Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur by John Theydon

Author:John Theydon [Theydon, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: tv series, Gerry Anderson, Captain Scarlet
Published: 2014-05-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

CHINESE CONUNDRUM

They came through a grove of feathery palms to the entrance of a cave temple, whose portals were sculptured from the solid rock with figures of gods and grotesque creatures from Hindu mythology. The arch of the massive doorway was of solid teak, seamed and dark with time.

Twilight lingered here still, for the sun was hidden beyond the hills, but in the dust the footprints of the Mysteron were plain to see. Scarlet and Sepia stood behind a carved pillar, peering into the dimness of the deep porch. There was no sound. No movement! In the grove behind them a bird screeched, and then was silent!

“I'll go first,” Sepia said, in a low voice.

“No! Keep behind me,” Scarlet retorted softly. “I’ve got a hundred chances of survival to your one if anything blows.”

Drawing his anti-Mysteron gun, Scarlet moved warily forward into the porch.

The dust of ages lay there, deadening their footsteps. The porch opened into a great hall whose limits were lost in sepulchral gloom. Scarlet halted, close against the wall, listening. The smell of the centuries was thick in the air, and through it seeped a whisper of sounds suggestive of unseen or unseeable things, of indefinable sinister presences. Then, from their left, where the gloom seemed relieved a little by a faint light, came the sound. Something heavy was swinging back on massive hinges!

Scarlet tapped Sepia’s arm and moved swiftly and silently in that direction. The faint light silhouetted a colossal pillar. Rounding it cautiously, Scarlet saw that the light came through a vent in the wall, near the rock ceiling. Whether it was natural or man-made he did not know, but the shaft of light touched on a huge, three-faced bust some twenty feet high, carved into a recess.

“The Trimurti,” murmured Sepia.

“Who are they?” Scarlet whispered.

“The Hindu trinity of gods—Brahma, the creator; Siva, the destroyer; Vishnu, the preserver.”

Beyond the Trimurti, the gloom deepened again. Hearing no sound, Scarlet switched on a pencil torch. The beam picked up the footprints of their quarry. They led into the dark opening of a rock passage. After a few yards the passage ended in a rock slab, out of which was carved one of the three gods of the Trimurti. The footprints vanished beneath its base.

Sepia gripped Scarlet’s arm.

“Siva—the destroyer!” he whispered hoarsely.

Scarlet felt his mouth go dry The words seemed prophetic. He closed his mind to them. “This slab must move somehow. That must be the sound we heard.”

He examined the sculpture in the thin beam of his torch. One of the malignant eyes of Siva seemed to be worn a little smoother than the other. He pressed it, and with a dull groaning the slab swung sideways on a central pivot. Beyond was darkness!

Scarlet probed it with his torch. Solid rock walls rose to a rock ceiling. A tunnel? Was Colonel White’s hunch right? Did this lead beneath the waters of the harbour to the island on which the power station was built? Who knew what long-dead ritual it might have been used for?

The footprints of the Mysteron continued.

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