Doctor Who: Ultimate Treasure (30 page)

'Professor,' Brockwell begged. 'You always prized logic so highly. Can't you see this is an illogical risk? Nothing can be that important.'

'No, Will,' said Thorrin, almost sadly, 'it's you who aren't thinking logically. Do you think I have been chasing after trinkets and baubles all this time? It's so simple. Just ask yourself: what would have made somebody like Rovan leave his empire as he did? And why did he need to take such a treasure with him?

There's only one rational explanation, and I assure you it is worth risking everything for. Now, I'm going on. Whether you come or not is up to you.'

And he and Rosscarrino continued down the hillside towards the rainbow. Arnella looked up at Brockwell, tears in her eyes.

'We can't let them go alone,' she said simply.

'I know,' Brockwell sighed.

The
Falcon
lifted from the woods, leaving Qwaid's body lying where it had been dumped from the hatch.

Gribbs and Drorgon sat very quietly as Alpha took the ship up into the morning sun. They were tired and frightened. Alpha did not seem to need sleep any more, and had spent the night considering the information to hand and reaching no useful conclusion. The silver face was impossible to readjust how angry and frustrated was he?

But then, as he levelled the ship off, he looked through the side port and suddenly said, 'Of course. How absurdly simple!'

The distant drone of the
Falcon's
motors echoed out of the sky as they were breaking camp. The Doctor peered upward through the overhanging branches.

'Now I wonder where he's going. Not back towards the Gelsandoran town.'

'He's coming lower,' said Myra. 'Maybe he's going to land...

They looked at each other for a moment, then Myra hastily pulled off her boots. Peri saw her toes were long and claw tipped.

She used them to good effect as she rapidly shinned up the tall tree at their backs until she had a clear view.

'I can see them. They're heading towards the valley wall..

there's a waterfall... Doctor, I can see a rainbow! Remember what the innkeeper said? The
Falcon's
heading straight for the fall...

Hell, it's gone through! Did you hear that? It went straight through the waterfall!'

'Dexel Dynes, it is time for you to come with me.' Dynes jerked his head away from the monitors with an uncharacteristic gasp of surprise.

Shalvis was standing in the cabin beside him. 'What? How did you get in here?'

'It does not matter,' said Shalvis placidly. 'As your devices have informed you, the quest has entered its final stage. I thought you would prefer to witness it in person. An "exclusive, on-the-spot report", as you would say.'

Dynes suddenly beamed. 'Just let me get my hat.'

Gribbs looked nervously about him at the spacious cavern, which was lit by the twinkling diffuse light refracted through the wall of water that concealed its mouth. Drorgon, standing beside him, was clearly just as apprehensive.

Alpha, by contrast, rolled briskly past them and down the ramp. 'Come on, Gribbs, Drorgon,' he ordered, his voice rising above the muted thunder of the falls. 'Don't you want to be rich?'

Several tubes and canisters had been clipped to the mid-section of Alpha's tractor body, and in one hand he held a heavy-duty rifle blaster. Recessed lights in his casing snapped on, illuminating the mouths of a several smaller tunnels that led off the larger cavern. After examining them carefully for a minute, he chose the most central and started down it, with Gribbs and Drorgon following reluctantly after him.

There was a narrow path that ran around the lake at the base of the falls and behind the curtain of water.

Drenched by the perpetual mist the thundering torrent threw up from the lake, Thorrin, the Marquis, Brockwell, and Arnella picked their way cautiously over the slippery rocks and stepped gratefully into the cavern. The first thing they saw was the
Falcon
.

'I thought it was heading this way,' Arnella said.

Her uncle's shoulders sagged a little. 'Perhaps we're too late.'

'No,' said Thorrin. 'If the treasure was meant to be found that easily it would simply be lying here in the open. Look, there are some tunnel mouths at the back. There's still a chance for us to catch up.'

The ship seemed quite empty, and after carefully skirting round her they faced the row of smaller caves. The ground before them was hard and gave no clue to which one the others had chosen. Brockwell looked down a couple of them.

'These could lead anywhere. And we haven't any torches.'

