She stopped dead. A scream flew to her lips but was never uttered. Without looking round, she began to walk slowly forward again into the open, with the robot's mechanical footsteps shaking the floor beneath her as it followed. At every step she expected the Quark's glowing probes to discharge their murderous ultrasonic quanta and to smash her body to fragments.

6.

Fighting Back In the cool Capitol the Councillors were locked in dispute with their Director. Senex seemed to be reconciling himself to the need for action, whereas Bovem led a majority in favour of doing nothing.

'We must hope that the Doctor will succeed in devising an effective course of action,' Senex stated firmly.

'With respect, I am reluctant to rely upon the a.s.sistance of an alien,' Deputy Bovem objected. 'We should support the recommendations of the Emergency Committee.'

'Chairman Tensa is able,' Senex agreed, 'but can he deal with this unprecedented crisis?'

Bovem looked shocked. 'Tensa has proved his competence dealing with floods, droughts, earthquakes...'

he protested.

The Director smiled indulgently. 'All natural natural disasters, Bovem, not the result of aggressive intelligences.' disasters, Bovem, not the result of aggressive intelligences.'

At that moment the wall parted and a surprisingly robust young Dulcian entered with an of determined ability. A grateful sigh of relief rose from the troubled Councillors, as though all their problems were solved at last. They sat up expectantly.

Tensa looked at them gravely. 'We have three alternatives,' he announced abruptly. 'If these aliens are indeed hostile which has not been proved beyond question we can fight, we can flee or we can submit.'

There was a doomed silence. The Councillors waited, as if hoping for more, for some magical solution. Tensa remained silent.

Senex rose slowly to his feet. 'We cannot fight, we are not able. We cannot flee, there is no refuge. We can submit, but to what?'

'Who knows?' Tensa replied curtly.

The a.s.sembly stared aghast at Chairman Tensa, as though all their trust and expectations had been betrayed.

Eventually the Director sank back into his luxurious chair.

'So we can only wait...' he concluded.

Fortunately for Zoe, Kando had fainted and fallen on her face in the burning sand, and her collapse had distracted the Quark from Zoe's suspicious behaviour. Having revived Kando and laid her next to Balan by the museum entrance, the others carried on the struggle to clear the drilling site, though Teel was getting rapidly weaker from the unaccustomed physical exertion. Determined as ever, Kully and Zoe had soon devised another escape plan.

'So all we need now is somewhere we can hide...' Kully whispered.

'The bomb shelter,' Teel suddenly muttered. 'I am sure they built one... part of the atom tests.'

Kully glanced surrept.i.tiously at the Quarks. 'Where is it?' he asked, pa.s.sing Teel a jagged sheet of metal.

Teel shrugged apologetically and shook his head.

'Fat lot of use!' snapped Zoe irritably. 'Listen Kully, once inside, give me time to get the Quarks into your line of fire.'

'Don't forget to duck,' Kully joked under his breath, heaving a slab onto his shoulder and bending at the knees.

'Wish me luck.'

'Don't forget to point the gun the right way,' Zoe muttered anxiously.

Kully staggered a few paces with his burden, then he groaned dramatically, stumbled and fell.

Immediately the two Quarks stomped over to him.

'Specimen has failed,' one bleated.

'Join the other failed specimens!' screeched the second.

With grossly exaggerated effort, Kully dragged himself painfully across to the entrance and lay dawn in the shade beside Balan and Kando. Meanwhile, closely watched by the Quarks, Zoe picked up the slab Kully had dropped and struggled on.

Balan clutched feebly at Kully's sleeve. 'This is mere foolishness. You cannot possibly succeed,' he croaked.

But the plucky little Dulcian chose his moment and then crawled swiftly into the ruin. Once inside, he heaved the splintered remains of the door shut as best he could and then scuttled among the showcases, feverishly searching in the semi-darkness for the laser gun Zoe had described. At last he found it where Rago had thrown it down earlier. Holding the unfamiliar device out in front of him with his face averted, Kully cautiously approached the crumbling window, racking his brains to remember the detailed instructions Zoe had given him.

