Doctor Who: Target - Novelisations [019] - The Deadly Assassin by Terrance Dicks

Author:Terrance Dicks
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426119654
Publisher: Target Books
Published: 1983-05-13T22:00:00+00:00

7

Death by Terror

The Doctor’s body lay motionless on the couch. Spandrell looked on helplessly, while Engin studied a monitor panel. Suddenly a steadily pulsing blip of light on the central gauge faded to nothingness. ‘It’s stopped,’ said Engin sadly.

‘What’s stopped?’

‘Brain activity.’ Engin showed Spandrell the dial. ‘Look, there’s nothing registering.’

‘Does that mean he’s dead?’

The old Co-ordinator shrugged. ‘Virtually. I warned him. The psychic shock of that environment…’

Spandrell leaned over the Doctor’s body. ‘But he’s still breathing-just about.’

Engin nodded. ‘Motor activity. Often continues for some little time… No, wait a minute…’ The blip had picked up. It was pulsing brightly. ‘He’s back! His brain must have an unusually high level of artron energy.’

The Doctor’s chest was rising and falling as his breathing became more regular. Spandrell looked down at him. ‘What do you think’s happening?’

Engin scanned his monitor dials. ‘I don’t know, Castellan. But whatever it is – to the Doctor it’s completely and utterly real – real enough to kill him. If he dies in there – he’ll die here too.’

The Doctor opened his eyes. He was stretched out on an operating table. Above him loomed the masked, gowned figure of a surgeon. There must have been an accident, thought the Doctor muzzily. He’d been hurt, and now he was in hospital. Yet there was something terribly wrong. Why was the operating table set up in the middle of an open plain? And why was the surgeon lunging at him with an enormous hypodermic?

‘You were a fool, Doctor, to enter my domain,’ shouted the surgeon.

In sudden panic, the Doctor rolled from the table. He hit hard, rocky ground, scrambled to his feet and started running…

He was on a battlefield, shells whistling all around him. A battle-weary soldier on an equally weary horse appeared out of the smoke and plodded towards him. Grotesquely, both soldier and horse were wearing gas masks. There was something sinister about them, a smell of death. The Doctor turned and fled…

He was running along a railway track. A masked guard loomed up before him, and pulled a heavy lever. The lines at the Doctor’s feet shifted, as the points were changed. His foot was trapped between the rails. There was an express train roaring along the line towards him…

‘No,’ shouted the Doctor. ‘No!’ His foot came free – and the train roared past…

… and he was stumbling over rocky ground. There was a sudden splintering crack. The Doctor looked down. He had stepped onto an enormous green egg. The case was shattered, and green liquid dripped from his foot. Somewhere in the distance there was a sniggering sound, like an evil child.

The Doctor made a mighty effort to concentrate his mind. He knew well enough what was happening to him. His adversary was attacking while he was still off-balance, trying to destroy him with all the traditional terrors – falling, illness, war, being trapped… Unless the Doctor started fighting back, his enemy would hunt him down and kill him. Mental death, death by terror here in the Matrix, would mean physical death for the helpless body on the couch.

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