'Then we shall explore each one by touch on our hands and knees if necessary,' said Thorrin. And without another word he led them into the left-hand tunnel.

The Doctor pointed to footprints in a patch of mud on the path beside the falls.

'Thorrin's party. They must be worse off than we are now Why didn't they have the sense to give up?'

'Well, we're here as well,' Peri pointed out.

'Perhaps our reasons are nobler now,' said Falstaff softly, as though speaking to himself.

'So you're not after Rovan's treasure for yourself any more?'

Peri replied half mockingly.

Falstaff turned to her, wearing a more serious expression than any she had yet seen. 'Mistress Brown, there is more to life than beads and baubles.' He looked again at the path that led behind the waters. 'Honour pricks me on. Yea but... no. I'll. do it this time.' And he led the way, leaving the others to exchange curious glances.

Red's claws scrabbled over the slippery rocks, but he reached the cavern behind the fall and there growled at the
Falcon
.

'It's all right, boy,' Peri assured him. 'I don't think there's anyone at home.'

The Doctor was looking about the cavern and the tunnels leading off it with a disappointed expression on his mild face.

'Hardly very original, is it?' he observed.

'What do you mean?' asked Jaharnus.

'Cryptic clues, waterfalls, caverns, dark tunnels. The traditional resting place of hidden treasure. But have the Gelsandorans included the usual trimmings?'

'Doctor, please don't talk in riddles,' Peri begged.

'I mean will there be some final tricks or traps to catch us when our guard is down.' He suddenly rounded upon them, his usual flippancy melting away and his eyes flashing in deadly earnest.

'Remember: this has all been, in part at least, an elaborate experiment run by well-mannered people who don't care whether we live or die! Take care where you put your feet and don't trust anything you see.'

And he stepped into the right-hand tunnel.

Thorrin's party no longer had torches, but patches of a mossy plant gave off a pale luminescence that, once their eyes had adjusted, was just sufficient to find their way. It was not, however, bright enough to distinguish the trigger stone in the floor that depressed with a click under Brockwell's foot. Circular panels set at waist height dropped away along both sides of the tunnel. Arnella screamed and Brockwell threw himself flat.

Nothing happened.

After a minute he very cautiously rose to his knees and peered into one of the holes exposed by the panels.

'It's empty,' he said in surprise.

They examined the other recesses. There were no crossbows set on hair triggers, or pneumatic blowpipes loaded with poisoned darts, or even modern energy weapons. they were all empty.

Alpha's enhanced vision system detected the tripwire before he triggered it. Moving well back he ordered Drorgon to toss rock at the wire.

A roof panel several metres farther along the corridor fell open with a crash, forming a steep ramp. Down this rolled a spherical rock that almost filled the corridor and bounced towards them at surprising speed. Before they could retreat further it crashed into Alpha's metallic body.

And rebounded without a sound and rolled to a stop.

Alpha reached out a glittering arm and prodded the boulder.

His fingers sank into a soft, yielding substance.

'A painted ball of sponge!' he exclaimed coldly.

Though the Doctor and Falstaff were leading at that point, the trap caught Peri and Jaharnus. They heard the click of a pressure plate and the whole length of corridor under them abruptly dropped, the end farthest behind them falling the most until it was a forty-five-degree ramp, sending them tumbling backward. Peri had a momentary horrified image of a wall of spikes waiting at the bottom of the incline, but before they could slow their fall they had hit.

Something crumpled. She waited for the pain but none came.

She saw the others peering down at them from above, Red whining sympathetically. 'Are you all right?' the Doctor called out anxiously. Jaharnus twisted round and picked up a shard of one of the spikes. It was thin card, rolled into a narrow cone.

'It's a bad joke!' Peri said angrily.

'Would you rather they'd been real?' said Jaharnus.

* * *

'Run!' shouted Brockwell.

They dashed forward, trying not to breathe, but there was too far to go. Thorrin was forced to take in a shuddering lungful of air. Then another.

'Wait... I don't think it's dangerous.'

The others stopped in bewilderment. Curiously Thorrin examined one of the nozzles still fitfully expelling the vapour.

'I think this is just... dry ice,' he said, then looked about him angrily. 'Why are they toying with us?'

