Doctor Who: Sontaran Experiment by Ian Marter Read Free Book Online

this deal anyway,’ he added, starting to heave himself up on his elbows. Krans started forward threateningly, a machete gleaming in his hand. At the same moment, the Scavenger whirred into the air above the boulders. Before the three crewmen could react, its tentacles had whipped through the thin mist and snared each of them simultaneously.
    With a choking cry, Krans flung up his hands and tugged helplessly at the loop around his neck, the ion gun flew out of Erak’s numbed grasp, and Vural, both arms pinioned tightly to his body, tried to back away, shaking his head in panic and muttering, ‘Not me... no... the others... but not me...’ while the electronic scanner fixed him with its expressionless stare.
    ‘Trumps!’ cried the Doctor, and with a victorious wave, he slid swiftly back into the protective gloom of the pit...
     
    4

The Experiment
    After his narrow escape in the subterranean labyrinth, Harry had stalked the monstrous figure of the ‘Golem’
    through the rocky wilderness. From a vantage point high on one of the ridges radiating across the crater, he had witnessed Sarah’s terrifying encounter with the creature in front of its hidden lair. He knew he had no chance of rescuing Sarah single-handed; his only hope was to discover where Sarah was being taken, and then to try and find the Doctor.
    As he scrambled through the maze of canyons and intersecting gullies criss-crossing the crater in pursuit of Sarah and her hideous captor, Harry racked his brain to remember the story of the Golem—the manmade effigy brought to life by means of the Shem, the magic charm, destruction of which would render the creature lifeless again... But it was all too fantastic, he told himself as he dodged between pinnacles and buttresses of rock, in a landscape which suggested the petrified remains of a medieval city, melted and deformed by some catastrophe.
    The similarity sent a shiver through him, and he quickened his pace, anxious not to lose sight of his quarry.
    The wind moaned through the twisted rocks and echoed around him like the cries of ghostly victims or unknown and unimaginable beings. He felt sure that at any moment the luminous hovering shape of the robot would come gliding suddenly out of some concealed niche, or that a host of gasping, lumbering creatures would trap him in one of the defiles which branched in all directions.
    All at once Harry stopped, biting his lip in frustration.
    Sarah and the Golem had vanished. He had lost them. He glanced up at the glowering sun, trying to orientate himself. The whining breezes mocked him. It was hopeless. Then, from a nearby cleft in the rock, there came a chilling cry of agony. Arming himself with a small boulder, Harry approached.
    ‘Sarah... Sarah, is that you... ?’ he called softly. A feeble, cracked voice tried to answer. Cautiously Harry squeezed in among the thorns.
    A young man, emaciated and deathly pale, with long matted hair and beard, was manacled to the rock by his wrists so that his arms were fully stretched above his head and his feet scarcely touched the ground. The ripped-open top of his spacesuit hung in ribbons round his waist, and Harry winced at the sight of the wasted torso with sharply protruding ribs.
    ‘Who did this?’ he breathed, tugging vainly at the strange metallic shackles which seemed to be welded into the rock.
    ‘Wa... water... wa...’ the prisoner gasped through cracked and blackened lips, his head lolling from side to side.
    Harry thrust the stone he was carrying under the victim’s feet to help support his weight. ‘All right, old chap,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll soon get you some water.’
    Harry searched feverishly among the rocks, but he knew it was quite pointless. Everything was scorched and bone dry. He had seen no pools or streams anywhere. He ran back to the dying man, and listened intently to the spasmodic fluttering of his failing heart.
    ‘Did the... the Golem thing do this to you?’ he asked.
    The young man