'Galactic law states that consecrated planets, moons and asteroids cannot be subject to mining operations. It's highly illegal. If this turns out to be a buried crypt or something, Stoker will lose everything.'

'Looks like her archaeology cover's backfired, then.'

'It would seem so, yes.' The Doctor was clearly impatient to catch up with Stoker. 'Why don't we all go and take a look?'

'Do you think that's wise?' wondered Nyssa.

'What choice do we have?' The Doctor stared at her for a moment and then turned on his heel.

They had moved some lamps so that they could all see the door properly. The door was recessed about a hand-length into the rock wall, but the light was reflected wherever the dust had been brushed away to reveal the old, scarred metal beneath.

Bunny Cheung said, 'The CG blast must have cleared away some loose rock.'

'I still don't see how anyone could have missed it,' said Stoker peevishly. 'I mean, we've all been down this tunnel a dozen times at least.'

Bunny Cheung said, 'It was covered in cobwebs; unless you'd known what you were looking for, it would have been practically invisible.'

'Hmm,' said the Doctor. He was crouched down by the base of the door, examining the metal.

'OK.' said Stoker, clapping her hands once. 'Let's open it.

Any suggestions?'

The Doctor straightened up. 'Push?'

Stoker gave it a shove with the flat of her foot, but the door didn't move.

'Maybe it opens outwards,' said Tegan.

The Doctor shook his head. 'No, it would hit the edges of the surrounding rock. It must open inwards.'

'Let me try,' offered Bunny Cheung. He moved forward and set his right hand squarely in the centre of the metal. 'It probably just needs a... good... heave.' heave.'

With a grinding protest, the door began to move. It tipped forward slightly,-and Bunny repositioned himself for greater leverage. Slowly he pushed the metal slab up and back until it lay flat, parallel to the floor. Beyond there was nothing but blackness. Stoker shone a torch into the shadows, but the light simply disappeared.

'Get something to prop this open,' Bunny ordered. 'We don't want it swinging shut behind us.'

It was Stoker who asked the obvious question. 'You're going in there?'

'Why not?'

'Come on,' said the Doctor, taking Stoker's torch. 'I'll go first' Bunny quickly grabbed another light and followed him in.

'I'm right behind you.'

Tegan and Nyssa looked at each other and shrugged before stepping into the darkness after him.

'I'm going to regret this,' grumbled Stoker, following them.

There was a short pa.s.sageway, markedly different from any of the cave tunnels in that the walls were perfectly straight.

The torch beams reflected off rock in sharp angles, throwing unnatural shadows back along the pa.s.sage. Their footsteps sc.r.a.ped along the ground until the Doctor's voice came echoing back. 'Careful, there are some steps here. Leading down'

'Typical,' muttered Tegan.

'I don't like this,' said Stoker.

'You can hold my hand if you like,' Bunny suggested mischievously.

'Good idea,' the Doctor's voice called back. 'Everyone stick together.'

Holding onto each other, they descended around twenty stone steps until they reached a small square s.p.a.ce just big enough to contain half a dozen people. They filled the little chamber, feeling both nervous and silly, trying not to b.u.mp into one another.

'There's another door,' realised the Doctor, shining the beam of his torch on another slab of metal. This was in better condition than the first, the burnished surface glinting in the light.

'What's that?' wondered Bunny, aiming his own torch at a rectangular panel set in the metal at head height. 'A window?'

The Doctor rubbed at the panel with his handkerchief.

'It's thick with dust, but yes, it is is a window.' He tapped it with a finger. 'Plastic, too.' a window.' He tapped it with a finger. 'Plastic, too.'

'Can't be a burial chamber, then,' said Bunny. 'Who'd need a window in a crypt door?'

Stoker said, 'Can we go now? This place is giving me the flaming creeps.'

The Doctor was trying to shine his torch through the grimy square of plastic. 'I can't see anything.'

