Doctor Who: Target - Novelisations [029] - The Green Death by Malcolm Hulke

Author:Malcolm Hulke
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426115434
Publisher: Target Books
Published: 1983-05-14T22:00:00+00:00

7

The Egg

When the Brigadier walked away down the corridor from Dr Stevens’s office he passed by the door of the laboratory where Mark Elgin was still arguing with Dr Arnold Bell.

‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Arnold,’ said Elgin, ‘but you’ve got to fight it.’

‘You have no right to be in here,’ repeated Dr Bell. ‘It is for authorised personnel only.’

‘Heaven’s, man,’ said Elgin, ‘we’ve been through all that. Have you been hypnotised or something?’

Dr Bell turned to Elgin. ‘Can’t you see that I am trying to get on with my work?’

‘What I can see,’ Elgin replied, ‘is a nice fellow I used to know behaving like someone else.’

There was a sudden harsh buzzing from one of the panels. Red lights flashed on and off, and from a loudspeaker a mechanical voice boomed into the room: ‘Intruders in waste pipe. Intruders in waste pipe.’

‘What the devil’s that?’ asked Elgin.

Dr Bell pressed one of a line of buttons on a console. A small television monitor screen came to life, showing a picture of the Doctor and Jo desperately climbing up the rungs inside the great pipe. Dr Bell glanced at the screen, but did not seem to react to what he saw. He went to a microphone and spoke into it :

‘Tank voiding operation completed,’ he told the microphone. ‘Waste disposal under way.’

He pulled a lever, and Elgin heard a liquid rushing sound from somewhere that he couldn’t yet locate. ‘Are you putting waste into that pipe?’ he demanded of Dr Bell. ‘You’ll kill those people.’

‘They are intruders,’ said Dr Bell.

‘Turn off the waste,’ ordered Elgin.

‘Not possible,’ said Dr Bell. ‘The operation is automatic. Fifteen seconds to go.’

‘Show some sense,’ Elgin implored. ‘You’re about to commit double murder!’

‘They are intruders,’ Dr Bell repeated, as though that was a good reason to kill them. ‘Only authorised personnel are allowed inside the pipe.’

Elgin shouted at him. ‘You must stop the waste going down that pipe! Do you understand?’ He grabbed Dr Bell by the shoulders and shook him fiercely. ‘Do you understand anything?’

Dr Bell’s face screwed up, all the muscles tightening as in his mind a battle raged between what he knew was right and his new loyalty to Boss.

‘Too late,’ he said. ‘Not possible.’

Elgin looked round the room desperately, noticed the transparent port-hole in the wall. It had hinges down one side so he realised it must open. He rushed over to the port-hole and ran his fingers round the edge of the frame, trying to open it. It would not budge. ‘How does this thing open?’

Dr Bell was now standing in the middle of the room, staring vacantly into space. ‘Unauthorised personnel,’ he said mechanically. ‘Not in the interests of the Company.’

‘You’ve got to tell me,’ Elgin pleaded. ‘How does this thing open?’

As Elgin spoke, the Doctor and Jo climbed up inside the pipe and started to hammer on the glass.

Dr Bell spoke in short agonised gasps. ‘Murder… save lives… no unauthorised personnel… Thou shalt not kill… exterminate… Jesus saves… final solution…’

Elgin looked at the dial activated when Dr Bell pulled the waste lever.

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