Jamie snatched the spear from the sentry’s grasp, and ran out of the gates. A shout from the Doctor summoned more warrior monks, and they too ran out to the rescue. Led by Jamie, the warriors began to rain blows upon the two Yeti, who responded with savage roars and slashing blows. The one holding Khrisong wrenched the sphere from his hand, and threw him to the ground like a discarded toy. Ignoring the attacking warriors, the two Yeti turned and disappeared into the darkness.
The Doctor and Jamie half-dragged, half-carried Khrisong back through the Monastery gates.
‘Inside, all of you,’ the Doctor yelled to the warrior monks. ‘Don’t follow them. You can’t hurt them, you’ll just get killed for nothing.’
Soon everyone was back inside and the doors were barred once more.
The Doctor and Jamie lowered the burly Khrisong to the ground. ‘Is he all right?’ asked Jamie. Before the Doctor could reply, Khrisong struggled angrily to his feet.
‘Of course I’m all right, boy,’ he growled, rubbing his brawny arm. The Doctor examined it – the marks of the Yeti’s paws could be seen, clearly embedded in the flesh.
‘Just a little bruising,’ the Doctor said. ‘You’re lucky you weren’t killed.’
‘Aye,’ Jamie agreed. ‘That was the daftest thing I ever saw – and the bravest.’
Khrisong ignored this. He looked at the Doctor in puzzlement. ‘Why did they just leave? They had us at their mercy.’
‘Because they got what they came for, I imagine. They didn’t want to fight, they were after that control unit.’
Khrisong frowned. ‘You speak as though these monsters were intelligent, Doctor.’
‘They’re being controlled,’ explained the Doctor. ‘Somehow that sphere was important to them. They had to get it back.’
‘Did ye hear the screech it gave?’ demanded Jamie.
‘Some kind of signal – and that’s a help. With the right kind of equipment, signals can be traced.’
‘You have such equipment?’ asked Khrisong.
‘Yes, but not here, I’m afraid.’ The Doctor looked significantly at Jamie. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got to get back to the TARDIS.’ Turning to Khrisong he explained. ‘All my equipment is in my, er, camp, some way up the mountainside.’
‘Then you must fetch it at once,’ declared Khrisong.
Jamie looked at him in amazement. ‘You’re letting us go? Just like that?’
Khrisong looked a very shaken man, as he answered. ‘I have no choice. My warriors are powerless. I must trust you, Doctor.’
‘We’ll try not to let you down,’ said the Doctor. ‘Let’s just get our coats, Jamie, and we’ll be on our way.’
They ran back to their rooms and struggled into warm clothing. There was no sign of Victoria. ‘Probably wandering around somewhere,’ said Jamie. ‘Maybe it’s better if she doesna know where we’re going. She’d only worry.’ With the Doctor in his huge fur coat, and Jamie in his anorak, they returned to the courtyard. Khrisong was waiting by the gate.
‘Good fortune go with you,’ he murmured gruffly. At Khrisong’s signal the door was unbarred and opened, and Jamie and the Doctor slipped out into the night. Khrisong said to the sentry, ‘Let no one pass. Call me if there is news. I shall be in my quarters.’
Padmasambvha looked up from his board. ‘The Yeti have accomplished their task. Now I have a task for you, Songtsen.’ The old Master held out his hand. In it was a small transparent pyramid. It seemed to glow with a sort of inner fire, as though there was a kind of life within it. Padmasambvha gestured towards the board, where three of the little Yeti models were grouped together. ‘These three Yeti are waiting to escort you. Take this pyramid, which I have prepared, to the cave. Then, the Great Intelligence will have its focus on this planet. Its wanderings in space will be over, and my task will be done. Go now, Songtsen!’
The Abbot bowed, took the strangely glowing pyramid, and left the Sanctum. Once again the doors opened and closed behind him of their own accord.
The Abbot glided along the corridors of the Monastery, and crossed the courtyard to the main gate. Surprised to see his Abbot, the sentry bowed. As the man straightened up, Songtsen passed a hand lightly across his face. Immediately the sentry stood motionless, waiting. In a quiet, faraway voice, Songtsen said, ‘You will open the doors and let me pass. You will close them behind me. You will remember nothing.’
