Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders

worked at the monastery ever since it opened. Tommy was
fiercely devoted to Cho-Je and his fellow monks – perhaps
because they treated him with exactly the same quiet courtesy
that they extended to everyone else.
Tommy beamed at the two men and held out a massive
hand. In his palm lay a rather crumpled daisy. ‘Look, pretty,’ he
said.
‘Go and get on with your work,’ said Lupton impatiently.
Tommy was indignant. ‘Finished weeding. Look, Lupton,
pretty flower.’
Lupton’s temper snapped and he gave Tommy a savage
shove. Tommy, taken by surprise, stumbled backwards and fell
over his own feet. Lupton gripped Barnes by the arm and
dragged him away. ‘We must get the others together. There isn’t
much time.’
The two men disappeared down the corridor. Tommy
picked himself up, groping for his precious flower, which had
been squashed flat in his fall. ‘Poor pretty,’ he said. His face
crumpled, and he began to cry.
As Mike Yates’s little sports car bounced along the narrow
country lane, Sarah raised her voice above the snarl of the
engine. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Mike. After you, er,
left UNIT, you heard about this meditation centre, opened by
these two Tibetans. You thought it might help you to get
yourself sorted out, so you came down here. Now you’re
convinced that a group of your fellow students are up to
something – but you’re not sure what?’
Yates nodded. ‘All sounds pretty thin, doesn’t it? Maybe I
shouldn’t have bothered you.’
‘Those men in the cellar,’ said Sarah thoughtfully. ‘Couldn’t
they just be doing some kind of special meditation?’