Outside, Zoe staggered along under the concrete slab, followed at a short distance by the two Quarks monitoring her progress. As she gradually drew level with the window, she glimpsed Kully out of the corner of her eve levelling the laser gun through the ragged hole in the wall. As arranged, she stumbled a few more paces and then sank to her knees with a moan.

'One more specimen has failed,' screeched a Quark.

'Fire, Kully, fire..' Zoe muttered between her teeth, anxiously awaiting the whirr and slam of the laser.

Sweat streamed into Kully's eyes and his hands shook violently as he forced himself to operate the primer and poised his finger on the trigger, fighting to steady himself to fire.

Sensing that something was wrong, Teel let out a shuddering cry and crumpled to the ground.

'All specimens have failed,' the Quarks trumpeted. 'All specimens stand up!'

'Why don't you fire?' Zoe groaned, her eyes tightly closed and the hair on her neck p.r.i.c.kling with suspense as she defied the Quarks' command as long as she dared. Still nothing happened.

Propped against the window frame, Kully had taken aim at the Quark nearest to Zoe's slumped figure. Just as he was about to press the trigger b.u.t.ton, a brawny hand reached over his shoulder and yanked the weapon savagely aside.

'What d'ye think ye're doing... Zoe's oot there!' a shocked voice bleated into his ear.

Spinning round, Kully came face to face with Jamie. 'I know that, you fool, I was aiming at the Quarks!' he hissed.

Turning back, Kully hurriedly took aim again.

Outside, Balan, Kando, Teel and Zoe had all obediently got to their feet and were now directly in the line of fire.

'It's no good. I've lost my chance,' Kully fumed resentfully.

Jamie looked ashamed. 'Sorry,' he mumbled.

The Quarks had herded their captives together.

'Specimens will be returned to Dominator Rago,' one of them screeched in a voice like a knife-blade on gla.s.s.

Suddenly the other Quark sparked and giggled madly.

'One specimen is missing... the specimen Kully,' it shrieked, stomping frantically round and round the pathetic huddle.

'Now Balan's in the way,' Kully muttered, still squinting hopelessly through the sights.

Jamie put a restraining hand on his arm. 'Aye, well maybe it's no such a guid idea,' he said doubtfully. 'I think we should wait till the Doctor gets here.'

'He'd better be quick,' Kully snapped testily, 'because those Quarks will he after me any second now.'

At that moment the Doctor was very close, keeping a sharp look-out for Jamie as he darted along the base of the cliffs towards the ruin and stopping every few metres to spy out the land. Suddenly he saw a straggling group of Dulcians approaching, escorted by two Quarks. Among them he recognised Zoe, looking dazed and unhappy in her borrowed attire. The Doctor shrank into a hollow and tried to think, but almost at once a familiar tramping sound behind him sent his spirits plunging even further. Before he could move, a sizzling bang brought down part of the sandstone overhang around him so that he was buried up to his waist and immobilised.

'You were ordered to keep away from our operations,'

Toba snarled, striding up followed by several Quarks.

The Doctor twisted awkwardly round and grinned sheepishly. 'I do try to, but everywhere I go I b.u.mp into Quarks and things, all over the Island. Where can I go?' he whined pathetically, cowering before the mighty Dominator.

Toba's green eyes bore fiercely into him for several seconds and the Doctor began to fear that his pretence was about to be exposed. Just then the group from the drilling site stumbled up the slope on its way to the saucer. Zoe stared at the half-buried Doctor with a mixture of horror and relief, but she dared not call out or break rank. For his part, the Doctor was relieved to see that Jamie was not among the party, but Zoe's plight filled him with anxiety.

All at once Toba ordered the procession to stop. 'One of the specimens is missing,' he hissed.

'Specimen Kully has escaped,' bleated one of the Quarks.

To the Doctor's surprise, a smile of satisfaction cracked its way across Toba's waxen features. The Dominator jabbed a creaking glove towards him. 'Take this cretin with the other specimens to Dominator Rego,' he commanded.

