Free Doctor Who: The Visitation by Eric Saward

mouth than Mace was sent stumbling across the room, as the planking he was working on was punched inwards. Stunned, Mace watched in horror as other planks were splintered and wrenched from their place. The pounding continued until the hole was large enough to admit the android, cloak billowing, his death's-head almost seeming to glow.
     
    Mace crouched in the corner where he had fallen.
     
    'It's all right,' said the Doctor, helping the terrified actor to his feet.
     
    'He isn't here to harm us.'
     
    'How can you be so sure?'
     
    'If he were, we would be dead already.'
     
     
    Although unable to speak, the android made it very clear that they should follow him.
    Slowly Mace walked towards the hole.
     
    There were raised voices in the stable. Someone shouted, 'Quickly! The warlocks are escaping.'
     
    Rapidly the bolts were drawn and the harness-room door thrown open. Expecting to see the Doctor and Mace, the villagers were greeted instead by the android, his massive body filling the doorframe.
     
    'Death!' screamed the man in the smock. 'The warlocks have summoned up Death.'
     
    The villagers turned and fled from the stable, screaming, tripping, scrambling, falling over themselves in their panic.
     
    Thankful to have escaped the bloodthirsty villagers, it was nevertheless with heavy hearts that the Doctor and Richard Mace fol owed the android out of the stable.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Eight
    The walk through the woods should have been enjoyable. The late afternoon sun was still pleasant and warm. Smoke from the purification fires hung in the trees, as though undecided where to go next. Birds sang, as a very slight breeze rustled their feathers. It was as though Nature had decided to show herself at her best, to convince those who had time to consider such things that she was capable of creating more than plague, fear and violent death. But the Doctor and Richard Mace were among those too preoccupied to appreciate the gesture.
     
    They trudged on, supervised by the android, through undergrowth, along paths and across small clearings, until they finally came to the Terileptil's escape pod. Then on through the side gate, across the lawn and up the crunchy, gravel path. But they did not go to the front door. Instead they were directed around the west side of the house, then right again, to the tradesmen's entrance, where the miller's wagon was waiting.
     
    The long corridor that led to the cellar was dark after the sunlit wood. It also smelt of Soliton gas. Their journey was almost over.
     
    In the cellar Tegan continued to pack the last of the ampoules into a reinforced carrying case, the bracelet on her wrist pulsing in rhythm with her heart. She did not even look up, her concentration fixed solidly on her task, when the cellar door opened and Mace and the Doctor stumbled in.
     
    'Tegan!' shouted the Doctor, relieved to see she was safe.
     
    She turned towards him as he descended the stairs, her expression blank, as though her personality, her very essence, had been drained out of her.
     
    'Yes?' she said.
     
    The Doctor was almost alongside her. 'Concentrate,' he shouted. 'You can over-ride the effect of the bracelet. Concentrate hard!' He reached out and started to shake her. 'Get back to the TARDIS and tell Nyssa what's happened.'
     
    Her empty face stared back.
     
    'You must concentrate on what I'm saying.' Her eyelids started to flicker, but whether she had understood, the Doctor was not to find out, as the android gently but firmly pushed him on.
     
    As they approached the far end of the cellar, the camouflaged energy barrier dissolved, revealing the Terileptil's laboratory beyond. Richard Mace stared at the hole, his desire to understand and exploit the illusion but a distant memory. How could so much happen in one day? he thought.
     
     
    'You'd better prepare yourself for a shock,' the Doctor