Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma by Eric Saward Read Free Book Online Page A

burning fighter silently exploded in the vacuum of space.
     
    Again, the cloud launched another fireball. Determined not to meet the same fate as his command, Hugo thrust his craft into a massive power drive towards Titan Three. His intention was to pull out of vertical descent just before hitting its atmosphere. With luck, the following fireball would be travelling too fast to do the same and would enter the atmosphere and disintegrate.
    But it wasn't to be.
    Such was the speed and force of the dive, plus the gravitational pull of the planet, that Hugo was unable to correct his descent in time, and the ship hit the thin atmosphere with a sickening thud.
    Although the ship remained in one piece, there was little its pilot could do to correct its rapid fall. In a last desperate attempt. Hugo fired the main retro rockets, but the fighter continued to plummet towards the surface of the planet.
    Aboard the freighter, Azmael watched in amazement. Although impressed by the cloud's performance, he was more than a little concerned as to whether it would prove as hostile towards him.
    Azmael lowered himself into the pilot's chair and slipped on the safety harness. Like the crew of the starfighters, he wasn't going to give up without a fight.
    As he snapped the fastener of the harness shut, the bridge suddenly filled with a misty red light which then wrapped itself around the trapped Time Lord. At the same moment, his head was filled with a slurping, sibilant voice he knew only too well - Mestor's!
    Deliberately, angrily, hatefully, the voice began to slash at Azmael's tired mind, damning the Time Lord for his incompetence, for endangering the mission and for causing him to waste so much energy and effort.
    Mestor continued his mental attack until the Time Lord thought his mind would explode. Then as suddenly as it had started, the assault stopped and the red mist evaporated. At the same moment, the cloud which had destroyed the starfighters also dissolved.
    Azmael collapsed back into his chair, his body rigid and his mind raw. As the pain eased, he slowly opened his eyes and saw the sneering face of Noma. 'You never did understand the Lord Mestor's power,' he said. 'He's everywhere. Can do anything.'
    Azmael was reluctant to concede that Mestor had the power of a deity, but he could not deny he had destroyed six fighters with little apparent effort. It also made him wonder how regularly Mestor monitored his thoughts and how much he knew of his plans to destroy the hateful gastropod.
    Azmael watched as Noma operated the controls of the ship - he was preparing to land. It seemed that the Time Lord would be allowed to continue his work on Titan Three. This surprised him.
    Perhaps Mestor wasn't as all-seeing as Noma thought.
    It didn't occur to Azmael that Mestor knew precisely what he was up to and didn't care. He didn't need to. He had the power to kill the Time Lord any time, any place, he wanted.
     

5
TITAN THREE
     
    It is strange how coincidence can seem to conspire. Titan Three has the reputation of being the most desolate and unvisited planet in the universe. Yet all of a sudden, disparate events had caused several parties to arrive more or less simultaneously.
    First had been the Doctor and his highly distraught companion, Peri.
    Nearby, and as yet unknown to the Doctor, Azmael's ship was making a controlled landing.
    Closer still was Hugo Lang. His ship was far from controlled. But the firing of the retro rockets had had far more effect than he had dared hoped for.
    On the ground, the Doctor and Peri emerged from the TARDIS and surveyed the bleak horizon. In spite of Peri's gallant attempt to persuade the Doctor to the contrary, he still wanted to be a hermit.
    Worse still, he had decided that the TARDIS was too comfortable a place to live and that a dank, draughty cave would be much more suitable.
    Like a Victorian explorer, his hand shielding his eyes against the dull, watery sun, the Doctor continued to scan the horizon. A