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should be in your possession.’
‘The Sword of Tuburr.’ The Doctor watched as the Ice
Warrior took the serrated blade from Sstaal. ‘You engineered
the pilgrimage to bring the Sword here.’
Falaxyr gave the Doctor a look of disdain, if the curve of
his mouth was any indication. ‘Who is this mammal?’
McGuire had asked himself a similar question on a number
of occasions over the last few days, but he wasn’t surprised
when the Doctor took up the challenge. At last the Doctor had
been proved right about the Martians.
‘I’m the Doctor, Grand Marshal Falaxyr. Is your adjutant
around?’
‘Draan?’ His mouth suddenly indicated that a frown was
going on under his helmet. ‘What part does he play in this?’
‘I just wondered whether he was as incompetent as his
father.’
Falaxyr stepped forward. Even though he was shorter than
most Martians, he still towered over the Doctor. ‘You know of
Slaar?’
The Doctor grinned. ‘I should do. Thanks to me, his
attempt to invade Earth was a complete and utter disaster.
Thanks to me, the Third Wing of your mighty space fleet flew
straight into the sun.’
Falaxyr laughed. It was a brittle, empty laugh. ‘Mad as well
as impudent.’ He turned back to Aklaar, ignoring the Doctor.
McGuire suspected that the Marshal had just made a serious
mistake. ‘As we were saying, Abrasaar, I brought you here
because of the Sword.’ He reached out and took it from his
guard, twisting it so the light sparked off the sharp teeth and
ornate hilt. ‘I need it.’
‘To further your petty ambitions, no doubt,’ countered
Aklaar. ‘In the seventy years since the end of the war, have
you brooded and festered in this nest of evil, Falaxyr? If so, it
would not surprise me to learn that it has addled your mind.’
‘My mind is as keen as this Sword, Abrasaar. And my plans
are far from petty. Once I have succeeded, Mars will once
more be our sovereign territory. We will be masters of Mars.’
‘And this plan has something to do with establishing a
monopolar magnetic field around the North Pole?’ asked the
Doctor quietly.
‘Your mammal is inquisitive, Abrasaar.’ But Falaxyr
sounded irritated rather than impressed. ‘Yet perhaps it is time
to show you our great work. Indeed, it would only be right and
fitting, since you were one of the architects.’
Despite the obscured face, McGuire knew the expression
under Aklaar’s helmet. Pure, unrefined horror.
The journey to the manipulator chamber was quiet, and Chris
could only assume that most of the Ice Warriors who had
survived his delightfully noisy firework display were busy
trying to sort out the mess.
‘Here.’ He indicated the ten-metre-wide metal door.
Roz turned to Santacosta. ‘This is it, Carmen. The reason
why you came to the North Pole.’
‘A fat lot of good it’s going to be without backup,’ she
complained. ‘Still, I can’t deny being curious. From what
Professor Ketch was saying, it’s far beyond anything he could
come up with.’ She frowned. ‘Not that it’ll mean a lot to me –
I’m hardly a subspace engineer.’
Chris pushed the centre of the door, and waited as it swung
open. As soon as the gap was wide enough, he gingerly poked
his head into the chamber, alert for Ice Warriors. But, to his
relief, the only people in the room were Rachel and Felice. He
beckoned Roz and Santacosta to follow him in
‘Felice! Rachel!’ he called out, trotting over to them.
They didn’t turn round. One side of the glass pyramid had
been removed, and some of the artefacts had been taken out
and placed on the cold stone floor, glittering cables still
attaching them to barely visible power sources, buried deep in
the heart of the pyramid. The two women were working on the
artefacts: Felice was examining the base of a canopic jar,
while Rachel was sitting on the floor, holding the head of a
statue of Anubis, but they were totally oblivious to Chris’s
cries.
Chris tapped Felice on the shoulder. She turned and looked
up. ‘Hello, Christopher,’ she said cheerfully, before returning
her attention to her stone head and carrying on working away
with a probe as if nothing had happened.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Chris to the others. ‘It’s as if they’ve
been hypnotized or drugged.’
‘Brain-rack,’ stated Santacosta. ‘Nasty technique –
introduces alien thought patterns into the human mind. It
wears off, but while they’re under the influence, they’re
completely susceptible.’
‘Can we break the conditioning?’ asked Roz. Chris knew
she was thinking about the mind control used in their own
time, which could only be broken using psychotropic drugs.
The fact that the end result was a person free of mind control
but clinically insane was another matter.
Santacosta chewed her bottom lip. ‘There’s not been much
research, although I do remember something about ECT ...’
‘ECT?’ asked Chris.
‘Electro-convulsive therapy – applying controlled electric
shocks to the brain. Although the Martian neural pathways are
dominant, they’re not stable. ECT causes them to break down
prematurely.’
Chris was horrified. This ECT sounded barbaric, but if it
was the only way to free Felice and Rachel from Martian
control... He looked around the chamber for some source of
electricity, but realized that he knew so little about Martian
technology that a power-point could be staring him in the face
and he wouldn’t have spotted it.
But Roz must have been reading his mind. ‘Try this.’ She
held out a pencil torch, and Chris recognized it as the twin of
the one he had found in his first-aid kit. The one that had
provided some added kick to the jamming device which was
still interfering with the Ice Warriors’ communications.
‘Perfect!’ He pulled it apart, revealing the small yet
incredibly powerful battery within. He then reached into his
pocket and pulled out his last reserves of filament.
‘Where did you get that from?’ asked Roz.
He grinned. ‘Leaving present from the Doctor.’ Pulling off
two twenty-centimetre strands, he attached one to each
terminal of the battery, and then stripped the insulation from
the last centimetre of the wire. ‘What sort of voltage do we
need, Santacosta?’ Not that he knew any way of regulating the
output from the battery with the equipment available, but at
least it made him sound as if he knew what he was talking
about.
‘As high as possible, and as brief as possible. The pathways
are extremely delicate; a short burst at high voltage should be
enough to shake them loose. She’ll have a headache, but she’ll
be free of the Greenies’ mind control.’
Chris chewed his bottom lip. ‘I don’t like this. I don’t like it
at all. But if there’s a chance, well, we’ve got to take it.’ Of
course, the chance was that he would burn out Rachel’s mind,
and the woman hadn’t exactly given her consent. He made a
quick adjustment to the circuitry around the battery with a
small probe that had been lying next to Rachel, making sure
that the current was discharged through the wires rather than [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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