The tunnel sides fell away on either side of Alpha's party and large half-seen forms seemed to lunge out at them. Gribbs and Drorgon blasted several in their alarm before they realised sheepishly that they were simply skeletons of long-dead monstrous beasts.

'What is going on here?' Alpha demanded, but Gribbs and Drorgon could not give an answer.

The Doctor halted them before a suspiciously neat checkerboard-tiled section of passageway with a large dark void above. Only by shining a torch upward could they make out the hundred or so weighted spears suspended like lethal stalactites above the board. They found rocks and tossed them on to the tiles before attempting to cross. But strangely not one tile released a single spear.

Brockwell drew back his foot just before stepping on the fine grid of wires that crisscrossed the floor ahead. Cautiously, he removed his belt and used the buckle to short the grid out. There was an impressive crackling and sparks showered brilliantly from the sides of the passage. He frowned and very lightly flicked a fingertip across two of the wires. The sparks erupted again, but he had felt not the slightest of shocks.

They crossed the grid to the accompaniment of further spectacular but quite harmless pyrotechnics.

Alpha turned a corner and stopped abruptly.

'What is it, boss?' Gribbs asked anxiously.

'Something different, Gribbs.'

The section of corridor before them was long, plain, and high.

Its upper half was filled by a huge block of stone, suspended by some hidden means so that it just cleared the side walls by a couple of centimetres. There was no way past it. Alpha examined it closely, confirming that it was real stone. With all his strength, Drorgon could just set it swaying slightly, indicating that it was hanging freely, and must have massed a few hundred tonnes. If it was released while somebody was in the corridor below it would crush them flat.

'It's so obviously a trap, Alpha said, 'but is it as harmless as the others?'

'Like I said before, somebody is playing some really sick jokes around here!' Peri fumed, pulling the sticky threads of a giant cobweb from her. A spider six feet across was still twirling slowly on its thread before her. It was, as they had ascertained only after its dramatic appearance, made of rubber. Red sniffed at it curiously.

'I don't think anything has been placed here simply for the fun of it,' the Doctor corrected her gently. 'I think there is a far deeper purpose.'

'But what?' Jaharnus said, looking anxiously up and down the corridor, grasping her sword more tightly.

'A final warning, perhaps: that they can kill us any time they wish if we continue? Or is it meant to symbolise something: traps that no longer function guarding a treasure that is no longer there?'

'You've thought that all along, haven't you, Doctor?' said Peri quietly.

'Let's say I believe it is a strong possibility.'

'So you're saying I should be prepared to be disappointed?'

'I thought you'd renounced treasure hunting?'

Peri grinned. 'Well, I thought, as we're here anyway and if we sort of stumbled over it, we might as well take a look...' They rounded the next corner.

'Ah... now this is something a little different,' the Doctor said.

There was a massive stone block suspended above the corridor.

The Marquis prepared to step under the slab that overhung their section of corridor. Arnella was trying to stop him. 'Please, Uncle.

This one might be real.'

'I have not come this far to give up now.'

'It could be suicide!' Brockwell said. 'Professor, talk some sense into him.'

Thorrin looked anything but stable himself. 'I don't know, any more,' he said faintly. 'Perhaps it is real, perhaps another fake. Is it to test our resolve, or ingenuity? But I don't see any other way to test it than we already have. It is worth every risk but this... a paradox.'

Brockwell was looking at him in dismay. The Marquis pulled free of Arnella.

'I refuse to cower here paralysed by uncertainly,' he said, and stepped boldly forward.

Fearfully, Drorgon had stamped on the floor under the block, thrown rocks, and done everything else Alpha had commanded in order to spring any hidden mechanism. The block still hung there menacingly.

'Such an obvious hazard, whereas the others were hidden,'

Alpha mused. 'Is that the actual intent? To trap us into knowingly passing under it? There is nothing else for it.

Gentlemen, I need a volunteer...'

* * *

Either it will fall and you will die, or else it will not and you will live. It certainly makes you think, said the Doctor, staring at the slab. 'Is that its purpose? To decide what value you really put on your life? Do you gamble everything on a fifty-fifty chance - the toss of a coin?'