served to underline his own superiority. ‘Then let me tell you where we are. We are south of the Azores on the Atlantic ridge.’

The Doctor rubbed his chin and glanced back I thoughtfully at the view of the sea bed through the screen.

The architecture of the ruined buildings was repeated in all the chambers of this subterranean city, as though its inhabitants were trying to recreate that past style. He remembered the motif he had noticed in the cave above ground. The huge fish swallowing an entire city – or perhaps even more...

‘It’s not possible,’ he insisted as the truth slowly dawned on him. ‘It’s only a legend, a fancy dreamed up by Solon and mentioned by Plato...’

Zaroff laughed. ‘Not a legend, Doctor, but the truth.’

‘We’re in the ancient kingdom of Atlantis!’

‘Yes,’ said Zaroff, enjoying the look of surprise in the Doctor’s face. ‘It’s all really quite simple, my friend. When Atlantis was submerged at the time of the flood, some life continued in air pockets in the mountain, thanks to natural air shafts provided by the extinct volcano. Those ruins you see out there beyond the protective screen are all that remains of old Atlantis. But here within the mountain itself the life and traditions of that ancient kingdom still go on.’