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

tried to shake his head, staring at Harry with glazed, bloodshot eyes. ‘Not... not Golem...’ he croaked with a shudder, ‘Son... Sontaran...’
    Harry frowned, trying hard to understand the prisoner’s cryptic utterances. ‘Sontaran?’ he echoed. The word meant nothing to him.
    The young crewman nodded feebly and began to murmur between desperate snatches of breath, ‘Sontaran...
    in the hollow... Experiments with the others... others dead... Scavenger comes... at night... we were helpless...’
     
    Harry clenched his fists in fury at the plight of the dying youth.
    ‘Virtually dehydrated, poor chap,’ he muttered. He knew full well that despite all his medical expertise, there was nothing he could do. The young crewman would not last another hour. ‘I’m going to get help,’ he murmured gently. ‘You’re going to be just fine...’ Reluctantly, he turned away.
    Dry-mouthed, and with a funny feeling in his stomach, Harry struck out through the maze of outcrops and gullies to try and locate the circle of spheres and, hopefully, to find the Doctor. He hardly dared imagine what Sarah’s fate would be if he failed.
    The Sontaran had dragged Sarah into a roofless alcove almost completely concealed between sheer rock buttresses which formed a narrow entrance less than a metre wide.
    The smooth, sheer walls towering into the sky were veined with filaments of coloured strata, and the floor of the alcove was carpeted with what looked like brilliant mosses.
    Despite her apprehension, Sarah could not suppress a gasp of wonder at the unexpected beauty of the place.
    Styr loomed in the entrance, barring any escape. ‘Lying is useless,’ he threatened. ‘When I waylaid the Galsec craft there were nine survivors: you were not among them.’
    Sarah stood in the centre of the chamber, massaging her bruised wrist. ‘So?’ she challenged, her jaw jutting defiantly forward.
    ‘I ask you once more,’ Styr rasped. ‘What is your planet of origin?’
    ‘I’ve told you—Earth,’ Sarah repeated.
    Styr raised his thick, powerful arms and clenched his enormous talons. ‘There has been no intelligent life on Earth since the time of the Solar Flares,’ he roared.
    ‘Oh, I’m much older than the Solar Flares,’ Sarah sniffed with mock haughtiness.
    Styr’s hog-like nostrils expanded, ejecting a stream of clammy, rancid vapour. Amazed at her own courage, Sarah forced herself to face her monstrous captor without flinching.
    ‘That is not possible,’ Styr bellowed.
    Sarah shrugged. ‘There’s no point in getting all steamed up about me ,’ she retorted. I’m really quite insignificant.’
    For a moment the Sontaran, powerful and menacing though he was, seemed disconcerted by Sarah’s defiant manner. Then he suddenly lurched forward towards her, his eyes glowing red and hissing like two gas-jets.
    ‘According to our data, you. should not exist,’ he gasped.
    ‘Therefore we must investigate the implications of your presence here, and make the necessary corrections.’
    Sarah imagined the huge rubbery lungs inflating and collapsing like vast bellows as the Alien’s hollow gasps echoed round the alcove. ‘Corrections to what?’ she asked, standing her ground with hands on hips.
    ‘To the project,’ Styr breathed, towering over her.
    Sarah fought against the feeling of nausea welling in her stomach. ‘Project?’ she inquired, determined to play for time, and to glean as much as she could before being subjected to whatever fate the Sontaran intended for her.
    Styr swung heavily round and tramped towards the opening between the rocks. ‘It will not concern you,’ he rasped. ‘You will not exist.’ Raising a massive arm, Styr adjusted something set into one of the flanking buttresses.
    At once, a faint barrier like thick uneven glass appeared across the entrance to the alcove. Styr bared his curved, metallic teeth in a leathery, reptilian grin. ‘But first,’ he concluded, ‘we shall discover what you are