Free Doctor Who: Sontaran Experiment by Ian Marter Page A

Licking his lips, Harry eyed the Sontaran’s colossal back and thick limbs. Then, very carefully, he armed himself with a large, knobbly flint from the foot of the buttress and waited, watching Styr’s every move as the Sontaran began to examine the damaged circuits around the sides of the alcove.
    ‘Further evaluation must be postponed while necessary adjustments are made,’ Styr concluded into the micro-recorder as he completed his inspection.
    Harry stepped into the entrance and aimed the flint at the back of Styr’s head. Bending his body backwards like a bow, he flung the stone, but at the instant it left his hands it seemed to be snatched out of the air, and simultaneously his face was covered by something large and soft. He was pulled swiftly and silently backwards out of the crevasse and propelled along the ravine and into a crevice concealed in the undergrowth. For several seconds he was held struggling in a vice-like clasp.
    ‘Ssssssssssssh,’ hissed a voice into his ear. Harry stopped struggling, and his face was uncovered. The flint was thrust in front of his eyes. ‘I’m quite ashamed of you, Harry,’ whispered the Doctor’s voice, ‘attacking a chap from behind like that...’
     
    6

The Challenge
    Harry gulped in amazement. ‘Doctor... I thought you were...’ he stammered.
    ‘It wouldn’t have worked, Harry,’ the Doctor whispered,
    ‘not unless you had hit him exactly in the right spot.’ He gave Harry a sharp tap on the back of his neck. ‘There.
    That’s a Sontaran’s Achilles Heel.’
    ‘Thanks for the tip,’ Harry murmured, still recovering from his fright. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’
    The Doctor released Harry and began to rummage about in his overflowing pockets, muttering quietly away to himself.
    ‘But I thought you were a goner,’ Harry exclaimed, filled with shame at having abandoned the Doctor. ‘I was quite sure there was nothing I...’
    The Doctor put his finger to his lips. ‘I was merely relaxing, Harry,’ he grinned. ‘An old Tibetan trick at times of unusual stress : it helps to clear the mind.’
    ‘Well, I must get you to teach me sometime,’ Harry said, shaking his head in disbelief.
    The Doctor was busily turning out an extraordinary assortment of objects into his upturned hat: marbles, pieces of twisted wire, shrivelled jelly babies, weird keys, a pirate’s eye-patch, strange coins, sea shells, a dead beetle...
    all manner of things were added to the swelling jumble.
    ‘Now where, where did I put it?’ the Doctor muttered irritably, delving into his bulging inside pockets and producing even more bizarre items of bric-a-brac.
    ‘What are you looking for, Doctor?’ Harry asked.
    ‘My Liquid Crystal Instant Recall Diary,’ the Doc-tor sighed. ‘I’m sure that I made some useful notes about the Sontarans a few centuries ago... It’s absolutely vital that we find out what they are doing here on Earth.’
     
    ‘Mostly torturing and killing innocent humans, as far as I can see,’ Harry murmured gloomily.
    The Doctor began stuffing the varied contents of his hat back into his many pockets. ‘I really cannot be expected to keep everything in my head,’ he complained, bending the ear-trumpet in half so it would take up less room. ‘Never hoard unnecessary junk, Harry. It’s fatal to clutter oneself up.’
    Dipping into the hat Harry idly picked out the scrap of unfamiliar metal which he had seen the Doctor fiddling with earlier.
    ‘What is this stuff?’ he asked.
    The Doctor glanced up from his laborious task. ‘An alloy of Terullian,’ he replied.
    Harry looked blank. ‘Terullian?’ he queried.
    ‘A very rare substance, much sought after by many of the civilisations in the Universe,’ the Doctor explained. ‘It has literally thousands of uses... under certain conditions it can even behave like a living organism.’
    Harry shuddered at the idea of a live metal. ‘Where does it come from?’ he murmured, hastily putting the fragment