'I'll try opening it,' suggested Bunny, putting his shoulder to it. 'Umph. 'Umph. Won't budge. This one must be jammed tight, or seized up maybe' Won't budge. This one must be jammed tight, or seized up maybe'

'I doubt that,' said the Doctor. 'I think this door is locked.'

'Locked?'

'Yes. From the inside.'

There was a moment's pause.

'That's it,' said Stoker. 'Let's get out of here.'

'Wait a second, Jyl,' hissed Bunny. He turned back to the Doctor. 'Locked from the inside?' inside?'

The Doctor smiled. 'Interesting, isn't it?'

'Interesting?' repeated Stoker. 'Come on, Bunny. Let's go. You know the kind of reputation Akoshemon had. This can't be good'

'We've come this far,' said the Doctor. 'We can't stop now.'

'You're very keen to get in there,' snarled Stoker.

'I can't resist a locked door.'

'All right, break it up,' said Bunny. 'I'll go back up and tell Jim and Nik to bring down some cutting gear. We need this door opened and p.r.o.nto.'

The laser cutter made reasonably short work of the metal door, but it wasn't long before the air turned hot and thick with the smell of scorched metal and human sweat. n.o.body spoke. For several minutes all that could be heard was the whine of the laser cutter. Tegan thought it sounded like a dentist's drill.

'We're through,' grunted Nik at last, sitting back and wiping his brow with the back of his glove. He switched off the cutter, much to everyone's relief.

A glowing red line had been traced around the edge of the door. 'Better knock it out before it cools down too much,'

suggested Jim.

Bunny Cheung stepped forwards and knocked the rectangle of metal out of its molten frame with one punch.

The door fell away with a clatter. Musty air blew out of the dark, square mouth like a dying man's cough.

'OK,' said Stoker. 'I'll go first this time.'

She stepped through the opening, careful to avoid the red-hot edges. Bunny Cheung followed her, his face pale in the torchlight.

'Well?' said Tegan to the Doctor.

'You'd both better stay here for now,' the Doctor told them. 'We don't know what's in there.

'We want to stay with you,' insisted Tegan.

The Doctor hesitated. 'It could be dangerous.'

'It usually is.'

'Tegan, just for once, don't argue...'

'Arguing's what I do best,' she retorted. 'Now let us through.' Taking a deep breath and looking to heaven for strength, the Doctor stepped back and did as he was told.

Tegan stepped bravely into the blackness, and Nyssa followed, albeit with less enthusiasm. Jim and Nik were left looking on in bemus.e.m.e.nt. The Doctor gave them a tight, forced smile and then followed his companions.

'That Tegan's really something,' said Jim wistfully.

'She's sure got b.a.l.l.s,' agreed Nik.

'I think I'm in love.'

'I quite fancy her friend.' Nik started to pack-up the laser cutter, then paused to look into the darkness beyond the doorway. 'Think we should go in after them?'

Jim glanced at his friend. Are you crazy?'

Stoker's torch beam illuminated nothing more than a haze of dust thrown up by the falling door.

To her left she could see the Doctor's light, roving through the darkness. She aimed her torch at him, picking out his face in the black. He was looking tense.

'I can't see a thing.' she whispered irritably. She didn't even know why she was whispering. Perhaps it was the sepulchral atmosphere, the powerful sense of being intruders in some kind of tomb. Any second now, she thought, they would stumble across a sarcophagus or something.

She gasped as something brushed her face, panicking, and suddenly the Doctor was by her side.

'It's all right. It's only a cobweb'

In the light of his torch, the Doctor's fingers were coated with fibrous grey strands. 'Very old and brittle,' he noted. 'Its owner is probably long dead. Come on.'

'Quick, shine your lights over here, we've found something,' called Tegan.

They moved in the direction of the voice, the torch beams eventually finding both Tegan and Nyssa in the gloom. Their faces, washed of all colour, looked ghoulishly stark.

Stoker's light slid over a long flat slab of metal standing waist high.

'We walked right into it,' said Nyssa.

Further investigation found it to be about three metres long and a metre wide, its surface silvery and smooth.