Free Doctor Who: Festival of Death: 50th Anniversary Edition by Jonathan Morris Page A

remained.
    ‘K-9, stay there,’ said the Doctor. ‘Keep guard. Set your nose on stun.’
    K-9 whirred his assent and, as he rotated to face the door, the Doctor, Romana and Evadne advanced deeper into the hall.
    The Doctor’s torch drifted its attention back to a nearby coffin. As with all the others, there was a crown of wire at its end, at the indentation where the head would rest. A lead connected the crown to a small bank of circuits, toasted beyond recognition. These were then connected to heavy cables, which coupled together, looped along the walls and formed a locus at the centre of the hall.
    ‘What happened here? I mean, what used to go on here in the Great Hall?’ asked the Doctor.
    ‘The Beautiful Death. This is where it takes place. Took place,’ said Evadne.
    ‘The Beautiful Death. Ah.’ The Doctor pulled a suitably gothic expression.
    ‘You must remember, you said this is where the tourists were –’
    ‘We keep telling you, we don’t remember,’ interrupted Romana. ‘Because none of this has happened to us yet. Please, it is very important you answer only our specific questions.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Evadne said. ‘I keep forgetting. Say no more.’
    ‘And what is this?’ The Doctor shone his torch on the object in the centre of the hall.
    ‘That?’ said Evadne. ‘Oh, that’s the necroport.’
    The necroport jutted out of the floor, a small, approximately conical structure about the same size as the TARDIS. It had been severely damaged, the surface buckled out of shape, the smoke stains partially obscuring paintings of skull-headed angels. The machine, ensconced in hydraulic ducting and power linkages, seemed to be merely the upper section of a much larger device buried beneath the floor. A bolt-ringed hatchway was set into an alcove on one side of the device.
    ‘The necroport,’ the Doctor said to himself. He reached for the hatchway and heaved. It clanged open. He peered down into the necroport. ‘Shall we?’
    Evadne seemed apprehensive, and opened her mouth as if to warn them, but thought better of it.
    ‘Do you think it’s safe?’ Romana joined the Doctor. Inside the necroport a ladder descended to the level below.
    ‘Probably not, no.’
    ‘What about the collapsing hyperspace tunnel?’ said Romana. ‘You wanted to find the interface, remember?’
    ‘You’re right,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s just… well, I’d quite like to see what it is I’m supposed to have sabotaged, that’s all.’
    ‘Romana, I don’t know if this helps,’ said Evadne tentatively. ‘But… well, you told me to bring you here. Before you were locked up, I mean. You said it was very important that you were taken to the necroport.’
    ‘Did she?’ said the Doctor. ‘Well, I always take Romana’s advice. When I agree with it.’ He climbed into the necroport, and swung his way down the ladder.
    The cramped chamber had been consumed by fire. The concave metal walls had warped under the force of a great explosion. Every footstep crunched into a thick layer of ash.
    The Doctor’s torch picked out an adjoining room, but the way to it was blocked by rubble. It appeared that much of the Great Hall above had caved in, destroying the room’s contents. Tracing the stress points, the Doctor calculated that the explosion had been concentrated within this second room.
    Two more crunches announced that Romana and Evadne had entered the chamber behind him. The Doctor turned and noticed three coffins arranged against one wall. Again, the caskets were wired into the innards of the necroport. But this time, the coffins were occupied.
    Romana and Evadne gasped in horror. The middle and right-hand coffins contained two blackened, charred corpses. The bodies had once been humanoid, if not human, but were now unrecognisable . Their clothes and the skin had been stripped away, leaving skeletal blocks of charcoal.
    Even the Doctor was shocked by the occupant of the third coffin. This body was in a similar state to