Read Doctor Who: Fury From the Deep for Free Online Page B

from the other end of' the corridor. 'Who let you three out of the cabin?'
    The Doctor and Jamie ignored him. They were too busy helping Victoria to revive.
    Robson came hurrying clown the corridor. Van Lutyens and the Chief Engineer were with him, but they went straight into the Oyxgen Store Room.
     
    'Did you hear what I said?' Robson was yelling again. 'I gave strict orders that - '
    'Mr Robson!' Van Lutyens, covering his mouth with his hand, was at the door of the Oxygen Room. 'In here. Gas!'
    'Then find out what it is.'
    Van Lutyens disappeared back into the Oxygen Room.
    The colour was gradually returning to Victoria's pale cheeks.
    'It was horrible!' she said to the Doctor, still struggling to breath clearly. 'That awful creature. What was it?'
    The Doctor was immediately tense. 'Creature?'
    'You... you didn't see it?' She turned around to look back into the Oxygen Room. 'In there?'
    The Doctor, Jamie, and Robson looked into the room. It was now fully lit.
    'It came... straight at me... an awful hissing sound... and foam...
    and it was covered in weed or something... oh, I don't know...'
    Recounting her ordeal was clearly distressing Victoria. Her eyes were wide with fear. 'It came closer... and closer. Then I screamed, and...' She covered her face with her hands, and dissolved into tears.
    'It's all right, Victoria,' said the Doctor, holding her close in his arms protectively. 'You're quite safe now.'
    Robson was glaring at Victoria cynically. 'Creatures indeed.
    The girl's hysterical!'
    'Mr Robson!'
    Robson turned to find the Chief Engineer standing in the doorway of the Oxygen Room.
    'Some of the cylinders are empty! The seals are broken.'
    Robson swung back angrily to Victoria. 'What have you been up to in there?'
    Victoria wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, then replied quickly. 'I was hiding. I heard someone coming, and just went in.'
    Robson was glaring at her. 'You broke in, didn't you?'
    'No!'
    'This door is always kept locked. You broke in and emptied those cylinders!'
     
    'That's not true!' Victoria was regaining her defiant spirit. 'The door was open. Someone locked it behind me.'
    Jamie stepped forward. He looked as though he was ready to strike Robson. 'She's telling the truth,' he said menacingly. 'The door was locked from the outside.'
    'Mr Robson!'
    The interruption of van Lutyens's voice was good excuse for Robson to ignore Jamie's threatening glare, and to go off into the Oxygen Room.
    Van Lutyens and the Chief Engineer were removing their gas masks as Robson, the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria entered the Oxygen Store Room. Everything seemed to be perfectly normal, and not at all as Victoria had described her encounter with the Weed Creature.
    'Now what?' snapped Robson, impatiently.
    Van Lutyens finished closing a tap on one of the oxygen cylinders, then turned to Robson with a grave, puzzled expression.
    'This room wasn't full of oxygen when we arrived,' he said. 'It was another gas, one of a toxic composition if I'm not mistaken.'
    'Toxic?' Robson looked at the Dutchman as though he had gone stark raving mad. 'Are you trying to tell me it was a poisonous gas?'
    'Exactly, sir.'
    Robson paused a moment, trying to take it all in. His eyes flicked hurriedly around the room. 'Where did it come from?'
    'From there possibly.' This time it was the Doctor who was speaking. He was inspecting the open ventilator grille.
    The others came across to join him.
    'Did you open this ventilator?' Van Lutyens asked Victoria.
    Victoria was firm in her reply. 'No! It opened itself!'
    'The person who locked you in must've done it,' said Jamie, running his fingers over the wire mesh of the grille. 'But how?'
    The Doctor and van Lutyens were investigating the ventilator control panel on the wall. Its position on the dial was indicating OPEN .
     
     
    Maggie Harris was having difficulty in breathing. From the moment she had been stung by the clump of seaweed, her mind had become confused and