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

Damon in a new light. He was unpleasant, dangerous, a bully even; but he wasn’t really evil – he had been blinded by Zaroff’s promises as, he guessed, had everyone else in Atlantis.
    ‘Damon, do you know how Professor Zaroff intends to fulfil his promise?’ he asked.
    Damon flushed and shook his head. ‘That is not my field,’ he said defensively. ‘I have been trained only in surgery and fish conversion. Others have an understanding of the Professor’s operations. We each have our separate fields, each a small cog in the machine, but contributing to the running of the whole. I accept the fact that Zaroff knows what he is doing.’
    So, thought the Doctor, Zaroff’s scientific education of the people of Atlantis had been highly selective. He doubted that even the technicians who were close to Zaroff fully understood the final implications of the Project on which they were working. And poor Damon here, although he might be an accomplished surgeon, had only the barest understanding of other scientific disciplines. He trusted Zaroff; after all, his operations were a success. But he didn’t understand why. Blind acceptance of science, reflected the Doctor, was just as had as blind acceptance of superstition.
    ‘But don’t you think it’s dangerous for just one man to have so much knowledge, so much power?’
    ‘The Professor leads the field in scientific discovery,’
    intoned Damon as automatically and as unthinkingly as one of the temple priests would recite a ritual prayer to Amdo.
    The Doctor shook his head, saddened by the surgeon’s blind faith in Zaroff. ‘What a fantastic dream,’ the Doctor said as he moved backwards towards a workbench loaded with scientific apparatus. ‘To control the world from a test tube.’
     
    ‘That’s right,’ agreed Damon, failing to detect the sarcasm in the Doctor’s voice.’
    ‘Well, two can play at that game,’ he said and grabbed a vial of chemicals from the workbench. ‘Have you seen this one?’ He threw the vial to the floor, smashing it and releasing its contents. As soon as the liquid met the air it gave off noxious fumes of gas.
    Damon fell back, gagging for breath. The Doctor took advantage of his momentary confusion to dart past the surgeon.
    ‘Stop him!’ Damon cried to the guards in the laboratory.
    ‘Don’t let him get away!’
     
    Ara had led a dazed Polly through what seemed like miles of tunnels, passageways and, at times, the vast caverns in which the Atlanteans lived. Polly had no chance to marvel at either the natural beauty of the vast caverns, nor the spectacle of people living in them in tiny buildings; no sooner had they paused to rest than a troupe of jackbooted guards would appear, forcing them to move on to escape detection.
    Finally Ara led Polly through a small natural fissure in a cave wall, down a narrow passage and a spiralling flight of stairs and into a bare but spacious stone chamber.
    ‘You’ll be safe here,’ Ara reassured her, and indicated that she should sit down on a small bench. ‘Few people know of this place.’
    ‘But where are we?’
    Ara opened up a small panel in the wall, above what appeared to be some sort of speaking grille. ‘See for yourself,’ she said, with a slight smile on her face. Polly looked out through the panel and into the temple where she had nearly been sacrificed a few hours before. Now it was empty, except for a few silent priests deep in prayer.
    ‘We’re in the statue!’ she gasped.
     
    ‘In a secret chamber behind the idol,’ corrected Ara.
    ‘Even Lolem doesn’t know of its existence. My father showed it to me before he died.’
    Polly noted the tremor in the girl’s voice but decided not to enquire further for the moment. Instead she asked,
    ‘Ara, why are you doing this for me?’
    ‘Because I hate Zaroff, hate him more than you can possibly imagine,’ she said. Her eyes flashed with anger.
    ‘Before his coming Atlantis was a happy place. There were no Fish People,