In vain the Doctor attempted to heave himself out of the mound of sand. Leaning forward, Toba grasped his coat by the lapels and dragged him effortlessly clear. Meekly the Doctor scurried over and, with a crafty wink at Zoe, joined the procession. The two Quarks immediately whirred into motion again, driving their captives away across the dunes.

Ordering his squad of Quarks to follow, Toba set off eagerly down the slope towards the ruin.

Inside the museum, Jamie and Kully waited in gloomy silence Jamie sprawling morosely on a fallen beam and Kully wandering aimlessly about lamenting his humiliating failure with the laser gun.

Eventually Kully could bear the suspense no more. 'We daren't wait any longer. Something must have happened to the Doctor,' he murmured.

Before Jamie could reply they heard a movement outside the ruin.

Kully turned expectantly to the window and was about to call out 'Doctor' when the st.u.r.dy Scot leaped on him, clamped a hand over his mouth and they both hit the floor like a couple of sandbags.

'Kully... I know you are there!' Toba's voice thundered, making the showcases rattle around them.

They lay listening to the crazed giggling of the Quarks'

circuitry, their hearts pounding fit to burst.

'Do... do you think he saw me...?' asked Kully weakly.

'Ah telt ye to keep away frae the windy,' Jamie muttered savagely. 'Gimme that thing...' and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the laser gun from the trembling Dulcian.

Outside the ruin, flanked by his Quarks, Toba's enormous frame was twitching with excitement. 'Now you will learn the consequences when a Dominator is disobeyed,' he screamed. Quarks! Destroy!'

There was a sickening slamming noise and the doorway completely disintegrated leaving a gaping hole in the wall.

Kully clutched Jamie's arm, wide-eyed with terror.

Shaking free, Jamie scrambled to his knees, crawled swiftly across to the window and leaped to his feet, flattening himself beside the edge of the frame. With deft, rapid movements he primed the laser, aimed and fired several short sharp bursts.

The Quark nearest to Toba exploded in a shower of molten components and clouds of treacly smoke.

For a moment Toba was paralysed with astonishment and rage. Then he hunched behind the semicircle of Quarks and rapped out a string of hysterical orders: 'All units. Total destruction. Utter annihilation. Death! Death!

Death!'

Ear-splitting whines rent the air and then the Quarks'

deadly ultrasonic bolts began streaming relentlessly into the ruined building. Taking terrible risks, Jamie dodged around the window frame desperately trying to get another shot at the screaming Dominator and his sizzling robots.

But the air was soon filled with choking dust and smoke and murderously sharp fragments of stone and metal whizzing in all directions.

'If only I could see see them...' Jamie yelled in frustration, firing the laser at random in the hope of hitting something. them...' Jamie yelled in frustration, firing the laser at random in the hope of hitting something.

All at once there was a terrible crash behind him and he whipped round to see that Kully had been pinned underneath a huge beam as a section of the roof had collapsed. Dropping the gun, Jamie scrambled over and vainly tried to shift the huge concrete rafter. Then he had a brainwave. Grabbing the laser, he carefully aimed it at the beam close to Kully's quaking body. As the helpless Dulcian stared at him in abject terror, Jamie fired the laser with just enough blast to shatter the rafter in two. Then he threw all his weight against the lighter section and it slid off, setting Kully free... miraculously he had not been crushed, only dazed.

'Let's get out of here; Jamie yelled above the colossal din of the Quarks' barrage and the collapsing building.

Suddenly Kully grabbed his arm. 'This way!' he shouted, dragging the protesting Highlander under a tangle of criss-crossed beams just at the same instant as the whole front wall of the museum caved inwards and the remains of the roof hurtled downwards. Seconds later there was a t.i.tanic explosion and the wreckage of the museum blew apart in a searing hail of fire and debris.

When the smoke and the dust had cleared, the museum no longer existed. Nothing moved in the devastation spread around on the sand.

'Destruction completed,' Toba breathed, his voice hushed with malicious satisfaction. Then, followed by the surviving Quarks, he turned abruptly and strode away.