Read Online Doctor Who: The Visitation by Eric Saward - Free Book Online Page A

met Death in a cel ar...' His mournfulness had now acquired a slightly dramatic tone. '...but I have never been so afraid as when I saw the man with the scythe.'
     
    The Doctor wasn't listening, having heard the performance several times already.
    Instead, through his spyhole, he watched the Headman gesticulating wildly, the control bracelet on his wrist pulsating. 'Did you notice what the Headman is wearing?'
     
    Mace looked up, annoyed at being interrupted in full flow. 'Should I care?
     
    He saved our lives.'
     
    'For the Terileptils.'
     
    'I thought you wanted to meet them.'
     
     
    'Not as their prisoner.
     
    Mace clambered to his feet. 'I tell you, sir, I have reached the end.' This time the tone of his voice was without histrionics. 'I feel my mind slipping into a bottomless pit of despair and gloom.'
     
    'Then you'd better snatch it back quickly,' the Doctor said, turning briskly from the door.
    'The Headman's coming. I want to get the bracelet off.'
     
    Mace's heart sank. 'That sounds like a dangerous plan, sir.
     
    'There's no alternative. Once he's free of it, we might be able to reason with him.'
     
    The door of the harness room was thrown open and the Headman and the poacher entered, along with the sound of angry mutterings from the villagers in the stable. The poacher moved behind Mace.
     
    'You are to be taken to the manor house,' said the Headman.
     
    'Of course!' The Doctor was full of false enthusiasm. 'But first let me thank you for saving our lives.' The Headman didn't respond, although the Doctor extended his hand in friendship.
     
    'To the manor with them!'
     
    The poacher started to jostle the actor towards the door. Hoping Mace would back him, the Doctor grasped the Headman's hand. But instead of shaking it, he released the powerpack from the bracelet. The Headman screamed loudly, lashed out, then stumbled disorientatedly across the stable. By the time the Doctor had recovered from the attack, the harness-room door had been slammed and locked.
     
    Meanwhile Richard Mace, prompted as much by a startled reflex response to the Doctor's sudden movements as by the rediscovery of his courage, had delivered a hard thrust of his elbow into the poacher's stomach. Whatever the stimulus, the effect had been startling: the man col apsed stunned.
     
    Mace watched dejectedly as the Doctor disconnected the powerpack from the poacher's bracelet. 'That didn't get us very far,' he said.
     
    'It was worth a try,' said the Doctor as he wandered back to his spyhole in the door.
     
    'So what do we do now, sir?' He looked down at the body at his feet.
     
    'Ransom the poacher? Exchange his life for our freedom?'
     
    'I don't think they would be interested.'
     
     
    'You are right, sir! The next time that door is opened, we are dead!'
     
    The Doctor didn't need to answer. He knew what the actor said was true. The villagers were angry and scared. They needed but the smallest excuse to give vent to their frustration.
     
    Through his spyhole the Doctor could see the man in the smock, playing on the villagers' fear.
     
    'You must remember!' he shouted harshly at the Headman. 'What is it you want with this Doctor?'
     
    'I don't know...I was working... Repairing a plough.'
     
    Frantically the Headman searched for a way to unlock his memories.
     
    'Then what?' the man in the smock urged.
     
    'I was heating the forge.' He paused. In his mind's eye he could see the white-hot hearth. 'I was pumping the bellows...' He paused again. 'Then I heard...' he said very slowly, '...a voice.'
     
    The man in the smock fell on the statement. 'A voice?'
     
    The Headman was distraught. "'Find the Doctor," it said. "Find the Doctor and bring him to me."' He was now shaking uncontrollably. 'Then I saw a picture inside my head.'
     
    'A vision?' The villagers grew even more unsettled.
     
    The Headman placed his hands over his face. 'It was horrible. I couldn't control my mind. I could only do what this voice