Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace by Nigel Robinson Read Free Book Online

Professor.’
     
    Zaroff agreed. ‘If I can’t lift it, I must lower the water-level.’
    The Doctor still couldn’t follow Zaroff s reasoning. ‘But you haven’t got a drain big enough to take an entire ocean,’
    he pointed out.
    ‘Then I will make one,’ Zaroff said simply.
    The Doctor scratched his head. ‘Forgive me, Professor, but I am a little lost. The crust of the Earth is over one hundred miles thick. Below that there is believed to be a white-hot molten core. Where is your ocean to go?’
    Zaroff smirked. ‘That is my secret, Doctor,’ he teased.
    ‘Now you’re making fun of me, Professor,’ the Doctor reproved.
    ‘Not at all.’
    ‘Even if you could drill down to the depth of a hundred miles –’
    ‘There is a place where a fissure reduces the distance to less then fifteen miles,’ interrupted Zaroff.
    ‘Even so, Professor, it’s still an enormous distance...’
    ‘But not insurmountable,’ said Zaroff. ‘We have been working on the Project for many years now. We are almost at penetration point.’
    The Doctor was silent for a moment, partly marvelling at Zaroffs amazing technological abilities, and partly trying to weigh up the consequences of his actions. Finally he said, ‘But Professor, even supposing you succeed, do you realise what will happen?’
    Zaroff chuckled. ‘You tell me, Doctor,’ he challenged.
    ‘If you drain off the ocean into the core of the Earth the water will be converted into steam... the pressure will grow and crack the crust of the planet, causing unimaginable chaos and destruction – maybe it will even blow up the entire planet..
    Zaroff s face beamed. ‘And I shall have fulfilled my promise to lift Atlantis from the sea. I shall lift it up to the sky!’ His eyes glazed over with a visionary zeal, and his voice rose to a fevered pitch. ‘It will be a magnificent spectacle! Bang! Bang! Bang!’
    The Doctor laid a gentle hand on Zaroffs shoulder. ‘Just one small thing,’ he said softly. ‘Why do you want to destroy the world?’
    Zaroff was taken aback. ‘Why? You, a scientist, ask me why?’
    ‘Tell me, Zaroff.’
    ‘The achievement, my dear Doctor.’ Zaroff almost chanted the words like a prayer. ‘The destruction of the world – the scientist’s dream of supreme power!’
    With a mixture of pity and horror the Doctor watched Zaroff as he paced about his laboratory. Professor Hermann Zaroff was beyond all doubt one of the greatest scientific brains the world had ever known. He was also totally and irretrievably insane.
     
    4

Escapees
    After their interview by the Labour Controller Ben and Jamie had been escorted by the jackbooted guards down to the mines of Atlantis. Here in the lowest level of the vast underground domain workers toiled away with pickaxes and antiquated drilling equipment at the rich seams of coal and other minerals needed to fuel the new technology Zaroff had introduced into Atlantis. Above the noise of the mining equipment and generators and the rattle of the coal trucks as they moved along their rails was another deeper, more sonorous sound. It seemed to make even the walls shake with its vibration. Ben had nightmare visions of the entire roof, which was supported only by wooden beams, crashing down on them.
    Their escort pushed them towards a burly, coarse-faced figure whose gruff imposing manner and the armed gun by his side marked him out as the supervisor of the mining operation.
    ‘I’ve another two for you.’
    The supervisor looked Ben and Jamie up and down, deciding the sort of work best suited for them. He considered for a moment and then took them over to the coal face. There two workers – a sandy-haired, ruddy-faced man and a younger West Indian – were talking in a huddled whisper. Their backs were to them but they seemed to be looking at something in the sandy-haired man’s hands.
    ‘You there,’ the supervisor said, addressing the sandy-haired man. ‘What’s that you’ve got in your hand?’
    ‘Who?