Doctor Who: The Hand of Fear by Terrance Dicks

Author:Terrance Dicks
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426200338
Publisher: Target Books
Published: 1979-02-15T10:00:00+00:00

8 Counterstrike

Nothing happened.

Watson picked himself up and looked round the control room. The dials on the instrument panels were falling steadily back to zero. The colossal burst of energy released by the exploding reactor had simply disappeared...

Cautiously the Doctor raised his head. The roar from the pile was dying away, the fiery glow of the atomic pile slowly fading. There was no sign of Driscoll.

Beside him Sarah asked shakily, ‘Are we dead?’

‘No... though we ought to be...’

‘You’re sure? What happened, Doctor?’

The Doctor jumped to his feet, ran across the fission room and slammed the shielded door with a clang. ‘Nothing happened. You might say a kind of unexplosion has taken place.’

‘An unexplosion?’

The Doctor helped Sarah to her feet as Professor Watson arrived. ‘Doctor, Miss Smith, you must get out of here at once. If there’s been a radiation leakage...’

‘Come in, Professor Watson. It’s all right, there’s no radiation at all.’ The Doctor pointed to a wall gauge.

Watson studied it uncomprehendingly. The dial was at zero. ‘Where’s Driscoll?’

The Doctor nodded towards the pile. ‘In there—with the hand.’

‘You said that hand would cause a nuclear explosion...’

‘It did,’ said the Doctor simply. ‘The energy has been—absorbed.’

‘There was a sort of unexplosion,’ said Sarah helpfully.

‘An unexplosion?’ ,

The Doctor explained, ‘Fission took place, Professor, but instead of the nuclear blast exploding outwards, it went inwards—luckily for us.’

‘What about Driscoll?’

‘I should think his body was totally destroyed.’

Watson rubbed a hand over his face, struggling to understand what had happened.

‘The hand feeds on radiation, you see,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now it has absorbed the full potential of the reactor core into itself.’

‘So it’s still alive in there?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor calmly. ‘Alive and regenerating.’

‘I’m afraid all this is beyond me, Doctor. What does the thing want? What’s its purpose?’

‘Survival! To live, to grow... Instead of energy being created from matter, matter is being created from energy. Eldrad is rebuilding himself. The probability is he’ll strike again.’

‘Do you think he’ll go for one of the other reactors?’

A deep, roaring sound came from inside the pile room. It was alive and angry, and it wasn’t human. The Doctor went over to the door and began sliding the metal bolts into place. ‘Who knows what he’ll do? I think we may as well put these bolts back though...’

‘That won’t stop him,’ said Sarah gloomily.

‘Maybe not—but I always like to be tidy.’

Professor Watson came to a decision. ‘Whatever that thing is, it’s dangerous and it’s hostile. I think it’s time to fight fire with fire—or rather atomics with atomics.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Call in the armed forces and wipe it out before it does any further harm.’

The Doctor shoved the last bolt into place and spun the dial on the combination lock. Another angry roar came from behind the heavy metal door. ‘Somehow I don’t think the Professor’s little idea is going to work,’ said the Doctor. ‘Primitive atomic missiles against a creature like that.’

There was another angry roar, and Sarah shuddered. ‘I think it wants to come out.’

‘Of course it does, Sarah.

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