The sentry moved at once to the doors and opened them. The Abbot passed through. The sentry closed and barred the doors again. For a brief moment he stood motionless again. Then he seemed to wake with a start. He looked round, reassured to see that all was quiet and normal.
‘Must have dozed off,’ he thought. ‘Lucky Khrisong wasn’t around.’ Confident that all was well, he resumed his watch.
The Doctor and Jamie trudged wearily up the mountain path, neither of them feeling very happy.
They were doing their best to keep a look-out in all directions at once. A cold wind howled round them. The moon kept drifting in and out of black clouds, so that they were alternately plunged in pitch darkness, or bathed in sinister, ghostly moonlight. Their footsteps sounded very loud as they crunched through the frozen snow. Every now and again, Jamie thought he could hear someone behind them, but when he stopped to listen the sound had gone. ‘Och, I’m just getting jumpy,’ he thought. ‘And no wonder. Surely we’re getting near the TARDIS by now?’
The Doctor came to a sudden halt. ‘Jamie, look!’ A little way ahead, just off the main path, stood the still forms of three Yeti. ‘They’re not moving,’ whispered the Doctor. ‘Maybe they’re switched off. If I could just examine…’
Jamie tugged at his arm. ‘Aye, and what if someone switches them on while you’re doing it? Come on, let’s get to the TARDIS while we still can.’
The Doctor sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
The two moved off, looking back at the three Yeti until a turn in the path hid them from sight.
The three Yeti stood in the same spot, completely motionless.
After a few minutes the Abbot Songtsen came softly up the path. His sandalled feet made almost no sound, and in spite of his thin robes he didn’t appear to feel the biting cold. With the same gliding, sleep-walking motion he went up to the three Yeti.
He held out the glowing pyramid in his palms. The Yeti jerked into life. They formed themselves round him in a kind of hollow triangle. With his three strange escorts surrounding him, the Abbot Songtsen struck off away from the main path, heading for the cave of the Yeti.
Bored, and a little frightened, Victoria wandered round the echoing corridors. The Monastery seemed to be almost empty. She had looked in dormitory after dormitory, all deserted. She remembered Thomni telling her that most of the monks had been sent to other Monasteries for safety. She had wandered along corridors, down dusty staircases and through echoing halls, all now confused and identical in her mind.
Bored with waiting in her room, she had decided to go and hunt for the mysterious Inner Sanctum. Almost immediately she had become lost. She had long ago abandoned her plan to look for Padmasambvha, and would have been happy to settle for finding her own room again. Suddenly she saw a gleam of light ahead. She ran forward and found herself at the entrance to the Great Hall. Happy to be back on familiar ground, she crept inside.
The huge room was empty, except for the giant bulk of the Yeti stretched out on the table at the far end. Victoria walked towards it, half-fearful, half-fascinated. She looked in puzzlement at the complicated arrangement of wood and coloured threads surrounding it, and with relief at the chains that fastened it to the table.
As she was about to leave, she saw something silvery moving at her feet. It was the little silver sphere that Jamie had brought from the mountain. She bent down and picked it up. ‘Now how did you get all the way over here?’ she said. As she glanced at the stretched-out Yeti, she saw the empty cavity that the Doctor had found in its chest. The little sphere would just fit inside, she thought. Victoria’s
hand began to stretch out towards the Yeti, and the sphere pulsed with light, and gave out a high-pitched signal. Victoria felt as though the sphere was moving her hand, rather than she the sphere.
Before she knew what was happening, she had slipped the silver ball into the little space on the Yeti’s chest. The cavity snapped shut, and Victoria pulled back her hand.
For a moment nothing happened. Then the little red eyes of the Yeti snapped open. It began thrashing about in its bonds, shattering Sapan’s spirit trap to pieces. To her horror, Victoria saw that the heavy chains were snapping almost as easily as the coloured threads of the ghost trap. In a matter of minutes the Yeti would be free!
7
A Plan to Conquer Earth
Not for the first time, Victoria’s well-developed lungs came to her rescue. Too frightened to move, she let out a series of ear-splitting screams that echoed through every corridor of the Monastery. Warriors and lamas came running from every direction.
