Read Online Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters by Malcolm Hulke - Free Book Online Page A

yelped as though hit by a bolt of electricity and slunk away under a farm cart, whimpering. Morka went on into the farmyard. The plume of smoke was coming from the biggest of the boxes, probably where the creatures lived. There was a window and he looked in. Two of the creatures were sitting at a table putting food into their mouths: he was sure one was female and the other male. The fire was in a hole in the wall, and over it hung a stick just like the stick the creature had pointed at Morka in the cave. A stick that exploded and caused pain.
    He could have smashed the window and used his third eye to destroy the creatures there and then, but Okdel had insisted that the attack must not start yet. He moved away from the window and crossed the farmyard to a barn. He was already weak again through loss of blood and all he wanted to do was to lie down and rest. In time the others would find him and take him back to the shelter where K’to could repair his injuries. Inside the barn he found long grass which had been cut and gone brown. It made a good bed. He curled up in the traditional sleeping position of his people, and was soon unconscious.
    Morka was woken up by a terrible shouting. The male creature was standing in the middle of the barn.
    ‘Doris!’ it shouted, ‘Doris!’
    He seemed too excited or terrified to move from the spot. The female creature came running in. Morka could just see her through the straw where he lay. Through the open door he could see that it was barely light outside and there was a thin white mist.
    ‘What is it?’ she said.
    ‘Get on to the police,’ said the male creature. ‘There’s some sort of lizard asleep in my barn.’
    ‘A lizard won’t hurt you,’ she said.
    ‘It’s the size of a man,’ said the male. ‘In fact, bigger than most men. It must have escaped from some circus.’
    Morka’s temper was raised. Who did these animals think they were to speak of him like that? He rose up from the straw. The female saw him and screamed. The male spun round to look.
    ‘In God’s name,’ said the male, ‘a monster!’
    The male grabbed some farm implement with a pronged end, and immediately lunged at Morka. Morka side-stepped the vicious-looking prongs, grabbed the male creature and broke its neck instantly and painlessly. The woman just stood there, eyes wide, screaming. But she made no attempt to harm Morka, although her screams hurt his hearing.
    ‘Be quiet,’ he said. ‘You must be quiet in our presence.’
    But she continued to scream, and water began to run from her eyes down her pink cheeks. Morka remembered how the ancestors of these creatures always used to make so much noise, especially if you hurt them or if they saw one of their own kind killed. The female creature stood there screaming, hands to face now, its whole body shaking. Morka wondered if it had contracted some disease, and whether out of kindness he should break its neck, too. But his leg hurt and he wanted to sleep. Only then did he notice the hatch open in the floor of the barn. He limped over to inspect it. Steps led down into some darker place below. Perhaps that is why the male creature had come in here – to open that hatch and get something from the area below. Carefully Morka went down the steps, closing the hatch after him to cut out the awful noise of that female creature. Concentrating through his third eye, he looked around himself. It was a small room with wooden racks along one side. He inspected the racks, and found apples. This was good because he liked apples very much. He tasted one, and immediately felt better. Even if the sun was not so hot, and the air was thinner now, apples tasted just the same. He ate a great many apples, then curled up again into the traditional sleeping position and dreamt vividly of his childhood. He had always been good at hunting and as a boy had run with the men hunters when they went into the forests to attack the little furry apes. Some of the boys had kept