Read Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace for Free Online Page B

with the civil supply. The supply for your clinic is always adequate. The fault must lie at your own intake.’
    ‘Professor Zaroff, there is nothing wrong with my intake,’ insisted Damon. ‘All power is controlled from your laboratory. The fault must be here.’
    ‘Very well then. If you will not take my word for it perhaps you will accept the evidence of your own eyes. Let us check the power controls.’
     
    In the clinic the two nurses were becoming impatient of waiting for the return of Damon and the lighting. On the operating table Polly’s constant whimperings were also beginning to get on their nerves.
    ‘Zaroff isn’t going to listen to him,’ one said to his colleague. ‘We’d better get some lights from somewhere else.’
    ‘There are some torches in the old quarters,’ his friend said.
    ‘Right then, that’s where we’ll go.’ He looked at Polly on the table. ‘Don’t worry, prisoner, we won’t keep you for long.’ They left the room, leaving Polly alone in the blackness.
    For some minutes the operating theatre was quiet, except for Polly’s sobbing. Then:
    ‘Girl?’
    Polly sniffed. ‘What? Who’s there?’ She felt a hand touch hers gently and then unfasten the leather straps which held her to the table.
    ‘Don’t say anything. Just get up and follow me,’ Ara said as she helped Polly to her feet.
    ‘I can’t see anything,’ said Polly.
    ‘Hold my hand,’ said Ara. ‘I’m used to the dark. Now hurry before they get back.’
     
    ‘Oh dear, I can’t think how I came to be so clumsy,’ said the Doctor innocently. ‘I must have bumped into it or something. I really am most dreadfully sorry.. The Doctor, Zaroff and Damon were standing before the control board which regulated the flow of power to the different areas of Atlantis; it was the same panel the Doctor had been
    ‘examining’ when Zaroff had interrupted him. The control which supplied the power to Damon’s clinic was firmly switched off.
    ‘You’re not clumsy, Doctor,’ said Damon. ‘You did it on purpose. But you won’t save the girl.’
    Zaroff reached out and switched the power back on.
    ‘Return to your work, Damon,’ he instructed. ‘I shall look after the Doctor.’
     
    Damon gave the Doctor an angry look and left the laboratory.
    ‘I think you should remain here with me, Doctor,’ said Zaroff flatly.
    ‘As your prisoner?’
    Zaroff smiled coldly. ‘Let us say as my guest.. The tone was congenial but the threat was there. ‘Do not concern yourself about Damon and his accusation. He is just an Atlantean, a primitive. He is clever, but he has no vision.’
    He regarded the Doctor with suspicion. ‘But you, Doctor, what exactly are you? You’re either a fool or a genius.
    Which is it?’
    The Doctor wisely declined to answer; he wasn’t too sure himself. He changed the subject. ‘Professor, you said before that you had offered these people a very big sugar-coated pill to make them accept you here...’
    Zaroff nodded. ‘I have used their dreams and prophesies to my own ends,’ he revealed.
    The Doctor paused to think and then said, ‘The dreams of a people living on a drowned continent must mean –’
    ‘– to lift Atlantis from the sea and make it dry land again.’ Zaroff completed the sentence for him.
    ‘Exactly!’ The Doctor clapped his hands with satisfaction. ‘But when the city was drowned why didn’t the Atlanteans simply rebuild their city above ground on the island?’
    ‘They are a superstitious people, Doctor,’ said Zaroff.
    ‘They have an illogical attachment to their land, to the ruined temples you see about you. As I said, they are a primitive people.’
    ‘But how are you going to raise Atlantis out of the sea?’
    asked the Doctor and then quickly added: ‘Even a genius like you?’
    Zaroff smiled. He was enjoying the Doctor’s interest and flattery enormously. ‘It is simple, my friend, the simplest thing in the world.’
    ‘It’s a very large mass to lift,