Thomni was first into the Great Hall, dashing in just as the Yeti broke through the last of its chains, and started making for Victoria. He grabbed the frightened girl, and bundled her into the corridor. ‘Run, Victoria, run. Fetch Khrisong!’
As Victoria ran down the corridor, Thomni grabbed a heavy bronze incense-holder, almost as tall as himself, and prepared to use it as a club. He smashed it down on the Yeti’s head. The blow landed with a tremendous impact that jarred Thomni’s arms. He swung back the incense-holder for a second blow, but the Yeti roared angrily, and wrenched it from his grasp. Grasping the heavy metal pillar in both paws, the Yeti twisted it in two like a wax candle. Then it slashed out at Thomni. The glancing blow sent him spinning across the room and he crashed into a stone pillar. Ignoring him, the Yeti made for the doorway.
Thomni’s attack had delayed it long enough to allow a little group of warrior monks to arrive. The Yeti burst through them, its sweeping blows smashing men to one side and the other. Several of the warriors struck at the monster with swords or spears, but the Yeti didn’t even pause. Leaving a pile of wounded and bleeding warriors behind it, it shambled purposefully down the corridor.
As Victoria reached the courtyard she met Khrisong, and the main body of the warriors. Khrisong gripped her wrists fiercely.
‘What has happened? Why are you screaming?’
‘The Yeti, Khrisong! It’s alive. It’s broken free.’
Khrisong stared at her in disbelief. ‘It’s true,’ she screamed. ‘It’s all my fault – I put back the sphere…’
Suddenly the Yeti appeared from the cloisters, and began moving towards the barred main doors. Khrisong smiled in grim satisfaction. ‘This time we shall destroy it. Attack!’
Victoria crouched sobbing in a corner as Khrisong and his warriors fought their gallant and useless battle. The Yeti seemed almost uninterested in its human opponents. It simply continued its progress towards the main doors. Bowman after bowman loosed his arrows at point-blank range. Arrows thudded into the Yeti’s hide until it looked like a porcupine. They didn’t have the slightest effect. Savage blows from spears, swords, even axes simply rebounded from the monster’s body. Whenever a rash warrior got too close, a single smashing blow from the Yeti put him out of the fight.
Victoria saw Thomni stagger into the courtyard, his face covered with blood. ‘You’ve got to stop them,’ she sobbed. ‘They’ll all be killed. They can’t hurt it. It isn’t alive. It’s a robot.’
Thomni watched the useless battle for a moment, and saw that she was right. Running to the main doors, he unbarred them, and flung them wide. Immediately the Yeti began heading towards them. ‘Close the doors,’ yelled Khrisong furiously. ‘We must destroy it.’
‘No, brothers,’ called Thomni. ‘Let it go, or it will kill us all.’
Hurling aside the warriors in its way, the Yeti lumbered through the open doors and out into the night. Thomni, helped by some of the other monks, slammed the doors shut after it, and collapsed against them, panting for breath! All around, the courtyard was a shambles of dead and wounded men.
Dawn was breaking, as the Doctor and Jamie toiled up the mountain path on the last stages of their journey to the TARDIS. It was a beautiful and spectacular sight to see the sun rising over the snow-covered peaks, but they were both too tired and apprehensive to appreciate it properly.
The Doctor stopped for a moment, resting his back against a boulder. He huddled inside his big fur coat, gazing round the bleak terrain.
Jamie toiled up the path and leaned beside him, panting a little. Although the Doctor was small in stature, he seemed to have limitless resources of energy and strength. It was Jamie who was feeling the effects of the journey most. ‘What’s the matter, Doctor?’ he asked, stamping his feet to bring back some feeling. His breath came out in little steamy puffs in the cold, clear morning air.
The Doctor gazed around abstractedly. ‘Nothing, Jamie. Just taking a breather.’
Jamie looked at him, puzzled. The Doctor’s head was cocked, like a hunting dog.
‘You’ve heard something?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Let’s be getting on then.’
The Doctor held up his hand. ‘Just a moment. Something’s worrying me.’
‘I canna hear or see anything,’ said Jamie, exasperatedly.
‘Exactly. That’s what’s so worrying. It’s all too quiet. Not a sign of the Yeti since we saw those three back there.’
‘Aye, well, let’s just be grateful, and get on to the TARDIS.’
