Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani Read Online Free Page A

Attracted by the din, emerging from the hut, Harry had witnessed the slaughter.
    After ensuring there were na other observers, the Master levelled the TCE again. The petal-shaped segments of the bulbous nozzle separated and a searing white light homed in on its target.
    Harry’s luck had run out after all.
     
    4

Death Fall
    ‘It’s stopped!’
    The Doctor, having vacated the office, was again using his tracking device to locate the power that had re-routed the TARDIS. Misinterpreting Peri’s remark, he rapped the tracer. ‘No, it’s still functioning.’
    ‘The dog! It’s not barking!’
    The Doctor paused, listening, suddenly very solemn. ‘
    "There was silence deep as death".’
    ‘That’s morbid.’
    ‘Possibly.’
    The grim quotation merely vocalised the overwhelming foreboding of evil that plagued him; an evil so tangible, he felt the source must be close by.
    Showing no remorse, the Master was again examining the gate padlock when the shattering of glass interrupted him.
    Indiscriminately, Ward and his fellow aggressors were wreaking havoc upon the village street.Ever the opportunist, he decided to recruit them.
    ‘You there!’ His curt command halted them. ‘You were in the lane, smashing machinery.’
    ‘Never mind machinery. What’s tha’ doing here?’ Ward was in no mood to be treated as a subordinate.
    ‘That’s easy. He’s one of brainy ones on’t list. Arrived here early for this scurvy meeting.’ For Rudge, the world was infested with enemies.
    ‘Aye, come to rob us of us jobs!’
    ‘Hold hard. I intend you no harm.’
    ‘Talks funny, don’t he?’ Green mimicked the Master. ’
    "Hold hard".’ He scooped up a stone. ‘This hard enough?’
    ‘Imbeciles! Are you incapable of using your brains?
    What advantage will attacking me bring you?’
     
    The stone was heavy in Green’s fist. The urge to aim was strong.
    ‘You let the man you should have destroyed go free!’
    The Master’s compelling personality as much as his rhetoric, inhibited even their uncontrollable aggression.
    Ward, rubbing the crimson mark on his neck, took the accusation personally. ‘I did? Let who go free? What’s tha’
    on about?’
    ‘In the lane. He pretended to help you. Help! He’s a crony of Stephenson’s. An inventor, here to mechanise the mine.’
    ‘Dust know what he’s getting at, Jack?’ Rudge certainly did not.
    ‘Doing nowt but trying to save his skin!’ Jack was ready to crack his knuckles on the stranger’s superior chin!
    ‘Ask him. Ask him why he’s trying to take the bread from your mouths.’ The Master’s contempt for these ignorant mortals was barely disguised; but he needed them. He had worked out a plan and these morons were to be part of it. They were to be used to get rid of that scourge of the Universe, the Doctor.
    ‘Us’ll do more than ask! Where is he? Dost know?’
    ‘He’s just gone into the pit.’
    Inflamed by his lies, the wiry Green battered the padlock.
    ‘Let me.’ The Master intervened; the pandemonium might bring opposition. He wanted their entrance to go unannounced.
    Shielding his actions from his dupes, he produced a pencil laser, talking all the while to divert them. ‘You can’t miss him.’ A thin laser beam lanced the padlock.‘Mean looking. Wearing yellow trousers, a multicoloured coat and a vulgar plaid waistcoat.’ The description was for Rudge’s and Green’s benefit. Ward had already been subjected to the Doctor’s sartorial splendour!
    The padlock melted. He swung the gates wide and the three miners swarmed through.
     
    ‘A word of warning. Go carefully. He’s treacherous.’
    ‘Careful, Peri! Careful!’
    Keeping pace with the impatient Doctor, Peri had stumbled, knocking over a safety lamp as they skirted the pit shaft. ‘A Davy lamp, isn’t it?’
    ‘No. A prototype. Stephenson’s got a couple of years’
    work to do on it yet.’ The discourse came absently as he swept the tracking device in an arc. ‘But you’re