As they set off again, the Doctor muttered, ‘I still don’t like it. There’s something happening on this mountain. Something evil. I can feel it.’
Jamie looked round and shivered. ‘Och, come on, will you? You’re giving me the willies.’
Still further up the mountain, Travers was keeping watch on the cave of the Yeti. At least, he hoped it was their cave. On the journey to the Monastery, after he had first met Jamie and Victoria, he had made Jamie give him a detailed description of the cave and how to find it. Now he had been forced to wait until daylight to locate the place, and for hours he had been crouched in hiding, hoping desperately that it was the right cave.
He looked again at the huge boulder, standing in the cave mouth as a kind of door. It must be the place. Despite the cold and his lack of sleep, his fanatical enthusiasm kept him bright and alert.
He ducked further into cover. Two Yeti were moving towards the cave. One of them held something in its paw. As the Yeti came closer, Travers could just make out that it was holding a glowing silver sphere. The Yeti came up to the cave entrance, and then stopped. They made no attempt to move the boulder but simply stood like sentries, one each side of the door. Obviously they were waiting for something. But what? Travers studied them eagerly. Could they all be robots, as the Doctor said? Were there perhaps real Yeti, somewhere inside the cave? Travers settled down to wait.
Rounding a turn in the steep mountain path, the Doctor and Jamie came in sight of the rocky ledge where stood the TARDIS. A Yeti was standing beside it. Immediately, they moved back into cover.
‘I said we’d been too lucky,’ whispered the Doctor.
‘What now?’ asked Jamie.
The Doctor frowned ferociously. ‘We’ve jolly well got to get in to the TARDIS.’
Jamie was aghast at the unfairness of it all. ‘What’s the thing doing there? It can’t have known we’d turn up.’
‘It’s just a robot, Jamie. It merely follows instructions. Now – I wonder…’
Suddenly, the Doctor stepped out of cover and into plain sight of the Yeti.
‘Come back,’ hissed Jamie. The Doctor ignored him, and walked closer to the monster. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. The Yeti just stood there, motionless. Cautiously, Jamie joined the Doctor, who turned and beamed at him.
‘Do you know, Jamie, I think I know how to deal with it? I shall arrange a test!’
Jamie looked at him with respect. Trust the Doctor to come up with one of his brilliant s
cientific plans. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
The Doctor chuckled. ‘Bung a rock at it.’ To Jamie’s horror, the Doctor grabbed a rock from the ground and did just that. The rock whizzed through the air and bounced off the Yeti’s nose. It still didn’t react.
‘Just as I thought. Can’t see, can’t hear, can’t feel. Completely de-activated. Come on.’ The Doctor marched right up to the Yeti and examined it at close range. He prodded it gently. ‘Still, we’d better make sure. Lend me your knife, Jamie.’
Jamie was appalled. ‘Dinna be so daft, Doctor. You might switch it on by mistake.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. Just the opposite, I hope.’
Taking the little dagger, the Doctor probed the Yeti’s chest, just as he’d done with the captured one at the Monastery. After a little fumbling, he prised open the chest cavity, revealing the little silver sphere. The Doctor reached in, and slowly and carefully removed it. With a sigh of relief he tossed the sphere to Jamie, and they moved towards the TARDIS.
‘It’s a wonder there wasn’t some kind of protective mechanism,’ said the Doctor thoughtfully. ‘You’d think whoever built it would have thought of that!’
Jamie laughed. ‘How many people do you think would go up to yon beastie, and start poking it with a wee dagger? The thing is, Doctor, they just didna reckon on anyone as daft as you!’
The Doctor gave him a mock-offended look, and opened the door of the TARDIS.
‘How about some breakfast?’ he suggested cheerily.
Outside the cave of the Yeti, Travers’ long vigil was at last rewarded. He saw a group of shaggy figures moving across the mountainside towards him. Three more Yeti. Travers’ eyes widened in amazement. In the centre of the little group of Yeti walked the Abbot Songtsen.
Songtsen marched up to the boulder outside the cave. He took the sphere from the Yeti holding it. The other Yeti lifted the enormous boulder aside and Songtsen entered the cave. The Yeti grouped themselves around the entrance, motionless once more.
Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen Page 7
